1000w|vert|scrog|coco|KISS donut of love featuring Bodhi gear

g'day Law,
Do you have any beach sand?
Gnats cant go thru sand its Not for making sand castles lol

verticalgrow said:

g'day Law,
Do you have any beach sand?
Gnats cant go thru sand its Not for making sand castles lol

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I sure don't, but I imagine you're aiming for the same idea as I was with the perlite...kill them off in the medium by not allowing them to the top. Is that actually a viable solution or is that just an old wive's tail? Thanks for the tip man.

I'm also wondering if I might not just have actual gnats and not fungus gnats specifically, as this grow is in a garage that has direct access to the outdoors and as such has critters coming and going from time to time. I've always been astoundingly lucky with pests, knocking on wood, so hoping it's just a coincidence since I'm used to slightly more controlled environments when growing.

Perlite is a wivestail i think but no harm in trying.
Fungas gnats dont like dry coco and also try those sticky things if u havent already

lawlrus said:

I'm also wondering if I might not just have actual gnats and not fungus gnats specifically, as this grow is in a garage that has direct access to the outdoors and as such has critters coming and going from time to time. I've always been astoundingly lucky with pests, knocking on wood, so hoping it's just a coincidence since I'm used to slightly more controlled environments when growing.

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do some research on root aphids and see if that might be it as well? I've heard they're easy to mix up.

verticalgrow said:

Perlite is a wivestail i think but no harm in trying.
Fungas gnats dont like dry coco and also try those sticky things if u havent already

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Well unfortunately plants don't like dry coco either, so that's a net loss if I take that approach, and the sticky things seem to be pretty universally poisonous to plant and human alike. Any suggestions for one that isn't so bad?

Plant garlic and spray some garlic oil mix

This growing in a garage shit is for the birds. In addition to some definite transplant shock from being so ridiculously rootbound, we finally had our cold snap and they've been battling temps in the low 60's, which means the rootzone is probably in the 50's if that. They're sad, droopy, and purpling on the stems, looking like amateur hour in there for sure. On top of that, I'm sure there are still gnat larvae in that coco that are waiting for the temperatures to swing back up so they can come flying out, so I still need to figure that out soon as well.

Girlfriend's gonna be pissed but I moved the vegging plants inside today, I can't keep playing this game of temperature extremes as apparently that thing is nowhere near as insulated as I thought. Time to bite the bullet and put an insulated sub-floor in, finish framing in the ceiling, and seal the remaining gaps before the big light goes on and these things go anywhere near that garage again. Really need to get these back on track...

Diatomaceous earth is the stuff that deters gnats in soil. A layer on top and it cuts them up as they pass through it.

ttystikk said:

Diatomaceous earth is the stuff that deters gnats in soil. A layer on top and it cuts them up as they pass through it.

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Good call, that seems to be the consensus among folks who know from what I've seen. Have you tried this yourself by chance? I'll snag some next time I run by Lowe's.

lawlrus said:

Good call, that seems to be the consensus among folks who know from what I've seen. Have you tried this yourself by chance? I'll snag some next time I run by Lowe's.

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I have not, I don't run soil or soilless media.

10-4, I'll give it a shot. DE should be inert right, I imagine that's why it's preferred? Might help diffuse the water during feedings too, could be doubly helpful. Thanks man.

So here's what I have now to mitigate the heat issue, basically built a room within a room. The rootzone is my main concern, so if I can keep that reasonably warm I will be fine with everything else. Now that my transplants finally got warm enough to take root they're looking great again, so they'll stay inside for a couple more days until everything is finished up and I've done a stress test for a few hours to see what the conditions are like. Here's what I have done:

-Old poorly sealed garage door removed, space framed out and insulated with R13 sandwiched with 3/4" plywood and sealed
-Old poorly sealed window removed, space framed out and insulated with 3/4" plywood and R13 as above
-Framed insulated subfloor (3/4" plywood and R13) put in -- basically a "stage" that fits both the 5x5 and 4x4 tent with room to work
-Ceiling framed out and covered with 3/4" Reflectix - connected to "stage"
-Front wall framed out and covered with 3/4" Reflectix -- connected to "stage"
-Entry door fully sealed


So now that I've taken my thrown-together hobby grow and turned it into a god damned ordeal I should probably just seal everything and drop some Co2 in but at this point I just want to get on with the grow.

lawlrus said:

So here's what I have now to mitigate the heat issue, basically built a room within a room. The rootzone is my main concern, so if I can keep that reasonably warm I will be fine with everything else. Now that my transplants finally got warm enough to take root they're looking great again, so they'll stay inside for a couple more days until everything is finished up and I've done a stress test for a few hours to see what the conditions are like. Here's what I have done:

-Old poorly sealed garage door removed, space framed out and insulated with R13 sandwiched with 3/4" plywood and sealed
-Old poorly sealed window removed, space framed out and insulated with 3/4" plywood and R13 as above
-Framed insulated subfloor (3/4" plywood and R13) put in -- basically a "stage" that fits both the 5x5 and 4x4 tent with room to work
-Ceiling framed out and covered with 3/4" Reflectix - connected to "stage"
-Front wall framed out and covered with 3/4" Reflectix -- connected to "stage"
-Entry door fully sealed


So now that I've taken my thrown-together hobby grow and turned it into a god damned ordeal I should probably just seal everything and drop some Co2 in but at this point I just want to get on with the grow.

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Run it once without co2 so you know what it will do, then run it next time to see the difference.

ttystikk said:

Run it once without co2 so you know what it will do, then run it next time to see the difference.

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Not a bad idea. At this point after all this work I probably will end up taking this through the summer even though I normally don't grow during the hot months, bite the bullet and seal it up. I was just lazy as hell going into this and didn't take it seriously enough.

