The CannaBunker continues...

[ImaginaryFriend]

Not very clear on my screen, but it seems to be the silhouette of a fungus gnat. Or at least a gnat. Or something fuzzy looking that looks like it might be bug with wings.

That last one kinda leaves a lot of doors open, I guess.

 

[CannaBunkerMan]

The gnat doesn't seem to bother anything, and they don't seem to get out of control. My first guess was a fruit fly. Are fungus gnats bad? There's only a few of them.

Anyway, things are starting to look up, and I'll be transplanting some of the plants into the flower room to let them stretch their roots a little. I decided to get things started with 1/4 of the spots filled, and move plants as they're ready into the flower room.

I'd post more pictures, but they're a little boring right now.

I do have one question that someone may be able to help me with. There are two 1000 watt HPS lights that sometimes have a hard time starting up. They are the furthest from their respective ballasts, so I'll assume that the ignitors aren't quite strong enough. the run is about 35'. I read somewhere that you can install inline ignitors to fix this problem. Does anyone have any suggestions, or know of somewhere that I can educate myself?

 

[ImaginaryFriend]

Whiterasta talks about remote ignitors for a CMH in this thread.

 

[Rednick]

The gnat doesn't seem to bother anything, and they don't seem to get out of control. My first guess was a fruit fly. Are fungus gnats bad? There's only a few of them.

They are more of a problem in Hydro, than soil.
They have been coming by the droves in bags of potting soil or coco from the west coast.
They multiply fairly quickly.

A little neem (or Aza) thrown in the res, during veg or first week of flower will fuckup the reproductive cycle, flyers get caught on strips alright, or with a pyrethrin fogger.

 

[CannaBunkerMan]

I think the gnats are coming from the rapid rooters, but I'm not sure.

I just got a digital microscope, I think I should go and capture one of those fuckers to do a more detailed analysis.

Here are some pictures from this evening:

The first shot is of the move from the mother room to the flower room where they will be vegging out for a few weeks before the lights flip. There's some Green Crack, DJ Short True Blueberry F2's (TBB), a few GHS Lemon Skunk plants (LS), and some Godbud x Afgani Dream plants (G-BAD). Pretty much whatever I had that was growing and wasn't a mother plant. I couldn't afford to keep the mother room vacant for any longer.

The 2nd shot is of 28 Island Sweet Skunk x (Colombian Red x Afgani) (ISS-CRA) beans that were gifted to me. I'm not sure if they're going to make it for this go around since I'd like to make a mother of the top plant, and they're about a month from being able to take cuttings.

The 3rd picture shows the GBAD and LS mothers that made it through the rough start at the beginning of the thread. The 4 small plants in the foreground are the Dutch Grown Seeds Killer Queen Redux (DGS-KQR) that were gifted to me through the seed giveaway. There were 10, and they all germinated, but I tried to start them without starter plugs to their detriment. They will get their own thread as promised during the giveaway.

4th, 5th, and 6th shots - DGS-KQR. The last two show a great idea from another thread about identifying plants for breeding. The tags are jewlry string price tags, and they are MUCH better than colored toothpicks. There's only so many colors. The KQR plants have a nice old-school skunk stink already.

So many to choose from! Things are starting to look up. Now all I need to do is to get a temp job so that I can buy groceries until this batch finishes up.

 

[CannaBunkerMan]

Not much to report. The 1st shot shows the flowering room, which is currently still vegging to fill out the canopy. These were mostly the plants that survived my earlier problems, so they look a little scraggly. I'll be filling up the last 2000 watts with a mixture of what's come available since then. I want to flower out a few of the Island Sweet Skunk x (Columbian x Afgani) to see how they stack up. I usually wait to flower a plant until I can get rooted cuttings, but this time I'll just hope the cuttings take. The ISS plants all look relatively the same/stable, but we'll see how they'll finish up.

2nd - Shows the next batch going into flower, the ISS.

3rd - Typical root system from sewer pipe hydro.

4th - Green Crack Mom

5th - Blue Dream from bean mom

6th - Ailing houseplant that has been temporarily admitted to hospice care, along with some mint.

7th - Killer Queen Redux, KQR, from Dutch Grown, they're almost ready for some clones to be taken.

 

[dgr]

CBM,
Try here: http://www.venturelighting.com/VLPS/Ignitors/BVS002.pdf These are their remote ignitors. Spendy. The document also shows the maximum distance vs. wire size you can mount the ignitor from the ballast. From prior discussions, we both know what I'd try with that knowledge. They don't have a picture of the remote ignitor but it looks like it is metal cased with a stud for mounting (grounding?)

