A Guide To Colloidal Silver

A

Autopilot@2020

Member
EverythingsHazy said:
What does a Colloidal Silver generator look like / How do I make my own:
Colloidal Silver generators can be either bought, or made. If you decide to buy one, aim for the one with the lowest possible voltage between (5-30v) and try to stay under 1000mA. The weaker current will help create smaller particles even though it takes a bit longer (only hours so it doesn't matter).

It can be made from a simple cell phone charger with the end cut off and stripped to look like this.


The exposed wires would then be taped (using electrical tape) to silver electrodes (pure .9999 silver wire), which would need to be kept apart (they can't touch), and spaced evenly/parallel in the water without touching the bottom or sides. A distance of 1-4" is best depending on your generators power.

You will also want to run an air pump with aquarium tubing and an airstone in the generator jar to keep the water moving around which will do these three things:

1. Prevent/slow down buildup that forms on the wires during the generating process.
2. Stir the solution to keep the silver particles from bunching up and agglomerating around the electrodes which will create larger particles, and possibly cause the solution to turn amber any time from when it is being made, to the next few days.
3. Allow for a creation of higher ppm Colloidal Silver (you only really need 15 but can use up to 40 if you want to spray less than 3x daily).

A store bought Colloidal Silver generator often looks like this:


And is run like this for 5-15 hours: (Note the air pump + air stone in the jar)


Throughout these hours, the wires will get discolored (esp the negative electrode which will turn blackish) and some buildup may collect on them as well (once again, the negative electrode is most drastically affected by this). Simply unplug your generator, remove it from the water, and wipe the electrodes clean. You can use a paper towel only, but it helps to have one of those green, non-metallic Scotch-Brite scrubbing pads (no chemicals added such as soap or anything). You should do this every 30-60 minutes or when you see buildup forming. The first few hours may only cause a rise in ppm of 1-2 if that, and little discoloration on the wires, but as time passes, and the ppm rises, the process speeds up exponentially. By the end, you may have to wipe your wires every 15-20min depending on your generators power level.

Once the ppm has reached the desired level (tested with a TDS meter), the generator is removed and the mixture is filtered through a 2 unbleached coffee filters, into another jar. This should filter out any larger silver particles that can and probably will form around the wires during the generating process, as well as any dust or anything else that may have found its way into the jar while the Colloidal Silver was being made. When you are done, you shouldn't see anything floating around in the mixture. It should look like pure water, except that a laser beam shows up when you shine it through.

What is a plant treated with Colloidal Silver supposed to look like:
It should look normal until a couple days after spraying, when you may see some unusual flower growth. After about 2-3 weeks, the plant will be growing almost exclusively pollen sacs, and should look just like a regular male with clusters of "balls" lacking many stray pistils.

The following plant was completely doused all over (including the tops and undersides of the leaves) 2-4x daily with homemade Colloidal Silver, and it wasn't burned in the least bit.

Pollen Sacs


Q&A / Troubleshooting:
Q: When should I start spraying my plant?
A: If it is a photoperiod plant, start spraying a week before flipping the lights to 12/12 (or whatever flowering schedule you use). If it is an auto wait until you see pistils and then start spraying the day the first couple appear. Even if you bought the seeds as autofems, I still recommend waiting until you see the first couple pistils because there is always the chance that you were send seeds with males in them and you wouldn't have any way of knowing until you started popping males out of your "female seeds".

Q: Why is my Colloidal Silver amber/yellow/grey colored?
A: The silver particles are slightly larger than they would be in a clear solution. They can still work for cannabis reversal, but I don't recommend ingesting the stuff. Amber/yellow is the first color you should notice. As it begins to get darker, or greyer, that means the the particles are larger and larger. The plant above was reversed with only amber Colloidal Silver as a test and it worked fine.

Q: How do I fix that color problem?
A: Add an air pump and an air stone to your generator jar, and clean the wires more often (every 30min, or when you see buildup forming). Discoloration on the wires (esp the negative electrode turning dark) is fine and expected, but if you leave it for too long you will notice that more and more silver particles build up on the negative electrode and start breaking off and floating around your mixture causing it to be cloudy and lower quality.

