Al B. FAQt

[Al B. Fuct]

I am planning a grow trying to duplicate yours on a smaller scale. My flowering area will be approximately 2' x 4'.

Cool, sounds like a 400HPS is the tool for the job.

I have studied your box and can probably duplicate it easily but I am wondering if it may be too large for my needs.

Mine's not really huge; I used an old plywood shipping container, about 1m H x 800mm W x 600mm D. However, you could scale my clonebox to whatever size suits you, as long as there's room for your lighting, heat mat, etc.The box size isn't at all critical.

A 1000 has to be a little further away....

I run my cooltubed 1000s at about 300mm from the nearest leaves. Cooltubes really do an amazing job. Without them, I'd not put them closer than about 500-600mm.

Hey al, Long time reader, First time writer.

hi there.

a freind of mine had the impression that his sulfur vaporizer (same as yours) had to be on for 4 hours a day, And you saved him .

"sulfur vaporizer" is a MUCH better term for the device. I'l be using that term from now on, thanks for that.

Good to hear you mob dodged a bullet. 4h/day would have been disastrous.

Mine did not have ANY instructions included with it, not even in Chinglish.

First in a similar setup like yours but with 2 gallon ebb and gro buckets would it be feasible to put 2 "zero veg" plants into the same pot on either side? split it in 2 kind of? Im just asking because i see quite a bit of room and im sure the roots would figure something out .

Yep, that's one more reason why I use tray-based flood systems to water plants in pots of media. Much more flexibility in plant numbers, aside from easy plant mobility within the op, so slow plants can be placed in better light positions or can be picked up and turned around for maintenance.

Regardless, you have what you have, so let's run with it. 2 SoG pruned plants in each of the 2 gallon buckets would be fine- you might be able to do 4 per.

second, Any experience with advanced nutrients connessuier? insanely expensive superbloom that i have heard nothing but good things about.

Nope, can't get AN here in Australia. Any bloom enhancer that really works is going to be P & K based. Beware additives that include anything else. I'm still trying to get some good data out of Canna for the use of their PK-13-14 (NPK 0-13-14) additive- I keep cooking plants with the stuff at half their recommended application rate. I DID get an email from a feller at Canna's Aus distributor last night, have yet to follow up with that, but hopefully I'll be able to shed some light on that soon.

Use care with grower anecdotes about any product unless you can see photos of a parallel comparison, some plants grown with the product and some controls without, in the same crop.

3. Ever heard of the strain c4? If you havent you should find it, and maybe its time to think about switching strains because this strain would explode in SOG, (soon to be proven) and it < smells like lemonz

Well thanks, but I like my lemons to taste like lemons and my cannabis to taste like cannabis.

I chose Sweet Tooth #4 after growing LOTS of different strains; Big Bud, Power Plant, White Widow, Northern Lights, Skunk #1, a WW & Sk1 hybrid called White Skunk, a reverse parentage hybrid of those two called Skunk Widow, AK47, Legends Ultimate Indica (LUI) and several others. ST4 has a great flavour, solid indica high, is a very heavy producer, but most importantly, is very mould resistant, a critically important trait in SoG ops.

I'm certainly open to trying new strains, but even ordering beans is a serious task that requires a lot of planning (maildrop addy, etc). I have lately (last 12 mos) heard about beans being seized by Aus Customs very frequently... but worst, cops are following up with knock-n-talks with growers stupid enough to order beans to their home addy. I'll keep my ears open for more about C4. If I see some SoG grows using it with some success, I'm happy to have a go.

Mind you, there's very little yield difference between the very highest producing strains (LUI, Sk1, other primarily indica hybrids). Be careful about hype. Look for growers who are trying a certain strain alongside others in the same op & crop, to get a decent comparison. Too many conditions can change between serial batches of different strains to get a valid comparison. Gotta be side-by-side.

