Hey Al I just got my 2nd 1k watt light up and Im parionoid now. So is there any precaution you go by? Say if the law comes by or anything like that, sometimes I feel like shuting down because of my parnoid, but I know im good I have a business and a nice size home and no drama around but still a little p-noid what do you do?
Electricity use alone is not going to be a cause of you getting busted. Power companies as a matter of course do not report customers to the cops, especially not if you pay your bill, in full and on time every time. You're just a good customer. You'd have to have bridged out your kWh meter
and have a ton of power draw to attract attention from your power company.
Now- if you get busted taking a load of buds somewhere, cops may get a warrant not only to search your premises but also subpoena records from your electricity provider.
Don't make stupid mistakes. Having a taillight out, boomy car stereo or other traffic violations are unforced errors that you can so easily avoid. Don't ever tell anyone that you grow- and most importantly, NEVER have 5-minute visitors to your house. Neighbours notice these things.
About the adjust a wing, How much of a parabola do you give it, there are multiple options on the edge of the wing, supposedly to simulate the seasons, are your two aawings bent the same. mabe a close up pic? Thanks Al!
The slots on the AAW have nothing at all to do with simulating seasons. 'Simulating seasons' as it were is done by manipulating the day length with timers. Use the adjustments on the AAW to set the light dispersion so that it hits your plants and not the far walls.
Thank you sir!! That would be a .7 conversion. Almost 1.5 EC.
OK, if you say so!
Thanks.
Yourself and Homebrewer are the only veteran growers on this site that have any luck with rookwool ( or at least used to ) why do you think this is? I water it once every 2 days and still have root issues. I'm going to perlite because fytocell is impossible to find in north america.
Are you using H2O2 in your reservoirs?
Perlite's fine.
I use rockwool with awsome luck! I would love to give fytocell a shot but like you said its not available
Hard to get outside Australia, I'm told. Worth asking your local hydro shop to stock it, tho.
use some of the little trays that go inside a clone tray and hold rapid rooters and line your flood tray with them so that your RW blocks are not sitting on a flat surface. this helps break the water tension in the blocks and they will drain much faster. I water my 4x4x4 cubes 3x a day with great results. this also allows your roots (instead of being stuck inside the block) to grow into the little cups and your plants can grow much larger while the roots are safely tucked into the cups so no light can get into them.
I'm not a fan of the 100mm (4") cubes. They are highly absorbent and hold so much water that the cutting can't suck it up quickly- the water in the cube loses all of its dissolved oxygen (stagnates). 100mm cubes also take up a lot more space in the clone box; I only have so much space on the heat mat- I can do 4x the number of cuttings with 40mm cubes in the same space as with 100mm.
I need cuttings ready to plant out every 14 days. 100mm cubes, by virtue of the fact that there's more distance between the stem and the bottom of the cube, will significantly add to the amount of time between doing the cutting and getting roots out of the bottom of the cubes.
The plant in your photo look likes it's about 30+ days post cutting. That's a very large plant compared to the size we work with in Sea of Green grows.
have you ever tried those coco tek cubes?
I'm not a fan of organic matter in an inorganic hydro op, whether it's coconut coir or peat pellets (rapid rooters). They go to pieces when exposed to H2O2 (bits can get stuck in pumps) & being organic matter, can support mould growth.
I posted a query over at icmag about the Fytocel in the US.
Try ehydroponics.com they stock it.
There you go!
wow thats great news dankhoe thanks! im gonna try Fytocell in my next crop. i got a few questions about Fytocell for al or anyone else that wants to comment
im doing sea of green 36 plants in a 4 x 4 space with no veg so im guessing Fytocell is used with pots?
if so what kind of pots should i use and what size do you recommend using cause i noticed earlier in this thread you said you didnt like net pots
Use plain old plastic pots with drain holes in the bottom.
whatever pots i use should i put tape around the sides to protect the roots from light and insects?
Not needed if you use just plain plastic pots.
i want to use neoprene inserts as covers so i think net pots might be the only pots i can use
I wouldn't cover a pot of media with anything that air and moisture can't readily move through. You'll create an anaerobic moisture trap where pythium etc will thrive and bugger the roots.
If you want to keep sciarid flies out, pantyhose or knee-high stocking material works great.
how high do i flood the water when using Fytocell? can i just flood it a half inch like rockwool cubes and it will soak up the whole pot like a sponge or do i have to flood it real high until it touches the actual plant like hydroton?
Flood to about 25-50mm and drain as soon as the nute soln reaches that level. My pumps fill my trays in about 3 minutes.
how many pots will a 50 L bag fill?
