DarthFedor
Member
Greetings all, new to the site. Im a former Marine with crippling back pain due to an injury sustained in the field. I've been out for almost eight years now and I'm a chef, needless to say my back injury doesn't do me any favors.
After realizing i was becoming an opiate addict I tired pot. Not as much acute pain relief as the pills, but enough that it was manageable, but that was all I wanted anyway.
I have quickly become tired of dealing with the black market scene, and my wallet being a couple hundred dollars lighter each month, and have decided to grow my own, this is my first grow.
Sorry, but thought it was important to give at least a bit of background. I have constructed a fairly high quality set up in my basement. A military buddy of mind is a contractor and had no problem building it "off the record".
So I have a large, self contained room in my basement divided into two chambers, one is aprox 5ft x 15ft, and an airtight door dividing the smaller chamber which is about 6ft x 7ft.
I have a built in ventilation system with an intake in each room w/ a separate switch for each. This vents about 2 ft above my rooftop and passes through two filters on the way. It is constructed to look like ( and for all intents and purposes is) a radon gas vent. I also have a couple jars of "odor killer" ( the stuff with a skunk who has a pistol pointed at him, cute) and an ozone generator is coming in a week or so.
My walls are the same water proof and insulation providing white panels used in professional freezers and walk in fridges. I can instantly spot any dirt, and the walls do not absorb moisture and are easy to wipe off. The floor is white tile.
I use the larger room for my vegging room, i know you would normally make the bigger room the flowering room but I use the veg room for my clones as well ( they partitioned off in the same room with a large plastic tent) my mothers and storage of all my tools, nutes, etc. Also since I keep the veg light on 24hrs and use it as my work area I don't have to worry about passing through the flowering chamber and disturbing the light cycle.
I use two 400 watt ML lamps in the veg room with four high intensity florescent lights for clones that are a few days old. I use two eight site aeroponic "daisy" cloners for seedlings and my clones. Transferred to GH 6 site aeorponic rain forest systems.
The mothers (2) are kept in their own GH 8 gal hydro systems. Flowering is done under two 400 watt HPS using the system the plants are in. I am taking 8 clones form each mother per month.
Been using GH 3 part system until, upon further reading, I found the "Lucas" method. I have had one other prob with my grow to date and that was some severe yellowing in the late seedling/early veg stage. Ultimately it was under fertilization and the "Lucas" method fixed that right up.
For those who don't know ( I'm sure you all do) the Lucas method is simply ( this is all ml/gal) 5 micro and 10 bloom under veg, and 8 micro 16 bloom under flowering. Except if using HID lighting, in which case 8-16 all the time, which is what I am currently doing.
My plants are currently in the third week of veg ( and about 6 weeks old total, the early nute deficiency set me back a bit) under the full str lucas method. Sitting in their 17 gal aerponic systems 34" below (raised up form 48" the first two weeks under them) each 400 watt MH. The will b arranged vertically in between them.
My lumen meter arrived defective ( I have another on the way) so, unfortunately I don't know how many lumens each plant is getting directly but according to some charts I read in Cervantes book ,The Medical Marijuana Growers Bible, the 400watt ML should be more then sufficient for six plants arranged in a hexagon ~ 2 ft wide. Around 2500 lumens.
I have one small fan ( about 1 ft diameter) sitting raised up directly on the plants, and a large wire frame industrial fan sitting in the far corner blowing up towards them. I get a good deal of constant movement, but nothing to bend the branches to much. I leave the exhaust fan running 12 hrs a day. The temp is pretty consistent at 78.8F, but gets up to 80.3F sometimes.
My PH is pretty much pegged between 5.5 -6 ( my digital PH meter was a combination reader with the lumen reader so I have to use the test stripes for now) I have not been adding any extra Co2 yet but I brew beer and have a couple 1 gal co2 tanks I intead to set to a slow metered leak soon.
Lastly I have been using two hot mist humidifiers that kept the room between 58-65% humidity. But I noticed the head on my plants would creep up towards 82F (81.8F) and I was cornered about this.
