Jozikins
Well-Known Member
As long as your water pump is on, you still have oxygen, a stagnant pool has no oxygen, but water that is being churned is trapping oxygen constantly. But please believe me when I say a hydro garden can go from 100% healthy and happy to laying on the ground dead in only 24 hours, I've seen several DWC grows fail in 18 hours, here on roll it up. I even have a thread saved where it happened to someone who I thought was a fucking genius. He bought some grow equipment and started pumping out a pound under a single 430w, and then he quickly jumped it up to 2+pounds under 1200w, and then the law shut him down for doing such a good job and basically making a guide to guaranteed success that anyone could replicate. I can post the thread if you'd like. But if you are trying to starve them, the tea isn't going to help at all! It'll just continue to feed, it's almost like flushing in soil when you do it like that.
As far as mold goes, because you have had mold, mold will be a issue for you for a very, very long time. First step is removing of everything and getting a fungicide bath and a bleach bath, same goes for the walls within the grow room, they need to be cleaned with something. Mold isn't going to grow on filing cabinet doors very easily, so it basically just needs a wipe down that will kill any spores that fly away, nothing extreme. Mold doesn't need anymore than 40% humidity to grow, I've seen it happen in less. Once the spores are in the air, you are in trouble. My room humidity in my Flower room is around 46%, at a near constant, but I am fighting off mold on a biweekly basis. I am letting all but 4 plants finish in my flower room and then I am going to tear down my mylar walls and rewrap it in panda film, because A) I hate mylar, and B) mold is on the mylar, and I'm certain it is resting between the mylar and the external plastic wall, and that is why I can't get rid of it.. And mold spreads from one room to another, even if you shower, even if they are on different sides of the house almost, as long as any air space is shared, there is mold being shared. It fucking suuuuuuuucks. I also run my exhaust fan 24 hours a day, and it is way oversized, and I have plenty of fans to circulate air. I rather take on a legion of Spider Mites over powdery mildew, any day. I would actually much prefer spider mites to mold, at least I can make spider mites my bitch for 2 or 3 weeks and then never ever see them again until next mite season... possibly. I am going to start doing preventative maintenance, I'm sick of seasonal problems.
Mold issues don't even start with mold, it starts with plants!!! Plants that are over feed or under feed, or with a unstable pH are waaaaaayyyyyyy more likely to catch mold! A plant sitting in water, doing something very unnatural, is going to cause a lot of stress, and any time a plant is weak, it can catch mold. Like I said, mold usually takes two weeks to show up, but just like all your plants dying, it can happen in LESS THAN 24 hours. I believe the reference I made earlier about all the plants dying was within 18 hours, I have the thread open right now. His plants died because he mixed a product form General Organics and Fox Farm, and everything went rank in the reservoir and killed his entire crop, no survivors, no second chances. Now even though this was a nutrient problem, it was more specifically a problem from the reservoir/root zone, and that is what we are discussing right now.
I do believe, that if there is any scientific evidence to back up these drowning theories in still water, it would work just fine, but with your temps and recent mold issue I would run away from this idea in full sprint! Here is where all the science collapses in this hypothesis: you must "suffocate" the roots, in order to have suffocated roots you need no dissolved oxygen in your water (69f+ temps) and no supplemental oxygen; if your plants will die without oxygen, how do the plants survive this? The answer is that you are not suffocating your plants if they survive this. If you put molasses and a compost tea in water with no oxygen (at least not enough for plants) than your whole root mass should rot off before 48 hours, especially in your temps.
It's your grow, you can try this hypothesis this guy thought up, but I can say with a lot of confidence that if your plants survive it, your attempt to suffocate the roots has failed. Which means there is something else at work here, or that this guy is full of it.
