2.5x1.8 meter coco scrog, 3 strain bingo!!

[Tokesome]

everything looks great man..loving your journal. glad you fixed the problem you had.

Cheers mate, good to see you`re popping in.

 

[Scrogerman]

Hey Buddy!
Fair-Play, everything looks better man, after a good tucking we can see alot more tops exposed,-Nice-Work, this has evened things out, think Apical Dominance man, they will try n shoot off & its a battle, constantly pulling leaders down to height trying to tame them & equalise Auxin/Hormones. Thats how i always look at it anyway. Its Hard work on such big-screens for sure man. It seems to me that you have Hungry plants & not so Hungry plants & EC seems to show this, but you say that readings cant be trusted in coco so i dont know, but thats what i would be thinking. Looks like you have everything well under control man so stick with the programme man. Good Luck Toke.
Peace & Respect.......Scroger!

 

[cody2white]

ÊV

 

[Tokesome]

ÊV

Sorry mate, EV??

Hey scorgger, yeah thanks man, it was a timely reminder, and appreciared. Was only a joke about the sarge bit, sarge. I`m taking a lot of guidance re the scrog side of things so please feel free to call me on something if ya spot it mate.

I`ve noticed some MG def look on some leave of just two stems of one of the Armageddon, its very minor and not of great concern, but worth keeping an eye on just the same. What`s the general opinion on spraying with epsom salts up to 3 weeks into flower??

Its looking really even, I`ve just fed twice today @ ec1.3 ph5.8. Everything id looking much clearer now and top selection is going to be and easier prospect now, even th GF`s are starting to look more obvoius as the heads develop.

I`m going to raise my nutrients to ec1,4 when I mix two res`s up tmro, I`ll be keeping a close eye on the plants to see how they respond, tip burn, colour and vigour. I`ll then raise to a peak of ec1.6 when I add PK13/14 3 weeks prior to hervest before bringing it right down prior to the flush of 7-14 days. I`ll keep checking the run offs of plants to make sure the ec doesnt rocket in the pots.

Hey Scrog, the run offs give an indication of how the plants are, but they do tend to fluctuate a lot at different stages and can give unecessary worries.

As promised, a bit of bud porn from my friend`s grow tent. Its the Armageddon, its looking lovely and from the same clone stock as mine. They`re at 7 and a half weeks 12/12 now, but could go another week on flush I reckon. The canopy is un even and unruly, and no hesdcount done in the screen, but despite this I think the results will be pretty good. A much tighter routine is going to be applied, if I can get this going evenly things will work out very well indeed.

My brain is awash with BHO

Cheers for now, Toke

 

[Scrogerman]

Hey buddy! No wuken furries mate!
Everything looks good man. There are differences of opinion on giving Mg, mine at different key stages, some say do it others say dont but im of the opinion that a foliar dont mess up the medium so im gonna keep on doing it, when the times right that is! Your mates Scrog looks tidy man, & im sure he'll get a gret yield. Smart man!
Good luck bro.........Scrog!

 

[~Shhh~]

I like the look of the Armageddon mate, it sure seems like a quick finisher. Good job on the tucking and pruning that screen is looking great!

 

[Tokesome]

Cheers Scrogger.

Hey Shhh, yeah it sure does what it says on the tin, some of the tops have been ready for a few days now, but they`ve been fine staying put. Some of the tops in the tent grow will be coming down this week, cant wait to sample it!

I`ve been pruning some of the excess tops out today, I`ve done the thicker row of Armageddon, well not an exact head count, but I`ve removed all the smaller and tiny shoots and the spacing looks a lot better. I think I`ll need to take a few more out of what`s remaining but its very nearly there for now. Tomorrow I`ll definite ly get the other row of Armageddon done, I actually started on it but lights went out and stopped me. I hope to get the Grapefruit row done too, but jeez, I`ve removed literally hundreds of tops and shoots out of the Arma`s and the Grapefruit is like spaghetti compared to the Arma`s so I`m not sure how quick a process they`ll be.

This is the Arma`s in the right hand row after pruning

and the Arma`s in the left row, pre pruning

And here are the spaghetti like Grapefruit. I`m looking fwd to getting this rabble sorted out

I think the Arma`s have finished their stretch and I may have been a bit strict with a few of the tops. If they dont catch up I`ll release them from the screen a little. The Grapefruit look like they`re still stretching though.

