Rixon's grow thread.

[Rixon]

Hello THCfarmer community. Rixon here. This is my 5th grow but for the first time I am using HPS lighting. A big step up with a much bigger tent for flower as well.

I'm using a 600w sunmaster in a cool tube in a DS120 tent for flower, a DS60 with large CFL's for veg and a converted wardrobe as a seedling, cloning, propagation station.

I currently have 2 x C-99 from female seeds and a Headband freebie from HSO in my veg tent, (18/6) A Blue Cheese auto freebie from Dinafem in seedling (24/0) in my propagation station and some other strains underground which I'll mention when/if they emerge.

Blue cheese is on day 3 from breaking ground and the others have been struggling along resisting my attempts to klll them for around a month now.:D Blue cheese auto day 3 in an 11 liter pot full of coco coir with a layer of hydroton on the top and bottom


Blue cheese auto close up.

2x C-99 in early veg, also in coco coir with hydroton. 2 liter potss.

Headband reg. 3 liter pot.. Tried to FIM it but I think I missed.:( Not sure what to do next.

My feed schedule is currently a little daily alternating between unsulfured molasses water ( 0.65 EC) then a modified LUCAS formula consisting of 5g Maxibloom and 2g 25/5/5 granules per 6 liters of water. This produces an EC of 1.3. I feed to waste (about 10%) then drain off the waste manually daily.
PH of both mixes is usually around 5.6-5.8 range.
The runoff comes out close to ph 7 and around 1.05 EC.

A couple of questions....

I have some rather obvious newbie HPS question specifically regarding when is best to safely water them, distance from plants etc Stuff like 'will the light hurt my eyes, how can I best avoid making the bulb explode when I water, how far should the plants be away from the light. Should I move the light/plants around the flower tent to ensure even coverage. That kind of thing.. Can anyone direct me to a good compact source for these questions?

Should I try and FIM/top the headband again?

Should I start to train the C-99's in these small pots or repot first? Should I repot into larger containers it might crowd things a little in the veg tent. The temptation is to put them into the flower tent in their final pot as soon they are topped 3 times. Repotting 2 times seems a little stressful.

Finally the leaves are curling up a little at the edges on one of the plants. Could that be heat stress? It is a little hot in the veg tent. 78-83 degree range. Could it be something else I should correct?

On a fairly un related note I'm hoping to get some guidance about which genetics to select in the future. I would not call myself a skilled grower so an easy to grow, low smelling strain with 80- 100% indica genetics as well as a nice strawberry sour diesel would suit. I'm also looking for a good body high Amnesia and a nice creative, energetic strain. All low smelling if possible. Any suggestions?
I notice the strains available here are quite different from other seedbanks and that peaks my interest. I have found there to be a lot of hype and bs around in the seed market so far in my limited experience and I think I may have fallen victim to it. No details except despite the many folks looking down on them dinafem has in my experience been by far the best genetics I've bought and grown out so far. Can I do better? Should I try, given my limited experience?
Another proviso, I don't like expensive seeds as I tend to kill seedlings at a rather alarming rate and quite frankly have trust issues (given my experiences) with breeders trying to make out their genetics are all things to all people (just to sell them). Hoping to find a different kind of breeder that lets their genetics do the talking.

Sorry for the long post, they will get shorter I promise. :angelic:

Thanks for reading.

 

[Rixon]

edit on the runoff - tested today and it was ph 6.5 and EC 1.3 on the Headband
C-99's it was ph 6.9 and 7.0 and ec 1.25

That is runoff from a 1.25 EC and ph 5.7 feed.

 

[Seamaiden]

Oh boy, you've got a LOT of questions! I'm not going to be able to hit them all this morning, but I will serve you up some bumpage.

 

[Rixon]

Oh boy, you've got a LOT of questions! I'm not going to be able to hit them all this morning, but I will serve you up some bumpage.

