DWC cab w/ GHS Trainwreck currently flowering under ~175W floro

[007.]

Hey guys. This is my second grow. The first grow was a GG last summer that didn't really finish in time, but did teach me a few things about growing this plant.

This is my current setup:

I'm using 3x 26W T5's and 4x 26W CFL's. Ventilation is a 70cfm bathroom fan with 4 inch ducting to a DIY carbon filter. I only have one small internal circulation fan, where there is room for improvement.

I should have a DIY LED array hopefully completed in time for this grow, although it will only be able to hit the tail end of flowering.

As you can see from the picture, this strain stretched far more than I had expected. It has grown far beyond the original SCROG, though I have managed to maintain a fairly even canopy with LST. The only issue is that my exhaust fan blocks light to some colas.

There is a ton of popcorn in the mid levels of the plant, which I am OK with, as I plan on making a lot of QWISO from this grow. I usually prefer hash over bud.

The buds up top are looking good, although there is a ton of leaf burn. I recently left my girls for almost two weeks, and the PPM skyrocketed as the water dropped. It's all under control now though, and luckily PH wasn't a concern when this happened. Its only been 3 weeks since the first pistils showed. Judging by how long stretch took, I think this will take over a month longer to finish.

PS: I'm running AN nutes. So far just sensi grow and flower 2 part formulas. I also have Voodoo Juice, but after using it a couple times I've decided it's pretty useless in DWC. Better to just kill all the microbial life in the rez with topups of unbubbled tapwater IMO.

 

[glykogen]

I have subscribed to your grow, looks very promising.

Do you have any PH raise issues as soon as you bubble the water? I just starting my first DWC and i have massive problems to get a stable PH. My water is PH 7.2 / EC 5.8 and without bubbles its all stable. I'm lower the PH atm with PH- from Advanced Hydroponics which is 38% nitrit acid. I'm lowering it to PH 5.7 EC 0.8 and 60 minutes later my PH raised to 6.0... Atm i have to lower it several times a day, which gets quite annoying.

 

[007.]

How big is your reservoir? A bigger res helped me a bit with the speed of the PH rise. The upward PH swing is (in my understanding) caused by dissolved gasses bubbling off. One way to fix it would be to get a small aquarium air pump for like $30 and pre-bubble your water before adding it to the res. Bubble for a couple days and you shouldn't have PH rise. Although you'll start off with a much higher PH probably.

I started out with a much smaller reservoir (that was always intended as a starter res) than I have now. Since putting in the big 70 liter one, I haven't really had PH issues. If I dial in the PPMs just right, PH doesn't move a single point for as long as a week.

One thing to note is that you don't have to change your res very often. Just do it when the plants are looking a little weak. I let it go for 2-3 weeks at a time, just adding top-ups and keeping PPMs up.

 

[007.]

I've added some 65W of CFL, some mylar in key spots, and did a rez change. I added some sensi grow b to the mix as a lucas-like way to get some extra potassium without increasing phosphorous.

The increase in light coverage from the extra light and mylar have already made a visible impact on bud development.

I got my first couple amber trichs. I don't think I'll be able to get the LEDs in this grow. I'd like to run a couple weeks of overdrive if I still have time.

Next time I need to be sure to have a full line of flowering nutes and a better light on hand before I need them.

 

[007.]

Trichs are swelling and buds are looking frosty! These are from yesterday:

I don't think I'll have time for overdrive. I'm probably going to give it another 5 or 6 days and then start the flush. I'll keep playing it by ear, but that's the plan for now. And I'll probably do a long flush, maybe finishing up with a couple days of molasses and darkness.

 

[Aerohead]

Hey 007, very nice work, those colas look tasty, just thought I would offer an opinion on your flush.
I would wait more like 2 weeks than 5 days to flush. Unless you need to harvest asap for some other reason, let them go longer.

I love growing with CFL's because the buds you get are top shelf, some of the best personal stash ever, but packing the weight on is a challenge.
Recently, I discoverd that they mature slightly slower with CFL lighting (likely due to the spectrum) and if you let them finish a couple weeks later, they reward you with frosty dense nugs.

