MARS HYDRO CUP - Lilac Diesel & Birthday Banger -Mainline Grow w/MARS HYDRO TS2000W & Home Assistant Automation

SpawnOfVader

SpawnOfVader

Well-Known Member
And it's done. Super simple design like stated before- The only last second modification was to add a third emitter for each plant (done to fix an accident- made too many holes and didn't have any plugs... the flow rate is super slow because my .6 ID drip doesn't quite seal to the pump even with hose clamps)...

Planning to stay with a 5 gal reservoir for now. Enough for a single watering and I like that I can just swap the bucket if I want to add nutrients/etc. for cleaning. Might up to a 7 gal bucket just to have a little extra (i.e. if I go on vacation I could get two reduced waterings out of it)...

Next project is flashing my sonoff plugs to a custom firmware to integrate with home assistant... on the plus side even without that the plug (and my drip system connected to it) is Alexa voice controlled :-D
 

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SpawnOfVader

SpawnOfVader

Well-Known Member
SpawnOfVader said:
And it's done. Super simple design like stated before- The only last second modification was to add a third emitter for each plant (done to fix an accident- made too many holes and didn't have any plugs... the flow rate is super slow because my .6 ID drip doesn't quite seal to the pump even with hose clamps)...

Planning to stay with a 5 gal reservoir for now. Enough for a single watering and I like that I can just swap the bucket if I want to add nutrients/etc. for cleaning. Might up to a 7 gal bucket just to have a little extra (i.e. if I go on vacation I could get two reduced waterings out of it)...

Next project is flashing my sonoff plugs to a custom firmware to integrate with home assistant... on the plus side even without that the plug (and my drip system connected to it) is Alexa voice controlled :-D
Click to expand...
Found a bright side to the equipment fitting mismatch- the leak where the pump hooks to the drip line is small enough that the drip works fine @ target emitter rate & it's fast enough that when the water gets low it just sprays out the side, the drip stop emitting, and enough water stays in the bucket to prevent the pump from burning out.
 
SpawnOfVader

SpawnOfVader

Well-Known Member
Trimmed all lateral branches more than ~2" below the first mesh except on my shortest two plants (will trim them in a bit before I flip to flower). Once my shortest plant hits that height I'm flipping to flower...5-7 days MAX

That puts my girls about 18" above the pots (just over 8 weeks from seed)... the mainline is looking CLEAN with 7-10 strong colas per plant.

1600652663728.png

The day I flip to flower I'll export the time lapse to date and upload it here....then I'm going to run weekly updates throughout flowering & a final compilation tape.
 
SpawnOfVader

SpawnOfVader

Well-Known Member
Heavier than I would normally defoliate but I wanted to see what kind of yields I would get from truly lollipopping and focusing on a handful of colas (I always SCROG)...

This should be the last major defoliation... after this it's just upward growth and maybe a few fan leaves removed here and there to open up bud sites.
 

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SpawnOfVader

SpawnOfVader

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Well I said 1-2 weeks more but 5 of 6 plants are now over or at least to the first mesh...almost 1.5 inches of growth since I defoliated the lower lateral branches yesterday on one of them. Will be flipping to flower within a couple days. I've been adding an hour of dark every other day for the last week and a half so they're ready)- all plants showing well defined preflowers.
 
SpawnOfVader

SpawnOfVader

Well-Known Member
Well I hit my target (16" for the shortest plant after all the mainline training)... the tallest plant is about 21" tall after training... Changed my timer to 12/12 so tomorrow will be the first "flowering" day.
 

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SpawnOfVader

SpawnOfVader

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Time lapse of the final veg week is done! You can see the intense defoliation/lollipopping done but they're recovering nicely. If I'm lucky I'll have a nice full canopy and they're fairly even. About to rotate the plants that are currently shorter to the middle.

 
SpawnOfVader

SpawnOfVader

Well-Known Member
1600831599611.png
The long dark begins....

Also, picked up a few more magnetic mounting points for my camera so the angles will actually be a bit more dynamic on the time lapse going forward.
 
SpawnOfVader

SpawnOfVader

Well-Known Member
Doing my first feed of flowering nutrients/first time I've tried to run nutes through my drip system.
Just using a second pump to stir my fertilizer/blackstrap molasses. I want to also get an air pump so I can brew it for a couple days at a time prior to watering.....we will see (grow budget already stretched a bit).
 
SpawnOfVader

SpawnOfVader

Well-Known Member
Well... the canopy is looking much better after yesterday's training- did a little more and took off the bigger fan leaves (any covering a bud site).
Also added my second mesh ;-) anticipating heavy buds this time!

Also changed up my time lapse cam angle

1600994702819.png
 
SpawnOfVader

SpawnOfVader

Well-Known Member
Ugh, well that nice, balanced canopy lasted for all of two days. The same girls are already stretching (shuffled my tent to make sure I didn't have any lighting hot spots/temperature pockets/etc..... those two are just stronger phenos than my other two lilac diesel RBX2....

Luckily, it's only ~6" difference right now, still not ideal but I'm gonna try and keep it down if I can.

Normally I'd top it down and get a couple more main branches in exchange for evening the canopy BUT they're already in the stretch.
 
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