Need Your Grow Questions Answered? Come On In!

[kgb69ss]

9 times out of 10 if the leaves are twisting, it is a form of nutrient burn. without pics its a lil tough though. you want your humidity higher for sure. above 60% is closer to optimal. as far as soil moisture..... its really better IMO to water them good, and then wait until they are almost fully dry before watering again..... a little everyday may be drowning them. but once again, i have no idea what they look like and i cant touch your soil so i cant be sure........

 

when do you take them from the cfl's and put them under the MH?? your call it's a judgment thing. when they are study and looking good keep the pics coming, and we will get you under the MH right on time.

 

how long should they veg?? your call again :) how tall do you want them to be at finish?? what kind of yield you looking for?? MOST people veg until they are 18 inches or taller before switching to the HPS bulb. some people veg for 30 days no matter what, and some people put them in flower at 4ft tall. B)

 

haha, i am being tons of help here huh?? sorry man. its your call though.......... it all depends on what you want in the end.

Well, I'm hoping to start a perpetual thing as I go here

I want to get about 2.5 oz every month. I think you're right about it being my call! I was just wondering how long before I can poke the real intense 600 w MH light to them without turning them into little withered stalks!

[jason j]

wow. thanks man. heck i will +rep that

with the amount of time and effort i have put into this over the last 15 years of my life....... ANYONE would be a good grower... trust me

 

i'm just trying to keep folks from making the same mistakes i did....... and if i can save someone 30 minutes of searching to find an answer, thats 30 minutes faster a sick plant gets healed

I have a hard time being in this section of the forms being I haven't had a chance to grow sense being raided dec 18 2008 17 months ago. I will be growing on day hopefully soon I thank you for being there to help out you are a huge asset to this community.

[Grow Thread]

I have a hard time being in this section of the forms being I haven't had a chance to grow sense being raided dec 18 2008 17 months ago. I will be growing on day hopefully soon I thank you for being there to help out you are a huge asset to this community.

 

i feel your pain man....... just not quite as much

 

i am waiting until i have my hard-card before cultivating here so i have nothing going for the first time in a LONG time. it's starting to get to me. i need a garden to wake up to or i just don't wanna get out of bed

 

thanks again for the kind words ........ i hope your situation gets resolved soon, and the outcome is for the better.

[Grow Thread]

I was just wondering how long before I can poke the real intense 600 w MH light to them without turning them into little withered stalks!

 

once they have a couple good sets of leaves and are growing good, it's time. start with your MH 3-4 feet away if you have to, and keep an eye on them. within just a couple days you will no doubt have fat little monsters that will withstand the abuse from then on.

[lkline300]

Know anything about hopps ? (besides the beer part). A old farmer who grows some great fruit gave me some & told me to use it as fertilizer , mixed in the dirt. I would laugh but I know this guy, a farmer all his life, he knows his stuff. But I need some facts before I do something crazy...............

 

I see you laughing....................

[Grow Thread]

Know anything about hopps ? (besides the beer part). A old farmer who grows some great fruit gave me some & told me to use it as fertilizer , mixed in the dirt. I would laugh but I know this guy, a farmer all his life, he knows his stuff. But I need some facts before I do something crazy...............

 

I see you laughing....................

 

actually im not laughing......... but i will laugh now because you thought i was laughing

 

i did hear once somewhere that hopps was used for fertilizer. i honestly cannot even tell you if it was cannabis related. i have obviously never used it..... anyone else out there get their dirt hopped up?

[Nemosity]

i hope to god your dog recognized you last night nemo!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

 

He was curled up on my bed, mini dachshund, and I swear.... In my head, for like five minutes, although it seemed like forever, I was thinking, "Where the hell did I get that statue? Did my wife buy that thing? Why is it on my bed? I don't remember seeing that before, weird." Then he picked his head up and I almost lost my mind! lol It was a good laugh for sure! And like I said, the best was no pain at all, so relaxed except for my cheek muscles which were being heavily exercised with my laughing! lol

 

I felt so good today my wife took the family to the beach! We stayed almost too long, I have a nice burn now. lol What a wonderful thing. I'll get some pic's of my girls tomorrow. They're not 2liter sized kola's or anything, but as long as they keep getting better, I really have nothing to complain about. Thanks to this forum and all the great help from everyone. Although I still have a long way to go, (unless I could grow outside next to my tomatoes, maybe someday), I wouldn't be as far along as I am without all of you.