As for your rack idea, I still like it. The 10 gal reservoir is a good idea, but make sure you link those bitches up or you will hate yourself! As far as having the roots go into the reservoir, I have a lot of expensive ideas, but the easiest would be to drill 1" or 2" holes all around the base of the DWC bucket, and then cut a hole in your lid of your reservoir, and submerge your buckets half way into your reservoir. It would be very important to keep your reservoir completely filled, so we could us a large air pump to use air pressure and force the water up and into the buckets, above where the water line sits in the reservoir. Another option would be to this same idea, but use sprayers and a water pump, and hook up a sprayer system inside this submerged bucket to keep the root zone wet when it first starts. This would basically be an advanced aeroponic system, and I don't see any advantage.... So I guess in the end, the only answer to your idea is aeroponics, and I don't see any reason to switch to that when DWC is sooooo easy.
Make sure whatever nutrients you are going to use in this idea (94-130gal reservoir) is EXTREMELY stable, and very synthetic. Even weak dilutions of nutrients in the fridge go bad after 3 weeks, so make sure whatever you mix up doesn't go longer than 3 weeks. 3 weeks is the max I've gotten on the H&G line up, FloraNova line up, and Fox Farm line up, I have never put my TechnaFlora or GH in the fridge, which would probably stay for a very long time becasue it is almost exclusively mineral salts.
But come on... seriously? Don't be silly dude, of course they expect you to use an entire line up if their's is pH perfect. That is the only way it would work, and plus, it forces you to buy their entire line up! Not just the line up of theirs you already have, but re buying all the same products but with "pH perfect" pasted on the front for an additional 10 dollars a bottle, muahahahah! Fucking evil! But honestly, my plants always grow so much better whenever I use a complete line up. I never ever ever ever ever buy these snake oil products, these 50 dollar bottles of 4oz of bloom booster, that you are supposed to replace all your expensive 3 piece boosters with and I NEVER get the same results. Sometimes near the same, but balancing pH and a slue of new problems always comes with these products, so they can suck my balls. Fuck "Bloombastic" and "Red Dragon," I'll use that shit to wipe my ass with before I use it on my plants. A tea, ca/mg, humic acid, carbohydrates, and sometimes a silica additive is all I use. In Europe H&G now makes a additive with carbohydrates, micro life, humic acid, carbon, and silica. It's illegal to purchase in the States, but that doesn't mean I don't already have some!
All I need to add is ca/mg and tea, neither is really necessary with my new dechlorinator (rather than r/o) and the micro life in all my different additives kind of replaces tea, but I still use it anyways, it can only help my pH.
And yes you are correct, EWT is probably the best organic fungicide there is, and works incredible on both clones and mature budding plants. But we try not to do this on buds that are too mature because they may not be able to absorb the chunks in the tea, and this could make a cannabis smoker throw up his toe nails all night. If you are going to make edible hash, you will also get very sick. So I would assume the safe-spray time zone would be anywhere up to 2 weeks prior to harvest.
Old School Kush is a very special plant that was only available for a limited time from Cali Connections, it was an earlier strain, right after he got his Afghani #1, also known as Old School Afghan, and he got this off of someone from Elite Genetics, I believe. This was then crossed with Hindu #1, AKA Old School Hindu ( I don't know if this was already in the Cali Connections bank, or if they got it from Elite or someone else) and then they crossed them into Old School Kush. I believe it might also be crossed with the SFV, either the BX2 or the f3, I think this was prior to the f4. Or it could be crossed with his ORIGINAL, '91 Chem Dawg, either way it makes so awesome fatty nugs! you can put them in as weak stemmed clones and still pull ounces off of 1 plant, perfect for SOG! I do not know why this strain was discontinued, but it's amazing! I had a purple pheno, but my partner accidentally gave away all the clones of it, he thought I had more or that it wasn't the purp pheno or something.... FUUUUUUCK!!! I am trying to track it down right now, but getting old phone numbers from people is pissing me off.
