AK-47 in E&F - rockwool/clay medium (First Grow Log)

Ok, so this is my first grow log and I'm honestly doing it more for the possibility of getting help when things start turning bad (which they most likely will, because its me). Here's the story, through a vast amount of help from LOC NAR, WeedHound, and Tinytoon I've started some supposed AK-47 seeds I recieved from a friend. I am going to follow these guys advice and see how things turn out this time. This is my fourth grow attempt and the last 3 were utter failures with the plants dying before I could get a harvest.

Ok, on to the specifics...My system is Ebb and Flow (Flood/Drain) made by Botanicare. I will be using Ionic Grow, Ionic Bloom, CalMag, and Ionic Boost. I will also be adding 2ml/gal. H202 every other day during the Grow cycle and I may or maynot purchase a ZYME product prior to bloom. I'm not trying to add too many variables into this grow right now. I just want to get a full grow from seed to harvest and once I do that my next grows will get more fancy. I'm using a x8 T5 ballast. I'll be using x8 T5 MH during Grow and then swapping over to x4 T5 MH and x4 T5 HPS during the first week of the bloom cycle.

My tap water is [email protected]. I do not have a RO filter and do not plan on using RO or distilled water for this particular grow. I'm trying to push this out before it gets too warm outside and I can't afford a RO filter right now. Once the fall rolls around I will be using a RO filter from that point forward.

My lighting schedule is as follows:
Grow Cycle: 18on/6off - 5PM-11AM
Bloom Cycle: 12on/12off - 8PM-8AM

I have started out with using [email protected] Ionic Grow and [email protected] CalMag with an overall ppm of [email protected]. I also added 2ml/gal. H202. I have a 40gallon resv. but have only filled it to 30gallons so that I have some wiggle room when topping off throughout every two weeks when I change the water.

Last but not least, are the first pictures after I transplanted them on 4/04/2009: :hippy:
[attachment=o215505] [attachment=o215506] [attachment=o215507] [attachment=o215508]

Something else I forgot to mention. Watering right now x4 per day for 10 minutes at a time. The bottom of the rockwool cubes should be JUST touching the water level when the flood table is fully flooded. The other thing is that, they have been on a 8:00AM to 12:00AM light rotation and lights went off at 12:00AM 4/05/2009 and will be on at 5:00PM 4/05/2009 for the first start to their 18/6 rotation during the night. I have done it this way due to the summer looming ahead.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bertoxxulous

The other thing is that, they have been on a 8:00AM to 12:00AM light rotation and lights went off at 12:00AM 4/05/2009 and will be on at 5:00PM 4/05/2009 for the first start to their 18/6 rotation during the night. I have done it this way due to the summer looming ahead.

---

I'm kinda baked right now, but does that mean 17 hours darkness on 4/05?

BTW the setup looks very nice from a dirt farmer's perspective :thumbsup:

Good luck :jointsmile:

Good start. Search for just LOC NAR and I think one of my first is still here. It's funny. My others were removed because of what happened 3 years ago. I still have pic's of what they took from me.

Let the party begin, Oh that's at harvest and you will make it !!!!
I have to find a camera and we can compare. I got a grow started at one of my bro's houses. He doesn't have a clue so I'm preety much doing it all, maybe he will catch on. LOL. I got some hawaiian x skunk x bigbud ( a strain I mixed ) and some papaya in veg with northernlights and red bud skunk in the mother box also some S.A.G.E. to be prooffed for a mother. That should do the year out.

I don't believe in luck so, your hard work and persistence will get you there. Don't give up!!!!!

Remember do not tell anyone and most of all do not show anyone. I showed one person and will regret it for life. It's hard not to brag when your doing good. So we do it here.

Thanks for the support guys I really appreciate it!

@bigtopsfinn - yes it is 17 hours of darkness. They have been on a day lighting rotation from 8am-12am and since its starting to get warm outside I decided to move it to a night rotation and I figured the best time to do that would be when they were transplanted. So, what I did was transplanted them on Sat. at about 5pm, watered them once for 10 minutes and then let the lights switch off at midnight. After that I went in and reprogrammed everything for a 5pm-11am rotation so that the majority of the light cycle would be in the evening and throughout the night because I have no way of airconditioning that room directly.

