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 Reviewed by RackitMan on 06-11-2011. First Bubble Bucket 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. Rating: 5

[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.