Strawberry Mix Hydro-Blast......

[Snowblind]

Feb 5th......blast off.....

I was lucky enough to score some beans from the Farm. Thanks to Logic and of course the main man himself OG Raskal for getting these out. I poped seven beans and all seven sprouted I sprouted them in rockwool cubes and should have set the cubes in hydroton in a netpot, but I did not do this. Here are a few pictures from early in the plants young existance.

If a plant leans a liitle too much, I just clip my plastic insert name tags to make a little makeshift support for the young seedlings.....

Im growing ebb and flow for veg in a 2 by 2 white Botainicare table. It sits directly on top of a white 20 gallon Botty reso, however, its really only a 15 gallon reso at best, as 20 gallons fills it too much. I filled it to 15 gallons and marked that level with a sharpie for future reference. The tray sits right on top with no tubing attached on the underside of the drain holes. Water is fed through the flexible 1/2 inch hose that is fed through the same hole on the reso lid as the power cord thats attached to the pump. The reso drains because Ive drill a few small holes at the base of a 3/4 inch piece of tubing that is inserted into the table. The water fills up the table and slowly drains out no problem once the pump is shut off. I set this up this way for wasy access to the reso. I can just lift the tray right off the top! the pump is easy to manage with the one tube! Its sweet and works for me.

The formula is Jacks Hydropnic with added Calcium Nitrate. Started adding epsom salts at 1/2 gram per gallon, but not until the 24th. Ph kept at 5.7 by adding ph down in the form of nitric acid.....Ill edit in the exact ratios im using this veg...

 

[Tex]

:rock

Tttagged for sure bro.. This is gonna be fun!

 

[Snowblind]

Feb 9

Just a few days after the transplant and looking ok....

Im behind the wave already because I did not start off with the rockwool cubes in the hydroton in the net pots. This allows the roots somewhere and something to grow onto right away. By starting them bare in the cubes, the roots sufferd a bit too from shock of the transplant....

A few pictures of my reso and table set up that I mentioned above. See how there is a permanent by-pass valve? You could drill a few holes in the main feeding hose as well to act as a by pass. The pump is a 200 gph for the little 2 by 2. When you make access to the reso very easy, then you are more likely to want to get in there and work. Also I can manually feed the plants top drain style, if needed with the feed/fill tube. You can drain the reso easily with the tube as well!

The 2 by 2 lifts off in seconds, is very light and can be placed anywhere. The lid of the reso comes right off and you lift the pump out. Nothing to fool around with. I drain and change my resos every single week!!!! No exception no lazy grow crap here. I do enough lazy stuff growing not to give my plants good clean nutes.

Drain to waste is always best but I cant do that. You would not redrink your own piss so why do growers top off and not change there resos? You never will know where you are at in terms of elemental ppm at the root zone. This is crazy! My ph swings up so much every day that I have to change it! Im not really buffering my formula so the ph is harder to manage unless you are active with it!

 

[Snowblind]

Feb 11th...

Growing stronger.........bigger the leaves getting so big they cant stand up it seems......

There are two plants in the group shot at the bottem in the back corner that are very yellow. They are Flav clones that were taken from plants in flower, and they took for ever to show roots. There is a plant up front labeled SD, ignore that plant too. Its a Star Dawg. In fact this tray is 7 Straw Mix, 6 Star Dawg and 2 Flav. I threw the Flavs out because I had rooted some other clones that vegged very well and became new moms....

One plant in the mix towards the back looks very different with thin leaves that were curled for a while. The plant was very small realative to the others.....


Remember 5.7 PH!!!!! Im adding PH down from technoflora daily. Nitric acid, thus adding N to my elemental ratios....

 

[Snowblind]

Feb 14th.....

More growth....growing nice....im happy...im new at all of this....so ask me your questions......any hydro related question.........


