Struggling with UC Pre-veg, help appreciated

[UCswimmin]

Hey farmers!

I am in a bit of distress, as I got really excited, built a UC system, and jumped in head first to a method I am unfamiliar with. I am not getting the sort of results that some others show, so I am hoping I could get some guidance!

The UC system isn't the problem, yet, as I imagine if I can't get the roots to grow in the pre-veg stage, how am I going to once they are in the UC?

pH 6.2
PPM under 400
co2 off for now, natural levels of 450
Air temp 80, RH 70%
Water temp 63

Nutes are Canna Aqua A/B
Was using Cal/Mag, I cut it out as DesertSquirrel suggested, along with no more co2.
Humboldt Roots (Its like roots excelurator, not sure if i should use this while using h2O2?)
Liquid Karma (do I need this?)
Adding IBL in powder form
Dyna Silica

I have them arranged in this way, I copied a method I saw farmer Prefers Ham using. Thanks to prefers ham and DS for letting me know my light was way too intense, I've done what I can to correct that.

My main concern is the lack of root growth, and the lackluster lateral root growth from the roots that I do see. One pot has a root sticking 3 inches out, but only tiny nubs of lateral roots coming off that.

One has died. :( There in the middle. A couple are struggling.

Also, is this PM on the stem? I have treated it with JMS Stylet oil, only recently.

Much appreciation to anyone who wants to help me out, I am a bit depressed with these results, but I am optimistic I can get it solved with your help and start rocking the fuck outta these buckets.

 

[tipper619sd]

hey does this flood and drain. or is it constantly filled. Looks to me like too much water possible and not enough air but idk much im still new here. And it does look like mold to me i had that problem before it goes away for a lil bit but comes back to haunt you

 

[UCswimmin]

That does sound like a possible problem to me too, I've read tonight about top dripping first. How'd I miss that?

I am thinking of getting some fox farm ocean forest, some airy fillers, popping these plants into pots and just doing this round soil containers. I'll move the veg area to a side room and experiment with a proper pre-veg, starting from scratch.


edit: Forgot to say, no it doesn't flood and drain. And I just put em right in there after buying the clones from "a guy." I think I may have gotten ahead of myself.

 

[UCswimmin]

Forgot to mention they've been in there 13 days.

 

[RollinEndough]

You are brewing an algae stew with the light hitting the water like that. It's not okay for algae to be on their roots.

 

[PrefersHam]

This method works incredibly well for me. I flood the table half way up the net baskets and use only ionic grow and voodoo juice. I also do not chill the water that cool in veg 68 is my favorite.

peace,


HAm

 

[UCswimmin]

I see it does work great for ya, so I am going to try do just what you do . I think I am going to just put things in FFOF and containers as that wont be too expensive. I'll try to master the hydro veg method on the side in the mean time, and maybe next run I can do things correctly from the start.

 

[woodsmaneh]

Don't feel to bad this is the issue lots of people have. I still have it off and on. I have gone to dippers on a flood table to see how that works for me.

 

[desertsquirrel]

Drop your ppms to 200-250, and you could loose some additives. Then have some patients for about a week - don't mess with anything except pH swing - and you will be fine.

Remember your trying to grow roots right now, not shoots.

 

[hogan400]

simple food, follow d.squirrel's simple rooting profile, cover that thing with a lid and block the light...
If you have brown algae on the roots but the roots are still growing, consider starting the tea in Caps and gettogro threads.

 

[UCswimmin]

Ok well I happen to freak out a bit and put em in Soil. I am going to try and start ALL over, using what everyone is teaching. So I'll take clones of my soil plants.

I have an aerocloner, but I have never had too much success with it. I have never tried using it with the chiller I now have. Maybe that will help.

Any special tricks to these aerocloners? It's an ez-cloner type. I was going to take the cuttings, leave em in water for a night, dip in powder, use power-clone in my solution, keep em under a low amount of light 25/7, and that's all I can think of.

This is my attempt at 30 days cutting to flower, would love it if anyone wanted to tag along and help.

 

[tipper619sd]

well im here tagging along but im still new in this system but when u get them up and running ill be lurking.

 

[UCswimmin]

Hey to anyone still checking this thread out. I am still attempting a clean start.

From the 15 Clones I had, I took about 40 cuttings, and popped em in a EZ-Cloner. It's been about 6 days, and just some of the cutting stems have bumps. So that's another area I need to speed things up. They are all healthy and I predict they will all root.

Thinking about how I was messing up and had too much light on my plants and also hitting the water, I decided to design something to suit my needs. I had a few Ebb 'n Flow trays laying around, I bought them for 20 each on craigslist a while back. I used 2 of them to create this thing here.

Black Pond Foam fills up the gaps, sanded down. (didn't go perfectly.) I plan on doing something to smooth out the exposed, porous edges near the baskets.

With baskets of hydroton, the sag in the middle was only 3/4 inch, I decided to add a center support anyway. With water it would probably sag more without a support.

This picture shows what was cut off from the top piece, around the edge. This allows the top piece to fit into the bottom piece, and shed all the water that might be sprayed around inside, kept inside.

Still workin' on those last 2 spots in the front. But there it is!

You can add a reservoir to it, with spray lines inside this main part and it would be like an AERO/NFT system.

You could also use it without a reservoir, fill the bottom half with water/nutrients and add an airstone under each pot.

When my clones take root, I'll put em in this and we'll see how it works for veggin' before the UC. I think I like this because there's minimal transferring of the plants.

What do you guys think?

 

[UCMENOW]

botanicare makes a solid lid for that tray. Sits down lower and allows for better net pot emersion. Good work though.

