My Buckets

[JohnnyToke]

Very clean setup LB. You are making me itch to rebuild my recirc dwc system again...lol

Ill be keeping a chair installed in your thread!

JT

 

[Stay Frosty]

If you were to plumb your chiller in, how would you do it?

 

[Doobydan]

Im pretty sure my water is good its off a well with a natural spring. Its never hurt me in soil but never done hydro. Just learning and burning brother, keep up the good work kick ass journal.

 

[Lightning Bug]

Carboy - good info on the bennies, thanks. That sounds like an awesome system you are building, can't wait to see it. Yeah fish heads should make good growers LOL.

Feijao - The water from the chiller is only a couple degrees colder than the rest of the system, I attribute the faster growth rate of that one bucket to the high flow rate and resulting 'storm in a bucket' that is taking place in there.

Hydrosun - that is a great idea with the trashcan, bet you can grow a serious monster in that thing!
No worries about threadjacking bro, we are all here to talk about growing big plants and I welcome the discussion.

Hey JohnnyToke thanks and good to have you.

Stay Frosty - To install the chiller from the start I would have added another feedline off the 1/2" piping to run into the chiller and back out to the control bucket, this line would need a ballvalve to slow down the flow as my chiller is rated for 500GPH. I prolly would have bumped up the main pump size a little more too to compensate for the extra loss.

Hey Dan, that's cool I hope your water works good for hydro, it makes it a lot easier. I said all that above so everyone else would understand this method prolly isn't for them though LOL. I may be switching the water supply for my home soon and if so will have to change things up some myself.

GERM UPDATE: 11/11 of the AK47s are up! Pics soon!

 

[Hydrosun]

LB, so if I threw my Aqua Chill 264 in line with my Under Current 12 and the pump was too fast for it what would be the result? This is a little more than theoretical as my room is hotter than Death Valley!

Peace,

 

[Lightning Bug]

If the flow rate was too high for the chiller it wouldn't work optimally (might not bring it down low enough), the water has to pass slowly thru the chiller to give it time to get cooled off. Your chiller instructions should have a recommended flow rate.

 

[Carboy]

Carboy -

Are there going to be any major differences between your system and the UC. If so I would love to know what you might be altering to make an even greater system. I was thinking of doing something like that as well. I have a 10 plant limit but no limit on electricity so one of these roided up RDWC growing trees via vertical lighting is right up my alley. One thing I was concerned about was roots making there way down to the reducer where the water is sucked back to the pump. Do you think this could be an issue and if so are there any easy fixes for this?

I'm not going to use buckets. It'll be w/ epdm liner and dividers. Got too much on my plate now, so it'll be a few months before i get it together.
I'll go w/ more plants and sog myself, but the basic principal is the same for the biggies: lots of air and lots of water movement.
Larger plants would be more likely to cause root trouble. I'd go w/ larger pipe and an external pump. I prefer a filtered external pump on about every app. where it is practical. You should be able to get on far enough down line it'd be no problem.
I'll try not to clog up LB's thread but will post when a got a more concrete prototype in the works. Probably learn things here from LB that'll change some of my thoughts anyway. Use the basic principles, add you own touches and all will be good.

CB

 

[BigGreen]

Sweet thread LB lots of info in here. Im curious to see them aks blow up in your system. Im waiting on a uc system and I cant wait much longer. Keep up the kick ass thread I'll be here and there.

 

[Pot Pimp]

Great job LB. I'm ordering some square buckets to build me a system sort of like that. I've been following another thread that's very similar so I might take part of this and that to create something all my own. Will be watching.

 

[Lightning Bug]

They LIVE

They LIVE

Carboy - Sounds like a killer system, let us know how it goes.

Thanks BigGreen, patience is def a virtue in this game.

Hey thanks Pot Pimp, where is that other thread, would like to check it out.

OK, here's some pics of the little AK47s they are kinda stretchy as I raised to 400W MH up some to keep from frying them and that slowed down the little True Blue a little too. But it's just a slow growin mofo and prob won't make the cut. I will add a little more dirt to the top of the cups in a couple of days. I have dropped the light down a lil closer today.

11/11 germed:


AK47 Closeup:


True Blueberry Update:

 

[Hydrosun]

I'm thinking about taking my little beans and throwing them under the 1Kw Ushio blue. How long do you think I should let them sprout in the sun? It is still summer time but the days are getting shorter.

Peace,

 

[Pot Pimp]

Here's the link LB: http://icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=8182

 

[Lightning Bug]

I'm thinking about taking my little beans and throwing them under the 1Kw Ushio blue. How long do you think I should let them sprout in the sun? It is still summer time but the days are getting shorter.

