LST AK-47 DWC

[ShroomDr]

here we go.


3.5watt air pump with air stone. This stone BTW is the best stone i had. Most of them normally clog up on me after a week.


18W with Ceramic Diffusers. Lots more bubbles.


Day 19 Flowering






My supplies

Some nugs from the mother of my mother. Cut on day 54 (it was enriched with CO2, i think that speeds it up a little).
They are sitting in my Vaporbrothers vaporizer.


Anyone ever have noticeable results with a vinegar drip into baking soda (for CO2)? Only one plant, and plenty of room in the cabinet. I will eventually mount the new pump to the back wall also.

PS I'm officially calling the stretch phase over. Thank you Bud Blood!

 

[ShroomDr]

day 22 flowering







Im on a cable modem, and it takes 30 sec. for me to make it to the bottom of the page, because the pictures take to long to load when they are huge.
I can only imagine how bad it would be on a 56K( i know they still use them, but i don't know why ). So... Since i would not frequent this thread if i had a 56K, and i want all the input i can get, so i can continue to learn things. I am only going to make the best photos larger.

O yea, trichomes are finally starting to develop. The bud is a great high, but it has no smell thoughout veg. Atleast not with the 3.5airpump & air stones. I started hitting my other clone with some AN VHO and i added the 18W air pump and ceramic air diffusers. Maybe i will get some vegging trichs now.

 

[ShroomDr]

Reservoir Change time
Day 23 Flowering
--------------
Pre Change
556ppm 5.4pH
--------------
3.25g H2O 0ppm; ph5.88
30ml Hydroguard
20ml Cal-Mag plus
40ml Sweet
ppm 620
20ml Liquid Karma
25ml PBP Bloom

Final1038ppm;5.79ph

Well, that a kind of large jump for ppm (last change was at 710ppm), but I think a lot of this one is the sugars in Sweet. Sweet also has a lot of trace element in it too, so i'm not sure
I will watch it very carefully. I dropped the Silica, and will not add it again with this plant, and i did not add the Hydroplex this week either.



I decided to trim off all the bud sites that were not going to get direct lighting. Anything deeper than 2.5" deep in the canopy pretty much got trimmed off. i figure this will all be popcorn, and i don't want popcorn. The plant has somewhere between 33-40 more days, and it should focus its attention on its top colas.
I also untied all the lst strings, and untangled some of my work from the final LST training. If i could get the tip to get direct lamp light, it stayed. If it was still under the canopy, it got cut. I estimate i took 12-18%

It looks a little scraggly, but i did not take any tops, and I'm sure it will all straighten itself out in 3 days.





A closeup of one of the buds. Sorry, i was trying to get the same one in both pictures.

 

[ShroomDr]

Flowering Day 24
pH went up to 6.2, so i dropped it to 5.6

Here is another profile shot with the inside buds trimmed out.

Here is a link to a more detailed picture of the trimming.


And i added this 2.5g jug for the Lesko fan (same makers of the Stanley blower, same type of fan [squirrel cage], just not as powerful and a slimmer design). It now blows perfectly under the canopy, I lucked out, but I'm thinking of adding some sugar and brewers (or champagne) yeast to the inside of the jug. I could rig a little bit of airline out of the (then) sealed cap and run it to the input of this fan. Fan blows under canopy.
Any thoughts comments

 

[ShroomDr]

Im pretty sure this is the first picture of this plant that i have. 74 Days ago




I love DWC!

 

[ShroomDr]

Flowering Day 26
ppm 945 pH 5.88
Yesterday's pic

Todays

 

[ShroomDr]

Anybody out there?
2,094 Views
Day 30 of flowering. No reservoir change today. I was changing every monday, but i think im going to go 10 days this time. I would either need to go buy some water or let the my faucet water sit 36 hours. Im tired of buying water. :
This first picture is just as the light was comming on.


She starting to get frosty

A few moments later, witht a different picture type option.

