LED vertical scrog

DunHav`nFun said:

From 4-18-38 to 4-20-39 sounds like a marketing ploy when CO went legal Icky....I never put those 2 things together but damn......I mean....you can`t blame em when their mater mix that a whole buncha folks from Cali bought back in the day they KNEW wasn`t for maters ….Cmon …..4-20 for growin dope ?.....

Sounds like the mater mix with new labeling ta me , but I`m a cynical old bastard.....I could only hope it`s a new mix to help stoners grow the most potent dope with their brand.....yeah right.....but.....

You`ll do good with it cuz you know howta act and react with problems should they arise from a new juice setup.....anyways.....

Peace.....DHF...… …...

Click to expand...

Yup that is what I was thinking. But is slightly lower in the nitrogen than the tomato is. Not much but about 1/12th. And the potassium is slightly lower.

Today I had to makes some clones. I dont need very many for my self. The 3 plants I just put in flower will yield around 3 pounds. And I do that about ones a month. So not many clones needed.

But I have some one who needs a dozen next month. And that is why I made some clones. It is a quick $120 for making them.

Lets go over how I make my clones. First we need to talk about where I make them. It is mid 70's and the RH hovers between 45 and 50%. Kind of ideal.

The first thing I do is round up my supplies. Which lordy just happen to be right where I clone. How lucky is that. Here is what I will need.



I start by making a nutrient solution. It consist of GH Micro, GH bloom and Thrive Alive B-1. I use 4 ml of each in RO water. I shake it up and adjust the PH to 5.8-6.0. Now set that aside for a few minutes.

Next I get the tray ready. I scrub it out and clean it up. Then I put in some water. Not much just enough so that it is not above the indents on the bottom of the tray. In this water I will add 3-5 drops of bleach to each side of the tray. The water will look like this in the bottom of the tray.



Now I take that nutrient solution and pour some into a container. In this one it is 3 maybe 4 inches deep. I drop in 6 Root Riot plugs in this container with the nutrient solution in it.



Pushing my hand down on the plugs I squeeze all the air out of them. Pulling my hand out they will suck the nutrient solution up. I will pick one plug up at a time and gently squeeze the nutrient solution out. I want them damp and not wet. So that if I squeeze them real tight a little water will come out. Maybe a half teaspoon worth.

To much and the clones will rot and to little and they will wilt and die.

Once I have the plugs ready I will put them in a 6 pack container. To this container I will add a 6 inch plant stake with the plant strain and the date. And lastly I grab a kebab stick.



Now it is time to get the clones. I like a decent sized healthy clone. I dont trim the leaves. Except the ones that are where the stem will go into the plug. I like to have at least one of these trim sites in the plug.

So I grab a clone cut it at a 45 degree angle just below a node and scratch the side next to the node. I just use my trimmer scissors to rough up the skin. Here is what I want my clones to look like. I cant always get this nice of a clone. Some times they are skinny compared to this. Or a little bigger.

I take 6 of these clones and put them into the cloning solution. I like to use Dip N Grow. It has alcohol in it which will sterilize the clone stem. I let them sit in the container of rooting solution for at least 10 seconds.

Make sure you shake up the bottle when you make the cloning solution. That little container in front of the Dip N Grow is what you use to dip the clones in. There is a line on the bottom to show how much Dip N Grow to put in the container. The rest is filled with water.

After sitting in the cloning solution I use the kebab stick to punch a new hole in the Root Riot plug. The holes that are in the plug are to loose for most clones so I just make a new one to use.

Once I have 6 clones done I will put them in my tray. I will put 3 sets of 6 clones to a tray. I place the containers of 6 clones each in the center of the tray.



For most of the year I am lucky and dont have to use a heating mat. The water in the bottom and the heat of the room with a dome over them is enough to keep the clones from wilting on me. Here you can see some moisture on a dome of clones I did yesterday. And the dome I just put on the clones I just made.



In about 5 days I will check to make sure there is still some water in the bottom of the tray. At that time I will check all the clones to make sure the plug has not dried out to much. If it does I will drip a few drops on the top of the plug of the nutrient solution I mixed earlier.

I will then start checking every day to see how they are doing. Whether they dry out, shoot out roots, or die I want to keep a eye on them

WaxyTaxi said:

https://www.jacksnutrients.com/online-store/15-5-20-Tap-p101272609

i think this is what that dude was using

Click to expand...

Is he adding anything to that? There is no sulfur in that at all.

So this is the 4th day of flower now. The plants are filling in a little.



Here they are on the first day.



This 3.5 days of growth since they went into flower. What is even better is that they are now at 3 nodes on the tips. I only left one node. And remember these are the best buds sites. Not those small ones closer to the stem that produce small buds.

Looking good, as usual my bro...

How far from he screen would you say those lights are?

swapmeet said:

Looking good, as usual my bro...

How far from he screen would you say those lights are?

Click to expand...

Bout 18-20 inches.

FedEx dropped this off this morning. If you look at the tape on the box it says Hydro-Gardens all over it. So if you order from them be aware of this. You dont want a package thief stealing something like that.

