Finished My Grow...sorry Its Been Awhile

[Bowski]

Ok, the grow was successful especialy for my first ever grow.
I used a 18 five gallon bucket system, Ebb Monster with 100 gallon res.
Nutes used were, Technaflora
Sealed room
Tank C02 and I never had any bugs of any kind.
Lights, 4 Gavitas E series 1000W these were ran on different wattages
Dry weight, 6.50 lbs of Dr. Krippling Incredible Bulk Big Bud. One of the Pots had a different strain and for some reason it reverted back to veg so it was a lost. 17 pots made it.
It was a lot of work at times and to be honest it was very fustrating. I learned a lot and I really want to try again, but I really dont care for the system I used. Im going to scrap it.
I want to try soil this time and a all LED GROW, not sure yet.
If not soil, Im thinking of growing 2 plants in DWC in 35 gallon Brute Garbage cans. And train them to give as many Buds as possible.
I would like to here from some Farmers that do well in soil or very large DWC. My grow room is 10x13 and the next room is 10x17 this is where I kept the Rez and all the other equipment.

 

[Stalks]

Ever considered coco? I heard it's what all the cool kids are doing. But for real do some research on multi fed coco runs even coco beds

 

[Bowski]

Ever considered coco? I heard it's what all the cool kids are doing. But for real do some research on multi fed coco runs even coco beds

No not really, but I have done some reading on it. Im stuck on either DWC or Organic Soil. May run both since one wont afect the others feeding.

 

[tobh]

Coco is absolutely amazing. I did DWC like five years ago and then discovered coco. Excellent growth with huge weight potential and nowhere near the issues straight hydro can produce. Organic soil knocks it out of the park too. Beauty of coco, you can treat it like soil in terms of organics in a drain to waste set up.

 

[Bowski]

That sounds interesting! I have about 2 grand worth of H&G left, I bought it from stores that were not going to sell it anymore. Could I use my H&G in a Coco grow?
Will I need to mix any other mediums in with the Coco? and what about the con's with Coco.
Thank you Im really going to check into this.
Also I grew with Gavitas DE 1000's last time. Now Im going to try 3 or four 600watt LED lights from KIND.

 

[tobh]

Some use coco as an additive to soil mixes. Others add perlite to coco. Personally I don't like adding perlite, it makes the coco dry out way faster than it already does. Adding perlite just makes it that much more like hydro, which it is not. It is a soilless medium and should be treated accordingly. During veg and through the first 21 days after flip I water 3 times a day currently, once stretch stops I cut back to one time a day. They can go two to three days between waterings before they're real thirsty. That's the thing as well, coco should never be left to dry completely like soil. You wind up with salt build up and a slough of other issues will arise as a result. I also hand water, though you can easily set up an irrigation system to automate this process (this is something I'm planning for my next grow.)

You can use your H&G in coco, just follow something along the lines of one of the lucas formulas. Coco can handle salts or organics, I advise against trying to mix the two as salts will kill off the beneficials you're trying to feed through organics. I haven't used H&G since my first coco grow, I switched to canna coco and next round will be using Jack's.

Also, you'll find a lot of people insist on using the highest dollar "quality" coco for their grows. Personally, I go buy a three pack of bricks from the pet store and flush the shit out of them until the slurry reads under 100 ppm on the Hanna scale. Costs me under $10 to have a quality, salt-free medium that my plants don't complain about. Mind you the largest grow I've done with coco was in 3 gal. plastic pots, 22 plants total under 800 watts MH with 300 watts HPS (this was 5 or so years ago). Currently I'm running 4 plants in 1 gal smart pots under about 200 watts CFL in a 2 square foot box. The link to my current grow is in my sig. Took all three bricks to fill the smart pots with some left to spare for various smaller starter cups and whatnot.

Check out @FlyinJStable thread https://www.thcfarmer.com/community/threads/crawl-crawl-attic-attic.63829/ and @papapayne thread https://www.thcfarmer.com/community/threads/soldiers-co-op-grow-2015.69766/ for some top notch info on coco grows. Both these cats know what they're doing and produce straight fire. They're my personal inspiration on this forum and I'm sure as you delve into it, should you choose to use coco, will provide the same inspiration to you as well. Good luck on your decision!

One Love,
tobh

 

[papapayne]

wow man, thanks for that awesome shout out! I do what I can to grow some top notch, glad to see its helping the community out. If theres ever any questions, feel free to ask away :)

Stay free stay high

papa

 

[Bowski]

Awsome! thank you tobh for the info!! Definintly going to chech out papapayne's style!!!

 

[str8smokn]

Pics of last grow?