I finally lined my clone room with Panda plastic. Thats smart. Not even the haters can hate, when you have created a cloning fortress of plastic, wood and steel, and jump start lights!!!! Next level cloning maneuver....adding elite clones.........

 

[Snowblind]

Feb 16th......

5.7 PH.....I think 500 ppm at .5 conversion......oh yea 2 foot T-5 8 banger......max T-5 action for veg for me!!!

Some pictures of the leaves which seem to be so big already, except on the one weird looking plant! Keep in mind I have big hands, so those are big leaves!

 

[Snowblind]

Feb 18....some different shots from under the lights.....

Now the weird little plant is starting to really take off!

I will update once a week or so once I get caught up! I lined the tray with Panda. This should have been done on the 5th! This retains moisture at the root zone and keeps light from the roots the the tray, preventing the growth and spread of algea...The plants grow way faster if you line the tray. You need to check under the plastic though very often to make sure nothing goes crazy sideways!!!

Big mother fucking clips from Lowes to hold the platic firmly in plce. No big deal. Anyone could think it up, but it takes a stoned homey to actually do it 2 weeks late.

From the 5th of Feb to the 18th.......thats ok growth....I dont grow in soil......what do you soil guys look like after a couple of weeks???? I hope soil blows it up!!!

 

[Snowblind]

Feb 22

Named this plant "The Tarantula" due to its look. I guess I was bored........plants are now growing like mad......

This is a Straw mix sitting where I had a Sweet Tooth clone. I write in Sharpie on the Panda plastic that covers the table to mark the clones im running. You might notice "Flav", "Rom" and you can almost make out "Casey Jones." I set the "Tarantula" into the old Sweet Tooth spot is all, so dont be confused.....

 

[Snowblind]

Feb 23

:rock

Tagged for sure bro.. This is gonna be fun!

Lets do this Tex....fun fo sho!




I went for it. Took the little 6inch net pots and placed them into the nine inch squares! This will allow for explosive growth in just a short time frame. As in one weeks time frame from now they will be massive!!! From the 5th to the 23rd looking ok!

The roots now have a lot of rocks to grow around, and the volume of rocks will retain moisture at the root zone. Time to fly after a day or two to recover from the slight shock of my rough treatment!

 

[Tex]

Real nice lookin' plants bro.. Job well done..

 

[mancordero]

great looking plants, that root structure is something else.

you're gonna get some amazing stuff out of these, keep up the good work

 

[ShivaSkunkPunk]

Lookin mighty good in here Snowblind, sub'd bro, continued good vibes w/ ur grow, Peace SSP

 

[Snowblind]

great looking plants, that root structure is something else.

you're gonna get some amazing stuff out of these, keep up the good work

The roots are looking good so far. They will go crazy in the nine inch square net pots. We will see if we can get the roots to grow through the bottom of the pot....

Nice n Clean! Roots look great Bro! Digging this little mini picture perfect set up! Good Stuff Man!!

Glad you are happy with this little grow and show! Should be fun.....see if any phenos are any good...

Lookin mighty good in here Snowblind, sub'd bro, continued good vibes w/ ur grow, Peace SSP

Thankyou SSP! Im feeling better by the pound and I promise to be good to your earhole!


Lets take a look at my veg area for those who want to see whats going on. All 7 Straw mix plants are under a 4 foot T5 8 banger in a four foot table. Before this current grow I placed the reso under the flood table just as I had learned. This works great and makes a lot of sense in most cases. I built a little veg room that is about 8 feet long by 40 inches wide. The flood table is a black Active Aqua table and is larger than a white Botainicare table. I am also using a black 25 gallon Active Aqua reso. I love their resos! Easy to clean, marked at different levels, true capacity! The only problem is keeping the reso under the table in a tight situation!

I do very frequent reso changes and would drain to waste if I could. I needed a way to get in and out of the reso that was quick and easy. Placing the reso under the floodtable also raises the table height and gives me less overall head room for larger plants that are in veg or for my mother plants. I can only raise the T-5 so far before I hit the ceiling....