I bought a pump today for the auto feed system, its 700ltrs per hour and has a 1.2m lift rating. I need to lift just over 2 feet and then run down to a tubing loop, from which I`ll run 15 or 30 drip feed lines, depending on if I go with one feed tube per pot or if I go for 2 tubes per pot. These will all have to be of equal length to achieve an even as possible flow to all feed tubes, and I reckon they`ll have to be aprox 1meter in length. I reckon the pump should be of ample power, its part of the Hozelock range designed for pond water fountains. It was quite expensive at nearly £30 but I liked that it runs from a transformer and is only 24volts, I could cope with a tingle from that if it fucks up, not so keen on 240 zapping me.

I`m going to get the relevant tubing, elbows, `T` sections, anti syphon valves ets tmro. Of course I`ll need another pump for res `B`, so I may end up getting another tmro.

What I want to do is run 2 pumps to the same tube loop that will fit around the middle tank with feed tubes coming off it to all 15 plants in the 3 trays. Then I plan to have each pump to come one once a day, so each res gives the plants a feed each day. Then if one pump goes down whilst I`m away they at least get one feed a day rather than going completely dry for a while.

Can anyone tell me if an anti syphon valve in between each res and the main loop will solve two problems that I need to overcome? One is that I need to prevent nutrients flowing by syphoning when the pump switches off. Two, with 2 pumps running to one feed loop alternately, I need to stop the nute solution from flowing from one res to the other when one pump is pumping nutes to the plants. Either could be flooding disasters, and leave the plants high and dry when away for a couple of days.

I`m not sure a device is available that will do this job. If this is the case I`ll have to make two main loops, one for each res, then I`m pretty sure that with anti syphon valves it`d prevent flow to the plants at least when the pump switches off.

What do you think guys? Anything easier or more suitable for my needs that springs to mind anyone?

Cheers for now, Toke

 

[gaiusmarius]

you can buy one way valves too, in fact i use them always after the filter in my watering setup, as i don't want all the hose and drip lines to empty out between each watering as that will mean lost pump time and uneven pressure at the beginning of each watering sequence. so just use a one way flow valve as well as your anti syphoning valve.

 

[Tokesome]

Hey Gaius, thanks man, but I`ve been shopping already and decided to go with 2 separate loops sat in the middle tank, one running from each res/pump. I`ve got all the necessary elbows, tubing, `T` sections, but a really useful addition to the plan are these fittings for the individual feed tubes.

I`ll have two fitted to each loop, giving 16 feed outlets per loop, I`ll block one off on each leaving me the desired 15 outlets for my 15 main plants.

I bought a second pump, a maxi jet750 (670 lph). I`ll run tests to establish how long it takes to feed 1 liter and then work out times for my pumps. I`m going to go with free flowing tubes into the pots as opposed to drippers, so long as the pressure is even/high enough.

For my anti syphoning I`m going to drill a 1-2mm hole just below the highest point of the tube, just under the lid of the res, apparently it doesn`t rob from the pump pressure too much as it sends a trickle back to the res when the pump is on, and it allows air into the pipe once the pump switches off, preventing the continuation of flow to the pots. A guy at the shop showed me the system in a set-up he had running there.

I`ve been very busy pruning out excess tops, I now have both rows of Armageddon under control and I`m about a 3rd of the way through the row of Grapefruit. As I suspected the Grapefruit are a lot more difficult to sort out than the arma`s, so stretchy and just so many tops. I`m not sure with this plant being more sativa influenced whether I should be chopping to arrive at the same headcount as the Arma`s, but that`s what I`m doing, it just seems like I`m having to chop most of the Fooking plants tops out and leaving what looks like very little. I`m sure this will change as the plants develop and flowers develop, they`re definitely well behind the other strains in that respect at this point.

Here are the Grapefruit, you can see where I`ve got to with the pruning out, I`ll get this row finished off tmro, then I`ll get on with the auto feed systems, life will be easy again for a while then, I hope!

Here is an over view of my grow now.

I`ve also potted up 15 of the 30 clones that are largely for mother plant selection that have rooted up. A few others are starting to show roots and will be potted up in the next few days, they all look healthy and I expect them all to root up.

All is looking good and I`m content with how things are going here, The Armageddon in the tent grow has started to be harvested, tops first this week and then the rest next week, I had a look at it after trimming, it looks and smells top drawer and the prospects here are exciting to say the least.

Cheers Toke

Ps.I thought I was being watched when I was potting up these clones, and sure enough. . . .

 

[~Shhh~]

Fook me that lil thing looks like a mini bat!

The grow is looking really good toke, I am really digin what the screen looks like... I hope your dancing with those arma's mate I sure would be! Looks like great Pot to boot.

Toke, re those netafim drip outlets. I have used em before and really didn't like the 8 way ones, I got uneven pressure through the lines, may have been something I done but when I scaled em back to the 4 way outlet fitting all was well. I know you will do your tests n stuff, and I hope they work well for you... but just thought I would give you my experience with em.