Which leads me to my problem, sorry for all the reading but I am serious about this and wanted to make sure I gave all the info I possibly could before presenting my issue. Which is leaf cupping. Its not to bad ATM, just a couple leaves on each plant, but the edges have definitely folded back revealing the lighter green underside.
To the touch the leaves are firm, soft, and supple, not brittle or papery like you should expect with nute OD. The RH has been running around 45% but I figured with them sitting in a nutrient fog it would be alright.
Other then that they look great, are a nice deep green, full and lush leaves that have starting EXPLODING. Really, I'm not terribly concerned yet as the plants look so amazing otherwise ( and two days ago I first noticed a nice "stink" when I unlocked the door and entered the room
).
Just don't want it to progress or become a bigger problem. Oh, right, I had been using those coconut insert disks over top of the hydrotron the plants are supported in. Now I have read the GH nutes are high in salt, and in fact have noticed some crystals forming on my bottles. When i picked up the disks the other day I noticed a lot of the nice red clay balls had a fine crystal layer over them.
Thinking this was the cause of the problem I pulled each net pot up and while my wife held them I flushed each one with about a gal of cool RO water. The next day once the hydrotron had dried I noticed some ( at this point I didn't replace the lid thinking it was helping to trap salt ) salt buildup still remained so I repeated the same procedure.
Today the cupping seems a little more pronounced. My thinking is to turn the humidifier back on to about 65% and hope that helps. I don't want to lower the plants any more, as I think they are on the outer edge for this wattage as is.
Sorry for the novel, my first post and my first grow, just wanted to give as much info as possible to help in diagnosis. Thank you for any help, greatly appreciated.
Oh, one more thing, the room and all the equipment I use have been thoroughly cleaned with a 2% bleach solution and then rinsed off with RO water ( which is what I use for my nute solution). Also the hydroton ( or is it "hydrotRon"?) have been thoroughly rinsed and the nute solution was changed and the reservoir replaced twice in the first couple days as I STILL got a brown "gunk" attached to my roots and inside my pumps, it was clearly clay. Now tho my roots are copious and pearly white, and almost 3 1/2 ft long! And my tank and res are nice and clean.
After realizing i was becoming an opiate addict I tired pot. Not as much acute pain relief as the pills, but enough that it was manageable, but that was all I wanted anyway.
I have quickly become tired of dealing with the black market scene, and my wallet being a couple hundred dollars lighter each month, and have decided to grow my own, this is my first grow.
Sorry, but thought it was important to give at least a bit of background. I have constructed a fairly high quality set up in my basement. A military buddy of mind is a contractor and had no problem building it "off the record".
So I have a large, self contained room in my basement divided into two chambers, one is aprox 5ft x 15ft, and an airtight door dividing the smaller chamber which is about 6ft x 7ft.
I have a built in ventilation system with an intake in each room w/ a separate switch for each. This vents about 2 ft above my rooftop and passes through two filters on the way. It is constructed to look like ( and for all intents and purposes is) a radon gas vent. I also have a couple jars of "odor killer" ( the stuff with a skunk who has a pistol pointed at him, cute) and an ozone generator is coming in a week or so.
My walls are the same water proof and insulation providing white panels used in professional freezers and walk in fridges. I can instantly spot any dirt, and the walls do not absorb moisture and are easy to wipe off. The floor is white tile.
I use the larger room for my vegging room, i know you would normally make the bigger room the flowering room but I use the veg room for my clones as well ( they partitioned off in the same room with a large plastic tent) my mothers and storage of all my tools, nutes, etc. Also since I keep the veg light on 24hrs and use it as my work area I don't have to worry about passing through the flowering chamber and disturbing the light cycle.
I use two 400 watt ML lamps in the veg room with four high intensity florescent lights for clones that are a few days old. I use two eight site aeroponic "daisy" cloners for seedlings and my clones. Transferred to GH 6 site aeorponic rain forest systems.
The mothers (2) are kept in their own GH 8 gal hydro systems. Flowering is done under two 400 watt HPS using the system the plants are in. I am taking 8 clones form each mother per month.
