Marineman's 1st grow journal - 600w Bio buckets

[tokersmoke]

def getting the purps.If the trichs are clear then she has some time.Def pick an eight week strain next time.My blue dot can finish in 45 days

 

[marinemansf]

Finish in 45 days?! Holy shit! How much are you yielding per plant? And I thought this was an 8 week strain, or at least thats what the website said it would be. But Im sure my new grower skill has something to do with that, they had a hard life compared to most. I wouldnt doubt if I in some way stunted them just by not knowing the process fully.

 

[cravin morehead]

hey buds-
looking awesome again toker!
marineman- you're looking good. this is where patients (sp?) pays off. never go by suggested flower times. every grow is different. alot of factors play into how long they take to finish. breeders always put short flowering times to sell seeds. short running indica types are what is popular now-a-days. i've ran some sativas that took me well beyond 120 days to finish. well worth the wait. just keep checking your trichs, they never lie. keep calm and you will be rewarded. chopping early means you never really know how good it could have been. hang in there. waiting will get you a good high. now begins the hunt for a tasty pheno with the right high. that's one you hang on to. i've been pheno hunting for years and only got a couple of keepers so far...

cm

 

[marinemansf]

Yeah im glad I decided to wait. I had a feeling it wasnt on that 62 day schedule, because for a widow x big bud strain, the buds sure looked small compared to what Ive seen others produce with it. So then that means I can keep my eye out for a deal on the tent I want to buy. Plus, the purple should make for some great pics!

On a side note, holy shit has the odor increased! This is by far the dankest weed Ive ever smelled in my life. So I feel like getting a carbon filter for my new tent/setup sooner rather than later wouldnt hurt... Thought the ona gel would contain it for the most part. Not bad in other parts of the house, but when you open the door, shit smacks you right in the face.

 

[tokersmoke]

sounds good..I do have some 8 week strains.My blue dot is a fast finisher and an old clone.it only yeilds around 2 ounces per.But its by far my fav strain.The other strains in the room will yeild upwards of 4 ozs per.I wouldnt worry much about the "hair'' color some strains will run too long by the time all of them have turned.The TRICHS tell you the ripeness.

As long as the odor hasnt emitted out of your house your ok.My op is stinking my whole yard up.Glad things are almost done this go around.Ive had to become very antisocial with this grow.I havent had a guest in months. lol

Glad youre getting some good smells.IM sure youre itching to get the next run started,but like cravin said patience is a virtue at this stage.Keep the updates coming.If i can figure out how to take the geo tag off i can get some high quality pics of my ladies.Thanks for the updates be safe!!!

 

[marinemansf]

Thanks toke, I was worried about the fact that the "hairs" were browning without the bud formations being complete, but now that I know that its all about the trichs, my mind is at ease.

One note on the geo tags. If your using a phone for the pics like I do, I believe simply turning of your GPS will take care of that problem. Thats what I do. You could even take it one step further and put your phone into airplane mode will turn off all mobile communication. Id like to use my nikon d5000 for most of the pics cause it can take higher resolution photos, but Im still learning how to use it. Ill go snap a few pics here in a bit. The buds are finally starting to merge together and Im glad I decided to wait!

One question for you guys. What make the leaves turn from green to purple? I know its a sativa trait. Just dont know what causes it. Im interested if theres any meaning behind it.

One other thing for you toke. With your blue dot, if you take clippings from a female, will they all turn out female? Or do you still have to worry about males popping up? The only reason I ask, is because as you know, I only have room for 6 plants and would want all 6 to finish out and not have to clip 2 or 3 males out and only have 2 to 3 females finish out. Just curious.

Thanks as always brochachos!

 

[cravin morehead]

so bro, how they doing? hope you are staying patient. this has got to be torture for you

cm

 

[tokersmoke]

I was thinking of the grow myself my whole room just got chopped.Hopefully they are done by now.