The plant is not this yellow yet btw, but that one bud site is defintely getting a bad sun tan.

 

[Maj.PotHead]

buddy things look very nice ive been interested in DWC and am reading up on the subject. 1 day in the future i'll convert to DWC i'm thinking about a 22 gal rubbermaid and have 4-6 plants in it, the 22 gal rubbermaid would fit perfectly under my 400w hps and air cooled hood inside my cab

 

[Space Ghost]

looks good, is it starting to smell pretty good now?

 

[ShroomDr]

It smells good when your nose is inside the cabinet, but you still can't smell it if the fans are off.

I had a girl over last night, we slept(for a little while) less than 3 feet from the cabinet, and she had no idea. We didn't smoke, and since i started using my vaporizer, my room no longer smells like MJ. If anything it smells like a hydro store; Green. But i have broken a cardinal rule and have a lot of other types of plants in my grow room. Spider plants, Deffenbaccias Aloes, Cacti and i think something called 'Devil's Ivy'

If she smelled something coming from the cabinet, she would have said something.

Here are the same images hosted at Imageshack with a higher resolution.



Keep in mind that i had no trichomes less than 2 weeks ago. I guess i lucked out on the low odor pheno.

This is by far the best i have flowered this strain, My first attempt at growing AK was not getting enough direct lighting

The AK is on the left, and having most of its light stolen by the plant on the right(RomulanXMagic Carpet Ride).( This picture is 31 days into flowering) The lack of light getting to the AK is one of the reasons i switched from Scrog to LST. If I think a certain bud site is not getting enough light, I can just retie it. But if a bud has grown though the screen, you can't easily move them (STRESS) Believe me I tried.

 

[Maj.PotHead]

But if a bud has grown though the screen, you can't easily move them (STRESS) Believe me I tried.


why i choose 2in x 1.5 inch chicken wire for my scrogg screen i took into account i may need to move a branch here or there. so the chicken wire allows me to cut the screen where needed and still retain the screen integerity

 

[ShroomDr]

My Romulan X Magic Carpet Ride, turned out really well, I just think it is easier to adjust things with strings, instead of a stationary screen.

The ability to change the angle that the light hits the buds (even slightly), is also superior to a stationary scrog IMHO. I think I can probably remove all my tie downs now too (only 3 of them left) because the buds are starting to fill out, and will soon bulk up, wieghing them down.

I did not really expect it to bush out as much as it has, and i don't think i could have fit another plant in there. I attribute this to the lst.

My cabinet is about 70-75% full, and its 4sf.





...Ive also got one of those clones that i took on the first page ready for her own cabinet. She looks better than this one did at 30 days vegging

 

[hybridtek]

Hey Shrooom Dr, sorry been lookin but not writing

MajPothead - once you go hydro you never go back, Im hooked. Using big rubbermaids is SOOO easy. No chnageouts ever, cuz there is so much water it keeps well. just like an aquarium, I use the same nutrient for every stage switch at flower and top with nutrient as well (LUCAS is EASY)

 

[Guest]

still tuned in shroomdr looks to be comin along nicely

 

[stealthpackage]

Good work! I did a little LSTing myself for my first grow that just started Week 3 of Flower... Heres a pic of one of the LSTed ones during the beginning of Week 2. I did a pretty light LST and started late, too, but I can definitely see that it's going to help! The branches get spread out really well. Only problem is that I didn't take off the hemp ties that I made, and the branches are starting to grow around the hemp, and I'm hoping it doesn't cut off growth to the branches affected by that!! Uh oh! Don't mean to hijack, but I figured I'd just post these! Keep it going, can't wait to see the finish!

 

[icough2getoff]

looking good bro! I love the ak-47, and nice job at keeping it stealth

 

[ShroomDr]

Thanks for the love, all. I sometimes wonder who exactly i am posting all this for, especially when i am the only poster for a week. I see that the lurkers check things out, i just hate replying to myself. Those who come out of the wood work make me feel Warm N Fuzzy

stealthpackage That's a nice even canopy, keep it up.

