DubB83's SoG Log

Sorry for not getting back on lately. My camera is lost. Anyway, the plant that was the biggest in flowering is STILL GOING, no shit! I'm going to get about 3 huge colas from that plant, hopefully there will be close to an ounce on each stem. I'm sad that I lost all of my clones though.

Since I don't have a camera, I will explain my NEW PLANS for where this SOG will go. Not only that but I am starting all new genetics as we speak for the next run. I'm going to try a system that uses NO electricity other than lighting and ventilation. I'm still figuring out the details and working through the initial ideas.

I want to do a SOG wick system using coco coir. I have been testing rapidrooters and coco lately for their wicking properties. I have found it best to start the seedlings in the rapidrooter and transplant to the coco later. The rapidrooter gives you a great head start for your root ball. Here is the dirty...

The seedling/clone system is an irrigation tray 1/3 filled with water, inside the tray is a plastic table that is the same size as the bottom of my seedling tray (not irrigation tray, it is slightly smaller) in between the table and the seedling tray is a capilary mat. The capilary mat draws water from the irrigation tray up to the bottom of the seedling tray in a wicking manner. The bottom of the seedling tray has a small amount of coco in it and a rapidrooter placed in the coco. The coco wicks the water from the capilary mat to the rapidrooter plug. The humidity dome goes on top of that. Simple, cheap, and efficient! I will post pictures when I find the camera or a new one.

For the next wicking stage I currently have 14 seedlings in 18oz Solo cups divided into 3 separate irrigation trays made out of plastic shoe boxes (each holds 5 cups very well). These trays then have 1/2" standing water and there are holes in the very bottom of the cups and another hole just above the water level. The rooted seedlings are transferred in from the other system and surrounded in coco coir. The water wicks through the bottom of the cups. Top ups are done by watering the top side of the cup so water eventually reaches the reservoir.

I have yet to figure a larger vegging stage wick system, the Solo cups may work until I transplant into 5 gal buckets with coco coir and a very similar larger wicking system built from 3 5 gal buckets in a cut "under bed" plastic tote and having 3 totes with similar holes and feeding methods as the Solo cups.

What do you guys think? No pumps and it is based on hempy buckets. Do you think mixing perlite into the coco would be a good idea?

I'm not worried, Jah will provide...

~GG420

Oh yeah, I am fermenting wine outside of the tent and I think the small CO2 bump is what is making that last plant flower like CRAZY. I will build this hempy bucket based system for now and then eventually move into either Ebb & Flow or try Aero again like Dub wanted to. The system I am thinking of is cheap and right now things are tight so in the future we will see what happens. I would bet that Dub is rolling in his grave from what I did to his old aero system. I also have two new 36 site aero cloners that are just collecting dust...

~GG420

Soil is soooooo much easier. Looking good..... Are these your new genetics? And what are your new genetics? Have you been by to check out my garden?

It's 5 o'clock somewhere said:

Soil is soooooo much easier. Looking good..... Are these your new genetics? And what are your new genetics? Have you been by to check out my garden?

Click to expand...

I was trying to stretch out Dub's genetics but since I use to grow only his old ruderalis strain (localy named Southern Fuck) so I'm not so good with cloning yet. I had 6 clones from the ones flowering but I killed them with inexperience. The new genetics I have now are some Skunk #1 from Sensi Seeds. 14 of 15 popped and now they are on to the veg stage to start producing moms. I finally figured out why Dud told me not to flower my mothers. I'm looking forward to having a break from Ruderalis sexxing and growing some pure sensimillia, (not to mention that 18/6 flowering light schedule for Ruderalis would have killed my electricity cost). I'm also running all the same genetics now and I'll just have to worry about phenotyping and not so much about finding a happy medium for all of the plants nutrient wise.

I'll go check your garden's progress again. I'm not wanting to do soil again but this new system I'm going to be using is going to be nearly as easy as soil without a bunch of extra headaches and less mess. I really like the way the plants are taking to the coco coir. The only way for me to get rid of the soil is to throw it in the can infront of my house and the garbage man does not use a machine to do the garbage. So if one day it is full of soil he will know that I am for sure growing. (Paranoia again!)

