African Indoor Grow - DIY DWC with 10 yr old Feminised Cinnamon Seed

Hi All

Just joined up here recently and thought I would get stuck in with my first hydro grow for about, ooooh..... 5 years or so...

Here are the gory details.... Feminised Cinnamon seed that I got about 10 years ago.... this will be in a 35litre ( about 10 gallon for those still scared of the metric system ) DIY DWC that I will show being built below.... I will be using GH Flora series nutes.... ph will be allowed to fluctuate between 5.5 and 6.5.... veg will be under CFL or 70W HPS..... flowering under 400w HPS..... and this will be a SCROG (SCReen Of Green) grow....

Any questions/comments/pisstakes/jokes welcome.......

First up will be my DIY DWC, in my opinion one of the simplest and most effective hydro systems if you are growing a few plants... So lets get started...

For my system you will need

• A reservoir, mine is a 45 litre rubbermaid type container, of these 45 litres I will using 35 litres for my nutrient solution.
• An air pump, the pump I got has dual output so I used a T-connector to join them to one line.
  
• An air stone
  
• Plastic air tubing
• Hole drill bit to drill a hole +-10cm (+-4 inches) wide
  
• Round plastic pot (same size as your drill bit)
• Hydroton
• oh, yah... and your seeds...

So quite simply.......

• Drill a hole in the lid of your reservoir with the drill bit
• Drill a hole in the side of your reservoir near the top for the tubing
• Clean out the reservoir with a mild bleach solution and rinse well
• Put your air stone in the reservoir and connect your plastic tubing, the tubing must run through the small side hole that you drilled. I also like to tape up about 15cm (6") of the tubing (with black electrical tape)where it goes through the side hole to keep light from entering the reservoir (algae like light... algae is bad, nkay)
• Fill up your reservoir and add nutes... I used to go with half strength in the past and it worked so will be going with that again....
• Hook up the air pump to the tubing and turn it on. The air pump will supply lots and lots of oxygen for the roots, very important because roots will drown in water if there is no oxygen...
  
• Adjust your ph (I did mine to 6.0)... I also recommend leaving your nute solution bubbling away for about 24 hours and then test ph again.... I find that it takes a while for the ph to settle...

You then need to get your plant ready... germinate them using your preferred method and when there is a small root system put them into the pot with your hydroton.. making sure that the roots are poking through the bottom of the pot so that they get into the nutrient solution when you put the pot through the hole in the reservoir lid.

I started my seeds using the paper towel method, then into soil for about a week or two, then I cleaned off the roots and put the plant into the pot with the hydroton. Everyone has their preferred method, this is what I have done in the past and it has worked for me.....

Then put the pot into the hole on your reservoir (make sure the bottom of the pot is in contact with the water so that the roots are in the solution), put under lights and away you go.... simple...

Looks good subbed for the show

Thanks DirtyNerd

So I was checking up on my cinnamon and noted that the bottom leaves were turning a bit yellow.... Cannot be a nute deficiency because the nute solution is only a few days old.... I suspected nute lockout so after some investigation I have determined that it may be magnesium lockout starting up....

my ph solution was at about 5.6 when I checked, now magnesium uptake is best at levels above 6.0ph... so I simply upped the ph to 6.2 and will monitor going forward.

In my experience ph will rise as the plant drinks, thus allowing for the fluctuation of ph between 5.5 and 6.5. I have noted that this fluctuation takes longer when the plant is very young so manual changes to ph will be necessary to keep the roots in the nutrient uptake "sweet zone"...

once the plants grown and has a bigger root system then the ph change should be quicker.

Hey all

Noticed some more leaves have started to a little yellow. Check the pic.

Any ideas?

I did drop ph down to 5.9.

Looks like she's going to have tightly spaced internodes. Gonna be good

Might just b getting her sea legs

@CHiLLiN. Yeah. I've kept the lights close on her since she sprouted. Also I remember the last time I grew out the cinnamon I did 3 of them 12:12 from seed scrog. 2 of those 3 were tall pheno whilst the 3rd had a much shorter stretch.

@doniawon. Let's hope so. Won't be good if she gets seasick and pulls a greeny (or should I say yellowy) on me.

Here is what I was talking about. All the plants you see here are Cinnamon that came out of the same pack. 1 in front and 2 at the back... They were 12/12 from seed and started at the same time.

As you can see the one in front stayed short and budded up bigger and quicker than the two at the back.

Nice looking setup, interesting to see how it goes.
Good luck

Thanks lash

Ok. A quick update. The yellowing if the lower leaves continued so I added 5ml of flora gro to the reservoir a couple days back. Here she is as of this morning. Remember being under hps makes pics a hit more yellow

And then here is a pic of her roots. About 4 days ago there was just a long strand poking out but this morning they are looking a lot more bushy. She will explode now in her growth.


Then finally this. Years ago I pollenated a northern lights bud with top44 pollen. Got about 30 seeds and decided to plant 3 of them into this small pot. That was about a week ago. This morning I found that one if them decided to poke its head out. Awesome!
Then in the background is a nirvana blue mystic. Its leaf edges are a bit burnt due to high nutes in the soil(I suspect). I gave it a good flush 2 days ago and will keep a close eye on it moving forward.

Quick update for you.

The cinnamon is pushing hard right now. Growing really fast.

She has passed 4 node pairs now. I will top her after 5 pairs to get the side branches going. The top 2 branches I plan on taking off as clones leaving me with 8 branches to scrog with.

Oh. And I had a second NLxTop44 pop out the soil, that makes 2 now. I have put those 2 into their own pots and into veg.

Quick update.

I topped the cinnamon this evening. There are 5 pairs of side shoots of which I will clone the top 2 when the grow to a suitable length.

Another side note....

I've got all these old seeds sitting here and have been picking some out and trying to germinate them..... had a little surprise this morning... a female Neville's Haze Hybrid poked its head out.... cool beans

So at the moment I have the following on the go.
1 x Cinnamon Female
1 x Neville's Haze Hybrid Female
1 x Blue Mystic unsexed
2 x Northern Lights x Top 44 unsexed

I think that will be enough to work on for the coming months, although the temptation is there to try germ more...more...MORE!!!! I've got some older type strains here... Master Kush, Arjan's Haze x Northern Lights, Satori, Orange Bud x White Widow....

Hey all.

Been away for a few days. Got back 2 days ago and found that the cinnamon has really popped.


I have since clipped the top 2 branches and bottom 2 branches to use as clones and this evening I will begin training her in my scrog screen.

I also bought a cool tube and will install that this evening as well.

Update time.

I installed my cool tube and now can keep the hps much closer to the canopy. My cinnamon has covered roughly half the screen. I will give her another week or so then flip her to 12/12.

I have topped each of the branches to encourage side branch growth. She is growing well so should have good results.

Hey looks good. Did you finish? also how do you control the water temps in Africa so as to not develop root rot.