First Ever Grow - Stealth PC Easy Ryder Bubbleponics

jeremym said:

She is lookin sexy my friend. I am amazed that you can do that shit in a computer case. Scribed

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Hey jeremym! That's the reaction I'm going for . Thanks, and welcome!

endofwed said:

hey hows it going!

Could you help me out with my grow? We have similar res sizes and im finding out my ppm and pH jump each day. I'm thinking it has to do with the small res size and water evaporation causing a higher concentration of nutes. Does this happen to you as well? Also, what is your res temp? thanks!

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Yeah, my PPM and pH jump somewhere on the order of 50-250 and .1-.5 respectively per day. I believe it is, as you recognize, a symptom of small reservoir (though I believe more a function of the plant drinking water than evaporation). There's not much of a way around it that I've found besides just being vigilant. In this way, DWC in a PC case is more time-intensive than soil. I track PPM and pH daily, and every 12 hours for the first day after a flush. It's just a quick 5 minute procedure, and it keeps the system as stable as one could reasonably expect. I'm seeing very good results with this method.

My res temperature is about the same as the temperature inside of my case. ~79F when I checked it earlier.

Numbers:

pH: 5.85
PPM: 1350

PPM is a bit high, but I plan on doing a complete flush tomorrow so I'm not worried.

Some of those buds sure are looking nice!


G'night.

fuck yeah dude! you got some nice bud sites popping up. How do you flush your res?

brandon. said:

fuck yeah dude! you got some nice bud sites popping up. How do you flush your res?

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For sure! I'll get some more close-ups on here this week.

Flushing my reservoir is a pretty simple procedure. First I elevate the whole case (I usually set it on top of my printer) so gravity can do its thing and siphoning will work. I then drain the reservoir and refill it with tap water via the hole I made on the top of the res. I'll slosh this around a bit and then siphon that. Each siphon takes ~5 minutes, so in the interim I'll be preparing my new nutrient solution. By the time I'm done siphoning the rinse water I'm ready to put the new nutrients in to the reservoir. All done! Pretty simple... all in all it takes ~20 minutes.

Numbers:

pH: 6.3
PPM: 1000

I flushed my reservoir this morning. Fresh nutes, good numbers. I should really get to the homebrew shop some time soon and restock on dextrose for my CO2 generator.

Here's a picture:


Later.

hey agreenvln!

your scrog has inspired me. i added a screen to my easyryders recently. how did you train them through your screen? i read your journal but am still confused. do you work to keep the plant under the screen or let it weave in and out of the holes ( like weaving?)? please feel free to check out my grow in my sig

so far everything is still looking good for yours!

aggreenvln said:

Hey jeremym! That's the reaction I'm going for . Thanks, and welcome!


Yeah, my PPM and pH jump somewhere on the order of 50-250 and .1-.5 respectively per day. I believe it is, as you recognize, a symptom of small reservoir (though I believe more a function of the plant drinking water than evaporation). There's not much of a way around it that I've found besides just being vigilant. In this way, DWC in a PC case is more time-intensive than soil. I track PPM and pH daily, and every 12 hours for the first day after a flush. It's just a quick 5 minute procedure, and it keeps the system as stable as one could reasonably expect. I'm seeing very good results with this method.

My res temperature is about the same as the temperature inside of my case. ~79F when I checked it earlier.

Numbers:

pH: 5.85
PPM: 1350

PPM is a bit high, but I plan on doing a complete flush tomorrow so I'm not worried.

Some of those buds sure are looking nice!
View attachment 1215331

G'night.

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When I checked my numbers this morning, I noticed I didn't get a massive pH rise like I usually do. My guess is that the water level had been too high, and the rockwool was getting soaked causing fluctuations in the pH. Maybe your pH rise is due to the same problem I had?

weedfiend2010 said:

hey agreenvln!

your scrog has inspired me. i added a screen to my easyryders recently. how did you train them through your screen? i read your journal but am still confused. do you work to keep the plant under the screen or let it weave in and out of the holes ( like weaving?)? please feel free to check out my grow in my sig

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Hiya weedfiend! I've been keeping up with your thread but haven't had a chance to post any LST/ScrOG suggestions -- I suppose here is as good a place as any! There isn't a whole lot to it as you will see. I would recommend having the screen 4-6" above the top of your pots with an AF strain (as they stay pretty short). Then basically all you have to do is let the plant grow through the screen a couple inches and pull it right back through the screen. At this point the plant will need to be bent in one direction or the other. The important thing when moving or bending the stem is to make sure it is hydrated enough -- conduct your training sessions shortly after watering. It is also important to plan where you are directing your plant to grow. It will keep growing horizontally in whatever direction you bend it, and you'll keep getting more flowering nodes on branches, etc. Things can get a bit crowded, so make sure you have at least a general outline of where you want each node to be. You'll get the hang of it quickly. Let me know if I can clarify or if you have any more questions.

endofwed said:

When I checked my numbers this morning, I noticed I didn't get a massive pH rise like I usually do. My guess is that the water level had been too high, and the rockwool was getting soaked causing fluctuations in the pH. Maybe your pH rise is due to the same problem I had?