Back in the day of OverGrow.org I met Dub and he started me out on autoflowering plants a 150w HPS with flouro supplement and a waterfarm. He has always passed his old systems down to me and this is my first time getting a crack at making one of my own. Hempy buckets seemed like a good start, similar to a waterfarm without pumps and circulating water. Seemed like something I was familiar with.

~GG420

toward the beginning of the thread he mentions that there is nothing so simple and efficient as a DIY ebb 'n flow table with growbags filled with perlite... (or containers)

with ebb 'n flow its easier to monitor whats actually happening in the root zone of the perlite filled containers... otherwise you could be getting buildup of nutes... wacky pH, etc. with a hempy bucket system. also... hempy buckets don't require wicking. i've done a wick setup before with (2) 5 gallon buckets stacked one in the other... the bottom one for rez... the top filled with soil and several cords leading through holes to the bottom bucket. i'd recommend ebb 'n flow over just about any wicking setup that i can imagine, even soil-less wicking setups.

but results are all that matter. and you have posted up some very nice pics. dubs journal started with a plethora of nute/pH issues... i would guess that most of them were caused by poor quality water (not RO). RO water is priceless.
.

First off, thank you for stopping in.

DaGambler said:

toward the beginning of the thread he mentions that there is nothing so simple and efficient as a DIY ebb 'n flow table with growbags filled with perlite... (or containers)

Click to expand...

I am just concerned that I will not be able to flood to the depth of my container is all, either I will be using the 5 gal buckets or 3 gal grow bags filled with perlite. I guess I could make something that is the right depth. I need to buy pumps for that too so that is more $$ that I don't have right now. I would also have to go back to the idea of having 3 separate reservoirs for three separate flood trays.

DaGambler said:

with ebb 'n flow its easier to monitor whats actually happening in the root zone of the perlite filled containers... otherwise you could be getting buildup of nutes... wacky pH, etc. with a hempy bucket system. also... hempy buckets don't require wicking. i've done a wick setup before with (2) 5 gallon buckets stacked one in the other... the bottom one for rez... the top filled with soil and several cords leading through holes to the bottom bucket. i'd recommend ebb 'n flow over just about any wicking setup that i can imagine, even soil-less wicking setups.

Click to expand...

I thought a Hempy Bucket wicked from the "reservoir" created by the hole drilled in the side and water hanging out in the bottom below the hole. I have been considering the cost of the ebb & flow but I think I will have to pass up rent for that, I don't want to be evicted just yet. I do not sell anything that I make so I'm really pouring money down the drain right now.

DaGambler said:

but results are all that matter. and you have posted up some very nice pics. dubs journal started with a plethora of nute/pH issues... i would guess that most of them were caused by poor quality water (not RO). RO water is priceless.
.

Click to expand...

Most of his nute/pH problems were caused by me learning organics via Dub and the crappy water together. He bought a RO filter but I have not figured out a way to hook it up at the new house. Thanks for the nice words on the pictures and any ideas/help. I miss using GH 3 part mix and just going by a set schedule. Organics in the soil is for the birds. I need to get back to hydro ASAP! I may have to do hempy bucket it until then though or find another cheap way for now.

Again, thanks for stopping in!

DubB83 said:

I am just concerned that I will not be able to flood to the depth of my container is all, either I will be using the 5 gal buckets or 3 gal grow bags filled with perlite. I guess I could make something that is the right depth. I need to buy pumps for that too so that is more $$ that I don't have right now. I would also have to go back to the idea of having 3 separate reservoirs for three separate flood trays.

Click to expand...

if you do get around to a perlite ebb 'n flow... flooding to the depth of your container isn't at all necessary... perlite will wick upwards several inches when watered once per day... even 1/3 the way up will have the whole container moist.

DubB83 said:

I thought a Hempy Bucket wicked from the "reservoir" created by the hole drilled in the side and water hanging out in the bottom below the hole.

Click to expand...

yeah, no wick is needed with perlite. and with 1/4 vermiculite in the mix... you run the risk of actually having a media that is too damp. I am currently considering only watering every other day in my 100 percent perlite setup.