@LOC NAR - that would be interesting to compare the grows! I can't wait to get this down because I really wanna start growing some of those coneissure strains you know. I can honestly say I've never actually smoked good pot ever in my life and thats one thing I've really been dying to try, and what better for me to grow it you know? I hate dealing with the black market when it comes to trying to get some bud to smoke and I hate not knowing what I'm smoking or how it was grown. But, I have like no traffic at my place, I have no friends that are close or ever visit, and family comes maybe once or twice a year and nobody knows anything because I keep a tight wrap on smell/etc. It is hard sometimes though not wanting to tell someone and show them all the hard work and effort that has been involved and what you've accomplished. Its become a big part of my life now and I can't really tell anyone about it lol.

It suck not being able to brag when you do good but that is the way it is. I like when you put up all the toys for a few to take a break and try some of your own on others you hardly see and let them guess as to where it's from. It maybe my favorite game now. Like you I had only seen the good stuff like 2 times. My younger bro had the connect but wouldn't help me for shit. Now he knows I turned him to the power of the hydro side.

If you want to see some of the trichomes they took just let me know. Waiting for the next set of pic's.

@LOC NAR - Yea that would be great to see the pics.

Just to give an update, after the seedlings had no light for 17 hours when the lights came on today they were looking ok albeit what I think might be signs of too much lighting so I raised my ballast up to 3 feet from plants and turned off x4 of the MH. Now they are getting only x4 MH. My water looks kinda murky and I'm not sure why. Almost like a white murky. I've never used CalMag before though and i'm assuming thats probably a bi-product but I'm not sure. I also added 60ml of H202 into the 30gallons. PPM was sitting at [email protected], I added 1 gallon of DI water which brought it down to [email protected]. I'm going to try to keep it roughly there for the rest of the week. If the plants start looking rough I'm going to pump halfway and drop the nute/calmag down so my overall ppm is between [email protected].

On a side note, does anyone know if H202 adds any EC or changes the PH significantly?

My PH dropped from 5.7 to 5.5. I'm leaving at 5.5 till tommorow morning.

Your PH is fine at 5.5. It maybe the h202 that's making your water murky. A little dose to my bro's did the murky thing but we were fighting rot before a complete change and wash down of the systems. Just used it to be sure. If it changed the ppm's it would not be enough to notice. We are doing a test run for a fog log with fog misters.

The calmag would only give it a tinge of color like some nutes do.

Musta been the H202 then. After taking a look at a post in a message board catergorizing plant problems, I think what I may be having is heat stress on the seedlings. At least it looks like it from the picture that was posted, and it would make sense. I had 4x T5 HPS at 2 feet from the seedlings so that was probably too close and then tent temperature has been in the 78-82 range during its normal light cycle. Now, after changing the light cycle to night time max temp today was 78 so its alittle better, if not by much. The room temperature has dropped by about 5-6 degrees though so it has made a decent difference. Now, about my water...PPM was like [email protected] when I first filled the resv. Today it was at like [email protected] at 5pm and the PH had dropped from 5.6 to 5.4. I added a bottle of DI water which nocked the PH down to 5.0 and was at [email protected] at 11pm after 2 waterings. I just added three gallons of straight tap water which brought my PH up to 5.6 and my EC to [email protected]. I find this really strange and I'm honestly not sure whats going on. I'm going to check it one more time before I go to bed in an hour or so but the next watering isn't till 3:30am.

Well I checked the PPM before I went to bed at about 3am and it had climed to about [email protected] and the PH as still sitting at 5.6. This morning (8am4/06/2009) the PH had dropped to 5.4 and the ppm was up to [email protected]. I'm really not sure whats going on here. So far now I've added 3 gallons of tap, and 1 gallon of DI water I purchased from the store, and my ppm just keeps going up while my PH keeps dropping. My lights come back on at 5pm today and the first watering will be at 5:30pm so I will most likely add more tap water to try and nock the ppm down again. Also, I've already got some of that brown sandy like sediment buildup already happening in the bottom of my resv. Also, I added 50ml of H202 this morning at 8am as well.

My main concern is that there is some element in my tap water that is making my ppm go up but I don't know enouph about that kind of thing to formulate an educated opinion on the matter. I'm also affraid with adding so much water that I'm deluting the amount of nutrients in the resv. and the ppm buildup is from some unkown element in my tap. Anybody got some ideas? :wtf:

50ml h202 into how much water? And what was the strength of the h202? Unfortunately your tap water sucks big time and the only way to figure it out I think is to try something else and see how the plants do.

50ml of 3% H202 into 34gallons. I had originally put 30gallons of tap. then in the last day I've added 1 gallon DI and 3 gallons tap to try and bring the ppm back down. The one thing I'd like to throw into consideration is that, when I did this with my clones I just trashed, the ppm wasn't climing up so fast.

hydroton is dirty as hell,and is probably causing the brown sand.
With flood and drain you'll always have to battle your res.
I find that if my plant's are drinking water faster than they are drinking nute's (ppm raising) lowering the ppm will often stabilize it.

