400 watt Cermaic Metal Halide Cabinet, Ebb& Flow System Growing DJ Short Grape Krush

[Murphy]

Yeah, That's the plan now, clean it out and start over but, I'm a little ahead of the game. I'm keeping the female for possible good seeds for later use. Yes I have some sprouts alreay started, about 2-3 inches tall right now, pics coming, Mandala safari mix, one started out with 3 leaves. Had a prepaid card that had a just enough to add these to my seed order.......I'm glad I did.

I have a seperate box right now for seedlings, it can go up to about 200 watts of cfl's and keep temps in the 80's. I did not have sucess with cloning the Grape Krush, I kept the cuttings alive but couldn't get them to root. I trashed them all last night. By tommorrow It will be all sorted out and cleaned up, I'll be back up and running in no time.......just a little wiser.

 

[PurplePotion]

What's your cloning method? You've gotta be doing something wrong to get none to root haha . Hope all goes well with the restart!

 

[Murphy]

What's your cloning method? You've gotta be doing something wrong to get none to root haha . Hope all goes well with the restart!

Dude, I can't tell you how painful for me it was. I had a grow last year, my first and I wasn't able to complete and was filled with all of the typicial beginer mistakes. But when it came to cloning, I had the Midas touch, I built this wick cloner based on a DIY thread and I swear, I never lost one or had any problems. As for the Grape Krush, I tried a bubble cloner and a wick cloner with one success. It was a thick clone I stuck it into an Oasis cube and a 2 inch net pot and it rooted in about 900 ppm water. I still had the pics of that big ass cloner I had last year in my gallery, here are a few, you can check out more there but I'm being hoest, I had a 100% success rate with it and it didn't care how big or small the cutting was. I cut and stuck, no hormones, just really diluted FloraNova Grow neuts in the res.




While I'm not yet considered a "grower" because I haven't had a successful harvest, I'm telling you, I can make anything work and build great things form scraps, I just need the guidance on the plants.

 

[PurplePotion]

Dang. Sounds like you just have plain ol' bad luck. Third time's a charm, eh? Keep your head up guy!

 

[BlueberryNutz]

where did you order your CMH from? i asked in the other posts but didnt get any answers

 

[PurplePotion]

http://advancedtechlighting.com/cdmed18.htm

 

[NOKUY]

dang...suks about all the boys.

you cab sounds like it's fine...did you have any specific areas of concern?

if i was in your shoes....i'd ditch the hydro for now at least, and get everything going and dialed in some good soil. Then switch to hydro once you get rollin...if you want.

i think that might save you some headaches.

were you planning to scrog?

also there is no reason that you cant hang on to the female.....keep her under 24 hr light, and clone the hell out of her.....this would be your best bet.

def. get rid of the boys ASAP and clean your cab.

 

[Murphy]

http://advancedtechlighting.com/cdmed18.htm

That's where I ordered mine, Simba is the sales rep. He put a ton of time and research into infomation posted on that thread. There are other people finding them cheaper but, I stay loyal to Simba for all of his time spent discussing and answering questions for us.


Yeah, Purple, just bad luck. and I had wanted those beans since the first time I went seed shopping, just to expensive. This time around, I was better off financially and I picked up 2 packs, 1 was crushed in shipping, I f'ed up few, then the male issue. I ended up with 2 females and a mess. If they were pollenated, it was from a huge male in the back so if I end up with seeds, I'm alright with that.

Yukon, thanks for passing by. I was growing the Grape Kush soley for the fact of when I had to stop my first grow, I swore if I ever had the chance to grow again, I was getting something from DJ Short and Serious Seeds AK47. So the plan was to grow them out, clone some females and work down to 4 moms or so as keepers. Becasue I didn't know the sex, I didn't want to scrog them because of the pain in the ass it would have been to cut males out of the back. So yes, I plan on scroging but not until I'm running them from clones. As for the Hydro, it's all I know, I don't know anything about groing in soil.......I got started kind of backwords that way. As you can see, they may be males but the are very healthy males.

Here is an early pic of the plant you see in the front of that cabinet, it was a mutant from seedling and it was the "test" plant for everything. It took a beating.


From that to this:



I think I got the Hydro part down. I was going to use DrBudGreengenes method for a perpetual harvest using 32 oz bottles......that was the plan for the Mandala seeds veg em a week and throw 'em 12/12 at $17 a pack, how can you go wrong.

 

[FreezerBoy]

@#$%*! Who'd you kill in your last life to deserve a room full of boys?!? If it makes you feel any better, I shelled out $100 to Sensi Seeds for 16 Silver Haze seeds and, so far, I'm 0-14.

