Stoney McFried
Well-Known Member
This is a large thread, so if this was asked before, 1000 apologies. Al,how do YOU prefer to store seeds for the long term?
Thanks Al, I'll just finish what I have going and start fresh with the next grow...In terms of feeding the plants, there's no problem with switching to inorganic aka 'chemical' nutes.
However, residual organic matter from organic nutes may remain in your rootmasses, which will reduce the effectiveness of H2O2.
Bears mentioning one more time that what the plants are actually eating is N, P & K. Whether the source of your N, P &K is the breakdown components of organic matter or from elemental components, the net result is the same- except that with organic nutes, you really don't know what the actual nute strength which the roots are seeing actually is! With 'chemical' nutes- you know what's going on with some good level of certainty.
Yep, that consistency would be down to the ability to control pathogens at will with H2O2 (as well as introduce O2 in the rootmass) and the highly predictable (and measurable) nature of the available nutrient strength with inorganic nutes.Thanks Al! Great info, I've had the same experience with trying out organics recently. I just can't get the same consistent yield and quality of product with organics.
A dark, dry, cool (10-23C) place. A household fridge isn't ideal because they run at about 5C, where moisture in the air around the beans can condense on the inside of the container.This is a large thread, so if this was asked before, 1000 apologies. Al,how do YOU prefer to store seeds for the long term?
It presents as a Mg deficiency, but if you've fed the plant with any decent fertiliser, it won't be due to absence of Mg.Al, howdy.. any idea what this is?
That's what I'd do.Thanks Al, I'll just finish what I have going and start fresh with the next grow...
Heh, good to see you Geeb- & HNY to you too.Hi Al..
Just wanted to stop by and say hello...
Happy New Year!!!
Keep it Fuct!!!
Okay this is SOOO true man, here is my cry for the day!!!One very important concept: Preponderance isn't proof. A billion ppl can believe something and whack it on a website- and still be wrong. The whole notion of organic growing of cannabis (and vegetables for that matter) is one of those things that a lot of folks subscribe to, don't understand the science, yet swear up & down that it's better... PLACEBO EFFECT, folks!
Better living through chemistry.
However, I have to advise against this method.
Your nute meter tells you about the electrical conductivity (EC) of a solution based upon total dissolved salts/solids (TDS). It can't tell you how much N, P or K individually exist in the solution.
If you run a tank of nutes for a while, your plants will eat a certain amount of each nutrient- but they won't eat the same amount of each. Let's propose that the nute maker intends a mixed tank of nutes at the correct strength, say 1000ppm, to be NPK 10-15-10. Over a certain period of time, let's say 2 weeks, the plants will consume (for discussion's sake) 60% of the N, 50% of the P and 80% of the K. The ratio is then 4-7.5-2.
If you add nutrient concentrate to this partially eaten tank to return the EC to 1000ppm, you're not going to wind up with 10-15-10. Your EC/TDS meter will tell you that your solution has the right 1000ppm conductivity, but the actual NPK ratios are completely unknown to you.
If you had a meter that could identify the individual amounts of N, P & K remaining in the nute soln AND you had individual jugs of liquid N, P & K, you could feasibly correct the remnant nute solution back to 10-15-10 at 1000ppm- but you have neither (unless the meter you're using happens to be a several-hundred thousand dollar lab standard mass spectrometer, which IS capable of identifying and quantifying individual elements dissolved in a solution).
Given the best tool we have in a common hydro op for measuring nute strength is a TDS meter, the best way to manage nute solns is to run them for about 2 weeks, dump and mix completely new sauce.
If you provide about 5L of rez tank volume per plant, the EC of the soln (in ppm) will remain fairly constant, even as the level of the soln drops (from both evaporation and plants' water usage).
Thank you greatly, kind sirkewl.
wow, you remember more than I do. Fuct if I know where I wrote that!
I can tell you off the cuff that I water clones 2x daily at 12h intervals, takes 5-10 mins.
I only look in on the flowering and vegging areas every 2-3 days, also 5-10 mins for routine checks, just to make sure the watering systems haven't crapped out and to squirt about 125ml of 50% H2O2 into each of the 125L flowering tanks and 50ml into the 50L mother plant tank.
Every 2 weeks, I get busy as hell for about 3 days. There's a harvest, which takes about 2x 12h days of nose to the grindstone manicuring. When I'm done manicuring, the clones which have set root get potted up and chucked in the flowering area, about an hour to pack 23 pots with rockwool & Fytocell. Then, I'll do a batch of 30 cuttings, about an hour or so. Last of the biweekly tasks is dumping tanks and mixing up new batches of sauce.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Yep, that would have put your actual pH at 5.5 if you were shooting for 5.8. You've found the cause of your stunted growth, for sure.Edit: I just calibrated my pH pen, it came up 7.3, .3 over.. i have been lockin out mg without a doubt!
