This is the wettest I've ever been in my life!

[stihgnobevoli]

its hard to take pictures with the macro mode and no tripod my room isnt bright enough and my hands arent as steady as they used to be. but im giessing it was just too wet, or something the little baby seedling i started in a tiny bit of rockwool i squeezed some of the water out and then put more rocks between it and the res so its either gonna be too dry and die now, or the roots will grow out from the rockwool and reach the water before it dies. i took the other one out of the little piece of cup that was holding the rootball in dirt. the roots have completely colonized that bit of soil and i was able to just wrap it in some mesh cloth to keep any bits of dirt out of the res, and i removed the rockwool that i had lining that cup. it seems the GH brand of rockwool stays way wetter than the grodan i had been using previously for years. we shall see what happens.

before i took it out of the netpot and the dirt sleeve.

after i removed it and wrapped the dirtball in mesh. so far it seems to be working, we have a root reaching the bottom of the netpot and it hasnt withered and died yet.

nothing on the other one in rockwool thought. waiting. im thinking its gonna dry out and die if i dont top water it till the roots come out.

 

[hazydreams]

ok yea, from what im seeing your air gap is too large for the clones. i would raise the water level and toss the rock wool in the garbage. Fill the reamining space with lava rock and cover the net pots like you have been doing.

you want the bottom of the roots touching the water. but not the soil medium. that should get them going. be careful when top watering to ensure your not drowning them.

 

[chosen]

Go Stihg... Way to bring em back.

 

[stihgnobevoli]

beginning week 14 from seed / week 8 from flower. i mistakenly called last week week 6 flower, it was week 7.

ok so theyre growing again, im surprised by the littlest one its still got no roots showing out the bottom but its on the 3rd node now since i re-positioned it. funny thing is its showing preflowers even though its just been in stasis for a month practically. smallest plant ive ever grown. tits in a minute.

sasha seedling over a month old. i see pistils but they're on opposite corners i think hermy. im going to watch it, if this one turns out hermy i might have to scrap those last 2 batches of seeds i made i introduced some hermy genes in there somewhere.

i dont have a name for this, unknown bagseed #9000 the other one was a male i thought this one would hermy but what i thougth were balls were leaves developing. looks nice after the fimming i gave it. i cant really tell how many tops if any are coming out, it will have to stretch some more first, its just a big cluster right now.

group shot, from left to right sasha,UBS#9000, juanita, misha.

juanita, really starting to fill in, in fact its bigger now at 8 weeks than it was at 15 weeks when i harvested it last round in soil. the buds are fuller i should say, i actually managed to keep it very short this time. last time it was a monster.

misha side shot blurry and overexposed.
if you can see that lower bud on the right side, i just chopped that off to make clones and as a sample smoke. im thinking i would be chopping next week but the root damages in weeks 4, 5 and 6 of flower have hurt this plants yields. i might take the top in a couple of weeks and let the rest go depending on trichs. whe i checked last it was mostly cloudy and partially clear with no amber.

my clones are still sitting on the windersill, it got hot then it got cold then hot again and now its raining...i pulled one out the other day, the one with the leaves turning purple and still no roots, i hope it sprouts some before it runs out of nitrogen in those leaves. i really like the stickyness and stench of this one, reminiscent of the original misha but much much more yield. heres a picture.

the 3 stalks on the left are sasha and misha.
sasha/misha/sasha

these are all the miracle plants from my first hydro attempt, i tranplanted em to soil .

 

[stihgnobevoli]

i wish i had some more of the one on the right. jenny, biggest yielder i've ever had.

 

[Sgt.Stedenko]

Hey stigh,
Those older buds look real nice.
K+

 

[stihgnobevoli]

thanks man, i think i sprouted 12-16 seeds, in 3 categories. i poured out my collection of bagseeds (my old one was lost in a fire) and then i selected all the smallest ones and all the largest ones. my hypothesis was that the larger seeds were indica plants and the smaller seeds were more sativa. i got like 5-6 large, 5-6 small, and 5 random seeds and i sprouted and labeled em to see what would happen. i did it in a hydro setup that was lacking on everything you need for hydro except water and a pump. lol, but luckily these ones survived the torture and we have some awesomeness several years later.

 

[stihgnobevoli]

i had taken the last of the lower branches off the other day for samples and cuz i needed more clone potentials as the ones i took previously havent sprouted roots yet.
anyway it stinks when i rub the buds and stem but i couldnt identify what it was i was smelling. like a pine scent, and something sweet, and something smelly.
i think it smells like farts is the best i can describe it. im gonna have to go back a generation and make a new cross, i cant have my weed smelling like farts, this kush gene is so strong. all these years i have been cultivating this plant to smell fruity and delicious, now it just smells generic kush. bleh.

looks nice though.

