A Guide To Colloidal Silver

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Daniel Lawton

Well-Known Member
Poontanger said:
In your opinion, or experience, how long , is the pollen good for , storing it in this manner??....ie have you used pollen , that has been refridgarated for long periods , with sucsess ??
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I haven't tried it. I gave up on using stored pollen.

I'm after a very specific effect, which is < 10" plants like the "Betty Boo" autoflower you can't seem to buy anymore.

I've got a cloned strain of Northern Lights that will do it sometimes. Got one down to 9.5" at harvest time! But it's not always that short (yet).

< 10" is suitable for a Levin 36W E26 LED bulb, clamped to a kitchen table, and pointing downwards. Believe it or not, that's all the light it needs, as proven by growing some that way, and some under full California summer sunlight. Got a bigger yield from the LED bulb running 24/7. (And no miserable bugs...)

But if it gets taller than 12", it gets too close to a light clamped to a kitchen table and it becomes hard to do 6 of them at a time (the California limit). So I don't use pollen anymore. Can't control the results.
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
Poontanger said:
Great thread, & if I may, id like to know , how to collect pollen, so I can store it for future use
I intend to use the collected pollen , within 4 months, & hope it will last in a sealed container in the fridge for that period ,any help appreiated
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Collecting pollen is easy-peasy. I just cut a branch off a male and stick it in a glass of RO water with a bit of aspirin in it so it leans out over a sheet of tin foil under a 23w CFL set for 12/12. Clean all the plant bits out of the pollen and preferably dry it down then save in a sealed vial until needed. Should keep for a few months at least.
 
bullSnot

bullSnot

Well-Known Member
Daniel Lawton said:
It's not my experience. I mixed a few batches over months, until I got tired of having to spray so much and switched to STS.

Maybe it's the strength we made? Mine was that weird slight yellow/grey color and the TDS meter said it was 50ppm. However, you could dilute it in half, and the TDS meter STILL said it was 50ppm. I suspect they don't really work for particles of metal.

If I ever use colloidal again, I'll test out making mixtures around 10ppm. Maybe yours was the right strength to hold up.

I'd also like to add, the silver electrodes DO wear out! In the long run, colloidal has to be more expensive than STS due to the waste of silver. STS is very diluted.
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those hand held TDS meters are pretty much useless. almost like a 3 inch penis
 
D

Daniel Lawton

Well-Known Member
randomusername420 said:
Are nutrients needed for producing seeds? Or plants survive on their own?
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I've produced thousands of seeds (1200 on a single autoflower dwarf plant, 80% viable) and never used special nutrients. Just the recommended stuff for making decent buds.

If you want a reasonable copy of what's sold as "super soil", here's my formula. It's just common advice from this forum:

You'll get over 1000 seeds I predict, with just about any autoflower if you fully spray one plant using colloidal silver, and reserve a second to be the mom. There will be so much pollen, you can just put the 2 together outside and fluff them up, and then repeat in a few days when the pollen returns. You ought to see a dense yellow cloud if you do it right:

11 cups Edna's Best (I've heard, fox farms is good too...)
4 cups Worm Castings (any decent nursery)
3/4 cups PBH (parboiled rice hulls but you could use perlite)
1/3 cup EB Stones bat guano (or any high nitrogen bat guano)
2 Tbsp Fish bone meal (Walmart.com, won't smell like that once you mix it in)
1 Tbsp Kelp Meal (ebay, get the granulated)
1 Tbsp Sul-Po-Mag (any decent nursery)
1 Tbsp Osmocote (any decent nursery)
1 tsp Mosquito Dunk granules (hardware store near mouse traps)
1/2 tsp epsom salts (any decent nursery)

Volume before intermixing of grains: 16.3cups = 1.02 gallons

Put the oscmocote on top, don't mix it in. And the mosquito dunk on top. Not sure what happens if it's way down, maybe those little bacteria move around freely. I like it on top so I can see it, to remind me I did in fact add it, when the inevitable little gnats start hovering over my seedlings.
 
bullSnot

bullSnot

Well-Known Member
Daniel Lawton said:
I've produced thousands of seeds (1200 on a single autoflower dwarf plant, 80% viable) and never used special nutrients. Just the recommended stuff for making decent buds.

