r0m30’s first grow, HP Aero cabinet

[r0m30]

Damn, I feel like I'm in the same boat. I got two mothers not doin too well, and on my 3rd or 4th run at clones, with not great success. I'm thinking that I need to try feeding my clones some nutes, as they start yellowing by the time roots begin to show. My frustration has lead to neglect, which leads to more frustration. My first grow went so well.

It's frustrating sorting out all the (mis-) info to come up with something that works for you. I think I'm making progress. I really want this cheaper rooting hormone to work but it didn't dissolve very well when I mixed it in the water, I'm hoping it isn't all in my prefilter.

I looked at your thread to see how you were doing a few days ago and didn't see any updates. Have you posted the details of your cloning setup and process? I got some advice on TB's thread a few weeks back, you might take a look and see if anything there would help your efforts.

I'm certainly no cloning expert but I had much better results with the rooting compound (Clonex, still testing the cheap stuff), superthrive and a small aquarium heater in the cloner.

I've read that feeding before the roots appear hurts them, but have nothing to back up that claim.

I also think the health of your mother has a lot to do with your success rate, I had my mother under better light for a while before cutting these clones and they didn't flop over after the cut like the other two runs did.

 

[Mike Young]

It's frustrating sorting out all the (mis-) info to come up with something that works for you. I think I'm making progress. I really want this cheaper rooting hormone to work but it didn't dissolve very well when I mixed it in the water, I'm hoping it isn't all in my prefilter.

I looked at your thread to see how you were doing a few days ago and didn't see any updates. Have you posted the details of your cloning setup and process? I got some advice on TB's thread a few weeks back, you might take a look and see if anything there would help your efforts.

I'm certainly no cloning expert but I had much better results with the rooting compound (Clonex, still testing the cheap stuff), superthrive and a small aquarium heater in the cloner.

I've read that feeding before the roots appear hurts them, but have nothing to back up that claim.

I also think the health of your mother has a lot to do with your success rate, I had my mother under better light for a while before cutting these clones and they didn't flop over after the cut like the other two runs did.

Yeah, I pretty much abandoned my thread, as I've been following trichy's thread pretty religiously, and didn't see any reason to keep at mine. I've tried cloning several different ways now, and currently using rapid rooters, in hydroton, in a humidome. I don't really like to ask for help, but I feel I have screwed things up enough trying to wing it, that I should probably seek some help.



So here are my moms. The first is bigbud, which is under 400 watts of hortilux 24/7. The second is WW I moved to my cabinet, that I planned on using to keep a mom, under 150 watt hps (sun systems), 12/12. I needed room, & figured I just flower her out & smoke her up. You can see burnt tips on the WW, and yellowing on the BB. I've never grown in dirt, and was not giving any nutrients for awhile, thinking they would get what they needed from the dirt. I recently started feeding them with 450 ppm @ ph of 5.8, and haven't noticed much of a change. I feed them 24 oz's every few days or so. Not really keeping track, just trying to let the soil dry out before feeding again. Again, first dirt experience, and not sure what I'm doing. I should probably mention that the widow I put into 50/50 mix of compost & dirt from my garden, and the BB was given to me already potted in what looked like a better mix with perlite. The guy I got it from knows how to grow dirt, and I don't question his mix. The BB did very well at first, while the WW had prob's from the get go. But as you can see, they are showing signs of lockout (BB) & nute burn (WW). I don't know what the fuck.

Now onto my cloning...






I've tried several different ways of cloning, lp, bubble, hand-watering w/rapid rooter, and now am hand-watering w/rapid rooter + misting in the dome every hour via accumulator. Got tired of the spray bottle. I was putting the rooters in 2" net cups, but have since moved to put putting them into a pile of hydroton. I split the rooters, as I want to be able to remove them when they've established roots, but I am just as willing to keep the rooters attached. In one of the pics you can see that roots are just starting to form, but the clone looks kinda shitty. This has been the story for me. I switched to using schults take root, as opposed to the waaaay more expensive H&G root excelurator. The powder actually seems to be working better. The other clone I actually just cut from the WW, because the one you see starting to root in the pic was of two. The other showed no signs of roots. So, two problems in need of two solutions. Before anybody asks me to calibrate my ph pen, I did & do. It's a POS hanna, but I don't think it's the cause. Sorry for the long post. Hopefully somebody can tell me what I'm missing. Thx!

 

[r0m30]

Mike, Like I said before I'm no expert but here's what I'd try.

First the mom's. If you're flowering the WW then I believe it takes longer to clone her. I think it has to do with changing from flower back to veg. The BB just looks hungry to me. You said you were feeding with a PH of 5.8, That's a hydro PH target, I'm pretty sure soil needs a higher PH. I'll see if I can find any references and post them later. If you buddy is a soil grower then he probably has a soil mix recipe that he likes maybe you could ask him for that. I'm getting decent results in my SIP with the mixture I posted a few posts back. I think I'll need to re-pot about every three months to keep her well fed and next time I'm going to double up on the gypsum for a Ca boost, but using that mix all I have to do is water with RO and Epsom. Sadly she still gets ignored and abused because I don't have a permanent home for her.

