dakinexcom
Well-Known Member
One of these boxes has come into my possesion that is bascially brand new and fully loaded ( all sensors were included, air,c02,Ph adjuster, yada yada yada)- So bascially Ive been searching HIGH and Low on this site and a few others on all the tweaks and best ways to get these boxe's kickin some ass (Shout's out to nodrama ,Ancap, happihour,nathenking, homegrow101, and a few other's that need mentioning but my short term isnt that great sorry-Thanks for all your posted 411) So here's about all the information I can find to what one actually needs to do to TWEAK/DIAL your box- Im sure theres many more aswell and if you have some new 411 please post it- Warning this list is straight from grow journals, blogs, etc, etc- So the form is not in a narritive style - Anyways I hope this help's
BCNL GROW TIPS
Don't use rockwool, it stays way too wet in there. You'll have lockout all the time from overwatering. Switch to either rocks or hydroton.
week 7- flushing- notice how ive removed all major fan leaves for the last 10 days. this serves these purposes- it shocks the plants so they produce more resin, it increases air flow to prevent mold or mildew, opens up the lower canopy to brighter light so they mature better and increase yield.
. at this size they are ready for liquid carboload.
. its good to give babies a head start by transplanting into 3 inch rock wool cubes and vegging under fluorescent tubes for 3-14 days allowing roots to pop through the bottom and start vigorous growth. so by the time you crop off u have 3-6 inch babies ready for flowering
PPM
Parts per million is how we measure the amount of fertilizer (salts) thats in the water solution. You will need a ppm meter to read this. I have a $50 one and also a $300 one that reads ph and ec. Basically start out cheap and when a few crops start rolling in then buy the big baller stuff.
Unless you can afford it up front unlike most of us.
1. keep gallon jugs on 5.0 ph water and use that to keep my ph under control-for the water just add ph down until u get to 5.0 and your good to go....
I try to keep my seedlings and clones at about 100-250 ppms. After about 10 days I bump up the ppm to around 500-600 ppm for the next 2-3 weeks. After about a month I raise it to 800-1000 ppm. When I start to bud I am at around 1000 and start taking it up slowly to no more than 1500 ppm. I don't suggest going past 1300 till you have a couple crops down.
If you over fertilize your leaves will start to burn. If you see this you will need to flush immediately. Just use pure water and basically drown the plant. Four times the amount of grow medium should be fine. One other thing. If I use tap water it usually has a ppm of 250 in my area. I pretty much add 250 to whatever I'm shooting for. So for a 1000 ppm my meter will read 1250. I will get into waters later.
After the hairs on my buds get 1/4 red I stop feeding the plant nutrients and just give them pure water. This will allow the plant to use up the nutrients it already has and makes the smoke taste a lot smoother with out all the chemical taste.
Always make sure your ppm's are in line with age of plant.
I have constant fresh air available to my room. I have 3 clip fans inside of the cabin
use about 1/2 recommended ferts, so all in all I use 1/4 recommended total amount. No-drama
My ppm is rising daily and by the last day of the week the ppm is already above what it should be for next weeks nute schedule, up until now I have ignored this b/c everything looked great but I have been noticing some yellow spots in the leaves and think this could be due to this issue... Is it possible that due to evaporation of the h2o in the rez that why my ppm is increasing?? Should I just add a gal or two of ph'd water halfway through the week to deal with this problem... Any help would be much appreciatedif your water levels are dropping, your nute concentration is going to rise. keep the water level the same and your ec should remain fairly constant
I clean and refill the res about every week-no drama
Buy rubber matting if you purchase one to go under the res. Because the Res. is plastic it vibrates a lot and makes noise the rubber will cut the noise in half. Get some type of water purifer system this is important all my problems were due to using tap water. I also bought a second pump and airstones for my res. I found the ones supplied did not create as much turbulence in the water as I wanted. My plants love the extar bubbles the roots have increased ten fold. Lastly pick up some Colossal Bud Blast maybe ask them to throw it in for free, you dilute it and spray it on your plants they absolutely love it. Get a small fan you can put in your unit to help keep it cool and the stems strong..
Firstly, to answer your questions above, I use whatever HPS bulbs come standard with the box, i believe they are 400s, and i don't believe an extra 60 watts would make any difference in that spectrum. Id rather see more blue spectrum light if anything for the resin production, plenty of red in there already. The CFLS and t5's add os much redundant light anyways. It's really more of an exposure issue, which is the growers responsibility by clipping and pruning.
