Pure Perlite Potential

[Scoobs]

I think it's time for an update on my new setup test run. So far it is working beyond expectations. I am getting results and growth I never could with soil and I have been doing soil for years (organic and chem). I switched to flower about 10 days ago and am messing around with the scrog. There are only 13 buckets currently running, 3 of them I took offline because of my mistakes with plant/clone selections. IT started out bad with a couple clones taking longer too root so I put them in the buckets with only an inch or two of roots thinking they would root in the perlite......Now I know to cut extra clones and discard the slow rooting ones. I replaced these cuts with new ones a week later from an untested plant.....yeah well the plant was a hermy No big deal, the other plants have moved into the empty space in the canopy. Another potential problem I noticed when fixing a small leak was that I found a small amount of mould growing between the buckets where they slide into each other and in the space at the bottom of the buckets, the humidity is high in this area allowing the mould to grow. I am going to keep an eye on this because I hate mould. I am thinking of wiping the buckets down for the next run with a bleach solution to kill the mould spores. I don't know how bad it will get or if it will get bad at all, will have to wait and see......Anyways here are some pics I took today.










EC is 1100 ppm.

 

[00420]

pure perlite is bomb....... been growing this way for 10 yr's.... have tryed just about everyway else and end up back here with perlite..... i found that the smaller stuff work's best when your 100% perlite the big n chunky is for mixing with soil..... peace

 

[abuldur]

hey scoob and 00420,

bet you guys are familiar with waterfarms and aquafarms from GH.
My question is: Do you think i can run them using pure perlite instead of hydroton?
And if i can ,shall i maintain a constant irrigation as GH advises or should i use a timer to let it dry a little?

PEACE

 

[Scoobs]

hey scoob and 00420,

My question is: Do you think i can run them using pure perlite instead of hydroton?
And if i can ,shall i maintain a constant irrigation as GH advises or should i use a timer to let it dry a little?

PEACE

Hey abuldur, I think perlite is superior to hydroton, so yeah I think you should use it instead of the hydroton. I also think constant irrigation is better than the timed irrigation. One less timer to screw up on you.

Hey 00420, thanks for the tip on perlite size, and for sharing your fondness of perlite in other threads, it helped with my decision to go perlite instead of DWC.

 

[00420]

hey scoob and 00420,

bet you guys are familiar with waterfarms and aquafarms from GH.
My question is: Do you think i can run them using pure perlite instead of hydroton?
And if i can ,shall i maintain a constant irrigation as GH advises or should i use a timer to let it dry a little?

PEACE

i have run perlite in water farms be for..... the best way is to buy a lil coco mat and cut it out to line the net cup like in this pic i run a timer on mine untell the root's hit the water then 24/7

cheaper then gh

Hey 00420, thanks for the tip on perlite size, and for sharing your fondness of perlite in other threads, it helped with my decision to go perlite instead of DWC.

DWC is wonderful if you can keep your water cool.... perlite is simple cheap is to flush...... cant go wrong....

 

[AzGrOw-N-sMoKe]

i love 100% perlite hempy buckets i have ran em for a couple years with a decent veg you can pull an ez 4zips perplant dry depending on the strain...scoobs your shit is looking kill...you planning on stayying with the HB's a lil longer?....peace az

 

[Scoobs]

i love 100% perlite hempy buckets i have ran em for a couple years with a decent veg you can pull an ez 4zips perplant dry depending on the strain...scoobs your shit is looking kill...you planning on stayying with the HB's a lil longer?....peace az

Thanks man, I am really happy with this system. The growth rate is much better than what I was getting with soil and way less maintenance (which was the main reason I built this).

 

[abuldur]

Thanks scoob ,00420 will do.
I was tired of carrying that stuff arround .
Shall i rince them or should i just manage the ph for one night before transplanting?

 

[Chomas]

I doubt you can clean roots from perlite really. Maybe Im wrong but it seems like it would be a nightmare. That will be one sticking point of this system I bet, but I give you major props for your setup though. Clean professional and well done, good luck bro!

 

[00420]

Shall i rince them or should i just manage the ph for one night before transplanting?

??? you should all ways manage your PH.... i dont think im understanding the?.....

 

[Scoobs]

2 1/2 weeks flower






I want big buds!!!

 

[abuldur]

loocks good scoobs!
Do you rince of perlite prior to using it just like you would with hydroton?

PEACE

 

[Scoobs]

I would rinse the perlite before you use it. There is some really fine perlite powder in the bags that can plug up the drain holes in your buckets. But as far as PH goes, Perlite is inert and won't affect PH like new hydroton can, so if you don't want to rinse you don't have to.