DubB83 said:

He bought a RO filter but I have not figured out a way to hook it up at the new house. Thanks for the nice words on the pictures and any ideas/help. I miss using GH 3 part mix and just going by a set schedule. Organics in the soil is for the birds. I need to get back to hydro ASAP! I may have to do hempy bucket it until then though or find another cheap way for now.

Click to expand...

If at all possible... get the RO filter up and running into a 20+ gallon rubber trash can and only use RO water for your plants. I like GH 3 part... though i only use the Micro and Bloom, myself. If you are doing perlite or a perlite/vermiculite mix make sure to stick with chemical fertilizers rather than organic ones. Organic fertilizers and hempy do not mix well at all.
.

First some random thoughts and questions. So I'll transplant into 100% pure perlite? Sounds good, should work well with a coco root ball to hold the moisture next to the base of the plant and the perlite to get more air to the roots right? I'll determine if I need to tease the roots or not when that time comes to transplant. I have been thinking of keeping the moms as small as possible and leaving them in the 20oz cups like a bonsai tree, me and Dub would kid about it even being possible, but then all of my clones will be smaller as well. I'll go and take some pictures of the progress in a few moments. I am missing some parts to get the RO filter hooked up here since I cannot directly peirce a water line here and I'm still working on how to deal with the waste water. If I have a 20gal RO res then I would need an 80-100gal waste tank, is my math correct?

I think I have seen some others say the same about organics and hempy buckets when I have been lurking lately. I think that their problem is that they had no micro converting the organic to usable nutes in their mix. Hey Dub actually did teach me something there. Unfortunately Dub's clients requested organic and I will do my best to give organic a run. I think that just by adding hygrozime to the mix and other micro-macro nutes as needed should do the trick. The seedlings are on their second week of coco and organic nutes on a very weak dose of course. I waited until I saw the coetldon leaves go yellow before I added the mix. The growth is good so far so I'm going to continue with the weak organic feeding.

I have vegan compost tea, hygrozime, cal-mag, and a few other tools to fine tune with later on. I also have several choices of grow nutes, I may start to compare fox farm grow big organic to pura vida grow just for the fun of it. I plan to flower with Fox Farms. The plants seem to be all the same strain and the phenotypes seem very stable so this should get interesting.

Another thing, I flowered my vegging moms last time around and took clones before starting that process. The clones died and I was left with no mothers so now I bought some beans in hopes of getting mothers going and then cloning them. I have been thinking in this case patience is the best thing. There are several ways I can go about it now and I want to say the way I think is going to be the best. Dub always topped his moms to produce 4 branches to choose clones from. I have been thinking of LST'ing the mothers to do the same thing without the shock of topping. Any ideas? Will this affect the plant showing pre-flowers at the 8th or 9th node? Should I just grow some viable clones off the mother clone them, wait for them to grow legs and flower the clones to sex? What would be the quickest? It seems that if I flower the clones just to sex them that I will throw off the grow by having some tiny plants going straigt to 12/12 with no veg and that will knock my SOG schedule.

If my ramblings made any since please give me your input. I am trying to produce enough medication for 6 people (not counting me, I kinda get the table scraps after the people who need it the most) on limited funds and at the largest quantity possible in the shortest amount of time.

Thanks!
~GG420

several persons now have claimed that 50/50 perlite/coco is a very optimum hydroponic media. i don't know that perlite necesarrily holds any more air than the coco does... and, of course, you can use either one of them all by their selves. ur doing something right if ur having good success with organic nutes in hempy... can't help but think that a 'soil' mix might be better suited, but if it ain't broke. I'd keep doing whatever works.

Many RO filters can be made to hook up directly to a 3/4 standard garden hose outflow. The waste water isn't stored, but run directly down a sink drain or other drain.

Don't worry about 'shocking' the moms by cutting them. As long as ur just topping or fimming, the plant won't skip a beat in producing more vegetative growth. Just the same, if you see some leaves that look diseased or otherwise not the best 'solar panels' remove them. The plant will do better to not have to fight off the disease or continue to try to get its energy from a damaged solar panel... when it could be focusing its energy on more productive growth.