4. I also have a little soil op i just switched to loose rockwool/ grow cubes, Should loose rockwool be watered more or less often than soil? it seems the soil holds more water for longer periods of time.

I ran 175mm x 175mm pots (about 4L) of RW floc in my flood systems for years. It can be watered 1x/day for small plants (wk 1-2 flowering) or 2x/day for more advanced, vigorous plants. Advanced, mature mother plants being raised under HID lighting, with very substantial root systems compared to the amount of media volume, can tolerate 3x/day.

Yes, it's common for soil to hold much more water than hydroponic media, but that's not really a good thing. It limits the watering frequency. By the time there's enough water removed from soil to tolerate watering again, the water from the last watering will have lost all its dissolved O2. Hydroponics produces more vigorous, faster plants because less absorbent media is used, so to be able to introduce freshly oxygenated nute soln more often.

You can choose media with differing levels of absorbency depending upon how you want to grow. I used RW floc so I could skip looking in on the op every day. It holds so much water that it will get even a vigorous plant through a day even in the event of a pump/timer failure. Clay pellets, which hold almost no water and have large air gaps between the pellets, can be watered several times per lights-on, starting with about 5x/day for clones just introduced to pots of pellets, up to every 2H (avoiding watering in the last 2h of lights-on) for advanced, mature plants. Keep in mind that if you clone in RW cubes and want to use pellets, the cube must be nested in pellets so it is 1/2" above the flood level.

5. I was also tricked into using molasses for a while, my pet fruit flies loved it but my plants didnt seem to react to it .

I'll try to act shocked.

6. Any suggestions on once and for all getting rid of these damn fruit flies?

Use yellow sticky card traps to control adult gnats. When potting up new plants, you can drop the pot into a knee-hi stocking and secure it around the stem with a small, gentle rubber band. Putting a stocking on already infested plants will at least keep them in that pot until you can get rid of it.

7. ( i know, so many, im sorry) To keep spider mites out of my op completely (had them recently grr) what do you reccomend? Running the sulfur burner for longer? getting a UV filter etc? I just want to make sure that even if they get in they will be dead within a day. without hurting my precious babies .

Sulfur & UV will have no effect on insect pests. A 10-30,000ppm blast of CO2 for about 2-3h will kill all bugs in the room. Humans can safely tolerate 30,000ppm for up to 15 mins without a respirator. You might buy a big chunk of dry ice for such a one-time application rather than investing in a tank & reg.

8. A freind of mine had a big spot of mildew on his stalk, yet didnt listen when i told him not to harvest it,

If I saw a plant going to mould, I'd have chopped it instantly- then would have went looking for why I was getting mould on plants.

What is the possible damage that can cause?

Mould can kill plants; grey mould (botyritis) will literally liquefy buds and leave you with a chunk of grey, powdery yuk.

Is there any way to really tell if bud is internally "coated" in powdery mildew?

Depends on what you mean by 'internally.' Mould won't occur inside of the vascular tissues of a plant. Most moulds need exposure to air. It's common to find mould between the bracts in a bud, but not inside the plant tissues per se.

9. I am seeing, And have been seeing for a while, TINY little bugs, randomly in my flowering plants, That look like microscopic frogs, they dont seem to be doing any harm, They usually chill near the top of the plant, definitely not spider mites. any idea of what they are?

Could be thrips. Thrips suck sap from leaves by piercing the leaf from the underside They cause telltale silvery spots n the upper leaf surface. They're very small and are hard to see without magnification. Get a jeweller's loupe.

10. (im sorry to get all the way to 10 but this is like having an interview with jorge cervantes ) a freind of mine with a similar setup to you vegged half of his plants for a little over a month in rockwool slabs, The roots of the plants all grew togethor and he had to cut them apart,

yikes.

