Racerx's 8/22/06 Update

[Racerx]

Everything is looking pretty good. The 5 soil ladies are developing nicely. They are 4 weeks into flowering. Starting to get a little bit frosty, but I hope they got a lot more. They wont produce a very large amount but honestly just fine with that because it wasnt my aim. I have never grown from seed before in a small closet setup like this and I abused them quite a bit in the beginning, experimenting and such. They are on a 1000ppm General Hydroponics Flora Nova Grow, filtered water at about 250, pH at about 6-6.2. Temps inside the room range from about 67 at night to around 85 in the day if it gets really bad.

Hydro: The 2 site DWC with the G13 and the Trainwreck is doing absolutely great. I am very pleased with the performance. I went away for 2 days recently and when I got back, the G13 had nearly doubled in size. They are 2 weeks into flowering. The G13 is just now beginning to show tiny buds. The TW on the other hand is busted out tons of buds everywhere. This plant seems to absolutely love LST. Its about a foot and a half long and wraps around the cooler and then up into the light as I would still like one big fat cola. This is quality not quantity, but I hope to pull off an ounce on each of these. I have started this week with the GH Flora Nova Bloom nutrients at about 1000ppm. I was thinking of putting it higher but they seem to love whats going on.

The 4 site DWC setup with the recoveries are doing...pretty good I guess? The root development is not nearly as fast as I expected, however they have stopped drooping so much and look healthier. I am concerned with going into flowering while they are so small and unsupported by roots, but I really have no choice. If I can get an ounce out of all 4 of these plants, Ill be fine with that. I will be revegging them afterwords to take clones since they arent really big enough for that now. They are still on GH Flora Nova Grow, next week will go to the flowering nutrients. I like to see small buds forming.

Finally, my Afghani Kush clone is just rocking!!! Its doubled in size, roots are looking for the most part great (little algae but otherwise white). Its being flowering now, so Im hoping it gets around 2 feet tall by the end. I will definitely have to take a clone soon or reveg afterwards. Wish I could have kept the plants seperate and had a veg room but not practical at the moment. Only a few weeks and I can.

Both DWCs are 18 gallon res, with 5.8 pH tap water. Water temp is kept below 72 F for the most part (can be difficult in the hot day when Im not home to ice them). The 2 site DWC is insulated so it keeps its tempature much better. I use a little bit of H2O2 in both to keep pathogens down.

[Racerx]

Forgot the pictures!

[Racerx]

And some more.

Afghani Kush clone, top view of G13, stem of G13 (its bigger then half an inch, largest leave is around 7"), the 2 site DWC, the 4 site DWC (recovering)

[redman71]

Awesome man......:stoned:

[dusto2k3]

your chicks look nice. Hopefully mine look as good when i start flowering!!

[invision]

good job and when your done send those clones over this way :)

[babystarbud]

looking nice!

[Racerx]

Thanks guys. Everything has been going smashing! Im guess I am doing something right! So the 5 soil ladies are getting close to 5 weeks into flowering. To be honest, I see the least amount of difference between these every week. Although the buds are filling out, and finally crystals are breaking through, they have slowed down vertical growth (except for the one that was transplanted into a larger pot, its still growing like mad which makes me think it is either catching up...or the other pots are rootbound a little as well). I have experimented with sticking one of the soil ladies under the 400watt HPS along with the Hydro stuff. Its really really liking it and has the most crystals out of any of the plants...which is funny considering it was a transplant that was 1/10 the size of my other plants and weeks behind. Now it looks the most mature.

The Hydro though....wow. Wow. So I left for 2 days again and BOOM. Once again I come home and the G13 is PAST the light. I had it LST'ed somewhat under the 250 HPS and then the bottom part was getting some light from the 400. Well it broke the LST string and grew past the 250 HPS by about 6-7 inches. Yikes. So I re-oriented it to be under the 400 watt HPS cause now its big enough. Its about 2.5 feet tall. The fan leaves are as big as my hand. The water was quite warm when I got home so they were curling, but some ice overnight, water kept at about 66-67, and in the morning boom! Everything straight out and nice. Fantastic. The Trainwreck is looking amazing as well. Its only 3 weeks into flowering and it has more crystals then some of my unknown soil ladies 5 weeks into flowering. I dont think the buds will be very big, but I expect them to be very dense and there are just so many bud sites.

The 4 site DWC, is finally looking good. Not ok, but good. I came home to about 200% more roots then when I left, and all the plants have begun to bud. The larger MK Ultra grew 3" in 2 days. The Alaskan has about 6-7 big branch colas, but its looking a little bare since I had to cut off ALL of the large fan leaves (they died or were dying and the lack of roots could not support them). I am very excited about how much they have recovered, and once again I am EXTREMELY impressed with deep water culture's ability to bring a plant back from the brink of extinction, into a wonderful flourishing state.