Q: How long does Colloidal Silver last / How do I store it:
A: Colloidal Silver remains at the desired potency for at least a month.
It should be kept in glass (plastic can attract the silver particles and ruin the mixture), and in the dark.

Q: Can I only spray one part of the plant to force pollen sac to form there and only there?
A: Yes.

Q: Can I then take that pollen and pollinate pistils somewhere else on the same plant, or will that cause hermies?
A: Yes. properly made Colloidal Silver does not carry over into the pollen or the seeds created using it, nor does it cause unwanted changes in the plant, its DNA, its offspring (and their DNA), etc. If you used a low quality spray and ended up stressing the plant to the point that it "hermied", and then used that pollen, you would be inadvertently selecting for the low stress tolerance gene that allowed the reversal, but if you start with solid genetics, and a good quality spray, you should have nothing to worry about.*

*Here are actually some posts by members on here (who have experience using pollen from a plant to pollinate its own pistils). I asked around to get a few different perspectives and see if I was missing anything, but they all agreed. (If anyone posting below would like their quote removed, feel free to pm me.)









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*Disclaimer: This post in no way promotes the cultivation and/or breeding of cannabis illegally.
Click to expand...
What ratio do you dilute the CS solution to distilled water to spray
 
M

Mak'er Grow

Well-Known Member
Autopilot@2020 said:
What ratio do you dilute the CS solution to distilled water to spray
Click to expand...

Math for ppm reduction.

Ok, so the average ppm required for creating pollen from a female plant using colloidal silver is 50 ppm from what I've been reading...some use more and some less, but 50 ppm seem to be the average. I bought some 1000 ppm...4 fl oz bottle. So I would like to convert it and wanted to make sure my...
www.rollitup.org
 
E

EverythingsHazy

Well-Known Member
Autopilot@2020 said:
What ratio do you dilute the CS solution to distilled water to spray
Click to expand...
I don't dilute it. I just make it until it is between 15-40ppm, stopping when a laser beam is clearly visible and solid, because PPM isn't the most accurate measure of CS effectiveness.

If you use store-bought CS, don't be surprised or discouraged if the plants show some stress/damage. Homemade CS is far better.
 
snowdog203

snowdog203

Well-Known Member
My slurry of silver was as far as concentrate level, was a shot in the dark.
I let the electrolysis run till the solution looked a little cloudy.
Put a LED flash light to the jar and could see the beam.
Then I poured it through a 100 micron screen.
I produced two quarts of the slurry.
Did not burn the plants at all.
Bananas are ready to pop.
 
printer

printer

Well-Known Member
Hi guys, took a picture of one of the sites. Been spraying two to three times a day. Looks 'different', am I on the right tract? I did another bat at low voltage and it came out yellow and without silver sediment. I figure that is good, no idea if I should wash off the plants and apply the new batch instead.

 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
Pretty sure once a day should be enough. My first try with STS didn't work but I started spraying them 3 weeks into flowering so I'll start at the flip to 12/12 next time.

Wouldn't hurt to rinse them off with plain water but not sure it'll make any difference.

:peace:
 
E

EverythingsHazy

Well-Known Member
printer said:
Hi guys, took a picture of one of the sites. Been spraying two to three times a day. Looks 'different', am I on the right tract? I did another bat at low voltage and it came out yellow and without silver sediment. I figure that is good, no idea if I should wash off the plants and apply the new batch instead.

Click to expand...
That looks like it is in the process of flipping. I'd continue the spraying 1-2x a day. @x shouldn't hurt, if it's well made CS, vs storebought stuff that burns the plant.
 
printer

printer

Well-Known Member
Two of the plants were mostercropped and I have to thin them out rather than top them. They look like hell but there are bud sites all over. Or rather pollen sites. I take it the top ones will be ripe before the ones in the lower end. I have some windows outside I would have used to sit them on but they are frozen in place at the moment. Kicking myself I realized I have some dollar store silvered Mylar present wrapping rolls, not that it needs to be mirrored but in a couple of days I will set the plants on them in another room and let them do their thing in peace. As fare as where they are at the moment.



I have a THC strain in with the other plants, I decided to spray the bottom branch even though I should have started before today since flipping two days ago. But I have nothing to loose anyway, I don't think I will be doing much else with the plant.
 
