First grow (4000watt ebb and flow, rockwool)

[johnny32]

Hello everyone,

This is my first attempt at growing. The light were on when I took the pics, next time I will take them when they are off.

Setup:

4 x 8 inch air cooled hoods
4 x 1000 watt ushio hps lamps
4 x 1000 watt lumatek ballasts
4 trays ( 4x4 )
2 x 500 gph pumps
8 inch inline fan
2 funny fans
8000 btu a/c
*carbon filter coming soon
dyna gro nutes

Transplanted the clones 2 days ago into 6x6in rock wool cubes, the ballasts are set on 600watt now lowest setting. The nutes are at 300ppm, temp is around 22, humidity around 30%. At the moment I'm hand watering each cube because it holds tons of water. The lights are 4 feet away from the plants, had them at 2 feet but the leaves starting burning even though the glass is cool to the touch.

Any input/help will be appreciated.

Pics:

 

[johnny32]

Damn it!

What I thought were dried up droplets of nutes on the leaves turned out they are being attacked by thrips. Nasty silvery patches with black dots everywhere. Went to the local gardening store and picked up Safer's End All II insecticide. Gave them a spray, actually watched one little maggot curl up and die. Hopefully they will pull through.

Has anyone used this product or something similar? They seem to be doing fine at the moment. How long should I wait before watering again?

Pics:

 

[johnny32]

Hello everyone,

End of week 2 veg update:

The thrips are gone for now (knock on wood), yesterday I found 2 jumping spiders but I didn't know they actually ate the the other pests so I removed them. Also added 2 more 40 gallon buckets and 2 more pumps, now every table has its own bucket and pump. Temp is around 77 and humidity is at 50%. The 18/6 cycle started at the beginning of this week. I gradually upped the nutes to 500ppm over this last week. The lights remain at about 3 feet away.

Here are the pics enjoy:

 

[johnny32]

Hello,

End of week 3 veg update:

Decided to switch to using EC for measuring the food. So the EC was at 0.9, ph 5.9. Temp remains around 77, humidity between 50-60%. The lights were lowered to 20 inches from the top of the plants at the beginning of this week. Only fed them once a day this week for 15min, they weren't complaining. For the upcoming week it will be twice a day. They are around 16 inches tall now.

Pics:

 

[johnny32]

Hello,

End of week 4 veg update:

This week they were fed when the lights came on for 15 minutes and then once more 12 hours later. The 15 minutes in my case means it took 5 minutes for the pump to flood the table, then another 10 minutes for it to drain. EC was at 0.9, ph at 5.9, temp at 77 and humidity 50-60%. They are 20" tall now. This is the end of the veg cycle for me, upcoming week flower. For the veg I only used Pro-Tekt and Grow. They easily could have done with EC at 0.7 but I messed up with the ppm conversion at the beginning so I left it at 0.9.

Also whenever the lights go off they get all droopy, when the lights are on they jump back up...

Pics with the lights off:

 

[AlwaysFUBAR]

Nice setup bro. Very clean. I actually thought about switching to the ebb and flow setup. Do you use HPS bulbs for the whole grow? How did the bug killer work out for ya? Deff. Subed for this one.

 

[johnny32]

Thanks, yep using hps the whole time. Next time I will try metal halide for vegging, just wasn't in the budget now.

I've never done this before so I cant comment on other systems but so far this one has been a breeze, however one complaint I have 4 - 40 gallon reservoirs which evaporate and make it a pain to deal with humidity.

The insecticide worked for several days, but the little buggers came back however by that time the plant was strong enough to deal with them. I can still see some spots but only on the very lowest and smallest leaves.

 

[AlwaysFUBAR]

I would recommend throwing some clay pellets in your flood table. The roots need to be in the darks. Also would help on the amout of water needed to fill your table. If nothing else though I would def try and cover the table

 

[johnny32]

I would recommend throwing some clay pellets in your flood table. The roots need to be in the darks. Also would help on the amout of water needed to fill your table. If nothing else though I would def try and cover the table

I tried a single layer of pellets but when the pump goes on they start floating around and some even splash out of the table.