But, my boss actually trays upon trays of Hindu Skunk Kush clones, I was thinking about picking one of those up, he says they are really dank. Want to trade HSK for HSK? I'll hook it up with a free OSK you can clone yourself and give it a shot... but I already know you are going to love it! But I would love to see my HSK grow by your HSK and see who's is danker, or if they are the exact same. I wouldn't be surprised if they were. Haha.
And I know, I know, it makes 0 sense to chop later on plants with mold issues. But here is why: my new grow partners are lazy as fuck and don't like gardening, it turns out, so when I ask them to flush the SFV and go away for a week, they don't. So now I have to do it myself in less than 1 week, rather than 9-14 days like I'd much prefer too. Luckily, through flushing and my mysterious PPM's, I've discovered my TDS meter is off by a EC factor of .2!!! Holy shit!!!!! No wonder half my plants look like SHIT and I can't figure out why, I have been under feeding them by hundreds of PPM's, and I already was feeding them the bare minimum.
But all these issues gave me a chance to work around my work and chop schedule, and give myself enough time to only have 4 plants in the grow room and rewrap it, so I don't have a bunch of plants to haul around. this extra time on the SFV has given me some more weight on it to make up for this gap in time I will have. My SFV seems to have been put into flower possibly a week earlier than I had logged though (got drunk one night, didn't write anything down, didn't remember to until next feeding a week later) so about 4 days ago the crest started to build, and now I have a beautiful crest, and I'm 2 days deep into flushing, and if I do one more flush tonight hopefully I can get them chopped after 6 days. I might wait until tomorrow though, and then flush agian, wait 4 days, and then chop.
Why 4 days after flushing again? Let me tell you, and I hope you remember this for the rest of your growing career: whatever you feed to your plant today, the plant won't get the full benefit for 4 days. You add a product yesterday, and you are like "WTF why can't I see a difference today?" and then 3 days later your plants look amazing and you credit something else that was given to them more recently. It will take 4 days for you to see the results. The plant will be effected probably before the end of the day if you feed early enough, but you won't see visual signs for usually 4 days, after the product has taken its full effect. I read that shit not too long ago.
And finally, I'll be able to spray the hell out of them for mold during this week so it doesn't come back to bite me on the drying rack or in the jars. Have you ever had to throw away 2 large jars STUFFED with only your best nugs? I know you have almost done the equivalent, but this stuff was BEAUTIFUL nugs, that i thought were well cured, but apparently still too wet.
I say it's about time for another pauwau, wouldn't you agree?
As far as mold goes, because you have had mold, mold will be a issue for you for a very, very long time. First step is removing of everything and getting a fungicide bath and a bleach bath, same goes for the walls within the grow room, they need to be cleaned with something. Mold isn't going to grow on filing cabinet doors very easily, so it basically just needs a wipe down that will kill any spores that fly away, nothing extreme. Mold doesn't need anymore than 40% humidity to grow, I've seen it happen in less. Once the spores are in the air, you are in trouble. My room humidity in my Flower room is around 46%, at a near constant, but I am fighting off mold on a biweekly basis. I am letting all but 4 plants finish in my flower room and then I am going to tear down my mylar walls and rewrap it in panda film, because A) I hate mylar, and B) mold is on the mylar, and I'm certain it is resting between the mylar and the external plastic wall, and that is why I can't get rid of it.. And mold spreads from one room to another, even if you shower, even if they are on different sides of the house almost, as long as any air space is shared, there is mold being shared. It fucking suuuuuuuucks. I also run my exhaust fan 24 hours a day, and it is way oversized, and I have plenty of fans to circulate air. I rather take on a legion of Spider Mites over powdery mildew, any day. I would actually much prefer spider mites to mold, at least I can make spider mites my bitch for 2 or 3 weeks and then never ever see them again until next mite season... possibly. I am going to start doing preventative maintenance, I'm sick of seasonal problems.
