SH Bubbleponics grow, 400w MH/HPS, 3 Sour Diesel, 3Northern Lights

ghostridermike said:

Hey fry I couldn't agree more the only reason I am using the nutes I am using is it seemed for $29.99 the Technaflora nute kit was the easiest to use. I knew all along I was not going to use SH nutes but I can't see paying those prices (advanced,fox farms,) might as well buy your weed instead of growing it. You might save money depending how much you toke.

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Yup, same with me, being new to this hydro stuff I kind of went with the flow. But I got lucky, Roseman was using Advanced, and they were the nutes that turned him on to the fact you need N at bloom too. That's what Uncle Ben has been preaching all along. But I'm finding that I may have been taken with the Big Bud crap, I'm still pissed, $42! Gotta keep on learning man.

So, I'm on a quest for the easiest to procure, most cost effective nutes on the market, UB orders his from a couple of mail order sites, he's given a couple urls. Maybe make it easy on myself and buy from one of those and stop messing around. But I'm learning about this stuff. I don't take anything on face value, UB and Roseman know their stuff, but in order to implement it properly you've got to learn what you're what you're doing, not just parrot what someone else has done. Maybe they missed something too!

I know you're with me on this one Ghost! Let's keep up the search, we'll figure it out.

I swear, this Northern Lights I just picked up this afternoon is some of the best smoke I've done in a while, I'm going back for more tomorrow! And that bottle of Sauvignon Blanc is pairing real nice! You gotta love it!

Okay, you wanna hear the most incredible news there is to give? Grand child #2 just might be on the way. I've got a grand daughter that 16 months old and it looks like Wyatt just might be on the way. Momma's been having contractions all day and is 3 cm dilated. Still a long way to go, plus she's three weeks early. I'm betting it's a false alarm, but I'm packing the bags just to make sure. I doesn't get any better than this! I'll keep you posted.

Well, false alarm, no baby today. I'm still here at home so I'll post some pics today. It's beautiful out, hope you day is looking good!

Okay, re-filled the res today, another gallon. Yesterday when I did the res change I refilled with water and nutes to 1150 ppm, my water starts out at about 350ppm. This morning when I got up the ppm was down to 1050, they are in fact eating! So when I refilled the used gallon I added 2 tbs of both part A&B, this brought the ppm up to 1250. I don't see a need to raise it too far, but a little more each day won't hurt anything.

As you can see by the pics my closet is crammed full with plants, they are looking so big and strong it's really incredible. One problem I've run into is due to the sheer size of these plants, yesterday when I was draining the res, I have a drain plug, I tipped the res to get as much out as possible, but when I did that the plants almost fell out of the door! They are now leaning toward the door, you can see the leaves that are growing against the door, it's pretty tight in there. I need to get something to hold them in, either a net over the top they can grow through, I think this would be my preference, or just a strap across the opening to hold them in. The net would arrange things, I could distribute them across the space this way, but some of these babes are getting toward 4' tall and may be a problem getting over and around.

Looking at my favorite plant, the northern light in the front middle you can see 4 major branches coming up from the base, this is one killer plant! The sour diesel to the right of it is just as big. From what I can see I have four great big plants and two that have been kind of squeezed out. Next grow I'm going with 4 plants total, I'll start with clones. 6 plants in this space is way over capacity. I wish I could remove these two, but it would be a bigger hassle than it's worth, plus I'm sure I'll get something out of them.

Okay, here's the pics.

Hey, I just noticed your location neighbor! lol, I also live in the mountains. I was just smokin on some sour diesel last night, that stuff is awesome! It has a strong taste and a strong high that comes on fast and heavy it relaxes the core of your body and just sits there for about an hour and a half. It may not be that way for everyone i spose but thats what it did for me, a good pain relief no doubt. There were certain points I had super heavy eyelids and looking up at the tv playing video games seemed a little harder than it should've been lol!! I really enjoyed this strain very much and cant wait to get my hands on some more!

Wow thats alot of bush comin out of that little 8 gal tub.

Oh yeah Fry all advice taken and applied my friend.

I will wait to find out about the nutes, looking at your plants if it is good enough for you it is gonna be fine by me most assuredly. But I agree about the how and why of nutes not just taking what others say we don't all live in the same climates what works for one might not work for the other and vice versa we could go on forever. I now know after adding a splash of nutes 2 days ago that my (sativa-hybrid indica dominant) white widows were starving for nutes, becuase I come today and they look better than ever. So I knew it was time to step it up. Good advice my man keep it coming.

