13’x30’ 8k de build, 32 site DIY top feed hydro

BigHornBuds

BigHornBuds

Well-Known Member
drgreentm said:
Nice, sounds like a killer setup, how you growing? Welcome and thanks for the kind words.
Click to expand...

I’m growing in 10g root master pots with promix , hand watering , because I don’t have the room for multiple res’ etc, things are tight, I got a lot goin on in a little space.
This room is setup , that each light is its own cycle , so every 2ish weeks I cut 25% of the room(1light) I cut , clean, refill , in a few hours , no down time.
There’s lots of ups with this setup, lots of downs too, I like experimenting and learning, when I’m not enjoying it anymore, I’ll flip the switch n shut it down. But I love smoking bubble hash too much to ever quit growing I think.


Sorry about the bugs
If you want to look at some natural routes here’s a couple links .
I’ve never had to fight mealbugs . So have no 1st hand experience. But this company is good to deal with. There’s probably a US company just as good if you look.

http://www.naturalinsectcontrol.com/subcat.php?cat=5&subcat=19

http://www.naturalinsectcontrol.com/product.php?id=000000145
 
drgreentm

drgreentm

Well-Known Member
BigHornBuds said:
I’m growing in 10g root master pots with promix , hand watering , because I don’t have the room for multiple res’ etc, things are tight, I got a lot goin on in a little space.
This room is setup , that each light is its own cycle , so every 2ish weeks I cut 25% of the room(1light) I cut , clean, refill , in a few hours , no down time.
There’s lots of ups with this setup, lots of downs too, I like experimenting and learning, when I’m not enjoying it anymore, I’ll flip the switch n shut it down. But I love smoking bubble hash too much to ever quit growing I think.


Sorry about the bugs
If you want to look at some natural routes here’s a couple links .
I’ve never had to fight mealbugs . So have no 1st hand experience. But this company is good to deal with. There’s probably a US company just as good if you look.

http://www.naturalinsectcontrol.com/subcat.php?cat=5&subcat=19

http://www.naturalinsectcontrol.com/product.php?id=000000145
Click to expand...
Awesome thanks I will check it out.
Your setup sounds great, I’m sure perpetual gets pretty tiresome for sure. Can’t ever really shut it down lol I mean ya for a while but it always comes back around and usually bigger and better lol.

Stripped one plant down about as far as I want to get her and spared with 50/50 iso alcohol and water mix, then scrubbed the nasty little crustaceans off and doesn’t look bad going to hit with more again soon and if anything I will be using some spinosad.

A804685E-9A21-43ED-8A3D-60BB77EA67DE.jpeg
Sure I missed a few but man what a difference.
 
smokebros

smokebros

Well-Known Member
Respect.

Just stumbled across this reading through coldsmoke's journal. Nice setup. Clean. I got a couple pages in but I plan on toking one up and reading through the rest soon. Subbed up, I figure I could learn a thing or two.
 
N

Ncs0816

Active Member
BigHornBuds said:
I’m going to guess here.

From the color of the main stock, when they where young, you up potted to soon, and watered to much n had a major Ca/Mg problem, and possibly have bugs in the soil.
Had them doing better then hit them with a heavy feed and now they are locked out .
I don’t think the curl is from light intensity because the lower leaves are curling 1st
I can see a plant in the back ground the did a more normal burn (yellowing tips) this one salted up n locked out. Letting them dry out to much is bad too.

I would calibrate your ph pen & ppm pen
If you don’t have one , get them n the cal fluid,
Then mix ph 6.5 RO water & flush
Once you see run off , check ph & ppm
If it’s running out at 5 , bring up the ph of the flush water to 7-7.5 , you want to bring down the ph run of to 6-6.5 and a low ppm
Check for very small bugs in the run off.

The last bit of water I run through the flush has a light dose of veg a&b n ca/mg n a root stimulus (25%ish dose)

I do this because you just stripped the medium and they need something while they dry out.
Click to expand...

