No one to talk too and I wish i had input,, please

I follow the golden rule of not talking about my "hobby" to ANYONE but after 2 years I would like some outside opinions. I built a room 6' x 6' with a 7' ceiling in my basement and hooked up a 4" vortex fan with a dimmer switch to my toilet stack for venting and the temps run 86 to 89f during the day and low 70's at night. Inside this room I also built a cupboard just big enough to fit my mother as well as a rubber maid 20 Lt tote I cut 6 holes into for 6" mesh baskets and installed a pump to circulate the water for vegging my clones (also works great). I have a 250 Watt MH inside a vented metal cabinet on top of this cupboard set on for 18 hours a day/6 hours off. Outside the cupboard I have 6 20Lt plastic pales with a hole in the top to also fit 6" mesh pots and each pale has its own pump for circulation. I put these under a 430 watt HPS light set to 12 on/12 off for flowering.

Here is the whole process I use from start to harvest. I will start at the cloning since I am happy with my mom.

I generally take 8 cuttings from the mother and put them into a bowl of RO water while my rock-wool cubes are soaking. I take 1 cutting at a time and make a 45 deg cut above a node and dip the end into "Rootech Gel" and immediately push the stem into a rock wool cube so it is well "planted" in it. I do this to all the babies and then put them into a 6" x 8" plastic greenhouse I got at Wally World. With the lid on I set this into the darkest corner at the bottom of the cupboard on top of a reptile heating pad to keep them warm for 1.5 to 2 weeks keeping them moist and taking the lid off every day to change the air. I then choose the best 6 and move the cubes into 6" mesh pots surrounded by expanded clay pellets and put these into my Rubber maid vegging bucket that has been running for at least a day to condition the water and set this under the 250 Watt MH light. I add Dutch Nutrient Formula Gro to the bucket but at 1/4 strength for the first 3 days and then every couple days I add more until it is at full strength (100ml per 20Lt) by the end of the week. I keep them in this until they reach about 6 or 7 nodes in size and then transfer each one to its own bucket under the 430 Watt light set to 12/12 and a fresh water change at full strength (100ml per 20lt) DNF Gro for the first 2 weeks.

After 2 weeks I do a water change again but this time I switch them to Dutch Nutrient Formula Bloom and then I just keep an eye on the Ph to keep it around 6 to 6.5. I change the water every 2 weeks instead of every week since it just seems to work and until this last crop, only because I ran out of it I added DNF BLOOM FORTIFIER 0 - 50 - 30 once the flowers start to appear. I harvest at 8 weeks after the last 2 weeks they are leached using a very weak solution (10ml per 20Lt). After trimming all the leafs i put the buds into another rubber maid tote with metal screens and a electric fan in it to speed up the drying process. Once they are crisp (about 3 days) I weigh it out into Oz's and put it into glass mason jars and remove each lid once a day to finish off the curing process. After about 2 weeks I have some pretty good smoke (and I love my Volcano!!!).

What I gro,

Gremlin - THC Laboratories Great for Beginners!
This X-large, crystal covered Indica is especially tough so she can handle a slight over feeding.
Flowering Time: Indoor 8 weeks
Approx Yield: High
Height: Medium
THC = 22.0%
CBD = 0.8%

Has anyone else used DNF to grow and what is their opinion on the product compared to a brand name such as Fox Farm, General Hydroponics? Others I compared are about twice the price or are the same per liter but call for twice the amount then DNF?

For obvious reasons I have kept no written record of what and how much I have produced but I think with 6 clones flowering last winter (I shut it down except for a mom over the summer and when I have too much "product") i get between 7 and 8 dried Oz's per harvest.
This last crop I used 4 clones and the old mother but I only got 7 Oz's dried, does using DNF BLOOM FORTIFIER 0 - 50 - 30 really increase the "mass of the buds" that much or does it just add more chemicals to some good weed? and how do these quantity's sound?

Any comments good and bad will be greatly appricieted.

Thanks:stoned:

I've never used DNF, but I know others that have and I don't recall hearing anything necessarily bad about it. I wouldn't necessarily blindly follow the recommended dosing, however. 100ml for 20lt sounds a pretty high (that's one teaspoon per liter), but it all depends on the concentration. Use a TDS meter to make sure you aren't over-doing it.

