Rurumo's Mars Hydro FC6500 grow journal

I heard back from Impello Biosciences about their corn steep liquor, and they also source non-gmo corn specifically because of the widespread concern out there about glyphosate. So I just ordered the 50 lb bag. Cost wise, 4 lbs would have cost me 1/3 of what the 50 lb bag cost-not a good value there, and I'm a sucker for buying in bulk. Plus I use a lot of organic fertilizer in my yard and since my soil is high in calcium already, CSL is a perfect fit. So I have plenty for my indoor fertigation experiments and for my outdoor berry crops for a couple of years probably!

Rurumo said:

I heard back from Impello Biosciences about their corn steep liquor, and they also source non-gmo corn specifically because of the widespread concern out there about glyphosate. So I just ordered the 50 lb bag. Cost wise, 4 lbs would have cost me 1/3 of what the 50 lb bag cost-not a good value there, and I'm a sucker for buying in bulk. Plus I use a lot of organic fertilizer in my yard and since my soil is high in calcium already, CSL is a perfect fit. So I have plenty for my indoor fertigation experiments and for my outdoor berry crops for a couple of years probably!

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Yeah I tell people to really shop around for chems and soil additives. I get a bunch of stuff off ebay. 10 ounces of dilute calcium chloride in a spray bottle is 10 bucks at lowes but you can get a couple of pounds of the food grade flakes for the same price. It takes a little time to search but I'd much rather buy bulk.

voodoosdaddy said:

Yeah I tell people to really shop around for chems and soil additives. I get a bunch of stuff off ebay. 10 ounces of dilute calcium chloride in a spray bottle is 10 bucks at lowes but you can get a couple of pounds of the food grade flakes for the same price. It takes a little time to search but I'd much rather buy bulk.

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Especially now, prices are all over the place. I'm taking mental note of the people who are really jacking up their prices now, vs the ones trying to keep a product the same price. Now is definitely a good time for growers to steer away from expensive bottled products and more toward concentrated, bulk, powdered options. The KNF/JDAM folks really have it going on, I'm not at that level yet. I wanted to fill up a couple of plastic garbage cans with chopped up comfrey and fill them with water to ferment them, but I decided I like the bumblebee habitat more.

For all the new growers out there who want or need more practice germinating seeds, but don't want to spend $$$ on expensive seeds, you guys should check out Fleur Du Mal seeds on Strainly or their website. They offer 25 seeds for $30, and are a domestic seed bank. You can pick either the durban or cinderella 99 mix, each of which are a mix of 4 different crosses featuring those strains. It's a great deal for folks just getting into growing and who love classic genetics, and you can't beat it at just over $1 per seed. They're the ones I got my Cindy 99 F4s from so you can see some of their work in this thread soon.

Rurumo, I read earlier about you trying the Grove Bags. I normally use canning jars but like a lot of folks I like trying out new things. I went to amazon and was reading comments on the 1 oz size and pretty much all of them were horrible. Seems the zip loc feature failed on most all of them. What is your take on them? Gimmick or not

RottyRzr said:

Rurumo, I read earlier about you trying the Grove Bags. I normally use canning jars but like a lot of folks I like trying out new things. I went to amazon and was reading comments on the 1 oz size and pretty much all of them were horrible. Seems the zip loc feature failed on most all of them. What is your take on them? Gimmick or not

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I've ranted on about how great they are to the point people think I work for the Grove bag company lol. I've never had a ziploc fail on a grove bag BUT, I don't use the ziplocs much specifically so that they will last. I like the 1/2 lb bag the best, but find 1/4 lb bags very useful too. Besides following the usual good advice to dry "low and slow" (lots of people say 60 deg and 60% rh, but I think a range between that and 70 deg/55% rh is acceptable), the grove bag itself is what finally started giving me the results in my finished bud that I was looking for. Their claims about moisture permeability and gas exchange are real, and they are reusable if you're careful with them. I wouldn't get 1 oz bags. I'd estimate my yield and then buy an assortment of 1/2 and 1/4 lb bags to match that yield. For example, if you usually yield 3 lb per grow, I'd get 4 1/2 lb bags and 4 1/4 lb bags, just to see which size you like better-that amount of bags plus shipping is right around $40 on their website. Once your bud is in your target RH range, 55-60% is typical, put them in the grove bags, double check the RH with a mini hygrometer, then heat seal them with a flat iron for ladies hair.