Or like me you dont want it sent UPS since my neighbor works for UPS. But Fedex is quite a drive from my house. The last I knew about 40 miles away.





And this is what I ordered the other day. I think this will allow me to get away from adding Cal/Mag under the LEDs. Since I can just increase the Calcium Nitrate which I already add. And I can up the Magnesium Sulphate which I also already add. So no extra items to worry about adding.

When I did the ration the Jack's was 8.33 compared to the Chemgro's 4 in the Nitrogen. So I could get extra calcium for that extra Calcium Nitrate.

Chemgro recommends a 2 grams of the 4-20-39 and 2 grams of the Calcium Nitrate per gallon. Jack's recommends 3 grams per gallon of the 5-12-26 and 2 grams of the Calcium Nitrate. So that works out like this for the nitrogen:

((3*5)+(2*15.5))/5=9.2 Jack's
((2*4)=(2*15.5))/4=9.75 Chemgro

So here is where the difference comes in. The phosphorus works out like this:

(3*12)/5=7.2 Jack's
(20*2)/4=10 Chemgro

And the potassium like this:

(3*26)/5=15.6 Jack's
((2*39)/4=19.5 Chemgro

So at these recommended rations the numbers work out to these:

9.20-7.20-15.6 for the Jack's
9.75-10.0-19.5 for the Chemgro

Looking at that you can see the nitrogen goes up slightly in the Chemgro which is a 5% increase in nitrogen. But look at the potassium. That is up almost 38% and the phosphorus is up 25%.

Now I never had a problem with the nitrogen amount in the Jack's. So I could jump up the calcium nitrate to what the Jack's ration is and grab that extra calcium. Like about a 25% increase. And even increasing the calcium nitrate 25% would still give me a boost in the potassium above the Jack's as well. And my plants look like they could use a jump in that as well.

I welcome any thoughts on this that you guys might have.

Lets play with some numbers. First we need between 100 and 150 ppm of calcium. And Magnesium needs to be half of that.

I am going err on the high side and say 150 ppm of calcium and 75 ppm of magnesium.

So the formula for calcium nitrate is Ca(NO3)2. With calcium being 24.4% of that. To get that I did this calculation.

Ca=40
N=14
O=16

40((14+(3*16))*2)= 164
40/164=24.4

Now to get the PPM of calcium to 150 ppm in a gallon the formula looks like this:

X= weight of calcium
Gallon of water= 3785 grams

(X/(X+3785)*1,000,000=150

OK now move things around to solve for X I get this:

X=(150*3785)/1,000,000-150=0.5678

So I need 0.5678 grams of calcium. And since calcium is 24.4% of calcium nitrate I would need 2.33 grams of calcium nitrate.

0.5678/.244=2.33

Lets look at what that does to the ratios from the last post.

We are using 2 grams of the 4-20-39.
We are using 2.33 grams of the calcium nitrate.

So the ratio then is 23 parts calcium nitrate to 20 parts 4-20-39.
The number would look like this then:

23*15.5=356.6 Calcium nitrate
20*4=80 nitrate in 4-20-39

(356.6+80)/43=10.15

So the new ratio is 10.15% nitrate. Looking at the last post that gives me a ratio now of 10.15-10.0-19.5.

And I said we could raise the nitrogen in the Jack's by 25% to match the Chemgro. If you look at the Jack's the nitrogen was 9.2 and the phosphorus was 7.2. The new ration barely put the Chemgro above the phosphorus.

And the potassium was 15.6 to the Jack's nitrogen of 9.2. With the Jack's that is about a 2 to 3 ratio of nitrogen to potassium. So with that we are still way under at about a 1 to 2 ratio with the Chemgro.

I still have room to up the calcium nitrate and get even higher numbers than the recommended 150 PPM of the calcium nitrate.

Thoughts anyone?

So getting a little more accurate with the numbers we get this.

Jack's 3 grams
Calcium nitrate 2 grams
Magnesium sulfate 1 gram
Water 3785
Total weight 3+2+1+3785=3791 grams

Calcium is 24.4% of the calcium nitrate so it is .488 gram of the solution.

So the PPM of the calcium in the solution is:

(0.488/3791)*1000000= 129 PPM

Now the Chemgro
Chemgro 2 grams
Calcium nitrate 2.33 grams
Magnesium sulfate 1.45 grams
Total weight 2+2.33+1.45+3785=3790.78

So the PPM of the calcium is:

0.244*1.45=0.5685 grams of calcium

(0.5685/3790.78)*1,000,000= 150 PPM

So the PPM of the new formula with the Chemgro is 150 PPM verses 129 PPM.

Here is how I got the 1.45 grams for the magnesium sulfate.

0.2 is the percentage of magnesium in MgSO4

1.45*0.2=0.29 grams magnesium

(0.29/3790.78)*1,000,000=76.5 PPM of the magnesium. That is close enough to the 1 magnesium to 2 calcium number I need.