If you try the T*HazexSkunk#1, keep it to one plant for the entire box. My space is 22x29x54. I'm at the halfway point and I don't know how I'm going to keep things under control. I'm thinking, next grow, I'll try a kind of dual scrog setup. A flat screen on top with a circular below. Run the stem in a circle a couple of times, removing the "lowest" 6 sets of branches (maybe more) before letting it above the flat screen. Idea being to keep 4-5 feet of growth under the screen instead of the 2-3 feet I have now which just isn't enough.

I find it funny that cloning is the easiest part for you. I had at least 6 tries before I got anywhere. If you go Rockwool, go 6" or bigger. I was happy with 4" cubes till I discovered OverGrow and realised how puny my buds were. Then I saw root porn and that put an end to my Flood and Drain Rockwool days. I realise I'm only halfway through my first DWC but, it's been a breeze.

 

[Murphy]

I actually don't feel bad, shit happens, it sucks but, I can't dwell on it. I have that T*HazeXSkunk#1 freebie, I think 3 popped, 2 look good, the other, popped it's head up but hasn't done anything in 2 days. Since I really don't care about them, maybe I'll drop them in and see what they do from sprout to 12/12. How long did you veg yours?

Cloning USE to be the easy part for me, this time around I failed badly. I don't get it, I did everything I read on threads, I had 2 different systems, neither had sucess so I'm at a loss. I will try the same thing on the other strains with better success.

Sorry I haven't posted up pics, I'm sick as a dog, so I've just been IC surfing most of the day. Most of what you see in the poor pics I have up are really just 2 plants. I'm down to 2 now....trust me, there is a ton of open space in that cab now! I really need to get the pics up for some conformation and questions, if I have 2 girls, I would like to put them back into veg so I can drop in the new sprouts and grow them out a little. I don't really care if the Grape Krush gains size, I just don't want to kill them. I'm weeks behind now so I'm trying to see where I can make sacrifices to gain more in the end. I'm kind of hoping that those GK will put out seeds, it will give me a second chance at them.

Keep checking in guys, I'm not done yet! The strain in the title in the thread should be changed but other then that, You will get a grow show from me and I welcome everyone's input, positive or negitive everyone is welcome to join in.

 

[panopticist]

Tough break on all the males...

Hopefully this has built up some garden karma for you. Wouldn't it be dope to get all females next time with differing phenotypes? Keep up the good work (those males did look healthy)...

 

[Murphy]

Thanks Panopticist I hope you're right on the Karma. While I ended up with all of those males, the one thing eveyone seems to say and agree on is that they are healthy, to me being a novice, it's positive to hear. I've had those"can someone tell me what wrong with this plant" threads on my first grow. No health problems at all.

I just pulled an "Eddie Murphy" and thought I had girls.....I just didn't get busted and nationally embarrassed.

 

[yamaha_1fan]

you said your clone area is in the 80's. That may be too high. You may also want to drop any nutes. Also try using rapid rooters, see if it works for you.

Cloning was atough thing for me to overcome as well. I ditched the bubbler for the rapid rooters and have not looked back. Also make sure everything is clean. I seemed to be having quite a few of my clones rotting, getting moldy and stem rot. THis go around I soaked all the trays, domes, etc in bleach water for 24 hours and rinsed. I also soaked my trimmers in alcohol. So far not one clone has gone moldy or rotten

 

[TBug]

High Murph! Well all males really sucks! That happened to me before. I believe its due to enviroment, but others may argue. either way, with a 50/50 odds ratio, mother nature has a way of paying you back in the long run. Actually, letting them go as long as you did you may be keeping MORE pollen than you desire. If it were me id number or name each plant and save a lil' of each. otherwise, one looks like it has a bit more purple in it. Id save that. Also, the shorter more dense/compact clusters are more desierable to me. they sugest a tight-compact bud structure which would be less leafy. the shorter males suggest a more indica dom, and taller more sativa. There, of course, is no way to gaurentee this but you get the point...lol.
So pick and choose what suits you best, but what ever you do, make sure you clean that flowering area SUPER GOOD!
Peace and hope that helps, bugout

 

[Murphy]

you said your clone area is in the 80's. That may be too high. You may also want to drop any nutes. Also try using rapid rooters, see if it works for you.