 

[stihgnobevoli]

i took the top off misha today beginning of week 9 flower.
looked mostly cloudy, im gonna let the rest go amber and see what i like more. also found some more nanners popping out here and there. im gonna build a new box for my next run this one has got too many leaks i think.

 

[stihgnobevoli]

wed 4-13 week 10 flower, i dont know how many from seed, whatever i said last time plus 1.

before

after

juanita lower branch sample.

hydro certainly seems to be faster for this one, plus i havent changed the res in 2 weeks+ something between that is causing this plant to ripen much sooner than the previous 17 weeks of flower it went in soil. im thinking its gotta be the nutes running out. in soil i watered plain water for like 6 weeks and it was still throwing out new pistils. in hydro with other plants it seems that the nitrogen is able to get used faster and now we're getting to plain water in there.

imma let it go another week or 2 cuz the trichs are about all cloudy plus the misha is starting to put out some amber and turn purple. the clones are all turning purple too i done know if thats a natural response to lack of nitrogen or the cold temps from sitting on my windowsill for like a month now? i lost track. night temps still drop to like 40's. cab temps are like 70's at night.
the misha a generation before this one started to go purple due to lack of nitrogen. but it was only leafs on that one, this one the buds turn purple too. i thought they were turning brown at first and i was worried it might be mold.

anyways. 1-2 more weeks and we clean house and start the clones hopefully as well as give some more food to that other guy i think i called it ubs#9000 last time, imma stick with that name; he's been slowly running out of nitrogen for ...ever i guess but now more so since the roots finally started coming out of the bottom of the pot... FINALLY. And they will explode soon, like really explode those roots have been building up in that soilball for 2 months almost. soon as these ones are gone its gonna take off.

whoever said airgap too great was right, i moved it up to the pot level and as it gradually went down the roots followed and lived. Thank you.

im rambling now, well ive been rambling a while now, took a hit from the bong before i started typing. misha misha misha...
little tiny thing too, like 4 whole calyxes and a finger from a sugar leaf mixed with some baccy.

 

[stihgnobevoli]

OK, i went and bought a TDS meter yesterday...

NOW WHAT?

i ppm/tds'd the water in my res and it was 630, i ppm my tap and it was 140, i refilled the res with just plain water and the ppm is now 330 or so. what happen? is that bad? this was much easier when i was just watching the plants and checking the ph.

i took misha out of the res and set the roots in a container with a little water (like 1/4 cup) and covered it with a back and stuck it in my closet. im gonna chop it in like a few days to a week.

im thinking ill chop juanita this week, maybe even today im still debating. i have a plan in mind for a certain amount of weed before i take a certain vacation this year and im running out of time to meet my goals and need to start my next clones, but i cant raise plants with no nutes in the res and i cant finish flowering this sativa with a res containing nutes.

anyway get at me about the tds meter cuz im totally lost.

 

[hazydreams]

Ok so you bought a TDS meter. what to do-

your going to use this in conjunction with the PH meter.

Your looking for the PH to be set at around 5.6 and drift upward to say about 6.2 over the course of a week.

during this time you want to see the TDS of your solution going down. Showing that the nutrient solution is being used by the plant and thus the water PH is rising.

PH up / TDS down - is too little nutrient.
PH down / TDS up - is too much nutrient.

The swing im speaking of accounts for the fact that no two nutrients are optimally available at one given PH range. so the gradual rise ensures MG, CA and S uptake for the plant.

I should also discuss reservoir changes. Now that you have the TDS pen. Its possible for you to add back the perfect amount to "keep the TDS the same". to top off the res this is a fine practice. To run a res for longer then say a month is insanity. That pen will not account for any one nutrients PPM amount in the water, Only the total amount of dissolved nutrient salts in it. So you could be throwing the ratios of your nutrient profile off by not doing a res change out over time and constantly adding back nutrients. People will insist I'm wrong, and to each his own. I'm confident that my plants have never looked better once i left that "i can use the res for ever mindset".

keep it green.

 

[stihgnobevoli]

thanks for replying Hazy.

update on the plant. singular. i chopped the misha, and i saw juanita appeared to be throwing out new leaves again so i just chopped em. misha on like saturday and juanita just the other day. Misha was fulla nanners on the outermost cluster of buds and juanita as i said growing more leaf. i think one of my roommates been peekin in my cab during lights out.

anyways i started a couple more seeds as my clones arent ready yet. the perlite cloner works a treat, its just this crazy weather we've been having never stay warm enough for roots to grow proper, as a result over a month and only 1 has roots, a lot of em at that but no new growth. lol it was actually the smallest clone i fimmed the bud and left the 2 leaves then i stuck it in the cloner. has roots but still needs to reform a new growing tip. i figure it will either make one of the leaf stems turn into a branch or reverse the little calyx into a tiny leaf which will turn into a tiny branch then a stem.

im doing some bagseed i found from a sack of weed i bought and lost 8 years ago, as well as a juanita X kush (ssk) and some other random seeds i found hiding out under my monitor.

