Rockwool Trees

[Desert Hydro]

you really need to think about putting a disclaimer in here. i just spent 2 days trimming and i feel like poop lol. i work in 5 hours but i got it done!!! fucking epic first grow in bulk wool and im ready for the next. setting up my 10x10 tent on friday and going for another record.

next round i will trim and prune a little better but then again im building a vertical light mover for my 600 vert rings so it may not be a necessity.

i'll get some pics up in the morning. gotta clean up before she who must not be named sees the mess i made

thanks for all the help, im glad i tried it out.
-DH

 

[Desert Hydro]

this is an amazing grow DJM!

i wonder if this would work as a media for ebb n gro type bucket systems, has anyone tried it?

i thought about modifying my green trees bucket system and adding a dripper system and then it would just recirculate. dont use the fill cycle pump at all, just the drain pump and a separate big pump that could power the 12 dripper rings if that makes sense.

i think i will try it out on my next run for some smaller plants. im gonna run a couple bigger trees under 1k's and then a few smaller plants in 600w vert scrog donuts.

 

[DonJuanMatus]

-

 

[DonJuanMatus]

-

 

[Dr. Buddington]

DJM you mentioned encountering root trouble when you were using well water. What did you do to solve the issue?
I chlorinate the nutes using a Hanna ORP meter; its the most accurate way to know just how potent of a sterilizing quality the nute solution has.

 

[Grow4Flow]

DJM,
i'm on board! gonna pick up a couple of bales on my way home from http://www.hydroponics.net/c/118. gonna try and use it in my greentrees buckets and see waht happens

 

[Desert Hydro]

here's a few post trim shots all done with bulk rock wool on my first attempt. i cant wait for round two! i just got done cleaning up the spot and securing the door a little bit better. gonna put up my 10x10 tent and get all set up proper. stay tuned for round two.

first two are chemmy jones, third is 501st OG, last is 8 chemmies after a haircut. i trim the big stuff by hand and the small nugs i toss in the trimmer since i trim solo. saves me a ton of time and still took two days. heavy yields are in your forecast with this method

 

[Righteous1]

Man you're rocking it DJM! CouQuick question: when prepping the bulkwool do you just ph your water to 2.9-3.0 and dump in the wool and call it good or do you adjust your ph back down to 3 once the wool is added? I realized once I got the whole bag in the tub and sloshed it around which in turn broke it up into tiny strands the ph had already instantly risen to like 4.5 - about 12 hrs later it was up to 6.5! What am I doing wrong? Is the double water i.e 100 gal to 1 bale absolutely necessary? Also do you slosh everything around every now and then thru out the 48 hr period to help the lil black lime deposits out of the wool or just at 1st & then leave it alone? Thanks for all your help thus far man this thread is awesome! Looking forward to your reply brother

 

[dreaded]

I'm not DonJuan.... but i soaked mine.. 48hrs.. in ph'd 3.0 h2o...
WITHOUT re ph'ing it. I moved it around and broke up pieces.. so yes sloth it around... i slothed mine around alot... your not doing anything wrong... when you put wool in pots.. your supposed to medium charge the wool.... per PAGE 3..... that'll get wool ready for plants....



Desert Hydro....NICE PULL... i'm on my way... with seedlings even... thanks for your help also...

 

[Dynamite]

what up dyno! good to see ya around bro! thats stupid about the cabana, but atleast you got booted for something as priceless as carebear lol

ill look into that z7 right now..you got me on the hygrozyme with bulk wool and i still use the same 3ml put some of my boys from back home that have been running wool for years onto it and they swear by that shit too..so if you say this is better i gotta try it

as far as how many lights in veg vs flower..that depends on if you are flowering all 16kw one round at a time , and how long of a downtime you can allow before you flip the next run after chop...but if you want to go straight from veg to a permanent 12/12 room and you wanna flower 16 at a time, veg would need to be pretty big, a min. of 6kw imo but 8kw would be ideal...the last few weeks of veg is really important to get them to bush out..and you cant over crowd at all if your not doing a pre veg in the flower room...i can fit a max of 2 veggers per light , in a checker board pattern the last 2 weeks of veg or so

so in that scenario id say youd need half the flower wattage for veg, to go one to the other all 16 at a time with no down time