Dive:stoned:

Here are some pictures of what i'm talking about with some clones that I just trashed a few days ago.

Pic 1
Pic 2
Pic 3

Ive had that in my E&F system before.... i "think" its from not washing the hydroton well enough... But i could be mistaken... The next time i used my ebb and flow system i went above and beyond when cleaning the hydroton and it didnt happen again...

The good news.. its just inert clay.. so it wont hurt anything.. and, depending on your pump filter, it wont even pick it back up.. which is why it tends to accumulate on the "drain" side of my res.


Good luck!

Well, considering that it is from the hydroton, is there any chance it could be raising my ppm so fast? I added another 2 gallons if brita filtered water to my reservoir last night which brought me from 5.3ph to 5.7ph and [email protected] to [email protected]. These plants are still small and the water has only been in the reservoir for not quite three days so far so I know its not evaporating that fast AND my temperature in the tent has been between 68-72 for at least two days.

The plants are still showing signs of growth with their 3rd set of true leaves starting to grow but I think the possible light/heat stress may have stunted their growth.

Maybe drop the ppm down to 400 and see if it stabilize's at all.when my ppm is too high,it raise's fast,when it's just right it's fairly stable.the plant's take in water AND nute's so if they're drinkin water,faster than nute...you get that raising PPM.


Dive:stoned:

@Divestoned - I think I may do that either today or tommorow. I plan on pumping about 10-15 gallons out, filling again with brita water and then adjusting to around 400ppm. I was just afraid my plants may not be getting enouph nutes because I'd be at [email protected] Ionic grow and [email protected] CalMag.

Also, I think I'm seeing a trend here. When I take my measurements at 5pm, that is when the lights kick on, and thats usually when I get more normal readings like yesterday at 5pm I was at 5.7ph and [email protected] but this morning at 8am which is 20 minutes after the last watering before the lights shut off at 11am I was at 5.3ph and 590ppm. What I'm seeing is that my readings in the morning after the last watering are tending to be like this but when I check everything at 5pm its back to a more normal reading. I will confirm this later today when I take my reading at 5pm again. Stay tuned lol.

Well my little theory was wrong. The only real trend is the ph drops and the ppm goes up pretty significantly. I've added so far about 7-8 gallons of water to keep the ppm down and this morning at 8am (4/09/2009) I was at [email protected] and 5.7ph after adding 1 gallon of brita water.

Is there limescale in your kettle? If yes you have hard water and should be using ionic hard water grow at the mo and forget the cal mag. if not use ionic soft water and forget the cal mag. ionic likes ph around 6 and i have never needed to add anything else. The sediment is from the hydroton being not washed properly. if the ph is rising and the ec is dropping that is what you want. It means the plant is feeding and disposing waste back into the water. if the ph is dropping and the ec is rising they arent feeding and the water is evaporating. Run the ionic at 3ml per liter to start. If you havent yet had a successful grow in the tent there is a good chance that if it is pvc it is poisoning your plants, this recently happened to me and i couldnt f"in believe it. The 3% h202 from the drugstore has other stuff in it to stablize it that plants dont peticularly like. get some oxy plus and dilute it down before adding it to the system. did you treat the rockwool with ph5.5 water before adding the plants? if not this can cause problems as well. Rockwool will hold water for ages so let it dry out between waterings until you root system can cope. you shouldn't use the britta either, i have never heard anything positive about them for this application use straight tap, let the chlorine evaporate off the ionic should do the rest. I'm in the uk and dont know how many watts a t5 mh??? or a t5 hps??? (I thought t5s were flourescent tubes???) puts out but, 400w absoulte max for small plants. mix up the spectrum a bit, more blue than red for veg. Ionic is a very good one part and when everything else is right you shouldnt need to add anything else except a bit of ph down now and then.

hope this helps :thumbsup:

Subzero.