Here are their wiring diagrams for HPS.
http://www.venturelighting.com/ballasthtmldocuments/wiring_diagrams-Add.html

Also this document provides a lot of information on HPS lighting. Who knew you could test a 400W ballast with a mercury lamp or a 150W ballast with an incandescent bulb?
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildin...s/commercial/pdfs/hid_lamps/advance_2003a.pdf

 

[CannaBunkerMan]

CBM,
Try here: http://www.venturelighting.com/VLPS/Ignitors/BVS002.pdf These are their remote ignitors. Spendy. The document also shows the maximum distance vs. wire size you can mount the ignitor from the ballast. From prior discussions, we both know what I'd try with that knowledge. They don't have a picture of the remote ignitor but it looks like it is metal cased with a stud for mounting (grounding?)

Here are their wiring diagrams for HPS.
http://www.venturelighting.com/ballasthtmldocuments/wiring_diagrams-Add.html

Also this document provides a lot of information on HPS lighting. Who knew you could test a 400W ballast with a mercury lamp or a 150W ballast with an incandescent bulb?
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildin...s/commercial/pdfs/hid_lamps/advance_2003a.pdf

Thanks for the info DGR. I have digital ballasts that are all epoxy resined closed, so I don't have access to the internal ignitor. Do you know if I can just wire another ignitor inline, or do I need to bypass the stock ignitor?

 

[Dudesome]

wooohooo bunkeman is back!

 

[dgr]

Thanks for the info DGR. I have digital ballasts that are all epoxy resined closed, so I don't have access to the internal ignitor. Do you know if I can just wire another ignitor inline, or do I need to bypass the stock ignitor?

Sorry man,
I should have remembered that you have digis. My GUESS is that digis use solid state to provide the needed high voltage to fire the bulbs.

 

[CannaBunkerMan]

The canopy is starting to fill in, and I managed to get all 6 lights up and working. The problem wasn't the ignitor, it was my 3 month old sun argo bulb that was the problem.

I wanted to get some advice on a couple of the plants that I'll be flowering this round. They were a little stressed when I had my problem back at the beginning of this thread. I'm not sure if they'll make it, and I'm a little worried that they might pop a few 'nanners out. Both of my God Bud plants are looking like this. Should I just cut them down? It's a shame, since they were 2 of my largest plants. What do you think?

Edit - They're still in veg.

 

[CannaBunkerMan]

I wanted to wait until someone chimed in about the last thread so that it didn't get forgotten, but there's an interesting story to be told. A few nights ago, I thought that my time had come. I woke up a few hours after going to bed to flashing blue lights on my bedroom wall. Then the adrenaline kicked in. After I found the best vantage point I noticed that there were two cruisers parked on the street a house down, and another at the other end of the street. Have you ever felt the urge to go in 5 different directions at the same time? After the initial shock, I hit the panic button, flipped the breaker, and shut everything down.

As soon as I got back upstairs, I noticed several flashlights bouncing around behind my house. I thought that I was done for. I went outside to gather some more information. Hiding in the shrubry I heard radios clickidy clacking, and I expected that they were coming for me. Around the corner comes one fire truck followed by another. I've had nightmares where it goes down just like this. I expected the next thing to happen was that they'd bust in my door and shoot my dog. I wanted to run, but what the hell good would that do at this point? Then I gathered my shit together, listened and watched.

The flashlights were in the woods behind my neighbors house, only a hundred feet away. The only thing missing was a copper chopper and their search lights. All of my neighbors have dogs, so it sounded like Lt. Fido was going to sick my balls. Finally, I noticed that the flashlights coming from the woods were checking out the eaves of my neighbor's house. The fire trucks pulled into my neighbor's driveway, and hope started to come back to me. So did the color in my face.

It turns out that my neighbor had a fire alarm go off, and they called it in. I shit myself. Twice. Then I spent the rest of the night trying hopelessly to fall back asleep. Luckily, I kept my weapon holstered, and didn't go out in a blaze of ganja glory.

On a completely seperate note, do you think that the three pictures from above will hermi? Should I chop them down?

It takes a strong constitution to be in this business. It's not for the weak of heart.