Good idea about pump mate, although I have never had one fail on me, they seem pretty reliable it's always good to keep your bases covered

Looks like it should be downhill from here then...

 

[Scrogerman]

WoW, Looks Like your killin it bro! Your doin a great job on the tucking/pruning, it'll be worth getting the right head count in the end & you should get some decent sized buds, imagine if you never pruned out! God, it would be a giant Screen of PoP'C & a Leprecaun's delight lol! Looks great! Looks all down hill from here on out, how many days of 12/12 are they bro?

 

[Tokesome]

Yo thanks guys.

Thanks Shhh for the heads up, I`ll do all the measuring tests once its up and running. I assume you had equal lengths of feed pipe coming off them? Yeah course ya did.

Hey Scrog, from you, that`s saying something, so I`m feeling pretty pleased with myself, but yeah I see the screen in a totally different way to how I saw it before and the plants look happy and not swamping each other out. . . . . well except for the rest of the Grapefruit that is, and they`re gonna get finished off today.

If I have any energy left after that I`ll make a start on the auto feeds, but I`ve been ill the last couple of days, puking etc., so I wont push it too much.

Hey Scrog, they`re on day 14 of 12/12 today. I switched on the 11th May, except for 3 Armageddons that I`ve positioned at the side of the screen, I switched those separately in the cloning cupboard on the 1st of May. So long as the Grapefruit start to catch up all will be good, they`re well behind in bud development compared to the Arma`s and Big Bud at the mo.

Cheers, Toke ;-)

 

[Tokesome]

day 15 of 50/63ish

day 15 of 50/63ish

I`ve gone through the pruning out of the Grapefruit at last, so that`s the lot done. Well except I think the Grape fruit still has far too many heads, I`ll be going through it again within the next few days once they take their shape again, its coming along nicely though. I haven`t done a head count to be honest, I`ve just tried to be ruthless and conservative with the numbers of heads per given area. I probably will do a headcount, especially if its hard to make sense of the Grapefruit, but I thought it`d be good if I can get a good feel for it. I kinda counted a rough area at around 1 head per 5 or 6 squares.

60 per m2 comes out at 1 head per 6.66 squares, dunno what that`s sayin`

I`ve set up an auto feed system for my mate`s grow tent today, and set up one loop to one res for my monstA scrog, lights went out then, but it just needs the feeder attachments and tubes adding and its up and running. I`ve also made an identical loop for the secon res. Its worked out quite cool, no joins over ground, one elbow at the top of the res, from there the tubing runs along the screen and drops down to the middle nft tray below, it then joins a loop which is contained within the tray itself, so any unexpected leaks or seepage will either flow back to the res or into the middle waste res. I should get these both up and running tmro, though I snapped one of the connector spiggots to which the feed tubes attach so need to pick another up from the local shop.

I`m chuffed with the auto feed set-ups, but my 15 minute segment timers are`nt going to be suitable, I`ll have to get a couple of decent digital timers.

Digital timers. . . . mmmm! I`ve tried a couple of the cheapo ones from the supermarket, but they`re really shit and fail more than they work! Any suggestions from uk growers which type to go for??

I want reliability, without too much expense, I`ve spent more than expected on this my room just recently and a bit skint to say the least at the mo.

The plants look happy as Larry on the ec1.4 that they`ve been having for the past few days, the tip burn looks to have cleared up, the new leaf tips in the areas where it was most noticeable are not showing any. I`m sure upping feeding to twice a day has cured this, one greedy Grapefruit plant wont even show any run off when given 2 liters twice a day so I`m thinking about maybe feeding 3 times daily to see if it keeps things more balanced. I still have all the wicks fitted to the pots tho, and I think I might remove them as I think the plants are capable of drinking up the perched water table, then 2 feeds a day may suffice, we`ll see.

Cheers, Toke

 

[Scrogerman]

Good On Ya Buddy!
Yeah that head count is pretty important imo man. Timers, Digi Timers, Well i swear by the Grasslin Digi's, OK they are best part of £20(i think) but very reliable, but also i have a few MasterPlug(brand) Digi Timers & they are good, never once let me down, but they both only have 20 or so programmable settings on them each, again i think! They too have never let me down & are half the price of the grasslins at 9.99 i paid, from Woolies about 8-9 years ago, something like that.
yeah, the EC at 1.4 pretty much seals the answer to the original problem, it must have been flying up & causing the tip burn due to drying out, or do you think it was something else? Its all good for me bacause i wanna give Coco a go pretty soon man! I recieved a cut from a new buddy(UK-Cheese) he was'nt 100% if its the original but it stinks like fk!she was in coco, & i repotted her in a 2 part soil to 30% perlite mix, fed her gave some Zymes(Hygropoo) & She seems very happy along side my SwissCheese & Blackberry that are going out in about 10 days or so, just about to hit them with a 400Hps, that'll bring them on well with a bit of luck! Looking Good for you man! G'Luck!
Peace.........Scroger!