 

[guyonthecouch]

looks nice. also looks like that was a super pain in the ass to drill your basket holes, lol! Your mods make that top fit like it was an actual lid but it looks like you may not be able to fill the water level high enough to flood the bottom of the baskets without being higher that the point where your tray and "lid" meet. In other words, from the pics it looks like you will flood water out where they come together before you could get it high enough to flood the bottom of the baskets.

I'm not a pro, but I don't think light hitting the water was your problem in the first place. Looks to me like you stunted the clones when you moved them to the baskets from the ez clone. I have done that many times. I like to make sure they have a nice tail before I take then from the EZ cloner, then put an inch or so of media in the bottom of the basket (rinsed), then lightly lay the longer roots on top of the media in a slightly coiled way (like you were laying a hose on the ground making a coil with it, if that makes sense), then lightly, ever so carefully, add in more rinsed media until the entire root area is covered. I leave the neoprene on the clones when put in the baskets for added stability. From that point, keep the PPMs low, disolved O2 high, and don't over do the lumens. I go T5 for that step until well rooted. peace

 

[UCswimmin]

botanicare makes a solid lid for that tray. Sits down lower and allows for better net pot emersion. Good work though.

Thanks, I hope it works. Just a little low on cash right now so I modded what I had.
I was thinking of using it more like an aero/nft thing with a nice area for roots to hang before I put the baskets into the UC. I am thinking now after yours and guyonthecouches concerns that maybe filled with water might not be the best.

looks nice. also looks like that was a super pain in the ass to drill your basket holes, lol! Your mods make that top fit like it was an actual lid but it looks like you may not be able to fill the water level high enough to flood the bottom of the baskets without being higher that the point where your tray and "lid" meet. In other words, from the pics it looks like you will flood water out where they come together before you could get it high enough to flood the bottom of the baskets.

I'm not a pro, but I don't think light hitting the water was your problem in the first place. Looks to me like you stunted the clones when you moved them to the baskets from the ez clone. I have done that many times. I like to make sure they have a nice tail before I take then from the EZ cloner, then put an inch or so of media in the bottom of the basket (rinsed), then lightly lay the longer roots on top of the media in a slightly coiled way (like you were laying a hose on the ground making a coil with it, if that makes sense), then lightly, ever so carefully, add in more rinsed media until the entire root area is covered. I leave the neoprene on the clones when put in the baskets for added stability. From that point, keep the PPMs low, disolved O2 high, and don't over do the lumens. I go T5 for that step until well rooted. peace

Thank you, The holes weren't so bad actually, I used a handheld jigsaw. I traced an upside down basket and cut just 3/8's inch in from my circle to make a smaller circle.

I was imagining a lot of bubbles from each airstone, which would bubble up and touch the bottoms of each basket when I had thought of the bottom full of water method working, but no real experience to draw from there. I imagined bubbles bursting all over creating a micro shower that would wet the sides of the baskets too.

I'll definitely listen to ya, pro or not, that sounds like good advice. Backstory on the clones, I had gotten them from a guy off budtrader, I think they came with pm, and so there was a definite time they could have been stunted during transfer of ownership. I've gotten some cfl lamps out of storage to use, I don't have t5s or t8s but I think they are similar.

 

[UCswimmin]

The driving thought behind designing it this way, besides the parts being all I had, was that I read it was most important for the root growth in the hydroton that there be a 100% humidity zone in the hydroton. That it was not so important for the pot to be touching the water. So my thought was if I could mist the sides of the pots with a sprayer on a cyclestat timer or have bubbles popping enough to do a similar job of wetting things, it could do a pretty good job. It really looks just like the inside of an aero-jet. I was trying to mimic desert squirrels use of an aero-flo in his pre-veg, I just ended up with something like a hybrid of what I saw prefersham using and what desert squirrel used.

Just theories based off things I've read, I am excited to see if it works okay.

 

[woodsmaneh]

That looks like a lot of work, well done. I have tried every way to root in the UC and have inconsistent results. Soooooooooooo I have done kind of what you are doing but the easy way. I just cloned in jiffy pots (you should use rockwool) than put them in net pots when they had good roots. I put a drippier on them and they are going great so far. In about 3 weeks I will drop them into the Jumbo and UC and hope they take off. Right now I have monsters in the Jumbo (30gal DIY) and midgets in the UC next to them. I'll post a couple pix so you can see the good and the bad. I will say when it works it's a thing of beauty, I just can't get them all to work right every time. I have a feeling I got it right now and will put my other UC back in next month. I went to a dirt room as I could not have another fail. Back with the pix soon.

 

[woodsmaneh]

Back here are my clones in net pots with drippier s on an old flood table. You can see the meter on the lower left. 6.2 Ph, 930 ppm (yes in veg) I am changing the res out tomorrow as the Ph is climbing, they are eating well.

 

[woodsmaneh]

Here are shots of a side by side to show you the difference, both are doing well it's the size that matters. In the jumbo the plants are 5 feet tall, chain saw time, the UC plants are 2 feet tall, I'm so embarrassed, LOL. The monsters took off and the UC did not even after 3 weeks veg. I ran them at 500 ppm but jumped them to 1000 ppm and they took off. So I will run my veg at 700 and flower above 1000 right from the start, the Jumbo runs at 1500ppm, I would never run at that as everyone says not to? Well they are doing way better at higher PPM's so I'll keep them there. This is the same strain I have been growing in the UC from day one and I never got higher than 750ppm. Go figger eh!

Well here are the shots all plants were started at the same time and get the same food. I have lots of $$$ in the systems so I will make them work 100% and as you can see when it works it works better than any other way of growing.