This thread kinda sucks, sorry about the lack of updates, work has been crazy and I've had a few delays finishing up the garage project. Everything's done except for the walls which are going up in a couple of hours, so I'll be moving everything back out of the cramped closet and into the tent again this evening and get some photos when I do so. No flip flop planned anymore, just the 1000w and 400w tents running concurrently with Silver Mountain/Goji and Jabba's Stash respectfully. Gotta say that as much as the Silver Mountain was my main focus, the JS is clearly going to be some night-ending funk, and that Goji is something special as well, I can alraedy tell.

Everything's looking great despite the fact that they've been stuck in a 2x4 space in a closet under a 100w t5 for like two weeks now, but they're ready to get back under the big lights for sure. That leaves me tonight and tomorrow to dial in everything and make sure the environment is on point as I will be heading out of town from Sunday evening through Friday AM for work and need to get it lined up before then.

Alright, back from my trip, let's get this thread back on track. The girlfriend did a pretty good job taking care of things for me, although she really does not like those damned plants at all...I'm just a lucky guy that she's willing to do it for me I suppose. They do look a little less than perfect as she hasn't been watering them to runoff...I just told her a set amount to use and didn't want to make it any more complicated than necessary, but they're not hurting too bad from that. Just did a quick check and I have 11 confirmed females, 3 confirmed males, and 4 unconfirmed but leaning towards male based on stature. Unfortunately I don't have the room or time for a pollen chucking project so the males will be going in the burn pile. The room within the room is working beautifully so no complaints there, environment is all dialed in for now. Once I got the rootzone up to a comfy 68-70 degrees the roots exploded and the plants along with them.

In other news, barely made it home last night through the winter hell storm and it's only getting worse from here. I had some power flickers and I have yet to get my generator down to my new house yet, which was really poor planning. I'm not terribly concerned at the moment because we're in a state of emergency and I'm sure they have a ton of people on call for power outages and similar issues, so I doubt I'll be without power for too long. Just in case I am, however, I have a few hanging LED lightbars and have them charged up ready to go. Certainly not putting out an ideal amount of light but should be enough to keep them from flipping if I end up having an extended outage.

Looking for another week to 10 days of veg and then the flip. I'm thinking that I might be leaving everything in the 1gal fabric pots so I have the ability to feed more frequently, as I had great success last run with the same type of pots...seems to really be no different or maybe even slightly better than, say, a 3 gallon hard-walled pot.

What else...no more flyers visible and I'm not chasing any phantom deficiencies that would make me think I have a pest issue, so fingers crossed that I've got the green light. I didn't really mention my yield goal as quality is really first and foremost, but I'm looking for 48oz minimum from the 1400 total watts. This is of course dependent on a lot of factors, but my guess is that as long as I get the nice 1.5-2x+ stretch I need in the vert tent I'll be sitting pretty.

Here's a pic prior to feeding them today, they're definitely hungry and need some love but like I said, not bad for 5 days of my girlfriend with a black thumb taking care of them.

Site went down right after that last post...here's a shot about 30 minutes later after their first and likely only FIM-job and a proper watering to runoff

These things were hungry and needed to up the dose to 15ml/gal, right now all I'm feeding is Canna A+B and tapwater, not even using rhizotonic as I normally would. I'm happy with KISS approach and have had great results from every coco run I've done using these as the base with nothing else but rhizo and then some powdered koolbloom at the end to finish flowering with, but I'm open to any other suggestions anybody might have too.



That back row and the two on the far right in the row in front of it are the Silver Mountains...all of them have a nice structure, but that one on the very far right and the second row from the back is going to be the all-star, I can feel it. That thing has all the attributes I look for in a vert plant from the structure to the node spacing and everything in between. Excited to see what it does.


edit- god damn that's a bad photo, it's missing half the plants including the Gojis which are looking very promising as well. My one regret is that I ended up with 11, only 10 of which are fully confirmed female, and 6 of those are the Silver Mountains...rather than packing all 6 in the tent, which I should maybe just go ahead and do, I was considering taking the shortest one and sticking it with the two Gojis and the 3 Jabba's Stash in the horizontal tent under the 400w, which would be a nice even 6 in the 1gal fabric pots to finish out strong and not get too tall. Decisions decisions...

hey bud nice thread. Ive got 4 silver mountain in flower at the moment - week 5-6. Like the goji they really go for it in flower, easy 2x stretch. You probably know this already.
For the fungus gnats i use tanlin, sticky traps and nematodes and although it isn't guaranteed to wipe them out it stops them from becoming a problem. I'm subbed up and looking forward to seeing the fruits of your labour.

Quick shot from this AM, getting a bit crowded in there and they're drinking fast, requiring at least 1 good watering to runoff and comfortable with 2 daily already. Still considering leaving the Jabba's and Goji (and possibly that extra Silver Mountain that won't fit as well as I'd like in the vert tent) in the 1gal fabric pots, throwing them in a flood table, and just feeding the ever-loving shit out of them 2-3 times per day. Not feeding them heavy, just often...curious to see what these will do as they really don't seem to show too many symptoms of being rootbound in these fabric pots regardless of how long they run in there, at least in my experience so far.

Either way, at least 5 of the Silver Mountains will be transplanted to 3gal fabric pots this evening and I'll be switching to the 600w MH in the big tent to finish vegging those guys, while moving the rest to the 4x4 tent under the 400w. I'll likely be flipping the small tent in the next few days, particularly if I decide to keep them in the pots they're in now. Did see a couple of flyers that looked like those cocksucker fungus gnats, so I'll probably do the DE thing I didn't do earlier and see if that helps.