For like 1 oz sizes, I'd just use a ziploc bag. Keep your stash stored in the grove bags and however much you use on a weekly basis in a ziploc or glass jar, to avoid wearing out the ziplocs on the grove bags.

This is the Corn Steep Liqor I ordered: https://impellobio.com/products/impello-biofuel-sp. One of my biggest questions for this product are how it will do in terms of Nitrogen with 100% of the N coming from amino acids. I've only ever supplemented N with aminos before, never used them 100%. I've been experimenting with foliar soy hydrolysate, and if you spray plants with it, they green up so fast it's amazing. Another little trick I like is, if you have a favorite cut that is super hard to clone-like it's the type that takes 3 weeks every time instead of 1 week to root. If the cuttings don't have roots after 7 days, you can spray them with soy hydrolysate and it will help keep them looking nice and healthy while you're waiting for them to root-a lot of times the yellowing sets in after two weeks without roots and just gets worse from there.

I have some Brut brand worm castings, which are really nice. They're made from peat reed sedge, but within the process of becoming worm poop, the PH of the peat is modulated, so it's supposed to be around 6-6.5. Also, I have a small bag of biochar that I primed with some fish hydrolysate for a week outside-I also added a few squirts of Southern Ag GFF just because, those bacillus spores are tough as nails, so they might activate eventually. For a mix, I'm thinking of say per 10 litre (to make math EZ) I might try 7 liters coco, 2 l rice hulls, .5 ewc, and .5 biochar. Very conservative, just enough to hopefully promote activity in the rhizoshpere. Also, I will be testing the Promix Connect mycorrhizae, and will follow that up a couple of weeks later with Mikrob's brand Trichoderma. Fungi LOVE rice hulls. Then, once I see any fungus gnats, I'll topdress with mustard meal-I really want to see if it visibly affects the trichoderma like in that pic on the buildasoil site. I'll use that same mix with both my Maxigro/bloom plants, and my corn steep liquor plants.

I'm also worried about the PH. Rice hulls and biochar both trend towards alkaline, but this will be a very biologically active media, which trends towards acidity. I'm not sure whether or not I will PH the corn steep solution. I will either not PH it, or PH it to 6.5. Right now, I'm leaning towards not PH'ing it and adjusting from there, rather than the other way around. Of course, I will PH my Maxi plants to 6 to 6.3 as usual. I've been getting good results at the slightly higher 6.2, 6.3 ph in coco-less mag issues.

I just picked up a pack of ESB from Fleur Du Mal seeds, the same place I got my Cinderella 99 bx seeds. ESB is a strain created by Oldtimer1, who was an amazing breeder and Overgrow OG forum member who sadly passed away last year I believe. I've grown out Oldtimer's Haze by Ace before, and it's a wonderful representation of Haze from a breeder who took great care to preserve it.

A lot of people consider ESB to be his best strain, it's Nigerian Skunk (Nigerian landrace x old skunk1) x 1996 DJ Short Blueberry. Oldtimer1 released this seed to the public on 3 different occasions that I know of, and one of those I tried very hard to get a pack but failed-this was around 2008 I think. Fast forward to now and I found the Fluer Du Mal website to look up their Cindy 99 and I found ESB among their offerings as an F3. The owner of FDM is Baudelaire, another Overgrow OG member if I recall correctly. I think I tried his Cindy many years ago, but then couldn't find their seeds again until just a couple of years ago when the FDM website appeared again-I don't know the details, but I'm glad to see Baudelaire is still around doing good preservation work on some classic strains. Fleur Du Mal seeds has it's own thread over at Overgrow if you want to see more pics of their strains. They have very nice looking Indiana Bubblegum, Sweet Tooth #4, and durban high-flier, as well as a few others, in addition to their Cindy and ESB.

I just read a post over on Overgrow by Baudelaire and I don't think he'd mind me sharing it here. Someone asked what is in his personal stash, and his answer describes some of his strains beautifully:

"Hmm that’s hard. I love all my children. And I love variety in my stash, like most of us I think. Right now it’s Princess 88, Indiana Bubblegum, Durban-Thai Highflyer and a MAC#1 cut I picked up at the Emerald Cup in December. But next month it may be ESB, C99, Sweet Tooth and some Wedding Cake I just finished.