E

EverythingsHazy

Well-Known Member
printer said:
Two of the plants were mostercropped and I have to thin them out rather than top them. They look like hell but there are bud sites all over. Or rather pollen sites. I take it the top ones will be ripe before the ones in the lower end. I have some windows outside I would have used to sit them on but they are frozen in place at the moment. Kicking myself I realized I have some dollar store silvered Mylar present wrapping rolls, not that it needs to be mirrored but in a couple of days I will set the plants on them in another room and let them do their thing in peace. As fare as where they are at the moment.



I have a THC strain in with the other plants, I decided to spray the bottom branch even though I should have started before today since flipping two days ago. But I have nothing to loose anyway, I don't think I will be doing much else with the plant.
Click to expand...
Looking like a successful flip!
 
printer

printer

Well-Known Member
Some stuff I found on making the silver.

Silver Nanoparticles: Optical Properties
"Unaggregated silver nanoparticles will have a yellow color in solution. If the particles aggregate, the solution with appear grey."

The Effect of Size on Optical Properties
The optical properties of spherical silver nanoparticles are highly dependent on the nanoparticle diameter. The extinction spectra of 10 sizes of NanoXact Silver nanoparticles at identical mass concentrations (0.02 mg/mL) are displayed in the figure below. Smaller nanospheres primarily absorb light and have peaks near 400 nm, while larger spheres exhibit increased scattering and have peaks that broaden and shift towards longer wavelengths (known as red-shifting).

nanocomposix.com

Silver Nanoparticles: Optical Properties

Silver nanoparticles absorb and scatter light with extraordinary efficiency. Their strong interaction with light occurs because the conduction electrons on the metal surface undergo a collective oscillation when they are excited by light at specific wavelengths. This oscillation is known as a...
nanocomposix.com nanocomposix.com

Colloidal or Ionic Silver - what is the difference?
Colloid by definition means ultrasmall particles dispersed in a continuous medium (liquid in our case) whose properties depend on the large specific surface area. Ionic by definition means atoms, that are missing an eletron, or have an extra electron. Most products advertised as “colloidal silver” contain mostly silver ions, not silver particles, so technically they are silver solutions, not silver colloids.

Visually it should be quite easy: colloid silver is represented by a yellow-to-brown colour, where the hue depends on concentration of silver and the particle size (or the age of the product respectively). Ionic silver products are transparent, the presence of silver ion can be easily verified by adding of the kitchen salt (NaCl) which results in formation of non-soluble silver chloride (AgCl represented by white turbidity). Products manufactured by electrolysis (AC, DC, high or low voltage) are typicaly ionic silver solutions, not colloids.

Colloidal Silver | NANOIRON

nanoiron.cz nanoiron.cz


Biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles from glycyrrhiza glabra root extract


Colloidal silver in various stages of aggregation, (A) clear yellow sol, (B) dark yellow sol, (C) violet sol , and (D) grayish sol, as aggregation proceeds
UV–visible spectroscopy was used for quantification of silver nanoparticle synthesis.
Colloids consist mainly of large nanoparticles having nearly spherical shape particles of size 20–
30 nm. It is clear from the images (Fig. 2 and 3) that the particles in colloid are well-dispersed
with a more uniform size 20 nm.

 
TrippleDip

TrippleDip

Well-Known Member
Should all be the same, but when I got one that was really dark brown it did nothing. Silver particles too big to enter the cells maybe?
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
growerNshower said:
Colloidal silver is junk IMO. Best bet is to try making it fresh at home. My understanding is the shelf life of colloidal silver is very short and it can be difficult to know the concentration of a homemade prep. You may have better luck with STS or try Matt Riot's reversal solution. Good luck.
Click to expand...
Colloidal silver actually lasts for ages and I've been making my own for about 7 years tho never used it on plants. I got the chemicals for making STS tho had to make my own silver nitrate from a .9999 silver coin from the post office and boiling concentrated nitric acid. Took forever to find the sodium thiosulphate but found a chem supply place in Ontario and got 500g for $22. $69 for Purolator to get it to me as it's shipped as a hazardous material but have enough for 10 lifetimes now. :)

STS has a pretty short shelf life and should be refrigerated after the final mixing up so I wonder about the stuff they sell online. Supposedly only good for a month or two if kept cold.

:peace:
 
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