Been using GH 3 part system until, upon further reading, I found the "Lucas" method. I have had one other prob with my grow to date and that was some severe yellowing in the late seedling/early veg stage. Ultimately it was under fertilization and the "Lucas" method fixed that right up.
For those who don't know ( I'm sure you all do) the Lucas method is simply ( this is all ml/gal) 5 micro and 10 bloom under veg, and 8 micro 16 bloom under flowering. Except if using HID lighting, in which case 8-16 all the time, which is what I am currently doing.
My plants are currently in the third week of veg ( and about 6 weeks old total, the early nute deficiency set me back a bit) under the full str lucas method. Sitting in their 17 gal aerponic systems 34" below (raised up form 48" the first two weeks under them) each 400 watt MH. The will b arranged vertically in between them.
My lumen meter arrived defective ( I have another on the way) so, unfortunately I don't know how many lumens each plant is getting directly but according to some charts I read in Cervantes book ,The Medical Marijuana Growers Bible, the 400watt ML should be more then sufficient for six plants arranged in a hexagon ~ 2 ft wide. Around 2500 lumens.
I have one small fan ( about 1 ft diameter) sitting raised up directly on the plants, and a large wire frame industrial fan sitting in the far corner blowing up towards them. I get a good deal of constant movement, but nothing to bend the branches to much. I leave the exhaust fan running 12 hrs a day. The temp is pretty consistent at 78.8F, but gets up to 80.3F sometimes.
My PH is pretty much pegged between 5.5 -6 ( my digital PH meter was a combination reader with the lumen reader so I have to use the test stripes for now) I have not been adding any extra Co2 yet but I brew beer and have a couple 1 gal co2 tanks I intead to set to a slow metered leak soon.
Lastly I have been using two hot mist humidifiers that kept the room between 58-65% humidity. But I noticed the head on my plants would creep up towards 82F (81.8F) and I was cornered about this.
Which leads me to my problem, sorry for all the reading but I am serious about this and wanted to make sure I gave all the info I possibly could before presenting my issue. Which is leaf cupping. Its not to bad ATM, just a couple leaves on each plant, but the edges have definitely folded back revealing the lighter green underside.
To the touch the leaves are firm, soft, and supple, not brittle or papery like you should expect with nute OD. The RH has been running around 45% but I figured with them sitting in a nutrient fog it would be alright.
Other then that they look great, are a nice deep green, full and lush leaves that have starting EXPLODING. Really, I'm not terribly concerned yet as the plants look so amazing otherwise ( and two days ago I first noticed a nice "stink" when I unlocked the door and entered the room
). Just don't want it to progress or become a bigger problem. Oh, right, I had been using those coconut insert disks over top of the hydrotron the plants are supported in. Now I have read the GH nutes are high in salt, and in fact have noticed some crystals forming on my bottles. When i picked up the disks the other day I noticed a lot of the nice red clay balls had a fine crystal layer over them.
Thinking this was the cause of the problem I pulled each net pot up and while my wife held them I flushed each one with about a gal of cool RO water. The next day once the hydrotron had dried I noticed some ( at this point I didn't replace the lid thinking it was helping to trap salt ) salt buildup still remained so I repeated the same procedure.
Today the cupping seems a little more pronounced. My thinking is to turn the humidifier back on to about 65% and hope that helps. I don't want to lower the plants any more, as I think they are on the outer edge for this wattage as is.
Sorry for the novel, my first post and my first grow, just wanted to give as much info as possible to help in diagnosis. Thank you for any help, greatly appreciated.
Oh, one more thing, the room and all the equipment I use have been thoroughly cleaned with a 2% bleach solution and then rinsed off with RO water ( which is what I use for my nute solution). Also the hydroton ( or is it "hydrotRon"?) have been thoroughly rinsed and the nute solution was changed and the reservoir replaced twice in the first couple days as I STILL got a brown "gunk" attached to my roots and inside my pumps, it was clearly clay. Now tho my roots are copious and pearly white, and almost 3 1/2 ft long! And my tank and res are nice and clean.
