2010 #1 - Indoor Coco-Perlite Hindu Kush & Hailley's Comet 400w

asaph

Well-Known Member
Hello everyone, welcome to my first grow journal. This is sorta my third grow, the first was very successful but with crappy genes, the second was stopped early because good genes arrived.

Me: 30, male, in a small, hot country in the Middle East, that causes a lot of trouble compared to how small it is.

My setup: I build my own box, 130cm (4'4") high X 110 (3'8") wide X 90 (3') long.
I use a 400w HPS in side a cooltube, ducted to a centrifugal fan (that is a little bit on the weak side but seems to be doing the job); some blue fluorescents where required, and a duct fan that removes air from the room.

(tomorrow I will post a pic of the inside.


the plan is for 10 pots, 6.5l (~2gl) each, 7 with 50-50 coco-perlite medium, 3 with good potting soil I know nothing about but has been growing plants pretty nicely. The box is tilted a bit and covered with mylar on the floor of it that drains everything to the sewer hole next to the box.

My previous grows (bad genes) were all soil and grew very well, but yellowed VERY quickly in flowering. Some turned totally purple, even in the buds, before finishing. they do not have that in their genes. Due to my frustration of not being able to know what is wrong with my soil if anything, plus a very hard time adjusting pH (arid climates have very high pH both in soil and in water, even rain water measures around , I tried flushing the soil completely off its nutes, only to find out that this is exactly what coco and hydroponics are for.

So I will be manually watering my coco pots, with nutes and controlled pH and my new found friend H2o2.

I'm also starting a DWC right now, but only as an experiment, with four bagseeds (but not really crappy genes). It's a very small container, about 2gl, with 4 sites. I only realized this could be too small for 4 plants after I had drilled the holes, but no matter, I can just make some more of those so each plant will have this container. I would go hydroponics and even DWC all the way, but alas I cannot keep my reservoir below 25c (77f), and probably more towards 30c (85f). From what I understand, this renders hydroponics with bare roots impossible for me, and therefore I need the coco medium. A previous experiment I made with DWC until now was very successful and plants rooted nice.

I was wondering if the heat problem can be compensated with more air pumps and H2o2, as the reason for the heat limit in the first place is that water contains less oxygen as it gets warmer. any thoughts on this.

So today I germinated 10 seeds, in rockwool cubes, 3 of them were pre-soaked in pH 5.5 rainwater, and the rest were not. I soaked the cubes in 6.1 rain water and planted the seeds, trying to get the pointy side down. I've had seeds stuck in the rockwool before, it's not cool, so I expanded some of the holes of the cubes. The rockwool cubes were covered (7 with a light proof bowl, and 6 with the metal bowl with some little holes in it, that you pour the pasta into after it's done. some people say it's not good to seal them).

Now waiting for germination.
 

asaph

Well-Known Member
all the seeds have germinated and put with their rockwool in the coco or soil medium. 9 in all (i left one rockwool empty by mistake) and i'm germinating 4 more (in case of a low female rate and/or infant mortality)

the main problem now is that coco dries fast in high temps, especially the top part, two of the seedlings have already fallen over, one seem not to be going to get up anytime soon (the stem looks a bit dead).

I thought of making a drip system somehow, but it is much too costly. I can put a container above the box with a tap in it and have a pipe run down, but I'll need pressure to get that water all the way through the pipe into the drips, which means a pump, which means an expensive timer. so i'll just have to pay really close attention in the first week or so to not let them dry out, i imagine it will improve soon as the roots reach further down the pot where water is more abundant. meanwhile it's probably the weaker seeds who haven't rooted well who fell, this could be elimination i.e natural (or unnatural) selection, so maybe it's for the best.

giving them mineral water with about 400ppm, not adding any nutes or root juice (but I will for the next watering). ph ~5.8.

i am very worried as I am broke and I'm afraid I'll need to spend a lot of money to just to get this batch through. gear is very expensive in my country, as well as shipment from abroad. right now my biggest needs are firstly an RO system (quite more economic than mineral water) (~80$ for a used one, 220$ for a new one), drips, another, stronger duct fan, and a way to light proof my box... as it currently isn't.

another option instead of the extra duct fan is a used mini-AC. I will probably need this anyway, as outside temps can go above 100 in the summer, so no matter how good my ventilation is, it will be of no use at all. I can probably get one for 50-70$. this will be the best way I think to battle the heat. the down side is that it is probably very expensive on the electricity. and also makes a lot of noise. so I don't know what will be, what will be will be I guess.
 

