My plants in a box, round 3

I figured id start over with a fresh thread finally, So come share in my misfortunes and with some good luck, ill make it thru another! This time I decided to keep it simple and not dump money into things I dont need just yet. I did make a few minor changes, and Im taking a slightly different approach from the last 2 runs.

First, instead of trying anything fancy buying new lights, i was able to mount my bulb sockets to the frame. I picked up some 'Y' connections to position the bulbs in various ways. This worked out much better than i expected, I can angle/twist the lights around however i need them.


I ordered some actual growing medium this time around, instead of lava rocks im trying some of these white grow stones. I also got some net pots. Instead of flooding the whole medium from the get-go, I intend to grow these out in the net pots until roots start showing, at that time ill just bury the net pots and fill the entire container with grow stones. Now i can start multiple seeds, pick and choose what i want to keep, and position the plants how i like as they grow. Im also planning on being able to start the following run in the pots a few weeks before harvest, that way i can easily stick these in the cycle.


Other than that, everything else is the same. Ive got 3 unknown strains (that should be feminised) and one Dream Machine seed that was a freebie in the last batch. They started to take off in the last few days, we are at 13 days from seed and receiving some nutes along with the compost tea. Im still using the dyna-gro line, Ive been going straight off their schedule, just divide each dose in half. This will also be the first time using the tea all the way thru. With it being winter I wont have to worry about temps much, especially in the reservoir. Aught to be a good one again, looking to move thru this grow as quick as i can, no topping and trying not to over nute 'em. Ill probably do my more 'major renovations' after this go.

Looks like those lights are plenty bright !

Well there hasnt been much going on so i figured id wait a bit. Im just over 4 weeks from seed. I got everything planted last week. I was able to plant everything much higher, and increased the flood line a bit, so ive got a lot more depth this go round. Other than finding a much better way to mount some fans ive been using, i really havent had to do much.

Everybody seems pretty happy, with the exception of the front left, i imagine its ca/p/k due to my pH hovering kinda high. Ive been adding pH down to the res. pretty frequently, and its starting to balance out.

Being able to rotate the plants while they were in the pots helped a ton, and then being able to position them how i like for flowering. I planted the larger two in the back, and began to stress bend them. The back left is taking it very well. The back right had a much stronger stem, but i managed a good bend on it. I planted the shorter two in the front, my one on the front left is a short/stout little thing, it has the thickest trunk of them all and the growth is right on top of the other.

something dumb, that i never really considered when bending a plant. Since i was able to position them how i wanted, i planted them so the branches form more of an X (looking down) than say a '+'
So when you bend the plant to the side, your tilting an X, allowing the sides to grow out more easily.
Instead of bending one whole side directly down ward. Maybe this is common knowledge, or people instinctively bend the plant this way. but i paid better attention this time.

just after planting

bent

a few days later

nice , like the new set up,, with four plants you wont be veggin long,, short n bushy,

Yea, 4 will get crowded quick !
Are you topping the plants at all?
I would top at least once.
Also, try to get a scrog screen in there to even better get those side branches (budsites) exposed to the light.
Nice setup indeed !

Thanks guys! I definitely intend to use a a scrog screen this time around. My plan was to flip to 12/12 tomorrow actually, monday would be 5 weeks. Ive allready cut the light down to 16-8, I started knocking off 2 hours a day from a 22-2 schedule this week. I was going to start working with the screen once these guys started stretching a bit more.
I didnt really intend to keep 4, but nonetheless, here we go. LOL. The two in he back I started bending were a good bit taller than the two in the front. bending them down has brought them to the same height as the two in the front which were much shorter. I had considered topping the two in front, but If i did top them, would I want to veg, say, another week or two?? I figured with 4 plants id just flip them kind of early, and start working em thru the screen? and maybe just bend them a little as a they stretch.
always appreciate the comments guys, thanks!

Sounds like you got it handled !