 

[Tokesome]

Yeah mate, defo the drying out in between feeds causing te nute burn.

Hey Scrog, I was in the shop the other day and the guy there told me that the Canna rep told him that they did tests on many leading brands of Zymes and found that there was no Zymes in them whatsoever and that Canna was the only one that really had Zymes in it.

I suspect that to be utter bollocks, but I bought a Cannazym instead of Atazym. I feel pissed off though that I was swung because of this. Its dearer, but says to apply once a week as opposed to all the time with Atazym so shouldn`t be that much more expensive. I thing there is a test involving jam, to test for the level or quality of the zyme product you use, but I cant find it online etc. Just thought I`d throw that in.

I`m not happy with Canna, I complained by email about some nutes with some prcipitation and some coco with bits of plastic in, they replied 3 times to tell me that they`d recieved my complaint and that they`d get back to me. . . . . . which they haven`t, despite me emailing them once again.

Cheers, Toke

 

[~Shhh~]

Toke,

RE- Canna they have telephone numbers for each country on their website I would give a call... From a callbox lol... but seriously give them a call and see what they are willing to do... u never know might get some free nutes!

 

[Tokesome]

Yeay, I`ve now got 2 auto feeding set-ups up and running, just need to get the digi timers. I`ll run checks over the next couple of days to see if they`re running evenly.

Shhh, when you said you used the 8 way splitters and found them to be uneven, did you have them fitted into a loop from the pump, or on a straight supply tube? Just curious.

I`ve constructed mine with the supply being fed from the res through 12mm diameter tubing. It runs along the screen and drops down to the middle tank and connects to a "T" splitter, from this runs a loop of 12mm tubing. Into the loop I have two 8 way splitters to which the 1.2 meter lengths of small diameter feed tubes run to the pots. I only have 15 plants to run from this feed so one is blocked with a short length of feeder tube with a closed off dripper attached. The feed tubes are free flowing, ie. no drippers.

I`ve repeated the above so that I have one set up for each res, you can see the 2 tubes that come from the res droppng down from the screen above and joining the loops in the middle tray.

Hey Scrog, you`ll like this mate, I`ve done a head count and I seem to have done quite well with between 50 and 60 heads per m2. There may be a few more small ones come up that will need removing, but I`ve been pretty thorough both above and beneath the screen, every spare sprout has been removed, leaving the majority of leaves intact. The spacing sure looks right for my mind, loads of stems nicely spaced from each other. There`ll be lots of leaf tucking to be done over the next 2-3 weeks I`m guessing.

Here`s the Armageddon at just 16 days!

The Grapefruit is just starting to take shape too.

The screen is looking cool, but they`re collectively pushing the screen up in the middle. I`m going to have to get down there amongst all the feed tubes and tie it down some more. Next time I`m going with new screen and tied down in the middle so that its a bit lower in the first place.

I`ve potted a further 9 clones up and binned the remaining, the strongest have pushed through already me thinks.

Cheers for now, Toke

 

[~Shhh~]

Gets better each time I look! You seem to have done a lot of pruning but they seem much better for it.

I had the drippers set up in a loop dude. Something like.... Pump>Filter>non-return valve> T>onto loop with outlets spaced equally apart.

 

[Tokesome]

Gets better each time I look! You seem to have done a lot of pruning but they seem much better for it.

I had the drippers set up in a loop dude. Something like.... Pump>Filter>non-return valve> T>onto loop with outlets spaced equally apart.

Yeah, they love the space for sunbathing

Cheers bro, I`ll run some tests over the next couple of days, how did you overcome the lack of balance between drippers in the end?

Toke

 

[Scrogerman]

I'd Complain to the Dutch Canna people if i were you. OK we have a UK site, but if your getting no-where then id be going international. Im sure you'll get further, & imo the Dutch are Less ignorant than Most/All of the rest of the europeans(Sorry - the rest of Europe!), V-Nice & understanding people. If you happen to speak to the right person im sure they'd get on the phone to their UK Reps. Worth a try! I miss living over there & love Holland alot!
Anyway Good Luck!............Scrog

BTW, i found the only way to stop the screen pushing up[ is to fix intermediate strutts spaced at about 750-1000mm say, running straight down the width, with the screen pulled tight over each section. worked well, but i think your tying idea will work a treat too, is that what you did last time man?