It's A Fuct World
- Thread starter Al B. Fuct
- Start date
Shwagbag
Well-Known Member
Most likely Al is going to suggest that you reconsider growing in straight rockwool flock and cut it a significant degree with perlite. 100% flock is going to retain a lot of moisture and could be doing more harm than good. I'm not a hydro guy but this is the response Al gave me a while back when I asked him the same question a cpl months ago. Dialing in flood times and frequency seems like it would have a lot of factors including the plants point in the cycle relating to its root mass and ability to uptake nutrients. Good luck!
Al B. Fuct
once had a dog named
Pods? Presuming you mean 'pots.'
The action of water draining out of the pots, no matter the flood depth, will draw fresh air into the media.
My trays were made by the hydro shop I bought them from- they happen to have a thermal vacuforming machine and produce them from sheets of plastic (probably PVC). The max flood depth is about 80mm.
In the 6x8 scenario, you will get fewer buds but with greater density than in the 6x12 format. Either way will yield similar dry weight but you will spend significantly less time manicuring fewer, denser buds.
Abamectin (also spelled avamectin in some locales) is the active ingredient in effective spider mite treatments. It's sold under a variety of brand names.
Bear in mind that the recommended withholding period after treating plants with abamectin is 14 days (pears, apples) to 20 days (cotton). I would not spray mite-infested plants in week 6-8 of flowering. Remains to be seen if plants in late flowering as such would even be worth harvesting. Severely infested plants should be contained in plastic bags while you're in the op & disposed of immediately.
When working in a mite-infested op, wear a disposable painter's jumpsuit & shoe covers and bag them up on your first step out of the op. You don't want mites clinging to your clothing to be distributed any further.
To prevent re-infestation, vacuum the daylights out of the grow room & spray, spray, spray- EVERYTHING. Strongly recommend you use an air compressor & a paint spray gun to apply the abamectin solution. WEAR A DUST MASK & EYE PROTECTION. Immediately dispose of vacuum cleaner bags. Put them in plastic bags before removing them from the grow area.
Remember, mites will develop a resistance to abamectin if you don't kill them all in the first pass- so BE THOROUGH.
If you like, but it is not necessary to have a particularly deep-flooding tray to benefit from the air-drawing effect of water draining from media.
Rockwool holds a LOT of water. If you top water once on planting with about 100-150ml of nute soln & then flood every other day thereafter for the 1st 2 weeks, it should be OK. RW floc isn't ideal because it has such a high water holding capacity. This is why I use Fytocell for my flowering plants- it holds less water & can be watered 1x day from day 1 of planting.
No. Not necessary.
Exactly. Rockwool floc holds so much water that small plants in particular will struggle if they're watered daily.
I am enjoying it as I do all of your threads.O hai
Hope you're enjoying the thread. I don't think I killed anyone in that one, did I?
Not much carnage in that one, but I'm only 3/4 of the way through it. I'm still hoping for some though !!
bigwood111
Well-Known Member
Thanks Al. I hand watered yesterday which was the one week date in flower. I'll water them every other day now this week and see how it works out. Then I should be able to start flooding everyday after the second week once a day at lights on to about 2-3 inches? If I remember correctly that is how you were doing it before you switched over to rockwool flock and fytocell. Thanks for the quick reply and glad to see you back.
Brazil Wasp
Active Member
Hey Al. Thanks for sharing your knowlegde, this thread has been an inspiration to me and many others here in Brazil.
I have a single madre running on a small DWC system and cant keep the Ph down. I use Flora Nova Grow with EC 1.0 and Ph 5.7 and after a couple of hours the Ph is around 6.8 - 7.0.
Do you have any ideia what may cause this?
My bucket is small (2 gallons). I have no light penetration and a resonable ar compressor.
cheers
I have a single madre running on a small DWC system and cant keep the Ph down. I use Flora Nova Grow with EC 1.0 and Ph 5.7 and after a couple of hours the Ph is around 6.8 - 7.0.
Do you have any ideia what may cause this?