Mold issues don't even start with mold, it starts with plants!!! Plants that are over feed or under feed, or with a unstable pH are waaaaaayyyyyyy more likely to catch mold! A plant sitting in water, doing something very unnatural, is going to cause a lot of stress, and any time a plant is weak, it can catch mold. Like I said, mold usually takes two weeks to show up, but just like all your plants dying, it can happen in LESS THAN 24 hours. I believe the reference I made earlier about all the plants dying was within 18 hours, I have the thread open right now. His plants died because he mixed a product form General Organics and Fox Farm, and everything went rank in the reservoir and killed his entire crop, no survivors, no second chances. Now even though this was a nutrient problem, it was more specifically a problem from the reservoir/root zone, and that is what we are discussing right now.
I do believe, that if there is any scientific evidence to back up these drowning theories in still water, it would work just fine, but with your temps and recent mold issue I would run away from this idea in full sprint! Here is where all the science collapses in this hypothesis: you must "suffocate" the roots, in order to have suffocated roots you need no dissolved oxygen in your water (69f+ temps) and no supplemental oxygen; if your plants will die without oxygen, how do the plants survive this? The answer is that you are not suffocating your plants if they survive this. If you put molasses and a compost tea in water with no oxygen (at least not enough for plants) than your whole root mass should rot off before 48 hours, especially in your temps.
It's your grow, you can try this hypothesis this guy thought up, but I can say with a lot of confidence that if your plants survive it, your attempt to suffocate the roots has failed. Which means there is something else at work here, or that this guy is full of it.
As for your rack idea, I still like it. The 10 gal reservoir is a good idea, but make sure you link those bitches up or you will hate yourself! As far as having the roots go into the reservoir, I have a lot of expensive ideas, but the easiest would be to drill 1" or 2" holes all around the base of the DWC bucket, and then cut a hole in your lid of your reservoir, and submerge your buckets half way into your reservoir. It would be very important to keep your reservoir completely filled, so we could us a large air pump to use air pressure and force the water up and into the buckets, above where the water line sits in the reservoir. Another option would be to this same idea, but use sprayers and a water pump, and hook up a sprayer system inside this submerged bucket to keep the root zone wet when it first starts. This would basically be an advanced aeroponic system, and I don't see any advantage.... So I guess in the end, the only answer to your idea is aeroponics, and I don't see any reason to switch to that when DWC is sooooo easy.
Make sure whatever nutrients you are going to use in this idea (94-130gal reservoir) is EXTREMELY stable, and very synthetic. Even weak dilutions of nutrients in the fridge go bad after 3 weeks, so make sure whatever you mix up doesn't go longer than 3 weeks. 3 weeks is the max I've gotten on the H&G line up, FloraNova line up, and Fox Farm line up, I have never put my TechnaFlora or GH in the fridge, which would probably stay for a very long time becasue it is almost exclusively mineral salts.
But come on... seriously? Don't be silly dude, of course they expect you to use an entire line up if their's is pH perfect. That is the only way it would work, and plus, it forces you to buy their entire line up! Not just the line up of theirs you already have, but re buying all the same products but with "pH perfect" pasted on the front for an additional 10 dollars a bottle, muahahahah! Fucking evil! But honestly, my plants always grow so much better whenever I use a complete line up. I never ever ever ever ever buy these snake oil products, these 50 dollar bottles of 4oz of bloom booster, that you are supposed to replace all your expensive 3 piece boosters with and I NEVER get the same results. Sometimes near the same, but balancing pH and a slue of new problems always comes with these products, so they can suck my balls. Fuck "Bloombastic" and "Red Dragon," I'll use that shit to wipe my ass with before I use it on my plants. A tea, ca/mg, humic acid, carbohydrates, and sometimes a silica additive is all I use. In Europe H&G now makes a additive with carbohydrates, micro life, humic acid, carbon, and silica. It's illegal to purchase in the States, but that doesn't mean I don't already have some!
All I need to add is ca/mg and tea, neither is really necessary with my new dechlorinator (rather than r/o) and the micro life in all my different additives kind of replaces tea, but I still use it anyways, it can only help my pH.