Yes I did use co2, but I had it on 5 psi as per BCNL's instructions, which caused it to run out at the end of week 5 (i started using it at the beginning of week 3). So, only on for 3 weeks... unacceptable. I don't want to use another tank, and I don't want to carry around a 40lb monster, so I'll be dialing it back to 4 PSI to see how things go next run. I would prefer ot have co2 going the entire grow up until the last 2 weeks, but in my opinion, it's only really truely indispensable in weeks 3 till about weeks 7 when bud production is booming.... that's when it's really needed.
I'm going to start listing some of the things that I would have done differently, and will be doing differently in my next run. Pardon the rant, and stop reading when you get bored. here goes nothing:
-Using 2ml/gal of 35% hydrox instead of 8ml/gal, and letting it sit for 20 minutes in my water before adding nutes ( the extra burnt my roots and led me to trying organics).
-Staying completely away from the above mentioned organics (sensizym, piranha, and voodoo juice) and just using hydrox. The organics provided an immediate noticible result, but caused my roots to stagnate and stop growing for almost 3 weeks straight. As soon as I went back to hydrox, there was new root growth the SAME DAY, and my res, roots and airstones were crystal clear again... wonderful.
-Using a proper material for lightproofing my machine to prevent algae (these lids are NOT lightproof, trust me).
-Manually watering my new 1 inch clones in the producer, and pH balancing right before watering. I completely lost a whole week of veg by overwatering my clones. They went yellow and didn't grow at all until I flushed, and basically hit the reset button.
-Being much more patient with my pH adjustments, and doing it twice a day for the first 3 days after a res change, and once a day after that (pH becomes more stable as the solution ages)
-Using the daily maintenance regiment I have developed from day one (writing down PPM for that week after mixing nutes, then adding water every day to match that PPM, then pH balance, then drop bottles in and close the doors)
-Using co2 and 4 psi rather than 5
-Vegging long enough to let my plants fill the box (totally hindsight, no way of knowing this)
-pruning and clipping to keep 3-4 branches instead of 8-10
-manually checking the plants at the back of the box for mold/mildew/dead plant matter instead of being lazy and only admiring the girls at the front
-doing 3-4 small flushes during the grow to prevent salt buildups, which killed one of my plants (5 days of nutes, followed by 2 days of hydrox+plain water 3-4 times during grow).
-Keeping 4 or so extra clones in 3 inch rockwool in a closet station in case some of the clones in your box don't root (2 of mine didn't)
-Adding another 4 airstones, for a total of 8 (which ive already done, and are using in my next grow... journal coming soon!)
-Using frozen bottles from the beginning (i might not have to do this anymore because of the extra dissolved oxygen from the extra 4 stones... another thing to test)
-Shaking my nutrients before using, and not cross-contaminating them!!! (DUHHHH)
-Not leaving my fucking valve open and letting my nutes spill all over the fucking floor
-Use CFL for all stages of flower for extra resin production
-Keeping a cleaner overall box by removing dead plant matter
-using a shop vac to clean res (started doing this at week 4 or so, should have bought it sooner)
-Using an air conditioner (again, started this too late)
-Used much less nutes, than slowly dial up to your plants needs. I have to say, this is the best approach in my experience for any grower using an unfamiliar strain. These strains have different appetites and different stages for nutrients, and the old mantra LESS IS MORE holds truer here than anywhere else. Your plants won't die from a lighter nute regiment, but they certainly will if given too much. I'll be heiring on the side of less, than climbing more slowly.
-Using 50 litres of water instead of BCNL's 34 to keep PPM and pH more stable (use same nute schedule, however, always go on the light side)
Other things you'll need... hmmm... if you do the air pump thing (STRONGLY RECOMMENDED), then you wont need hydrogen peroxide or anything like that I don't think. Portable AC and the extra air are very important, and the 20lb co2 tank is great too. I wouild recommend going 4 psi rather htan BCNL's 5, because it runs out too fast at 5... unless you want to make 2 trips per harvest to the shop to get it filled, then by all means.
One other note, I would recommend running your producer and its airpumps on its own circuit. When you get an AC going, it can really strain a 15 amp breaker, and mine has popped several times. I finally got a good buddy of mine whos an electrician to wire me up on a 20 amp circuit that now belongs to my producer.
Take the time to light proof your lid, and I would recommend running the 125w CFL bulb all the way through flower to harvest. Don't really need it during veg, too much redundant blue spectrum in my opinion, but I would run the t5's through the entire veg + flower cycle.
As for strains, the best yields of seen are from chronic strains. Another winner i've witnessed is ak-47. I personally got some great quality kush strain cuts for this box, and although the product at hte end was great, the yield was terrible. I took a pink kush run allt he way to the end with zero problems, and all plants were at the glass, and I only puled 8 ounces. About the same for purple kush unfortunately. Stick to single cola strains. Northern lights, ak-47, hashplant, those are all winners.