 

[Bowski]

heres a few, I have more but not on this machine.

 

[papapayne]

are those on a concrete floor? What wattage is above them? If you would like a few pointers...here they are...if not...well sorry for being an ass then!

they look to be on a concrete floor, if so, I would highly recommend getting them on milk crates, or plant moving rings, etc. The concrete being cold the majority of the time can drastically inhibit root growth, nutrient uptake, add weeks to the flower time. a cold root zone is an unhappy root zone.

Its hard to tell distances in pics, but the lights look pretty high up there and the hoods give the impression of like 400/600s which if so, could me much lower. (12-18 inches)

the plants themselves look nice n healthy though :)

Stay free stay high

papa

 

[Bowski]

Yes the floor is concrete. Room is very insulated and yes I was hoping the water stayed in the 70 degree range for when the water flooded the buckets. I kept the resovoir in a 68 degree room. I thought you wanted the wated to be 65 to 68 degrees? As for the lights they were high at the time I was working in there. The light are Gavitas 1000 DE I had them set on 550watts and eventually went to 1000 watts and near the end to 1150 watts x's 4 plus another 1400 watts the last 30 days.
OK! Im really thinking about the coco thing and my question is this., Using 7 gallon pots and H&G nutes, tank C02 what is a realalistic dry weight per plant with Coco? of course with the regards of running a tight ship and doing it right with a good strain that is know for weight.
Thanks Brother!

Bowski

 

[papapayne]

the water yes, but concrete also holds heat/colds. So cold slab concrete was mostly what I meant.

I generally rate things per watt not per plant, I easily see hitting 1 gram/watt with the coco with no co2, so with co2 should be even more awesome.

I seem to find that smaller pots in coco is better. get them to drink a lot! thats the goal. Thick stem transporting it all, keep it moist at all times. Even better if you can set up blumats/auto watering. Small pots constantly drinking has shown me explosive growth, amazing vitality, etc. Treat the coco like soil and it does good, treat it like hydro and it does awesome.

 

[Bowski]

Thanks Papa!! I have been lurking in some threads and wow! some of these folks really know what there doing. Dont know if im spelling it right but, Capulator has it going on in the beds. But I like the ideal of small pots also. WILL H&G BE OK? OR should I use a custom blend??

I know this is a touchy subject and really im not trying to start a long debate here just a simple reply if you all care to...lol
Here we go., I was considering buying 4 high end LED LIGHTS for this new grow, and wanted to know if anyone has any direct connection with using high end LEDs.

 

[papapayne]

i used the grow evolution LEDS. I had the bud boss 351 and the 111, the 351 was the biggest one available at the time. They are AWESOME for veg, super tight nodes, super thick stems, but for flower, I am still convinced HPS is still the route for the best possible yield, potency, flavors, and coverage. Maybe for small closets, LED for flower, but I am a HPS lover myself. I found that LEDs don't really pay for themself the same way a HPS will. Still pretty pricey for them, and they don't save nearly as much power as you would think. MY bud boss 351 ran over 900 watts, but only covered 3x4 area, and brand new costed over 700. They are coming down in price though, and they do really cut down the amperage, and they dont produce the heat that hps does. It would definitely cost to much to cover my 5x10 tent though with led compared to my 2k hps

 

[papapayne]

I haven't used H&G so I can't speak to them. Honestly though, I would bet that would be fine. Cannabis is a very versatile forgiving plant, so any nutes would probably work. I am running mostly canna coco products. 50liter bags of pre fluffed, A B Rhizo, pk 13/14, enzyme, and then botanicare cal mg plus. The pk they only get a few times per cycle, so 1 bottle of that lasts forever. The rhizo is pretty pricey, like 63 bucks a liter, but I did side by side with a plant without it, the rest on it. It was night and day difference, the plant without it was considerably smaller, and at transplant time, the ones with it were overflowing with roots that were white and healthy as fuck, I have pics of that on my grow thread I believe.

 

[Bowski]

Good to know! My buddy just purchased four Illumitex 1000's LED lights and he will be firing up his grow shortly so Im really waiting for that. I know his grow style and usally what he yeilds, and hes pretty honest on that and the smoke report.

 

[snowdrop]

How did you find the Gavitas ran on the different wattages?

 

[Bowski]

@snowdrop, They worked very well indeed, Meaning they were easy to use with the controller that I bought separately, to control the lights. beats trying to reach the knobs in a bushy filled room. But yes I would buy again. Get the E series where you have total control of the units. what I liked about them was the safty features built in to the temp probe that would reduce the light output if a certain temp that you tell it, was reached. if the the ac failed it would eventualy drop the wattage untill the lights turn off.

Bowski.