Repuk indoor (first ACE) run

I thought about running all (big) ACE tent on its own thread, ACE gear more than deserves it

Setup
DR120 Tent 1,2m x1,2m x2m

Love and DIY has gone to this tent, lightning is all DIY but for a regulable (200-475W) Gavita digital ballast + gavita bulb 400W HPS: a COB setup at 170W using 4x Crees CXA3070, a 240W HML (to be deployed) and a Screw In LEDs (SILs) hood at 199W.




Scrubber/Extraction: Can-Lite 600 + RVK Systemair Sileo 125E2-L 341 m³/h (200CFM), Monkey Oscillating Fan, passive intraction (active comes next).



While 200CFM is the advised extraction by Secret Jardin for this tent, I found that until fully populated with big plants it is too much, so I added a TRIAC based speed regulator ($10) and lowered it to 50% speed.


The Grower
I love to experiment, learn and share.

I grow for myself, so quality comes first, then comes efficiency (gpw).

Heaps of tolerance, so potency for me is part of the quality.


Growing Method on this run
Trying to emulate Blynx and Terpene growing styles: flat canopies with SILs grids for optimal overlapping of light intensity. Crunch tie n' bend for canopy shaping.

IMHO, is the most efficient growing method; as I already had other light sources, I will be comparing them to learn.

Feeding / Growing Medium
I grow in coco (bagged Canna), Canna A+B, PHing down with 60% nitric acid; I think it's the best option for coco for medium hardness water, not seeing carbonate salts deposits anymore on pot rims.

I usually hand-feed on the first vegging stages, playing with wet/dry stages after potting, hooking the blumats a week prior the flip to flower so that they bulk up. I keep them trough all the flowering stage.

But... I'm running my first DTW here, and this tent will switch to full-salts regime once its reservoir runs out: Hakaphos Basis 4 / Yara Calcinit as base regime with MKP / SOP as variables, possibly some "organic" help (humic/fulvic acids).

Using 7L (2gal) pots this run, but Kali China, which has a 11L (3gal) pot. Will stick to 7L or 5L pots next run, as there's no need for big pots using DTW.

Did I say I love to experiment? I'm a relentless perfectionist I'm afraid...

Absolem and Commodore 64 (c64) have been my references, still learning to formulate my salt mixes.

I feed 6 times a day for 5 minutes, around 300cc to each pot each time. I'll keep EC around 0.9-1.



16mm line, 6mm distribution tubing and 3,5L regulable drippers.

See full details



ACE Indoor Lineup
Today finally all plants showed sex:

2x Nep Jams
Kali China
Thai-Chi
Zamaldelica #1
Guawi

Vegging:
Malawi fem
Panama fem
Violeta reg

Finally today sex on both Zams was clear. The smaller one throws in fact rather long pistils, I'm loving Zam so unique structure, will try taking a clone to run it outdoors also. Male will be culled.

Both Nep Jams are girls, #1 having grown to about 40% the size of the #2, which was a monster in veg and is flowering very fast.

#2 reacted great to crush n bend for an horizontal canopy… #1 is a smaller plant which didn't respond that well; it's bent top remains the larger plant part.

Both have a rather funky burnt-rubber scent when rubbing their stems.

Similar situation with Guawi vs Thai-Chi, Guawi reacted great with multiple strong tops, while Thai-Chi reaction wasn't that good.

Both Malawi and Panama are vigorously vegging, along with a LST'd reg Violeta. Malawi will require LST soon as it has overgrown the veg tent.

Kali China is way behind in flowering compared to the rest, will inspect it closely tomorrow.
Will be taking the girls out for an under the sun inspection tomorrow, taking pics under natural light.

Let me just pull up my chair really quick here Mr. Repuk! I'll be front and center for the show. Great grower, great genetics, and great setup. Should be one hell of a show my friend.

Glad to have another coco grower 'round these parts!

