robyoung

South Aus would be great place to be.

I would live there except that I have kids in Brisbane, and I am in a hurry to get back in that direction.

I've always used a 4oo water son t., but I'm not lookin foward to the electricity bill down here.

It's 14 cents a kilo hour.

I have only been here few months, and am having a go at dutch passion's "orange bud"

I always flower under fluoros, I reckon u getter better branching 'cause u can keep the light on the tops of the plants.

It seems to take a week or two longer to reach a flowering hight of around 30 cm. But the amount of branchs makes it worth it.

In fact, I usually get to the point where I get sick of waiting for the hight, and start to raise the hight of the fluoros to make them race up a bit.

I reckon if u kept an eye on them, and kept the light right on the tips, u could almost keep a plant under 30 cm nearly forever, but wow!, the branching is great.

Internodes so close together u wouldn't measure them.

I have 4x 4 ft fluoros screwed into a hood I made, with a hinged side, the sides are about 20 cm high, so the plants get heaps of light in the little home made chamber.

It's been so long since I veged plants with a HID I have forgotten what they grow lIke LOL.

But that's the truth.

Maybe I'll have to do it again one day, but it'll be when I move away from Tas., to somewhere that the power is a bit cheaper.

rob

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robyoung

Hey mate send me an email, so I can email u in return.

I wanna ask you something.

tassieiscold@hotmail.com.au

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robyoung

By the way< a couple posts back, I made the comment that I always flower under fluoros.

I mean t say, I always veg under fluoros.

rob

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athapascan

Um


i setup my dwc today
instead of clayball im tryin pebbles though

heres the setup
the growroom
is a shower (not a bathtub just a shower thing)
and i have 1 dwc system setup

2 60 watt
and 1 75 waTT grow light

and i plan on getting a fluorescent light
anyways im wandering
im starting all my canabis plants in soil
how will i transplant them to dwc??


right now just to see the dwc work im growin an english primrose in it
and am expiermenmting with growing
a hawthorne/aloe vera hybrid using dwc

any sugggestions on the transplant
and or setup??
lemmeknmow

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robyoung

Well U might need to take a deep breath first, but I would just wash the roots clean off the soil, and pop it in the pebbles.

Use a tub of warm water, with a weak flowering solution mixed into it.{warm, not hot}

You can also buy stuf that stops stress in transplants.
I can't think of what some of it's called, maybe "thrive", {but not the tomatoe food thrive}, it's a hormone solution.

Anyway, put your plant roots down in the container of warm hydro solution, and any majic stress mix you choose, and massage the soil gently off the roots.

If you make sure the bubbler is working well, and the roots are getting wet straight away with loads of oxygen, they oughtn't look back at all.

I'd also probably use a flowering mix for the first week or so at least, even if they are still in veg, to help the roots a bit with extra phospherous.

That's the way i'd do it, I think. As that's what I have done with other plants that aren't pot in that same situation, and it worked a charm.

All this is assuming hey aren't giant plants already.

rob

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athapascan

hey!

i transplanted
a 1/2 cm plant

today its already popping out of seed almost an inch!!!!!
i used dirt tho in the dwc probably not good but i used it so the roots will stabilize in it and then grow down in the rocks

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Phantom

Just wanted to add my bit, (why the hell not ) ....well yep, after much reading I was also pretty much sold on the viability of the DWC bubblers as they are cheap and easy to set up and from what I have read seem to give pretty good results...(I'm not completely sold on aeroponics tho, seems like cloning is one thing but growing seems to have problems with the vast root systems that MJ throws out. Mind you this a personal choice only)....

Anyways as I had already invested pretty heavily (4 me anyways) in a flood and drain system (of which I have no complaints) I decided to run a DWC anyways as a kind of side project, (knew that spare 400HPS would be good for something, )....So off to the hardware store I goes.

I went for a 80 litre crate so as to grow 4 plants in the one rather than having individual pots for each. After much drilling and cutting I had the setup complete with an access hole for topping up adding nutes and testing pH and a water level meter on the front as the whole crate is covered with a slip cover to keep the light out of the crate.

Into the system went three seedlings (no particular strain but the smoke we tried which was supposed to be the same stuff the seeds came from (tho this was seedless) was particularly nice )and the one spare clone we had (in case one died but none did )....All plants were in 4" rockwool cubes placed on a bed of expanded clay with more clay packed on the sides and over the top of the rockwool (was just enough room in the little pots for this)....

I started the water level so it was just at the very base of the pots, capillary action ensured that water was drawn up to the rockwool and hence my fledgling roots. After about 8/9 days the last of the seedlings is sending roots through the bottom of it's pot to the nutrient mix....

I'll probably now give the roots a few more days to establish themselves and then I'll drop the water level so it's a couple of inches below the base of the pots, seedlings are all raging with the 6th/7th set of leaves coming through and branching happening at all nodes, (evan the first single blade leaf nodes).... I'll probably have to keep the clone pretty well trimmed though so it doesn't take over (I've wanted to experiment with a dwarf plant anyways)

And thats about that....
I'm interested in reading how others go with their setups as I'm sure there is always room for improvements....

Phantom
Ghost Who Smokes

robyoung

Hey Ghost, tell me somthing will ya.

Do u use a HID light for the first month or so of Veg.?

I personally use 4x40 watt flouro tubes, cool white. I mount them into a hood I make that has sides that poject at about 30 degrees from the flat roof I screw the light fixtures to.

One complete side is hinged so I can access the plants easily, and the sides extend down around 30 cm, so the plants get close light reflection by painting the inside of the unit with flat white paint.

