Marineman's 1st grow journal - 600w Bio buckets

[cravin morehead]

as far as snapping the stem, its called supercropping. look it up here. i use it sometimes to slow down the growth of a single branch. while it heals itself the others can catch up and even out the canopy. one thing of note. the spot you crunched the stem will get big, and everything above that spot tends to grow bigger. very handy technique to know. remember though over-loving these plants can do more harm than good...

cm

 

[marinemansf]

When do you personally apply this technique? What stage cause it's not clear when they do it.

 

[cravin morehead]

I tend to use it through veg and only the first couple weeks of flower. I try to to do it before the flowers really set up. But, I have done it later. Not too late into flowering. I would imagine too late in flowering might stunt bud development...
Wheres the pics? Root porn pics? Just giving you a hard time, but we do love pics...

Cm

 

[marinemansf]

Hey, you got it pimpin'!

1st is a poorly taking root porn pic, hard to steady shit tryin to hold up the plant and take the pic. Cravin, why do my roots look like they been on meth for 10 years, and yours look so clean? I think it may have to do with the first set of nutes i used. Still some residual nutes from the first set of nutes used i think.

2nd is the lower area of the plants. Im pretty sure i should be trimming the little stems and leaves to open the bottom up to more light and to redirect the lady's power to the top of the canopy.... Correct? Also, is there ANYTHING worth using the lower clippings for? Or should i just be tossin that shit?

The rest are just general pics... Tanks homies

 

[marinemansf]

Just remembered... are there any techniques to speed up the curing process? And cravin, you got a pic in you album, that looks like a moded rotisserie. What's that for?

 

[tokersmoke]

ive used a dehydrator.IT makes wet bud dry enough to smoke but ruins taste. Any attempt at drying it faster will make it loose flavor yield potency.As far as supercropping goes dont try it the first week in flower.Any high stress methods should be done during veg.supercropping should be used to control canopy only.

 

[cravin morehead]

excellent advice Tokersmoke. that rotiserie thing is my dry sift tumbler. i took out the heating elements and switched out the timer to a 8 hour timer. i made a stainless steel mesh 'canister' to put my dried trimmings into. it turns a little slow, but works pretty well. the kief after the first 30 minutes is usually great.
i got the idea on here years ago.
your plants look real lush and healthy overall, good job. i believe your old nutes have alot to do with your roots' crack addiction. jk. i don't know the ins and outs of your set-up, so lets see if i can give you some ideas from my set-up. my system is the same size, 6- 5 gallon buckets. my entire sytem holds 40 gallons. my main pump is rated at 1800 gal/hr. given the losses in GPH from 90* fittings in the run, head height, distance, etc... we'll say it actually moves 1500 gal/hr. that means my system turns over the entire volume of water 37.5 times/hr. give or take. i have about a 12" waterfall return at the reservoir for aeration. i'm not saying you need to over-build as i did. but i figured that i could expand on this initial set-up, if i wanted to down the road.
these systems allow for very efficient usage of your nute mix. a bunch of additives are not needed. most additives contain stuff that will do battle with your beneficials. the bio part of bio-buckets is what is working here. not so much the nutes. your best bet is a simple one part, quality product. you know what brand i prefer, but others work too. for example, i have a run going that i haven't fed higher than 300ppm, mostly 200ppm-300ppm. the girls look fine in there.
some strains grow roots better than others too. that run of c99 i did, really put out tons of beautiful roots. this run, not as many beautiful roots. but, healthy none the less.
keep working on dialing your enviornment in. the healthy plants just come with good grow conditions. i wish someone told me along time ago, the overall enviornment is more important than what products you feed. BigToke has laid out alot of awesome information here, read through it again and again. i reference back to it alot. Thanks BigToke...
your girls still look pretty happy, so you can't be far off, right?
keep us posted bro

cm
ps
man, that was a lot of typing for me, sorry to ramble on. feeling good on homegrown and homebrew

 

[tokersmoke]

I bought a t shirt screen that gets the kief out i would love an automated idea.