@subzero - Yes that does help quite a bit. I have no idea about the limescale honestly. My tent poles are not PVC they are metal with white powder coating finishing on them. The tent is newer, purchased in fall of 08'. I don't think its a poisoning situation because I think all my prior plant problems could easily be explained as overnute. What is oxy plus and how much do you suggest I dilute it down, and now much should I use per gallon or liter? I treated the rockwool with PH5.6 water and 1/2 strength Ionic Bloom. About the lights, the T5 metal halides, I'll have to confirm with the store but its well over 1000w of lumins I believe and my ballast can hold 8 of them. I'm currently only using 4 and the ballast is slightly over 3 feet above the plants. I believe I had it to low to start and they started showing signs of either heat stress or over lighting so I raised the light up significantly and they are looking much better now. About the HPS T5, I don't believe the are actually called HPS but they do give off red spectrum of light, but at a higher lumin count and produce less heat. Again, I need to figure all that out but I've been lazy about that part to be honest. Normally I start my seedlings off with a 400w light but the spot I had it hanging from got some water dmg and i haven't replaced that overhead yet so I put them directly in the tent from seed which was my mistake. And lastly, I've been running the Ionic at [email protected] wich roughly equates to 1/2 tsp. per gallon which I'd say is roughly 3ml per gallon which would be less but I've also been going 50/50 calmag/ionic grow. I am going to pump about 15-20gal. (I'm just about 38gal. total right now) and I'll stop using the CalMag and put myself at about [email protected] with only tap and ionic grow. Also, what is your tap at sub? Mine is at [email protected] if you didn't catch that from my earlier posts. Lastly, could you please tell me your nute schedule and approx. ppm per week and when you swap, you seem to be the only person here other than me that uses Ionic and I'd personally like to hear what your nute schedule is considering you are using it successfully.

Lastly, does anyone have any suggestions on how to clean hydroton properly if you DON'T have a high pressure water sprayer? I don't know if I want to throw it in a sweater bag and put it in my dishwasher because my dishwasher blows ass.

Hi,

I will get back to you when I get back from work, about 11:00pm our time, but have a look at the inside of your kettle, if there is white build up in there your water is hard also you will usually find a white film on your house taps or on the shower curtain. Ionic (Hard) is made just down the road from me and it is designed for the very hard water whe get here caused by lime stone. Their soft water version is to suit r.o. water over here. When i lived in Canada our water was soft but it varies everywhere you go.

Back soon

Subzero. :smokin:

@subzero - Thanks for the quick response, I'm at work as well so I'll have to look into it when I get home at around 5pm EST. I will say though off the bat that I have had issues with shower heads getting clogged as well as faucets and even my dishwasher drain gets clogged with resedue as well. I don't know if its limestone that is the problem but my tap is definately hard. As of right now I'm using the Ionic Grow/Bloom that isn't for hard water. I was going to buy it the last time I went but they only had the non-hard water version so I'll have to give them a call and find out about that or have them order me some. Do you think its ok if I continue to use what I have right now though? I'd imagine I would have to use less than I could normally get away with from the hard water solution?

P.S. For the record, when you refer to kettle, do you mean my reservoir? If so there is some buildup that occurs on the top and along the water line on the inside of my reservoir. It also had a somewhat yellowish tinge in some places due to me using full strength (4tsp. gallon) until this grow where I have used significantly less nutes than I had the three previous times which is why I'm positive my issues in the past were nute burn. I also didn't have a ppm pen till this grow either. Opened my eyes it did. :eek:

Right, I'm back.
Your plants don't look bad at all but i know that you can get a bit paranoid when you get things wrong, everything seems to take sooo long when you are looking at them every 5 minutes doesnt it!

Let us begin.
I wash hydroton although i don't like it or use it anymore, in the bath and keep agitating it and draining it until there is no more sediment. Put a bit at a time in a strainer and blast it off with the shower nozzle. dishwasher surely must have still have soap residue wouldn't it? That could/would be fatal. a little sediment is ok as long as it doesnt block the pump.

Oxy plus is h202 only much more concentrated and pure than the drugstore stuff also made for the job at hand. it is also very good for sterilizing your equipment. I think Growth technology (makers of ionic) sell it as "liquid oxygen". Ask your hydroshop it maybe called something else over there. dont get it on your skin it will burn instantly, follow directions the bottle.
Dont use h202 with any zyme products as it will kill the benificials (except nitrozyme which isnt really a zyme product) The zyme products someone mentioned above would likley be cannazyme or equivelant. So nitrozyme is ok cannazyme no,no. Cannazyme is great stuff though.

When i start from seed, I always put them in soil, when they stretch which is normal you can just bury them deeper, I then take a couple of clones off each one, flower the seedlings in the soil (when they are about 8 inches tall and looking healthy) , find your females, bin the males (at least until you learn a little more). Now grow them out (at the beginning match mark the clones to the plants so you know which ones came from where very important) At harvest choose your favorites, not always the ones with the biggest buds. keep the matching clones as mothers, bin the rest or give em to your brother. keep your moms under a low wattage flourescent, just feed them enough to keep them alive unless you have lots of space for big moms. then about 2 weeks before you need more clones up the nutes and the light then clone from the top to keep them small. after a few crops the moms stems will become woody and clones wont root so quick, time to repeat the cycle. you can take a clone from a clone mother if you like the strain, but eventually they lose vigour ect.

