Full tilt med SCROG. blue w, mango cush, jack herrer. Ebb/flow, co2, botanicare

Hey there gang. I am a registered medical MJ patient, full time environmental consultant and father of two boys. As such, my grow will be completed that is entirely in accordance with the laws of my state that govern MJ production, storage and consumption. So now that is out of the way, I would like to acknowledge all the people that spent their time and energy paving the way for people like me to produce and consume my own medicine. I'm quite certain it was a long uphill struggle and would like to remind you that your efforts are appreciated by those in positions like mine.
This is my first grow in a looong time. Like 12 years. And also my first hydro. I'm pretty methodical and keep lots of records so hopefully that will be of use to other people.
So since I spent allot of time and cash to create a pimp grow room I'll start with that. I have a 4yo and 10yo that cannot know that I am growing for the obvious reasons so my room is fairly stealth. To them, I built a climate controlled room to store my "important documents" .

So its a basic 7x7x7 room in the basement. Fully insulated and sealed. Inlet and exhaust fans lead directly outside. I constructed my ebb table from plywood and shower pan liner (PVC). My reservoir is located in the next room (kind of steath) is also plywood that has no bottom. I place a heavy duty tarp in it and fill with water. The water essentially sits on the basement floor and is a constant 68 degrees. I installed a quick disconnect to the pump hose so when I drain the rez I pop a garden hose in, open the valve and pump the water across the room to a sanitary sink. My ballasts are mounted outside the room as well. and finally, everything is controlled by the CAP XGC1 which is pretty damn cool. Lights, temp, humidity, pumps, fans and co2. So this are the set up pics....





Ok, so now to the actual growing part.. . I constructed a SCROG screen that is 7' x 3.5' and installed above the table. I just transferred the following rooted clones into the table... Blue widow, jack herrer, and mango kush. 8 plants total. They were rooted in coco so I just had to place the coco in the hydroton, not the best situation but whatever. To keep root temps down and prevent light from growing nasty shit in my table, I stapled a sheet of panda film over the table, cut x's in the film, and inserted the plants. Here are the pics of the room with screen....

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Now..to the details as to what the hell I am doing at this point.

Environmental conditions:
twin 400 MH set about 40" from the plants
18 on/ 16 off
temperature maintained at 79
Co2 level set at 900 for now
Humidity is hovering around 70 right now.

Nutes:
They plants are a week old so I am feeding them a tiny bit. Like just barely. I'm not using filtered water so my base PPM is 21.

I added..
100 PPM of botanicare cal/mag
96 PPM of botanicare Pro grow

These equals 1 1/2 tbls each for a 15 gallon rez.

In addition, I mixed a gallon of GH subculture mycoryhizal innoculant and poured it directly into the table at each plant site after the first drain. It should jump start rooting and increase absorption on what little roots they have.

Notes:
Pushing the hydroton around and grinding the net pots into place and what not generated allot of hydroton dust... my rez PPM jumped from 220 to 370 due to this. Not too worried about it at this point as it is nuetral.

Any advice or suggestions are greatly appreciated!! Especially from the SCROG gang.

+rep and 'scribed

excellent set up sir, subbed . looking forward to seeing you ladies!

NICE man! sub'd

Nice room! Sub'd.

Little update after a full 16 hour cycle.

I did flush the rez to get the hydroton dust out of there. So at 9:00pm I was at 229 PPM total at 6.1 ph.

Environmental conditions summary at 10:00am:

max/min temperature above and below the table panda screen--above 84.5/ 73 below 81.5 /73
Room max/min 82.0/ 66% humidity
72.5/ 55% humidity

Notes:
This morning the plants look fine although one is drooping pretty heavily. I suspect over watering (a likely hazard of the coco around the roots) I increased the interval time between waterings a tiny bit. She will just have to struggle along till she grows more roots into the hydroton.

My rez numbers swung widely! The PH was at 7.5 this morning! and PPM was 556. Not sure what is the cause of the PPM jump. No way they absorbed enough water to make the PPM jump. Could be mycorhizal activity? The PH swing COULD be due to undissolved PH up powder but I highly doubt it, Mixed the shit out of it. The powders were given to me and now I think I know why.

I added 10 gallons of tap to decrease the PPM to 384. I ph'd to 6.1. I'm going to check on them again to see if these numbers change while the water is just sitting in the rez which to me would indicate microbial activity in the rez.

Is this a proper assumption? The only other thing I can think of is that while using straight tap water (7.6 ph) to test run the table during setup had made the hydroton slightly basic and now its just leeching out the base, thus making my rez ph jump. If it doesn't settle down I think I'll zap the mychorizal with hydrogen peroxide.

Adding the H2O2 won't hurt anything, I use it every time I mix nutes or flush. I had a similar issue once when I didn't flush new hydroton adequately though it wasn't quite as wide a swing and it was fairly obvious (cloudy water). The ppm increase could be attributable to absorption & evaporation, candidly I pay very little attention to it unless the plants exhibit symptoms. I have not had very good results with the powders, using GH solutions now. IDK bud, just speculating fwiw.

Nice work, mon frer. +Rep

did some digging around. biotic activity should lower the ph. Has to be the powder or hydroton. Lights/pumps come back on in hour so I will see if the flushing of the table raises the PH.

I determined the PPM raise was do to the addition of the PH adjusting powders.

Thanks for the subs and Rep. Kind of inspires me to produce a kick ass crop. Free buds for all subscribers!!! (ummm, no )

Taking up a seat.