Finally, the Afghani Kush clone also almost doubled in size ONCE again. The 1 gallon DWC bucket is now just about completely filled with roots. Ive been a little lazy on changing the water but it seems to be fine with it.

NOw for the pictures!!!

Ok, the soil ladies are the first 4. The afghani kush clone is the last one. More pics below.

[Racerx]

Ok, these first 2 are the G13. Its doing the best out of all the plants. The growth is just phenominal. It is averaging more then 1.5" of vertical growth a day. Its large enough that Ive been able to LST some of the lower branches to sit under the 250watt HPS since the large fan leaves block so much light. The last 2 are the Trainwreck, the 3rd one is top view on part of the G13 and the TW. Super excited, it smells wonderful. I have a LOT of airflow through the closet so the smell isnt a big deal around me luckily, just when I get up close.

[Racerx]

And finally, some of the 4 site DWC. The first 2 are Alaskan Thunderfuck, it was looking the worst, looking beautiful now. The middle is the 4 plants. The last 2 are MK Ultra and Cindy 99

[yabatab]

Looks great RX did you end up with more grow space at your new home?


Well anyways keep up the good fight.

"freak power"

[UMrocksmysocks]

nice work man, im keeping an eye on this one

[Racerx]

Thanks guys, Im pretty excited. before this I hadn't grown in years and its really fun to be back. I was originally just going to do 3-4 soil ladies under a 250 HPS to play with stuff and get my feet wet before moving into my house. But then through series of events, I ended up with the hydro setups and clones and an extra 400 watt HPS lamp. My space is CRAMMED right now, its just a closet. My new house...well lets just say that its about 6-7 times the size of my apartment, so I am looking forward to running a clone closet, mother room, and 3 flowering rooms. CO2, sealed, A/C, the whole shabang. Going to do planter boxes too, although I am considering doing one of the rooms hydro since I am so impressed with how well DWC works. I would like to make a system like White Snoop's, which is essentially a recirculating DWC with 5 gallon buckets. His stuff looks fantastic, the roots are mind blowing.

I am going to reveg all of the clones I have after they are flowered. I really wanted to keep them in veg so I could mother them, but the only space I had was already 3 weeks into flowering. G13, Trainwreck, Cindy 99, MK Ultra, Afghani Kush, and Alaskan Thunderfuck. Man...the next grow is going to be fantastic. I have extremely high hopes and a lot of time/money invested already.

Here are some new sets of pictures. The Trainwreck is just maturing so quick! In a week it seems like the buds will be as big as the ones on my Sativas which are 3 weeks ahead. More crystals then some of them too. Smells just WONDERFUL! The G13 grew another 1.5" last night. The leaves are even bigger now. The Alaskan is looking great! It made a good recovery and has a lot of bud sites. The MK Ultras and Cindy 99 arent as developed or big, but their roots are just gorgeous, pouring out. The picture of the roots is yesterday morning. They are into the water all the way today. I am just loving the closeups of the unknown sativas which are past 5 weeks of flowering. Finally getting some good crystals. They have a very strange smell though. Its not very strong and its...interesting I am not sure how to describe it.

[Racerx]

Ok, here are the Unknown soil Sativa and Trainwreck DWC closeups. First 4 are the unknown, last is the Trainwreck.

[dryst]

looking beatiful man...id like to know about ur new grow rooms set up as well

[Racerx]

The new setup is planned, and aside from a CO2 Monitor and a CO2 regulator, I have everything ready. This setup will utilize 4 rooms. There will be a Mother room, 3 flowering rooms, and a clone closet. The clone closet will be running on T5 HO flourescents and a ton of CFLs in a few long fixtures I made. The room is about 5'x8'. It has a 150cfm ceiling vent into a duct that travels into the backyard, the intake is passive and the door will be left open into the veg room since they will keep the same light schedule (18/6). There should be room for about 200 clones. As soon as they are sufficiently rooted, they will go into a flower room where they will recieve 1-3 weeks veg time before being flowered.

The veg room is about 12'x10' and has a small A/C unit drawing air from outside; this is the intake (will be supplemented with fresh air if needed). This room will not have CO2. Currently, the plan is to have about 12 mothers that will be running off some 400 and 600 watt HPS lights. Eventually, I would like to setup 8 recirculating DWC hydroponic 5 gallon buckets in this room, veg them for 2 months, and then bud them in one of the flowering rooms. But thats the future. There will be a dehumidifier as well.

Now the 3 flowering rooms. 2 of the rooms are next to eachother, the other is in a different location. Because its not close to the other rooms, the 3rd flowering room will not get any CO2 or A/C. This will be my control room as Id like to see how the yield differs without these environmental controllers (I have never used CO2). It will be cooled with a 6" Fantech 300cfm inline fan and exhaust with something a little slower. There will be 2 1000watt lights in there, both aircooled.

