Aqua Man said:

No disrespect but it's hard to comprehend. That's 4 weeks from this. Maybe we count veg different?

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None taken bud, thats why I say seeing is believing, to be fair my clones were 4 to 6 inch out of the cloner, spent a week in my starter room and the last 3 weeks in my grow room to get to 4 feet.

Dr.Green55 said:

I put my plants in my room just after the first of this month, I don't know the exact date , but we're only on the 22nd, I can take a pic of my plants and show their size but I can prove the date they went in. next round

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I can definitely use some tips on the soil. I think I know where I went wrong and I do feel they are very behind. I think your absolutely right about the grower experience in the media.

Coco next then maybe a small aeroponic to see the beast it can be in action.

After that who knows

Dr.Green55 said:

None taken bud, thats why I say seeing is believing,

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Oh no I don't need pics man. Word is good enough I'm just trying to comprehend. So wanted to ask if we were kinda counting veg the same.

I'm not one to discount anything... But I'm sure curious as to the tips you can drop it's obvious I can use the help. Prob screwed in the 3 gal though but I accept it

Aqua Man said:

Oh no I don't need pics man. Word is good enough I'm just trying to comprehend. So wanted to ask if we were kinda counting veg the same.

I'm not one to discount anything... But I'm sure curious as to the tips you can drop it's obvious I can use the help. Prob screwed in the 3 gal though but I accept it

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I don't think its anyone or any 2 things that I do differently, not to say I didn't learn a few trick from the commercial end or from guys i learned from over the last 25 plus years and honestly yes there is a lot of underground stuff so to say you don't see floating around these boards. but trust me my first year or so in soil wasn't all roses, Here is kinda my run down, before I keep a mother plant they are all stress tested to know exactly what I got, I only keep the best ones, I take clones from the best of those, by the time my clones have 3 or 4 inches of roots there still in great shape, no yellowing or anything, so when they go in soil there is no lag in them to recover.thats where I think it all starts, no matter what one grows in, I spent a lot of time changing my nute formula to work best with my sunshine and my room/ light intensity etc, I have my feeding down to know exactly how much to feed, I never feed to get run off, only to very lightly dampen the bottom of the pot if that, yes there is a reason my lol, hand water every time so I have control over it, not every plant needs the same amount. in soil important to feed at lights on, if I feed twice, again in the afternoon its only enough to finish out the day and get me till morning . thats kind of what I do . but again it little things to like not rootbounding them before there in the final pot, ideally they only get potted once.

Dr.Green55 said:

I don't think its anyone or any 2 things that I do differently, not to say I didn't learn a few trick from the commercial end or from guys i learned from over the last 25 plus years and honestly yes there is a lot of underground stuff so to say you don't see floating around these boards. but trust me my first year or so in soil wasn't all roses, Here is kinda my run down, before I keep a mother plant they are all stress tested to know exactly what I got, I only keep the best ones, I take clones from the best of those, by the time my clones have 3 or 4 inches of roots there still in great shape, no yellowing or anything, so when they go in soil there is no lag in them to recover.thats where I think it all starts, no matter what one grows in, I spent a lot of time changing my nute formula to work best with my sunshine and my room/ light intensity etc, I have my feeding down to know exactly how much to feed, I never feed to get run off, only to very lightly dampen the bottom of the pot if that, yes there is a reason my lol, hand water every time so I have control over it, not every plant needs the same amount. in soil important to feed at lights on, if I feed twice, again in the afternoon its only enough to finish out the day and get me till morning . thats kind of what I do . but again it little things to like not rootbounding them before there in the final pot, ideally they only get potted once.

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Appreciate the tips. Probably not doing soil again but it has been a learning experience. I knowingly and unknowingly made some pretty impactful mistakes. I think coco will suit me well and if not I can always go back to what I know. I do still want to learn as much about soil on this grow as possible. So throw it at me.. I may question things but it's only so I can have it make sense to me. I have always been the kid who was asking why.

I shoulda actually named the thread Aqua Man whines for an entire dirt grow lol

Ok ,let's lighten things up with a blue marlin story , for years my dream was to catch a blue marlin , I had caught striped marlin in Mexico and lots of other pelagic saltwater species , I hadn't caught a blue marlin but thought that would be the dream catch , years went by and I didn't have the opportunity to catch one .....
I found myself working on a 60 ft commercial / sport fishing boat in the north east , the destination was the continental shelf an area approximately 60 to 80 miles south of Montauk New York , one of the worlds finest fishing destinations, I think it was about a decade earlier that my last shot at a blue marlin was on board a charter boat in Kona Hawaii , inhu nui captain by the famous Hawaiian legend Freddy rice....but no marlin

So back at the veatch canyon out around 80 miles south , at the continental shelf known as the canyons , crew and I were targeting big eye tuna , a true trophy fish , pound for pound one of the most powerful tuna in the ocean and highly prized for its sushi quality tuna...

On that particular day we had a charter , about 5 pm one of the 11 penn international 80 reels went off , a huge blue marlin grabbed a bob Schneider jet lure , I put a guest in the fighting chair but the captain screamed at the guests to clear the deck and put me in the chair to make sure we didn't loose the fish , he wasn't taking any chances ....
I settled in and fought the fish for 3 hours , usuall pandemonium , black clouds of choking diesel
Rocking 6 ft swells , near exhausting fight , leaping , screaming , puking , all of it ,real Hemingway stuff....
After about 3 hours finally got the fish to the boat , unfortunately she died from the fight , I nearly did also , hoisting the fish up to the deck took another half hour , everybody was beat up from the fish , it weighed in at about 800 lbs, pretty big as Atlantic blue marlin in the summer get real big , but rarely that. Size....