And yes you are correct, EWT is probably the best organic fungicide there is, and works incredible on both clones and mature budding plants. But we try not to do this on buds that are too mature because they may not be able to absorb the chunks in the tea, and this could make a cannabis smoker throw up his toe nails all night. If you are going to make edible hash, you will also get very sick. So I would assume the safe-spray time zone would be anywhere up to 2 weeks prior to harvest.
Old School Kush is a very special plant that was only available for a limited time from Cali Connections, it was an earlier strain, right after he got his Afghani #1, also known as Old School Afghan, and he got this off of someone from Elite Genetics, I believe. This was then crossed with Hindu #1, AKA Old School Hindu ( I don't know if this was already in the Cali Connections bank, or if they got it from Elite or someone else) and then they crossed them into Old School Kush. I believe it might also be crossed with the SFV, either the BX2 or the f3, I think this was prior to the f4. Or it could be crossed with his ORIGINAL, '91 Chem Dawg, either way it makes so awesome fatty nugs! you can put them in as weak stemmed clones and still pull ounces off of 1 plant, perfect for SOG! I do not know why this strain was discontinued, but it's amazing! I had a purple pheno, but my partner accidentally gave away all the clones of it, he thought I had more or that it wasn't the purp pheno or something.... FUUUUUUCK!!! I am trying to track it down right now, but getting old phone numbers from people is pissing me off.
But, my boss actually trays upon trays of Hindu Skunk Kush clones, I was thinking about picking one of those up, he says they are really dank. Want to trade HSK for HSK? I'll hook it up with a free OSK you can clone yourself and give it a shot... but I already know you are going to love it! But I would love to see my HSK grow by your HSK and see who's is danker, or if they are the exact same. I wouldn't be surprised if they were. Haha.
And I know, I know, it makes 0 sense to chop later on plants with mold issues. But here is why: my new grow partners are lazy as fuck and don't like gardening, it turns out, so when I ask them to flush the SFV and go away for a week, they don't. So now I have to do it myself in less than 1 week, rather than 9-14 days like I'd much prefer too. Luckily, through flushing and my mysterious PPM's, I've discovered my TDS meter is off by a EC factor of .2!!! Holy shit!!!!! No wonder half my plants look like SHIT and I can't figure out why, I have been under feeding them by hundreds of PPM's, and I already was feeding them the bare minimum.
But all these issues gave me a chance to work around my work and chop schedule, and give myself enough time to only have 4 plants in the grow room and rewrap it, so I don't have a bunch of plants to haul around. this extra time on the SFV has given me some more weight on it to make up for this gap in time I will have. My SFV seems to have been put into flower possibly a week earlier than I had logged though (got drunk one night, didn't write anything down, didn't remember to until next feeding a week later) so about 4 days ago the crest started to build, and now I have a beautiful crest, and I'm 2 days deep into flushing, and if I do one more flush tonight hopefully I can get them chopped after 6 days. I might wait until tomorrow though, and then flush agian, wait 4 days, and then chop.
Why 4 days after flushing again? Let me tell you, and I hope you remember this for the rest of your growing career: whatever you feed to your plant today, the plant won't get the full benefit for 4 days. You add a product yesterday, and you are like "WTF why can't I see a difference today?" and then 3 days later your plants look amazing and you credit something else that was given to them more recently. It will take 4 days for you to see the results. The plant will be effected probably before the end of the day if you feed early enough, but you won't see visual signs for usually 4 days, after the product has taken its full effect. I read that shit not too long ago.
And finally, I'll be able to spray the hell out of them for mold during this week so it doesn't come back to bite me on the drying rack or in the jars. Have you ever had to throw away 2 large jars STUFFED with only your best nugs? I know you have almost done the equivalent, but this stuff was BEAUTIFUL nugs, that i thought were well cured, but apparently still too wet.
I say it's about time for another pauwau, wouldn't you agree?