I flushed with RO water at 6.5

PH came back at 6.2

I don' think it' heats stress either. So I'm guessing it' something in the soil. Like mites or gnats?? The plant was showing the exact same symptoms about 1 month ago. So I was afraid there was something wrong with the soil.....so I pulled the pot and trashed the old soil and put new soil in a different pot. While waiting to transplant I drenched the soil in clean PHd RD water for 30 minutes.

Things started to look great and after a week the Plant went back to looking helthy but last week the sympoms started showing up again
 
Cold$moke

Cold$moke

Well-Known Member
smokebros said:
Respect.

Just stumbled across this reading through coldsmoke's journal. Nice setup. Clean. I got a couple pages in but I plan on toking one up and reading through the rest soon. Subbed up, I figure I could learn a thing or two.
Click to expand...
Nah i dont think i posted anything educational lol
 
Cold$moke

Cold$moke

Well-Known Member
drgreentm said:
Awesome thanks I will check it out.
Your setup sounds great, I’m sure perpetual gets pretty tiresome for sure. Can’t ever really shut it down lol I mean ya for a while but it always comes back around and usually bigger and better lol.

Stripped one plant down about as far as I want to get her and spared with 50/50 iso alcohol and water mix, then scrubbed the nasty little crustaceans off and doesn’t look bad going to hit with more again soon and if anything I will be using some spinosad.

View attachment 4101524
Sure I missed a few but man what a difference.
Click to expand...
Was the 50/50 hot enough to crisp up a few if your leaves?

It burnt like a handfull of leaves on each plant
Im totally cool with it though its worth the trade to be pest free again :)
 
Cold$moke

Cold$moke

Well-Known Member
If it did i foun the 1part to 4 parts water worked to kill any hatchlings and didnt hurt the plant.

Forgot to mention a drop or 2 of dish soap :)
 
BigHornBuds

BigHornBuds

Well-Known Member
Ncs0816 said:
I flushed with RO water at 6.5

PH came back at 6.2

I don' think it' heats stress either. So I'm guessing it' something in the soil. Like mites or gnats?? The plant was showing the exact same symptoms about 1 month ago. So I was afraid there was something wrong with the soil.....so I pulled the pot and trashed the old soil and put new soil in a different pot. While waiting to transplant I drenched the soil in clean PHd RD water for 30 minutes.

Things started to look great and after a week the Plant went back to looking helthy but last week the sympoms started showing up again
Click to expand...

Did you look for very small bugs when you flushed ? They will float n probably be moving or jumping .
 
BigHornBuds

BigHornBuds

Well-Known Member
Just an FYI on the sentinel controller
I hate light , even the smallest green light at dark. Like I said , I put the controller on the outside of my room so I can monitor 24/7
I was in there on the dark cycle, and even with a lot of black tape on the sensor, I could still see the blinking green light.
I took it apart and cut the light out, at the top of the white plastic washer thing , and put black crazy glue on it. It works just fine,
So you don’t have to worry about fucking anything up, if you want to cut the light too, lots of gold in there too.
 