 

[marinemansf]

What up playboys? Things are coming along nicely here. And yes crave, the wait is KILLING ME! But youre also correct about being glad I waited to chop. However, I did take a few buds from my sacrificial plant. Which im actually glad I did cause it gives me some practice with harvesting and drying that should serve me quite well once I do the big chop. One thing that stuns me, is the potency of these. Even though they arent fully mature yet, the smoke puts you on your ass! Another thing thats nice is that Im getting reference points as far as how the high changes at different stages. Ive learned so much in the months that this grow has been going. Cant thank you two enough for sticking by me on this run and taking such good care of me throughout. A million thanks to you guys.

Got a few updated pics, but they may not be the best cause my phone is almost dead and the flash wont work with a low battery, but Ill take some more when the lights come on in the AM.

 

[tokersmoke]

hard to tell from the pics but the buds look funny.maybe some better shots?

 

[marinemansf]

Ok here are a few better shots. What do you mean by funny toke? Maybe it was the lighting.

Question: Everything is getting SUPER bushy, should I be trimming some of the fan leaves to allow the light to reach the lower buds?

Also, not sure why this is, but only one of my plants decided to turn purple. Not sure why the rest are still green.

 

[marinemansf]

Hey gents, had a question that I been thinking about for a few days. Do you think it would hurt anything to switch back to the MH lights from the HPS im currently using? Just felt like I got better, brighter light, better light coverage and with less heat than the HPS with the MH.
Just an idea.

 

[tokersmoke]

The purple one looks bad ass.The internode spacing is very tight.I would be plucking every leaf that had a long stem.This will allow more light to penetrate.When i chop there are barely any leaves left.Great job!

 

[marinemansf]

Whats crackin yall? Thought a rainy day like to day would be a good time to make an update. Toker, I took your advice and decided to do some trimming. And holy shit did I ever! I trimmed only the leaves that had stems over and inch or two, and I ended up with a 5 gal bucket full of em. And now you can really see how big the buds are getting now, and the light distribution is a fuckton better!

Also I came across a newbie grower contest and decided to put this grow in for it. Should be fun. Its limited to under 300 posts and im right around 150. I also put in it that the credit for this grow should go right past me, to you two. (tokersmoker and cravin morehead) You two have helped me soooo much and saved me not only money but time. So its all about you two. PROPS!

I also decided to make the big cut on my all purple plant, and just by eyeballing it, there looks to be about two ounces. So I would say thats not too shaby at all for my first full grow! And that should go up by about an ounce for each of the last five plants once I decide to cut em. The last 5 ladies are starting to show their purple now. I figure Ill give em another 2-4 weeks to finish out and see where were at then. I am glad I decided to wait to cut, just got a little impatient not havin any smoke, which is why I decided to sacrifice one of em. I just figured if I cut one, I wont be in such a hurry to cut the rest, and its paid off. So thanks for talking me into waiting! Enjoy the new pics guys... PEACE!

PS: Theres a few pics of the next crop that I started that Ill take cuttings from. Just a little mix of bag seed.

 

[cravin morehead]

so... how'd it turn out brochacho? pics? just curious brother. looks like everything is/was good. good job on letting it keep going. whats up for next round? i'll try to be around more often...

cm

 

[marinemansf]

Hey man good to see you around again. I decided to wait another month or two and Im about to cut the rest of my plants in about two weeks. And im suuuuper glad I waited. Everything tripled in size from 2 months ago. The purples are really coming through nicely, super photogenic. The only problem with the pics is there are so many trichromes that it can be hard to make out the bud sometimes. Good problem to have in my opinion. Even followed the trick with curing. With a mason jar and a caliber 3 hygrometer. Works insanely well. These pics are from a few days ago. Will take some fresh ones soon.

Side note, my roots are looking sooo much better now. And i will be doing my rework as soon as i cut. So hopefully starting a new run next month. Chose my next run, and its going to be NL5 x Skunk. Super excited about it too.

 

[MHBGuy]

Looking good. Nice when they finally start showing some serious flowers.

