Journal of my attempt at the "Mr Green" hydro setup (with influence from Al B Fuct)

everything is looking real nice, Im getting ready for a new cycle myself pretty soon and am planning on vegging the plants longer than I have in the past, how big you gonna let these guys get?

Ahzweepay said:

Took the plunge this evening and did up a batch of clones.
I started out with the knotted stemmed #7. I've attached several pictures of the process I went through to take my clones. I took a total of 18 clones, at least 2 from each plant, although I took 6 clones from #8 since it's showing female preflowers. I hope to veg one of those clones into a new mother. I figured #8 was big enough to get a decent number of clones from so, if all goes well, I should have at least a few plants to run through the flowering process and give me something to try out

Speaking of #8 - it's roots are amazing! They formed themselves into one of the channels in the bottom of the tray (image attached). So much so that when I took the plant out to work on it I noticed it won't sit flat. Schnikes!!

I put the tray full of clones on a heat mat on the lower shelf in my veg room for the night (not complete darkness as Al B. would do, but close enough). Tomorrow I'll move them up to the top for a bit more light (see last photo).

I also topped the hell outta my "mothers" and trimmed them back, removing any gimp leaves and some of the small undergrowth to make it easier to get drippers in place.

Had my 1st and 2nd dripper failure today too. I got all the "mothers" reset in the tub with drippers in place and fired up the pump. Noticed 2 of them weren't dripping at all I have 4 extras, so just swapped them out. Will have to figure out an easy way to soak these clogged guys clean - any suggestions?

The final 3 pictures are of the tray before, after, and the whole room just before closing it up.

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UTurn said:

everything is looking real nice, Im getting ready for a new cycle myself pretty soon and am planning on vegging the plants longer than I have in the past, how big you gonna let these guys get?

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Gonna try the Al B. Fuct/SOG style with no veg time - just get some good roots and put 'em in the flower room.

Ahzweepay said:

Thanks for the encouragement Unity - much appreciated!
I haven't really run into much info about EC (mS/cm) values related to nutes - most of what I've seen has been ppm related. Good to know about EC being more standard - I like standards
Anyhoo, I checked my EC the past couple of days.
Yesterday my tank stats were pH 5.8/854ppm/1.19mS/cm
Today they were pH 5.8/868ppm/1.21mS/cm
How does that seem - high, light or just right?

Finished up the installation of my new vented reflector - see attached photos. I noticed that while the temp directly under the light was 87 that the rest of the room was actually around 75 down low and 82 near the ceiling. The amount of heat coming off the glass is pretty low overall (hand barely warm a couple inches from the glass) while there's plenty of heat coming out the light's exhaust line (in another room). Am I asking for trouble with temps in this range? The info I've gotten on Flower room temps has varied wildly, but generally it appears that anything from 75-85 is "good" while above 90 and below 60 are "bad" (I believe Al B Fuct prefers 78.8 ). This is assuming no supplemental CO2 which I do not plan to use for this grow. I also don't have a clue how a tray full of hydroton and plants will affect the overall temp.
Any opinions on where I should place my thermometer to get the best reading from the space?

You'll also notice the "fancy" new double zipper door I put in today (the door is rolled up and held in place by a red bungie cord in the attached photo). Makes accessing the space and keeping it light tight much easier than the old flappy door.

I have a batch of rockwool cubes stewin in some pre-use juice overnight and will be making my first attempt at cloning tomorrow (I have Al B's cloning thread bookmarked and ready too) - wish me luck!!

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I would max out at about 76-78 without co2, with co2 during veg and early flower you can go as high as 85, but keep in mind thc starts breaking down at about 85 degrees. So even if you could take the temps higher because of the co2, you would not want to.

I think you may want to add some oscillating fan/s, you don't want the temps to be all over the place. Mix that air up a bit more and it will get more consistent Keep in mind, no co2, high temps (above 7, will get you loose airy buds mate. Especially during mid to late flowering. Keeping the humidity low will also help to frost up the plant (the lower the better during mid to late flowering) as well as no bud rot.