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drgreentm

drgreentm

Well-Known Member
What’s up guys, been reading a ton trying to figure out what is up with my chem’s and believe it is absolutely pinned down now. My typical mentality is to go to the highest extreme first isntead of the opposite. Well I read a load on fungi, mold and tons of other plant illnesses. I had my self utterly convinced my girls had stem blight, more than likely caused by rhizoctonia root rot which infect the stock and above the soil (symptoms very similar to mine). Now it was very similar but not the same and I was thinking “how can they have a serious condition, no treatment and they still be alive? was flipping out, thinking they wherent going to make it because the stocks where getting even further covered in, what appears to be brown fuzz. Also the cankers on main stock make me quiver. A quick google search an Finally found a picture of these exact spots forming on a tomato plant. They say they are called
“Root primordia” Which is just the plant attempting to root above ground, which is typically caused by stress and typically for a root damage. I am relieved at this point but concerned about the roots, because everything seems to point in that direction. So I grab the largest Chem 4 and decide to pull it out of its pot and this is what I find.
29EB3F34-A2DB-4583-A214-AA50C65D333E.jpeg
very underdeveloped roots for The size of these plants that are rock hard bricks that couldn’t take up nearly enough water/food to suffice for a plant it’s size!!
EDIT: That root ball was maybe 2.5-3 gallons worth of space sitting in a 7 gallon pot, what a waste.
So perlite retains a reasonable amount of water, ya it does, except for only in the path that the water travels in the pot, so the small water channels where the only source of nutrition to the plant and roots could not progress further because beyond the feed rings diameter the perlite was too dry and salty for them to occupy the space, so needing to promote better and deeper root growth I grabbed some rockwool mini cubes from the local Hydro store, figured it would promote roots to travel farther and deeper because it absorbs water and keep saturation even throughout the pot. Mixed 50-50 (wool to perlite) and broke down and trimmed hard on the root zone to get rid of the brown oldies to make room for the new goodies. I am Just now learning that perlite is unstable for this type of Hydro system, it literally leaches out the salts as a thin film of water channels down the pot It pulls in the water, leaving the salts behind, Yet another big problem to contend with. I was Only able to do one today and looking forward to doing the rest tomorrow. Here is a few more pics from today.

Room is getting full!!! Wasn’t planning to have to veg for this amount of time but did not want to introduce flower while they where stressed like this....
7E998528-07A7-4B20-99A5-75F6571E7BDA.jpeg

1164A4FB-3222-412A-9D2E-ABE2A25D7C9F.jpeg
Cookies are netted up and eagerly awaiting the flip:bigjoint:
93269A1C-A802-418B-94E1-5F7339CEBA08.jpeg
Trim up’s for flower, as soon as the chems are showing a positive turn around.
DFBF5B46-0CF5-4B51-8B39-6ACCBCBCC526.jpeg
Nice and fluffy:lol:
CEBEF343-3BC9-428A-AC75-1D111750A2DD.jpeg
Also pyrethrum fogged the room for 2 hours and 3 days later hit them with a new product called venerate from marone bio innovations and I am loving it, totally organic proteobacteria (Burkholderia) that murders mites quick. Check it out, also going to be grabbing there Grendivo (bioinsectacide) and Regina (biofunguside) as a preemptive step in keeping things on the right track meanwhile not harming beneficial’s.

EDIT: also need to get a little something better for the roots. I am running a Zyme that is part of the line I am using but not sure what bennies are involved in it. Was thinking maybe Great White as it seems to have almost every type of beneficial bacteria there is lol anyone have any experience with it, I’m interested. I have always run my res’s sterile (hypochlorouse acid) but after reading about the numerous different bacteria’s and what they do for your roots and your plants, it just amazed me.

Also if anyone has any experience with a flushing agent I would like to know if they work and are worth the coin. I flushed yesterday and started out with 20 ppm of RO and within the first feeding of all the plants it came back at 750 ppm of solid salt. The addition of rockwool cubes may solve this salt problem but just wondering if anybody had any suggestions just in case.
 
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BigHornBuds

BigHornBuds

Well-Known Member
I’ve used and not used flushing agents
The difference when not using the agents was i was left with more money in my pocket.

I like to flush with ph adjusted RO water
After I’m getting close to the PH/PPM I want to see, I’ll switch to a mild feed (25% strength ish) I give A&B, Ca/mg, and a root stimulus . Then let them recover. N back to feeding , I don’t think you where over feeding , just was the wrong medium for your system.
If I’m going to induced a lot of stress in my room I try to do it as close to the dark cycle as I can.

Very interested in the Rockwool cubes
I’ve been looking at them, thinking , is it time for a change? Bang for buck. I like promix over coco, but both are dirty, n always cleaning up the dirt that blows on the ground etc . I think the cubes will cut down on cleaning the floors etc .
To bad about the perlite , I thought it looked good and clean , good to know not to run as the main ingredient.
I have used as much as 50% perlite ,
 
N

Ncs0816

Active Member
When they start to Stretch after you Flip to flower are you going to Attach the ducting to the DEs. I read somewhere that you don't want open faced DEs closer then 4 feet. Can you verify this?
 