asaph

Well-Known Member
so, plants are looking well. chai, the one who fell started getting up then fell over again. I think i'm gonna get rid of it, soon as the new seedlings i germinated emerege.

big breakthrough!!!
I bought an RO unit, cost 250nis (~70$). it was very hard to install (took my a while to figure out how to use the teflon sealing thing), and at first the water came out @300ppm, I was very worried, but now it comes out 70ppm, which I believe is very good for me. I'm hoping this would be a major difference in growing, as they now will be getting ONLY what I give them into the coco, and nothing else. This will allow me to use the full ppm capability with the good mix of NPK and micros, rather than having it mostly composed of scale. yay.
 

asaph

Well-Known Member
this morning I took out the one dead plant (that most likely died from lack of water at some point after sprouting), and put on Afghan Kush that's just hatched in its stead. This means he is 6 days behind the rest.

I have one more Hailley's Comet that's hatching right now, and two more that have still not shown on the rockwool surface. For the one that's hatched I have to kill one of my older bagseed plants (about a month old), this is ok though I wish I could plant it somewhere outdoors. Maybe I can. I'm not gonna do a guerrilla grow, but if I could put in some place of water like a creek or a stream, that would be cool. the problem is our summer is completely dry and even the streams run dry. I would have to go to the river and this is far from my house.

6 days into seedling, the two plants in soil are looking slightly better than the seven plants in coco. They are a bit darker, their leaves are more pointing up and their stem is a bit thicker. the coco plants look a bit pale. This might be for the same reason one of them died, the water issue. I hope I have solved it with the new RO and watering more often, but I have a feeling it's not about this. I know that seedlings and vegings love my soil, but I also know that the minute they start flowering they begin losing all their leaves in a rapid process, and this is mostly what I want to avoid with coco.

Maybe because of lack of nutes - I will start feeding with 1/4 strength coco nutes, once I get them. I decided not to use my organic ferts with it, maybe just as an additive but at any rate not the biogrow product because the company specifically warned against using it in coco.
 

asaph

Well-Known Member
this just isn't working out
i've been trying for almost a year now
and haven't gotten anything back from my investment

I cannot do it by myself
and good help is SO hard to find

perhaps it's time to realize that it's out of my league and sell everything
that way at least i'll have some money.
 

del66666

Well-Known Member
coco is easy, water every other day and use coco specific nutes.................when young use 1/4 strength nutes...........
 

del66666

Well-Known Member
best using neat coco and start in small pot and buib up as roots grow , add nutes then ph to around 5.8 ish, water til runs out of bottom 10 percent run off is good
 

del66666

Well-Known Member
you really have to use special nutes too with extra magnesium and calcium in, yeah i just grow in coco, just changed from soil, if you use good coco, hesi or canna feed, make sure you ph the feed , dont let them dry out, keep the light the right distance and give good ventilation you should be ok, plus some good seeds.
 

asaph

Well-Known Member
you really have to use special nutes too with extra magnesium and calcium in, yeah i just grow in coco, just changed from soil, if you use good coco, hesi or canna feed, make sure you ph the feed , dont let them dry out, keep the light the right distance and give good ventilation you should be ok, plus some good seeds.
yes i have used hesi coco on one plant, wasn't burned but not much change, see the thread for more info. i'll water today with some nutes. they are now 10 days old and mostly havent even started the second bladed leaves.
 

del66666

Well-Known Member
how olds your bulb, dont know where you got the coco but has it been flushed properly to rid it of salt, most that you buy has already been done.
 

asaph

Well-Known Member
right now i'm on 75ish. i don't really know how old the bulb is but what's that got to do with anything. i'm not sure actually if the coco has been washed. The one I gave nutes to was flushed thoroughly before feeding but like said so far no difference. I'll flush the rest too tonight when I water.
 

del66666

Well-Known Member
sorry mate am i stoned or something they look perfectly healthy to me except 1 looks like its got a brown tip due to slightly to much nutes, if the bulb is old they wont grow well, i change mine every 4-6 months
 

asaph

Well-Known Member
sorry mate am i stoned or something they look perfectly healthy to me except 1 looks like its got a brown tip due to slightly to much nutes, if the bulb is old they wont grow well, i change mine every 4-6 months
see, that's the kind of encouragement i was looking for!!!!
god damn it!!!!!
\

but come on seriously
can't you see that the one in coco is WAY smaller than the one in soil?
wouldn't that bother you a bit? or would you say that whatever, as long as the coco grows at some point?

and how can having too much nutes be considered slight? I thought it was a crucial problem, that if not solved within hours will result in plant death. is it not so?
 
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