1st Drip Hydro Grow - (10) Bubble Ice F/ Autoflowers, EcoGrowers, 357Magnum LEDs

Not Dead Yet



Day 23 of Flowering

Better pics of Day 25 Flowering (on Bubblator Autoflower and White Widow)

DemontauruS said:

OK - Ive resolved having to do what I didn't want to do - I'm going to go to 12/12 with these auto flowers. Probably never going to do auto's again, after this botch. Why? Because they're lesser in THC - I could have just 12/12'd any full strain - which is what I'm going to do next time. Ill report back in a couple of days with pictures. Tonight they sleep, and will for half the day for the remainder of the grow. Ill let you know what happens. Disappointing, but at least they'll be fems.

I have a choice to go full spectrum lighting - or to specify my lights for flowering lighting (red spectrum).

Anyone have experience with spectrum's?

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After reading a seed catalog recently I couldn't understand why anyone would want to by fem. seeds. There is only an 80% that they will be female and have a large chance of going Hermie. The risks seem far to great for the advantages. atleast in my opinion....

Aside from cloning, its better than buying mystery sex seeds, no? Ive only had one male from over 20 fem seeds that've grown to sex. 19 females. Id rather clone but when purchasing its nice taking the guess out of it. I am going after a new batch of seeds called Medicana - non fem'd. Plus I have some mystery white widows. This proposes problems for me because I have a six chamber resv and once the plants get going, its near impossible to rearrange them - and I need to grow every other chamber next time.

pazuzu420 said:

After reading a seed catalog recently I couldn't understand why anyone would want to by fem. seeds. There is only an 80% that they will be female and have a large chance of going Hermie. The risks seem far to great for the advantages. atleast in my opinion....

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From what I understand of feminized seeds is that they are created by inducing a normal female plant into a hermi. Seeds produced from this have a high chance (85-90%) of being female with the same genetics of the mother hermaphrodite plant. Since the seeds are from a plant that is a hermaphrodite then any plants grown from these seeds have a higher chance at developing male traits or becoming hermi's. I would say the amount of plants that do go hermi from these seeds isn't "large" but it's certainly a factor.

I purchased feminized seeds when I started not really knowing the difference. In retrospect I'd have gone with normal seeds, weeded out the males, then clone the most desirable female to be a mother for future clones. Clones made from a non feminized female plant will have the same genetics as the mother plant and none of the tendency towards hermis that a feminized plant would.

Demon - Not sure what you'd do in your situation with limited space and a fixed root environment. Growing mystery seeds means that at the very least 1/2 of your seedlings will eventually become male and you're going to have to remove them. The only way out of this would be to initiate vegging elsewhere until you can be reasonably sure that the plants are female and then transplant them into your regular grow system.

Supz man. Kind of a rough stretch for you in the last week or so. Sorriez to hear that I guess with each new endeavor, sacrifices must be made tho. Your remaining plants look good imo Firm and healthy leaves plus the bud structure. How's the situation with the gnats? Sux bout the root issues. I cant really look at mine as much nymore with the screen and whatnot. Hopefully your luck will perk up. I'll check back and as alwayz Happy Growing!