 

[marinemansf]

Reakly helpful post cm and tokersmoker, i think I'm beginning to see the holes in my system... I think to get roots like you have, I'm going to have to do a system redesign after my current run. Right now I'm running an 800 gph pump, and I think it's half of what I need. Not sure if I should double up on pumps or say fuck it and pick up one 2000 gph pump. That and adding a massive air pump, and an air stone in each bucket. Also adding some better heat shield, and light reflecting for each bucket. I also need to do some maintenance today, one if my buckets sprung a leak yesterday while moving them. So I'm going to go and buy some better sum pump conectors, that are screw on with a seal, like yours, rather than the double sided male connectors and silicone that I have now... just praying my ladies will be ok until I can get it fixed.

Also, I was looking over you setup pics this weekend, and I love your cart setup. That looks like the straight shit. And I'm going to move the res under the buckets, seems like a lot less work and alot less hose. I'm also going to move the point were the water comes in, from the side, to the bottom like yours.

One question, do you think I should do a flush to get those old nutes the he'll out of there? The res is fine, there's just some of those old nutes sitting in the bottom of each bucket. Can't wait to smoke dem hoes!!!

 

[marinemansf]

I decided to go ahead and pull the trigger on the new fittings on the buckets. Got a style similar to cravins, 1/4 sum pump fitting, with 2 washers and a rubber washer on the inside. The leaks were just agroing me to no end. But it will save alot of frustration in the end. It also gave me a chance to go ahead and flush the buckets of the nasty nutes that were just chillin in the bottom of em. Not gonna do a res flush though. Also I get a chance to re adjust the nute levels and start using bloom nutes. Can't wait for this run to be done, so I can make the other necessary adjustments to the system.

Also, I'm switching to those dynapro nutes you use for the next run. Was thinking bout trying either some northern lights or that c99 you ran cravin.

 

[tokersmoke]

Not hating on anyones setup,But you should try an organic soil grow.Alot less headaches and nutes.No ph pens or complicated schedules.Just saying after starting hydro i tried soil and will never go any other way.Im sure once you get everything dialed in it will be worth all the headache.

 

[cravin morehead]

I'm also going to move the point were the water comes in, from the side, to the bottom like yours.
i'm a little confused about that. the water enters my buckets at the top with a hole in the side of the bucket with a 90* fitting pointing the water towards the bottom of the bucket. this is a key element to the design. pointing the water straight down keeps the solution 'whirling' around in the buckets, no dead spots. and just pointing the stream down with no tubing leading to the bottom of the bucket, keeps from siphoning all the nutes back to the reservoir in the event of a power failure. i think you're seeing the drains i installed into the bottom of each bucket. makes it really nice for draining the system or individual buckets.
http://pentairaes.com/ this is where i buy alot of my parts and fittings and such.
i'm sure it was a typo but, i use Dyna-grow Bloom only, for veg and bloom. good product and cheap. i get a couple runs off one $16 bottle.
if i were you, i would go for the big water pump instead of adding another. 2 pumps = twice the chance for leakage or mehanical failure. i feel its better to run a large pump at say 75% instead of 2 smaller pumps at full blast.
if you have a good waterfall return at the reservoir, no air pumps are needed. but, more o2 couldn't hurt.
i've run both c99 and NL in these buckets, both performed great for me.
can't wait to see you finish up this run too. just think, after some mods to your system, your next run will be better, cheaper, and much less hassle.

toker- ya, automating the dry sift is a nice thing. that rotisserie set-up was cheap too. i think i got the rotisserie at like cvs on sale after christmas, like $20. i think stainless mesh (from graingers) 2 different mesh counts, was like another $20. give it a try, was simple and works great.

cm

 

[cravin morehead]

good point toker. No worries bro, you're not stepping on my toes stating your opinion. organic soil can be nice. for me though, dealing with run off and lugging bags of soil and stuff was a hassle, for me. i started that way, and still do it outdoors. once i started hydro and bio-buckets, i was home. my reservoir has a float valve connected to the house water line, so no draining and filling 40 gallons at a time. i don't check ph at all. only times i did was when someone asked me too. as for ppm/ec meters, i don't even need one after learning about my add backs. plus, i don't ever drain and refiil the system. to flush for harvest, i just stop adding nutes. dilutes itself just fine. for the next run, just simply add nutes again. haven't flushed the entire system since i built the thing. cheap feed program, $16 for a couple runs start to finish. initial investment was a little pricey, but paid for itself with the first run. as with any technique, build it right the first time to avoid hassles later on. when i designed and built my current system, any time i thought, 'that should be good enough' i stopped and rethought it out to get it done right. but, to each their own. who am i to say anything is better than anything. for me, bio-buckets were the answer i've been looking for. i think they can really benefit alot of hydro growers struggling with too many chems and trying to stay on top of things.

cm

 

[marinemansf]

Thanks to both of ya.