After clean up , dinner now 100 miles offshore and everybody exhausted , I was reflecting on my achievement. , feeling a little bad that that beauty died , but still couldn't believe that I landed it , got a couple of high fives , and was told that was a fish of a lifetime and it turns out it was,

So now everybody goes to sleep and it's part of my job to stay awake all night , chunking pieces of bait to attract yellowfin tuna to the back of the boat , and wake up the other crew and charter guests if I can get the tuna attracted to the boat , usually happens at 3 or 4 am , so I was really beat , and the night becomes surreal ,pitch black one min and then pitch black with a thousand stars half up half down , and having auditory hallucinations between the generator hum , the porpoise squealing all around , the wind howling , it's freaky out there....

So in the spotlight I see this 20/25 pound Mahi Mahi, a tough bastard of a gamefish , I would venture to say pound for pound , kicks blue Marlins ass , so if there was ever a 800 lb mahi, Mahi,
I think the marlin would run for the hills , these fish are tough bastards, and this little fucker is just staring at me foe about an hour in the dark , just circling around eating my chunked up bait but won't let me catch him with a hook ,so I see a school of squid rush by , like 100 of them , so. Grab a tiny lightweight 10 lb class rod with at tiny jig and snag a squid , I see the Mahi, make a mad dash to eat my squid just before I pull the squid up out of the water , now it's just me , the entire Atlantic and this squid in my hand and this Mahi, and off goes the Mahi, he's gone , 15 min later he comes back and I frantically grab the undersized rod and tie off a circle hook and stick the gamakatsu hook in mr squids butt , flip him over , and the second the live bait hits the water mr Mahi smashes him and it's fight on , that sucker ripped off line like crazy made a minimum of 6 airborne acrobatic leaps and took me 40 min to get him boat side , once there I had to balance the rod in my left hand and gaff him in the head with my right , flipped him on the boat , he went absolutely ballistic , sending me inside the salon and finally coming out with aluminum baseball bat in hand to subdue him , finally got him in the ice box , sat down , in the dark , blood and fish puke all over the place , cracked open a beer , looking at what just happened I realized that fight that tough Mahi was more fun and exciting than landing the 800 lb blue .......
Then I started thinking about the first smallmouth I caught when I was a kid , started thinking , fishings not about trophy so , it's about the connection with a worthy opponent , size is meaningless , it's all the same emotion whether it's a 3 lb bass a 25 lb Mahi, or a 800 lb blue marlin ......

Point of the story , Aqua , if you get a chance to hit some saltwater , go for the 25 pound Mahi , it's a more fun fight , there are tons of them out there and it tastes really really good , marlin fishing ain't that much fun !

Omg I thought you were going to tell him the point of the story is that soil is a worthy opponent.

Aqua Man said:

I shoulda actually named the thread Aqua Man whines for an entire dirt grow lol

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You were warned but I get it, had to try. Btw, soil sucks. I'm cutting bucket lids this weekend, no more fooling around.

Aqua Man said:

Ok we are done... Gah transplanting sucks for the back when you don't have a proper table or something to work with.

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Looks great!

And i sure understand the back trouble. I use a 40 gallon tote with the soil mix now on top of another bin to lift it ao I can stand straight and turn the lid sideways to use as a table and fill right there.

The difference from that and with the soil bin on the floor is huge for back pain.

Cattapilla said:

Omg I thought you were going to tell him the point of the story is that soil is a worthy opponent.

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Hmmm , come to think of it , yea Aqua , soil is like the Mahi, just fight that sucka, you'll be rewarded in the end
I grow in soil
But for all kinds of nutty reasons
It's not as bad as you guys are sayin ,
I feel like the root bound set you back a bit ...

dire wolf said:

View attachment 990261

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I'm in love and that's a nice fish also... Lol kidding. Sorry went next door for a while.

dire wolf said:

Point of the story , Aqua , if you get a chance to hit some saltwater , go for the 25 pound Mahi , it's a more fun fight , there are tons of them out there and it tastes really really good , marlin fishing ain't that much fun !

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I know it's fround upon to fish for sport and mounting but a blue marlin is something I would love to have

MIMedGrower said:

Looks great!

And i sure understand the back trouble. I use a 40 gallon tote with the soil mix now on top of another bin to lift it ao I can stand straight and turn the lid sideways to use as a table and fill right there.

The difference from that and with the soil bin on the floor is huge for back pain.

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Yeah brother... I know you understand well. It ain't much in terms of work but it's enough in those positions that I sure feel it.

Aqua Man said:

I know it's fround upon to fish for sport and mounting but a blue marlin is something I would love to have

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Yea , I'm with ya , I can tell you some spots you can go get one , st Thomas and Puerto Rico being two hotspots , still , I might choose the halibut trip over a blue marlin if I could only do one .....always wanted to get a big ole halibut , haven't done that yet ....

Aqua Man said:

Yeah brother... I know you understand well. It ain't much in terms of work but it's enough in those positions that I sure feel it.

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Loved reading your posts, I learned alot man. Keep up the good work.
-Tim

Oa.ahhu said:

Loved reading your posts, I learned alot man. Keep up the good work.
-Tim

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Thanks this is a learning experience for me. I may whine but in the end I will appreciate the experience.

Aqua Man said:

Thanks this is a learning experience for me. I may whine but in the end I will appreciate the experience.

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We all whine man , doesnt change a thing about the accomplishment in the end. I personally care about learning more than anything else when it comes to growing anything.