I put a banana peel in an empty half gallon container of ice cream, left it in there overnight, and first thing in the morning, placed a lid over it and threw it out. Captured a MAJORITY of them. The root rot has been mostly cut off from the top - but I still have some of the roots from those pots dangling in there for now (roots without plants) - as theyve gone through so much shock the past week I didnt want to shock them any more right now by trimming the spaghetti roots in the chamber. Slight bit of brownness in the water, but pH and PPMs are within range. Going to do a resv change for that one very soon, evaporate tap water for a couple days, and use that instead of the distilled water I was using. Figure maybe some of the bio-killing properties in the tap water, as weak as they'll be, will help curb 1% of the browning, if it tries to continue. Going to try a few mL of bleach from time to time - just trying to make sure it wont interact with the GH Flora nutes badly in any way first. Im still a little sensitive to the progress, a little concerned, but the plants looks fine as of today. Babying them and watching out. All excess (fan) leaves have been trimmed - done with that fiasco. Left pretty much only the leaves coming from the bud sites, so there's been a slight growth stunt, but still looking at some good colas and branches coming in the next 4-5 weeks or so. Im really hoping these branches and tops fill out and I can get some forearm sized beast buds. Im psyched to start my next batch but dont want to do that too early. Going to try and pull off 6 white widows - (because those three main stalks I have showing all those bud sites is ONE tree sized white widow!) - the surviving plants, I trimmed most of the lower branches, but the majority of the plants have main stalks that stunted, and the branches coming up from the bottom are the main growths, tall as the tallest part of the plant, and budding well, so they stay. Best to both of us in the next 4 weeks - my grow area STANKS!!!! Very nice to walk into.

Encomium said:

Demon - Not sure what you'd do in your situation with limited space and a fixed root environment. Growing mystery seeds means that at the very least 1/2 of your seedlings will eventually become male and you're going to have to remove them. The only way out of this would be to initiate vegging elsewhere until you can be reasonably sure that the plants are female and then transplant them into your regular grow system.

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Encom - what do you know about a situation like mine - where the plants (above the pots) have been removed - but there are still roots without plants remaining in the grow resv with the rest. Do the roots just die off, or do they survive in the nute solution? I peek into the resv from time to time, and the spaghetti coming from those "dead" pots are still as white as everything else and look alive, so I havent taken a scissor to anything rootwise inside the main resv (where the roots are growing) because I dont want to shock the plants any more than they have been in the past week. What do you think?

Im in the process of investigating the bleach drops here and there, but CLOROX and other brands use hydrochlorites, not chlorine - and want to make sure this formula doesnt interact with the GH Flora nutes badly in any way. My girls have been through enough and need to be babied from here on out.

Thanks so much for your experience and input.

No problem man. I'm still "new" to growing as well but having just recently finished my first grow and researching as much as possible I can at least give a helping hand here and there.

Have you been using H202 in your rez? I'd imagine the root remains of the cut plants should start dying off sooner or later. H202 is usually used to eat up dead organic material. I think bleach is used in much the same way but I have no experience with bleach in my rez. I typically use 6.7 ml of 29% H202 per gallon of water in my rez. I'll add it every 3-4 days as well as upon a reservoir change. H202 should only be used with inorganic nutrients as using it with organic nutrients kind of defeats the purpose of using organic at all.

Battling high temps but they're looking frosty fine thus far. Lot of sugary sites with about 4 weeks to go I imagine.

pH: 5.5 - 6.0
ppm: 750
air temp: 80-90 deg
humd: 45-65%
water temps: 75 deg

Battling a fruit fly problem.



Pics #2 and 8 are of the late bloomer bagseed plant.
The heavily populated one is the single white widow.
The others are Bubblator Ice.

I tried to plan ahead when it came to how I was going to transplant form veg cabinet to flower cabinet with the least amount of stress to the plant. Not easy to do if you let them get to large, speaking of empty pots with roots, my pots were close together in the small tote I was using to clone then veg in. I think the spray helped the roots from one plant to jump over into the empty pot next to it which made for a pain when I went to 'transplant' them over this morning.

So many things to take into concideration when we are designing these systems it is so easy to overlook such minscule details, although HUGELY important

Everything looking good over here... I'm subbed up to see you through this. Keep up the good work.

33 Days Into Flowering

Wow. Look at the photos. The White Widow is bushy and sugary. The Bubblator Autoflower looks nothing like an autoflower (nor did it behave lke one and flower automatically) - it is dense and green and stinky and sugary. Im amazed Im seeing this 30 days in, with 30 or so left. Whatever nugs do come from this are going to be SICK. Theyre everywhere - I counted 70-80 sites at least - and they smell DANK like vitamin B.

pH: 5.6/5.7
PPM: 650-850
Air temp: 29-31 C
Base Temp: 20 -22 C
Humidity: 45-65%

No res change, topping off with Bloom Ripening formula GH Flora nutes, 357 Magnum LED's crankin out production.