Also, 6.5 PH is almost too high for hydro. Try to keep it just under 6.0 (5.8 or 5.9), since the PH range determines how much and which nutrients are absorbed. 5.8-5.9 is the sweet spot for hydro. This one change may increase your yield by itself.

Anyway, sounds like you're doing fine. Don't feel lonely, that's what this place is for! And post some pics of your setup... :)

Sounds like youve got thing dialed in pretty good.Good advice from Second Nut,ph and ppm's are really crucial to your final yields and products.

This hobby can be a bit isolating and needs to be if we want to be safe.I have my partner and a family member that I grow meds for and I feel like that is to many people who know what I do.Id love to see pics if you cared to post any.Im not familiar with the your strain,love to hear more about it.

Good idea about not writing anything down.I have to keep a log as I have as many as five different strains all going at once.There is no way I could keep it all straight if I didnt.I have a clip board in my veg and flower rooms and I list when i did what and when they came in the room.Gotta run lots o' chores to get done this morning,take care,be well,and most of all be safe.

I looked on ebay and TDS meter is cheap and I have kinda blindly just going by the directions on the bottle so I will pick one up in the next few days. My latest clones are in the veg bucket now for almost 2 weeks and thier growth is now picking up (full veg stage), the ph was 6 to 6,5 or yellow on the test bottle so I added a 1/4 eye dropper and it is now 5.5 to 6 more tan color,,,,,,,, what do you think maybe spring for a electric ph meter too,,,lol.
I have been using six seperate 20lt buckets during flowering and some of the kits on ebay are really simaler to the rubbermaid tote veg bucket I use but the base is bigger then mine which holds 20lt but still has 1 pump and six 4" buckets so I was thinking if I put a bigger rubbermaid tote under my exsisting lid and extend the pump to the bottom it would be much easier to moniter and maintain 1 big tote of water instead of 6 individual 20lt buckets while flowering under the 430watt HPS. How close can the clones be kept if I usually start flowering at 6 nodes? Centre to centre my pots in the rubbermaid tote are about 6" tops is this too close together?

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These are from my last crop at about 5 to 6 weeks, I will take some more this week if anyone wants of my setup and current babies.

Very good looking gals you have there kz,very very nice. Did you build those buckets your self?I understand your reasoning for wanting to put all the plants into one container,but part of the reason your gals look so good and thriving is there is plenty of room for their roots and you might not have that if you put them all into the same container.Do you have them set up on recirculating setup,perhaps you answered this earlier in the post,but Ive just taken my nightime meds (2-3 hits) so Im a bit foggy.I am certainly no expert on DWC and Im not trying to play one on these boards,but I have been researching DWC for over a year and half and will be getting my set up going in 6 weeks or so,maybe sooner if things work out.Thanks for the pics,great stuff,take care,be well,and most of all be safe.

I agree with Farley if you put all of them under one tote you will bottom out on the roots. I have one 18 gal tote use ten gal of water and one plant. On my first grow the root mass upon harvest was unbelievable. Maybe 2 max in an 18 gal res. That would be pushing it. Nice looking plants :thumbsup:

Peace

here's abunch of pics of my setup and except for the lights and buckets I built the rest.

the buckets are 20 lt but I only fill them 1/2 way, the vegging tote holds 20lt and that goes a little bit past the ridge of the tote 1/3 up. I hooked a dimmer switch up to the vortex to vent heat and odour to the sewer and it works really well! I keep the mom in soiless mix only to keep the growth slower because once you "plug" another mom into its own hydrobucket its growth doubles. At the end of 60 days the root mass is about 20 or 24 inches hanging, and the roots I trim off each basket rolled up is the size of a baseball.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kz1000r

I hooked a dimmer switch up to the vortex to vent heat and odour to the sewer and it works really well!

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Is this how they came up with the words shit weed :thumbsup:

Peace

if the power goes out it just might be. but hasnt happened yet. When I shut the room down I have a cap that fits over the pipe when the vortex is moved aside.