Barney's Farm Pineapple Chunk with Helios 6 & CO2

[ledbud]

how your girls doing tetee bro.
post some pic.

[teetee]

DAY 61

Time really drags on. I can't believe I'm at day 61 and I'm still vegging!!!

These last few weeks I feel like I have done nothing else except look after my grow. Every other day I was upping the EC, and I've been trying to keep the foliage under some control.

Now I'm seeing how much of a problem I have on my hands using one big 60L tub to grow 4 plants in DWC.

Here's a selection of my favourite gripes about the Superponics 16 Hydroponic system by Supercloset (California, USA):

If the plants grow at different rates, or have different feeding needs, a single tub is no good.
When the plants get big, it gets hard to observe the plants at the back of the cabinet.
60L is a massive amount of nutrient to lug around
It's hard to check water levels
Lifting the lid 2-3 inches to empty and fill is going to get more and more difficult. So far each time I replenish my res, I have had to undo the LST ties, and then replace them all.
It's impossible to clean the tub properly each time I drain and replenish.
3" net pots!!!!! way too small. The trunk of no 2 and 3 are about an inch in diameter already.

I could go on all night, but to be fair, I'm probably not using it the way it was designed for. I imagine this would be better for 8-16 clones which are vegged for 2 weeks or so, and flowered to give a Sea of Green type grow. It's a good learning tool. I have learned not to use one ever again!

Here's some pics of the current state of play....

It's getting pretty dense in there now. I did a full drain and replenish last night, so EC is at 1.3, pH 5.8, res temp 19C, air temps 28C day and 24 night, 60% RH, CO2 1400ppm. LED is about 24" above canopy.

All looking good!

I've replaced the 6400K T5 bulbs with 2400K 'red' T5's, just in case they are needed later.

Friday night I am going to drain and replenish and switch to 12/12.

Week by week I will be dropping the root stimulators with Algen Extract being the first to go at that change.
That will be followed by the loss of Amino Treatment, Multizen and finally Roots Eccellurator.

Then, I will be adding the Carboload in 4 weeks time followed by the House and Garden flowering enhancers, Bud XL, Top Booster and Top Shooter.

Well, that's the plan, anyway.
Hope you are all good...

[LEDDWCRigger]

If you'd like to give your plants a good fluorescent boost, look into the Pentron T5 color series made by Osram Sylvania, I think. If I remember correctly, they have 630nm (not 660 my fault) pure red T5HO lamps, and 460nm pure blue (with UV from both obviously due to how fluorescents work!)

But I think they're only in 0.6 and 1.2m lengths. I've been dying to try them out, I might have to use some connections and see if I can't score a few for research. Fun part is their new phosphors are incredibly efficient so it would be a more fair test versus an LED.

[teetee]

DAY 65

Hi Guys,

OK, I'm well and truly into flowering mode, I switched to 12/12 on the 19th, after a top up of the reservoir, soon after my last post.... I couldn't wait any longer!!!

House and Garden recommend their Aqua Flakes as a base nutrient when doing DWC. It is a 2 part formulation that is used throughout the life of the plant - in veg as well as flowering.

You will see from my feed chart how the root stimulators are reduced in the 1st few weeks of flowering, and how the flowering stimulators are introduced from week 4:

The correct H&G feed chart.png (183.75 KiB) Viewed 51618 times

Last night I drained and replenished the reservoir, keeping the EC at 1.3, pH 5.8. 19C
Air temps 28C day and 24C night 12/12, RH fluctuates between 50 and 80%. CO2 1400ppm during day.

I have noticed that I don't have to refill the humidifier anywhere near as often, and still the RH is way high at times. I put a dehumidifier in but it hasn't really collected much water. Maybe I need to place it in a better place... it's on the floor right now... maybe I should suspend it at middle height to get better air flow into it? I guess the plants are producing the high levels of humidity, so airflow with the internal fans is important.

It's getting very bushy in there now, and I'm seriously considering pulling no 1 as it is completely engulfed by no 3 and 2. It's just a crispy little bush in the back, taking up space.
I have been bending back the long branches of no 2 and 3, and am planning on making a scrog net this week. I saw some excellent videos on Youtube by hygrohybrid as recommended by Rabthegrower, and I think this type of grow would be ideal for my space.

Here are the latest pics:

view from above

view from the front

mainly no 3 here

mainly no 2 here

My first pistils

Thanks for looking in, any advice at this stage much appreciated!

[ledbud]

very nice.

[teetee]

Day 69 (26th Dec), and Day 70 (27th Dec)

Hey everyone! Hope you all had a good Christmas. I'm absolutely stuffed!!!

While filling my face at the in Law's, I realised my grow was in need of some drastic action to get back on track.