I'd be cheesed, too. Cooltubes allow a 1000 to be placed as close as a 600 and they also dump all the lamp heat outside the room.LOOK IM JUST ANGRY CAUSE I PAID 4 two 600ws when should have got 2x1000W
These are compared when using cooltubes!!!
Not so. It's true that the rootmass of plants which are introduced as just-rooted clones to the flowering area will rarely fully fill a 175mm dia pot by the end of wk8, but mother plants, kept too long (more than abt 12 wks), definitely will get rootbound- and it can kill the plant in worst cases, as an excessively tightly packed rootmass will restrict nute soln circ throughout the mass.3. IMO Also there is no such thing as root bound
EC will stay flat as the water level drops if there's sufficient rez tank volume for the number of plants you're running. 5L/plant works well.Yea, as my water level drops my ppm stays nice and flat at about 1000 @.5 .
I'd still disadvise against this method. You're not saving any money by keeping 1/4 tank of old sauce and you're not getting the NPK ratio that the nute maker intends. Dump it all, clean the tanks as needed and start fresh every 2 wks.No guesswork.I've had pretty good luck with it but the blend has to be right and the uptake on the system has to be really healthy. If you're not adding back at least 75% of the water volume when doing this then there is too much of the original soup with its inherent imbalance in the new mix.
Yep, you can run all plants on a single tank, but in tray-based flood systems, 4 separate tanks fit under the trays, saving floorspace. Also, with 4 pumps, you're spreading out the potential damage caused by failure of a pump. Pretty unlikely that all 4 would croak at once, but cheap centrifugal water pumps do fail fairly regularly. They die after about 12-18mos, sometimes sooner.I also run perpetual (inspired by U ) so on my 24 site flooding bucket system I run 4 stages of flowersing growth all on the same rez.
no wucking furries.Thank you greatly, kind sir
The former.Just a quick point to clarify - so you only check your vegging/flowering plants every 2-3 days, for 10-15 minutes?
Or you do 10-15 minutes a day, and every 2-3 days you spend more time in there?
Thanks.Glad to have you around Al. We need the wisdom. +rep
How many plants are you running? You should have enough rez capacity to provide 5L per plant.Hey Al B, Just wondering what your thoughts are on a res tank, Im finding it runs for a about a week, then its only 1/4 full...
160L tank filling a 1100mmx1100mm I flood once a day sometimes twice.
Yep, you can expect a lot of evaporation at the temps you're talking about- got to get the temps down to 26C, 27 on the high and outside- but not for the sake of reducing evaporation. At 30C, the plants will bolt (stretch). The internodal spaces will be huge- much like the pic you show. You'll also get thin, weedy buds.I live in Qld, its berry, berry hot here on most days...
Anyways I lose alot of water through evaporation I think, do you think I should just top up with water, or do you think I should just make a new batch every week like I have been, its just that Im going threw the nutes fast, even though I always use the minimum amount its says on the canna bottle 2.5ml-3.5ml per Litre, Id use 2.5ml.
Also I started to use an A/C however its costs shit loads to run even at 15 mins per hour, and I noticed it sent my RH threw the roof reaching 91%, when I dont use my A/C Im finding that my room reach temp 35 deg and RH no higher than 67, am I going to have to get a dehumidifier instead? Im just trying to cut back on power usage, Im mega scared of using too much power????
I run 2x1000HPS 12/12 for flowering and 1x400HPS 24/0 for mums, also about 150W worth of fluoros in the clonebox, no aircon. Never had any problems with that level of power usage.Also you got any thoughts on how much is too much power to use, I got a 6 bedroom house and a fluffy dog?
If you are running a SoG op, where clones are put in to flower immediately after they set root (with no vegging, before flowering aside from the 18+h/day fluoro light they should be getting while they are setting root), with decent HPS lighting (about 50W/sq ft of HPS for flowering) they should finish up at about 1m tall (from the media tops). They should be at or very close to their finishing height in wk4 of flowering.In regards to the root bound comment I made, I am wonder how I am to grow such tall big plants In small pots, when will these flowering plants be root bound how am I to tell they are in week4 in flowering?
Bit of advice- don't try 'new stuff.' Find a competent grower on this or another pot board and copy their op to the letter. Tried and true will get you good results- and that's what you're after, not re-inventing the wheel.I like many people am trying to replicate something like your op, but I like to try new stuff/different stuff "Im like that cat that died from curiosity"
Your plants are suffering stretch from excessively high temps. The internodal spaces are huge, 3-4x what they should be. If you keep going the way you are, your buds will be thin and weedy, too.here is 3 of my cherry plant, normally I only have flowering plants 50cm tall. Plenty of popcorn cherries here?
Thanks for taking the time, good sir - hope your 2010 works out well for you in the interim.aaaaaaaaaand with that, I'm outta here for a couple of weeks. Got to get back to my reg'lar work.