Back in the Saddle

Bubbagineer · Mar 23, 2013

Hi Huel, I'm subbed up, don't know why I wasn't before... Hope you don't mind? I have a question in regards to DWC. I am currently growing in soil with Blumats for auto watering. I travel pretty regularly, but am always home on weekends. I liked what I read about not changing the res water and just feeding once per week and topping up once per week. Do you think it could go 5 days between top-offs? I'm a big believer in autopilot growing... maybe my notion that hydro requires the grower to hover over the plants twice a day is a misconception? I just re-read this whole thread, nice work man.

Huel Perkins · Mar 24, 2013

Bubbagineer said:
Hi Huel, I'm subbed up, don't know why I wasn't before... Hope you don't mind? I have a question in regards to DWC. I am currently growing in soil with Blumats for auto watering. I travel pretty regularly, but am always home on weekends. I liked what I read about not changing the res water and just feeding once per week and topping up once per week. Do you think it could go 5 days between top-offs? I'm a big believer in autopilot growing... maybe my notion that hydro requires the grower to hover over the plants twice a day is a misconception? I just re-read this whole thread, nice work man.

Thanks for the kind words, i'm glad you're following.

How long you can go between watering completely depends on the size or the rez, the size of the plant and the state of growth it's in. Big plants that are 4 weeks into flowering can drink up two gallons of water per day each, yet small plants early in veg might not even drink up a gallon of water in a whole week.

You should check your garden daily at least, if you can. You never know when pests or disease might attack, or when lights, fans, timers or pumps might fail. Does hydro require more attention than a soil garden, nope, that is in fact a misconception. Once you have a garden dialed in you should be able to go extended periods of time without needed maintenance assuming no unexpected problems arise.

Huel Perkins · Mar 24, 2013

3/24/13 Update

Today makes one full week of flowering for the garden and everything is looking good. Seeing no negative effects from the UVB bulbs. Just starting to see the first sign of flowers forming today, most noticeably on the AK-47. The AK-47's are doing great and are huge in every dimension. The Cannatonic is by far the shortest in the garden but as i learned in my last grow she will start to stretch like crazy very soon and end up being just as tall as my other plants if not taller. The Jack the Ripper is growing really fat and bushy, perfect structure in my opinion. The Cheesequake's are decently nice and bushy but i did top them a few days before flowering to help encourage more branching.

The Fat purples are in the veg / mother garden and still growing pretty good. They're continuing to grow kind of odd shaped leaves but nothing crazy. I'll probably need to transplant them into bigger pots this week, in the cups they're in i'm having to water them everyday now...

Group shot

Cannatonic

AK-47

Fat Purple

Figong · Mar 24, 2013

Did you notice anything at all different with the UVB to this point that's positive, or think it's a bit too soon?

Huel Perkins · Mar 25, 2013

Figong said:
Did you notice anything at all different with the UVB to this point that's positive, or think it's a bit too soon?

Absolutely nothing yet...

Figong · Mar 25, 2013

Huel Perkins said:
Absolutely nothing yet...

We'll have to see, and would definitely love to find out how much truth there is to this - if it fails as a test from you, am going to dismiss it and use the UVB to grow coral for local pet supply places.. hahaha

Corso312 · Mar 25, 2013

Got my doubts bout uvb, we shall see tho...trust huel will know if good or not considering he grows same strains.

CashCrops · Mar 26, 2013

Looking good on everything brotha!

hellraizer30 · Mar 26, 2013

CashCrops said:
Looking good on everything brotha!

Got to 2nd this huel....

NEEDMMASAP · Mar 27, 2013

Huel Perkins said:
J My entire grow consists or a very basic feeding and maintenance schedule, every Sunday i add my nutrients and top off each bucket with ph adjusted water, then every Thursday i top off each bucket with ph adjusted water. That's it! It really couldn't get any easier...

Hi Huel , when you add your water on Sunday and Thursday what level do you top it off , at the bottom of the net pot or above the bottom of the net pot , I've connected my grow buckets with a one inch PVC to exterior water reservoir with a small pump in the reservoir on a timer so once a day it fills the grow bucket and then overflows back to the reservoir , I have it so it brings the water level to one half inch above the bottom of the net pot , dont know if thats to high or not ? What level do you use ? Your latest grow sure looks good .