 

[Rowdy420]

I've had my fair share of adrenaline moments, anybody that does what we do will! Hard to get yourself back down to a calm level after heightening all your senses, LOL sucks! Glad it all worked out, I've decided if the man is coming to get me they are going to be impressed at the least and i'll just puffing a bowl while they kick the door in.

I'd give the girls a flush with a clearing solution and then hit em with a 1/4 -1/2 strength ferts until they see a turn around.

Good luck, Peace

 

[CannaBunkerMan]

I'd give the girls a flush with a clearing solution and then hit em with a 1/4 -1/2 strength ferts until they see a turn around.

There are only 2 of those plants out of the entire batch. It looks like the stressed GBAD plants were stressed into flowering, even though the lights are still 18/6. All of my other plants are looking fine, and I can't wait for the 2 GBAD plants to recover. If I were to flower them now, do you think they would yield anything, or is it too much of a risk for hermis at this point? I could chop them down, and donate their real estate to some smaller plants, since they're both directly under the lights. I just don't want to risk polinating this batch. That would be a setback I couldn't easily recover from.

 

[dgr]

I could chop them down, and donate their real estate to some smaller plants, since they're both directly under the lights. I just don't want to risk polinating this batch. That would be a setback I couldn't easily recover from.

CBM,
Is there any downside to not running those two plants until next round?
Sounds like you already know which direction you want to go and just need someone to say, "you're right." You're right! If you are concerned with hermies, it would be silly to risk the entire crop to such a small percentage of real estate. Replace them, save your genetics for next run and sleep well at night -- unless the neighbors have another false alarm.

 

[CannaBunkerMan]

CBM,
Is there any downside to not running those two plants until next round?
Sounds like you already know which direction you want to go and just need someone to say, "you're right." You're right! If you are concerned with hermies, it would be silly to risk the entire crop to such a small percentage of real estate. Replace them, save your genetics for next run and sleep well at night -- unless the neighbors have another false alarm.

I've just never had this particular problem before. I've never had a plant flower under a veg schedule before, much less hermi on me, so I'm not sure if I should expect self polination. I guess I was just looking to see if anyone had a similar issue.

If I remove these two plants, I'll only have coverage for 5 out of 6 lights. It might not be so bad, since it will give some other plants more room to stretch. I just don't like wasted space.

I think I'll chop those two down, and re-arrange the crop to better fill the space. I still have a new mother of this plant going, so at least I'll save the genetics.

 

[dynamitejack]

Your plants are PRE-Flowering, it's 100% normal. They will NEVER flower or herm until the light schedule is changed.

 

[CannaBunkerMan]

Okay, first the good news. The canopy is filling in pretty well. I fixed a clogging problem with the drains. I put window screening over the drain, but that ended up clogging with debris, so I came up with a nice way to insure it wouldn't happen again. The mesh is what you use over gutters to keep leaves out.

The largest plants are my TBB F2's. They didn't get me high last time, but I'm hoping for better from these huge bitches this time. Some of the stressed clones are starting to flower fairly well, and I think they'll produce something. The DGS Killer Queen plants are looking solid, but I had to cull two males.

 

[CannaBunkerMan]

And now the not so good news. If things couldn't possibly get any worse, I was tending to the ladies tonight, and I found a god-damned pervert in the middle of my garden, open trench coat and all, JIZZING ALL OVER EVERYTHING!!!

It's like JAH thinks that I'm unworthy. I feel like I should just dim the lights and exit stage left. I can't handle another setback of this magnitude. WTF, MAN!

This male came out of nowhere. It was hiding between the two large TBB plants. I can't believe that it dropped pollen already, since it's only a week and a half into 12/12. Hopefully it was premature, if you know what I mean. To try and mitigate the problem, I sprayed down all of the females with water. Unfortunately, a little pollen goes a long, long, long way. I'm just hoping that it was too early into flower, but I have a feeling that I'm going to have a bunch of seeds this time around.

Nothing like a bunch of seeds to help out a flat broke grower. Beans of gold, man. Beans of solid gold. If I can get through the next ... 4 months of electric bills, I'll just chalk it up to experience. At least all of my Green Crack clones are rooting. Oh, wait. No they're not. FUUUUUUUCK! Anyway, check out the strange structure on the dood I found in my bunker.

 

[Rowdy420]

If it's early and your females aren't pushing many buds out yet you'll be ok, they'll only get seeded a small amount. Maybe Jah is telling you to make some seeds, when God ( Jah) gives you lemons - you make lemon aid!

We cannot all do great things but, we can all do great things with love.

Good luck,Peace