 

 

 

----Nemo

[Grow Thread]

He was curled up on my bed, mini dachshund, and I swear.... In my head, for like five minutes, although it seemed like forever, I was thinking, "Where the hell did I get that statue? Did my wife buy that thing? Why is it on my bed? I don't remember seeing that before, weird." Then he picked his head up and I almost lost my mind! lol It was a good laugh for sure! And like I said, the best was no pain at all, so relaxed except for my cheek muscles which were being heavily exercised with my laughing! lol

 

I felt so good today my wife took the family to the beach! We stayed almost too long, I have a nice burn now. lol What a wonderful thing. I'll get some pic's of my girls tomorrow. They're not 2liter sized kola's or anything, but as long as they keep getting better, I really have nothing to complain about. Thanks to this forum and all the great help from everyone. Although I still have a long way to go, (unless I could grow outside next to my tomatoes, maybe someday), I wouldn't be as far along as I am without all of you.

 

 

 

----Nemo

 

heehee... yeah i got some sun today myself. working in the new yard today........

 

here's a completely irrelevant pic i dug up. i was tying her up to move her out of the grow room and into a dark room for a few days. all tied up, she reminded me of the christmas trees we used to bring home when i was a kid......... so i ran to grab my camera real quick.... when i returned, she was slowly leaning over... thank god the fan was there to catch her. TIMBERRRRRRR!!!

 

[Jipo]

Know anything about hopps ? (besides the beer part). A old farmer who grows some great fruit gave me some & told me to use it as fertilizer , mixed in the dirt. I would laugh but I know this guy, a farmer all his life, he knows his stuff. But I need some facts before I do something crazy...............

 

I see you laughing....................

 

Hops make great fertilizer, they contain a lot of nutrients mostly nitrogen. They're also in the cannabis family

[Grow Thread]

12 SITE BUBBLEBUCKET HYDRO SYSTEM

 

i have had a couple questions about linking a bunch of bubblebuckets together and then to a central reservoir. this makes your grow as easy as can be as all of your checking/filling is done through the rez instead of each bucket individually. also, when operating like this, the initial build is much less complicated than building a single bucket. i am a little short on pics at the moment, but i will add more as i build my new system soon.

 

PARTS LIST:

reservoir...... anything from a 10 gallon storage tote to a 55 gallon drum is fine.

13 five gallon buckets

160gph water pump

100' black vinyl tubing

14 air stones. i like the 6" dark blue kind.

100' aquarium air line

20-60 gallon aquarium air pump. dual outlet.

26 barbed coupler/connectors

26 rubber grommets

enough hydroton clay pebbles to fill (12) 5" net pots.

12 net pots. 5" is fine.

2 commercial 6 outlet air pumps. this is overkill on the air/bubbles, but i like bubbles you could just get the larger model pump and an extra splitter and feed all 12 buckets. i like having 2 separate air pumps because it makes moving things around much easier.

 

 

here is your basic design:

 

 

 

ok, looks complicated but don't freak out. it's really not.

 

lets start with the 12 buckets you will be growing in. (green circles above). each bucket will have 4 holes in it total. 2 in the lid, and 2 on the sides. for the lid, one hole should be centered and be 4 3/4" in diameter. this is for your net pot to sit in. the other hole in the lid is just a little 1/8" hole and i try to keep it close to the edge of the lid. a hole just big enough to pull the air line through. the 2 holes on the sides of the buckets should be 13/16". i put those 2 holes on opposite sides of the bucket and about an inch from the bottom. this is where your rubber grommets/couplers will be pushed through each bucket, and then we will be linking them all together using the 1/2" black vinyl tubing. (black lines above).

then we will drill that same 13/16" hole an inch from the bottom of the reservoir and connect them all together. the dual outlet (cheapie) air pump is for the reservoir. hook up 2 lines to the pump, with 2 air stones on the other end, and drop them in the rez. keeping the rez bubbling is a good thing. the "rez" in this application really isn't "reserving" anything, i am simply calling it a rez, and it is just really a bucket with no plants/roots and you can access the water easily to check levels/add nutes. you could also just use another 5 gallon bucket for the rez.

