Sweet Tooth, CAP E&G, STG's, 21 Gun show down, 2nd grow here we go!

Veg Room:
2 by 4 T5 with EZClone 30

1000W MH
21 bucket CAP Ebb and Grow system
STG inserts
TECHNAFLORA® RECIPE FOR SUCCESS
9 floods a day for the first week till my clones get healthier. (i could be way off)
2 12" oscillating fans
6" exhaust fan

thats about all

I have herd just about only BAD things about the STG inserts. but i baught a tone of them before i did 100% research. so im going to give it a shot. and this can be your forum to refer to if these things suck or not. my room is not completly great. im sure it could be better. so if these dont work, im sure we wont be able to put the entire blame on the STG. and if they do work, all the haters and just keep hatin if they want to. I have no affiliation with STG. nor do i want to. i just wasted a bunch of money, so now we shall see if i waste a bunch of time.

no details on the flower room yet because im still in a flower cycle for another three weeks before these bad boys head to the 12 hr cycle. you can see the others at this link

Thread: Medical Grow op, NEWBIE!!! so far so good. Comments are welcome

This is DAY 1

it took me 12 minutes to transplant 21 clones from the STG ezclone inserts, into the STG bucket inserts. i like that so far. nothing else needed to be done. just plop them in there and flood the biatch to give them a fresh douche of agua.

I also included a pic of the momma i put into flower. thought that would be cool. this thing is huge! Things got a tree trunk on her! im excited about that! in soil by the way.

Enjoy the grow. lets all learn from this one eh! Comments, advice, suggestions all welcome.

so it seems to me, 9 floods a day might be a little to much. im afraid of drying the roots out though. should i be more worried about drowning the plants, or drying them out. this is my first experience with an ebb and flow. does anyone have anything to add?

thanks.

i would love to see more pics of your set up. looks like a go attempt, i havent looked into stg. i think i like my lava rocks, but am open to anything that could save time. i will keep up with you on this.

Day two has been a success so far. i am already seeing new growth. my PH jumped to 7.5 when i checked on them around 3pm today. i started the grow at a ph of 6, 500ppm, and 9 cycle during the day. after reading a little more today, i put the cycle down to 5 30min cycles a day, aggusted the ph back down to 5.5 (because there was still some 7.5 in the bottom of the buckets) and bumped my ppms up to 1000.

we shall see what happens next.

thanks for watching!

so my buckets i have noticed are filling just a little past the top of the STG inserts. so the water goes up to the base of the plants, but not any higher. is this bad or good? just trying to make sure they are not drowning.

raised my buckets today with 2 by 8's. finally got the PH adjusted. it took me three days. kinda pissed me off, but hey. everything looks great, and im seeing new growth. so im happy so far. the plants definetly saw some transplant shock. i have a few plants with some browning leaves, but i think they should recover just fine. ill see if i can get some pics tonight of them.

dialing it in is the fun part. isn"t?

ears said:

dialing it in is the fun part. isn"t?

Click to expand...

well im still noob enough where i dont really know if what i am doing is good, or bad. we shall see.

I dont know what i am doing wrong, but every single day i go to check the ph in my res, its up to 7.2 or higher. i always drop it down to about 5.2 to try and compensate for the high ph residing in the buckets, but i cant keep in under control. my plants seem to be having very slow growth, but i need to know if im doing the right thing? does anyone else have this problem with an ebb and flow?

If your pH is that high, whats your ppm and ph of your water before adding any nutrients?

I'm very skeptic on the STG inserts, but only by way of hearsay -- nobody seems to use em but everyone thinks they suck. Subscribed and +rep to ya for finding out.

9x floods per day is a LOT! I speak for Hydroton, which should be the same as the STG's, but in vegging never really more than 2 waterings a day, and barely hit 4 waters a day by week 5/6 of flowering, maybe 5x a day the last week for no real reason but 9x a day is a TON!

Dont sweat being a "newb". We ALL learned at one point! Just be sure when you have questions that seem tough to describe such as plant problems, multi-factoring conditions, etc., that you post lots of details and lots of pictures. You'll find the "help me" threads with pictures get replies MUCH faster and more accurately than without. Good luck, and subscribed for the STG's and to check in!

Kitty

researchkitty said:

If your pH is that high, whats your ppm and ph of your water before adding any nutrients?

I'm very skeptic on the STG inserts, but only by way of hearsay -- nobody seems to use em but everyone thinks they suck. Subscribed and +rep to ya for finding out.

9x floods per day is a LOT! I speak for Hydroton, which should be the same as the STG's, but in vegging never really more than 2 waterings a day, and barely hit 4 waters a day by week 5/6 of flowering, maybe 5x a day the last week for no real reason but 9x a day is a TON!

Dont sweat being a "newb". We ALL learned at one point! Just be sure when you have questions that seem tough to describe such as plant problems, multi-factoring conditions, etc., that you post lots of details and lots of pictures. You'll find the "help me" threads with pictures get replies MUCH faster and more accurately than without. Good luck, and subscribed for the STG's and to check in!

Kitty

Click to expand...

PPM out of tap is about 120 and ph is about 7.2-7.8 depends on the day. once i add nutrients it usually evens out without any ph down, but the very next day it jumps back to 7.2 or higher.

the STG dont seem to be much of a pain yet. i dont have any complaints other than they sunk about an inch into the bucket after the first watering. but i just raised the buckets about an inch and everything seems to be working well. i dont think im getting much growth right now because of the ph issue. i think those plants are so confused right now that they dont know whats going on.

the 9 floods was just a noob move. cause it was hard for me to imagine that just a few floods a day was going to be ok. but i dropped down to five after reading what most people with this system use. it seems to be doing ok. im still only in week one of VEG.

i needed to adjust again about an hour ago. im thinking about draining my res, and flushing the buckets a few times, drain again, and then fill with some RO water. im just going to buy 60 gallons at the grocery and add that way. probably start with about 40 in the res, and then add as needed. im hoping from the responses from people that i should fix my problem that way. and im thinking with the size of the plants, it should last about 2 to 3 weeks. i will keep you posted.

thanks for the rep, i appreciate that. STG is still growing!

real slow growth going on here.

stressed mother. 2nd grow ever. and i cant get the PH dialed in. i will empty the res and dump RO water in it soon. new and very different hydro system. first grow was soil. and i think the mother started to pre-flower just before i took clones.

after all i have learned from the first grow, i dont seem to be heading down the right path for a better grow second time around. we will see.

thanks for all your comments and advice. i really appreciate it!

everyone said they suck...i guess they do...