outdoorking
Member
Hi All, first post so please be gentle 
Started out with a DWC hybrid. I used a 17 gallon black tub for the base. Cut 10 holes in the top lid and put net pots in them.
Took my drip parts and added hoses to each of the netpots and have the pump running 24/7. This causes a constant flow of water to trickle down on the plant base all the time. Also have super heavy duty air pump with 8 commercial air stones running all the time. Bubbles are insane so tons of good air in the water.
Using a 420 watt hortalux argo bulb vented hood. Added 8 more 150 watt CFL 2700k lights for some of the darker spots. Have a portable ac unit set to 78 all the time. Ventilation is great since I ran a exhaust outside of the room from the AC and have an inline fan hooked up to the light hood that exits the room. Covered all surfaces with the thick mylar. Raised the bast a foot off the floor for ease of access when changing water. Added an ozone generator / filter combo in the room to help with the smell. the ozone generator is for home use so not really effective. Just ask anyone who walked within 50 foot of the grow when they just started to bud. LOL. Got the smell taken care of with the auto misters that you see in restrooms that do a quick puff of smell good stuff every 9 minutes. I have the best smelling garage in the world now. Ok so that is the set up basically. will try to get photos in the future for refrence.
So I started out with 10 plants, auto flower femanized blue mystic and short rider from Nirvana seed (love them).
Lost 2 while moving into the net pots after germination due to my own stupidity. Left with 8 solid starting out.
I put them all in the single 17 gallon DWC hybrid. For CO2 I took some old homebrew memories and made a 5 gallon bucket co2 generator by adding 3 bags of brewers yeast (yes, to much but it was very old yeast) 5 cups of sugar and 3.5 gallons of nutral ph water. Activated the yeast and ran a fishtank air line through the bucket lid (sealed) to a 2 liter bottle of clean water. The yeast produces a ton of co2, the 2 liter bottle is a cheap airlock so the co2 exits but no other air back into the bucket. I placed the bottle inside the canopy and it bubbles all day and night like kid blowing air through a straw in his drink. Cheap solution that has no risk of fire.
Things went very well the first month, growth went crazy once the roots hit the water but the drip system seemed to keep them growing fast unitl the root ball was big enought to hit the water. Now my issue, my plants are too big. I FIMed them often and bent the branches as I wanted so they would be full and thick plants. Well, now i have 8 massive plants that are thicker than I have ever seen before. The root balls are about 2 feet long and about 10 inches thick when slightly compressed. To be honest, really impressive roots too. So because the plants are so thick they are crowed, very crowded. I added the CFLs to help with deep light near the bases but there is so much growth there are actually dark shaded places even with the HID running. Taking out any plants is going to be very tough because they have grown together to tightly and intertwined a lot. I don't really have another place that I can place any plants removed so it is pretty much a death sentance for any that get removed. I have not trimmed since flowering, 3 weeks now. While in veg I trimmed and FIMmed a lot to get the shape I wanted. Will I lose more in yield due to the over crowding than if I went ahead and pulled 2 or 3 plants? Or would I be better off letting them keep wrapping themselves together? I am also a bit concerned because these plants are about 2 months old and 2 of the 8 have long female hairs but have yet to start growing solid buds. Just bud spots all over the place. The other 6 have buds all over the damn place but of course the lower buds get less light and are much smaller. Since these are auto flower the lifecycle is shorter I just went from 24/7 light to 12/12 to force the last 2 to bud. Is there any reason why I should change from 12 to somethign else? Will I get more yield if I leave the lights on longer once they are all budding the same? Since these are autoflower, am I running out of time to bud the last 2 or will they continue to grow until I harvest? I can't wait to show photos of the best plant, the base root is now over 2 inches thick, about the same size as a US silver dollar. Never seen this sort of growth myself indoor.
So here are my questions since i am so wordy and such a terrible writer.
Am I limited on time with auto flower plants, do I need to force the budding so they have time to grow buds before dying?
Will I lose more yield due to over crowding then by removing 2 or 3 plants from the grow?
Do auto flower grow this much? Base root is as thick as a silver dollar is around.
Do I need to consider getting a real CO2 generator / release system or is not going to make that big of a difference? I have constant organic co2 now.
Why would 6 plants auto flower and 2 not? They have female hairs all over them but not making the thick bud spots yet.