Hi SM - Thanks for stopping by and thanks for the bump. :happy: Sorry about all the questions. Any you feel like answering is fine by me. Or not is also fine. I got answers to all of them but not necessarily the right ones. :clown:
I guess I'll make a decision one way or the other with all these questions as they present themselves. No choice about that. That is one of the things I love about growing. Decisions are forced upon the newer grower and mistakes are just as valuable as correct paths during the learning curve. I try and grow with love rather than fear so decisions where the answer is not clear (to me) become exciting and fun. Yes I fuck up, all the time. But I learn and enjoy and hopefully get better over time as these plants will hopefully get better over time. :D

So I topped the larger of the 2 C-99's and removed some of the older leaves off the HB that was looking decidedly sickly '2 tone' As the same time I fimmed the top again and took some damaged leaf off from the first abortive attempt.
Will see what happens on that one but TBH I never cared too much about the HB as it is a reg and possibly male anyway so I'm going to have fun messing it around in the meantime. The main plan for this grow was to grow, clone, propagate C-99 as I'm looking for my wonder strain. Hoping C-99 might be it. The HB regs were freebies I tossed in to see what happened. Not grown huge numbers of regs before but might start doing so more regularly in the future so am practicing.

The C-99's are really growing quickly now and it will shortly be time to up pot....
So I'm going to have to decide whether to up pot into a 11 liter trash can which fits the tight confines of a DS60 nicely but it tall and deep in shape or uppot into in 20 liter pot which likely will be it's last resting place. The 20 liter pot means putting it into the flower cab most likely as the 20 liter is more of a traditional pot shape which would dominate the DS60. leaving little room for anything bigger than 2 or 3 liter pots around the edges.
I think I may go for the 20 liter as I'm hoping to have at least one C-99 reach its full potential. The other option is to find a 250w or 400w MH bulb to switch into my cool tube and finish vegging in the flower tent.
Again this would be a first time thing for me so I'd have to research some basics on vegging under a MH bulb. as all I've ever known before is CFL's.

The main thing is I don't want to go blind or have the bulb explode so I'm setting the dark period during my waking hours and have purchased a green light to hang in the tent so I can water just before lights on everyday. Does this sound like a good plan?

Oh I have a new seedling.... The Blue Dream from HSO which I've had a while has germed and is now above ground. I put it str8 into the veg tent where it gets 18/6 and a nice toasty 78-84 degrees.
Since I've switched out to a smaller bulb in the propagation station cab there is not enough light for more than 1 seedling in that location.

Some pics later this week.

 

[Rixon]

So I found a 250w MH to play with, stuck it into the cool tube and put the plants in on a 18/6. Temps are good in the new tent 75-80 degrees, Why didn't I think of this before:banghead:

Plants are about 18 inches from light in their old pots till tomorrow when they will get repotted into their final pots. I'm looking at 20 liters for one and 18 liters for the other C-99 and the HB can stay in its present pot for the time being. Looks shitty right now.

Now using the veg cab set on 20/4 for blue cheese auto and any other seedlings I might be trying to kill!
The blue cheese is hurting a bit. Looking a bit burnt. Coco mix is somehow too 'hot' despite being flushed, rinsed etc. The run off at the bottom on the 11 liter can is coming out 2.0 EC. Something is going on in there as the water it was flushed with was EC 02-0.35 range.

Anyway the stem is thick at least which could be a good sign if it lives. Am giving it very small amounts of plain ph'ed water (5.8 ph), EC 0.20).

The Blue Dream is up and going. Will see how I manage to murder this one. :drowning:

Pics after the big repot!

Is 18 inches an ok distance from a 250w (6500k) MH cool tube or can I get away with closer cos of the cooltube?

Temps are already 80 degrees on the floor of the tent but at plant level there is a nice fan oscillating across them. The airflow is good.

 

[Rixon]

Now using my new set up with 20liter and 18 liter pots Repotted the C'99's They had to be flushed pretty strong to get the EC down from 3.9 to 2.0.
Didn't repot the Headband is it looks like crap and I'm lacking medium.
Hoping the C-99's fare better...
One is topped and one not...
The small white cup is Blue Dream from HSO which I'm hoping not to kill.