Fukk yes Demon! Those babiez are gettin pretty frosty for surez I know you'll be pleased. Granted everything cant go perfect all the time, but hey...experience for later and it makes it that much sweeter Glad to see them nice and healthy. I just posted new pics for Day 36 and now i'm noticing EXTREME merging of bud sites! They look so much different in just 2 days its unreal! Keep em comin bro

DemontauruS said:

Output: The Magnum light, built on 119 x 3W Bridgelux diodes puts out around 180W of growing strength. This can be a bit confusing as it is marketed as a 357W light, however, due to diode efficiencies, and an attenuating circuit, actual output is 180W. That fact should not be taken as a negative, just a function of how diodes work.

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Hey Homie, I like your grow and some of your LED info is on point. however the part where you mention the attenuating cirucuit, that unfortunately is not true. I am speaking as an engineer that owns a *Small* and *new* company in south america. I am introducing LED here because there are not many vendors as it is. I work with both Chinese LED 1w 3w and 5w and also Bridgelux, and I def agree that BL is damn good for what I can buy with my $ right now. Anyway, the reason the wittle Magnum does not produce 357 watts real is simple, the manufacturer of that lamp couldn't properly cool all that power and still give you a good price, the consumer. You can take a 3 watt LED and run it at 1.85 watts all day, but that is just pure design bullshit. The 3 watt LEDs, chinese and Bridgelux, will handle their rated current of 750ma (2.7 watts) all day, without any damage to its usable life. Hell, I put just 3 bridgelux 3 watt LEDS 6500k white on a nice CPU heatsink that I chopped in half, and the fucker still gets too hot too handle without a fan. So that is why. Beware what you buy. Those guys are fucking thieves. What if Sony makes a stereo that say "9000 watts peak" for 300 dollars, is every wannabe gangsta gonna buy it and put 4 12" subwoofers on it? No, because that peak power is really just 200 watts RMS. LED says, PANEL OF 119 LEDS, 357 watts total power, but consumes 180? stop, they are only half powering the product. Check out a blackstar, homie

ChronicObsession said:

Hey Homie, I like your grow and some of your LED info is on point. however the part where you mention the attenuating cirucuit, that unfortunately is not true. I am speaking as an engineer that owns a *Small* and *new* company in south america. I am introducing LED here because there are not many vendors as it is. I work with both Chinese LED 1w 3w and 5w and also Bridgelux, and I def agree that BL is damn good for what I can buy with my $ right now. Anyway, the reason the wittle Magnum does not produce 357 watts real is simple, the manufacturer of that lamp couldn't properly cool all that power and still give you a good price, the consumer. You can take a 3 watt LED and run it at 1.85 watts all day, but that is just pure design bullshit. The 3 watt LEDs, chinese and Bridgelux, will handle their rated current of 750ma (2.7 watts) all day, without any damage to its usable life. Hell, I put just 3 bridgelux 3 watt LEDS 6500k white on a nice CPU heatsink that I chopped in half, and the fucker still gets too hot too handle without a fan. So that is why. Beware what you buy. Those guys are fucking thieves. What if Sony makes a stereo that say "9000 watts peak" for 300 dollars, is every wannabe gangsta gonna buy it and put 4 12" subwoofers on it? No, because that peak power is really just 200 watts RMS. LED says, PANEL OF 119 LEDS, 357 watts total power, but consumes 180? stop, they are only half powering the product. Check out a blackstar, homie

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Yeah I was repeating the info from the brochure. I shiopped around for LED lights and info, and although I dont fully get what youre saying about attenuating circuits, Ive been pretty pleased with the Magnums. Theyve gone up in price since I purchased them, and the results have been fantastic. The wattage is down, there is no heat, good angular penetration and wavelengths, the plants react very well to them. Ill look into the Blackstars, but in all honesty, im stuck with what I got - Im broke. I do wonder what the output would be under 5W LEDs - if it would cause bleaching / sweating - or produce more.