BCNL GROW TIPS
Don't use rockwool, it stays way too wet in there. You'll have lockout all the time from overwatering. Switch to either rocks or hydroton.
week 7- flushing- notice how ive removed all major fan leaves for the last 10 days. this serves these purposes- it shocks the plants so they produce more resin, it increases air flow to prevent mold or mildew, opens up the lower canopy to brighter light so they mature better and increase yield.
. at this size they are ready for liquid carboload.
. its good to give babies a head start by transplanting into 3 inch rock wool cubes and vegging under fluorescent tubes for 3-14 days allowing roots to pop through the bottom and start vigorous growth. so by the time you crop off u have 3-6 inch babies ready for flowering
PPM
Parts per million is how we measure the amount of fertilizer (salts) thats in the water solution. You will need a ppm meter to read this. I have a $50 one and also a $300 one that reads ph and ec. Basically start out cheap and when a few crops start rolling in then buy the big baller stuff.
Unless you can afford it up front unlike most of us.
1. keep gallon jugs on 5.0 ph water and use that to keep my ph under control-for the water just add ph down until u get to 5.0 and your good to go....
- The first pH treatment is done after the nutes are mixed, and right before they are dumped into the tub to bring it as close to 5.5-5.6 as possible. Then ideally you want to go in and measure/adjust back down again at least once a day every day until your next res change. the pH will rise steadily in a healthy system, but will rise much quicker in the early days of the week than the later days. You don't need to drain, you just dip your pH pen into the res, measure, then adjust accordingly. Res gets changed once a week
I try to keep my seedlings and clones at about 100-250 ppms. After about 10 days I bump up the ppm to around 500-600 ppm for the next 2-3 weeks. After about a month I raise it to 800-1000 ppm. When I start to bud I am at around 1000 and start taking it up slowly to no more than 1500 ppm. I don't suggest going past 1300 till you have a couple crops down.
If you over fertilize your leaves will start to burn. If you see this you will need to flush immediately. Just use pure water and basically drown the plant. Four times the amount of grow medium should be fine. One other thing. If I use tap water it usually has a ppm of 250 in my area. I pretty much add 250 to whatever I'm shooting for. So for a 1000 ppm my meter will read 1250. I will get into waters later.
After the hairs on my buds get 1/4 red I stop feeding the plant nutrients and just give them pure water. This will allow the plant to use up the nutrients it already has and makes the smoke taste a lot smoother with out all the chemical taste.
Always make sure your ppm's are in line with age of plant.
I have constant fresh air available to my room. I have 3 clip fans inside of the cabin
use about 1/2 recommended ferts, so all in all I use 1/4 recommended total amount. No-drama
My ppm is rising daily and by the last day of the week the ppm is already above what it should be for next weeks nute schedule, up until now I have ignored this b/c everything looked great but I have been noticing some yellow spots in the leaves and think this could be due to this issue... Is it possible that due to evaporation of the h2o in the rez that why my ppm is increasing?? Should I just add a gal or two of ph'd water halfway through the week to deal with this problem... Any help would be much appreciatedif your water levels are dropping, your nute concentration is going to rise. keep the water level the same and your ec should remain fairly constant
I clean and refill the res about every week-no drama
Buy rubber matting if you purchase one to go under the res. Because the Res. is plastic it vibrates a lot and makes noise the rubber will cut the noise in half. Get some type of water purifer system this is important all my problems were due to using tap water. I also bought a second pump and airstones for my res. I found the ones supplied did not create as much turbulence in the water as I wanted. My plants love the extar bubbles the roots have increased ten fold. Lastly pick up some Colossal Bud Blast maybe ask them to throw it in for free, you dilute it and spray it on your plants they absolutely love it. Get a small fan you can put in your unit to help keep it cool and the stems strong..
Firstly, to answer your questions above, I use whatever HPS bulbs come standard with the box, i believe they are 400s, and i don't believe an extra 60 watts would make any difference in that spectrum. Id rather see more blue spectrum light if anything for the resin production, plenty of red in there already. The CFLS and t5's add os much redundant light anyways. It's really more of an exposure issue, which is the growers responsibility by clipping and pruning.
Yes I did use co2, but I had it on 5 psi as per BCNL's instructions, which caused it to run out at the end of week 5 (i started using it at the beginning of week 3). So, only on for 3 weeks... unacceptable. I don't want to use another tank, and I don't want to carry around a 40lb monster, so I'll be dialing it back to 4 PSI to see how things go next run. I would prefer ot have co2 going the entire grow up until the last 2 weeks, but in my opinion, it's only really truely indispensable in weeks 3 till about weeks 7 when bud production is booming.... that's when it's really needed.