 

[Seamaiden]

So I found a 250w MH to play with, stuck it into the cool tube and put the plants in on a 18/6. Temps are good in the new tent 75-80 degrees, Why didn't I think of this before:banghead:

Plants are about 18 inches from light in their old pots till tomorrow when they will get repotted into their final pots. I'm looking at 20 liters for one and 18 liters for the other C-99 and the HB can stay in its present pot for the time being. Looks shitty right now.

Now using the veg cab set on 20/4 for blue cheese auto and any other seedlings I might be trying to kill!
The blue cheese is hurting a bit. Looking a bit burnt. Coco mix is somehow too 'hot' despite being flushed, rinsed etc. The run off at the bottom on the 11 liter can is coming out 2.0 EC. Something is going on in there as the water it was flushed with was EC 02-0.35 range.

Anyway the stem is thick at least which could be a good sign if it lives. Am giving it very small amounts of plain ph'ed water (5.8 ph), EC 0.20).

The Blue Dream is up and going. Will see how I manage to murder this one. :drowning:

Pics after the big repot!

Is 18 inches an ok distance from a 250w (6500k) MH cool tube or can I get away with closer cos of the cooltube?

Temps are already 80 degrees on the floor of the tent but at plant level there is a nice fan oscillating across them. The airflow is good.

If it's looking burned, I would give it an EC of around .3-.5, never plain water in coco. You can end up causing more problems doing that, especially at this point in time. I would give just a wee bit of food to push EC up, just a little bit.

Along with temps, we want to know RH. The combination of RH + temps = vapor pressure deficit, aka VPD, and it's a mathematical equation that tells us how much the plants will transpire at given values. Transpiration IS the plant's circulation system, so having parameters within a certain range is very important. Looking at the curled leaf margins on your girls, I'm going to suggest that perhaps the RH is a bit too low for current temp ranges.

As for pushing the light closer, I think you can do it. I would drop the light an inch or two each day and watch how the plant responds. You'll hit a point where you won't want to drop it too much further because you'll lose the footprint/light spread.

 

[Rixon]

If it's looking burned, I would give it an EC of around .3-.5, never plain water in coco. You can end up causing more problems doing that, especially at this point in time. I would give just a wee bit of food to push EC up, just a little bit.

Along with temps, we want to know RH. The combination of RH + temps = vapor pressure deficit, aka VPD, and it's a mathematical equation that tells us how much the plants will transpire at given values. Transpiration IS the plant's circulation system, so having parameters within a certain range is very important. Looking at the curled leaf margins on your girls, I'm going to suggest that perhaps the RH is a bit too low for current temp ranges.

As for pushing the light closer, I think you can do it. I would drop the light an inch or two each day and watch how the plant responds. You'll hit a point where you won't want to drop it too much further because you'll lose the footprint/light spread.

Hi SM - hoping the flushing reduced the burn which I thought was going to happen with such a high EC on the runoff. Hoping a 2.0 EC on the runoff is going to be ok if I just feed molasses water of 0.65 EC for a while until the runoff drops.

Forgot the RH. reading :oops: so took a new reading on the rim of the pots between the 2 plants directly under the light. 82.9 degrees with a 53% RH. Tent is bowing out ever so slightly I do have cold air being directly vented into it though. It is possible I need a slightly more powerful inline fan for my carbon filter though. Maybe when I get round to it when it may become necessary with the 600w light in there. Another forced decision there.
.
Also forgot the ph'ed water I flushed through the plants had a 0.3 EC. The molasses water had EC 0.65 both ph's was 5.5
I used the water I'd been soaking my hydroton in as it was pre ph'ed for 5.5 anyway. The EC on that was 0.3 almost on the nail. Despite it being a little murky.

