Printable View
Won't be till the first of the year Dusto - I'll let you know then.
I was thinking about not growing this summer but this group is starting to look predominantly male - so far only one girl and the others are looking suspect so I may be taking on the summer heat after all. I guess I have been very lucky that I have only had females before and these suspected males really piss me off and disappoint me at the same time. Guess it's just the pitfall of growing from seed.
Doco - Those are some nice looking plants.
I've got a question for you. If one of those plants is a female, and you took a few good-sized clones from her, by the time the clones were back under the lights flowering, you would only be about three weeks behind where you are now, wouldn't you?
That's an excellent idea PharmaCan - I thought about it too but I wonder about the size difference being a problem. I think I'm just gonna pull the three boys tonight (I pretty much positively identified them as male this morning), bypass one of the buckets and toss another plant in there that is currently in dirt. I dunno. I do know that from here on I will only use clones or feminized seeds in hydro.
On another note, I am thinking about using 10" netpots in 5 gallon buckets for the next generation farm...eliminate the clogged drain hole issues altogether. I prototyped one last night and by taking 1" off the drip ring uptake post, it work just fine. The evolution continues....
Sweet Doco ,
Late nights up scheemin -n- plannin . I tried the 6 in net pots for 5 gal. buckets and thought they were too small , 10 in. ones w/ open sides would eliminate all fears of overflow and def. be big enough .
M/F ratios a bite in the ass - sorry to hear that man . This is exactly what spurred my female bean fetish and wanting to clone . Started 30 in 2 gal. pots and got 8 females = wtf GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR . never again . W/ fem. seeds tho you cant have hardly any mistakes or stress though or they'll hermie on ya .
Holler
Crispi :jointsmile:
Doco those plants look GREAT! I'm super impressed! GREAT job!!!:thumbsup:
Thanks weedhound but I wonder if you were looking at greenboys pics? Mine are doing ok, but still in first week of flower and are nothing spectacular.
Actually as of this moment, the hut is a very lonely place....I just yanked 3 males and left a solitary girl in there by herself :( I have a Troublemaker girl that I took as a clone from my last grow that is in dirt that I'll throw in there to keep her company, once I bypass & remove one of the buckets.
So Crispi, weedhound and other interested aqua people, here is my prototype nextgen bucket style that addresses a couple of the shortcomings of the gh waterfarm. First, round buckets facilitate easy rotation of the plants without lifting. The white bucket was just handy for the prototype- I'll use black in actual use. Next, 10" netpot eliminates possibility of drain holes getting clogged in the top bucket (weedhound!), and finally I put a T in the airline to feed both the drip ring and an airstone in each bucket. I think Crispi originally came up with most of these ideas and I just stumbled on the 10" netpots...I ordered one to see how easy I could incorporate the drip ring and it was super simple to do.
Doco first time through I was looking at GB's sorry. But I went back and looked at yours and I think they look very good....happy and healthy.....ok so three are dead......beside the point. ;):) They looked great in there and I'm not making a mistake on this one.
There are a couple points.....I personally LIKE square buckets. Why? Because I can pull them out and set the top on the bottom without having to have any assistance. I do alot of this stuff alone. Anything that makes my life easier I want. Round buckets just won't work for me. The idea of not lifting is a good one.....honest....but it's not always the most practical for me. Right now I have one bucket just going on ph'd water and believe me its a ton easier to pick the bucket up and check ph then pull everything out of the bucket. Doco... I just plain want it all. :D
I spoke to my hydro guy about my rootbound issues. Turns out Mr X-C was correct in pinpointing my medium as the issue. Over the year the rocks have broken into smaller pieces which have packed out the air pockets reducing both 02 and spaces for the roots to grow. Think of it as packing sand into the bucket....that's pretty much what was happening to me and of course it sailed right over my head. That's why I have guys like X-C around. Once in awhile they come in handy. :):thumbsup: Ps I also was told by Mr X-C to increase the hole size of my buckets which I plan to do with the next set I start.
After discussion w HG.....I've settled on the hydroton and will have to just accept the dust and the fact that I can't reuse the medium. We talked about several different options including coco, vermeculite, rockwool, and mixtures of said things but ended up that his two favorite mediums for the waterfarms are higromite and hydroton. Done one....now I'll try the other. :stoned:
I remember from your thread that you like the square buckets...I wouldn't mind them if I were in a walk-in grow room. In the hut which is 39" x 39", square buckets are awkward because after the plants get more than a foot high, I can't reach to the back two buckets easily - the floor is riddled with water tubes, etc. so I have to stand outside and they are too heavy & awkward to maintain my balance.
On the hydroton: why can't you reuse it? I thought if you gave it a bath in a diluted hydrogen peroxide solution it was fine to reuse? The red dust does suck bad the first time it's used...I'm hoping future grows with it will be better as it get washed away.
So I saw that you cook with cannabis a lot...got any favorite kooky cookie recipes to pass along?
Yes, you make a very good point about your hut....I have issues with space myself and it's much bigger than your setup so I understand what you mean and I know X-C's issues with picking things up so I'm sure you are right about trying to reach over the front to the back.....:(
I've pretty much stuck to cookies or brownies when cooking.....I've tried the firecrackers but can't seem to find the proper cooking time in a microwave....always either too much or too little. I've never tried making cannabutter because of the hassle and time.....much easier to toss some strained green in a cookie mix and heat it up.
My setup came with hydroton ....as I'm sure yours did and I tried it but couldn't keep the ph under control so switched to the higromite rocks. Of course it turned out the hydroton wasn't the problem at all.....it was my water which my hydro guy kept telling me but I wouldn't listen lol.
I'm told the hydroton is reusable but the fact that it is so light compared to the rocks plus the airy texture of them make them extremely hard to rinse off completely as opposed to the rocks which are solid. My golden rule......less work.. ;) The idea of a lighter medium sounds appealing....but I still have bad dreams about the dust and that's been my main fear in going back to them. I'll just have to buck up I guess. :cool:
PS...My hg told me you should disinfect your entire system between grows so instead of using h202 to rinse the medium I set the entire thing up and run it through that between grows. Within 48 hrs the h202 has turned to water so if there is some left behind it's no problem.
doco I feel your pain with all the issues but once the system is dialed in hydro is worth it...I'm just about to chop my first time and even though I put my ladies through hell the finish isn't that bad
how's the ph settling up lately?