 

[007.]

I could do a longer flush. I just figured that in DWC a week would be fine. I'll probably play it by ear, watching how the plant reacts. I'll probably just continue flushing until it looks like the trichs are perfect.

I wasn't even really planning on using the CFLs so long. I'd originally planned on dropping a Hydrogrow Penetrator in, but I'm too paranoid about shipping it across the border. So then I decided to go the DIY route, but I just haven't had the money for a good system. Oh well, next time I should have the LEDs. And this grow was always intended to be a headstash grow, and I don't really smoke that much quantity anymore.

Next time I'd like to grow either Iranian autoflowers (I just need to decide whether or not to GG this summer) or some heavy producers. If I don't get the LEDs going, I'll probably get a 400 HPS w/ a cooltube. I'd like to try a 600, but that might be a little ambitious wattage-wise for my current place.

 

[007.]

Well, trichs haven't been getting amber anymore after the first couple. I've got a really bad magnesium deficiency, which I think is probably caused by a lockout due to having so much calcium in my tapwater. I'm foliar spraying with epsom salts to correct the deficiency. Some leaves are so burnt by now though I'm probably just going to cut them to eliminate their shade.

I'm going to try to change my rez today if I have time before work. I got Big Bud and Overdrive. I hope I'll have time to use both. If I don't start seeing some more bud development in the coming days though, I'm going to cut the Big Bud and start Overdrive.

 

[007.]

It's been a while since my last update. I ran both Big Bud and Overdrive. I wish I'd used Big Bud longer, as growth really slowed once I switched to Overdrive, and foxtailing increased. I was a little apprehensive about using a booster with so much nitrogen on a sativa-leaning hybrid. Looks like I was right. Should have stuck to just Big Bud, which really did produce some good swell.

It looks like Autumn in my cab. I've been flushing for a little over a week now. Some buds are starting to get purple parts. I've got insane foxtailing all over the place, and at least a few seeded areas, although I can't find any nanners. A test bud tasted, smoked, and "headed" fantastically. The foxtailing I believe is from high temps (80-90), caused by the fact that I used to much carbon on my DIY filter for my fan to push through very effectively. It's also causing a fair amount of smell, though it doesn't usually leave the room that the cab is in.

I'm thinking about getting a PC fan hooked up to a drainage line to force very cold (like -20 C) air from outside into the cab to bring down temps and hopefully bring some purple to the rest of the buds.

I never really got the magnesium deficiency under control, and a lot of leaves fried from the deficiency. I added epsom salts directly to the rez, but the only thing that helped really was foliar spraying, which I stopped due to approaching harvest time.

My nutra-drip trimeter has decided to become a piece of crap. The TDS meter is messed up. The more load I have on the same breaker as the tri-meter, the higher it says my PPMs are. Lights on it says 900. Lights off 300. If I turned off everything else on the breaker (pump, fans, my computer, and various other things), I don't know what it would say. I could turn off everything non-grow related and re-calibrate it to get a lights on perfect calibration, but that seems like a lot of work this late in the game. Instead I'll just flush today and maybe once more midweek, then harvest next week!

 

[007.]

Went with a two week flush. I chopped most of the good buds down, and lowered the lights. I also fed the plant a few hundred PPMs of Big Bud. I'll probably add sensi two part as well. I'll run the popcorn for another week before flushing (just one week for that flush) and harvesting that.

I think I've got a zip point five, maybe two drying now. I've got a ton of great trim too. Not an awesome yield, but with all floro's, I'm pretty happy. I've learned a lot from this grow that will help me when I switch to LED/HID for next time.


Here's the goods:

This bud looks particularly tasty:

In this pic you can clearly see two issues some of my buds have. Really scraggly looking pistil formations that may be related to seeding, and burnt tips of bract leaves because of a magnesium defficiency.

Here's a nice shot of the forest of buds:

As you can see, I had a lot of foxtailing possibly due to temps that hit 90 regularly.

This last pic is actually from weeks ago. But I just love all the little trichomes, so I'm going to post it here.