Coco ftw

Repuk, DWD and Syd will be a good source of information if you have any questions. My Guawi was massive. I wouldn't wait to long to flower. I don't know much about deep water culture. I'm going to be studying during this grow. Peace brother

Thanks Kaskadian! I'm afraid the grower needs still to improve on several areas

Jonhova: I love coco, you can almost "see" plants growing when everything is dialed in. Tempted though to try DWC on a single-plant drum on the small tent in the future... I cannot stay put .

Farmerlion: not doing DWC, just coco in pots, with automatic fertigation (6 times per day), Drain To Waste (little). My Guawi (loovely lady!) is still in check, I have crushed/tied n' trained her, got a dozen main tops, heaps of vertical headroom still, this is week 2-3 flowering for her. Guess most stretch is coming on next two weeks?

I will be cleaning and re-filling the reservoir with full salts tomorrow, will take each of the girls out for training and will snap a pic of each while under the sun.

Wasn't able to tender the girls this morning, just a quick check, and glad I did...

First lesson learnt when mixing different light sources... the couple girls under the HPS (Guawi and Thai-Chi) had their pots almost bone dry .

I hand watered them to restore optimal moisture levels, and opened the regulable dripping valves to compensate by increasing flow.

Rest of the girls under the COB or SIL had perfect moisture levels pots. Another pro when using LEDs... easier to keep moisture and temp levels stable. Hence, pot size can be smaller when using DTW, 7L (2gal) pots seem to be an ideal volume in my situation, 5L possibly too.

Hot weather seems to be kicking in, lowered the HPS to 275W (I set it to 400W previously so that it doubled as heat source).

Stretch kicked-in, really noticeable on all girls, it seems Kali China is finally taking off. Really noticeable also on Nep Jam #2 and Guawi.

Reservoir was almost out this morning, I poured 60/40 rain/tap (75L/20gal added of 100L/26gal total) and added 1ml of nitric acid a couple hours ago for PH to stabilize, gonna mix all the salts next and adjust PH afterwards.

Nice journal, great details! I'll be following along.

Thanks Samuel! I also post to have everything logged (you know, memory and cannabis...) for my own future reviewing.

So for my own sake, and also to properly share, I'd better be specific with attention to detail Welcome aboard!

Fertigation Plan
New reservoir with 100% salts done, I will follow c64's fertigation plan for starters:



Stock Solution
Usually 100gr of each salt are dissolved in 1L of RO or destilated water, creating a 10% stock solution. Then you dose it by measuring ml's per each 10L of reservoir water, knowing that 1ml will contain 0.1gr of the salt, 10ml=1gr, 100ml=10gr... and so on; easy for mental calculation.

Stock solutions are used as any other nutes based on A+B bottles. This table assumes the use of 10% stock solutions.

Water
My tap water is EC 0.4, carbonate hardness around 6 dKh. Stocked on rain water for now. Will get a RO unit next, to use tap or well water. Thinking on setting up a big tank to collect RO, but also researching about the viability of setting up an "organic treatment" using several "chained" tanks and appropiate microorganisms.

Feeding
Want to prevent stretch as much as possible, so went straight to the latest generative growth regime: 15 ml Calcinit / 25 ml Hakaphos per each 10L of water.

My res is 100L, so I would have needed 150ml/250ml; or 15/25gr Calcinit/Hakaphos overall for 100L.

As I'll be doing 100L (26gal) reservoirs, I will be weighting the salts each time, this was 18.75/11.25gr Hakaphos/Calcinit (calculated for the additional 75L I refilled). Doesn't take much more than a spoon of each...

EC (knew it before actually measuring to recheck, as we know exactly the salt weight we're adding) is 0.9. NPK 3 - 4 - 8 , 1 - 1.2 - 2.4 ratio prior to factor in the nitric acid.

Used about 2ml of nitric acid, wanted a lowish PH, 5.5-5.6 to compensate for rising PH in the medium, and for better P/K intake.

Will recheck PH and EC after some hours, EC should be close to 1.1-1.2 after the last PH adjustment.

Repuk, my blood pressure went up thinking about all that weighing measuring and timers. I doubt it's as much work as my mind just imagined. I will be checking this out for sure. Please explain the what and the why's so I can understand and learn your system. Peace brother

farmerlion said:

Repuk, my blood pressure went up thinking about all that weighing measuring and timers. I doubt it's as much work as my mind just imagined. I will be checking this out for sure. Please explain the what and the why's so I can understand and learn your system. Peace brother

Click to expand...