 

[Rixon]

Finished the repot and got a bit carried away. It happens. :D

Love this C-99 so far. Enjoying the genetics as I wonder how to tame that kind of growth and expose as many tops as possible to the flowering light. The planning starts here....

Headband has been trimmed right back and repotted. Hope this helps the sickly looking thing get going at last. I may give up on this one...

Lemon skunk has come up in the veg tent :woot:

On a final note, please let me not have killed the Blue Dream. :nailbiting:

 

[Rixon]

Sorry if I ramble on. I'm a bit of an islander. No one around here knows what I'm doing and that's the way I like it. The side effect is I have no one to talk to about growing so this thread may be a bit on the long winded side. Apologies.

Cloning time is almost upon me. Never taken a clone in my life. Been doing some reading on the FAQ. Some brilliant ideas there and have a terrarium based one using rockwool in mind. I'm just going to try and combine what I have lying around. Rockwool, some Clonex, a razor blade, cling film, a terrarium, some CFL's, an old wardrobe, a spray bottle, 2 healthy C-99's in Veg.

I reckon a day or two before I top the 2nd C-99 and then a week after that I'll take a clone from each plant. Someone told me take a bottom branch with at least one node.

Question of the day.... Do the fingers on the leaf have to number 7 or more for the clone to be good?

Pics when there is something to show....

 

[Seamaiden]

Ah, great question regarding the lobes or blades on each leaf. IMO, if you want to flower it out, you don't want it confused. When the plant isn't throwing the proper number of lobes (I look for 5 as the minimum for it to look right), that's a sign of hormonal confusion over what stage of growth should be occurring. When you see fewer lobes, it's a plant that's been allowed to dip into regenerative, aka flowering phase, and then forced back into vegetative. Each phase takes about 2wks to complete, IME. The progression starts as three, then goes to singles, then back to triples, then finally normal growth ensues IF the plant is being kept on a vegetative photoperiod.

I don't think you've killed Blue Dream...

 

[Rixon]

Preparation for the cloning continues. Have some rockwool cubes soaking in ph'ed water overnight. There is only an EC of 0.2 but there is some root booster in there. Might use it as the source water for the clones for the first few days.
Here is what I have so far in my cloning/propagation station :borg:

Temps are a bit high but RH is acceptable with only a spray of water misted in there for a test.

 

[Rixon]

Dem clones, dem clones, dem :D

So I have taken clones for the first time. It was all a bit confusing and hurried but in the end since I was topping one of the C-99's today anyway and also needed to lollipop the lower growth a little as it was too close to the surface of the medium I decided to use the top as a clone and some of the lower 5 fingered tops from the lower growth as clone experiments.

Only time will tell how I did...

In other news I put molasses water of .7 EC into the rest of the plants as planned. What continually baffles me is how ph 5.6 molasses water with an EC of 0.7 can come out the other end as runoff with a ph of 7.7 and an EC of 2.8 as it did with my biggest plant.

The other C-99 came out with a less scary 1.8-2.05 EC and a 7.2 PH

The previously topped plant is growing nicely...

.
Finally I have problems in the other tent. I think I learned a new lesson. Never leave wet coco mix for too long as it becomes prone to fungus and fungus gnats. The auto in there is not looking good. Looking burnt and lots and lots of white crap is forming on the surface....

Also saw a gnat in the soil. A mature one. I'm assuming a fungus gnat. No idea how to stop them. Right now the plan is to hang some kind of sticky trap and maybe use a layer of sand instead of the hydroton on there right now...

A part of me just wants to bin the whole thing and say 'lesson learned' Never premix wet coco and leave it covered for a month ever again.

 

[Seamaiden]

If it's not fertilizer salts or minerals from hard water that are building up there, you're ok, it's likely fungus. If *not*, then you will end up needing to address the issue.

Sticky traps are the start for fungus gnats, beyond that, I'm not going to suggest any one thing as working, because I'm still lookin' for it! (Gotta try my homemade SNS203 still.)

