First Bubble Bucket

[RackitMan]

I have done two grows in soil and two in hempy buckets with average results. Just started a single seed in one 5 gallon bubble bucket with generic hydro nutes. Wow! I can literally watch this thing grow hour by hour. It doubled in size in the last 8 hours.

The root tips have not yet hit the water but are coming out of the basket on all sides. Plant is about one week old and 4" high. Growing under a single 23w CFL.

The rate of growth is phenomenal, but all of you BB fans already knew that.

I will start a photo log today.

[RackitMan]

[attachment=o276290]

Day nine.

[michaelpeg]

plant looks perfect. didn't know you could have all that soil and crap on the hydroton, I thought plants were really fussy in hydro. Do you check the ppm and ph? Just wondering what you can get away with.

[RackitMan]

The medium is a mix of what I had lying around: hydroton, landscaping rock pieces, perlite and peat. I am going to see how it does with no PPM metering and no PH adjustment. Water is 1 part city very hard water and 4 parts reverse osmosis water. Nutes are bulk, dry E-Bay generic.

My lamp is an inverted 5 gallon bucket painted white inside with a small (one or two quart?) plastic flower vase also painted white to act as a focuser. I have large holes drilled in the base of the bucket to let the heat out and I have some 1 * 1 wood scraps between the buckets to let fresh air in. Will upload a pic. It is very bright and the plant gets almost all of the light. Will probably keep it in there until week 3 or it gets too big. I designed this because i do not have a separate veg room. 23 watts is about the max heat for this setup. Am also going to do another with 10 to 20w of white or blue LED(s) to compare growth rate and heat level. As to kelvin, I have noticed no difference between cool white or warm white, so use whatever you have. This bulb is 2700K rated at 1750 lumens, I believe.

If anyone wants to try my lamp design, be sure to let it air for several weeks after painting or the fumes will kill the seedling. I also have another bucket with a reflector which I will show and can be used immediately. I cannot say which is brighter without a light meter.

[michaelpeg]

glad to hear you aren't using a ppm meter. I like to keep things as simple as possible too. if your grow turns out good i think I will give bubble buckets a shot. good luck and i will watch till the end.

[RackitMan]

To make sure I am doing everything wrong, I also skipped using an airstone. The open tube is tied in a loose knot to a weight.

[RackitMan]

*double post*

[Douglas1]

your saying that's 9 days from seed? counting germination? if so, that's nuts.. what nutes are you using?

[RackitMan]

Nutes are QuikGrow - about $9 a dry pound. I counted from the day the seed broke soil, so about 12-13 days after planting. Plant grew another 20-25% last night. Growing so fast, it must be a male. My next grow will be with feminised seeds. Too much wasted time for my setup otherwise.

Updated pics of plant and bucket lamps tomorrow.

[RackitMan]

The bubble lamps are as described earlier. Two 5 gallon buckets flipped upside down for vegging a single plant in my bubble bucket. One uses white paint and the other uses hardware store reflective insulation - way better than mylar. I designed two as a comparison. They are pretty close in output. The painted one runs cooler because of airflow out the venting holes.

The updated plant pic may look the same as the original from a few days ago as it is just under 1" taller but is almost 4" wider! Currently it is 4.7" tall and over 10" wide. Never seen one stay that low before. Hope it stays that way.

[Douglas1]

either male or your kicking butt.. Does it have a smell? pistils? Redish coloring on the main stem when sprouted? supposedly those are early indications of a female.. you could always start flowering in a week and take a clone

[RackitMan]

Slight skunky smell up very close. Stem is reddish currently. Didn't check when sprouted. No physical sexual indicators that I can see. Might have to toss it in the flower room much earlier than I had planned as it is almost too big for my bucket lamp.

They say the plant really explodes when the roots hit the water. Well, they have quite a ways to go, but not sure how much more explosive the growth could get!

I think my lamp is partly responsible for the accelerated growth as the light is quite concentrated.


*Correction from an ealier post. CFL is 1450 lumens not 1750.

[Douglas1]

its still only one cfl man, typically people have a good 5k lumens cooking away for a single plant.

well those are all good signs for her being a female, worst case is.. you've got some killer pollen for massive growth rate genes right?

[RackitMan]

its still only one cfl man, typically people have a good 5k lumens cooking away for a single plant.