Now he is trying to transplant them to his ebb n grow but the slabs are huuuge and i told him that obviously the rockwool shouldnt be soaked 5x a day as this would just cause problems, The proper thing for him to do is just kind of set them on top of his hydraton and let the roots figure out where to go (down ) right??

yep. The plants will very likely already be suffering a bit of shock if any significant portion of the rootmass was damaged when he cut the slab apart, but saturating the remaining RW 5x/day will make the destruction complete. The roots, which are already having to recover, will regenerate slowly if at all in overwet conditions.

Your helpfulness to the community restores my faith in humanity, Which usually comes and goes as it likes Its great to know that someone out there is willing to help when he can, especially to such an extreme extent. best of luck to you.

Thanks, I do what I can.

 

[fred1]

Hi Al,

I bought a 200 cfm "room to room fan" from Home Depot for a closet grow I am going to do. I plan on installing the fan in the crawl space hatch that leads to my attic. Someone said I shouldn't vent directly into the attic, which is vented in at least 4 spots along the periphery, because of possible mold and dry rot problems from the moisture in the air.

I plan on using a DWC bubbler with between 2-6 plants and I was wondering if you think venting directly into the attic would be a problem or should I try to run ducting to one of the peripheral vents? Less work is better for me.

Also wondering if you think I should install an intake fan with ducting from the attic vents into the closet for additional airflow, or do you think the negative pressure from the exhaust fan would be enough to draw air in from the closet door cracks? My closet is 96 cubic feet and will be running a 400watt hps.

Sorry if that was a bit rambling.

 

[fshields1]

hey Al,
i was just woundering if you had any good cloneing trick for strains that are hard to clone? i have 3 strains growing right now, all unknown bagseeds, 2 are very easy to clone while the other seems almost impossible to clone, and that is the best producing and tasting plant iv got. any help would be appreciated, thanks

 

[NLXSK1]

Hi Al,

I bought a 200 cfm "room to room fan" from Home Depot for a closet grow I am going to do. I plan on installing the fan in the crawl space hatch that leads to my attic. Someone said I shouldn't vent directly into the attic, which is vented in at least 4 spots along the periphery, because of possible mold and dry rot problems from the moisture in the air.

I plan on using a DWC bubbler with between 2-6 plants and I was wondering if you think venting directly into the attic would be a problem or should I try to run ducting to one of the peripheral vents? Less work is better for me.

Also wondering if you think I should install an intake fan with ducting from the attic vents into the closet for additional airflow, or do you think the negative pressure from the exhaust fan would be enough to draw air in from the closet door cracks? My closet is 96 cubic feet and will be running a 400watt hps.

Sorry if that was a bit rambling.

The chance of mold/dryrot is more related to the size of the attic space, the relative humidity of the attic and exterior. efficiency of ventilation in the attic, prevailing winds, etc. These issues have more to do with the attic than the space that is being ventilated.

It would be better to run ducting to one of the exhaust vents as was suggested but whether not doing it would cause other problems would just be a wild guess without alot more information.

 

[Al B. Fuct]

What's shaken bacon---anything new up in your neck of the woods? Hope your well.

Putting in the veg patch, spending too much time online to get it done in any reasonable length of time. Hope autumn is welcome up yonder.

H HAHA I love politicing with rednecks. Its so easy to get them riled up. Dangerous but easy.

Tell them you've changed your middle name by deed poll to "Hussein."

I did.

....and WTF. I thought i would catch up on FAQt but 13 pages of posts since I left town on friday.....how do you do it??

By not getting things done elsewhere!

I am happy to report that after one month the veg room maintained itself for over 100 hrs during my absence-that will make the next long weekend far more relaxing.

Everything looks great and there are no issues to report.

dynamite.

Does this have anything to due my increase in the nutes?

It might. Wait a couple days and see if it doesn't resolve. I see this on occasion with clones which are getting their first taste of 1400 and HPS light.

Can or does this occur from light saturation?

Probably not, the only damage you'll see from inadequate lamp-leaf spacing is really from excessive heat. Symptoms are necrotic tissues in areas of closest proximity to lights.