Quick update. On day four and plants look good. Very strange though went down in the basement and my Rez was milky and had foam in it? WTF is that about?

Changed it out. Raised the nutes.

Nutes: 200 ppm of calmag
212 ppm of grow.

Enviro conditions
not much changed there as it's all controlled
max min temp 82/74
humidity. 55/65

I did make some adjustments to the flood table. The hydroton was dry as a bone about 30 minutes after the flood. Not sure if this is normal? Anywho, I have it set up on a fast flood/drain of around 6min. It cycles every 90 minutes.

Thanks for looking

ive pulled up my seat too and checking this shit out. blowin me away!

So I'm at the end of week one. Thinking about calling this week zero as the plants really didn't do a whole lot as the clones didn't have a whole lot of roots when they were transplanted. Most are now growing but I am having two issues..

The Jack herrer's are growing but they are fairly yellow... Which says to me low nitrogen.
The mango kush's are doing ok but the leaves are super curled under..like rams horns. Which I have been told could be over fert but there is no burn.?

One of the leaves is actually twisted sideways. I read that heavy curling and twisting could be..i think it was Mg defeciency which can occur when ph gets high. This seem to fit as my ph is still soaring to 7+ overnight . I'll post some pics to get some advice fom the gang. What should the ppm level for grow nutes be at this point? I have at 100 each, perhaps I should raise it? Or should I not expect the yellow leaves ( which mostly occurrd during clone root growing) to return to green? ( meaning the nutes are not low)
thanks !!

I think if you staighten out your ph problem the rest will fall in line. And make sure that cocos not staying to wet.

Thanks Buick. Yeah they are definately not water logged.

I am 4 weeks into an 4x8 ebb&flow w/ 12 plants. In week 2 ladies began to show signs of MG, FE, and Zn deficiency i.e. yellowing leaves (shoots and new growth), unproductive, stalled growth. My well water was 150-180 ppm and loaded with Ca carbonate. Long story short -Ca buffers the ph up and causes nutrient lockout. I purchased a 100GPD R/O, D/I water system, $66 on e-bay, filter my water and presto. . . Green abundant growth.

yo Codger. In my research I read about the effects of calcium carbonate. Its not really a buffer (a buffer is something that prevents PH change) but anywho, when you add PH down to the rez, it breaks apart the Calcium carbonate and co2 and calcium are formed. The co2 off gasses from the rez and it is this off gassing that causes the ph to rise. So, in the end, simply aerating and waiting would help your water stabalize. If your RO system solved the problem, well then, you don't have any issues but thought I would put it out there for others that use well water and happen to stumble across this thread.

I am pleased as fucking punch to report that overnight my PH went from 6.1 to 6.4 which is much less of a swing so I think the hydroton is finally coming around.

Okay, so I'm no hydroponic expert or anything as I've only been doing it for about a year. But I've been growing indoors for around 10 years now and can tell a plant thats growing in optimal conditions and a plant thats doing ok and a plant thats sick. With that said, I have a question for you guys/gals. So everyone says use ro and I know calcium raises ph, I would add it to my soil in the form of dolomatic lime to keep my ph in check. So I use straight tap water @ ph 8.5-9.0 and 900ppm with NO problems. I set my new res @ ph5.5 and at the end of a 7 day week it's @ 6.1-6.3, I top off ph to 5.5 and repeat every 2 weeks. At the end of the plants 10 week cycle I have calcium buildup on my hydroton. If calcium raises ph (and I know it does) why isn't my ph jumping? I'm not complaining, I just don't understand.

Previously "yo Codger. In my research I read about the effects of calcium carbonate. Its not really a buffer (a buffer is something that prevents PH change) but anywho, when you add PH down to the rez, it breaks apart the Calcium carbonate and co2 and calcium are formed. The co2 off gasses from the rez and it is this off gassing that causes the ph to rise. So, in the end, simply aerating and waiting would help your water stabalize. If your RO system solved the problem, well then, you don't have any issues but thought I would put it out there for others that use well water and happen to stumble across this thread.

I am pleased as fucking punch to report that overnight my PH went from 6.1 to 6.4 which is much less of a swing so I think the hydroton is finally coming around."


Hail Legallyflying,
Yes sir, a buffer is, in our case, a strong acid and based held in opposition which readily gives up H+ or OH- ions as needed. The Ca in my water, i believe, 'held' my ph at 6.6 -6.8 after a ton of acid was introduced with air-stones ablazin' and all. With my Ro/Di system, ppm is 0, which means that I am literally using 8-12 drops from an eyedropper to ph my 335l(89gal) reservoir to an even 6.0 (after adding nutes which have engineered buffers in them, *Atami B'cuzz Bio NRG). PLease correct me if I am wrong I am trying to figure out the best way to approach my new well water as the Ro/Di system,though effective, is terribly slow and wasteful.

-Nice looking room by the way

No codge, I think your "more correct" as I was kind of fixating on the potential of the carbonate forming co2 and eventually raising the PH.

Buick, the higher amount of salts, minerals, etc in your solution, the more buffeting qualaties it has and the more resistant to ph swings it will be. That's why codger only needs to add a couple drops of acid to lower his ppm 0 RO water. I think that the precipitate on your hydroton is many things besides calcium. You must keep your nutes pretty low though huh? I'm planning to run about 1800 ppm of bloom during flower. That would lock the shit out of your plants. 900 ppm from the tap though? Jesus I would probably ro my drinking water at those levels.

At any rate, despite trying to ignore the girls to spite them I took a peak this morning and they look a little happier. Little more root growth and settling in and I'm going to crank on them