As far as switching from hydro, to soil, there is no way. Cravin is right, initial setup is slightly spend, but not bad if you know what to get to build your own system. And I may have over stated how big of a problem the leak was. It only leaked cause I moved it... and didn't do a great job with the original install of the sum pump connectors to the bucket. But I think it took some time and error for me to realize how I could have done better. But I have the buckets with the new connectors, and a little bit of silicone, setting up right now, and should be all set in the AM. Got the ladies in some extra buckets I had laying around with some pure water soaking the roots.

Consider this toke, less than a month ago, my plants were not growing for shit. Got the fan put in for the cooltube, and in less than a month went from barely 3 inches tall and maybe 2 inches wide, to over a foot and a half tall and almost 3 wide... Once I got everything dialed in, they straight took the fuck off! Now I don't have much to base that against soil... but just the pure speed and extremely low maintenance of bio buckets, not to mention having beneficial bacteria not only maintain your grow but actively defend it. I'll never go any other way. Hope that didn't sound bitchey.

 

[cravin morehead]

hey toker, mind if i hit you up on PM to find out a little more on how you run pseudo organics?? haha. i think you may have just made my outdoor a whole lot easier. thanks.
don't sweat the small stuff marineman, you are well on your way now. are your roots showing some new clean, white growth?

cm

 

[marinemansf]

Oh absolutely! I think the next run will show a massive improvement, especially with more than double the gph.

 

[tokersmoke]

definitely not bitching marine.Sometimes when people get a technique down they want to share it with the world.My system is the lazy mans way out and i do lug alot of soil.

I start with fresh fox farm soil happy frog and ocean forest mix.I let the plants root out 1 gallon containers then switch to 3-5 gallon for flowering.In the 5 gallon bucket i mix fresh soil with worm castings,mykos,ROOTS ORGANICS UPRISING BLOOM.Thats it no other nutes or supplements.I occasionallly top dress the soil with more fresh soil.No ph no nutes no deficiencies and crazy growth.The buds are sticky and sweet.Ive tried co co,soil with chem ferts,soil with liquid organic nutes but im just stuck on this method.It is expensive and there is alot of soil and transplanting.But when i say sweet tasting buds i mean it,The yeild is great too 2-3 oz per plant with 2-3 week veg,This particular strain tastes like ORANGE CREAMSICLE.

 

[tokersmoke]

Its like supersoil kinda these are the ingredients.

kelp, rock dust, greensand, guano, fish bone meal, oyster shell flour, soybean meal, alfalfa meal, feather meal, langbenite, rock phosphate and leonardite in addition to hop flowers

 

[marinemansf]

Hey toke. Yeah I think if I were in a state without bullshit laws on a plant, I would deffinatly try your way of doing things on an outside grow. But the only maintenance I've had to do since getting everything dialed in correctly, is going down stairs each morning to admire them! I got a little worried when my ph dropped to 4.0. But cravin eased my mind about that. This is the ultimate lazy man's way of doing it... and that's exactly what I wanted... I just hope people quit believing all the residual horseshit misinformation propagated by Harry j anslinger... and his predecessors... so I can move out of the basement, and fill my house with this wonderful gift we have been given by the creator.

So I can go to war, and protect everything and everyone in this great country... but because I enjoy a plant... now I'm a criminal... MAKES SO MUCH FUCKING SENSE! I stared death right in his fucking eyes multiple times, and God damn if I'm not gonna live my life exactly how I want. I'm not infringing on anyone else's rights by doing it.

Sorry bout the rant... just fed up with people thinking they know how other people should live their lives, better than I do! Fuck em, fuck em in their mouths! Felt good to get that shit out

 

[tokersmoke]

lol