ChronicObsession said:

Hey Homie, I like your grow and some of your LED info is on point. however the part where you mention the attenuating cirucuit, that unfortunately is not true. I am speaking as an engineer that owns a *Small* and *new* company in south america. I am introducing LED here because there are not many vendors as it is. I work with both Chinese LED 1w 3w and 5w and also Bridgelux, and I def agree that BL is damn good for what I can buy with my $ right now. Anyway, the reason the wittle Magnum does not produce 357 watts real is simple, the manufacturer of that lamp couldn't properly cool all that power and still give you a good price, the consumer. You can take a 3 watt LED and run it at 1.85 watts all day, but that is just pure design bullshit. The 3 watt LEDs, chinese and Bridgelux, will handle their rated current of 750ma (2.7 watts) all day, without any damage to its usable life. Hell, I put just 3 bridgelux 3 watt LEDS 6500k white on a nice CPU heatsink that I chopped in half, and the fucker still gets too hot too handle without a fan. So that is why. Beware what you buy. Those guys are fucking thieves. What if Sony makes a stereo that say "9000 watts peak" for 300 dollars, is every wannabe gangsta gonna buy it and put 4 12" subwoofers on it? No, because that peak power is really just 200 watts RMS. LED says, PANEL OF 119 LEDS, 357 watts total power, but consumes 180? stop, they are only half powering the product. Check out a blackstar, homie

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I'm pretty sure the Blackstar's have the same marketing strategy for their lights as well marking them with numbers like BS 240 when the unit only uses like half of that wattage. There are only a few LED companies (one that I know of) that put correct wattage numbers on their units (GLH) as opposed to theoretical numbers ie. Blackstar 240 or Magnum 357.

That being said I've heard good things about both the Blackstar LEDs as well as Magnum's. Blackstar kills on price yet for the money I'd rather pick a light that had a better warranty (3-5 years versus 1 year).

Day 36 into Flowering

pH's 5.5-5.7
ppms up to 1000 for first time ever
ait temps 80-90
water temps 70-75
humidity 50-60%

Is been very interesting looking at Conspiracy and Mineralz grows along mine. I like to compare - not out of "competition" - but to learn. I chose my route and stuck with it, and it kiled off plants from overgrowth, but the remaining life in the growspace is quite uplifting. I do wish I saw a little more bud mass - hopefully chunkage wil kick in - because id like to see this massive cola and other stalk branches come together into some weight nugs. I have popcorn everywhere - hoping they get bigger. The main white widow cola here is a solid 12" long, for perspective. Il come back with beter measurements next post. Sorry this keyboard kinda sucks.

The one plant with the starlight buds (small) is the bagseed and it started budding late, even though under the same light schedule. Loks to have many sites ho, and hoping theyll come together and mass up as well.

The sugar on the Widows is insane, and the main cola is sugar solid - but my lighting and camera equip sucks. Will get a magnifying glass soon.

OMG
its day 39 of flowering and I cant believe the growth in the past few days
top half of the plant swelled so much that i found it tipping
the plant center cola, and several ofthe heavily loaded stems
my arms touched some of the nectar while tieing them up
theyre HANGING with heavy huge buds!
and they smell delicious and gooey and vitaminy
cant wait to post new pics
hey Mineralz and Conspiracy!
this is friggin grrrrrrreat!

DemontauruS said:

OMG
its day 39 of flowering and I cant believe the growth in the past few days
top half of the plant swelled so much that i found it tipping
the plant center cola, and several ofthe heavily loaded stems
my arms touched some of the nectar while tieing them up
theyre HANGING with heavy huge buds!
and they smell delicious and gooey and vitaminy
cant wait to post new pics
hey Mineralz and Conspiracy!
this is friggin grrrrrrreat!

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For surez man Lookin 4ward to ur pics too. I just posted Day 42 of Flower