Rurumo's Mars Hydro FC6500 grow journal

I decided to try germinating in root riot cubes this time, mainly because my RH is unusually low right now in my area, and I don't have a humidifier. Anyway, I don't like how dry it is, so I soaked the root riot cubes at 6.5 ph with Mr. Fulvic, kelp extract, and Southern Ag GFF. Then to germinate the seeds, I squeezed all the water out until they were like a moist sponge, and poked the seeds in with a pen. 20 hours later I had roots growing out of two of them, but no stems yet of course. These are FDM Cinderella 99's. The little pot just holds them in place and upright, and I put that inside a gallon ziploc and keep it blown up with lung power. I don't spray the inside at all, and the cubes themselves are just barely moist.





I didn't expect this kind of speed, but so far I think these cubes might be a reliable way to germinate, maybe easier for new growers than keeping soil perfectly moist. I'll check the moisture level after 48 hours in the bag. This is how I take most of my clones and since those do really well, I had the sudden urge to germinate in them. I remember using them once before and got 100% germination, but I never used them again for some reason. Maybe because coco is cheaper and also works well.

Rurumo said:

I decided to try germinating in root riot cubes this time, mainly because my RH is unusually low right now in my area, and I don't have a humidifier. Anyway, I don't like how dry it is, so I soaked the root riot cubes at 6.5 ph with Mr. Fulvic, kelp extract, and Southern Ag GFF. Then to germinate the seeds, I squeezed all the water out until they were like a moist sponge, and poked the seeds in with a pen. 20 hours later I had roots growing out of two of them, but no stems yet of course. These are FDM Cinderella 99's. The little pot just holds them in place and upright, and I put that inside a gallon ziploc and keep it blown up with lung power. I don't spray the inside at all, and the cubes themselves are just barely moist.View attachment 5187095

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I didn't expect this kind of speed, but so far I think these cubes might be a reliable way to germinate, maybe easier for new growers than keeping soil perfectly moist. I'll check the moisture level after 48 hours in the bag. This is how I take most of my clones and since those do really well, I had the sudden urge to germinate in them. I remember using them once before and got 100% germination, but I never used them again for some reason. Maybe because coco is cheaper and also works well.

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I just took a couple of KA5H cuttings and stuck them down in a couple Accelerooter cubes. Similar I guess. They are supposed to be biodegradable. I've never used these before and have just used coco with good results. I picked up a little 6 pack of the Accelerooter cubes at the grow shop last week for cheap. Im hoping they do well.

RottyRzr said:

I just took a couple of KA5H cuttings and stuck them down in a couple Accelerooter cubes. Similar I guess. They are supposed to be biodegradable. I've never used these before and have just used coco with good results. I picked up a little 6 pack of the Accelerooter cubes at the grow shop last week for cheap. Im hoping they do well.

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I'm not familiar with those, are they also made from peat? I've used Rapid Rooters before and they're basically the same except the hole is bigger, which I don't like as much. You can use a razor to open up the Root Riot cubes if you need to make the cut deeper for a clone or something. I think you'll like these things, once you figure out the perfect moisture level you start seeing super fast rooting. My personal record is roots emerging from the cube in just less than 48 hours from a cut, but that is mainly down to the cut.

The accelerooter plugs say they are made from organic bark material (whatever).

"My personal record is roots emerging from the cube in just less than 48 hours from a cut, but that is mainly down to the cut." Wow, that's fast. That's really fast. In coco mine always take at least 2 weeks. I'm curious how long these will be. I did dip them in some rooting powder.
Here's a link but I didnt get the 55 count pack.

RottyRzr said:

The accelerooter plugs say they are made from organic bark material (whatever).

"My personal record is roots emerging from the cube in just less than 48 hours from a cut, but that is mainly down to the cut." Wow, that's fast. That's really fast. In coco mine always take at least 2 weeks. I'm curious how long these will be. I did dip them in some rooting powder.
Here's a link but I didnt get the 55 count pack.