My bucket is small (2 gallons). I have no light penetration and a resonable ar compressor.
cheers
Shwagbag
Well-Known Member
Also sounds like you could stand to have a larger res. Again, I'm not a hydro guy but a mom seems like it needs some room to roam. Your ppms dropping fast too with fresh solution?
Brazil Wasp
Active Member
EC has dropped from 1.0 to 0.9 in a day. Water level does not change much in a week.
I just bought a 50% h202 to avoid any pathogen. I will clean my resevoir tonight and add the h202. Should I drop the EC?
The little lady is in a very ugly shape...
I just bought a 50% h202 to avoid any pathogen. I will clean my resevoir tonight and add the h202. Should I drop the EC?
The little lady is in a very ugly shape...
Al B. Fuct
once had a dog named
One of these days, I'm going to start wandering around some of the threads in the hydroponics section & start smacking around some of the pseudoscience & general goofery in that neck of the weeds. There will be blood. Of course, this requires that I actually find the time to do so... Bear in mind that there's some posters that have gone so far down the rabbit hole that I simply can't type due to repeated facepalming.I am enjoying it as I do all of your threads.
Not much carnage in that one, but I'm only 3/4 of the way through it. I'm still hoping for some though !!
Yes, that's pretty much the way I watered when the flowering plants were still in RW. In week 1 of flowering, you won't be seeing screaming growth, but you should be seeing the growing tips & associated leaves displaying lime green colour and the beginnings of active growth. RW floc is so absorbent that you really don't need to flood terribly deeply- floc has a strong wicking ability and will adequately wet the media even flooding only 25mm (1") or so.
No worries
Good to see it's of some use to you.
Almost every time I see a system displaying pH jumping up like that, it's a pathogen infection of the system & rootmass. Pythium & fusarium infections fairly reliably cause pH to bump up just as you describe.
Are you dosing the tanks with H2O2 regularly? Use 50% grade H2O2 at the rate of 1ml/L every 3-4 days. If you can only get 30%, use it at the rate of 1.7ml/L on the same 3-4 day dosage schedule. Never use pharmacy grade 3% or 9% H2O2. Low strength H2O2 requires the mfr include stabiliser chemicals wot prevent the H2O2 from breaking down into H2O & O while in storage. The stabilisers are not good for plants.
If you see cloudy, gelatinous gack on the rootmass, the system is badly infected and may need some more aggressive measures to bring it under control. Dump the nute solution, flush the rez with plain water, dump again & refill. Use 50% grade H2O2 at 10ml/L as a 1-off treatment to get the pathogen load under control, following up with the usual 1ml/L rate every 3-4 days.
Adjust pH with a phosphoric acid based pH Down solution as you find at hydro shops. Do not use vinegar, lemon juice or any other sort of acid. I often see goobers suggesting use of sulfuric (battery) acid to correct pH. Please don't do this.
Good luck.
If you're not a hydro guy, should you be answering queries about hydroponics?
Reservoir capacity of about 5L per plant is usually sufficient.
EC 1.0 is a moderate to weak nute soln. If the plant were thriving, 1.5 would be about the strength I'd use. Photos of the plant would be useful if you could post some.
I would not trim roots unless there's a lot of dead (brown or tan) rootmass- and I'd only remove the dead root material. 2 gallons is not a particularly small res for a single plant. 5 litres per plant is normally sufficient- 2 gallons is around 7L and is fine for a single plant.