If you want a reasonable copy of what's sold as "super soil", here's my formula. It's just common advice from this forum:

You'll get over 1000 seeds I predict, with just about any autoflower if you fully spray one plant using colloidal silver, and reserve a second to be the mom. There will be so much pollen, you can just put the 2 together outside and fluff them up, and then repeat in a few days when the pollen returns. You ought to see a dense yellow cloud if you do it right:

11 cups Edna's Best (I've heard, fox farms is good too...)
4 cups Worm Castings (any decent nursery)
3/4 cups PBH (parboiled rice hulls but you could use perlite)
1/3 cup EB Stones bat guano (or any high nitrogen bat guano)
2 Tbsp Fish bone meal (Walmart.com, won't smell like that once you mix it in)
1 Tbsp Kelp Meal (ebay, get the granulated)
1 Tbsp Sul-Po-Mag (any decent nursery)
1 Tbsp Osmocote (any decent nursery)
1 tsp Mosquito Dunk granules (hardware store near mouse traps)
1/2 tsp epsom salts (any decent nursery)

Volume before intermixing of grains: 16.3cups = 1.02 gallons

Put the oscmocote on top, don't mix it in. And the mosquito dunk on top. Not sure what happens if it's way down, maybe those little bacteria move around freely. I like it on top so I can see it, to remind me I did in fact add it, when the inevitable little gnats start hovering over my seedlings.
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or..... just pee in a bottle - dilute 1:4
 
D

Daniel Lawton

Well-Known Member
I've got some more verification that strong colloidal silver decays quickly. A friend made some until it was yellow/brown, and now sees it decaying into grey dust in the fridge.

Maybe this is kind of obvious, because the instructions out there never tell you to make it really really strong, which might save on number of times you have to spray. If stronger was good, the advice would have evolved to do that.
 
growerNshower

growerNshower

Well-Known Member
Daniel Lawton said:
I've got some more verification that strong colloidal silver decays quickly. A friend made some until it was yellow/brown, and now sees it decaying into grey dust in the fridge.

Maybe this is kind of obvious, because the instructions out there never tell you to make it really really strong, which might save on number of times you have to spray. If stronger was good, the advice would have evolved to do that.
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I wonder if the "decaying" your friend was seeing is aggregation of the smaller silver particles into larger particles, since the OP indicated smaller particles appear yellow and larger particles confer a dark appearance. Especially if you observe visible "chunks" in the liquid, it is most certainly aggregation. I believe the aggregation process can be reduced by fine filtration and storage in dark. And of course, as you suggested, a higher concentration of colloidal silver should have a higher propensity to aggregate.
 
D

Daniel Lawton

Well-Known Member
growerNshower said:
I wonder if the "decaying" your friend was seeing is aggregation of the smaller silver particles into larger particles,
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That's my thinking too.

And there's some more verification that if it's too strong, it decays. A friend made some, and let it get to the yellow/grey point. He's already seeing the darker particles form in his fridge.

Here's my experiment (I'm only just today doing it). Automix STS:

8 ounces distilled water + .05 grams silver nitrate into container B.
8 ounces distilled, freshly boiled water + .21 grams of sodium thiosulfate in container A.

Silver nitrate in water is stable for years, even in plastic (according to studies on the net). Sodium Thiosulfate decays at a rate of about .4% per year, probably from bacteria that like to eat it. That is why you boil the water used for it. "Freshly boiled" is recommended by some experts.

This formula has a little more thiosulfate than is needed, so it can store longer. And it is 80% stronger than people usually spray.

But I believe it will work, and can store for years. The biggest problem is, you need this expensive dual mixer bottle ($20).

I have 12 plants, I will spray some when they are the correct age.
 

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Poontanger

Poontanger

Well-Known Member
Everythingshaz.........if I may a few questions ,

Will storing Collidial Silver in the fridge , extend its life ?

& if I had pollen & different plant , that was starting to flower, & only wanted to pollinate a single flower, , after ive applied the pollen , do I need to cover that flower , so the pollen wont get to other flowers ? & how many times ,is it best to apply pollen , to the flower you wish to produce seed from ?

If these questions have been asked before , I appoligise

Poon
 
D

Daniel Lawton

Well-Known Member
Poontanger said:
& if I had pollen & different plant , that was starting to flower, & only wanted to pollinate a single flower, , after ive applied the pollen , do I need to cover that flower , so the pollen wont get to other flowers ? & how many times ,is it best to apply pollen , to the flower you wish to produce seed from ?
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I wondered the same thing. I was careful applying it, and didn't disturb the plant for a day or two.

