MrHowardMarks' experienced grower journal.

[MrHowardMarks]

That's why I got it, reports say the truncheon is the most durable TDS meter on the market.

Al B. Fuct recommended I get it as my next probe because he likes his so much.

I had a Bluelab Trimeter, but the control unit (box) fell into the resevoir one too many times... And it's expensive to replace.

I still use my Eutech pH pro meter, it's lasted 8 years with only 1 probe replacement.

The eutech ppm meter I had only lasted 2 years.


Also, some topical knowledge... Don't keep you ballasts near the resevoir or where you do you water testing.

Digital ballast's signals interfere with the probe, giving erradic readings... If the readings jump around, and the ballasts are nearby, that's the reason... Might be considered common knowledge, but I figure some of you didn't know it...

 

[MrHowardMarks]

My room, new page...

 

[Thundercat]

$140, is that available at any hydro store? Thats not too bad of a price, would I still need a ph meter if I got that?

So MHM, have you had any experiance with re-vegging? I have been debating on how I was gonna decide on mother plants, and I've been bouncing around a couple Ideas. One thing I read suggested growing the plants out completely so you can see all respects of the growth of the plants, then picking the ones I want, and revegging them. What do you think of this?

 

[MrHowardMarks]

Actually 140 bucks is the most expensive TDS meter they had... The Hanna combo meter is 80 bucks and it does temp and pH as well.

The Eutech is 80 bucks, and I think the milwaukee is like 60...

You will have to get a seperate pH meter, and sadly to say the Bluelab truncheon pH isn't that great... I'll stand by the eutech on pH, mine's on its eighth year running.

Always keep your probes clean once a week, and I always calibrate once a month, just to make sure everything is in line.

Outta the box the truncheon is precalibrated, and it supposedly never needs recalibration, but I'll check it every now and then to make sure everything is in check.


As far as you question on re-vegging thundercat, I can't recommend flowering a plant and re-vegging it out for a mother. That is way too much stress, and the likelyhood of it coming back isn't that great. On top of that it'll take at least a month to revitalize and be healthy.

The alternative is to take some clones now, and either flower the clones, and save the seed mother (what I'm doing) or flower the mother and keep the clones alive for mothers.

This will definately save you a lot of hassle, and time.

Clone the moms...

 

[Thundercat]

Thats what I had been planning on doing. (taking clones, sexing, and flowering them, and saving the female seedmothers) I was just considering differant things I had read. I won't actually be starting for another week or 2. I will prolly try to germinate at newyears like I was talking about in my thread. I have to talk to my landlord, I was gonna have him do some work in my bathroom( its mostly cosmetic) but I'm gonna tell him not to worry about it, we have lived with it for 3 months, we can live with it for another 9. I really want to get my grow going. I still need to get a few things, I used part of my supplies for my weed grow on my mushroom grow, lol. But I suppose the mushrooms will help pay for the weed!!

Sorry to ramble, you mentioned the hanna combo meter that does ph as well as tds and ec. Is that a decent meter? Let me put it this way. In my last grows, I didn't so much as check my tap water ph, or even think about it. Things went pretty well, but I want them to get way better. So I figured making sure ph, and ppm were good would be wise. I previsouly used very light amounts of nutes, never had burn or serious deficiancies(slight p def, had light purple on some stems). But this time, I want to beef these girls up!!

My tap water ph is high, I'm looking into a distiller, or RO system. I was planning on adding lime to my soil, and silica with my nutes, so I think I am going to be going through a ton of ph down. I figured having a more accurate meter should make this process much simpler.

 

[MrHowardMarks]

Post #666

All heil the dark lord




The Hanna meter will do what you need it for, it's a hella lot better than no meter.

And what I originally thought when sexing my plants that I would have to flower them to determine sex, but, after I cut the first tray of clones, and they were a month old, the mothers showed sex, so I was able to sex before flowering.

This whole ordeal took a lot longer than expected... Filling a room from a few seeds is a ton of work, and a fairly large investment of time and money.

You can purchase RO water, if you want to, because the cheapest RO I've found was 150, and it's slow, a decent one is 300 bucks... But, if your tap water is alright, under 250 ppm, then I wouldn't worry to much about it. The minerals in tap water are removed by the RO so you'll have to add micro, and some MgCal... If you plan on using RO water...