You are doing great

Added a fan near the floor of my Flower Room pointing straight up at the normal circulating fan. Temps are now staying steady at 82.5. My circulating fans are just 6"-2speed clip fans, so am going to look into getting a 12" oscillating fan in the next couple of days.

Changed the tank today (gonna stick with once a week for a while).
My plain water read = pH 8.4, 175ppm & .25mS/cm
After adding my nutes/pH down = pH 5.7, 913ppm & 1.27mS/cm

Clones took a huge nose dive over the first day or so, but this evening are showing some signs of perking up (the "mothers" are still doing well). I've been misting them about 3x per day w/plain tap water and have watered them about once a day w/15ml of pH adjusted tap water w/H2O2 (premixed a gallon w/5ml 35% H2O2). I've attached a few pictures of the tray over the past few days. (WARNING: These may be unsettling to some)

haha sad but hopefully they'll come back and turn into pretty little clones

Riddle me this...
If one can put a clone, once it's developed good roots, into the "full strength" flower nutes can one thus put a clone directly into the "full strength" veg nutes? ...or do the rooted clones need to be introduced to the veg nutes more gradually?

I'm-a-wonderin cuz I wanna keep one of the clones of #8 as a replacement mother (as long as they make it).

wow looks realy good so far. Once I start growing I'll be keeping my plants that I start from seeds till they are to big or have reached the max pot size that I wanna go to and take them for all the clones I can over the course of time in the last pot size and replace them.

so how are the clones coming along? I took my 3 days ago and they are doing great! no signs of roots yet though..

prnkstr said:

so how are the clones coming along? I took my 3 days ago and they are doing great! no signs of roots yet though..

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I got rid of 3 of mine yesterday (dead) and made replacements. The rest seem to be doing pretty decent, although it's been 11 days now and still no roots

I've been spraying them about 3x per day with plain tap water and watering the cubes 2x per day w/approx 20ml prepared tap water (1gal tap water + 5ml 35% H2O2 + pH'd to 5.8 ).

I've attached a few shots of the clone tray over the last few days - nothing too exciting...

I don't think I've mentioned it before, but in the beginning I was trying to measure my nutes using 1/4 teaspoons - LAME!
I found a very useful tool at Target in the kitchen accessories section. It's a meat baster - basically a big syringe that holds up to 30ml. Very convenient for measuring nutes and watering clones. It was only $2 compared to the $20 model sold at the hydro shop.

Ahzweepay said:

I don't think I've mentioned it before, but in the beginning I was trying to measure my nutes using 1/4 teaspoons - LAME!
I found a very useful tool at Target in the kitchen accessories section. It's a meat baster - basically a big syringe that holds up to 30ml. Very convenient for measuring nutes and watering clones. It was only $2 compared to the $20 model sold at the hydro shop.

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very useful knowledge, thank you for sharing

peace and happy growing

Hi. For MPO look's like neeed MORE light. Second: you put to much water on rockwool cubes, and what is tempr??? tepr shuld be more then 23 def..y, about 26-27.
Regards

Ahzweepay said:

Riddle me this...
If one can put a clone, once it's developed good roots, into the "full strength" flower nutes can one thus put a clone directly into the "full strength" veg nutes? ...or do the rooted clones need to be introduced to the veg nutes more gradually?

I'm-a-wonderin cuz I wanna keep one of the clones of #8 as a replacement mother (as long as they make it).

Click to expand...

well been gone for a bit but back to check it out and since no one bothered to answer this I'll give it a shot. I would say go 1/4 strength on all clones at the beginning regardless if its flowering or veg just because with the small size of the roots and the plant they just can't handle and do not need the full nute blast.

mardavarot said:

Hi. For MPO look's like neeed MORE light. Second: you put to much water on rockwool cubes, and what is tempr??? tepr shuld be more then 23 def..y, about 26-27.
Regards

Click to expand...

Thanks for the input.
Was under the impression that the clones didn't really need much light, just enough to know it's day, so didn't bother to do any additional lighting for them.

As for the cube waterings, I've cut that back to 10ml twice a day - the cubes seem pretty much dry when I water them, and nothing is running out the bottom of them as I water anymore - sound better?