Heheh, it may look cumbersome but in the day to day is like any other method. It may look more complex than it is because I'm detailing everything as much as I can for my own (or others) learning etc.

I love coco because it has the same advantages in tendering as growing in pots with soil, with the advantages of an hydroponic medium. When dialed in, growth speed is antonishing, with enhanced aroma/flavour and yield.

System is the same as pots with soil (re-pot etc), difference being all nutes are delivered when watering (fertigation).

When using high quality salts the only difference is you have to make a proper regime plan on your own; from that onwards you'll know exactly what's in the reservoir (Canna, GHE, etc use these same kind of salts to "brew" their nute recipes and sell them).

When using salts costs in nutes are drastically cutoff too... we're talking about 25kg sacks which cost between 25-40€ each; 25Kg is enough to make around 1000 100L reservoirs, so the cost per res is cents...

Once you have your calculations, making a reservoir just takes:

- Pour a known volume of water into reservoir
- Calculate and weight salts or measure stock solutions and dissolve them in the res
- PH-

done.

Then you can feed by watering from such reservoir: either by hand, using blumats, or an automated dripping system: it's up to the grower to choose what suits him better.

DTW, i.e. water (fertigate) with frequent drips letting the runoff go to waste provides several advantages specially if coupled with low EC:

- Prevents salt buildup
- Brings oxygen to the roots regularly
- As long as the plant has a well developed root-ball, it will direct its energy on budding as it won't need to devote any to the roots (we're basically spoon-feeding them).
- Easy to automate with a reservoir, pump and (reliable!) timer

To keep the nutes in good condition inside the reservoir all that is needed is using a second pump or a wave-maker like device (small motor with a propeller) inside the reservoir (a trash bin) to recirculate constantly keeping everything well dissolved.

Update

Update

Overall view prior to culling the zamaldelica male:




The boy (finding hard to train Zamadelicas as can be seen):



It wasn't without some pain that I culled it, but as it seems to be difficult to find non hermi Zamaldelica males (or am I wrong and that only happens with pure Zamal males?) and have no space for him, it had to go...

Thinking on creating a "male life capsule", by using a conditioned drum or repurposed cabinet + some SILs to flower them, but that will have to be in the future. Want to try pollen chucking once I dial in my tents and my general growing skills.

Inspected its root ball:


It wasn't that dense inside, mostly the pot perimeter, what do you think? (I drill my regular pots for better aireation)

Found a con with Auto DTW vs blumats: plants eat at different rates; different lightning also has its impact (plants under HPS are much more thirsty)

I increased three of the six daily fertigations to 7 minutes.

Going add a second dripper on the hungrier plants (Nep Jam #2, Guawi, Thai-Chi) and possibly feed 8 times a day instead of six.

Hi repuk,

Very neat DIY work and very useful and detailed info in your notes, thanks for taking the time to write about it and for sharing the info with all of us, i'm sure it can be helpful to other growers planning a similar kind of grow.

Glad you are stocked with plenty of rain water, the EC of your tap water is much better than i thought, here in our area is terrible (EC of 1 plus) so the use of of osmosis filter is a must.

Thanks also for choosing our genetics for your indoor grow, really wish you have an ACE experience with our genetics, both indoors and outdoors!

PD: Finding good males in Zamaldelica is not difficult, but it's very difficult to find them in pure Zamal lines.

dubi!

Here's Nep Jam #2 starting its 3d week:



9-10 solid tops, happy with the training turnaround, though stretch is not over yet...

She's under the SILs, and eating like crazy, even with two drippers I had to "open up" the (regulable) drippers as both fell short.

Hungriest ones: Nep Jam #2 and Guawi.

For comparison sake, there are two non-ACE clones from same plant (Krystalica) in this tent, wanted them to act as "controls": one under the SILs, the other under the COB.

Looking at both and comparing I can say plant under the SILs tend to be less leafy, and develop smaller leaves.... a win win for SCROG.