The pollen did NOT spread to other flowers. Not only that, but plants I had outside, or plants that grew when I wasn't pollinating anything, had a couple of seeds anyway.

So I'd guess if you are careful, you're no more likely to pollinate the wrong bud, than you are to get seeds with no explanation.

By the way, as an experiment when I was first pollinating, I had what seemed to be a failure to turn male. I got one miserable pod with pollen in it. I dabbed that with a little kids paint brush, and blew on it towards a different plant.

I got 50 seeds from that! You couldn't even see any pollen once I dabbed the brush on it.

As for colloidal silver in the fridge, I've never had luck keeping the stuff around no matter where I put it. But I think it's obvious now, I made it too strong, and didn't filter it well. So it had crusty bits of silver in it from the start, and the rest just stuck to those over time.
 
Poontanger

Poontanger

Well-Known Member
Thx Daniel..........I was considering , placing a paper bag, over the pollinated flower for a day or 2

As for the silver , ive got a charger that can B dialled down to 5 amp , or up to 16 amp , so as ive read 5 amp should make better silver , just take longer

Poon
 
D

Daniel Lawton

Well-Known Member
Poontanger said:
As for the silver , ive got a charger that can B dialled down to 5 amp , or up to 16 amp , so as ive read 5 amp should make better silver , just take longer
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5 amps! Good heavens! I can assure you there's no way more than a tenth of an amp is going through there. I'd even worry about that much power, you're likely to start producing hydrogen or something.

I've measured this with lab power supplies. 30mA (.03A) is MORE than enough for anything, and in fact makes fuzz too fast. I like to run around 10mA.

Now it could be that your battery charger has simple circuits to save money, and uses 2 different voltage settings to control how many amps a battery can absorb. And so people have learned to control voltage flow with that charger.

But all you need is 10mA to make good colloidal silver in a day. A 9V battery is just fine. They're designed to put out 15mA continuously.
 
D

Daniel Lawton

Well-Known Member
Oh... That makes sense. Move voltage, more current.

It's gonna work great. The only problem with colloidal is you have to go nuts spraying it everyday for a week or two. And since there's people out there saying you might want to spray it twice a day, beginners likely end up spraying twice a day for the whole 2 weeks. It's a real pain!

After all that spraying, you'll certainly need a joint.

Meanwhile, my simplified method using the double spray bottle did not turn a northern lights with one spray. I'm trying a double spray on an amnesia haze now.

This is a good case of where the instructions for stuff about marijuana could use a little more scientific explanation. For example, if you need to mix the STS ingredients in their more concentrated form first, please say so and explain why. Because with amounts that small, it could just be a way to use a .01 gram scale with more accuracy.

Perhaps my mix in spray form method will fail, because in very diluted form they don't combine in the right way.

I don't know. Wish someone would just sell a bottle of spray on ebay, which lasts 10 years in the fridge.
 
Jason Fay

Jason Fay

Member
Awesome info here. I'm a newbie and was wondering will these reversed plants be genetically the same as the mother like a clone?

thank you all in advance.
 
D

Daniel Lawton

Well-Known Member
I've been told they can vary, although clearly they're as close to the mom as you could get without growing them out to see the results.

My theory for all but green mangos: A clone is only exact if it's from the same cells the parent has (like cuttings). That's finished DNA. Pollen is not. If there's pollination, even to itself, there's variation.

Note: You can't clone autoflowers from clippings, forget about it.

Here's my opinion on genetic variation, after breeding 12 seed varieties:

Don't worry about it so much. They're all good seeds. If a parent has a bad attribute, that's when the seeds have a bad attribute.

Like, Blueberry Autoflower takes FOREVER to autoflower if you don't cut back on the light. Might never even do it with 24/7. Any cross with Blueberry that I've made has the same issues.

More important than possible genetic variation is growing conditions.

Hope it's legal where you are, so you can freely learn about it!

The stinking prejudices still around, even in California, are very disappointing. I design computer chips for a living. Not use them, design them.

Still I have to hear about my great niece who smokes too much pot, so she only gets to go to Junior college.

What?????
 
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