 

the grommets are pretty cool, just drill your hole, and push it through, you will know when it is seated properly. then take one of the 1/2" connectors and shove that through the grommet. as i said, i am a little short on pics right now, so lets just pretend this red coffee container is a 5 gallon bucket:

 

this is how you make the "entry set-up". here we have our 5 gallon bucket, rubber grommet, and barbed coupler.

 

 

after you have your 13/16" hole as seen above, push your rubber grommet through. you will know when it is seated properly.

 

 

then push the barbed connector through as well.

 

 

and finally, attach your black vinyl tubing. i usually use a zip-tie here also, just for safety.

 

 

ok, get all 12 buckets built, get the first bucket in the chain connected to the rez, and the last bucket in the daisy chain to your 13th bucket.... the "control bucket" (smaller blue circle above). really this bucket isn't controlling a dang thing, we will just call it that. this bucket does absolutely nothing but hold a pump to pump water into the top of the rez. this keeps a constant flow of water, and kills 2 birds with one stone. moving water = more oxygen, and this also keeps everything stirred up constantly.

 

get your 2 commercial air pumps set up and run a 1/8" aquarium air line from the air pump through the lid of each grow bucket, all the way to the bottom, and attach a 6" air stone.

 

 

 

 

 

ok......... looks like we have everything set up. lmao... yeah right. anyways, this system is gravity fed. once everything is connected and tightened up, its time to fill the system. as you can see, filling the rez will allow water to flow through all 12 grow buckets and then into the control bucket. from the control bucket, it gets pumped into the rez and the cycle continues. so anyways, keep filling with water until you reach a level about 1/4 inch below the net pots. then make a mark inside your rez. this is your optimal water level and should be maintained daily. so everyday it is as simple as opening the rez, checking your ph/ec/ppm.... whatever you check, and then backfilling with water/nutes anything that evaporated or the plants drank. this is SO MUCH EASIER than checking all 12 grow buckets individually. and much easier to maintain proper ph/nute levels in one central rez as opposed to each bucket individually.

 

i am sure there will be hundreds of questions and i am sorry. i dont have my system set up so i cant take pics for a real step-by-step DIY tutorial, but the basics are here for now, i will be updating this in a couple weeks when i build my system so check back then. until then......... ask away and i will do my best to explain the cloudy points of it.

 

 

 

EDIT:

ADDED 8-9-2010

you can also eliminate the rez altoghter and use the control bucket for all checking/filling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT:

in the pic directly above instead of running those 2 lines into a tee and then into the control, i cut the tee out and ran one line to each side of the bucket. major flow increase.

 

this post has become a spot that ideas have been thrown over time. here is another:

 

[Done Here]

Thanks again Bubblegrower!

[Jipo]

Why wouldn't you run it like this?

With the control bucket having a float, at the top it would kick the pump on any time it got low, then the pump would fill the control bucket back to the level of the float, shutting it off, and maintaining a full bubble bucket at all times.

[Grow Thread]

Why wouldn't you run it like this?

 

 

oh there is a million different ways to run it/set it up, and a ton of different sites to buy the parts from..... i was just trying to get the basic concept out real quick for folks to get ideas and build on. this is just one of the simplest ways do it. with this system, every drop of water is "in play" all the time. no timers/floats this way....... this is just a simple gravity fed system. that is flowing 24 hours a day. cheap as it gets.

[Done Here]

Ok I don't know much about hydro, this will be my first hydro grow. My question is whats the difference in overwatering a dirt plant and letting your "hydro" ruts just sit in water?

[Grow Thread]

Ok I don't know much about hydro, this will be my first hydro grow. My question is whats the difference in overwatering a dirt plant and letting your "hydro" ruts just sit in water?

 

overwatering your dirt plant means your roots are sitting in still, non-moving water........ dead water. no air. the roots are choking until the soil dries out some and lets air back in. in this form of hydro, we are FORCING air right up the roots azz with air pumps/stones that produce bubbles constantly. there is never one second of "down-time" in root growth. that water the roots are just sitting in is like 2 alka-seltzer tablets in a glass of water......... only all day everyday.the more bubbles the better. i like bubbles i like my buckets to look like the ocean on a bad day........... very fierce and rough waters

[Jipo]

oh there is a million different ways to run it/set it up, and a ton of different sites to buy the parts from..... i was just trying to get the basic concept out real quick for folks to get ideas and build on. this is just the way i do it. with this system, every drop of water is "in play" all the time. no timers/floats this way....... this is just a simple gravity fed system. that is flowing 24 hours a day. cheap as it gets.