Carolina Dream'n

Carolina Dream'n

Well-Known Member
drgreentm said:
What’s up guys, been reading a ton trying to figure out what is up with my chem’s and believe it is absolutely pinned down now. My typical mentality is to go to the highest extreme first isntead of the opposite. Well I read a load on fungi, mold and tons of other plant illnesses. I had my self utterly convinced my girls had stem blight, more than likely caused by rhizoctonia root rot which infect the stock and above the soil (symptoms very similar to mine). Now it was very similar but not the same and I was thinking “how can they have a serious condition, no treatment and they still be alive? was flipping out, thinking they wherent going to make it because the stocks where getting even further covered in, what appears to be brown fuzz. Also the cankers on main stock make me quiver. A quick google search an Finally found a picture of these exact spots forming on a tomato plant. They say they are called
“Root primordia” Which is just the plant attempting to root above ground, which is typically caused by stress and typically for a root damage. I am relieved at this point but concerned about the roots, because everything seems to point in that direction. So I grab the largest Chem 4 and decide to pull it out of its pot and this is what I find.
View attachment 4104294
very underdeveloped roots for The size of these plants that are rock hard bricks that couldn’t take up nearly enough water/food to suffice for a plant it’s size!!
EDIT: That root ball was maybe 2.5-3 gallons worth of space sitting in a 7 gallon pot, what a waste.
So perlite retains a reasonable amount of water, ya it does, except for only in the path that the water travels in the pot, so the small water channels where the only source of nutrition to the plant and roots could not progress further because beyond the feed rings diameter the perlite was too dry and salty for them to occupy the space, so needing to promote better and deeper root growth I grabbed some rockwool mini cubes from the local Hydro store, figured it would promote roots to travel farther and deeper because it absorbs water and keep saturation even throughout the pot. Mixed 50-50 (wool to perlite) and broke down and trimmed hard on the root zone to get rid of the brown oldies to make room for the new goodies. I am Just now learning that perlite is unstable for this type of Hydro system, it literally leaches out the salts as a thin film of water channels down the pot It pulls in the water, leaving the salts behind, Yet another big problem to contend with. I was Only able to do one today and looking forward to doing the rest tomorrow. Here is a few more pics from today.

Room is getting full!!! Wasn’t planning to have to veg for this amount of time but did not want to introduce flower while they where stressed like this....
View attachment 4104296

View attachment 4104305
Cookies are netted up and eagerly awaiting the flip:bigjoint:
View attachment 4104297
Trim up’s for flower, as soon as the chems are showing a positive turn around.
View attachment 4104298
Nice and fluffy:lol:
View attachment 4104304
Also pyrethrum fogged the room for 2 hours and 3 days later hit them with a new product called venerate from marone bio innovations and I am loving it, totally organic proteobacteria (Burkholderia) that murders mites quick. Check it out, also going to be grabbing there Grendivo (bioinsectacide) and Regina (biofunguside) as a preemptive step in keeping things on the right track meanwhile not harming beneficial’s.

EDIT: also need to get a little something better for the roots. I am running a Zyme that is part of the line I am using but not sure what bennies are involved in it. Was thinking maybe Great White as it seems to have almost every type of beneficial bacteria there is lol anyone have any experience with it, I’m interested. I have always run my res’s sterile (hypochlorouse acid) but after reading about the numerous different bacteria’s and what they do for your roots and your plants, it just amazed me.

Also if anyone has any experience with a flushing agent I would like to know if they work and are worth the coin. I flushed yesterday and started out with 20 ppm of RO and within the first feeding of all the plants it came back at 750 ppm of solid salt. The addition of rockwool cubes may solve this salt problem but just wondering if anybody had any suggestions just in case.
Click to expand...
If you are not DTW I would not recommend any kind of beneficial batteries. Just keep it sterile, it's safer and much more cost effective.