Um... there was something else I was gonna tell you, but now I forgot. :o

 

[Rixon]

If it's not fertilizer salts or minerals from hard water that are building up there, you're ok, it's likely fungus. If *not*, then you will end up needing to address the issue.

Sticky traps are the start for fungus gnats, beyond that, I'm not going to suggest any one thing as working, because I'm still lookin' for it! (Gotta try my homemade SNS203 still.)

Um... there was something else I was gonna tell you, but now I forgot. :eek:

Got some sticky sticks that hopefully will hoover up and straw gnats but it might be too late for the auto. Never mind. Another lesson learned.

The headband looks to have a slight zinc deficiency which I'm going to fix by feeding the normal mix quite soon. Funny how the ph creeps up inside the 6 liter water bottle I use to keep it in between feedings. The EC has crept up to 1.5 as well.
I may risk the EC without diluting to 1.2 again but am working with some aquarium products to move the ph down to 5.5 or perhaps even a bit lower.like 5.0

Not so visible in this pic but more with the naked eye -

Actually on second thought I may dilute to 1.2 before feeding (edit - I diluted to 1.2 EC with a ph of 5.3) but it begs the question of the day.

Where does the extra 0.3 EC come from and what does it consist of exactly?

 

[Seamaiden]

If you're adjusting pH, that's where the extra EC is coming from.

 

[Rixon]

If you're adjusting pH, that's where the extra EC is coming from.

I am indeed and that clears that one up. thanks. :)

So the 'tent of death' looks like it has claimed another victim. For whatever reason nothing seems to be growing in there. Seeing as I'm going to need to flip my larger plants in a week or two I'm going to need a re think and a good clean/disinfect to get it going again.

In the larger tent roots are growing massively out of one pot because the pot tray it is on is a little small so it sits up on the ridge causing a dark open space under the pot. The roots have taken over this space and are now about 4 - 5 feet long with side roots coming out when the pot is lifted.
No idea what to do about this one either so I'm doing nothing for the time being.

Question of the day. Is topping a mature plant where the leaves are coming out in a staggered fashion ok or does that mean it is too late to top?

In other news the Lemon skunk fell over and died and the Blue Dream continues to live.

In other, other news the clones have done nothing. No roots showing or anything. I don't think they took but will keep on waiting. What worries me most is the fact they have not wilted really at all which I hear is a bad sign.

 

[Seamaiden]

The staggered fashion, aka alternating nodes, is simply a sign that the plant is now sexually mature. Wilting is definitely a bad sign.

 

[Rixon]

The staggered fashion, aka alternating nodes, is simply a sign that the plant is now sexually mature. Wilting is definitely a bad sign.

Thanks SM your answer freed me from my paralyzing fear and today I double topped one of the C-99's. The stretch after the first top was a little scary but I'm hoping a combination of growth causing the lights to be closer plus lowering the lights will counter this stretch.

In other news I finally decided to call time of the Blue cheese auto and the Lemon skunk in the tent of death. Took the 85w CFL (real watts) out and put in the main tent to bolster the 250w MH bulb in there.

Now it is clean up time in the smaller tent and a rethink about what went wrong. I think it was leaving the soggy coco mix too long that did it but a good old disinfect won't go amiss either.
It will get used again pretty soon unless I decide to 12/12 the Blue Dream from seedling when I flip the other 3 plants. I like 12/12 from seedling. Have done it before with really good results but I so wanted to play with topping and fimming and cloning this time so did not try it.

Maybe another time when it is expedient. No questions today just a :meh: cos I killed yet more seedlings. Waiting on those clones now. Will check them properly Monday with the 'pull' test which I'm dreading. They will probably all pull out of the cubes with no roots at all or they will pull out of the cubes with roots that I just killed by pulling them out of the cubes. :arghh:

I guess sometimes the only way to learn is to get a :blackeye: every now and again.

 

[Seamaiden]

Lots of 'em, Rixon. I try to get every fuck-up possible under my belt, so I can discuss how to avoid it.