Determining sex is kinda a slow-bummer no matter how you do it... You can either grow more than you need and plan on having to destroy half once they start to show their sex... you can flower them to determine sex after they are about 1-2 mos. old and then re-veg. until the plants have reached the desired size... or you can take a single cutting from each plant (if your cloning rate is decent) and put that clone into flower immediately while the mother continues to veg. uninterupted. If the plant were large enough, you could actually work out a light-proof (but still allows air penetration) bag like a 'black paper lunch sack' and just taped closed over a lower limb. That single branch alone would go into flower while the rest of the plant remained in veg. That seems like more work than its worth though. My experience is that you can't always count on 'Feminized' Seeds to be 100 percent female either. Last time i popped some 'Fem. Seeds' 4 out of 5 were male. Then there's always hermi's as well.
.

Thanks again for the comments. I have two large empty aero cloners that are not being used yet so when I have mothers I'll try and fill them. I'm just curious about moving from aero to a medium like perlite as well.

I planted 15 Skunk #1 and 14 popped. Of those I only need 3 mothers. The seeds are non-fem so optimally I should end up with 7 females (in theory but not always in practice). I am considering using 3 gal gro bags and packing as many in a tray as possible. Maybe 2x 3 gal bags in place of 1x 5 gal bucket so there would be 3 trays 6 plants a peice. I know I can always go 3 trays with 3 buckets and get by but I really want to get the best bang for the buck and I'm not sure how a 600W HPS will handle a 3.5ft x 3.5ft area with 18 plants. I think it should be ok now that I remember Dub's initial plan to put 36 plants in the same area with aeroponics.

P.S. Converting from the system I'm making to an ebb and flow should be a breeze later on also! So that is good news.

Next post will be some pictures... I promise.

About hermis, I'm SICK of 'em... Dub's genetics seemed to go deep ruderalis or hermi everytime. I'm looking forward to Skunk #1.

Here are the little ones today.

There are 5 seedlings that are not doing so hot so right now they are in their own tray in the back. I plan on doing the same thing but only larger for the flowering system. Out of the 9 healthy ones I hope to end up with 3 females. Any extra females will be test subjects for the hempy hybrid flowering setup.

I forgot, I have also been growing a Texas Blue Bonnet in memory of DubB83. It is the last picture, it has been growing for 3 months so far and just getting bigger.

I also put some shots in of the plant that refuses to quit flowering and ripen.

More pictures of today's progress...

I transplanted 4 plants, 3 into a 50/50 coco/perlite mix and 1 into a mostly perlite with a bit of coco mix (90/10). Here they are, there will be two more rows of 4 plants going in later. First one in 30 days, next in 30 more.

I decided 3 gal grow bags was the best bet I can fit 4 in where a space of 3 5gal buckets would go. All that is left to do is finish the experiment with the current plants, clones will be taken in 2 weeks from yesterday. 1 clone from every young plant, the clones of the 4 in flowering will be compared to the clones of the plants kept in veg. This will help me to figure if I need a mother plant or not.

And a picture of some wine...

Looking good my friend. It seems so far away when your plants are just starting off..... I had one of those fucking plants that never seemed ready last harvest and finally chopped it after 14 weeks.

iv been doin sum experimenting and it seems that the rockwool n the aero system holds to much water (my clones didnt do as well as ones with just the neoprene, (a lotta them became soggy and over watered, buy a cheap propagator for ur clones, ditch the plastic bags, its causing moister damage to ur clones before they r rooted causing stunted growth), i believe this is where ur mold is comin from on ur mothers also.