Zoltan32 said:

Thanks guys! I definitely intend to use a a scrog screen this time around. My plan was to flip to 12/12 tomorrow actually, monday would be 5 weeks. Ive allready cut the light down to 16-8, I started knocking off 2 hours a day from a 22-2 schedule this week. I was going to start working with the screen once these guys started stretching a bit more.
I didnt really intend to keep 4, but nonetheless, here we go. LOL. The two in he back I started bending were a good bit taller than the two in the front. bending them down has brought them to the same height as the two in the front which were much shorter. I had considered topping the two in front, but If i did top them, would I want to veg, say, another week or two?? I figured with 4 plants id just flip them kind of early, and start working em thru the screen? and maybe just bend them a little as a they stretch.
always appreciate the comments guys, thanks!

Click to expand...

you have had some wild rides in that box, it will be nice to see your timing work out this run and not crowd the ceiling , looks like 4 plants will be the answer to keeping it short!!

ive managed to get shorter and shorter, that first one was crazy lol. Id have to double check my notes, but i think i flipped around 6 weeks last time. And this time around they seemed to have developed a little more quickly. Im still not fully sure ive corrected my plant problems. As of last night the pH was in a more stable range, and the ppms finally began falling again. Ive been feeding right around 500-600ppm ( 1-1.2ec) which may have been a bit high. But water levels dropped considerably over night, so i feel it was just a lock-out of the nutrients at the lower end of the pH range. The front left one seems the most stressed, the others are only showing minor problems. Im due a res. change tommorrow, i think im going to use part grow and bloom for this transition phase, then switch to bloom only next week.
heres some pics i just took; I put together a screen frame earlier, ill use some couplings and various lengths of pipe to adjust it, just gonna wait to run the wire.



some of the damage on my front left plant.

Things are cruising along nicely. ppms are steadily falling and feeding around 1.1-1.2ec. Ive actually been adding back a gallon of full ratio nutes after a few days of ppms falling off. I add a little ph down every so often, it seems to hover around 5.8-6.0. Im also still brewing tea, adding a cup of it every other day.
I think it just took awhile for the medium's pH to fall in line, i had to douse it with pH down for about week before it started levelling off. I soaked it first, but it probably didnt bring the levels down enough.

I started working some of the branches thru a... screen in progress, lol. The back left plant is really stretching out, while the others are all about the same height. So tonight i thinned out some of the undergrowth, and arranged some of the lower branches and fan leafs in a better fashion. Well see how this looks after a week, hah.

The unknown seeds, aka the shorties, were all apparently indica dominant. Ive got a list of 6 strains this random bag of seeds contained (blue ox, durbin 18, Maple, white lime, dj short blueberry X pre 98 bubba, blue power X cookies) Im not big on names, and that is just the list i was given. I researched them the best i could, some I couldnt find, others i was able to find something similar. At any rate, its never been a huge concern of mine, could be made up for all i know. The back left was a freebie from herbies, dream machine.


before and after


some randoms from earlier in the week

I'm going to pull your chain for a minute here.. Your light reminded me of the Moss Covered Three Handled Family Gredundza

Great little grow you have going..

well i have much new found space... I cant say im too disappointed, and im pretty sure i caught em well in time, but i had two males from the random seed batch. On the other plus side i got a look at the roots, and they looked amazing, the net pots contained the initial root growth much more evenly, instead of hitting the bottom and matting across... they pulled out nicely too. I think ill also credit the compost tea, much thanks Fish!

Anyway, i did some heavy bending on everything to get things spread out. At this point im open to the idea of re-vegging?? or should i just continue on?? anyway, ill be curious to see how the water acts over the next few days. just added in some fresh water, and some compost tea... I added a cup to the base of each stem to help stimulate things that may have been damaged when pulling the neighbouring plants.

Ill mostly see how things re-act over the next couple of days to decide the course.

Here is the best pic i could get the male... i guess i made the right call?? there were some other nodes showing more dominant male traits... but i still second guess myself on this. The other plant was definitely male, it was tall and lanky anyway, so i wasnt too disappointed there.