The "supposed to be ak47" worries me a bit. Always get seeds from a reputable breeder. google your strain when choosing, any problems with seed companies should be found before you buy.If you cant find anyone on the net who has grown a strain dont buy it, lots of crooks out there. The only female seeds I would ever trust is femaleseeds.nl but even they are having production problems this season. they arent selling many of their strains right now as they arent passing their quality control. They are a very good seed company and wont sell you their mistakes. Greenhouse females are selfed seeds from mr nices mothers. another story but dont believe the ghs hype. IMO. TGA (Subcools) have some kick ass strains.

I had a quick look for your lites found some on an aquarium site i think, so i dont know if the spectrums are right for mj or not. Eventually I would get some lamps that you are sure of. (sunmaster, growlux ect) .watts and lumens are completely different measurements so that is a bit confusing to a beginner as well. 400 watts hps per m2 for small plants, 600 watts-1000 watts m2 flowering but watch the heat. i'll leave that one for now. I will let you do the research but it is important, look for dual spectrum sunmaster, they are great for a beginner.

Feeding,
dont add calmag, if you kettle (for making tea) has scale in it and get some hardwater ionic asap, it has less cal/mag in it because hard water is already loaded with it. when i switched to ro, i could only find cal mag or calmax on one uk site wound up with a canadian brand, used it once and never needed it again, didnt need it then either! shouldnt need it for nutes designed for hydro mj, when you change your resivoir once a week. nobody uses it over here. probably because our water is hard, hard, and our nutes are made to specificly grow mj where it is a less tolerated where you are (i think). Ionic is specificly for mj.

Ionic is pretty forgiving stuff ideal for a beginner, as you gain experience you will want more control of your grow and will probably go for a 2 or 3 part and some additives as i have done long ago. for now keep it simple. (Advanced Nutes don't believe the hype either) i would feed at 3 ml per liter ionic grow hw by hand when the rockwool dries out, maybe once a day?, water around the cube, dont saturate it, hydroton holds moisture pretty well, make those plants search for food . once you get some explosive growth, up the nutes to full strength 7ml/l and start using your pump. Add 1/2 strength nitrozyme if you like for 1 week only,its like organic steroids for plants also made by gt, but stop after 1 week or you will have too many leaves and side branching. after 3 days you wont believe the difference. When you flip the lights 12/12 use grow for the first week and then hw bloom for week 1 and 2, then add the boost at 1ml/l to your bloom at full strength until 2 weeks before harvest, then stop with the boost. 1 week to 10 days before harvest just run ph 6 tap only to flush out all the excess nutes. the leaves will yellow but that is normal at this stage as the plants are using up everything they got. (i know some canadians dont flush their plants but this one does and the lung expanding cough and the black ash doesnt exist here) up to you.

i havent given you any tds (ppm) levels because there are at least 2 different scales 500 and 700,that i know of. i havent got a clue what your meter is so it would be fatal if we got our wires crossed. shame you didnt get an ec meter instead, we could then speak the same language.

Make it a habit to change your tank solution once a week ph between 5.8-6.1for ionic 6 seems optimal here but let it drift from 5.8 up, this proves that the plants are happy and too much ph down is bad too. I would get a couple of airstones in the resivoir and ditch the h202 once the plants take off but make sure your air pump is outside the tent when the plants are small otherwise you water will get too hot and it wont hold any oxygen causing root rot and other nasties.

Any problems if you follow this i guess would be light, heat, ventilation or tent as i dont know specifics about these.

feeeeeeeeeeeew!

That my proceedure anyways with great results of around 500-600gm2

good luck, keep it all clean.

Subzero. :stoned:

@subzero - I guess it would take a canadian to figure that out about me, eh? Well, man you really put out alot of info there. I would like to say, that I use this Text
As my guide to figure out the difference of what people are putting as their ppm/ec. Per this chart here, I'm 0.5 or 500 Hanna. I'm actually using a milwaukee but its 0.5 like the Hanna.

The issue with my ventilation is not the tent, I have an inlet fan on the bottom and a exit fan on the top. Its the room, it has no ventilation going to it, totally closed off, on a slab so this room has no direct ventilation. I've been opening the door to get more ventilation into the room and the tent temperature so far, for this last week have been max of 75 and low of 68.