If i were u i would ditch the rockwool n keep it staight net pot n neoprene for ur aero, u got the plant size right, its better to keep them short because once they get too big..1. they fall over in the net pots n u could possibly damage branches, buds etc...2. the roots get so thick they tend to clog up the system all together n this can lead to even worse things, build up, deprivation n yada yada yada...instead of flushing them with water hit them with a leaching solution or clearex for a few days (3 or 4 at most), u'll know ur in the clear from lockup when ur stems begin to turn green again n the purple fades and growth appears visible.

u dont need to switch anything around jus run a tighter ship and b tedious, these problems u face are only molding u into a great and knowledgable grower for the future...even ur buddy nows ur gunna have problems because growing is no easy task regardless of who believes it is, it takes trial n error

As far as pruning look at ur nodes close to ur stem n all ur flower sites, if the foliage is blocking light from the sites below them remove these leaves, ull notice growth n these lower branches, they will reward u for it...feel free to trim as neccessary, jus dont over do it, u can prune all the way from when they r clones to about a week or 2 in flowering bud after that leave them b, they'll need the rest of the foliage to drain left over sugars to finish ur buds at the end of ur harvest.

STICK WITH UR ORGANIC NUTES, synthetics will clog ur systems nozzles! (what nutes r u using by the way?)

another thing, if ur gunna use regular tap water instead of RO its important that u fill a resi, then leave it out for a day under ur light with no nutes so ur water can distill, THIS IS SO IMPORTANT because if u dont and u add ur nutes then balance ur pH, ur pH will continue to jump off the charts cuz of the chloroplites (i think thats how u spell it lol) will continue to break down in ur water, leaving behind trace elements (metals, salts, etc...) causing ur ph to shift constently causing burn. I must stress to u it is important u check ur pH all the time, keep it no lower than 5.5 no higher than 6.5, this will prevent ur plants from ever going into lockup

stay positive, try not to overwhelm urself and success is ur next step, lemme know what u think when u get a chance

peace

jus noticed, only saw the first page of ur grow didnt realize u were already 16 pages deep, so that was jus sum advice for ur aero systems if u dnt want em jus collectin dust, they really r great systems...peace

$thaghettogreenthumb$ said:

jus noticed, only saw the first page of ur grow didnt realize u were already 16 pages deep, so that was jus sum advice for ur aero systems if u dnt want em jus collectin dust, they really r great systems...peace

Click to expand...

Thanks for stopping in. No worries! I'm going to use my own version of hempy buckets for now. Dub was the one wanting to grow in aero so bad. I may one day do it for him but for now I'm going to stick with something that is a bit more basic. If I decide to make another aero system it will be very different than Dub's. He had a good idea but I don't have a good grasp on it yet. I go by the 10% rule, you have to be 10% smarter than your equipment. So right now I'm just trying to learn organics and so I troll over there sometimes and read. I'm not 10% smarter yet though.

Updates coming soon. I'm going to chop the non-finishing bitch today at least the bottom is finished, who knows why they top never did. Eh I had thought about leaving it flowering but I need it out now. I think it is starting to turn hermaphrodite. I saw a strange looking purple banana that I'm hoping is just a leaf and not a pollen sack.

~GG420

DubB83 said:

Because of my illness and time constraints I have hired a gardener. It is an old family friend that wants to drop off the map. He will be taking over the maintenance of the garden for me starting after the 15th. I will still be posting on here regularly. I feel that I need an apprentice and my son is not old enough yet.

Hopefully, after I teach him the ways, the plants will look uniform and there should be no more signs of stress. I will allow him to use my user name on RUI to continue to share my knowledge of growing for me.

Sad to say it, but eventually I will be leaving RUI, but when you gotta go you gotta go... Right?

I know my plants are in need of some TLC and I'm just not able to do it anymore. I am glad I finally got to build and operate the aeroponic system I had been dreaming of for years.

Stinkbud gets big +rep for the fence posts, I was going to try 6" round PVC before I stumbled on his little jewel of a thread.

Click to expand...

I was reading over the thread and noticed one of Dub's old posts. He is talking about me in it. Ha hah that bastard. He foreshadowed me using his name and all... I told him I didn't want to even look at a computer and now look at me. Not like I post like Dub did but I'm kinda keeping his garden going and all. Now I feel bad for destroying the aero system.

~gg420

purple? Someone jack him off before he explodes!!!! I hate when it turns purple..... It's probably a leaf my friend

It's 5 o'clock somewhere said:

purple? Someone jack him off before he explodes!!!! I hate when it turns purple..... It's probably a leaf my friend

Click to expand...

I hope so, I'll know for sure in an hour and a half.

~GG420