Fortunately, I am neither typical nor a people. It is not the tool, but how you use it. :cool:

[michaelpeg]

I know you are doing your own thing here but if i were you I would add maybe one more 23w or swap out the light for a 42w cfl and add a computer fan on top for exhaust,more lights would give you more yield but it will be interesting to see what you get. so far everything looks great

[RackitMan]

Adding more wattage will make it an EZ-Bake oven. :D Too late to design a fan in. You don't want it blowing heat down on the plant, and trying to get suction means I would have to plug all the holes - and maybe offset the lamp to make room. (Some thoughts for someone building their own bucket lamp perhaps.)

No, it is doing what it is designed to do. Only gonna be there for a week more at most. The plant is happy and I am happy. Visible roots now number about two dozen and are about 1/2" outside the basket. Will change the water tomorrow.

[RackitMan]

Well, the little bastard overgrew the bucket lamp way before schedule. It is now 14" wide and is still only 6" tall. The very first rootlet just hit the reservoir. This is the most perfect plant I have grown to date. Not a spot nor a blemish nor discoloration nor drooping. I think I may be a BB convert!

Guess I will have to toss it in my flower room to check the sex. Normally I grow 4 small to medium plants in my 2' X 2' X 5' space. If it is a male, I may have to go for seeds because of its amazing robustness and short height. If it is a female, I will probably reveg, to give the other plants time to finish flowering and then grow one monster DWC plant to see what kind of yields are possible. I keep thinking about topping, but I guess there is no need at this point.

I will post another pic if there is any interest. Not like you guys haven't seen thousands.

[RackitMan]

One thing I have learned since starting, is that I apparently did not have the water level high enough to stimulate the roots growing into the water. I looked at other grows and saw plants half the size of mine with roots extending 3-4" past the basket. My plant is much larger now yet the visible roots are still unimpressive though it is very healthy. As the medium was always totally wet, I was afraid of overwatering or root rot. Seems the air exposure prevents that, so I added another gallon of RO water to bring the level up to see what happens.

[Douglas1]

interested in pic:)

[RackitMan]

New pic coming soon.

Added the water until the lower part of the basket was submerged - and guess what? The leaves all started drooping badly, so I drained until water level was 2" below the basket. Could be the peat I have mixed with the hydroton is acting like a superwick drowining the plants. Plant is back to normal now.

[ApocalypseAdam]

This is one fine specime you have sir. I am truly astounded by the growth rate.

[RackitMan]

Here 'she' (me hopes) is back all healthy after my water level error. Still under my trusty 23W CFL, though I had to build another support for my bubble lamp. She is now 17" wide by 7" high. Guess there is still no need to top yet.

One reason I am not giving 'her' more light is that I have no place to put 'her' so slower growth is OK now, but I might have to replace one of my spindly Hempy Bucket plants in the flower room. Didn't want to as she is over 3 weeks into flower, but cannot wait another 5 weeks. The flowering plant is healthy, just puny.

The dilemma of have very limited space. :mad:

Not sure if I mentioned it, but this plant is a Northern Light X Big Bud (which totally sucked for potency - I noticed Nirvana has since discontinued) crossed with a local Woodie Kush.

Side note: One thing I did NOT like about my Hempy Buckets is that the roots were very weak and could barely hold the plant up. The perlite base seems too light to give the plant anything to grab onto, though I know others have had great success.

[RackitMan]

Bucket now moved under my DIY LED lamp. Check the Lighting Forum for details.

[Douglas1]

northern lights/crossed with big bud sucked? crazy..

lots of times even a lowly oldschool strain can be potent with optimal growing conditions..

[RackitMan]

Buds were pretty and nice and tight, but alas - no kick. Bought some nugs from a friend and you could smell them 50 foot away from his car. I could put these in an envelope directly under the nose of your local LEO and he would not notice.

[attachment=o276650]


On another note: my plant is looking healthy on top, but the roots coming out of the basket are few and feeble. Any thoughts? Water level is about 1" under the basket. Too high?

My cheapo airstone broke before I started and I am just using an open tube, but the bubbles seem pretty good. Might that be it?

[polishpollack]

I'd probably get the water higher, just above the edge of the netpot. Also, dip a cup down into the bucket to get some water/fert mix, then replace the lid and plant and pour the water mix over your grow medium. Do that a few times a day until the roots are well established in the water.

[RackitMan]

The fastest growing plant I have ever seen turned out to be a male, so I started over. :(