The other 2 flowering rooms are the pride and joy. There is a closet in one of them, with a large window. A large A/C has been purchased and will be flooding the closet with the cold air. The cold air will then be drawn from here for both rooms. The cold air is brought into both rooms via a 10" 750cfm inline fan and a slower 8" inline fan (dont know what speed to run em at yet), and exhausted by 2 10" 750 cfm inline fans. The exhaust fans will be pulling air-conditioned air through the aircooled hoods. Ive seen this done and you could have your hand 8" below the glass and it was fine. One room will have 2 1000 watt HPS, the other will have another 2 1000watt HPS. Depending on what the energy bill is like, I might get another 2 1000 HPS or I might get rid of one of the flowering rooms and put 4 in one.

The 2 side by side rooms, will be supplemented by CO2. A CO2 controller will control the fans, the A/C, the dehumudifier, the lights, and the CO2 regulator. Target ppm is around 1800-2000. Not entirely sure of the schedule, but probably 2 hours on, vent for 15 minutes, 2 hours on, vent for 15 minutes, etc. The hoods will be sealed so they can continue to be aircooled without pulling CO2 from the room. There will be oscillating fans inside to distribute air and CO2. It will be a little complicated to setup the venting so that we can keep the air cooled hoods on, but keep the room sealed otherwise. The most complicated part will be distributing the CO2, as Id like to use one tank and one regulator to do this. What I havent figured out, is how I am going to control everything correctly because I dont want CO2 at night and there will be periods of 1-3 weeks where both rooms share a different light schedule (one in veg, one in flower). Probably I will just cutoff CO2 for 4 hours to the flower room in veg when the flowering room is in darkness and is just using fresh air.

I am going to try to have a very very very controlled environment with these last 2 rooms, as they will be the pride and joy. The property is off a private road, there are no direct neighbors. I feel safe about that aspect.

In HID lighting, thats going to be about 8000 watts. A crapload. The 2 connected rooms must keep the same general lighting schedule since they are sharing CO2. I am a little worried about the power consumption so I am going to get one of those things Tranoble has that redistributes power around the house and is supposed to save 25%. The rooms will ALL be rewired to 240 volt. I want to be able to leave my house for a week and not worry about it burning down and I want multiple lights on the same circuit for ease.

So do you guys think that I should run 2 flowering rooms, one with 2000 watts and one with 4000 watts? Or just run the 3 flowering rooms with 2000 watts each? 1 am leaning towards just the 2 flowering rooms and then possibly using the mother room to veg clones as well. Essentially I want to maximize the number of times I can harvest in a year. Having it 1 month apart would just be beautiful.

Well, I think that is it for the new setup. By the end of September, the first wave of clones should be finishing up veg (figuring about 50 clones).

[postmandave]

if you are going to go this expence then i would leave out the 1000 watt units and go with multible 600 watt units,. I use both 1000 watt and 600 watt units and imo 3 600 watt units would do better than 2 x 1000 units but thats just my opinion. lol , you are one lucky dude and i wish you well on your project but always be safe. the postman.
PS wicked looking plants mate.

[Racerx]

Ive done a few grows with 600s, and witnessed some grows with 1000s. I can safely say, I have seen enough evidence to not even try 600s unless they are for veg or mothers. The 1000 just makes buds massive and the secondaries get so much bigger compared to something with lower wattage.

That said...here are some more updated pictures. Everything is doing well, although the Afghani Kush is really stretching due to being far from the lights. I gave it a little to more H2O2 yesterday and it killed off some of the leaves. Its recovering now...live and learn.

Cant wait to get some extra space and let these plants spread out for the rest of their grow. They are going to go under some 600s or 1000s in just a week or 2.

Anyways, here they are. First 2 are the unknown sativas. Looking real good, althugh the plant with the most ventillatioin and light is doing the best. They are very rootbound however I dont have space or patience to transplant as my clones have become the central focus.

Then we have some Trainwreck. I made the wonderful mistake of being a dumbass and snipping off an entire branch from the TW. I was trying to snip a little bud to sample, and snip! A good 9-10" branch. Oh well, plant seems to be taking it ok so far, hopefully doesnt stress it to much. That said...even 4-5 weeks early, the smoke was GREAT! It didnt last long, but what an uplifting happy high. Cannot wait for the finished product. Such a sour smell...mmm! Even quick dried in the oven, it tasted alright.

Last picture is some of the G13 sitting under the 250hps and the rest of the nknown sativas

[Racerx]

Random mix of some pictures taken earlier today. I have some mites or something on the 4 site hydro clone. Im not to suprised. Will try some counter-measures soon. Hopefully doesnt spread around. Not to worried either way.