I also added a fan speed controller to my Veg Room exhaust fan. I'm currently "dialing it in". Have it keeping the room at about 24C (74.7F), but am still lowering the speed to see if I can get the temps closer to 80F.

UTurn said:

I would say go 1/4 strength on all clones at the beginning regardless if its flowering or veg just because with the small size of the roots and the plant they just can't handle and do not need the full nute blast.

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Thanks for the info - was thinking about easing them into the nutes anyway, but this seals the deal
Now I just have to get some flippin roots!

Tomorrow is tank change day, and also plan to do a little rearranging in the room to better accommodate the size of the "mothers" (they're getting tall). I may also replace a few more of the gimp looking clones with some fresh ones.

Wish me luck

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Changed out the nutes again yesterday. Seems like doing the tank change once a week is keeping the funk in check.

Removed the upper level of the shelf unit in the Veg room to make room for the "mothers". While I had them all out of the closet I gave them a good lookin-over. Found some "sexy-bits" (female preflowers) on #16 - so that's 2, mostly confirmed, mothers previous to flowering - hopefully they hold true

I had been messing around with a speed controller on my exhaust fan. Unfortunately upon further inspection (brought on when I awoke to the sweet smell of skunk) I found that the blower I have does not work properly with the speed controller. It was barely running therefore not exhausting the room through the filter at all I set it back to running full blast again for now.

Which leads me to the clones...
I decided to try using the dome on my clone tray. My thought is that it will help to trap more heat around the clones, and make it so I don't have to mist them so often. I have to say that dome is a pain in the a$$.
I decided to hold off on making more clones for a while longer, but gave the remaining clones a good once-over. Removed another 4 that were looking extra sad too. Unfortunately one of them actually had a couple of small root shoots sticking out near, what would have been, the top of the cube. The rest of the shoot was bare of roots though. At least that gives me hope that some of them will end up working out...

Wow weez you are following the guide perfectly I swear this could be Mr.green pt.2. keep kickin ass.

K weez few questions. What lights you using to veg those mommies? How long does your pump go on for and 3 or 4 times per day?
update :
nvm found it on the earlier pages.

looking good so far! i must say the dome and heat mat with my clones worked wonders so i hope it works good for you too!

I decided that it had been far too long with my clones looking very sad and not showing roots, so I pulled them all out and inspected them on the way to the "circular file". Of the 12 remaining I found 5 with some very small root shoots near the top of the cube, but that's all.

After much love and tenderness I had to let odd little #7 go today. Due to it's odd growth pattern and the fact that it was getting overshadowed by the rest of the "mothers" I decided to take it out and give the other plants more room. 4 of the 5 remaining plants are showing female preflowers, so should be in good shape as far as females go (no idea if 7 was male or female). I've attached photos of #7 just before and just after it was removed from its pot.

I got some slightly different cubes for this clone attempt. They are the same rockwool material, but come in a sheet of 96 cubes all stuck together. I just sliced off 19 cubes and dumped them into some water that had been set to pH 5.1. They soaked for a good 24hrs, then I got to try out my new salad spinner. I gotta say, Al B Fuct was right on with that tool! The salad spinner works perfect for the job - neat and quick

The guy at the grow shop suggested turning these cubes over and poking a new hole in the bottom to get a more snug fit. I found that using the meat baster needle to both poke the new hole and water the cubes worked like a charm. The clones were much more snug in the cube this time around. Tried to follow Al's clone method again although I deviated by misting my clones after getting them set in their cubes. I started the misting when 2 of the first 3 I did went limp shortly after setting them aside. I took 3 clones off each of the remaining plants and an additional clone from #14 and 3 additional from #8 (the heartiest 2 female preflower showing plants). The clones are in the dark flower room now for some rest. Hopefully the limp ones will spring up over night. Attached it a picture of the tray just before putting it in the dark.

I added a couple of single 24" fluoro's to better light my veg room, and changed out the exhaust fan for one I can actually control with my speed controller. I have the fan dialed down pretty low now, but have been keeping temps around 73 in general - not perfect, but improving. Attached is a photo showing the new lights, fan and speed controller.

The last photos are before and after shots of the tray.



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