Peace,

Well again I am no pro grower but here are my thoughts- they will grow faster in the sun of course. But again I apply my fish knowledge (but I spent a lot of time reading about weed too) to the situation and management of disease and parasites is critical when working indoors as there are no environmental or predatory issues to stop a pathogen. The stuff I run indoors I start indoors and keep indoors to prevent any unwanted travelers that could make problems later.

I am pretty anal about the stuff, I microwave the dirt for the seedlings to kill anything in it (esp damp off spores) and these dirt plants will never see the inside of my growroom to possibly bring anything in from the soil. I will keep them in a seperate room until I can get clones and the clones will be interviewed and cavity checked before they go in there.

You will probably be fine but I see things at the microscopic level now and will prob end up like one of those OCD dudes that keeps scrubbing his hands til the skin comes off LOL. Lets just say my fishtanks were CLEAN.

 

[BigGreen]

Yes LG I know patience I try I just get excited about a new system. I just found out I get my UC mid next week so I can handle that it was just eating at me not knowing how long I would have to wait. Your little ones look great and Im sure you'll have some great mothers in there. Im thinking of sprouting the blue cheese I have just sitting waiting to be popped. Kick ass and good luck on thos babies and keep it clean

 

[idoreallytry]

nice LB,,,tagged,,,peace

 

[Lightning Bug]

Hey BigGreen the blue cheese sounds good, can't wait to see the UC setup, I will be swinging by your thread soon. I don't get to post as much as I like as I am really busy right now and my proxy setup is slow is crap so I do a lot more reading than posting but I am hoping to change that soon when I get back from vacation.

idoreallytry - thanks, glad you made it here- I enjoy your threads a lot and appreciate you.

UPDATE TIME:
Trying to stick to weekly updates so here are some pics I just took exactly one week from the last set. The little AK47s were just some stretchy fuckers, they just kept going and going. Dunno if my mix was a lil hot for them or what, I also planted them really shallow since I was impatient, but the trueblue didn't stretch like that but then again it is just a lil runty thing.

Adding some dirt to the tops of the cups didn't help when they kept going so my ghetto solution was sawing the tops off the top of some other cups and sticking them on top and filling them up.

And the fuckers just kept stretching LOL. I finally went and actually bought a new bulb for my MH which I just thought about- is over 20 years old LOL. I don't use this light much but it did have a lot of hours on it from back in the day. I just did that 2 days ago and they have really kicked in the growth DUH so I feel pretty dumb.

Here's a pic of the cups added onto with my spacer LOL. People might wonder why I use these bigass cups but there is a method to my madness. There was a pretty scientific study posted back on OG which stated that seeds planted in deep enough containers to allow the tap root to grow unrestricted for at least 8" resulted in a higher female-male ratio. I'm not going to spend the time to go try and research it again but it convinced me at the time and I just save these big cups to use that otherwise would have been thrown away:



Here's some shots of the AK-47s, they are coming along and most of them are working on their 3rd set of leaves. I am trying to time it so I can water them right before I leave for vacation and they should be good for a week:









And of course the little TB runt. The more I think about this I am inclined to think that the only seed that survived from 11 old seeds planted is probably the most vigorous i.e. a male. We'll see:


Anyway I am splitting for vacation in a couple days so I won't be around and hope to get the next update up Monday night if I am not too tired, might be Tuesday.

 

[Doobydan]

Oh no that TB runt if female.......if you look close you can already see a preflower. ahaha keep it green and don't tire of the journal were all watching ya.

 

[Lightning Bug]

Haha thanks Dan. Back from vacation, they have grown a bunch but 3 or 4 have windburned leaves, too much fan blasting right on them and they are dried out looking and leaves curled up at the edges.

I adjusted the light up a little more and also the fan so it's not blasting them and I don't expect to have any further problems with this. I'll start misting them a couple of times a day to make up for the low RH. I just took out the bamboo skewers that were holding them up earlier, not needed anymore.

I also added some crushed up mosquito dunks to the tops to prevent the dreaded fungus gnats. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

They were ready to be watered today, here are some pics right before I watered them:

Group shot:


The worst leaf curled one:


The one right next to it that wasn't getting blasted by the fan:


Another one:


Couple more:


Closer:


TB Runt a lil windburned too:


Well that's about it, should have some cloneable material in a couple of weeks here and get this show on the road. I would like to top them to be able to get more clones but want to see how the phenos grow naturally.

Thanks for looking.

 

[BigGreen]

Ive seen the curl on mine a few times and I couldnt figure it out. Kick ass another lesson learned Thanks LB

 

[Doobydan]

I too have never really seen wind burn. Thanks for the lesson and dually noted.