Cloning was atough thing for me to overcome as well. I ditched the bubbler for the rapid rooters and have not looked back. Also make sure everything is clean. I seemed to be having quite a few of my clones rotting, getting moldy and stem rot. THis go around I soaked all the trays, domes, etc in bleach water for 24 hours and rinsed. I also soaked my trimmers in alcohol. So far not one clone has gone moldy or rotten

The cloning issue is something that relly bothered me because, like I said before, I never had a problem. I'll be in the cab tonight pulling out everything to clean it all out. The cab really has a super fast air exchange rate so the pollen never had a chance to just settle.I'm sure there's plenty in there and it's not going to be a fun job. You mentioned rapid rooter, I just used them for the Mandala seeds, My first time with them, 100% success rate, I'll be sticking with them foe cloning this round.

 

[simba]

ID lower the Temps.. the colder they are (within reason) the better chance i have at females.. its almost like when they start out Warm they think they have to hury and reproduce My opinion only (IE short season) if that makes sense..

 

[Murphy]

I was starting to feel like this thread just went to hell once everyone saw they were males and it was obviously an novice mistake. This past weekend was horrible, the flu has my entire house down and on top of that our heat went out.

I got the cab scrubbed, and I mean scrubbed down like I've seen those "Crime Scene" clean up guys hit stuff. Since there were just the 2 females left, It was easy to take them out and sit them to the side while I took on the 3 1/2 clean up job.

Yamaha & Simba have both filled me in on my heat issue with the seedlings. I feel like the thead isn't getting much attention because I was so long winded but.....the first grow I had, I never seemed to post enough info and was always getting asked questions. I tried to cover that this time around, thanks for anyone that took the time to read and reply. The cab build was never shown because I was building while it was running with plants, same for my clone/seedling cab. The clone/seedling cab was running in the mid to even upper 80's......I progressivly took the cab up to about 170 watts of CFL lighting as the sprouts were growing and the I was building the grow cab.

I was under the (wrong impression) that seedling and sprouts liked it a little hotter. Live and learn.

My run of luck has continued to be bad, I took a bunch of pics while I was cleaning to give a better idea of the cab design as well as the the layer of pollen on top of the carbon scrubber. Finally last night, I was ready to upload them and......they were not on the camera card. I don't care how many times I fall down during this experience, I get back up, dust myself off and get right back to it.

So as of today, I have a 24 X 36 ebb & flow tray for 2 pregnant females. Last night, I took 2 HazeXSkunk Freebies and 5 Manadala Mix sprouts and planted them in coffee containers, built a make shift self out of some PVC and they sit in the hydro tub, elavated. It's so f'in ghetto.....it's embarassing but, I will post my pics up.

DIRT....soil, whatever you want to call it, I don't know anything about growing in it. This will be a first for me and I'm thinking about (the genius idea, sure to cause me someother unforseen problem) Wicking it, right into the hydro tray. Other then a moisture meter, I can't think of anything else I need.

Sorry No pics updates but they are coming.

 

[sackoweed]

wow that looks freaking crazy... Well, save some of that pollen and maybe when u pop that last seed it will be a female and you can make you some more grape krush seeds being that almost your whole pack turned male.. Good luck peace..

sack

 

[Murphy]

I'm only set up to be a temporary grower, it's a short term thing for me. Maybe a year, year and a half at most. with all I have to learn and the trial and errors to go through......I'm looking for 2-4 great moms. I admire the Breeders, I even "tried" to read a few of thier theads.......they speak a different language. I've got the seeds coming from the 2 tramps that were in the cab, I'm seeing them all the way through. One thing I am pretty sure of is that only the "better" male released pollen. The mutant was lagging behind and not as mature. I watched, very carefully, when I was cutting them out, nothing "shook" off of thos cuts, the other male in the back was whole different story, I had pollen all over my arms and there were a bunch of fallen pollen sacks.

One thing I am courious on is the Liquid Light and Penetrator and how it may have effected the females being pollenated or if it may have steralized pollen. I know it sounds like wishfull thinking but, NO ONE seems to know much about Liquid Light and what it's effects are. If you've ever seen it, it looks like car antifreeze. I soaked all of these plants every 2 days with 8 ounces....I know that seems detailed but, I had to do all the conersions to break the "dose" down so I had an 8 oz spray bottle, and added 20 ml of pen and 20 ml of LL, that was according to Dutch Masters instructions for full strength. Maybe it did something, maybe it didn't but If these girls don't get seeds, I'll bet Liquid Light is the reason!

 

[Murphy]

......of course I know very little about the actual plant pollenation process so maybe I'm way off base..... I honestly don't care if I get seeds or not, it's a win/win to me at this point. Great bud, or great seeds to try again with, how can I miss?