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Hmm, I'm not too sure how likely a reason this is in my setup. My reservoir level is kept ~1/8-1/4" below the bottom of my net pot, and the rockwool is sitting on top of at least 1/2" of hydroton. If the rockwool is influencing the pH of the nutrient solution at all, it is very minimal. Good idea, though! My hypothesis is that the plant takes in some nutrients quickly and some more slowly. In the first 12-24 hours after a flush, the nutrient balance (and thus the pH/PPM of the solution) is changing quickly due to different absorption rates of different nutrients.

Thanks for the questions and comments!

Actually the plant won't grow horizontally at all. as soon as it possibly can it will grow upward (toward the light source)
This is called phototropism, I remember studying this in an old biology lesson!
You have to keep training the plant...

This scrog is really well done, and the plant looks incredibly healthy.
I applaud your neat grow room too.
I just realised our plants are around the same age (yours being a few days ahead)
And both get the same amount of light (125W)
Despite my numerous problems I'm interested to see how the two grow methods compare.

Can you get a close up of the developing buds?

Keep up the good work

Amazing and inspiring Grow! Ive been reading since the start and have been wondering, how exactly did you train the plant into the scrog screen. I seen your answer to weedfiends quetion and it pretty much cleared up my quetion....The only thing i confused with is when you said "let the plant grow through the screen a couple inches and pull it right back through the screen". once the plant grows through a square bend it down through another square then back up throught another square & so on and so on? Sorry if i confused you lol and Congratz on the amazing gro!!!

Wow! I'm glad to see so many new faces lately . Thanks to everyone thus far for adding to the interesting discussion.

Greenlights said:

Actually the plant won't grow horizontally at all. as soon as it possibly can it will grow upward (toward the light source)
This is called phototropism, I remember studying this in an old biology lesson!
You have to keep training the plant...

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Thanks for the clarification! Hooray biology.

Greenlights said:

This scrog is really well done, and the plant looks incredibly healthy.
I applaud your neat grow room too.
I just realised our plants are around the same age (yours being a few days ahead)
And both get the same amount of light (125W)
Despite my numerous problems I'm interested to see how the two grow methods compare.

Can you get a close up of the developing buds?

Keep up the good work

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Thanks very much, Greenlights. I've actually been lurking in your grow for a little bit -- it is interesting to see another auto around the same age and another auto ScrOG.

Close-ups are down below!

yngdomino said:

Amazing and inspiring Grow! Ive been reading since the start and have been wondering, how exactly did you train the plant into the scrog screen. I seen your answer to weedfiends quetion and it pretty much cleared up my quetion....The only thing i confused with is when you said "let the plant grow through the screen a couple inches and pull it right back through the screen". once the plant grows through a square bend it down through another square then back up throught another square & so on and so on? Sorry if i confused you lol and Congratz on the amazing gro!!!

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Hey, thanks yngdomino! Yes, I suppose I could have phrased this a little differently. When you pull the plant back through the screen, you pull it all the way through, so the branch is no longer above the screen at all. No need for any complicated weaving . If a branch is being stubborn and needs to be held in place, simply use a twist tie or rigid thick wire or some other method to hold it to the screen.

Numbers:

pH: 5.8
PPM: 900

Numbers are good. Reservoir liquid level is a bit low. I'll top it off with some nutrient solution later today or tomorrow.

Hmm... I have a few 6.5gal food-grade buckets laying around that I use for homebrewing. I'm thinking it might be smart to pre-mix large batches of nutrient solution to make things much simpler during this part of the grow. I'll think about how this will work in more detail and report later.

The plant is looking great and is getting STICKY! I had my camera all up in the canopy taking close-ups, and now my camera is dank as hell. Niiccee.


Lates.

SIMPLY AMAZING!!! Looks so crystally!

This is really making me contemplate doing my first pc grow with bubbleponics

Simply amazing grow man! My easy ryders look sad compared to yours. I will definitely be using a similar method next time. Sub'd

aggreenvln said:

I'm thinking it might be smart to pre-mix large batches of nutrient solution to make things much simpler during this part of the grow.

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I believe I've read that pre-mixing some nutes can make them go bad very quickly. I've never tried it, but something to check in to before ruining buckets full of nutes!!

well i pre mixed a couple of litres of biobizz nutes and it was a mistake, after two days they smelled like raw sewage, but its a learning curve and i wont make that mistake again. lol

Thanks for the comments, everyone. Also, welcome to the thread Aspyre! Thanks for joining.