 

Alright, makes sense, I was just thinking of how I could set up buckets to a control res like my EBB & Flow was. I'm most likely going to be lazy and just hand water though

[Grow Thread]

now these roots are getting some air.... check out how full and clean white they are.

 

[Grow Thread]

. I'm most likely going to be lazy and just hand water though

 

thats what i like about this system........ i dump 3-5 gallons in the rez everyday (whatever it takes to get to my line) and forget it.

[Done Here]

Not that I am not going to be checking all the time, but what is the gallons per hour I have on losing water before I burn-up the water pump in the "control bucket"?

[Grow Thread]

Not that I am not going to be checking all the time, but what is the gallons per hour I have on losing water before I burn-up the water pump in the "control bucket"?

 

you will never run out of water......... the rez, all 12 grow buckets, and the control bucket are all connected together at the bottoms. this means if one has water in it, it will flow freely to the next bucket and so on......... stopping at the control bucket. then the control bucket pumps water into the rez.......... the water in the rez flows freely through the black vinyl tube into the first bucket..... the 1st to the 2nd....... and so on....... and then back to the control bucket and the whole thing starts all over again. the pump has approx. 50 gallons of water (assuming about a 10 gal rez) to pump at all times........ continuously. so you have a CONSTANT flow........... and thats a good thing

[Jipo]

thats what i like about this system........ i dump 3-5 gallons in the rez everyday (whatever it takes to get to my line) and forget it.

 

Yah I was thinking of maybe putting a control bucket and just hand filling that but I don't think I want to run all the plumbing inbetween and I'm going to be growing a handful of different strains so the mixes will probably be different since I like to feed em til they burn and back off a tiny bit at that point.

[Grow Thread]

Yah I was thinking of maybe putting a control bucket and just hand filling that but I don't think I want to run all the plumbing inbetween and I'm going to be growing a handful of different strains so the mixes will probably be different since I like to feed em til they burn and back off a tiny bit at that point.

 

yup, good point. in this system, obviously all the plants are sharing the same water, so you cannot feed individually. also, it is best to have all strains of approx the same height if you wanna use this system. you cant just sit one of the buckets on a milk crate or something because that plant is shorter than the rest and needs a little boost to reach the light. this is a gravity fed system and ALL buckets/rez/control buckets must be sitting level on the same surface.

[Jipo]

yup, good point. in this system, obviously all the plants are sharing the same water, so you cannot feed individually. also, it is best to have all strains of approx the same height if you wanna use this system. you cant just sit one of the buckets on a milk crate or something because that plant is shorter than the rest and needs a little boost to reach the light. this is a gravity fed system and ALL buckets/rez/control buckets must be sitting level on the same surface.

 

Good point, I didn't think about that, It would be pretty bad if I setup like that since I'm gonna run 2 hawaiian snows and a haze sativa next to a few indicas that are know to stay very short. Something tells me I'm gonna need a few milk crates during that flower cycle

[Grow Thread]

Good point, I didn't think about that, It would be pretty bad if I setup like that since I'm gonna run 2 hawaiian snows and a haze sativa next to a few indicas that are know to stay very short. Something tells me I'm gonna need a few milk crates during that flower cycle

 

oh for sure thats one of the reasons i got away from the 5 gal buckets and started using 10 gal totes for shorter indica strains. i can go with 2 plants per tote, and if i have to have them stand-alone, one of those cheap 20-60 gallon wal-mart pumps gives me enough bubbles to maintain a smile. then if i do have to boost it with a milk crate, im boosting 2 plants at the same time.

 

everyone does things different

[Jipo]

oh for sure thats one of the reasons i got away from the 5 gal buckets and started using 10 gal totes for shorter indica strains. i can go with 2 plants per tote, and if i have to have them stand-alone, one of those cheap 20-60 gallon wal-mart pumps gives me enough bubbles to maintain a smile. then if i do have to boost it with a milk crate, im boosting 2 plants at the same time.

 

everyone does things different

 

Yah I'm doing 10gal totes for each plant except 3 5gal buckets for the autoflowers first then the best 3 of the bunch are going to get cloned into them as mothers. I figure a few of the 12" long air stones should be plenty of bubbles. I was looking into getting a 8.5" disc for each but those guys are expensive