So I think I am going to start feeding at:

2 grams Chemgro
2.33 grams calcium nitrate
1.45 grams Epson salt

All this in a gallon of RO water.

So to make this a little easier to mix I have settled on this mix here:

2.0 grams 4-20-39
2.5 grams calcium nitrate
1.5 grams magnesium salt

That gives me a PPM of

79 magnesium
161 calcium

SO now I need to mix it and check the EC.

So after mixing this up the EC came out at 1.4 and the PH was 6.0.

I recalibrated the PH meter before I ran this.

So now to test a plant to see how it does under the LEDs. I am hoping that it will clear up some of the cal/mag issues I have been having which I raised my EC to cover. If this dont work I can run a little higher EC or raise the calcium nitrate amount.

when did icmag add a math forum?

unclefishstick said:

when did icmag add a math forum?

Click to expand...

It is remedial math for you.

my religion forbids me from doing anything more complicated than add or subtract...

unclefishstick said:

my religion forbids me from doing anything more complicated than add or subtract...

Click to expand...

Well if people would post something I wouldn't have to post math.

So to make this a little easier to mix I have settled on this mix here:

2.0 grams 4-20-39
2.5 grams calcium nitrate
1.5 grams magnesium salt

That gives me a PPM of

79 magnesium
161 calcium

SO now I need to mix it and check the EC.

Click to expand...

did you add the 0.35% Mg from the 4-20-39 ? i got 79 ppm of Mg from the MgSO4 but 1.8 as well from the 4-20-39.

Ichabod Crane said:

So after mixing this up the EC came out at 1.4 and the PH was 6.0.

I recalibrated the PH meter before I ran this.

So now to test a plant to see how it does under the LEDs. I am hoping that it will clear up some of the cal/mag issues I have been having which I raised my EC to cover. If this dont work I can run a little higher EC or raise the calcium nitrate amount.

Click to expand...

hello brother! i've been smoking some and started to look the numbers and went to excel myself... just for fun,

so after all these specs, i'm guessing the final ppms of the solution you prepared are (i only ran the numbers you provided in the posts before).
N 123.3
P 105.5
K 205.8
Mg 81.0
Ca 160.9
S 126.6 (i just calculated through the MgSO4 as 32% S)

if it's correct then maybe i can ask you some questions? if not... maybe go back to the classroom...

thanks for all the insights you are sharing with us, i appreciate it a lot!
best regards,

pongster said:

did you add the 0.35% Mg from the 4-20-39 ? i got 79 ppm of Mg from the MgSO4 but 1.8 as well from the 4-20-39.



hello brother! i've been smoking some and started to look the numbers and went to excel myself... just for fun,

so after all these specs, i'm guessing the final ppms of the solution you prepared are (i only ran the numbers you provided in the posts before).
N 123.5
P 105.7
K 206.1
Mg 81.1
Ca 161.2
S 126.8 (i just calculated through the MgSO4 as 32% S)

if it's correct then maybe i can ask you some questions? if not... maybe go back to the classroom...

thanks for all the insights you are sharing with us, i appreciate it a lot!
best regards,

Click to expand...

No I did not add the 0.35%. Good catch.

Your numbers are pretty close to what I got. I did mine right right there on the screen. So there could be rounding error.

Either way it is almost dead on to the recommended 1 Mag to 2 Cal.

You can ask away but I may not be able to answer since I am a rookie at this.

Ichabod Crane said:

No I did not add the 0.35%. Good catch.

Your numbers are pretty close to what I got. I did mine right right there on the screen. So there could be rounding error.

Either way it is almost dead on to the recommended 1 Mag to 2 Cal.

You can ask away but I may not be able to answer since I am a rookie at this.

Click to expand...

thanks for replying bro, since university these kind of subjects light something in my brain =)
my queries are mostly about the ratios, and the feeding way, in relation with lights and grow method... (i'm high, i'm sorry if i can't make myself clear). this is mostly why i needed the numebrs to be correct hahaha

you see, when i ran my numbers with the ferts i'm using, and comparing with some recipes from Head, DJM and other big names; the amounts are always crazy different.

still, some kind of ratio can be seen throughout all recipes for coco, so my questions are:
1. are you using this ratio for the entire cycle?
2. do you think ratios or ppms should vary according to the grow method and mostly, irrigation method?
2.5 do you adjust the recipe for different stages? i mean, keeping the ratios together, and increasing EC.
3. when did you realize this was your aimed ratio/recipe?
4. if by changing EC, or changing the ratio of nutrients, how do you adjust your pH? and after adjusting, do you take into account the added elements of the pH modifier?

just some ratios regarding these numbers:
N 0.9
N:K 1.7
P:K 2
N:Ca 1.3
Ca:K 1.28
Ca:Mg 1.98
N:Mg 0.65

so kind of... N 1 - P 1 - K 2 - Ca 1.3 - Mg 0.65 - S 1

so yeah, thanks a lot for your time and dedication! maybe the questions are quite dumb, if you have any comments i will appreciate each of them,
ty!
cheers