I got the idea to remove the reso from the veg room. I placed the reso at the corner and built a litle platform to level things off a bit. The pump sits in the corner of the reso and a long half inch tube is connected to the pump and fed up into the table through a hole that is drilled in the floor of the veg room. There is no need to have a bi-pass valve and if you have one if the water level drops below the bi-pass it might fail to pump water from the hose. This hose is the feeder and is what fills the table. The pump does not pump with enough force to make is neccessary to clamp the tube in place. It just sits in the table in between the netpots. In fact If you make the feeder tube long enough it can be used to top feed when you first transplant when the pump is on as you see in the one picture.

The table is light and easy to move around, and with no reso under it, virtually anything can be used for instant support. I this case a couple of wooded boxes. I like that I can slide/move things around in the grow space!

Two hlaf inch tubes are cut to whatever length you need. A couple of hole are drilled at the base of one of the tubes. This is the main drain tube. It is wise to cover the top of the tube with a mesh or pantyhose to act as a filter for plant material and hydroton. If you drill too many holes in the one drain tube, or they are too big the table wont fill up! The 2 tubes make it impossible to overflow the table(in theory).

One important thing to remember about the drain tubes that come out from underneath the table and go into the reso lid. These lines must be cut not too long as to not really go into the water that is in the reso. If the feeder drain lines are too deep and go to far into the reso the water pressure will be great enough to prevent all of the water from draining out of the flod table even though the reso is lower than the table! The weight of the 25 gallons is enough to keep the last bit of water in the table! I want to strss this point! These is easily avoided by cutting the drain tubes short and just long enough to dangle into the reso's lid holes. Those tubes barely go into those holes as you can see in the picture where I am holding the tubes with my hand over the lid. The water flows out of the tubes into the reso and splashes the surface! Always make sure you set things up like this!

By keeping reso out of the grow room I am better able to control humidty I believe. It is east to lift up the whole reso lid. I set the pump in a 5 gallon bucket and I can drain and change and even clean the reso bottom with ease! I love it in fact!

You must check everything at first to make sure everthing is flooding, filling and draining as it should...at first my set up was not draining as I did not understand water pressure as well as I needed!

Let me know if you guys have any questions.

 

[Snowblind]

Feb 28th....

:rock
:harvest:

:evilgrin:evilgrin0040::pimp:




Shots taken from the top down comparing the early differences in the mix phenos.......I am happy with the growth so far. Them plants seems strong and happy. The stems are starting to get very thick and I will take some clones from the plants next week and then we will flip them into 12/12. By next week they will be huge. I have started to top the plants after the 7th node has formed.

They are being fed..

Jacks Hydroponic at 1.9 grams per gallon of water
Calcium Nitrate 1.1 grams per gallon of water
Epson salt 1/2 gram per gallon of water
Ph down with Technoflora a Nitric acid based ph down

I was a little worried about not getting the water level high enough at first so I believe I was over watering the plants. The bigger pots hold a lot of rocks and retain moisture for a long time. I have now cut back the water cycle to 4 times during the daytime period...

Roots are already coming out of the sides of the pots and the bottom. Once I get the water cycle dialed in the plants should soar pretty well into flower next week. All of the plants will be topped in the next few days....

Pheno #7 has always been different than the other plants. Always very small and with a more delicate look. It is now growing very nicely, however, it is much smaller than Pheno #6, with its fat wide indica looking leaves. This will be fun to see what is what....

If you go back and look at the pictures of the little seedlings from Feb 5th until now we have some nice, strong growth. They look so different. It really is the power of hydro that blows plants up! Im sure the clones will be even better for the next run! The fan leaves on some of the plants are getting ridiculous.

Most important im having fun growing these plants. Pretty easy so far. The StarDawgs grown in the exact same way right beside the Strawberry Mixes need Calcium right away and are hungry for extra Mag. The Strawberry Mix does not seem to be quite as hungry for those elements, that I can say through my observations so far. The Satr Dawgs are really taking off now, however, some of the Starwberry Mix plants are huge compared to the star Dawgs...

