12 biobucket sog/scrog

Alright! The buckets are broke out of storage and re-assembeled. I'll start by saying what i have planned and then move on to what i have done allready.

So far i'v sprouted
10 chem d x sour d
10 kali most
5 chemhaze x sour d
5 fat russians
5 neveills haze x grapefruit (femms)

100% germination on all seeds.




The plan is to have 2 driiferent setups. My "1K cabinet", and a 600w tubbler setup. The 1000 watter has 12 5 gallon buckets under it paced about as tight as it gets. Space is just over 4 feet by just over 5 feet. The walls are very tightkeeping all light where it should be. Very little dispersment. Heat was a problem but it's all sorted out now. a couple of 6" elecient fans took care of the heat.







All of the buckets have airstones for peace of mind sake. I have 12 spare 60gal aquarium air pumps so i figured why not? Buckets are built virtually to big tokes specs and have been used before. My res is outside the growspace. I've got a blanket over it to reduce noise of a large waterfall and to ensure no light gets at it. It's big. 2200 gph pump . I'v got a raised central colonization/lava filter that all return water passes through. I've got the fancy aquarium fish filter (floval 305) inline on the way to my chiller that rests on the other side of the wall. It puts out a bit of heat. As do the ballasts, lights, ect. So I've got a "hot room" That allows all the hot air to be dealt with by heating the rest of the house. 2 more 6" elecient fans in there too. Here is the res and if you turn your head to the side it's more of a "hot hall"."







Ac up front chiller's in the back. Havn't needed the ac yet and wont now that winter's coming.

All variables are good. My thermometer and rh stat are directly under the light so it is the hottest and least rh place in the room.






I know about the temp. It's allready taken care of. Ph has been stable for over a week. No fluctuation at all.

I was really impatient and decided to throw the 5 chemdxsourd and 5 nevhazxgrapefruit directly under the 1k almost as soon as they had their first true leaves.
Did i mention really impatient/stupid?
Anywhat you may notice 6 of the seedlings are bigger and burnt. They are the ones that had to be removed and put back with the seedling. To my amazement 4 took. 2 of each. They are going great. I'll post pics in a few days.

I'll be using a 400wmh for vedge (not built yet. Doing tonight) but for this first run i'l fit whatever i can in the buckets with 1k mh and then sqitch back to hps for flower. ONce i figure out what's male and female i'll be doing 2 seperate scrogs /w clones. Probably tonnes i missed but i'll fill in the blanks later. Looking foward to ppls responses.

Good Luck my man cant wait to see how it goes...

ill pull up a saet

holy shit.
you ain even messing around
tight setup.
ur avatar is distracting

Thanks for dropping in and posting up guys. This should turn into a great show on the second round. This first round is mainly figuring out the males and females. There will be some great bud but what i really want is to do a great scrog. That's why i kept to a small setupp this time. I'll do multiple small ones. This is just the prelims.

The 4 abandoned seedlings i left under the 1K have hit the water running. the new growth is vibrant green, and i'm willing to bet within another week they should really be up to par. 4 out of the other 6 are back in to. They'll be ok.

Here is 2 benchmark photo's, 1st the 2 chem d sour d




and 2 nev haze x grapefruit




And here's the gradually filling buckets.



I'll have 2 spare buckets after i have the 5 fems and 5 CDxSD's. Any requests? I'm leaning to 2 kali most's. As Soon as the buckets are filled, i'll set up the tubbelers. Vedge everything out under a 400w, then switch to 600 for flower.

I cant wait.

YEah, a central biofilter system works like a charm. ....been rockin em' for years.Welcome to the club!

Getawaymonkey, thank you! I got the idea off you about a year ago, been using it ever since. Works great.

For anyone else concerned I'm here to fess up that i'm lazy. I picked the buckets because i only need to spend maby 10 min a week with the plants. I'd feel comfortable leaving for two weeks and not worrying at all. As soon as the roots hit the water, home free.

So the roots have hit the water.

1 week ago




Now




One week ago





Now





One week ago



Now




Hard to beat that. Thanks again big toke......

So i finally got my lazy ass to get those seedling out of that dome and into some hydro. Lost 3 out of all for various reasons. Roll of tape crushed 2. And one just up and died. I guess it was hot in there. Anyway, here's where they ended up. I think a seed never got past the taproot phaze as well, so -4.



There's actually 4 air pumps and 11 stones i believe. Same here, soon as the roots hit the water, bam! I'm expecting a few day stall, maby a week, then they'll go.

good work brother any updates ?

YAAAAAAAAAAY!!
Finally someone shows some intrest! Thanks earl. Progress is great! I'm gonna buy a new camera right now so people get a real idea on how the plants are. Quality update later tonight. You'll be impressed.

NICE, hope you can keep the ladies undercontrol

How much did that whole setup cost you to make? Is it easy to mantain with little problems?

Hello everyone! Thanks for stopping in and showing intrest.

Slips: Love the smoke reports. This run is to get moms. I want to run a scrog next time around with all clones. That will give me some control. I'll probably be cloning and flowering this week. Maby next.

Bigtimer: Errr, i dont know what a problem is ....yet.... hopefully that continues. Oh! My biggest problem is that i'm lazy. Well, just unmotivated. These buckets are as easy as pie. With a larger res, you can leave for weeks and only have to worry about trimming a jungle when you come back.
Money wise, I've spent a bit. Set it up right and you'll be rewarded.
$$$$ depends on if you want me to count all the stuff it took me to get to here or just what i'm using. Sometime learning costs a lot.

Earl: Thanks for the intrest here the update.

I think this is five days apart.