Cinderella, both in FDM’s Princess 88 and C99 lines, has been a staple in my stash and my mother bench for over 20 years. FDM was more or less launched as a C99 preservation project when the original Bros Grimm shut down and Soul began his 10 years in the wilderness before returning to the scene with BG 2.0. I’ve come to prefer the P88’s more balanced head and terp profiles, but I still love them both and return to them after my regular varietal walkabouts… I’m particularly enjoying the most recent generation of C99, which I think successfully nailed down the favored Pineapple phenotype.

The ESB is very (extra?) special, but that means it is not everyone’s cup o’ tea. I love it as a daytime and social/party smoke, and a reminder of what weed was in the time Before Indica. Basically a Thai-Nigerian multi-sativa hybrid with a kiss of afghani, ESB is like a delicate Willamette Valley pinot noir, a fine beauty whose best traits are refined and subtle."

Gosh, doesn't that sound incredible?

Generals Daughter was our first original offering, and to this day I think our most balanced hybrid. A combination of pure potent power from the G13, and taste and structure from the Cinderella 99, if grease is what you want, the GD will not disappoint."

Okay, I got my 50 lb bag of Biofuel corn steep liquor!





They have the same feed chart on their website, it's actually quite detailed, my pic doesn't have that part. Basically they start at 1 tsp per gallon, and they even provide the EC for each dosage. I'm going to start low, and then work my way up. My plan is to start feeding two different clones this stuff once daily along with 1 ml/l of the TPS Calmag/micros, as well as my usual kelp/fulvic. I will be using kelp here instead of spirulina because I want to test out the nitrogen in this stuff by itself first. I'm thinking of doing 3g/per gallon. The clones are in 4 inch pots under t5 fluorescents, one of the clones is bulletproof, and the other is a super sensitive sativa lady that freaks out even at below normal N levels. It will be fun to see how they react!. One big complaint I have so far is that a large portion of it has dried up into huge chunks. They aren't very hard to break apart, and I'm going to put some into a cheap coffee grinder later to see if that works. I'm also going to email Impello about it to see if that's expected.

2 days of feeding CSL and the plants look fine. I did some EC measurements on it, to see if it matches up with the info provided by Impello, and it's actually pretty close. They say that 3g/L of CSL is .9 EC. I found that with 9 grams of CSL per gallon, it worked out to .9 EC, which makes sense considering I'm starting with .3 EC water. One thing I didn't expect was how acidic it is-9grams/gallon of CSL takes the PH to 5.9. I'm going to try leaving it at 5.9 ph for a while to see how the plants react. Either the bicarbonates in my water will eventually make the PH creep up, or the highly active rhizosphere will take it even lower....I can see either happening. Right now I'm feeding those plants once per day to considerable runoff to keep the PH in range, and if I see problems, I'll consider upping that to twice per day, but I'd like to avoid that with long term clones/mother plants....it's fine when I'm pushing plants in veg though. Also, I tested the TPS Organic Cal/mag, and I'm only reading 15 ppm per ML VS the 45 ppm /ml they claim. So, I upped the Calmag to 2ml/gal and I'll wait to see how the leaves look in a couple of weeks.

I took a clone of the Truffaloha #3 from Beleaf just to create a "better" bonsai mommy. I don't like getting rooted clones from people or places like strainly because they usually have a really long stem that has been lollipopped, so you end up with a giant mother plant. I'd much rather get cuttings from people and root them myself, so I can top early and often to make a mini bush instead of a palm tree. I thought this clone is a good opportunity to test out my CSL fertilizer regimen from day 1 of being transplanted, so I can really evaluate the growth on it. This plant has been fed to runoff once per day for the past 3 days with 9 grams CSL per gallon of water, and 2 ml/g of the TPS "organic" Cal/mag-also 2 ml/gal Mr. Fulvic. I'm keeping it under t5s and just want to see how this fertilizer does growing fresh clones. I know the real challenge will be how it does during and immediately after the stretch phase, but this is a good place to start!



So far so good, plant looks happy, no tip curl/burn, etc. The other plant I'm using it on looks fine too, but time will tell! I don't expect to get it dialed in on my first try (which would be awesome though). My only interest in keeping a plant like this would be to cross it with a pure sativa landrace or IBL to see what genes shake loose in the offspring just for fun (very scientific lol). I'm considering popping the akbb Sensi Star F4s for a more stable indica option for future crosses. I really have my mind on Sativa males right now though-like the ESB and Cindy 99-but both of those would make excellent breeding partners for a great Sensi Star (or for this silly thing).

