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First Hydroponic Grow -- 2x30Gallon Res. Ebb & Flow -- 2x400Watt HPS

bh420

Member
I've been meaning to post my setup here for awhile. This is my first grow. Method used is Ebb&Flow. We are segregating a closet into a veg and flower area.

We have a 400watt HPS on each side of the closet, plus fluro tubes running up the side. Each side has a 30 gallon reservoir, with an air stone in it to help pump oxygen to the roots. Unfortunately this is being done in an apartment, so we cant really cut any holes in the wall or otherwise... so heat is a little higher than we would like it. To help w/ that we are flooding tables 4 times a day, for 15 minutes. Also adding a teaspoon of 3% h202 to the reservoir every 2 days, to help prevent over-watering and nasty growth.


Made a noob mistake and started plants on weak nutrient solution from the get-go... which caused them to start curling leaves and turn yellow.

Fixed that issue and they are coming back nicely.
Strains grown:

Liquid Orange Crush x Hashplant x G13 (The pots w/o duct tape)
Sam the Skunkman's Original Haze x Skunk 1 (Freebie seeds)

3 of the plants shown here were planted throughout the first week of November. The smallest plant was planted Sunday the 8th. So most are just shy of 2 weeks old.

The intended plan is hopefully get a female of each and a male of each strain. Will take one female clone and mate it in a different room where we move a male to (once sex is determined). This is done so we have a supply of seeds in the future.

http://i49.tinypic.com/qs2g4i.jpg
 

bh420

Member
[Placed images in link format in edited previous post for cleaner viewing of thread]
 
Last edited:

bh420

Member
10/25/2009

LOC x Hashplant x G13 [ This one split into 2 stalks retardedly at birth... can't complain thought :) ]
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Group Shot
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Other LOC x Hashplant x G13 Pheno
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Skunk x Original Haze
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http://i47.tinypic.com/2uix7wj.jpg
 

Anima

Active member
welcome bh420!!
Looks like another victory garden to me!
What are you feeding those rascals?
Good luck on your m/f ratio. And also good choice of strains as well.
:yes: :yes:

Peace and kindness
-Anima
 

bh420

Member
Thanks Anima,
Currently starting them off slowly with a teaspoon or two of Fox Farm's Grow Big hydroponic food. Since it is first time growing, figure less will be better off while I try and feel out how much of this food the plants like. I have been having some issues with algae but it can't really be helped due to the walmart grow trays being used. It's not bad or anything unmanageable... but does require a tooth brush and H2O2 supplementing to keep it under control. Going to purchase some Pond Dye, as I have heard it is quite good for algae reduction.
 

Anima

Active member
bh-I havent used that particular line of nutes...but the 6-4-4 on the bottle says it is very high in Nitrogen... You are going to want a higher P and K fertilizer later during flowering.

I disagree nnep... I flood 15 mins every 4 hours too. Works fine for me.

I think the next step would be to get a cheap Hanna PPM meter ($20) so you can take the guesswork out of feeding. Also you are going to need something to test pH as well. I recommend the pH drops test... It's much cheaper than a digital meter. ($5 or so)

I think if you got those 2 things down your plants would perk up and start going in turbo mode.

Is the algae growth green? if it is a brownish color it is probably aerobic (benificial) bacteria... but don't worry too much about it... as long as you have enough aeration in the res this bacteria will only help you out by further decomposing the nitrates into more usable forms for your plant. it has a slight "fish tank" smell. If it is bad stuff it will me slimy like snot and smell of decomposition/ methane fart smell. If you don't have an airstone going in your res at least it would definitley be a good idea to get one.

Never heard of the pond dye...I vote against that. Get yourself some Aquashield by Botanicare and form a symbiosis with your bacteria colony.

Peace and kindness man
-Anima
 

bh420

Member
Great advice and much appreciated Anima. I am going to look into this Aquashield product for sure. Currently running a couple air stones in the res im using now. I have noticed a fish tank/musty smell lately... also after applying a H2O2 regiment the once green algae turns brown and no longer sticks to the grow tray. Currently the PH is idling at 5.5-6.0.

nnep - Since we dropped the temperature in the closet to 80 or so, we backed off our flooding schedule to 15min a cycle, 3 times a day. In the previous pictures I posted the plants actually had been closed up accidentally and the temperature gauge in the room reported 100 degrees. Today when I checked on them it was amazing to see how they went from droopy and saggy, to perky.. reaching for the light lol.
 

bh420

Member
Been awhile since I posted anything... ended up with a bad brown slime infection in the reservoir. Cleaned everything out w/ bleach and started over from scratch. Taped the reservoir up so the lid doesn't pop open due to bow stress from the weight, and around the holes where pipes/cords go through the lid.

Planning on getting a koi mat for my reservoirs and then implementing some Bontanicare AquaShield as my BB additive. If anyone reading this has any better suggestions please feel free to leave them.

Also I have some pictures of what may be preflowers. If anyone can help me sex my plants it also would be appreciated. So far it appears the Skunk strain may be showing the most prevalent pre-flowers (or so I think, this is after all first time growing).

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http://i46.tinypic.com/2usv8ef.jpg
 

Anima

Active member
yea that slime doesn't look to be "bad" slime to me. good ole aerobic bacteria.

I still cant tell the sex by any of your pics... look at it under regular light.. if the "hairs" are pistils they will be white. Then you can tell if you have a girl.

I think you are playing an iffy game with the black plastic...I'd get that outta there...any nooks or folds that arent getting flushed out regularly are going to be homes for the nasty (anaerobic) bacteria... If you have any more hydroton just dump it into the tray (after thoroughly rinsing first of course) and that will allow your root system to spread out a bit.

Also it looks like you could scoot the light over a bit..or angle it a bit more twards your smaller plants and they will catch up quicker..(could have been the angle in your pics though)

Still lookin good man! Good luck on the female hunt!

Peace and kindness
-Anima
 

bh420

Member
Dec 19 2009 Update
Well, have been busy past few weeks w/ school ending... finally got some time to post updates on the grow.

Here's a picture of batchlez taken a few days ago.
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Last bit of good news... attempted first cloning ever roughly 2 weeks ago. Took 11 cuttings, some were pretty ugly. 4 of the 11 we took have rooted! To me that is a pretty good number, especially since it was first time, and the plants were starting to get raped by the root herp.

Anyways thanks for reading.. comments and advice welcome!
 

bh420

Member
Well things are moving along nicely with the grow. The mothers just finished their first week of flowering, hopefully will be downhill from here on out in terms of problems/work lol.

We chopped the other skunk we had raised from a seedling. It seemed really weak and slow, so we decided to make room for the LOCxG13 clones.

Picture moved/deleted


Will post more pics soon.
pz
 

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