The light thing, I've lost my damned receipt so I have no clue specifically what I have and what amount of lumins it puts out so I'll have to get back to you with that one.

Thanks!!

P.S. I'd like to point out that this is my favorite post that I will ever make......you figure it out.

Awww.

Keep that door open, doesnt it say how many watts it is on the actual bulb? or on the ballast. We are 240volts out of our mains plug so there may be difference in bulbs sold there (there would be for sure). I was an outdoor guy in Canada, plenty of space! An example of ours would be
1 x 600 WATT sunmaster new, produces 90,000 (ninety thousand)lumens.

back to work :jointsmile:

Subzero.

@subzero - I threw the box away and I've been lazy and didn't check the lights yet to answer this question sorry, I will get to the bottom if it eventually:thumbsup:

So I pumped out the majority of the water in the reservoir and added 25 gallons back. before adding the nutes I was at [email protected]. So I nocked the ppm up to [email protected] with just Ionic Grow this Sunday (4/12/09) right before the lights shut off and nocked ph down to 6.0. at 5pm when lights turn on I checked ph/ppm and was at 5.8ph (after using some ph down) and ppm of [email protected]. Here are the pictures of the plants after one week in the system: Pic 1 top down, Pic 2 side profile, Pic 3/4 best looking plants, Pic 5 WTF?
[attachment=o215915] [attachment=o215916] [attachment=o215917] [attachment=o215918] [attachment=o215919]

hey bert,
i just read through your log tonight and i wanted to join in real quick. now i just need to remember what comments i wanted to throw out there...damn late night kush.
i dont know whats on the other sides of the walls of your room or above the ceiling so that you cant vent out but i am running into the same issue now. i think im going to change the door to the room for a cheap home depot door and either cut a hole in the door and cover it with a vent cover or use a dog door opening and on the other side attach the ducting from the hoods and the filter. but my door is exterior. if yours leads into the house youll have a hot hallway.
the only other advise would be to do exactly as subzero says, it sounds like you found a pro with 14 posts that is willing to help and knows your neuts like the back of his hand;
the lights, 400 for early veg and 600-1000 for the rest. if you cant vent,no way no how, then it might be tough.
the airstones. not sure what prices are like for you but i get a double pump and 2 stones for like $30-40. a must have.
the medium and neuts. i have done hydroton...a lot of it and after 2 runs i was over it. ive never used your neuts. i started with GH flora and have stayed with it and love the results. but whatever sub was using to get 500-600gm2....use that! coco? i would look into 2-3 part programs at some point. also if you go bigger with the lights youll want to go bigger with the pots. are those 2-3gl bags? folded in half 1-1 1/2... i use 12in mesh bottom with e&f and those things take 1 lg bag of roots organic for every 2 pots and the roots still use up every inch in there.
the genetics!!! i have had bubba kush clones from 5 people over the years and there is one guy (the stupidest and most flakey guy of them all) whose strain blows them all away. my fist clone guy was the worst. for a long time i thought i was raising my girls right and had all the factors figured out and still was getting bad yields. right before i gave up all together i went to a club, got some nice clones and did what sub said, took cuttings, made mothers and took more cuttings and the yields went through the roof, better quality, and less issues all together. i now have a better clone guys and tell everyone i know that starts growing "get good genetics!"
im sure theres some more things ive forgot but i gotta get back to my girls anyway.

oh and sub...great post! "Is there limescale in your kettle?" i almost pissed myself LMFAO!!!! of course i was totally high but i thought that was so funny! im like wtf...a kettle? spoken like a true englishman. anyways i do have some questions for you but i do have to go so i'll just ask this, whats your set up like now?
peace:jointsmile:

Icb, I'm glad you thought that was funny :thumbsup:, but i'm not sure why?
Don't you have kettles over there? Or maybe I should get some bubba kush on the grow and see thing from your perspective! :stoned:Thanks for the praise, but i'm no scientist really.

Bert,

I am no expert with f+d but if it were me I would get some spreader mat from the hydro shop and lay it on the bottom of the tray so the roots have something to grow into, it will be a bit more forgiving than them just sitting in plastic if your pump fails. You guys really do things different on that side of the pond. Most over here would put the clones in 3 or 4 inch rockwool cubes, with a layer of spreader mat and cover over the tray. and thats it, no fuss no muss. You are going to cover the roots when they grow out of those bags arent you.
Ak 27 is known to have mutant leaves, I am pretty sure that number 5 will grow out of it. Don't sweat it.

Subzero.

Oops. Ak-47 :jointsmile:

Subzero.

Icb.