 

[Raziel819]

whats up guys-
marineman- i a little confused on the nute you are talking about. when you type it comes out as dynaPRO. it is called DynaGro. i'm not sure if that is an auto-correct thing happening or if we got our lines crossed. so to clarify, here is what i use:
[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=53170&pictureid=1241787&thumb=1]View Image[/URL]
over the years i started with dyna, tried house and gardens, gh, foxfarms, etc... now i've come full circle back to dyna, for me, the best. great products. this stuff is not organic. don't listen too hard to hydro store sales people. most are just trying to sell stuff. alot don't have a clue. you are best off to ask questions on this site and go from there. i'm not sure what the label means by "beyond organic". marketing hype i'm sure. to me, organic nutes are raw forms of elements converted to be used by plants. what i'm using is nutes already in the form useful to plants. when it comes down to it, they are virtually the same. IMO. this is a highly debated topic around here. while i can totally respect growers wanting to be totally organic, i just don't see how it fits into hydroponic growing. soil growing for sure. THIS IS JUST MY OPINION. i've had some awesome tasting buds grown organically in soil. i've also had some great tasting buds grown hydroponically. i believe with bio-buckets you are getting the best of both worlds. speed and ease of nutrient uptake with the "chemical" nutes and buffering and nitrogen cycle altered elements of "organic" hydro styles. here is a interesting link to the whole straight hydro vs organic hydro debate. the opening post makes sense to me. :
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=5669
decide for yourself. i can't help much with hydro growing organic style, i've never seen a need for it myself, but to each there own. however my soil grows are done organically. mainly because it makes sense to me.

as far as my reservoir set up, here we go.
[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=36415&pictureid=1057228&thumb=1]View Image[/URL] heres my reservoir, it is outside of my tent. there are two fans mounted on it. one blowing fresh air at the waterfall return (the 2" located under the ballast in the pic). the other fan is sucking air out of the reservoir, keeping fresh air exchanging.
[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=36415&pictureid=1057229&thumb=1]View Image[/URL] heres the float valve inside the reservoir. it is run with a copper icemaker line to a cold water copper pipe near by.
[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=36415&pictureid=868590&thumb=1]View Image[/URL] [URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=36415&pictureid=868589&thumb=1]View Image[/URL] this is the 2" main drain return line. it runs between the buckets, with 1 1/2" drain line at each bucket. the 2" is elevated to allow for about 1/4" per foot of fall of the return line all the way back to the top of my res. in order to achieve this, i had to put the tent on a 8" stand. as far as my pump, i use a danner mag drive. its rated at 1800gal/hr. it is situated in the tent, under the 'carts' (actually they are stands, carts without wheels). be sure to install a valve and union on both sides of the pump. if something happens to your pump, the valves and unions make it really easy to remove the pump without a ton of water spilling out. thats about all i can think to add about reservoirs. as you can tell, i took the parameters and ideas that BigToke laid out, and i just 'modernized' them and adjusted them to the available fittings and parts i could find.
66*f isn't bad at all. i wish i could grow in those temps. that would mean i could dial down or even shut off certain fans and save energy. you could use the lights to control the temp.

nice pics! they are looking happy. nice, no overferted burned leaf tips. looks like bud sites are starting to set up. here comes the real fun part of the grow.
toker- i hope you do try out a 1 bucket system. would be cool to see the differences between organic soil vs. bio-bucket hydro on the same strain in the exact same enviornment. once again, i'm here to help you design a 1 bucket system, if you need it.
we are having a great little bio-bucket discussion here.

cm

I wish I had got into this conversation when it was going on.

 

[marinemansf]

Hey if you need a little help just let me know by either posting it here or pm me. Cravin has been away for awhile, and I have a bunch of new questions too. I'm starting a new thread for me new run. I'll link it here once it's been made. Super psyched to test my new setup.

 

[Raziel819]

Kool Marine I'll do that 'cause I do have a few. I'm over half way through with a new run and system, trying to work out the bugs in it now its a UC/Bio Bucket hybrid. There's some pic's of it in one of my albums.

And in my day we used to call "Stan's Anus" 29 Stumps

Stay Frosty My Friend