Now the cloning. If you've tried all those methods and haven't had any luck it almost has to be environmental. I think your temps are a little low, I've read that 80 should be your target. I'm using an aquarium heater in my cloner to keep the temps in the cloner up but in your current setup you will probably need a heat mat. I haven't ever used those rooting plugs so I can't give you any techniques that might up your success rate, sorry.

That clone in the third pic is showing roots so you might want to start feeding her, I'd move her to a neoprene insert, put her in a chamber and start with a low PPM (1-200 @ .5) of your veg nutes upping the PPM every few days until you reach full strength. What I've noticed in my tests is that you don't get much if any growth other than roots until you start feeding. If you can't transfer her to a chamber then at least segregate her from the unrooted clones and start feeding her.

Hope this helps.

Edit: Here is a link to a nutrient lockout chart http://www.gardenscure.com/420/plant-food-nutrients/139133-nutrient-lockout.html#post1392211

Looks like you need to up the PH when feeding your mothers to 6.5

 

[Trichy Bastard]

Yep, first thing I noticed, try soil ph target 6.5. If your soil is real soil, then won't need too much nutes, you could use something more inert like some sort of perlite mix, or I believe sunshine mix #4, and then just feed nutes at watering when things look dry, sort of like a soil/hydro hybrid. If you notice an y white salts buildup on top of the soil mix, a good water flush will help too. I'd think you could keep a plant decently alive in any potting soil without nutes at least for a while before showing any deficiencies and needing any ferts or additives. Of course you might not get maximum growth, but that's probably not what you want out of a mother anyway. Also agree 80 degrees seems to be what everyone agrees on for cloning temps. Why not try in the aero in a netcup with rockwool chunks like Atomizer says works well for him?

You'll get it Mike, you're so close, and you have all the pieces, just gotta figure out how to use em, I'm in the same boat...

 

[Mike Young]

well, I've bumped up my temps to 80, and the clones already seem to like it better. As for my moms, I've upped my ph, and should be able to see some progress in the coming week or so. Can't believe I over looked that. It was information I knew, but I guess got jumbled in with all the other shit I got goin on. Human error strikes again. Thanks for the good advice. I'll let ya know how it goes.

 

[Trichy Bastard]

Awesome man, don't be so hesitant to ask for help- we all need it at times, and all us hp guys are glad to help eachother I'm sure... anytime bro (if I can)...

 

[r0m30]

I flipped to 12/12 a week ago and am now waiting for the stretch to fill up the screen. Here are some shots:

The cloner test is still running, three of the clones are showing signs of rooting but it's just nubs at this point.

 

[r0m30]

well, I've bumped up my temps to 80, and the clones already seem to like it better. As for my moms, I've upped my ph, and should be able to see some progress in the coming week or so. Can't believe I over looked that. It was information I knew, but I guess got jumbled in with all the other shit I got goin on. Human error strikes again. Thanks for the good advice. I'll let ya know how it goes.

Glad to hear things are looking better. I know about missing something you knew when you actually start your grow. So far I missed the need to add Mg to my nutes and forgot about the inverse square law

Always feel free to ask for help, I may not know the answer but maybe some else reading the thread will.

 

[Trichy Bastard]

Lookin good r0m... You could have done alot worse form your first run man....

 

[r0m30]

I’m in the second week of flower. I think I have the nutes close to worked out there hasn’t been any new yellowing of the leaves but there is still some browning of a few tips. It doesn’t appear that there is much stretch going on here, she only grew about 5-6 inches this week. There was no run-off this week so I reduced the off time by 15 seconds, I’m now at .05s/2m.
Here are a few pics.


The clones have not done as well this time. They yellowed in the center of the leaves and the root development was much slower this time. I started feeding them even though the roots were very small to see if they will make it. There are probably two factors in this. Fall has finally arrived here and the small heater appears to be too small, it hasn’t kept the temps in the res high enough. Also after some research it turns out that IBA (the active ingredient in both rooting hormones) is not water soluble. On the next round I’ll try dissolving the powder in alcohol before I add it to the res.

 

[ranger9mm]

Great thread r0m and also TB's thread has been quite a plethora of info. i'm a noob around here and stumbled on this site from links at others because i'm interested in the hp-aero approach. also really like your thread because you are growing on a scale that works well for me since i will be indoors and not looking to grow out trees like TB can. actually i haven't seen anyone ask but how tall will you be growing to?