I use a 1 m2 nft table (gt 100) in a 1.2m2 tent, 3inch rockwool cubes on a spreader mat. 6 - 8 plants veg until good root system (10 days) then 12/12. 2x 400w son t agro lamps air cooled. 775 grams dry last harvest. Jack the ripper.
Thats it.

Subzero.

hey sub,
i was thinking kettle...hhhmmm...res, part of the well pump, i had no idea and when i saw you only had 14 posts i thought maybe you were a noob making up names for things until i read through your post and realized you knew your shit. once i saw (for making tea) i reread your first post and had a good chuckle...but yeah, not quite as funny right now. ill go hit the bubba in a few and see whats up with that. i dont know many people that drink tea and the ones that do call it a tea pot. most people i know, in cali anyway, drink coffee.

i used those grow bags for a while when i hand watered and never had much root system grow through the holes. i have a few friends that use the coco mats under 6x6 cubes and they love it. but they say that they dont use that method in small rooms where they cant get to the other side of the trays because they cant move plants around to inspect.

sounds like a cool setup. so 800w total in a little more than a 3x3ft area 6-8 ladies with a 10 day veg. hhhmmm.
now some veg faster than others but i normally do 9 per m2 (3 rows of 3) under 1000w with a 10-20 day veg and get about 600-750g
(the sour d i get is almost no veg, 11 week flower, 800-900g) sounds like we get about the same but you use 200w less than i do and likely have an easier time controlling heat. i have a lot of big coco filled root balls to get rid of and you have 8 3x3in cubes and a mat to dump? im thinking i want to try this method out at some point.
so your 400s are right next to each other? what neuts?
sorry about all the brain picking but im very intrigued with the way things are done across the pond. my wife is german and if we ever move over there i'd like to be informed on the way things are done there. i guess the US looks at lighting and growing the same way we look at cars, bigger and less efficient is better.;)

We drink coffee too but we boil the water in a kettle before we add it to instant coffee, same with tea! ;) Your right, you cant move them at all but can easily see the roots under the cover. 1.2x1.2 is allll most 1.5m2 but with nft you get absoutly explosive growth if you haven't tried it.. do. If you want some ideas give me a shout. You do need them in a tight space when they are mature because they will fall over otherwise. lack of support is the only problem. canna aqua nutes until I went ro (they put chloride in our water here that does not evaporate off also pesticides from the local farm land and lots of estrogen tooo yuk..) Now vitalink max 2 part soft water (very clean nutes MJ specific for ro), and pk 13/14 for 1 week 3/4 strenght as soon as you see the buds spiral, if they have formed a cola its too late. I had a giggle at your "hot hallway" statement! Scaley kettle AND a hot hallway! fucking stroll on! whats he gonna do???? :stoned: We had kettles in canada too. oh yea agro bulbs produce about 430watts each new so we are pdc, yes i put them about 8 inches apart side by side in reflectors not cooltubes. They dont like you growing in germany! have a look at some uk hydro sites, things have really come along way in the last couple of years. oh and the mats i am refering to is like a thin layer of fiberglass before you put the resin on, (i'm guessing you still have surfboards in cali dont ya?!) :D

Sorry bert, we'z a bit off track here now.

Peace.
Subzero. ;)

Hey guys I don't have much time to talk because I'm in the middle of a raid that I was late for because my internet was down due to a storm but I wanted to say I had some comments but I'll have to to em later.

With my other plants that I've tried, the roots grew out the bottom, but not very many, and non in the light. All this gear I have was all recommended to me at a time where I had honestly not done any investigation due to paranoia so I went into this whole thing kind of blind and now I'm trying to pick up the peices.

To expound on the discussion of my grow system. I kinda like it from what other grow systems that I have seen. Now, it still remains untested for me if the root issue is really going to be a problem because I've fucked up my other 3 grow attempts so the plants were in much less than favorable conditions and root growth could have easily been stunted. However, there is a good solid 2 inches of hydroton in a bag that is close to, or at least 8 inchs in diameter. So, from my standpoint I would assume that there is enough room for root growth. I am a nub to growing however, so all my assumptions could be based on a false sense of logic, so don't think I'm arguing, I'm just trying to shed some light on to my way of thinking about things here.

