Bubblebonics w/ Drip

This is my first grow. Made a bubbleponics-type, four pot, drip system. Using a 6500k flourecent for vegetative and will most likely upgrade for flowering.

pointless thread

Really! Thats wonderful!

Welcome Yerba, and don't worry - there have been far more pointless first posts around here. Sounds like you have a plan. If you have questions post them here, or share more about what you built and how. Did you make the drip system? Why did you decide to go that way?

Here are pictures of my pure kush clones after 1 week. Now it is day 10 and roots are emerging at about 5 inches long. The fourth picture posted shows discoloration on the leaves and i have burnt edges on other leaves. Is this something to worry about?/ What do I need to change? I have only put one dose of nutrients in so far and I tried to be pretty conservative.

The drip system was made by hooking a tube up to my water pump and adding four small tubes into the larger one that feed into each respective pot.

I also just started bending, but let them back out after a day of good bottom growth. Are you supposed to keep it bent and slowly circle the plant upwards adding more tie downs?

Thanks

Here are my plants at 17 days into vegetative. I have increased the nutrient feed by double which is about a cap full of Aqua-flakes A and a cap full of B liquid formula. How much nutrients should I be putting in? They seem to respond really well to the nutrients with a lot of root growth happening in the days after I put it in.
Also I have put coat hangers up to help me train them. It seems like I have a lot of foliage and some leaves are not receiving light. I have not pruned or taken off leaves other than about three leaves that turned yellow (from no light?). Should I leave them be, or take some leaves off?
I posted last week on a different thread https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/264037-broke-plant-salvage.html asking about an emergency fix for breaking a plant. My fan fell on the plant and snapped the main stem at the bottom. I have since hear of other options than what I did, but I just re-rooted the clone on the foliage end and am hoping roots will come soon. So far it is hanging on and only one leave got dry. Any suggestions? Just waiting it out and am hoping it will bounce back pretty soon.

Thanks

Nice plants, I would get a PPM meter so you can accurately measure how much your putting in. Most people will tell you to increase nutes until you see signs that your giving them too much (tips of the leaves yellow+brown).
The yellow leaves where probably lacking in nitrogen, shouldn't be a problem now that your feeding them more.

I wouldn't take leaves off during veg, even if some lower leaves don't get a lot of light the plant will still grow. Its during flower that you should be conserned with the amout of light. And lack of light wont turn a leaf yellow.

They look healthy to me though, how long do you plan on vegging them?

I am trying to get the plants to train around the circumference of the pot and then i am going to top it when it meets back up with the beginning. How long should I veg/ how long would that take/ is that a good idea?

Typical veg time is 5 weeks but remember they will grow to double in flower.

Hey man your setup looks very similar to mine!

I also built in a recirculating and aeroponic mister feature into my DWC. I personally found both to be useless, especially after the roots have hit the res water, they are submerged so the extra water up top is meaningless to the plant. Plus, the pump heats up the water, generally a bad thing. Make sure your air pump is solid though, thats very important

As for the leaves, the yellowing was prolly nitro deficiency. You really dont want to cut ANY leaves unless they are infected or over 50% dead. Even yellowing leaves can produce food for the plant.

cool replies... so what is the rule of thumb with topping before the flowering stage? Can i top right at 5 weeks and let it do a 24 hour dark cycle then go straight into 12/12 or do i have to let it grow in veg a little bit after topping?
The reason I might leave my drip system is because it is already hooked up to my water pump which I have to circulate water in the tub. Is it really worthless even if it looks like all hydroton is dry at the top?
Also, I put coffee grounds in my tub to take care of nutrient deficiency (someone suggested this or cigarette ash?). Anyways, some of my roots got a tint of brown to them. Is that ok? New roots are growing that do not have brown on them as I think the color was absorbed by the older roots.

nutes can die your roots brown, this wont hurt them. brown roots can also be a sign of nute burn or light getting to the roots.
You should let your plants recover from topping before flowering them.
If the roots are getting water then they don't need the additional drip, though it wont hurt them.

trim off the top and the bottom couple of branches of your plants.... no need to harvest small undeveloped buds they take away from the top nugss that will grow big and strong. wait until they r a foot tall before doing this and always give them time to grow before flowering..i am a medical marijuana patients and so far i have lost a crop due to male pollination but got great seeds...then i burnt them with the fertilizer, now on my third go round things seem to be going good..i also use the bubble ponics. but with six baskets..i will get it sooner or later, not easy... as for the fertilzers try flora gro and florabloom... it is easy to measure and works very well with burning the plant..

thanks for the replies!

anyone have a good affordable choice for more advanced lights? What power do I need for four plants for flowering? Thanks

Here are my plants after 25 days. I will change the water for the third time today and 150% the nutes which will be about a cap and a half of each a and b. Its weird because the nutes the hydroponic store recommended are a two part, but both have the same directions on the back saying it is a vegetative and flowering mixture. any thoughts on which to add more of at which stages?
The branches are growing big and strong and am having to bend these under the hangars. I am running out of room for light. Which branches should I cut off or what should I do? Also trying to upgrade to hps...any cost effective suggestions?

go to the nute company's website and look for feeding schedules instead of the label

thanks. looks like I was on track with nutes. maybe a little lighter than possible. i'm still a little confused about topping and taking off branches... Can i top now and start flowering in about 10 days? Looks like I am going to need to harvest in the middle of December? Is that possible, or should I just let it grow through christmas break even though i won't be around for a week at a time prolly?

plants are looking good as far as i know. the root structure is shown and they look quite full and healthy I topped one of the plants just to try it out and left the other two alone, mostly because they didn't look ready. I removed the fourth plant which never took root after it broke a few weeks back. Trying to get better lights this week and switching to flowering in 6 days. any ideas for cost effective hps or hid lighting? i need a good price...

other than that, do they look alright from the pictures?

Thanks

Just posting to get any comments, suggestions, etc. before I switch over to flowering in 2 days. Still don't have the lights, but should be picking them up when i put them through a 36 hour dark cycle. Any suggestions for well priced hps setup or LED?

Also, I put my drip back in, after i was told that i did not need it, because the upper roots were starting to dry out.

Thanks for your comments.

So I waited one extra week to move into flowering because I was leaving on a trip and didn't want to start something new when I was going to be gone. Then I did a 37 hour dark cycle and then started them on their 12/12 light cylcle. I had them under my fluoros for 2 cycles until I bought my 400W hps for better flowering.

Haven't seen much change except for growth. What should I start seeing? The only bad thing is the amount of heat that builds up in my closet. Are there any secrets for fan positioning or something else?

How far should I have the lights from the plants?

Any other advice would be appreciated.

Sorry for the pictures...thats what they look like with that light on. I'll post new ones when they go off.