Huel Perkins · Mar 28, 2013

Thanks guys. I don't have high hopes for the uvb lights either but I like experimenting, its keeps it interesting.

NEEDMMASAP said:
Hi Huel , when you add your water on Sunday and Thursday what level do you top it off , at the bottom of the net pot or above the bottom of the net pot , I've connected my grow buckets with a one inch PVC to exterior water reservoir with a small pump in the reservoir on a timer so once a day it fills the grow bucket and then overflows back to the reservoir , I have it so it brings the water level to one half inch above the bottom of the net pot , don’t know if that’s to high or not ? What level do you use ? Your latest grow sure looks good .

At this point in the grow I fill my buckets as high as I can just to make it to the next watering without getting too low. I like to completely submerge my roots but I do this knowing that over the next couple day as the drink up the water they will be exposed to a good amount of air as will. Exposing the roots to air is a good thing, this allows them to get tons of oxygen but you don't ever want them to actually get dry.

Huel Perkins · Mar 31, 2013

3/31 Update HAPPY EASTER!

Today is day 14 of flowering and everything is looking good. Not sure what is going on with the Cannatonic, she just doesn't seem to have the same vigor she did in the last grow. She is by far one of the most sensitive strains i've ever grown, in the second week of veg i fed her a little too much (not enough to burn her) which completely stopped all growth until last week when i dumped out half of her rez and replaced it with fresh ph'd water.

The buds are starting to form everywhere, i'll let the pics do the talking...

AK-47

Cannatonic

Cheesequake

Jack the Ripper

Usernamewastaken · Mar 31, 2013

Hi Huel, gave this another read and knew I saw suspended cfls somewhere...I am goingo shamelessly steal your ingenuity...and to the hardware store I go...

by giving light to the lower bud sites, that would normally be fluff a luff. What would you estimate in a percentage base your production increased by?

thanks for the inspiration.

Usernamewastaken · Apr 1, 2013

Hey Huel, I shamelessly stole from you and added cfls in / under my canopy... 27,000 lumen worth.

mrbungle79 · Apr 1, 2013

Usernamewastaken said:
Hey Huel, I shamelessly stole from you and added cfls in / under my canopy... 27,000 lumen worth.

you're not the only one!! made my trip to home depot over the weekend to pick up my single bulb fixtures, y adapters and 2x 4 packs of 3500k 24 watt cfl's

Huel Perkins · Apr 2, 2013

Usernamewastaken said:
Hey Huel, I shamelessly stole from you and added cfls in / under my canopy... 27,000 lumen worth.

mrbungle79 said:
you're not the only one!! made my trip to home depot over the weekend to pick up my single bulb fixtures, y adapters and 2x 4 packs of 3500k 24 watt cfl's

Lookin good! It will definitely turn a lot of lower popcorn buds that would normally end up in the trim pile into nuggets worth trimming and saving.

VaporTrail · Apr 2, 2013

Very nice I use CFL's on the sides also.

Huel Perkins · Apr 5, 2013

Another small semi-pointless update...

A couple pics of my Fat Purples, i've got two different phenos as you can see...

I also scored some more new genetics from some really cool guys i met a couple weeks ago, Pure Michigan Genetics. No idea when i'll get to growing these... lol

I also just added an ozone generator to my house. I have never been a big fan of these things due to their negative effects on all forms of life but i wanted just a little bit better oder control and possibly kill any airborne bacteria. I have it set on a timer with a fairly complex schedule. Its a very small unit designed to treat spaces up to 3000 cubic feet, and claims to not exceed EPA standard safe levels of ozone (if used in a space that size). I have it mounted a few feet outside of my flowering room. I have it set to cycle on for 10 minutes and off for 10 minutes for the hours of the day when i am normally at work. For the hours of the day when i am normally home it runs for about 10 minutes out of every hour. Better safe than sorry, i just got it running a couple days ago, we'll see how effective it is soon when the buds really fill in and start stinkin!

Huel Perkins · Apr 7, 2013

4/7 Update...

This weekend was a blur... Another Hash Bash has come and gone. The plants are now at 21 days of flowering and really starting to pack it on. Every plant in the garden is steadily putting on weight and starting to frost up nicely. The Cannatonic is still being fussy as far as the stretch and growth i expected from her but she is filling in and seems happy.

On with the pics...

AK-47