 

[FarmerTed]

I doubt you can clean roots from perlite really. Maybe Im wrong but it seems like it would be a nightmare. That will be one sticking point of this system I bet, but I give you major props for your setup though. Clean professional and well done, good luck bro!

I'm using Hempy Buckets and i have reused my perlite/vermiculite mixture. You just have to be careful. I dont pull the roots out they'll just tear off, instead after i chop, i pour out as much of the mix as i can, then remove the root mass, shake gently to remove what you can, it falls off easily, and toss the roots. You'll get a few small bits of roots so i just sift thru it and reuse. I would say i reclaim at least 99% of what was in the container. Have'nt had any problems doing this so far.

I like your set-up. Hempys are working out great but the automated watering & runoff collection would make things so much easier. - F.T.

 

[ThinkGREEN]

HI,
Have to give you credit on this, you really have a very nice grow going on!
Very nice green and vital plants! Good job!

I`ve also thought about using perlite instead of clay pebbles...
You got me interested for sure.
I`ll be staying here!

greetz
ThinkGREEN

 

[Scoobs]

3.5 weeks.....ish flowering









It's getting colder and having trouble keeping temps at good levels (low 70s high 60s), so I plugged in one of the 400w metal halides to help heat and light them. I want them around 80 degrees. The cold is bringing out some colours, at night I think it drops to 60.

Hey Farmer Ted, Thinking Green - You two should give it a try! I can guarantee the plants will be alive up till the third week of flower.....................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
..........Then they die.

 

[Scoobs]

3 weeks left

I am pretty sure I caused a phosphorus deficiency when I added too much cal/mag and molasses a week or two ago, could see it in the plants, dumping rez seemed to fix the problem....I am picking up another ph meter soon since my old one died. The plants have picked up since.





Some changes I am planning on making are: to not scrog next time, look at this lemon kush in the back that didn't have the net restraining it. There is actually a couple colas on this plant.



Some more changes I am planning on is to drop the table 6", increase the veg time and bucket size to 5 gallons. These plants wanted to grow more before the flower switch. Just look at the stem size from 3 weeks veg!







Another change I am planning on is to try the dutch pot style drain, the 2 elbow siphon style, where the drain starts in the pot goes up an inch or two then elbow to horizontal out of pot then elbow down to main drain.

I have also been experimenting with the lighting a bit since this is a test run, I have been thinking about simulating cloud cover and have read an interesting paper about max photosynthesis and how plants try to find balance between too much light and not enough. I have been running a 400w mh all the time with the 1k hps coming on and off for 2 hours every 2 hours. So far I think the plants like it and I save a little bit in electricity.

Here are a couple pics of my OG kush, if anyone thinks they know which cut this is feel free to let me know......IT has the dankest smell.

 

[00420]

3 weeks left

no Potential there..... ...... scoob's your plants look wonderful...

 

[Scoobs]

1 or 2 weeks left

IT is getting closer to the end Harvest time is right around the corner. The 2 plants in the middle of the table that were showing the deficiency symptoms, I don't think was due to a deficiency at all,I am pretty sure it was due to, too much light/heat stress from the 1k HPS. The plants are too close to the light, I need to drop the table down as far as it can go while still allowing flow into the rez. (6" I think I can drop it down). The scrog net can also be dropped down more too to help keep the plants away from the lamp and I am also looking into a cool tube for this problem or just running the 2 400w MHs. Oh well no biggie, this was my first run with this type of setup, so it is more about learning from mistakes and improving it.

Flushing has began.
I am running RO/DI water without adding any nutes. It is helping flush the salts out of the perlite as the ppm keeps rising. I dump the rez every once in a while to help wash the perlite more and to leech nutes out of the plants.

Here are some pics of the suspected light burn and some bud shots!







Here is a pic of the OG kush:



Here are some pics of the lemon Kush:





Hey 00420 thanks man, I sure have enjoyed this grow.

PEace

 

[Scoobs]

Cool so I successfully finished this Perlite grow.

Ended up with just over a pound (dry) of some really good smoke! Not bad for 13 plants.... and a couple of them were cooked by the light.

There seems to be Less flavour in the herb than my soil grows had, not as tastey for some reason.....Potency and Yield were there, but the flavour seemed diminished. Will have to find a fix for this, maybe throwing some fish into the rez will help.

But Overall, growing in perlite was fun, easy and gave great results. I am already started on my new and improved vertical version.

Later
-Scoobs-