Flowering Day 32, reservoir change

I think i have a slight Ca deficiency, so i am switching back to my tap water.

The water sat for 36 hours; pH 7.98 ppm 176


40 sweet
15 silica
15 plex
35LK
45 Sensi Zym
35 Hydroguard
10 Calmag
15Ambrosia
15 Nectar
3pH down

989ppm
pH 5.8

Not in that order, i had it all typed out, and lost it. Luckily(or not) I'm not too high, and i remember.*hits the vaporizer* ahh..

I dropped the PBP Bloom(2.5-2-5) because I want my plants to yellow up in the last 3 weeks. There is still some N in the Cal-Mag, (2-0-0) and a little bit in the Liquid Karma (.1-.1-.5), so they are not starving yet.

I also added the Silica again. Advanced Nutrients Calculator has Barricade (Potassium Silicate, Same as Silica Blast) throughout flowering, so i will take there word for it.

Out of the cabinet

Regular

Lower angle

Upskirt

Calcium Deficiency?


Looks like Calcium to me. I don't think I'm using too much hydroplex and locking it out, i just think it's deficient.

Any confirmations or other thoughts?

 

[Space Ghost]

It looks more like slight over-feeding and maybe it needs a little more Mg, add some cal-mag and see how it responds.

Also those spot/blotches on the leaves look kinda like insect damage, start looking under the leaves for mites, hopefully you don't have them...

 

[Blackmelo]

Hi shroomdr,
let me just say that you have a very nicely documented grow here. What I like to see when I read through a grow diary.

Liking your plant also, looks very promising.

Some1 has already mentioned this but I'll just mention it again and say that I totally agree: You are using too many additives.
The more additives you add, the more can go wrong.

I would recommend starting off only growing with a basic grow and bloom formula, add pk in flowering and something against magnesium and micro nute deficiencies. Once you know you can grow alright with that nute mix you can experiment each grow by adding one product AND ONE PRODUCT ALONE!!!
Then compare that grow to the previous grow and decide if it is worth adding the additive or not.

Adding 10 or so new products at the same time is a really bad idea. You just won't be able to tell which one is making your grow better/worse.
It could be a cheap additive making the difference in yield but it could also be the expensive one.
Most products don't even increase yield considerably if you are already growing your plant properly with the basics.

It should be pretty obvious to most that a plant receiving only basic nutes but growing completely stress free will yield more than a plant that is stressed and pumped full of expensive boosters.

Well, on to your problem, I am 99% sure it has got something to do with what I mentioned above but one thing noticeable is how green your plants are looking at the bottom of your plant. At your stage, that is not a good thing. In flowering you want to leach your plants of nitrogen and make the plants lose lower leaves.

In my experience, the higher the difference between N and PK in flowering(don't let plant get too deficient in N however), the more the plant will yield.
Since the plants N requirement goes down considerably in flowering, I reckon you are feeding much too much Nitrogen.

PS: just read that you dropped the Bloom nute. So you dropped the basics the plant needs and decided to "cure" the plant with expensive boosters ...

One last thing before my post gets too long, pls have a look at this site: http://www.angelfire.com/cantina/fourtwenty/articles/profiles.htm , type in the amounts of each nute you feed into their ppm calculator, then add the ppms of every nutrient and see what you are really feeding your plants. Compare it to their chart of what your plants should be receiving.

 

[ShroomDr]

quick update

No bugs, im sure. They would be in the no pest strips. I have been trying to figure out the leaf problem Here

I totally understand having too many different products can make diagnosis difficult, but keep in mind that they are all serving different porposes.
Most are additives, not nutrients.

I did drop the PBP Bloom, but i am still using Bontainicare Hydroplex, which is a N 6.25 P 53 K 130, so i did not stop feeding them at the expence of my additives.
these pics are also in the link, but i figure ill post them here too

Day 35 (5 weeks deep) Flowering










More leaf shots, Undersides first