Bigz2277
Well-Known Member
thanks for the correction Al
Hi al thanks for that. I'm gonna go the denser buds and less work lol. Especially as the yield would probably be the same. Same money+ less work = success!. I was wondering if I could pick ur brain abit on the use of bottled co2 in a grow room. I'm not fully commited yet but pretty sure I will be investing in CO2. I live in the uk and even though we run 240v I don't have the available load capacity to add aircon. I can maintain constant 28`c all day and only really use my exhaust system to replenish the air. I did a test with no plants in the room and a thermostatic fan controller and the temp only got high enough twice throught the day to trigger a air exchange. I have a de humidifier which keeps rh at 40-50%. Knowing this I think I could get away with no aircon, seeing as I'll only be using my fans 2 times per light cycle. I read that plants favour a higher temp and rh when growing in a co2 enriched environment (say 1400 ppm). So al my questions to you are as follows; what is the ideal air temperature? What is the ideal rh? How would I recirculate the co2 that isn't used, because its heavier than air and sinks to the floor doesn't it? Oh and also could you tell me how I would have the co2 controller doser and monitor rigged up to a fan controller so that when the room reaches a set temp the co2 is shut off and the fans run to cool the room, then when the fans shut off the monitor senses how much co2 has been lost and releases another dose to replenish the room. I found one I like the look of its by echotechnics its the complete co2 package (doser monitor controller) it says it can be used in conjunction with their own fan speed controller but that's an extra £210. Am I going to need this or is there some other way I can rig it up. I know you're a whizz with the tech stuff n thought you'd probably be the best person to ask. Thanks al!
Shwagbag
Well-Known Member
Nope I shouldn't lolIf you're not a hydro guy, should you be answering queries about hydroponics?
Reservoir capacity of about 5L per plant is usually sufficient.
But I've seen mother plants outgrow 5 gallon buckets in DWC.Al, I'm growing in a crawlspace where even in the summer temps stay realitivly cool but I'm running six 600 watt hps on three 1000w ballasts with splitters. Right now my temps are around 75-80F but will warm up. I think I read somewhere you recommended cool tubes? If that could drop my temps 5-10 degrees that would be significant. I don't know anyone that uses them but had someone tell me they weren't that good. Would appreciate any input as I'm tired of adding more equipment to my ever growing collection. Thanks in advance.
Cooltubes are an excellent investment and well worth there money. Probably pay for themselves after the first crop due to better yield cos u can have ur lights much closer. The glass of my cooltubes sits about 8" from canopy. Since getting cooltubes and dropping them down I have been getting much tighter harder buds.
Jasman, appreciate the info!
Normal cooltubes will have a built in reflector which isn't very good as far as reflectors go. This can usually be taken out. I have 2 runs with 2 600s in each. 8" cooltubes 8" ducting and 8" fan. This is overkill for 2 600s but when I bought the cooltubes the plan allways was to upgrade to 1000s. As far as reflectors go you want a wing shaped one like an ajusta wing or something similar. I have cheap imitations which will soon be getting changed for adjustawings. They allow all of the available light to be used that would otherwise be trapped in the reflector or reflected back at the bulb. It would depend on what shape your grow room was as to how efficiently you can cool the lights. If you could have a straight run with rigid aluminium ducting from a 6" centrifugal fan blowing cold air from outside the rooms airmass thru the cooltubes to somewhere else outside the rooms airmass, then I would reckon you could definatly have 3 600s in series. So 2 runs of 3. It also depends on the temp of the air ur blowing from outside. Als thread get a harvest every 2 weeks has quite a lot on the importance and workings of his cooltube system. I think its around page 90 ishhh aswell as a lot of repitition of the information throughout.
Shivaskunk
Well-Known Member
Hey Al,
Been lurking here for quite a while reading your posts and i have a question or two if you do not mind?
I am in the process of putting together a medical grow op in which i am limited to 45 flowering plants at any given time. In the pre medical days i ran a fairly large NFT op and more recently several quite small personal ops. I am once again in it for the numbers as i am supplying one medical patient and my local coop. or rather will be. Since i was able to run as many plants as i wanted in my large NFT o ( it was illegal so 5 plants or 99 same diff)
Been lurking here for quite a while reading your posts and i have a question or two if you do not mind?
I am in the process of putting together a medical grow op in which i am limited to 45 flowering plants at any given time. In the pre medical days i ran a fairly large NFT op and more recently several quite small personal ops. I am once again in it for the numbers as i am supplying one medical patient and my local coop. or rather will be. Since i was able to run as many plants as i wanted in my large NFT o ( it was illegal so 5 plants or 99 same diff)