Hey FryingPan, I have been back and forth in your journal but yet to post. I was wondering, in the beginning you hada few issues with heat and lack of humidity. Did that continue through your entire grow up to this point, or was adding the small cooling unit and humidifier enough? I only ask because I will be growing in Colorado also. I will be using a 48" x 24" x 72" DIY cab with a 400w HPS/MH along with 4' CFL strips as suplimental lighting. Do you foresee me running into any issues? What other issues did you run into with the temperature changes during this time of year and how were your babies affected? Thanks man, great job on those massive bushes!

volcomrider157 said:

Hey, I just noticed your location neighbor! lol, I also live in the mountains. I was just smokin on some sour diesel last night, that stuff is awesome! It has a strong taste and a strong high that comes on fast and heavy it relaxes the core of your body and just sits there for about an hour and a half. It may not be that way for everyone i spose but thats what it did for me, a good pain relief no doubt. There were certain points I had super heavy eyelids and looking up at the tv playing video games seemed a little harder than it should've been lol!! I really enjoyed this strain very much and cant wait to get my hands on some more!

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Hey volcom, good to hear from you. I see where you're from, probably not that far from me. I've met a couple people lately in my valley that are familiar with the site, I just showed the guys at a new grow store near by my journal here, pretty cool.

Thanks for the review on the diesel, I don't think I've ever had any before, sounds great to me! I was at a dispensary the other day and they had a couple stains of diesel, but no sour diesel. The the guy went into t big explanation of the diesel strain and how sour didn't have any diesel in it at all, I have yo admit that from what I'm seeing some of these strains are being interbred and mixed and just plain mis-named so often that pretty soon we won't know what it is we're smoking.

Let's see how this grow works out, maybe there is a way we can get together and share a little bud and swap some stories! Good luck!

ghostridermike said:

Oh yeah Fry all advice taken and applied my friend.

I will wait to find out about the nutes, looking at your plants if it is good enough for you it is gonna be fine by me most assuredly. But I agree about the how and why of nutes not just taking what others say we don't all live in the same climates what works for one might not work for the other and vice versa we could go on forever. I now know after adding a splash of nutes 2 days ago that my (sativa-hybrid indica dominant) white widows were starving for nutes, becuase I come today and they look better than ever. So I knew it was time to step it up. Good advice my man keep it coming.

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Hey man, thanks for the love! Yeah, you gotta watch your plants and see how they're doing to know exactly what to do, I guess that would be called experience. I tried to be conservative with the nutes, didn't want any burn, when you burn the inside of the plant you pay dearly. But I don't think I ever came close to a burn. Did burn from the lights twice, but that doesn't seem to hurt the plant much. But I'm also finding that you don't have to dose them as much as some people say. I doubt I'll push the flower nutes too much, I'm thinking burn will be worse than a bit shy. I'll add another comment about the Big Bud I bought and will not be using any more of.

Later man!

HEY DUDE U SHOULD TAKE A FEW BRANCHES OF THE BOTTOM ..... n get a fan blowin to produce very steong steams for this tech. called lollipopping ....... dude ur lookin great ur grow looks very healtjy if u lollipopped dude ud grab about 2 oz. dry off each plant ... an use a lil bit of that bud candy . but have u ever tried a nute called gravity it woulud work so great wit ur crop look it up dude .................... oyea how big is ur box did u make it or buy it

rreign said:

Hey FryingPan, I have been back and forth in your journal but yet to post. I was wondering, in the beginning you hada few issues with heat and lack of humidity. Did that continue through your entire grow up to this point, or was adding the small cooling unit and humidifier enough? I only ask because I will be growing in Colorado also. I will be using a 48" x 24" x 72" DIY cab with a 400w HPS/MH along with 4' CFL strips as suplimental lighting. Do you foresee me running into any issues? What other issues did you run into with the temperature changes during this time of year and how were your babies affected? Thanks man, great job on those massive bushes!

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Hey rreign, glad to see you stopped in, glad to have the company. In a word, the solution to my heat problems was fall then now winter. I'm concerned about next summer, I'll probably have to add some sort of a/c in there to get my temps down.