 

[stihgnobevoli]

i guess ill update.

ok of the seeds i planted 3 have come up, 1 i call tails cuz it had a taproot when i planted it in perlite, one called sonic that hadn't popped yet, and the ssk(JuanitaxKush).

also good news. i've identified juanita. according to the ultimate sativa thread. its a lowland oaxacan strain called sugarcane.

An uglier, darker lowland oaxaca (one of several lowland or coastal oaxacas, this one is called sugarcane). doesn't look that resinous I know, but I'll put this up against TW gram for gram anyday believe it or not. Its a very powerful herb, but not the most euphoric. Very dumbing.

not the best representation cuz its so leafy. but the buds i picked out of the jar last night looked identical just not completely done.

misha, whats left im gonna let the rest cure for a couple months and then ill try it again. very smooth smoke without cure but the ash is black on the other hand juanita smoke is kinda thick and expansive and the ash is white/grey with no cure just fresh dried.

 

[hazydreams]

ok man. what we have to work on it over all density and keeping the roots in good shape. you should add benis and keep the res temp low and see what happens. I suggest cleaning the system with a 20% bleach solution and flushing it thoroughly. add bleach at the prescribed rate every two days to obtain a sterile reservoir. you will see a substantial increase in yields keeping the roots healthy. i promise. I would also attempt to cool the res to keep it at the minimum temp possible (68-70 degrees as optimal) to obtain the best O2 saturation rates possible. add frozen soda bottles of water every few hours during lights on, you will see an increase i promise.

keep it green,

 

[stihgnobevoli]

just so im clear how much bleach am i adding? im going to try it the next res change. i have a small tub that hold like 1.5 gallons of water at the high water mark/bottom of the pots. im adding 20% bleach? that doesn't sound right at all. that's like almost a quart of bleach. so far the cab has been about 85 or so degrees at the top of the box the plant chamber is like10 below so around 76 degrees, the res is about 70 degrees as of this morning when i checked.
its almost summer... one of these days and i expect it will be harder to keep such low temps. will the bleach help prevent rot in these situations of high water temps? also how come hempy buckets dont have these issues? theres no airstones in the water and they can take hotter temps. what gives?

 

[hazydreams]

DO NOT ADD 20% BLEACH MIXTURE TO YOUR RES WITH PLANTS IN IT!

couple drops max for day to day sterilizing the running reservoir. the dosage is listed on the forum elsewhere. take a look around the hydro forum.

the 20% bleach is to wash the reservoir and rid any baddies in or on the res. then rinse the it a a couple times. use it to clean your net pots and to sterilize the lava rock to ensure nothing bad is going on in there.

sorry i wasn't clear. side effect of growing good weed...

i wish you luck

keep it green.

 

[Sgt.Stedenko]

Stig,
Add bleach at the rate of 0.5 ml/gallon. 0.5 ml = 10 drops.
It should last for 3-4 days before you need to replenish.

 

[hazydreams]

Sarge nailed it. That will do ya fine. give up using any beneficial bacteria if your using them. i have tried this in a pinch when suffering root rot and had varying levels of success bringing them back. The bleach def stops anything in there from living. the rest of the plants recovery was based on how much damage the rot did. yeilds still suffered dramatically from the rot when the plants bounced back.

prevention is worth a million pounds of the cure. so use really have a couple choices to prevent rot from taking hold, add the the bleach every 3-4 days (your way), or add a huge dose of beneficial bacterial every 14 day/res change (my way). there's also adding hydrogen peroxide as well thats every couple days as well. but they all have to be added to your maintenance regiment and there is no one silver bullet. i have a chiller and still run benis just in case. rot is bad bad news and will cause harvest similar to what you experienced. you want those roots white far far into late flower as possible. not brown. a little brown isn't bad. if they are all brown the plant is not feeling good.

 

[stihgnobevoli]

ok i just added 10 drops of bleach to the res, i hope it helps my plants roots have been stalled since i changed the res i think it has to do with the... critters in the water. i think they are from the soil, i noticed now that theres only one plant in there with roots that don't touch water there we'rent any of those little critters in the res. but the soil portion was dry so i dunk the whole netcup in the res to keep the roots moist till they reach water and what do i see. all of a sudden a million of the little critters. i thought maybe they were some sort of beneficial creatures, but now almost a week later and roots still not in water and they are looking slightly brown now even though its been cool all week, cab has barely been 80 degrees in the top with the ballast, the res should have been below 70 degrees the whole time.

anyway ill keep you posted.

smoked some more misha(zombie kush) as i call it i still cant identify the smell. it doesnt smell like a dead body when i crack the jar anymore just like minty weed smell. but when that initial green smell fades theres a strange smell. clones are still taking their sweet time revegging, i might not make my deadline.