The whole turn out is hung on a couple chains fom the roof, and the plants sit on an old desk, currently just in big saucers, and I hand water them every day, and allow them to soak up the nutes from the bottom up.

I'm not staying here, so I am not making anything more elaborate for the plants to drink from until I move.

Then {after I move} I reckon I'll get the cutings going in the aerocloner that get's talked about here so much, and after they come out of that; I'll drip irrigate them in baskets of clay rocks in a gutter or something. Then they can just drop into DWC with no probs.{that's all later though}

In the first month, I let the 4 tubes go around the clock on the plants, although when they are fresh cuttings I just have 1 tube powering up.

By the time the plants are around 30 cm. the internodes are in huge numbers, although I haven't ever bothered to count them; they almost touch from one node to the next.

Nearly always they have burnt tips on the shade leaves, as I don't raise the lights until the tips of the newest leaves touch the tubes.
Hence the burnt tips.
It doesn't slow them up at all, so that's sweet.

What I wanted to ask u was if u always use HID for the first month, and how does the internodeing compare to what I just described.

I wish I had a digital camera, I would show ya.

Also, I gather at present u have similar amount of plants in DWC and flood and drain.

I'm still unsure weather to flower these in DWC or flood and drain, as I said at the outset; the plants are in 4 inch rockwool cubes, and I'm worried about stem rot.

What are your DWC plants in for medium? If anything at all that is.

But let us know what the growth rates compare between the two regimes will ya, and what sort of final weight analasys turns out from the experiment.

But anyways, the main point is, are u happy with the results from vegieing under a HID, and if so, I gather it's a SonTAgro or are u useing MH for this?

I'm just qurious what other gardeners are doing, and how successsfull it is for them.

I'd hate to be doing something when there is a better way.

rob

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I'd understand the spaces
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Phantom

Okaaaay,

Seedlings spent first 3 weeks in 4" rockwool cubes under fluros, these were not actual grow fluros though, just a couple of little desklamp fluros that I liberated from work. Seemed to do the trick though as seedling were healthy and on their 3rd/4th sets of leaves before being moved to the DWC described.

From there they were moved straight to the HID which is a Lucagrow lamp. I know SonTAgrow are better for spectrum but at the moment $$$ dictate that I use what I already have, also the Lucagrow lamps are reknowned for maintaining their lumen output for majority of their life. I must say that node length is very short and branching is rampant (the healthiest is on it's 8th/9th set of leaves with branching at each node and is only about 10cm high). As far as branching goes I kind of put that down to nitrozyme solution that we add during vegetative stage, though only at 5-10% of the recomended dose as it is very strong stuff and it is in addition to the growth technology grow solution.

I have grown plants to completion in the saucer method you described (big pots with large saucers, need to water about once a day when plants are large) and must say that the results were quite pleasing despite that many people poopoo growing that way.

The DWC plants are in 4" rockwool on a base of expanded clay with more clay around the rockwool cubes and a layer on top too.

The flood and drain system is done using the dutch pots method. The reason I chose this is because I run separate grow/bloom areas. With the pots you can grow big plants due to available root space place plus when moving plants from grow area to bloom area you just have to lift out the inner pots. Grow area is under a 1000 metal halide while the bloom area is under two 600 high pressure sodiums (lucagrow again due to maintained lumen output). All clones are started in 4" rockwool under fluros and are grown in expanded clay. With this system I grow six plants at a time (ie 6 in grow 6 in bloom and rotate) cause between the two of us plus friends we go through a hell of alot of smoke.

As the whole setup is pretty much new, (finally decided to get serious ) I can't give ya a good comparison of the two different methods yet. Also because I have a few different strains it is hard to compare growth rates. My final aim is to develope a strain that works best in the conditions I am using (At the moment one of the clone strains is a real winner (clones easy, branches profusely and starts budding way early) and the seedlings look mighty nice too (covered in visible trichomes while only babies)).
I guess the proof will be in the final yield and quality though and that is still 3-4 weeks away for the first set of clones that went through and way longer for the DWC setup as babies aren't showing signs of maturity yet. I'm actually hoping that one of the seedling is male so we can use the pollen for getting some seeds out of the clones we were given (this would further aid in the development of the Phantom Special strain also ).....

enuff of my ramblings
Phantom
Ghost Who Smokes

robyoung

I've never grown to completion in the saucers, actually, this is the first time I have ever done it this way at all.

It was just the easiest way to get them to where they are.
Considering as I keep tellin ya, I don't really live here, and it's all quite temporary.

If you're going to use different lights for each stage of growing, you really wouldn't benifit using son t agros I imagine.
Sounds like you have it all sorted out pretty well huh.

I spent a bloody fortune buying grow tubes of every brand and spectrum you can imagine after spending a monsterous amount of time researching the whole light spectum afair.
That was about 7 years ago.

These days, I buy standard white tubes from Wollies, and they do a better job than all the fancy fluoros I had.

I'm still unsure what to flower these buggers in.
I have a flood and drain table, and I have a 4 outlet air pump.

Descisions descions.....

Probably throw a coin in the air.

I am just using a 400 son t, in a lttle tent of panda film I siliconed to the roof of a tin shed I have in the back yard of this house I'm renting.

Actaully, it came up fairly well.
I glued peices of 2x1 strips of timber 1200mm long in a square on the roof, and then stapled the panda film to that.
I stapled the corners together, and left one corner open to get in and out.

pretty ruf, but it'll do for a couple months.

Take care mate.

rob

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