Depends on the size of the pot you're using. My 175mm dia x 175mm tall pots are roughly 2L in capacity, so I'd say about 25-30 pots filled from a 50L bag. Consider buying the 100L bags- fewer trips to the hydro shop, probably a little cheaper per litre of Fytocell as well.
im gonna be taking clones from my aero cloner, i can transplant the clones right inside the Fytocell right? i just didnt know if i put something on top of the Fytocell or something.
You can take the rooted clones and plant directly in previously wetted Fytocell. Make a large hole (50-60mm) in the Fytocell, place the plant & backfill with Fytocell that you pushed aside to make the hole. Aerocloners are great & all but there's no media to support the roots. Use EXTREME care not to break roots when planting in Fytocell.
one time i used hydroton and i had a problem with plants falling over because they dont really hold any water so they dont weigh that much. the pots were probably just too small. do i risk having this problem with Fytocell? can i use those long bamboo sticks in the Fytocell and tie the plants to those so they dont tip over if need be? my worst nightmare would be plants falling down all over the place.
When using clay pellets, plant the rooted cutting deeply enough in the pellets that they don't fall over. Same with Fytocell.
I don't like using bamboo sticks to support plants but have used them when there was nothing better available. You'll find that they rot after being constantly wet for a spell. Rotting is caused by microbes which you'd rather not have near your rootzone. Use plastic dowels if you can get them.
you said you put 25m of floc on the bottom of the pot, how much of an inch is that, like how tall is it?
25mm is about an inch.
how many times a day should i be flooding the tray in flower? is once a day really all i need? i thought one of the advantages of Fytocell was that you can flood it more often to have a more constant flow of nutes but i guess thats not the case. thanks
New clones introduced to the flowering area can be flooded every other day for the first 2 weeks. Plants in wks 2-4, 4-6 & 6-8 can be flooded daily.
Remember, in SoG, we're not growing large plants. SoG sized plants are not likely to deplete the media around the rootmass of nutrients in 24h.
i gotta fill 36, 5" net pots with Fytocell. do you think a 100 L bag will do the job?
Don't use netpots.
thanks. yeah i was gonna do that anyway so it will probably work. so i guess the Fytocell leaks out of the bottom but not the side. i hope ehydroponics.com hurries up and gets the 100l bags back in
If you use netpots, you will have Fytocell crumbs escaping all over the place. Go to the dollar shop or a gardening plastics supplier and get standard plastic pots as normally used for soil.
al these are the pots i think im gonna go with when using the fytocell
http://www.ehydroponics.com/?action=product&id=6395&cid=162
That'll do fine.
im gonna put rockwool on the bottom like you do.
OK.
im not gonna have to drill any air holes on the side
/bottom am i?
Nope.
how many inches up the pot do you recommend filling with rockwool because i dont know how much 25mm is? i was gonna go with the gallon pots
Make friends with the metric system! 25mm is about 1".
do you presoak your fytocell? i dont know how someone would go about presoaking a huge amount of the stuff
I use a spare pump & a length of garden hose to wet the Fytocell, which I have packed into the pots while dry.
i read a previous thread where you said to lightly scrape the last 25mm of stem with the back of a scalpel when cloning. is there any way you can show a picture of what the clone looks like after you do this? i cant picture it in my head. can i use a razor to do this? thanks
You're looking only to bruise the stem a bit. I'm pretty sure there's a pic of the process in the thread about cloning as is linked in my sig.
Al, I love reading your threads and always value you opinions. Ever since I switched from soil to DWC I've been having a problem with buds getting so big and top heavy that my plants have been leaning/falling over and laying all over each or even worse breaking branches under the weight of the buds. At first I was using strings to tie up and support the plants with the other end tied to hooks in the ceiling of my but this made it such a pain in the ass to move buckets around which is needed to maintain the plants in the back of my room. I recently built in tomato cages to my bucket lids which has helped support my plants a great deal but it's still not enough. The plants get plenty of air flow and are constantly being swayed from my two fans. I also supply them a silica supplement to try to strengthen the stalks. Do you have any ideas why my girls can't seem to support their own weight?
Everybody should have your problems.
You can get plant support netting
like this. Stretch it horizontally about 500mm above plants while they are short & let the plants grow through it. Otherwise, try some plastic dowels as stakes, use twist-ties to secure them to the plants.
im so damn mad right now its not even funny. ehydroponics.com is all out of fytocell and they said they cant even get any more. if anyone knows another spot then please let use know cause i need to buy some this week to get my next crop going
Drat.
Ive been trying to locate it for months
*sigh* Rotsaruck. Perlite will do as a substitute.