Your roots look like a plant that was watered too frequently. Never teaching the plant to go send out its roots to find water. Gotta really dial in that watering the first few weeks of veg to get explosive growth. You want you media to get to 25-35% water content (I'm referring to rockwool here, not sure about perlite) then feed again.

Also I do not recommend flushing with pure RO water. It's going to make an osmotic reaction in the root zone and suck every little thing out. Try flushing with a very low ppm instead. Maybe 15-20% of what you have been feeding.
 
drgreentm

drgreentm

Well-Known Member
Ncs0816 said:
No bugs

I guess I just suck at this growing thing
Click to expand...
Doubt that is the case, believe me we all go through this it doesn’t matter the experience of the grower, it happens to us all. I am going through it right now. Sometimes everything comes down at once, you may have a few things wrong but it could actually be a whole lot of things wrong at the same time. It’s perseverance that separates the good growers from the bad. I have been doing this for a long time and I’m still learning every day, I am always researching trying to find the best answer possible sometimes that just doesn’t happen. Just keep looking. Post up Some more pictures so we can help you out. Are you already in flower?
 
drgreentm

drgreentm

Well-Known Member
Carolina Dream'n said:
If you are not DTW I would not recommend any kind of beneficial batteries. Just keep it sterile, it's safer and much more cost effective.

Your roots look like a plant that was watered too frequently. Never teaching the plant to go send out its roots to find water. Gotta really dial in that watering the first few weeks of veg to get explosive growth. You want you media to get to 25-35% water content (I'm referring to rockwool here, not sure about perlite) then feed again.

Also I do not recommend flushing with pure RO water. It's going to make an osmotic reaction in the root zone and suck every little thing out. Try flushing with a very low ppm instead. Maybe 15-20% of what you have been feeding.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the heads up on the Benny’s brother, I have always run a sterile res was just wondering about the Benny’s. On my next run I will be running drain to waste more than likely with rockwool cube and I am going to line my trays with Rockwall slabs and do a top drip drain to wayste.

The roots are very weird, I have never had this problem before. I was expecting to pull this plant and these routes would be much larger. I am in the process of getting my water tested because I have a well that is very high in parts per million and have heard it can be associated with high levels of boric acid that can cause all sorts of deficiencies and toxicities. It is also not able to be completely removed via RO filtration.

Also I have been flushing with Cal mag as well as pH correct water. Last time I flushed with straight RO I wanted to see the return or run off of my plants in a whole. It went in at 20 ppm and came out after the first water in at 700 ppm which scares me.

Thank you for the help is much appreciated as sometimes I feel like I’m losing my mind LOL.
 
Carolina Dream'n

Carolina Dream'n

Well-Known Member
drgreentm said:
Thank you for the heads up on the Benny’s brother, I have always run a sterile res was just wondering about the Benny’s. On my next run I will be running drain to waste more than likely with rockwool cube and I am going to line my trays with Rockwall slabs and do a top drip drain to wayste.

The roots are very weird, I have never had this problem before. I was expecting to pull this plant and these routes would be much larger. I am in the process of getting my water tested because I have a well that is very high in parts per million and have heard it can be associated with high levels of boric acid that can cause all sorts of deficiencies and toxicities. It is also not able to be completely removed via RO filtration.

Also I have been flushing with Cal mag as well as pH correct water. Last time I flushed with straight RO I wanted to see the return or run off of my plants in a whole. It went in at 20 ppm and came out after the first water in at 700 ppm which scares me.

Thank you for the help is much appreciated as sometimes I feel like I’m losing my mind LOL.
Click to expand...
What ppm had you been feeding at before that?

700 ppm is not that high (it's not that low either) in a root zone, you have to keep in consideration that you flushed with RO so it's gonna pull every last salt out of your root zone.

I haven't flushed plants in so long, dial in your feedings and you'll start to notice you don't need to flush. As flushing is done to remove excess salts. I haven't gone above 1.4 EC in many runs and plants are never deficient.
 
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