Seed Starter Plugs | Shop Seed Plugs for Seed Starting & Cloning | HTG Supply

Start seedlings and cuttings faster and stronger with all-natural AcceleRooter rooting plugs! Earth friendly AcceleRooter plugs are made of soilless organic bark material that holds the optimal air to water ratio for rapid rooting of seedlings or clones. • Start seeds or clones | soil or hydro...

www.htgsupply.com

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Oh yeah, those will work great! You can set the PH of those and then wring them out like a sponge until just a little water is left dripping out-that's how you want to keep it. They might actually seem "too dry" to you but that's actually perfect-you just have to keep them like that and don't let them get too dry. You can re-wet them every other or every third day to keep the PH in line, then squeeze them out again...but be very careful when you squeeze them after like 3-4 days in because you don't want to damage any roots that may be forming. Let me know if you run into any issues cloning.

So, I came up with an idea for keeping a small male or reversed female isolated from the other plants. This is the Strawberry Cough clone I'm reversing, it just had it's second spray of 3 mM STS at day 0 of 12/12 flip- I crack the lid during the daytime and cover it with some extra blackout curtains I have at "night". I just transplanted it into a 1 liter air pot-I never use that size so I thought I'd give one a shot here.


These propagators are made by Centec and they are expensive, but extremely nice and well built. You can buy extra "levels" to stack as high as you want. The light is just that little Dakason light that was so cheap earlier this year (or maybe last year) on the "Deals" thread. I figure, if I keep it in here, I'll just close the vents when it get's close and take the entire thing outside to collect pollen when it's time. I just plan on being super careful anytime I open it up. I may line the bottom with foil or something to make collection easier, and I may just paper bag the branches once the sex organs mature. I love these propagators for clones too, plenty of space/height and the tray is SOLID and seems like it will last a lifetime. I'm so sick of flimsy nursery trays, I'm done with them. I'll either use these propagators, or plastic kitty litter trays (which are also solid).

I don't like any of the amended coco recipes I've been playing with, so I won't be using any of them in my next grow-no rice hulls either (although I will keep experimenting with them). I really like using 50% hydrofarm coco and 50% canna for each transplant after the first. For the initial solo cup or 4" pot I like 100% hydrofarm (Grow !t brand). Hydrofarm is a slightly courser grind and has better drainage for seedlings, but canna has a higher EC, better water retention, and more available potassium during the flowering stage. Now I keep both brands on hand.

Rurumo said:

I don't like any of the amended coco recipes I've been playing with, so I won't be using any of them in my next grow-no rice hulls either (although I will keep experimenting with them). I really like using 50% hydrofarm coco and 50% canna for each transplant after the first. For the initial solo cup or 4" pot I like 100% hydrofarm (Grow !t brand). Hydrofarm is a slightly courser grind and has better drainage for seedlings, but canna has a higher EC, better water retention, and more available potassium during the flowering stage. Now I keep both brands on hand.

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Thanks for this info. What do you mean by more available potassium? are you able to determine this by the way the plant grows, or are you measuring it somehow?

SPM has served me well and there is really an immense amount, harvested from a very small area in relation to where Sphagnum Moss lives so using it causes no moral questions for me, also reuse more than half of my used mix.
I do all my mix from individual components and Premier Tech “Pro Moss” is my first choice since it wets easily and the quality is always good.
ROLS in small containers with feeding teas as well EWC teas.
12/12 from seed is a hoot.

budtoker221 said:

Thanks for this info. What do you mean by more available potassium? are you able to determine this by the way the plant grows, or are you measuring it somehow?

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More potassium is made available as the coco grade gets finer, it just comes down to surface area. I've seen it someplace on the canna site that says 100 ppm of K is available to plants in flower in canna coco. More potassium is made available as the media breaks down as well.

hillbill said:

SPM has served me well and there is really an immense amount, harvested from a very small area in relation to where Sphagnum Moss lives so using it causes no moral questions for me, also reuse more than half of my used mix.
I do all my mix from individual components and Premier Tech “Pro Moss” is my first choice since it wets easily and the quality is always good.
ROLS in small containers with feeding teas as well EWC teas.
12/12 from seed is a hoot.