I've found that the MH runs a lot hotter than an HPS so flowering is easier. I'm thinking I 'll have to spring for a good vented hood, some sort of cool tube or the like. Because that will also help with my humidity problem, that being too low most of the time. I found that since I was venting the general space with a 6" inline fan and the inlet just drew in fresh air there was no way I could do anything of any substance to increase the humidity. Even with the humidifier on full blast in the closet the humidity never rose, I've got an extra humidifier, you want one? But a good hood that isn't taking the air out of the grow space but only around the lamp won't vent the humidity out either.

But in my research I found that the high humidity recommended isn't really necessary for veg so I blew it off and it worked for me, I misted the plants every chance I got, with distilled water, my tap water is very hard (~350 ppm) and I was getting a mineral build up on the leaves when I used it straight out of the tap. The biggest problem with humidity is during flower when you want it low so I figured to hell with it, I'm on the right side of the problem with our naturally low humidity around here so I wasn't going to worry, and it's worked out so far.

The biggest problem I'm having right now is the closet is running a bit cool since I have it in my heated garage and I'm too cheap to heat the garage to 70 deg. I keep the temp at 60 and run the light at night during the coldest part of the day to help the garage heater. My day night temps have been running 73/59 a good spread, you want 15 deg spread during flower, though I am on the low side. I hear 85/70 would be optimal.

So, bottom line, I'm not sure I have my heat problem solved yet, I'll find out next spring. The first thing for me is a properly vented hood, then quite likely a small a/c unit from Lowes or the like, probably in the 50,000 to 75,000 range. We use those to cool closets when we put lots of audio/visual equipment in them to keep the equipment within temp operating range. Humidity is no big deal for us here, I blew off worrying about it for veg and you want it low for flower so we're cool.

I think I could have organized this response better, sorry about that. I'm really trying to cut the length of my posts, but I keep thinking of more to say.

Check my thread Fry New pics my man

zues said:

HEY DUDE U SHOULD TAKE A FEW BRANCHES OF THE BOTTOM ..... n get a fan blowin to produce very steong steams for this tech. called lollipopping ....... dude ur lookin great ur grow looks very healtjy if u lollipopped dude ud grab about 2 oz. dry off each plant ... an use a lil bit of that bud candy . but have u ever tried a nute called gravity it woulud work so great wit ur crop look it up dude .................... oyea how big is ur box did u make it or buy it

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Hey zues, thanks for the note. One thing I've recently noticed is how much the plants have opened up in the middle. I think the branches are getting so thick they are spreading out as much as they can within my space to allow more light to the bottom by themselves. It's pretty amazing how much more room there is underneath than there was a week ago.

I'm had a fan blowing from underneath since day one, you should see how thick some of those stalks are, one about 1 1/2" thick! I'm not going to lollipop my plants, I've been taking my advice from Roseman and he's very adamant about not doing it, he's my guru and I've followed his advice very closely to this point so I'm going along with this one too. This can be a pretty emotional subject for some people and I don't want to get into a discussion about it here, but thanks for the thought! If it works for you great!

I'm researching nutes very closely right now. I'm using Advanced Sensi Bloom parts A&B. I also bought some Big Bud which I was told to use from day one of flowering, then after a month switch to Bud Candy. I didn't add the Big Bud the first week and everything was great, the second week I added a little of the Big Bud and I started to get lower fan leaves starting to yellow and fall off, a big time sign of low N. So at res change I left out the big bud and guess what? The leaves have all greened up nicely again and my plants are healthy. As I understand it, when you have too much K in the mix it interferes with the plants ability to use the nitrogen which the yellows the bottom leaves first. N is mobile in plants so the first place you see a deficiency is in the lower leaves, I'm learning how to read the plants. Uncle Ben has some great threads on plant nutrition, check him out, I've learned a bunch. I am looking into using some sugar based additive for the last week or to of flowering, I'll let you know what I decide to use, got some more reading to do.

I built my grow space out of 1/2" cdx ply and 2x2's in the corner of my garage. dimensions are 30"x48"x111".

So hey, thanks for the comments, it's great to hear what you have to say. I will check into those nutes you mentioned, you have to look at everything before you can make a decision.

if heat is your problem during veg and you're not worried much about the HPS you should veg with CFLS, I can put my hand right on a bulb thats puttin out 420watts, its pretty impressive, then when you switch to flower throw on the HPS..

volcomrider157 said:

if heat is your problem during veg and you're not worried much about the HPS you should veg with CFLS, I can put my hand right on a bulb thats puttin out 420watts, its pretty impressive, then when you switch to flower throw on the HPS..