I'm going to start listing some of the things that I would have done differently, and will be doing differently in my next run. Pardon the rant, and stop reading when you get bored. here goes nothing:
-Using 2ml/gal of 35% hydrox instead of 8ml/gal, and letting it sit for 20 minutes in my water before adding nutes ( the extra burnt my roots and led me to trying organics).
-Staying completely away from the above mentioned organics (sensizym, piranha, and voodoo juice) and just using hydrox. The organics provided an immediate noticible result, but caused my roots to stagnate and stop growing for almost 3 weeks straight. As soon as I went back to hydrox, there was new root growth the SAME DAY, and my res, roots and airstones were crystal clear again... wonderful.
-Using a proper material for lightproofing my machine to prevent algae (these lids are NOT lightproof, trust me).
-Manually watering my new 1 inch clones in the producer, and pH balancing right before watering. I completely lost a whole week of veg by overwatering my clones. They went yellow and didn't grow at all until I flushed, and basically hit the reset button.
-Being much more patient with my pH adjustments, and doing it twice a day for the first 3 days after a res change, and once a day after that (pH becomes more stable as the solution ages)
-Using the daily maintenance regiment I have developed from day one (writing down PPM for that week after mixing nutes, then adding water every day to match that PPM, then pH balance, then drop bottles in and close the doors)
-Using co2 and 4 psi rather than 5
-Vegging long enough to let my plants fill the box (totally hindsight, no way of knowing this)
-pruning and clipping to keep 3-4 branches instead of 8-10
-manually checking the plants at the back of the box for mold/mildew/dead plant matter instead of being lazy and only admiring the girls at the front
-doing 3-4 small flushes during the grow to prevent salt buildups, which killed one of my plants (5 days of nutes, followed by 2 days of hydrox+plain water 3-4 times during grow).
-Keeping 4 or so extra clones in 3 inch rockwool in a closet station in case some of the clones in your box don't root (2 of mine didn't)
-Adding another 4 airstones, for a total of 8 (which ive already done, and are using in my next grow... journal coming soon!)
-Using frozen bottles from the beginning (i might not have to do this anymore because of the extra dissolved oxygen from the extra 4 stones... another thing to test)
-Shaking my nutrients before using, and not cross-contaminating them!!! (DUHHHH)
-Not leaving my fucking valve open and letting my nutes spill all over the fucking floor
-Use CFL for all stages of flower for extra resin production
-Keeping a cleaner overall box by removing dead plant matter
-using a shop vac to clean res (started doing this at week 4 or so, should have bought it sooner)
-Using an air conditioner (again, started this too late)
-Used much less nutes, than slowly dial up to your plants needs. I have to say, this is the best approach in my experience for any grower using an unfamiliar strain. These strains have different appetites and different stages for nutrients, and the old mantra LESS IS MORE holds truer here than anywhere else. Your plants won't die from a lighter nute regiment, but they certainly will if given too much. I'll be heiring on the side of less, than climbing more slowly.
-Using 50 litres of water instead of BCNL's 34 to keep PPM and pH more stable (use same nute schedule, however, always go on the light side)
Other things you'll need... hmmm... if you do the air pump thing (STRONGLY RECOMMENDED), then you wont need hydrogen peroxide or anything like that I don't think. Portable AC and the extra air are very important, and the 20lb co2 tank is great too. I wouild recommend going 4 psi rather htan BCNL's 5, because it runs out too fast at 5... unless you want to make 2 trips per harvest to the shop to get it filled, then by all means.
One other note, I would recommend running your producer and its airpumps on its own circuit. When you get an AC going, it can really strain a 15 amp breaker, and mine has popped several times. I finally got a good buddy of mine whos an electrician to wire me up on a 20 amp circuit that now belongs to my producer.
Take the time to light proof your lid, and I would recommend running the 125w CFL bulb all the way through flower to harvest. Don't really need it during veg, too much redundant blue spectrum in my opinion, but I would run the t5's through the entire veg + flower cycle.
As for strains, the best yields of seen are from chronic strains. Another winner i've witnessed is ak-47. I personally got some great quality kush strain cuts for this box, and although the product at hte end was great, the yield was terrible. I took a pink kush run allt he way to the end with zero problems, and all plants were at the glass, and I only puled 8 ounces. About the same for purple kush unfortunately. Stick to single cola strains. Northern lights, ak-47, hashplant, those are all winners.