Al you there?? need advice asap 11:43 am

In what time zone? I'm UTC minus 10h.

The words unplug and hydro don't work to well together.

um, no.

The roots that were in the bottom of the tub were dry to the touch so i am assuming there is root damage.

ouch.

When your plants have run dry, the first thing to do is wet the rootmass ASAP. Then, reduce the transpiration load by turning off lights and circ fans. You can give everyone 24h in darkness with no ill effect, at least none worse than than will happen if the plants can't recover from the wilt. Leaves which have fully collapsed may not recover. Snip those off.

Let me know how they go after a drink and a long nap.

al,
a sulfer burner?
i saw u had one but i dont know what they do?

Sulfur evaporators melt powdered sulfur, which gives off a sulfur vapour. In very small doses, this will raise the pH on the surfaces of the leaves and halt powdery mildew.

i was trying not to spend much more money

It's money well spent, but they are not exactly cheap. Mine was about $80. However, the sulfur powder itself is very cheap and very little is required, 500g will last a year or more.

i alreaddy have 2 400's so i was just gonna add 2 more, 2x2 trays be better u think for that wattage.

A 400 in a horizontal fixture will cover a rectangular space about 2.5x3.5' A 2x2' tray would be a pretty good match for a 400.

how much thc is created in the last few weaks

MOST of it! The vast majority of bud weight & thus resin development happens in wk 7 & 8. Harvesting early is false economy. I'd hazard a comfortable guess that harvesting in wk6 would reduce your yield by 60-70%.

Also Al, I believe i saw a post where you stated you manage to run a 1kw light within 250-300mm thanks to a well conditioned space and a closed vent circuit for the light? I seem to recall this was after the flowering plants maxed out in height prior to stopping vert growth and fully devoting its energy to flower.

Cooltubes make that 300mm min spacing possible. I use four 900 x 900mm trays with a 1000 covering them in pairs. Plants in trays 3 & 4 (wks 5-6 & 7-8 ) are of their finished height, so the spacing for those plants is all the same. Plants just introduced to the system in tray #1 are quite short (200-250mm) by comparison to the ~600-700mm plants in tray 2 (wks 3-4). The lamp can be dropped no lower than 300mm from the ~600mm tall plants in tray 2, meaning there is about 700mm between the lamp and the shorties in tray 1. They catch up to the tray 2 plants' height very quickly. So, while I probably could run the lamp at 300mm off the very young tray 1 plants, it's impractical to do so because of the lamp-leaf spacing required for tray 2. The get a slow introduction to high intensity light, not by me adjusting the lamp height but by them growing toward it.

Hi Al,

I bought a 200 cfm "room to room fan" from Home Depot for a closet grow I am going to do. I plan on installing the fan in the crawl space hatch that leads to my attic. Someone said I shouldn't vent directly into the attic, which is vented in at least 4 spots along the periphery, because of possible mold and dry rot problems from the moisture in the air.

Certain conditions (ie cold winter weather) could cause condensation of humid grow room exhaust on surfaces in the attic. However, if the attic is well ventilated, since it's not just moist but also warm air coming out of that exhaust, the exhaust air should exit before it drops to dewpoint. I'd go ahead and try it, but check the attic frequently for signs of condensation. It could be a problem. However, it's a great place to dump waste air from a security standpoint as the attic will muffle the exhaust fan sound and disperse scents (to some degree).

Also wondering if you think I should install an intake fan with ducting from the attic vents into the closet for additional airflow, or do you think the negative pressure from the exhaust fan would be enough to draw air in from the closet door cracks? My closet is 96 cubic feet and will be running a 400watt hps.

I would not take air from the attic if you are going to dump exhaust there. Source it from another room or through the floor if you can. You will need a low restriction intake or your exhaust fan will be throttled and won't develop the CFM flow rate you expect.

hey Al,
i was just woundering if you had any good cloneing trick for strains that are hard to clone?