 

[Thundercat]

Didn't have a completed plan yet, lol. Thats why we're talkin MHM. I'll have to get the meter, and I can check my tap water for ppm, let that make the decision. I'm not gonna be filling a room like yours, just a tent but I want to be able to get 3 harvests in 8 months. One of those will be 2 plants I scrog, and will veg longer then the rest. The others will be 10 plant clone harvests which I was going to put into 12/12 once they had roots. I suppose at some point I will take some final clones of the mothers, and flower the mothers. I'll keep the new clones small, and they can move with me.

 

[MrHowardMarks]

Wow, 20,000 views... All before flowering begins...

Thundercat-
Sounds like a plan... I'd suggest vegging the clones for a week before putting them into flower, to get past the young retarded growth...

 

[Nacho420]

So what would you suggest? One smaller grow of 9 plants every month or a larger grow of 18 plants every 2 months considering both sets of 9 plants (9 taken from the veg stage and 9 nearing harvest) would have to share the same res, and in turn the same nutrients.

The seedlings are going well, four have sprouted up already and I only just moved them into the plugs (1/2 rockwool, 1/2 rapid rooters) Monday night. I soaked the plugs in 5.5 pH water with 1/4 strength rooting solution and have them on a heat mat and under a couple of growlux bulbs. So far it's looking like the rapid rooters are doing the best with 3 out of the 4 sprouted plants in them.

 

[MrHowardMarks]

18 plants definately in the way you're describing, haveing 9 and 9 run on the same resevoir won't work, they'll need different feeding regiments...

Plus the shortest flowering cycle is 45 days, not a month, longer sativas take more than 60 days.

 

[Nacho420]

Well it would be 2 months in the flowering stage because there would be 2 sets of 9 with one being harvested each month, but yeah, I see what your saying.

Thanks again

 

[sootron]

It seems like tap water is the most convinient way if the measurings worked out alright...at least for small personal grows.
have ever done a test with distilled water?

I can't wait till I see yur babies fire up soon

 

[sootron]

oh yeah,
have a nice xmas!

 

[MrHowardMarks]

Merry Christmas.


I think there's something funky about using distilled water... Not too sure, but I think it messes something up, maybe I'm wrong IDK

But yeah, tap water is fine, just airate it so all the chlorine evaporates and you're good.

But I'd say RO is more for small personal grows, due to the amount of waste water, and time necessary to create enough clean water...


the lights are off for 24 hours today

The bloom has begun.

 

[Nacho420]

The bloom has begun.

That's what I like to hear !!

 

[bryant228]

Merry Christmas.


I think there's something funky about using distilled water... Not too sure, but I think it messes something up, maybe I'm wrong IDK

But yeah, tap water is fine, just airate it so all the chlorine evaporates and you're good.

But I'd say RO is more for small personal grows, due to the amount of waste water, and time necessary to create enough clean water...


the lights are off for 24 hours today

The bloom has begun.

So why do you turn your lights off for 24 hours? Never heard of that before. Grow is looking great. I check your journal every day.

 

[Nacho420]

I believe it's an optional technique to jumpstart the plants into the flowering stage. It gives them 24 hours of dark and then starts them into 12 - 12 to have them start on the big buds sooner.... I think

 

[sootron]

so i guess ro with neccesary stuff added would be the way for a smaller grow..
could you be specific what ro water is missing and what to do?
sorry if it has been mentioned earlier

 

[MrHowardMarks]

Yeah Nacho, they're ing 24 hours of darkness... Actually 30 hours, because the extra 6 I wanted to cut off are earlier in the day... I was running 18/6...



-RO water doesn't have anything in it other than H2O... No minerals nothing...

Adding micro will get the proper minerals back in the water, and MgCal will add the needed calcium and magnesium.

I'd start the regiment by bumping the RO water up 100 ppm with the micro, then add the proper amounts of all the other ingredients. With advanced it's at a rate of 3 mL per gallon.

 

[Nacho420]

MHM, is that a picture from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas? I have a similar picture on my wall, not the same though.