-Drewberry - Gen Hydro vs. Dutch Master Battle of the Blooms - been flowering 2 weeks

Greetings all! I have never posted here before but it looks like there are some cool and knowledgeable people so I wanted to post some pics.

This is my first grow. I am fascinated by how plants grow and this started out as a fun experiment that has mutated into quite an adventure so far. We have been taking pictures throughout the whole veg period but i haven't posted any yet, so I'm going to post them in pretty much chronological order from the beginning.

We are using Dutch Master nutrients for the bucket with the pirate ship tape. In the other, Gen Hydroponics. So far the Dutch Master has been pretty much amazing. I would say the stem of the plant is as big around as my thumb. Not to say that the GenHydro is looking bad!


Here is a little graphic I made to set the stage. Let it be known that I am a huge dork:

I got a little OCD when it came to my cabinet. I bought a tent and liked it but wanted something a little more aesthetically pleasing, and to hopefully drown out a bit of the sound from the air pump and fans. So I made a pretty sweet cabinet.

Here is a transcription of my journal to date.

12/21/11 - Started 1st Grow - Drewberry. Blueberry Strain from Centennial Seed Bank. Clones from a gorgeous female.
Nutes - Pirate tape = Dutch Master
Gen Hydro sticker = Gen Hydro

1/2/12 - Refilled reservoirs w/ veg wk 2 nutes

1/4/12 - Plants look great. Roots in buckets. White glorious bushy roots.

1/9/12 - Changed nutes. Week 3 nutes. Topped & trimmed the plants. Cabinet almost done: looking sweeeet! Both plants look A+. Dutch Master looking much bigger. Ph levels, week 3 nutes: DM = 5.9, Gen Hydro = 5.2.

1/15/12 - The plants drank ALL of their water by this morning. Had to top them off with distilled. Crazy. Added week 4 veg nutes. Flower next week after cab is 100% done. Stained and routered it this weekend... what a pain. Will look super once its done!

1/16/12 - Almost disaster! Woke up to a spooky silence. When changing the nutes I must have bumped the drip rings, and the GH one had sprung free of the retainer and ended up emptying the entire buckets worth of water into the tent. Unfortunately, I hadnt taken the time to tie my air pump up so it was sitting on the floor. It got flooded and destroyed. Sooo.. luckily I had a spare pump and could just change it out and add more water. All this was before I had to leave for work at 5:30 in the morning. Joy!

1/23/12 - Started flowering nutes (week5), lights to follow in next couple days. Trimmed yesterday.... huge amount of trimmings... in a week! DM still beastin it up. Gh not far behind. GH was totally dry so have to top off water once a week now. ON TO THE BLOOM!!

1/31/12 - Nutes changed & trimmed plants again. LOTS of new growth. Apparently 5 weeks of veg in hydro is to much. Switched lights, this is week 1 of flowering.

Okay I would like to go watch the superbowl so here are the rest of the pictures I have.

First the nutes we're using:

General Hydroponics:


Dutch Master:


Additionals that go in both:

And now a flipbook of plant growth!

12/21/11 - Day 1

And finally this is last week after being trimmed. The lights come on in a couple hours and I will take more pics when I change the nutes. This brings us to week 2 of flowering.

Hope to hear some feedback!

These things are looking awesome man! What kinda lights are you using? Keep up the good work!!

I am two 10K lumen Flourowing lights in there plus what my associate calls a UFO. i know it is an older LED light but it amazingly bright. Like, burn your retinas out of your face bright. I am curious to see how the setup is going to do during flowering... Hopefully I get some decent buds but i have a feeling as soon as I chop these babies down I'm going to be investing in a 400 whps.

Those plants look amazing man! I'm actually considering buying a Dutch Master nute lineup soon. How's your PH and PPM fluctuations and stuff on those? Easy to mix? Going through a 1L quickly or steady-like? Props for the setup as well! I'm sub'd up and ready to go Keep em comin

Actually I have been pretty lazy and haven't checked the PH but once this entire grow. It was at 5.2 for the GenHydro and 5.9 for the DM. After nutes of course. I use distilled water so I figured it couldn't get to terribly out of whach but I should get in the habit of checking it every couple days. As of now I don't have a PPM meter but should get one at some point. I have had such good results so far that I haven't been paying close enough attention.

I have to swap the nutes tonight so I'll post the PH and we'll see where we're at. What is the PH supposed to be ideally for hydro, anyway?

Thanks for following Mineralz! Long live ZIM!

BTW: Going through a 1L quickly or steady-like? I have no idea what that means!

RonSwanson said:

Actually I have been pretty lazy and haven't checked the PH but once this entire grow. It was at 5.2 for the GenHydro and 5.9 for the DM. After nutes of course. I use distilled water so I figured it couldn't get to terribly out of whach but I should get in the habit of checking it every couple days. As of now I don't have a PPM meter but should get one at some point. I have had such good results so far that I haven't been paying close enough attention.

I have to swap the nutes tonight so I'll post the PH and we'll see where we're at. What is the PH supposed to be ideally for hydro, anyway?

Thanks for following Mineralz! Long live ZIM!

Click to expand...

5.8 is supposed to be the sweet spot for hydro. You don't really want to go over 6.0 in flower as the K becomes less available, and that's what really bulks up the buds.

About the ph changing, the air pump making bubble will raise PH over time... so it is really good to check it daily. That being said, I don't check mine very much and stuff does alright. But it would be better if I checked it.

Glad you avoided too much damage when you knocked the drip ring off. I'll be watching.

RonSwanson said:

BTW: Going through a 1L quickly or steady-like? I have no idea what that means!

Click to expand...

You're using the 1L bottles of the DM nutes yea? Are they getting empty faster than youd like or what is what I meant

I know you asking Ron, but I have 1L DM flower nutes A+B as well. I'm just starting my 3rd grow with them. They are about 40-50% full still and I harvested about 25 oz from that over the past 2 grows. Only cost me $12 a bottle.

I hardly use any nutes at all each week. The most amount I use of anything is 48 ML, but most stuff is more like 20-30, some stuff as low as 3. I am just following the feeding schedule my associate made for me. The bottles are pretty big so i could definitely do another couple runs with these nutes if I wanted. I do have Earth Juice Organics sitting in my nute box waiting for a try, and I also want to try Roots Organics.

Jig: Thanks for the knowledge on the PH. Now that I'm flowering I want to be really careful about giving the girls the best I can. Thanks for stopping by!

I like your cab I don't really do hydro so can't comment on that other than to say you got some lovely plants there. I'm sure you're going to have an awesome flower with well vegged plants like that going into flower.