To be deadly honest, I've never found much strain related difference in how easy it is to get a plant to root, aside from a day or two quicker or slower here or there. When my clonebox has the right conditions and presents them consistently, I get similar speed from anything I've cloned. I wish I could be more helpful.

 

[sparkafire]

Hey Al Thanks for getting back to me. I did turn on the lights for about 10min and ran the juice to them during that time. Went back and peeked and they were standing tall!!! Whats the verdict on having to turn the lights on for 10 min?

 

[Al B. Fuct]

They would not really have needed the 10 min lights-on, but it won't hurt anything. As long as they perked back up again, all's good.

 

[archie6214]

Hey Al I talked to you a couple days ago about some of my clones drooping and wilting. I think I may have found the problem. I think I read your heat mat is fixed at 30 degrees C. I just put the sensor of my thermometer in between the heat mat and tray and it's showing 43 degrees C. Do you think this is the problem? My hydro store sells a thermostat for the mat for $35. Do you think I need to get it? Would putting a couple wooden pencils under the tray to act like spacers help until I get to the hydro store? Thanks again

 

[sparkafire]

They would not really have needed the 10 min lights-on, but it won't hurt anything. As long as they perked back up again, all's good.

It was one of those things that you don't spend a whole lot of time researching or hearing about in the threads but peerrty damn important to know when you need it. I just couldn't wait the 7 hours and i thought they needed light to absorb the water. Thanks again.

 

[Al B. Fuct]

When the plant is fully hydrated and lights are turned off, water uptake will all but stop.

When the plant is badly dehydrated, it'll suck up water even if lights are off, at least until it has 're-inflated' the vascular structure of the plant.

 

[Al B. Fuct]

it's showing 43 degrees C. Do you think this is the problem?

I sure do. Damn, that thing would make a righteous coffee warmer.

My hydro store sells a thermostat for the mat for $35. Do you think I need to get it?

Yes.

Would putting a couple wooden pencils under the tray to act like spacers help until I get to the hydro store?

If you have a thin plastic tray to put your cubes in, you could put a sheet of corrugated cardboard from any old box between the plastic tray and the heatmat as a temporary measure. A sheet of Corflute/Coroplast (the stuff real estate signs are made from) will do the same but be waterproof. Might try 2 layers of the stuff for that hotplate you have until you can get a thermostat for it.

 

[benson]

hi al.
if i turn my marowana plants roun every hour will they get dizzy and fall over.
if i make a loud noise when my plants r sleepin will it wake them up.
i forgot 2 wash under there leaves this morning is dat why they smell so bad.
how can i get bigger bubbles 2 cum up tru my soil.

 

[Al B. Fuct]

Must be late night in nth America- I've been able to go work in the garden patch for A WHOLE HOUR with no queries coming in.

 

[archie6214]

Yeah the description on the box said it raises the temp 10-15 degrees F above room temp!!

 

[Al B. Fuct]

oh... I guess I spoke too soon.

hi al.
if i turn my marowana plants roun every hour will they get dizzy and fall over.
if i make a loud noise when my plants r sleepin will it wake them up.
i forgot 2 wash under there leaves this morning is dat why they smell so bad.
how can i get bigger bubbles 2 cum up tru my soil.

Guess they wake the trolls at 11pm in the central time zone...

 

[Al B. Fuct]

Yeah the description on the box said it raises the temp 10-15 degrees F above room temp!!

fark. I suppose that without a thermostat, that's exactly what it's doing!

 

[corral hollow kid]

Two things america needs to change is our
measurement system, and our legal system.

Amen to that brother!!!

 

[sparkafire]

oh... I guess I spoke too soon.



Guess they wake the trolls at 11pm in the central time zone...

 

[Al B. Fuct]

And don't spank the monkey, either.

 

[sparkafire]

And don't spank the monkey, either.

But what if he has been bad??