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I agree 100%, I just received 8-55w cfls for my next veg, 6- 5000k and 2- 2700k, I'll probably throw some 6500k in when I find them. I think that should be a good start for my next grow!

Here are some pics guys, just the buds this time, they are really starting to get it together, another week or so and I'll have some nice stuff to show you.

Hello again FPF, plants are lookin great still green as hell, are you adding a little veg nutes to keep them so green? I'm so pissed out of 6 plants I have one female and one I'm still not sure of ( it almost got cut in half!taped it together now its catching up but may still sprout balls!) I did manage to cut 4 clones off of my female so they should be ready to go right to flower in a few wks! I've been smokin so much lately I don't seem to get high anymore maybe I need a wk to dry out !!I think my boys and I are heading up to Mammoth next wk get a little snowboarding in!! It's nice not to have to work all the time !!Only thing about getting old thats worth a shit! Your grow looks great and its got to be really beutiful in the mountains this time of year . Have a great Christmas ,your probably gonna be harvesting by the end of Jan should be a good one by the looks of the pics.!!

lookin fine for 14 days. dont worry, they will start filling up real quick. no matter what, they always seem to start so for me. guess im impatient. btw, you stalks look incredibly healthy man, and huge!

can we get a comparison shot of the biggest stalk, at the bottom, compared to like a lighter(i know you got one) or something

FryingPanFlyer said:

Hey rreign, glad to see you stopped in, glad to have the company. In a word, the solution to my heat problems was fall then now winter. I'm concerned about next summer, I'll probably have to add some sort of a/c in there to get my temps down.

I've found that the MH runs a lot hotter than an HPS so flowering is easier. I'm thinking I 'll have to spring for a good vented hood, some sort of cool tube or the like. Because that will also help with my humidity problem, that being too low most of the time. I found that since I was venting the general space with a 6" inline fan and the inlet just drew in fresh air there was no way I could do anything of any substance to increase the humidity. Even with the humidifier on full blast in the closet the humidity never rose, I've got an extra humidifier, you want one? But a good hood that isn't taking the air out of the grow space but only around the lamp won't vent the humidity out either.

But in my research I found that the high humidity recommended isn't really necessary for veg so I blew it off and it worked for me, I misted the plants every chance I got, with distilled water, my tap water is very hard (~350 ppm) and I was getting a mineral build up on the leaves when I used it straight out of the tap. The biggest problem with humidity is during flower when you want it low so I figured to hell with it, I'm on the right side of the problem with our naturally low humidity around here so I wasn't going to worry, and it's worked out so far.

The biggest problem I'm having right now is the closet is running a bit cool since I have it in my heated garage and I'm too cheap to heat the garage to 70 deg. I keep the temp at 60 and run the light at night during the coldest part of the day to help the garage heater. My day night temps have been running 73/59 a good spread, you want 15 deg spread during flower, though I am on the low side. I hear 85/70 would be optimal.

So, bottom line, I'm not sure I have my heat problem solved yet, I'll find out next spring. The first thing for me is a properly vented hood, then quite likely a small a/c unit from Lowes or the like, probably in the 50,000 to 75,000 range. We use those to cool closets when we put lots of audio/visual equipment in them to keep the equipment within temp operating range. Humidity is no big deal for us here, I blew off worrying about it for veg and you want it low for flower so we're cool.

I think I could have organized this response better, sorry about that. I'm really trying to cut the length of my posts, but I keep thinking of more to say.

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FryingPan, you're the man. I didn't mind reading that post at all. It had a lot of good info that I have been trying to find about Colorado for quite sometime. I'm moving there and right now, you're my best resource. Ok, so let me boil your post down so I don't take up too much of your time in YOUR post. The humidity problem isn't really a problem because in essence, we only need to veg for like 2-3 weeks anyway. The temps being lower with such a drastic change is due to the grow being in the garage w/ a lack of temp control, a problem I won't have because I will be in a cab inside the house. Does that pretty much boil it down? Ok, I have one more question for now. What is the usual pH of the water right out of the tap. I saw you said it was around 350ppm but that doesn't really give me a good idea of the pH. (Not that advanced I guess) Oh, and I found a great deal for you... CHECK IT OUT. Thanks again.