Fyi, Corn Steep Liquor makes an amazing outdoor fertilizer for folks with alkaline tap or well water. It's so awesome not to have to adjust PH AT ALL with it. It takes my 7.4 150 ppm (40 ppm CA) water down to 6.0 at 9 grams CSL to 1 gal water. I feel like I'm really getting my money's worth out of that 50 LB bag. I hope it does well for me because at 50 lb for $130 (ish) shipped, it's actually quite economical vs my usual maxibloom, even though you use 9 g/gal vs 3-4 g/gal of Maxibloom. Anyway, that is your CSL update for the day, you can stop holding your breath!!

On the other hand, if you use RO, CSL would be a low PH nightmare!

Rurumo said:

I took a clone of the Truffaloha #3 from Beleaf just to create a "better" bonsai mommy. I don't like getting rooted clones from people or places like strainly because they usually have a really long stem that has been lollipopped, so you end up with a giant mother plant. I'd much rather get cuttings from people and root them myself, so I can top early and often to make a mini bush instead of a palm tree. I thought this clone is a good opportunity to test out my CSL fertilizer regimen from day 1 of being transplanted, so I can really evaluate the growth on it. This plant has been fed to runoff once per day for the past 3 days with 9 grams CSL per gallon of water, and 2 ml/g of the TPS "organic" Cal/mag-also 2 ml/gal Mr. Fulvic. I'm keeping it under t5s and just want to see how this fertilizer does growing fresh clones. I know the real challenge will be how it does during and immediately after the stretch phase, but this is a good place to start!

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So far so good, plant looks happy, no tip curl/burn, etc. The other plant I'm using it on looks fine too, but time will tell! I don't expect to get it dialed in on my first try (which would be awesome though). My only interest in keeping a plant like this would be to cross it with a pure sativa landrace or IBL to see what genes shake loose in the offspring just for fun (very scientific lol). I'm considering popping the akbb Sensi Star F4s for a more stable indica option for future crosses. I really have my mind on Sativa males right now though-like the ESB and Cindy 99-but both of those would make excellent breeding partners for a great Sensi Star (or for this silly thing).

Fyi, Corn Steep Liquor makes an amazing outdoor fertilizer for folks with alkaline tap or well water. It's so awesome not to have to adjust PH AT ALL with it. It takes my 7.4 150 ppm (40 ppm CA) water down to 6.0 at 9 grams CSL to 1 gal water. I feel like I'm really getting my money's worth out of that 50 LB bag. I hope it does well for me because at 50 lb for $130 (ish) shipped, it's actually quite economical vs my usual maxibloom, even though you use 9 g/gal vs 3-4 g/gal of Maxibloom. Anyway, that is your CSL update for the day, you can stop holding your breath!!

On the other hand, if you use RO, CSL would be a low PH nightmare!

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This is gonna be interesting to follow. Looking forward to it. You are lucky with your water (in my opinion). My well water starts out acidic and I recently tried out the maxibloom and had horrible results. The ph dropped drastically. I dealt with that using ph up and then bulletproof si. I could correct the ph but my reservoir wound up getting brown sludge in it. I guess there was a reaction with something in my water. Anyway, I went back to Jacks for now. Maybe permanent.

RottyRzr said:

This is gonna be interesting to follow. Looking forward to it. You are lucky with your water (in my opinion). My well water starts out acidic and I recently tried out the maxibloom and had horrible results. The ph dropped drastically. I dealt with that using ph up and then bulletproof si. I could correct the ph but my reservoir wound up getting brown sludge in it. I guess there was a reaction with something in my water. Anyway, I went back to Jacks for now. Maybe permanent.

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The brown sludge is very strange, I'm sure it's related to the low PH and reacting to something in your water. Hey, jack's is great, you'll do awesome with it. Let me know if you run into any problems with the jack's and I'll try to help out.

Lived in a town with acid water and lead pipes were still being replaced in the 80s. Copper and another alloy pipes in houses would get pinholes over time. A big damp spot could show on any wall anytime. There was an alloy used then that failed terribly.

hillbill said:

Lived in a town with acid water and lead pipes were still being replaced in the 80s. Copper and another alloy pipes in houses would get pinholes over time. A big damp spot could show on any wall anytime. There was an alloy used then that failed terribly.