Plant under the SILs has a darker green hue (noticeable with grower glasses) than the one under the COB.

COB is about 4 inches from one of these clones tops with no apparent bleaching so far...

Plant under the COB (3000K) stretched about 2-3inches less...

Update

Update

Checked again today, and both Guawi and Kali China were almost bone dry… put a second dripper on both, and changed the fertigation times to eight daily in total, one each three hours; two of them at strategic moments (prior to lights off, and at their midday) last 7 minutes, all the rest, 5. (3,5L/h drippers)

Reservoir was half full, refilled it.

Kali China is stretching, but few hairs yet. (back left, not topped)

Both Nepal Jams seem to be the fastest flowering (#2 front left, #1 bottom center).

Bottom right: Zamaldelica.

Front Center: Guawi (amongst the fastest in flowering) Right: Thai Chi



Front left space will be where the violeta (reg, in veg one more week) and the fem Malawi and Panama (two more weeks at least) will go… never thought that from 6 reg seeds will end up with four girls (if the violeta is finally a girl, unsexed yet)

Grower perspective


Sorry for the beaten up appearance, had just trained them.

Note the different leaf development on plants under the SILs front left) vs plants under the HPS (front right, bigger, broader fingered leaves). Of course it could also be the strain, but seeing this consistently… My guess is SILs provide light/energy that is more efficiently taken, with less heat also, hence the smaller leaves.

Repuk, very detailed and informative thread. Plants are looking very nice, keep up the good work. Peace

Hi Repuk, nice garden you got going. Just found your journal and thought I'd say hi. We really appreciate all the help you've given our little cobbing group over on the other site. I have a new baby up of Thai Chi and I will be following along. Best of luck with the grow.

Thanks farmerlion!

Neiko: Welcome! I'm excited and anxious like a green father with these genetics!

3d to 4th week flowering update

3d to 4th week flowering update

Looks like stretch is being kept, though not over yet...

Sorry for the hard lightning and overall so-so quality pictures, was in a rush, and to make things worse icmag aided to further destroy detail due to size limits. Next ones will be better, I promise.

I took all the girls out of the tent for inspection, cleaning, and light-repropping.

Thai-Chi (HPS 400W)
A capricious, multiple personality princess.

Random branching growth pattern, wide leaf while vegging, skinnier sativa leaves while flowering.

Canopy shot


General shot


Guawi (HPS 400W)
Lovely plant for SCROG, Kali-China like fat stalks, amongst the faster flowering after the NepJams.

Canopy shot


General shot

3d to 4th flower week update continued

3d to 4th flower week update continued

Nepal Jam #2 (SILs)

Lovely SCROG plant, with huge fat stalks, develops like an "hydra": 8-9 main colas. The faster in flowering.

Develops optimal sized leaves for SCROG under the SIL, pheno expression possibly has to do, but I already noticed plants tend to develop fewer and smaller leaves while under a SIL array, very noticeable on my Kalichakra cut flowered under SILs this time vs previous HPS grow.

Canopy


General View


Nepal Jam #1 (COBs)
Smaller, more Indica-like leaning pheno, I managed to get 4-5 main colas but it's easily visible where the main stem was even on the canopy shot, not visible on general view, but main top has a much thicker stem than the rest.

Canopy


General View

3d to 4th flower week update continued

3d to 4th flower week update continued

Zamaldelica (COBs)

Random branching, extreme sativa leaves, woody stems, longer flowering. Requires you to work hard to SCROG...

Canopy Shot


General View


Kali China (SILs)
Untopped, and untrained, more indica, columnar pheno with single-cola.

Purple leaf petioles, and purple striping on main stem, reminds me a lot to the Kali Mist mom I had once, but with an indica, hash-plant structure growth.

I'm puzzled it is way behind Guawi or Nep Jams in flower... possibly different flowering pattern speeds? Hope it will speed up at some moment...

Canopy Shot


General View


ACE Tent global view:



I was really concerned on keeping stretch, so far it seems like I managed to slow it down.

Happy also how the overal canopy is being kept... Or should I worry? will they keep stretching?