Sub'd!

Great root growth dude, I think you'll be fine with two females. Good luck!

Well, no complaints here! Im happy I removed two plants from this space, lol. The dream machine in the back has some large fan leaves on her, and Ive been able to stretch some of the side branches into the open spaces. My random girl in the front kinda had some issues in early veg. and is a little bit behind, but has really come on in the last few days. Its been a little more difficult to train just because i dont get enough stretch to pull branches around, it just keeps growing on top of itself. Im not sure if its the screen, or the genetics, but these are two of the least stretchy plants Ive dealt with. Today is day 49 from seed and 12 days of flower. I aught to be raising the screen up in the next few days I guess.

Ive had more stable reservoir conditions too, even after removing the males. Ive pushed this last reservoir for 2 weeks... add tea every other day, add water and nutes after ~4 days. I pushed the EC up to ~1.35 (680ppm) and the plants did not seem to mind, the water ended up settling down to 660 for most of the week. Last night I needed to add some water back, so I mixed a slightly lower ratio and dropped things down to 610ppm. Ill probably do a fresh change in the next day or two, and push it back close to 700ppm. The pH has been very stable, i only have to add a few ml of pH down every 4-5 days. The cooler temps have kept the upper section around 80-82* with the lights on and door closed. While during lights out it drops to ~65* which i know the reservoir enjoys.

anyway, I better knock on wood after posts like this. lol

Here's the rando from underneath.


The dream machine


I might have to name my light 'the Gredundza' lol.... x2 100w 27k phillips led. x2 75w 27k slimstyle LEDs, I used x2 100w 5k cree leds, which you'll see I already swapped one to a uvb bulb, i need to pick up another to replace the other 5k cree. I figure its kinda early for the uvb anyway? but nonetheless, I swear I noticed a difference on my last grow. I only had one UVB, which only lit half of one of my plants, and when I'm picking buds out of that jar, sometimes you get a bud that is absolutely sticky as hell compared to others. I like to rotate the bulbs around occasionally. Just keep them alternated, and swap from front to back.

Looking real good, those trunks and some of the side branches are huge !

Everything is still chuggin along nicely. I think this is the most Ive ever been able to feed a plant (without problems, lol), just did a res change, increased to almost 1.5 ec, and its still sucking it down. The pH has settled from a positive swing over the last few weeks, to almost a solid 5.7-5.8. The fan leaves on the dream machine are friggin huge, just did a good thinning on some lower branches, and removed two large fan leafs that were blocking lots of light. The buds are just now starting to show signs of development, wont be long now!


wish i could have filled the corners out better, ive got a few shorties that are trying to reach up into the back left corner, just hard to see in the pic.

made me a handy card, and its laminated, sooo.. its important now...

the pace has picked up again i guess, and things are going smoothly. Going on a week and a half with the last res. change. I added a gallon of nutrient mix to bump the ppms a little after the res change, and I add two cups of tea every 3 days or so. Its been nice to have a care-free situation, lol just moving branches around and such. I guess im going to have to really thin out some of these fan leaves off the dream machine, they are really crowding things up, and blocking light, but im still getting some good penetration from the COBs...

getting some tree trunk on the dream machine.

the rando

the main leader on the dream machine

DAYUM !!!
That IS one heck of a trunk !
Lookin STRONG...

made a fresh change on the water today, went two weeks with no probs. I kept the ppms just a hair above the highest point of last week, still having a steady drop in readings each day. I did notice a little burning on the newer leaves, i might should have dialed back a little, but i went with it.

I did manage to get some more bubbles in my tea, i think leaving the top off did the trick. this is after 2 days, ill be curious to see how it compares tomorrow night. Its not as much as I've seen in pictures. I think id benefit from a much larger airstone, or maybe just some warmer water temps. I used distilled water this time, fwiw... all the 'spring water' had cholride in it, and some other items...

starting to get a nice covering of trichs on the rando.

dream machine just putting on some mass.

Purdy little flowers there !