 

[johnny32]

End of week 1 flower:


At the beginning of week 1 I fed them just Pro-Tekt and Bloom at EC 1.2 three times during lights on. However by day 3 they started looking pale, so I threw in some Grow to pump them with some nitrogen and raised the EC to 1.5. In just a day they looked greener and healthier. The temp is at 80 now, humidity still 50-60% with the help of a 25L de humidifier, they are 27" tall.

One more thing I started seeing those f**king thrips again and a lot of them on my lower fan leaves. It looked like a N deficiency but upon closer inspection they were sucking the life out of the big leaves turning them kind of white. This time I sprayed them with Scotts Bug-B-Gon the red cap one. So far so good.

Pics:

 

[johnny32]

Hello,

End of week 2 flower update (day 15):

This week they were fed at 1.5 EC, combination of Dyna's protekt, grow and bloom. Temp is around 80, humidity still 50-60%. They are around 3' tall. For some reason I felt guilty about not adding at least something else to the soup so after doing some reading decided to use some GH floralicious plus (stuff is super concentrated). Damn thrips are still lurking, I seen em. I think thats all for now.

Pics:

 

[johnny32]

Hello,

End of week 3 flower update (day 23)

This week temps rose over 84 even with the air cooled hoods so I switched out the 8000 btu unit to a 11000 btu unit. Temp is now 70 at night and 77 during lights on. The humidity is at 40-46 with the new unit. EC and feed mix remains the same. One of the 40 gallon roughneck totes started seeping pretty heavily (7 weeks of expanding/contracting), had to double it up. Also the stretching stopped. Thats it for now.

Pics:

 

[johnny32]

Hello,

End of week 4 flower update (day 31)

No changes this week.

Pics:

 

[johnny32]

Hello,

End of week 5 flower update (day 37)

No changes this week apart from the fatness of the buds, they started toppling over due to their weight so I had to improvise with the ghetto supports on all the corners and some string. Now I know why people lay out squares with chicken wire or whatnot from the beginning. Definitely a pain in the ass to do this at this stage.

Pics:

 

[johnny32]

Hello,

End of week 6 flower (day 42)

No changes.

Pics:

 

[hxvoc]

wow! nice! i jusr started my 3x3 F&D table. i think i started the nutes a little high for clones around 900ppm. did you see any deficiencies when running your low ppm in early flower? reading al b fucts method i started my clones right at 900 and havent seen any growth 2 weeks in flower.

 

[johnny32]

wow! nice! i jusr started my 3x3 F&D table. i think i started the nutes a little high for clones around 900ppm. did you see any deficiencies when running your low ppm in early flower? reading al b fucts method i started my clones right at 900 and havent seen any growth 2 weeks in flower.

Yes I did, my EC was at 1.1 - 1.2 and I was only feeding the bloom formula in the first week of flower, they started yellowing fast from the bottom up. I then mixed a little of the grow formula and they were still looking a little weak and pale, then I bumped the EC to 1.5-1.6 and they started turning nice and green and continued growing.

 

[johnny32]

Hello,
End of week 7 flower update (day 50)

Only change was switched to bloom only formula until the end.

Pics:

 

[chrishydro]

I would recommend throwing some clay pellets in your flood table. The roots need to be in the darks. Also would help on the amout of water needed to fill your table. If nothing else though I would def try and cover the table

This guy could not be more right on the money. I have had an issue the that in the past, the other way to do it is go buy the felt like small grow pots and put the cubes in them and then fill the rest with the clay pellets, that is what I did. The roots hate the light and need to be kept as dark as posible, I did this when I went from veg to flower and the plants grew two feet very quickly. When I harvested the root balls were giant. You are doing a fantastic job.

 

[johnny32]

This guy could not be more right on the money. I have had an issue the that in the past, the other way to do it is go buy the felt like small grow pots and put the cubes in them and then fill the rest with the clay pellets, that is what I did. The roots hate the light and need to be kept as dark as posible, I did this when I went from veg to flower and the plants grew two feet very quickly. When I harvested the root balls were giant. You are doing a fantastic job.

Thanks, yes next time I will definitely cover the tables at least with some panda film for many reasons.