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That's horrible! When they replaced the water supply for my little town of like 150 people in the 80s, the pipes they replaced were mostly wood, with lead pipes going off to the houses. I didn't realize how common that setup was for hundreds of years in Europe. I love my water here, but I've suffered through some terrible tap water in the past too. San Francisco's tap water was excellent for hydro and reefkeeping. I think most municipalities would want to buffer tap water that acid, just for the longevity of their water system.

I was on council there and it was a direct pump Rainy Collector 23’ deep, impossible to regulate. Before I left they were on their way to a deeper high capacity well and tower! Proud of helping get that done.

hillbill said:

Lived in a town with acid water and lead pipes were still being replaced in the 80s. Copper and another alloy pipes in houses would get pinholes over time. A big damp spot could show on any wall anytime. There was an alloy used then that failed terribly.

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Our home had copper pipes when we moved in. Over the years I had to replace sections of that pipe due to developing pin holes. I finally got tired of it and put PEX throughout the house. After talking to some of the neighbors in the area I found out they had done the same.
I've also replaced our hot water heater about every 5-6 years. I probably should have a acid neutralizer installed.
Oh well. Sorry Rurumo. This is your thread. Not about my pipes.

Rurumo said:

That's horrible! When they replaced the water supply for my little town of like 150 people in the 80s, the pipes they replaced were mostly wood, with lead pipes going off to the houses. I didn't realize how common that setup was for hundreds of years in Europe. I love my water here, but I've suffered through some terrible tap water in the past too. San Francisco's tap water was excellent for hydro and reefkeeping. I think most municipalities would want to buffer tap water that acid, just for the longevity of their water system.

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My home water supply was renewed 12 years ago. It was lead connected to a cast iron main. The workers were going to take the lead pipe. When I asked why they said they would melt it for fishing tackle. I picked it up and walked away. I pounded it into a compact mass and buried it near a property corner. Too many loons and eagles get poisoned up here from ingesting lead in fish they eat.

shnkrmn said:

My home water supply was renewed 12 years ago. It was lead connected to a cast iron main. The workers were going to take the lead pipe. When I asked why they said they would melt it for fishing tackle. I picked it up and walked away. I pounded it into a compact mass and buried it near a property corner. Too many loons and eagles get poisoned up here from ingesting lead in fish they eat.

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All the lead sinkers and tackle that have ended up in rivers and lakes over the years is heartbreaking, it really is. Entirely preventable, and yet it's still allowed most places. Every year fish are testing higher and higher in heavy metals all over the country, and that trend will continue for a long time even after we completely phase out coal.

I want to try to do a shorter version of something I posted in another thread. This story is about how Oregon State Dpt of Agriculture found that most microbe/myco products have much lower concentrations of viable organisms than are listen on the package, with many having none of the active ingredients present. https://odanews.wpengine.com/oda-finds-big-problems-with-little-organisms/

Here is where you can find the yearly "micro reports" in pdf files-they go up to 2021 so far. https://www.oregon.gov/oda/programs/pesticides/fertilizers/pages/reportspublicationsforms.aspx

It's interesting how many of the products are tested once, and never again. I'd like to find out how these products were selected, if it was by the State, or if it was a volunteer deal. Popular products that had little to no bacteria/myco in them include Great White, Photosynthesis Plus (this is one I used to recommend-sad), OG Biowar, Advanced Nutrients Pirannha, and Real Growers Recharge-that last one will make a lot of people sad as it's a popular product.

I currently am using TRIBUS Bloom, which says on the bottle it contains 14 billion viable organisms per/ml, the testing shows it actually had 7 billion living organisms at the time of testing. While that is 50% less, it was also the highest level of viable organisms tested for any product between 2015 and 2021. This is EXACTLY the third party testing data I've been looking for. Of course it would be nice if they had the full 14 billion living bacteria, BUT it's also nice to know it still has the most of any product vs. my previous product that just wasn't showing me the results I wanted-Photosynthesis Plus, which had virtually no viable organisms.

I'm going to contact Tribus to ask them if they have changed anything since receiving this test data from Oregon, to increase their viable #s. Just curious to see what they have to say about it. Nice to KNOW I have a viable product, just for my own testing purposes.