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I always liked and had success with Pro Mix, sphagnum is great stuff. I actually think Promix is the best solution for people with highly alkaline tap water. I wouldn't even say I like coco better, I just find I really like it for the way I've been growing lately. I like to be able to feed to lots of runoff without the concern i'm leaching out all the dolomite. I've had problems with too much acidity in the past, especially when using liquid organics.

Actually, I'm having some trouble with one of my corn steep liquor plants-totally different topic. I haven't been good about checking PH since I'm mixing up several batches of nutrients for testing, and so once I saw this lime green growth developing in the CSL plant, I tested my nutes and they were at 5.5, probably because I've started feeding some epsom salts since I tested last. So now I'm using a small amount of potassium bicarbonate to buffer the solution up to 6.3, so hopefully that takes care of it. I'm 100% certain these CSL plants will do better when growing quickly, being repotted with big root balls, than my long term tester plants in 4" pots where the canna coco has congealed into a solid sponge lol.

Haven’t taken any PH except for rain water and tap water which have almost always been right on 7.0.

hillbill said:

Haven’t taken any PH except for rain water and tap water which have almost always been right on 7.0.

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I might pick up a bag to see how CSL does with it, maybe do a side by side. I used to use it often. I don't have a sustainability issue with peat, the biggest threat to Canadian peat bogs is fire anyway, by a wide margin.

I grew up where it was harvested and we also collected Sphagnum Moss itself for garden and house plants.

hillbill said:

I grew up where it was harvested and we also collected Sphagnum Moss itself for garden and house plants.

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Very cool, I'd love to see a peat bog up close. It's so cool what they find preserved in the bogs too. Some of the best bud I've grown was using promix and pure blend pro, during my first indoor phase.

I just dipped my C99 seedlings in Promix Connect mycorrhizae-you "batter" the seedling like tempura. I'm just curious to see if a highly concentrated myco makes any difference over a more normal commercial concentration.

Rurumo said:

Very cool, I'd love to see a peat bog up close. It's so cool what they find preserved in the bogs too. Some of the best bud I've grown was using promix and pure blend pro, during my first indoor phase.

I just dipped my C99 seedlings in Promix Connect mycorrhizae-you "batter" the seedling like tempura. I'm just curious to see if a highly concentrated myco makes any difference over a more normal commercial concentration.

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After I catch up a little bit I plan on running well it is a toss up between these two and then there is Panama Red lol but away have you grown c-99 before?

Jeffislovinlife said:

After I catch up a little bit I plan on running well it is a toss up between these two View attachment 5188654and then there is Panama Red lol but away have you grown c-99 before?

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Yeah, I grew FDM C99 a long time ago, I think they were F2s. They were everything I wanted from C99. They were really good yielding plants as well, very strong, good vibes sativa. And the pineapple pheno tastes so great! All of those seeds would be cool, I have some GG4 Ril seeds from Tony Green that I'd like to run "soon" too. And I have Panama Red on pre-order from Snow High right now. You have excellent taste in weed Jeff-I think you'd have fun growing any of those, and I'll probably grow the GG4 and Panama Red next year!

Rurumo said:

Yeah, I grew FDM C99 a long time ago, I think they were F2s. They were everything I wanted from C99. They were really good yielding plants as well, very strong, good vibes sativa. And the pineapple pheno tastes so great! All of those seeds would be cool, I have some GG4 Ril seeds from Tony Green that I'd like to run "soon" too. And I have Panama Red on pre-order from Snow High right now. You have excellent taste in weed Jeff-I think you'd have fun growing any of those, and I'll probably grow the GG4 and Panama Red next year!

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Yuppers that's is what I've been thinking how's your light working for you?

Jeffislovinlife said:

Yuppers that's is what I've been thinking how's your light working for you?

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The 6500 works great! I'm stoked to be able to compare the 6500 to the HLG 650r that I just won. I've only ever used LED bar lights, so it's going to be fun to test out the new light.

I have my new tent up and light is hanging