5 days ago





Now




another angle




5 days ago chemdd



now




5 days nevxgrapefruit



now





Seeds: lost another. I'm lazy. Oh well. Rest are just getting out of shock.




Think that's it.

great growth after only 5 days there, Anothername.

you may be lazy when it comes to growing, but if you have perfected it like it seems you have, and can afford to be lazy!

wish i could be a lazy grower sometimes... lol

GL!
they looking great.

This vedge growth is amazing. Checked the roots yesterdday, white as it gets. Keeping the the water temp below 60, seems good so far. Anyone think it will be a problem? The seedlings are going now. I'll need to add some nutes soon. Most plants have been topped. Still to lazy to bother cloning yet. I'm hoping that the smaller ones will have a spurt real soon. Anyway here the pics.

chemdd




nevXgrapefruit





Rest

Flipping to flower tonight. Going to thin it out a bit too. About 5 clones of each except the smaller ones which might only get one or 2. Ill take more later in flower of them. I might even re-arange them to get the coverage more even. These plants reek!!! If im still in a good mood after that 'll even add some nutes to the little ones. Here's the before's



Gardern




nev x graperfuit fems




chem dd




Babies (kali most 9? Fat russian 3? Chemhaze x SD and chem dd rest)

hey there

hey there

Looking good.

Just curious as to what pump & air stones you went with?

Any updates? been 7 days, 7 days at this stage alot can happen. Curious myself as to how much things have filled in there. Trying to learn to gauge when to stop vegging and switch to 12/12 is tricky (especially with multiple strains). Trying to gauge my next run abit better. Tough .

take care

B-safe.

Nice setup you got there !!!! I cant believe how fast they grow Mad props bro!

i like the combo bio/dwc. your grow is great. it is exacly what i planned to do as far as the few mods you made- like the - air lines, larger control res, chiller, control lava filter(you also run an aquarium filter inline to chiller-thumbs up).i dont feel confident in the standard bio setup and i feel your mods are neccesssary for success(no offence to bigtoke-he is the man) i am lazy too so i know where you are coming from. i did soil last run and if i stayed the night at my girl's i was flirting with disaster. came home to shriveld plants a few to many times and i hated all the constant nute mixing and hand watering. look forward to following this- my next build is similar 12 buckes also. great job mang

Hi People!


GmanWho , hey bud. Good to see ya. Thanks for giving this thread a bump. I guess it has been a week. But i'd be dammed if i was going to post 3 times in a row with no responses so i didn't update. A lot has happened. Lotta growth. Hard to plan for the growth that properly setup buckets can give eh? Speaking of when to flip, it'll be interesting on the next run for the scrog I plan. Timing will be extra important then. Oh airstones from local wallmart or fish store. Pump is 2200ghp with 1 1/4 outlet. Local hardware store, submersable. Waaaaay too much pump, but overkill kick ass. It shoots into the buckets with pressure!

InNvBoarder Glad you like it! It's as easy as pie. The growth surprises me every time.

SirSmokalot I started off just like bigtoke's 101 thread. After a few failures, and much fourm debationg. It gradually evolved into this foolproof setup. The only thing to do differently besides what i have done here is to lower the drains a couple of inches. I was too lazy to do it this time.

Now for the updates! It's packed in there. This wil be ideal for the next round with clones and earlier flower time, but not for finding moms from seed like i am doing. Here's the pics. I havn't spent any time down there this week so i have to catch up on trimming.

Here's the jungle... i mean graden.





nev x graprfruit females




Chemd x sour d



Little ones. They aint so little anymore. This is the point where they take off.



And here is a stroke of luck/desperation. Running out of smoke, and no buds in sight. I just so happended to have a grabage bag of premature plants that turned out to be not so premature after all. They were ditched in haste from a prior grow that went very bad, and forgotten about untill now. Out come the bubble bags to save the day!



Oh YAH!

Ya things seem abit slower lately, but then again, in summer everyone is always doing other things outdoors and not spending time in front of a computer. Myself surely included.

Hey thou, That pressure on the outlet feed to bucket end is good. Helps stir up the surface of the water. If i am remembering correctly, in our situations, ... oxygen only enters water when the surface tension of the water is broken at the surface. being air bubbles, waterfalls,or surface movement. Oxygen mainly enters then, not when that bubble is floating to the top. When it bursts at the top is when the oxygen enters.

this could be a direct link to why some failed at the bio buckets. In theory it makes alot of sense if the watering entering the bucket entered under water, it would created alot less surface tension. if the feed outlet was above the water, it created enough oxygenation by disrupting the water surface.

Unknowingly, i bet some systems had underwater entry, some above. just an explanation i believe may hold some truth.

Im finding out that the cheap stones dont last very long, they are not uniform in performance. There performance degrades quite abit in a few months. They work, and some stones are 100x better then the next from the same lot. NOT reassuring for me. I need better, when i do, i will let you know, or if you do, please let me know.

In the event of a stone failure, kinked hose, a stones weakened performance. That water entry method may save that plants ass, or at least buy you some time. Another reason why a bio-recirc dwc kicks ass. You have the stones like a dwc setup incase of water pump failure. Water disruption from the water pump feed in case of a stone or air pump failure.

Just rambling here... Seems to make sense thou. atleast from my engineering stand point.



BTW, nice growth there. whats your current ph & ppms at? You notice a drop in PH yet, since inducing flowering? Let me know when you do, if you do. It may never drop either. ? . ? Im trying to explain a theory i got in my head over here. I usually notice around day 14-25 the ph drop that is. Trying to dial some ideas and things in.



K.. enough of me rambling here. Looking good, and as always B-safe.