So now you guys have seen a few pics of my F&D setup, what would YOU recommend as the best solution for growing here? Please be very specific for my benefit (I.E. 4'' rockwool cubes, etc.etc.). To state again, based off some recommendation from other folks on this site, I place 1'' rockwool cubes on top of about 2 - 2.5'' of hydroton in 1gal. bag (approx. 7'' diameter) and the filled hydroton around the 1'' cubes so that only the tops of the cubes are showing. The bottom of these bags have 4 wholes on 4 sides of the bags. I have the bags positioned just so that the top of the water level barely touches the bottom of the rockwool cubes. From my understanding, and from what I'm using, this is the best possible solution with what I'm using, but from the way you guys are talking I'm using least optimal stuff, or is it more a preference thing?

:clap: On a side note to this post, it seems my PH and nutes have stabilized after this weekend and the plants seem to look bigger and more healthy every day. I can only try and hope.

No, don't get us wrong your set up looks great, it WILL work fine, there is no best set up, everyone has their own techniques and tricks that they tweak over the years. We were just really comparing how things are different in the uk to north america and sharing a few ideas. I just assumed the roots would grow out of the bags and into the tray. If this is the case you should cover the roots. Alot of people dont get on with rockwool, personally I love it. If everything is looking healthy just keep it up, you will succeed.

All the best

Subzero.

hey bert,
very happy to hear things are going well!:thumbsup:
its most definitely a matter of preference. there are so many types and brands of mediums, watering methods, lighting, and you can use them together in different ways.
just general advise that i give to every person i help get going is even though you are told 5 different ways of room setup and growing methods its best to find the guy with a method thats easy to follow, has step by step instructions on what to do and where the plant should be, consistent good yields...., and most of all will be there to answer any questions, and then follow his method to a tee.
ive had a few people take most or some of my setup and then use things from another friends setup and and then the other friend wont get back to them about questions and i can only really school them what i know and use, the next thing you know things get real bad.
having said that i think your setup looks great. i dont like hydroton myself but i had some good yields using it. back then i vegged in the small rockwool cubes (croutons) and tp to hydroton in 3gl mesh bottom pots. not sure if those are the cubes youre using but its hard to clean it out of the hydroton and starts to get nasty. i think i listed a few things i thought were great ideas from sub. i think youll do great this run and maybe work with this setup over the summer then go bigger in the fall when its not so hot. gotta go for now sorry.

Well. I thought things were going ok and now it looks like I'm having a deficiency, Iron or Magnesium possibly? You guys take a look. Yesterday I did a full drain and refill of the reservoir and also cleaned it out, which was filthy. Lots of sediments at the bottom this time...more than in the past. This time I'm going with 30gallons all tap, no brita water, and let the water sit out overnight to evaporate the chlorine. One interesting thing I'd like to point out though is that after letting my tap sit out overnight it dropped in almost 30-50ppm down to about 260ppm. So what I did was add about 120ml of Ionic Grow and 80ml of CalMag (for the deficiency) in 30gallons of tap that set out overnight with an overall ppm of [email protected] and 5.9ph. Also, I'm having a hard time right now keeping the temps down in the tent...today as an exampled peaked at 80% in the tent. I also believe this particular bean doesn't like heat more than the last grow attempts I had and has really reacted negatively as soon as it starts getting hot. I'm going to be putting in airconditioning this week so I hope that'll help cool the room down.:cool:

Here are the photo's from the end of the second week in the system. Notice the white/yellow at the tips, its alot worse on the new growth:

[attachment=o216245] [attachment=o216246] [attachment=o216247] [attachment=o216248] [attachment=o216249]

are you using air stones yet? if not you should be. a cheap must have.:thumbsup:
sub should know about the ionic but i think i remember him dissin the calmag ;). i myself use calmag...and lots of it;). through late veg and stretch phase i keep it around 3-5ml/gal or about 1ml/l for preventative but you can use it up to 10ml/gal for retroactive. sub...??? i dont know maybe its just GH but before calmag i had a lot of dead plants...just saying...i dont know this ionic stuff so i cant say. also, with GH flora late veg im at about 800ppm.
i think they look great, but i see the pale color too. what are your ppms supposed to be in aggressive grow with ionic?
is that PM on the hydroton in that one pic with the toothpick? :wtf:

was the temp 80f or the humi 80%?

all in all i have to say if i saw whats in those pics i would have upped the ppms too.:thumbsup:
but get some bubbles going in that res like yesterday. :thumbsup:
in fact i just stopped by my buddys place and he was cleaning his res, 5 weeks into flower, for the first time and i was amazed at what one air stone could do...ill try to load the pic of it...
keep up the good work:rastasmoke:

also, is there a fan on them?
im not sure about your light (got any pics of it?) but i try to keep the small ones in the middle and the large ones on the outside. are you going to top? or lst or anything? how much more room do you have to raise the light in those tents?