 

[Trichy Bastard]

Thanks Ranger9mm, glad you've caught the aero bug like us. To be honest, my setup was not meant to grow trees, because it will be outdoors and the sun in hawaii is 12/12 year round due to proximity to the equator. I will probably have somewhat of a sog type size with no veg time, but that's fine for me. The need for a larger chamber stems from the need to have the mist spread out and not oversaturate in order to get true hp-aero roots.

r0m, from what I've read, a little alcohol in your rooting stuff is a good thing, cuz it helps sterilize. I might consider using some vodka instead of isopropyl, but it likely doesn't matter so much to a plant.

 

[r0m30]

Great thread r0m and also TB's thread has been quite a plethora of info. i'm a noob around here and stumbled on this site from links at others because i'm interested in the hp-aero approach. also really like your thread because you are growing on a scale that works well for me since i will be indoors and not looking to grow out trees like TB can. actually i haven't seen anyone ask but how tall will you be growing to?

Thanks, I have the screen 10" from the buckets and then about 36" to where they would hit the light. I think the combo of HPA and LED should keep them pretty short and bushy, time will tell for sure.

r0m, from whatm I've read, a little alcohol in your rooting stuff is a good thing, cuz it helps sterilize. I might consider using some vodka instead of isopropyl, but it likely doesn't matter so much to a plant.

I hadn't read any pros or cons but it appears that IBA is soluble in alcohol so I'm going to give it a shot. I'm looking to see if I can find the 151 everclear here in CA. I want to try tincture as well as hash with the trimmings. If I find some I could use that to dissolve the IBA.

 

[Trichy Bastard]

Cool r0m, sounds good. There was a rooting gel you make to your own thickness per application, called "woods" something or other I just read about- it uses alcohol and some guy was swearing by it and said he got much faster results even than with clonex which seems to be an often used brand, so worth a shot eh?

 

[r0m30]

Cool r0m, sounds good. There was a rooting gel you make to your own thickness per application, called "woods" something or other I just read about- it uses alcohol and some guy was swearing by it and said he got much faster results even than with clonex which seems to be an often used brand, so worth a shot eh?

I looked up the woods, it's IBA (1%), NAA (.66%), Isopropyl (36%) and water (61%) so it appears that Isopropyl will work OK.

I tried to see how well it dissolved and there are still a lot of undissolved solids. I wonder if it is the 99.99% "inactive" ingredients and they aren't soluble in water or Isopropyl.

 

[Trichy Bastard]

Got me on that one

 

[r0m30]

Got me on that one

Got ya? Wasn't trying to get you, just letting you know what I found.

 

[Trichy Bastard]

I know man, I meant I was stumped as to the answer....

 

[ranger9mm]

Thanks Ranger9mm, glad you've caught the aero bug like us. To be honest, my setup was not meant to grow trees, because it will be outdoors and the sun in hawaii is 12/12 year round due to proximity to the equator. I will probably have somewhat of a sog type size with no veg time, but that's fine for me. The need for a larger chamber stems from the need to have the mist spread out and not oversaturate in order to get true hp-aero roots.

r0m, from what I've read, a little alcohol in your rooting stuff is a good thing, cuz it helps sterilize. I might consider using some vodka instead of isopropyl, but it likely doesn't matter so much to a plant.

ah ok, though you were going for some monsters.

Thanks, I have the screen 10" from the buckets and then about 36" to where they would hit the light. I think the combo of HPA and LED should keep them pretty short and bushy, time will tell for sure.

I hadn't read any pros or cons but it appears that IBA is soluble in alcohol so I'm going to give it a shot. I'm looking to see if I can find the 151 everclear here in CA. I want to try tincture as well as hash with the trimmings. If I find some I could use that to dissolve the IBA.

sounds good. reason i asked was i have about 5 feet from floor of usable grow space minus 1 foot from lights to keep them from burning so 6 feet total from lights to floor. i was thinking of using a Brute 10 gallon trash can for my pots, 1 for each plant. they measure 15 inches in diameter and 17 inches tall so that should give me enough height to have a decent grow while maintaining enough volume for proper hp-aero wouldn't it?

 

[Trichy Bastard]

ah ok, though you were going for some monsters.






sounds good. reason i asked was i have about 5 feet from floor of usable grow space minus 1 foot from lights to keep them from burning so 6 feet total from lights to floor. i was thinking of using a Brute 10 gallon trash can for my pots, 1 for each plant. they measure 15 inches in diameter and 17 inches tall so that should give me enough height to have a decent grow while maintaining enough volume for proper hp-aero wouldn't it?

It depends on how far you want to go. A chamber that small likely won't get root hairs, and without the hairs, you'll be missing out on some of the advantages of true HPA. However r0m and chenneman seem to be doing fairly well in smaller camber sizes. If at all possible, you'd be better off with one big chamber for all your ladies, rather than one smaller one for each. The reason is the mist needs air volume and space to spread out and not oversaturate the roots in order to not damage them with too much mist.