How long do autoflower cycles typicall last? Is it possible to extend these lifecycles
Started out with a DWC hybrid. I used a 17 gallon black tub for the base. Cut 10 holes in the top lid and put net pots in them.
Took my drip parts and added hoses to each of the netpots and have the pump running 24/7. This causes a constant flow of water to trickle down on the plant base all the time. Also have super heavy duty air pump with 8 commercial air stones running all the time. Bubbles are insane so tons of good air in the water.
Using a 420 watt hortalux argo bulb vented hood. Added 8 more 150 watt CFL 2700k lights for some of the darker spots. Have a portable ac unit set to 78 all the time. Ventilation is great since I ran a exhaust outside of the room from the AC and have an inline fan hooked up to the light hood that exits the room. Covered all surfaces with the thick mylar. Raised the bast a foot off the floor for ease of access when changing water. Added an ozone generator / filter combo in the room to help with the smell. the ozone generator is for home use so not really effective. Just ask anyone who walked within 50 foot of the grow when they just started to bud. LOL. Got the smell taken care of with the auto misters that you see in restrooms that do a quick puff of smell good stuff every 9 minutes. I have the best smelling garage in the world now. Ok so that is the set up basically. will try to get photos in the future for refrence.
So I started out with 10 plants, auto flower femanized blue mystic and short rider from Nirvana seed (love them).
Lost 2 while moving into the net pots after germination due to my own stupidity. Left with 8 solid starting out.
I put them all in the single 17 gallon DWC hybrid. For CO2 I took some old homebrew memories and made a 5 gallon bucket co2 generator by adding 3 bags of brewers yeast (yes, to much but it was very old yeast) 5 cups of sugar and 3.5 gallons of nutral ph water. Activated the yeast and ran a fishtank air line through the bucket lid (sealed) to a 2 liter bottle of clean water. The yeast produces a ton of co2, the 2 liter bottle is a cheap airlock so the co2 exits but no other air back into the bucket. I placed the bottle inside the canopy and it bubbles all day and night like kid blowing air through a straw in his drink. Cheap solution that has no risk of fire.
Things went very well the first month, growth went crazy once the roots hit the water but the drip system seemed to keep them growing fast unitl the root ball was big enought to hit the water. Now my issue, my plants are too big. I FIMed them often and bent the branches as I wanted so they would be full and thick plants. Well, now i have 8 massive plants that are thicker than I have ever seen before. The root balls are about 2 feet long and about 10 inches thick when slightly compressed. To be honest, really impressive roots too
. So because the plants are so thick they are crowed, very crowded. I added the CFLs to help with deep light near the bases but there is so much growth there are actually dark shaded places even with the HID running. Taking out any plants is going to be very tough because they have grown together to tightly and intertwined a lot. I don't really have another place that I can place any plants removed so it is pretty much a death sentance for any that get removed. I have not trimmed since flowering, 3 weeks now. While in veg I trimmed and FIMmed a lot to get the shape I wanted. Will I lose more in yield due to the over crowding than if I went ahead and pulled 2 or 3 plants? Or would I be better off letting them keep wrapping themselves together? I am also a bit concerned because these plants are about 2 months old and 2 of the 8 have long female hairs but have yet to start growing solid buds. Just bud spots all over the place. The other 6 have buds all over the damn place but of course the lower buds get less light and are much smaller. Since these are auto flower the lifecycle is shorter I just went from 24/7 light to 12/12 to force the last 2 to bud. Is there any reason why I should change from 12 to somethign else? Will I get more yield if I leave the lights on longer once they are all budding the same? Since these are autoflower, am I running out of time to bud the last 2 or will they continue to grow until I harvest? I can't wait to show photos of the best plant, the base root is now over 2 inches thick, about the same size as a US silver dollar. Never seen this sort of growth myself indoor. So here are my questions since i am so wordy and such a terrible writer.
Am I limited on time with auto flower plants, do I need to force the budding so they have time to grow buds before dying?
Will I lose more yield due to over crowding then by removing 2 or 3 plants from the grow?
Do auto flower grow this much? Base root is as thick as a silver dollar is around.
Do I need to consider getting a real CO2 generator / release system or is not going to make that big of a difference? I have constant organic co2 now.
Why would 6 plants auto flower and 2 not? They have female hairs all over them but not making the thick bud spots yet.
How long do autoflower cycles typicall last? Is it possible to extend these lifecycles