I should hit some of these Strawberry Mix with some Star Dawg pollen..........StarStrawDawgs....

 

[Tex]

:rock
:harvest:

 

[sticky icky]

Wow lookin killer them roots are just a blowing out,real nice setup and phenos you have there snowblind best of luck with ya grow brotha!

 

[Snowblind]

Mar 7th

Plants are really getting crowded now in the 2 by 4 foot table. I see roots growing outside of the nine inch netpots. If you look at a picture from Feb 5th of the seedlings in the cubes and compare it to the group shot from tonight the amount of growth is tremendous. Every day in veg at this point is blowing these plants up.

These plants are going into flower tomorrow. Cuttings will also be taken of all seven plants. We will know the sex very soon.

Here are some pictures of the leaves to see the differences in the plants. I know everyone wants bud shots and veg stuff does not seem to interest most people. Just a few more weeks to some buds. I promise to tend to the plants as best I can. The plants will be sticky.

They are still being fed Jacks Hydroponic and Calcium Nitrate.

PH is a strict 5.7
Frequent reso changes.........when nutes are as cheap as Jacks thats smart!

They are being watered 4 times per 18 hour day.

The last picture of the group shot has some Mg hungry StarDawgs. The Straw Mixes do not need Mg like the StarDawgs!

the one without a number is #6!

Plant #7 has always been very tiny. It has always also been very healthy, looks a little like #3 just a tinier version. Numbers 5 & 6 look similer..

Some of these are huge leaves! Hand sized for someone over six feet tall.. I should have taken a picture with my hand for a comparison. Should have thought of that.......sorry. Maybe next time.

 

[AliasAO]

Now i see why you are so excited about the Straw Mix batch.. Looking very very nicee SNOW:harvest:

Why do you maintain your Ph level at 5.7?

I usually aim for the 6.2 area myself. Have you found the plants respond and flourish better with a 5.7 Ph?


Keep up the good work Bro.

 

[Snowblind]

Now i see why you are so excited about the Straw Mix batch.. Looking very very nicee SNOW:harvest:

Why do you maintain your Ph level at 5.7?

I usually aim for the 6.2 area myself. Have you found the plants respond and flourish better with a 5.7 Ph?


Keep up the good work Bro.

I always have kept the PH at 5.7 on the nose in hydro. Sounds like you are a soil or coco guy. I try my best to not let the ph drift up too much. The nitric acid im adding breaks down into added N so I need to keep that in mind.
Thanks for the look and Ill keep up the good work so you guys can check things out as they progress.

 

[AliasAO]

I always have kept the PH at 5.7 on the nose in hydro. Sounds like you are a soil or coco guy. I try my best to not let the ph drift up too much. The nitric acid im adding breaks down into added N so I need to keep that in mind.
Thanks for the look and Ill keep up the good work so you guys can check things out as they progress.

After I read your response and thought about it I decided to test the Ph level of the excess Drained flood water from the CoCo soil. To my surprise the collective was about 6.7.

Tomorrow Im going to top the plants and water them. This time Im gonna aim for the 5.9 range. Ill monitor their progress and get a drainage reading in a few days, if they react favorably im going to Push for 5.7 next watering.

After I top tomorrow I am leaving them in VEG for another 10 days or so. In your opinion if I add Calcium Nitrate to my Fox farms Grow Big would that be beneficial for my plants for the last 2 weeks of VEG (or is it too late to introduce the calcium into the Mix)? Also curious about adding some Epson salt into my watering regimen.

Current Ratio's:

1 Gallon Water
2 tsp Fox Farms Grow Big
(What ratio of Calcium nitrate would you recommend? If applicable)
(What ratio of Epson Salt? ****Did your XJ13 react well to the Epson Salt?)