I was worried about how bushy it was getting in there, and I'm just a week into flowering...

pretty bushy on day 69

The RH was rising to levels above 80%, condensation on my tank and water cooler pipes.
The foliage was feeling damp, and was so thick that it was impossible to see more than 1/2 way back.
Draining and replenishing was becoming more of a pain due to difficult access.
No 3 had tipped over and I was worried light was getting into the res. The net pot cover needed to be cut away as it was too tight around her main stem. Impossible to fix in the current state.
I was also concerned about how I was going to train the foliage, it was getting pretty unruly in there, and I could see that lower stems weren't getting any light, and were wilting. As flowering progresses, I will probably lose a lot of potential bud, through overcrowding.
no 1 and no 4 were still pretty small, and were beginning to be overshadowed by the much larger no 2 and no 3. I just don't have the heart to pull them!
No 4 is healthy (she was about 10 days younger than the others anyway), and no 1 has always been a bit of a runt, after an initial impressive start.

If I pull back no 2 and no 3, here is no 1:

little runty no 1

When I put no 2 and no 3 back in place, you can only see one leaf of no 1 at the top left, near the T5:

I had a look at some techniques to improve my yield and recover the situation, and decided that I should have placed a scrog net a few weeks ago, to train the foliage and get more tops. Some of the more recent scrog techniques involve heavy cropping of the plant. Pretty much everything below the scrog net is removed so that the plant can concentrate on top growth, and also this should provide much more airflow under the canopy. As I had such bushy plants, they were producing more humidity, and my fans were not able to circulate the air in the depths of the grow.

B and Q, in Rotterdam, do a perfect scrog net for my set up, green mesh with a perfect size of 90cm x 60 cm with 5cm squares. It fitted exactly!!!

I then had to figure out how to get the scrog net on without damaging the well developed longer stems. I wanted to get something from no 1 and 4, so figured that the scrog level should be just above the height of these two shorter plants, allowing me to train any stems from these into the net. The larger stems on no 2 and no 3 had loads of early flowers and new shoots on them and I didn't want to damage them while fitting the scrog net.

I wrapped them in tissue paper like this:

...then carefully lowered the mesh over the plants, threading the stems through it as I went lower. As a quick fix, I secured the mesh with some chains, and carefully unwrapped my girls...

That took me until about 3am!!!

The next morning I reviewed the situation....

above the scrog

scrog level

below the scrog

Time to start chopping below the net...

no 2 before defoliation

I was merciless...

no 2 after defoliation

So here's the current state of the girls. Take a deep breath...

scrog level

much more light getting through the canopy

above the scrog

much more airflow below now

EC had risen to 1.6, and so I reduced it to 1.0.
I'm glad I did this, there was a lot of new growth deep in the foliage that was getting black tips and feeling very wet and limp. I hacked away anything I thought couldn't make it to the top, and now I expect to extend the initial flowering period for a week or two at lower EC, gradually building up again. Lots of training the tips, and hopefully they will recover from this extremely brutal Christmas period.

Wish my girls well Guys! I need lots of good karma!

Hope you all have a Happy New Year.

Teetee

[ledbud]

nicely done teetee mate.
they will grow good now, get EC back up to 1.6.
they looking real good, just wait for them to do their thing.
good growing karma bro.

[teetee]

Hey mate, been waiting for you to be on!!! Hope you had a good 'un!

I'm doing a res change tonight, they're on EC 1.0, what do you reckon I should do... keep it at 1.0 fresh nutes (res is a week old now anyway), step down to 0.6-0.8 or step up to 1.2?

I cut loads of leaves off, don't want to frazzle them!!!

Cheers!

Teetee

[LEDDWCRigger]

I worried about this. LEDs accelerate growth so rapidly that growth can become extremely thick, and create high humidity spots. Black tips are a sign of moisture-induced damage, and can signal mold (which is truly impossible to avoid, anyways. It's present even if it never produces a fruiting body.)

As you've seen with ledbud's grow losing some to mold, and I can testify from an old purple kush plant (lower half rotted from inside-out the growth was so dense despite room RH at 20%) you should be prepared to give either a ton of airflow or keep things well-trimmed. You might want a fan below the canopy to circulate more air throughout the canopy itself.

Looking good otherwise. You cut off pretty much the right amount for training!

[teetee]

Cheers for the message LEDDWCRigger, hope you're good!

You were right about the mould, I found it in the denser parts of every plant, and I even had a 6" fan and a little dehumidifier in the area below the canopy before I decided to scrog it, and was still getting RH in the 80plus region at times... God knows how it would have been a few weeks down the line!

Now that I have defoliated, the airflow is heaps better. If you look at my last but one pic in my prev post, you'll see a 6" fan onthe floor on the right side, and a 9" fan on the floor on the left (that one's been there all the time... it helps push CO2 up off the floor, and I think it helps deal with any thermocline, as the reservoir is at 19C, and the air at the top of the cab is much warmer, so it helps mix the air up in general. I also have a 6" fan higher up on the right blowing down onto the canopy. so 3 internal fans - should be enough airflow, along with the 2 x 4"PC intakes at the bottom and the 5" RVK pulling air out through 2 carbon filters!!!

I was thinking of fitting a curved perforated flap to partially divert the air being pushed up by the 9" fan under the scrog net like this...

What do you think? (or am I smoking too much and over-engineering this a bit too much!!!)