Large batches of nutes going bad quickly was my primary concern, and it looks like it might be somewhat likely. We'll see. Even just mixing enough for two weeks or one week would be helpful if I can find a way to effectively store it.

brandon. said:

This is really making me contemplate doing my first pc grow with bubbleponics

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Do it!! It's slightly higher maintenance, but not necessarily difficult; Well worth the extra effort in my opinion. Plus it would be good to get a larger sample size of grows from which to learn .

Numbers:

pH: 6.3
PPM: 1000

I added about 2L of half-strength nutes this morning. These numbers looked stable tonight. Good.

I've been thinking so much about nutes lately that I almost forgot that it's nearly time to switch to pure RO water to flush the nutrients out of the plant before harvest.

Here's the general outline for the next few weeks:

I'm going out of town to visit my girlfriend from Oct28-Nov2 (Days 62-67), and then I'm coming home for a few hours and promptly flying to an APS conference where I'll be from Nov2-6 (Days 67-71). I plan on harvesting around Day 75±3. Here are my two options as I see them: (1) Begin using only water on Day 62, continue for ~2 weeks, harvest as soon as it looks good when I get back (Day 71-75). Or, (2) Begin using only water on Day 71, continue for ~1 week, harvest around Day 77-80. I'm going to have to have one of my roommates top off my reservoir a couple times while I'm gone, so based on this option (1) may be simpler. Another option is to simply phase out nutes by repeated distillation (by topping off the reservoir with RO water) over the course of the ~10 days I'll be gone and then completely flush for a few days when I get back. I like this idea. Thoughts?

Here is a picture:


G'night.

Whaddaya know, KB's latest reply in the autoflower thread included a paragraph very relevant to tonight's thoughts:

KolorBlind said:

I have chopped anywhere from day 55 to day 79. Day 79 was only to let a pollinated gal finish up as many seeds as possible, the bud was actually very harsh due to the over ripening. For seedless runs, 58-66 was average. I count day 1 as the day the seeds breaks through the surface of the soil. Also keep in mind that the only thing you can rely on 100% of the time when harvesting is trichome color. Dont count days and chop when they "should" be ready without making sure the trichomes are beginning to turn amber. Radio shack sells a GREAT 60x - 100x lighted pocket microscope for $15 that truly every budget grower needs.

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It looks like I should be thinking about chopping sooner rather than later (within a week?), but I'm really not sure. I'll keep a close eye on trichome color and I won't add any more nutes for now. It looks to me like the buds could still pack on quite a bit. Of course, who knows what a week can do!

aggreenvln said:

It looks like I should be thinking about chopping sooner rather than later (within a week?), but I'm really not sure. I'll keep a close eye on trichome color and I won't add any more nutes for now. It looks to me like the buds could still pack on quite a bit. Of course, who knows what a week can do!

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My easy Ryders are at day 78 and still very few amber trichs and its been that way for a couple weeks...sigh...

aggreenvln said:

Whaddaya know, KB's latest reply in the autoflower thread included a paragraph very relevant to tonight's thoughts:



It looks like I should be thinking about chopping sooner rather than later (within a week?), but I'm really not sure. I'll keep a close eye on trichome color and I won't add any more nutes for now. It looks to me like the buds could still pack on quite a bit. Of course, who knows what a week can do!

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Looks like you have at least a week to go (haven't grown the easy ryders yet, but they still don't look very close). Do you have a way of posting trichome pics?

bobhamm said:

My easy Ryders are at day 78 and still very few amber trichs and its been that way for a couple weeks...sigh...

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Hmm, well it's good to see an example of an Easy Ryder that is taking a while to finish up. I'll be watching.

brandon. said:

Looks like you have at least a week to go (haven't grown the easy ryders yet, but they still don't look very close). Do you have a way of posting trichome pics?

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I agree. After talking with my girlfriend about it earlier, I decided I'm going to keep the nutes going until I leave in a week, and then phase them out to water while I'm gone. I'd much rather chop her a few days too late than a week or more too early.

I did my best with these trichome photos. You can just spot a few starting to turn milky/amber, but for the most part they are clear. I really can't see them getting 50/50 milky/amber in a week.

Could you give me some advice on my grow?

first side

other side


14 days since it sprouted and the plant (lowryder #2) looks extremely small still. The leaves are drooping and not a lot of roots are forming. Were your plants like this, or am I doing something wrong?

specs:
dwc bubbler (holds pretty much the same amount of water as yours)
4 42W 6500K lights
1 40W 2700K light

800 PPM, constant 5.5-5.6 pH (using general hydroponic (hard water series) + lucas formula)
75-78 temp, res temp is the same (a bit lower)