the reason why i started flowering half my room once a month, was to avoid doing what i just mentioned...if i did all the room at once i would need at 4-5 kw veg, while doing it half and half , i was able to get away with a 2-3 kw veg...and i only turn on the 3kw for a week or two a month, all the rest of the time its just 2kw and a small t5...and thats with a permanent 12/12 flower room with no preveg running 1 per...in this scenario id say youd be good with a 4kw veg and a t5

another way to limit the size of your veg vs flower room, is to do a preveg in the flower room...and veg up in 5 gals then transplant into 20s in the flower room, veg for 3 weeks and flower..you can cut your veg size way down like this...for 16kw, you wouldnt need more than 3-4kw to run 16kw @ 1 per with only 3 weeks of down time between flips

so its all about what works more for you, if you can get away with 16kw flower/8kw veg that would probably be ideal, with no down time..but if you can work around the other variables mentioned, like flip flopping and pre veg, you can get away with 16kw flower/4kw veg...best thing to do is get your moms in order and start crunching numbers with the calender and work back from when you want to chop them , so you can know what days to take cuts and what days to transition them through veg, so when one crop comes down then next is ready to be flowered the same day without being under or over vegged..this has been the biggest struggle for me as you have to plan far ahead and stick to the calender for shit to be like an assembly line..my best advice is to write out the next 4 crops, down to when you have to take cuts/xplant/chop/ect so its easier to transition into the timing..i have the next 16 months written out like this, and reminders in my phone that let me know when i need to do something, take clones, xplants, ect...makes it really easy to maintain this way


and yeah i aim for a 5x5 in the flower room, the hoods are usually 1 foot apart from each other, 6 inches on each side of each hood..its easy to space them just measuring between as the hoods are 4 feet wide

hope that helps bro, please drop some pics in here if you feel like it, this thread wouldnt be here without your old CLC grows...big thanks!

thanks for the insight bro .. I've always used the bloom room to veg in for 3weeks a run .. currently only running 9k , but the next run I want to step up my game and add a few more lights and rock a dedicated bloom room to chop every 10weeks instead of 13 or 14 week intervals .. I like the 16k split , 2 8k idea .. has more pro's then con's for sure !

i recently flipped , but once I have some pic's to drop I will ..

Peace , DynO

 

[Dynamite]

Man you're rocking it DJM! CouQuick question: when prepping the bulkwool do you just ph your water to 2.9-3.0 and dump in the wool and call it good or do you adjust your ph back down to 3 once the wool is added? I realized once I got the whole bag in the tub and sloshed it around which in turn broke it up into tiny strands the ph had already instantly risen to like 4.5 - about 12 hrs later it was up to 6.5! What am I doing wrong? Is the double water i.e 100 gal to 1 bale absolutely necessary? Also do you slosh everything around every now and then thru out the 48 hr period to help the lil black lime deposits out of the wool or just at 1st & then leave it alone? Thanks for all your help thus far man this thread is awesome! Looking forward to your reply brother

I do mine with the "triple down" technique .. whatever amount of PH down it takes to get your nute solution to 5.5 , use triple that amount PH down for your inital pre-soak .. let soak for 48hrs and it will be at 5.3-5.7

After I've transplanted the plant into the container I run a fresh 5.3ph'd mix of nute solution(5gal pot gets 5gals of fresh solution) thru the container and watch them grow

I break the rockwool up into big chunks and as it's submerging I'm tearing it down .. flip it around once after the tub is full and once 48hrs later before packing the pots ..

I use about 1.5 gallons of water(triple down nute solution) per 1lb of wool .. for easy math if a bag of wool weighs 50pounds , i use 75gallons of presoak solution

hope that helps ya .. my way differs a bit from DonJuan's , but both ways work great just the same

 

[madalasatori]

This seems like a lot of mucking around when you can just use coco which requires no prep

 

[Desert Hydro]

This seems like a lot of mucking around when you can just use coco which requires no prep

i bet if you did a side by side with coco and this you would tolerate the mucking around as you call it after seeing the results.

coco is easy. coco and blumats is even more simple. it works great and if thats what youre comfortable with then stick to it and master it. for those looking for more and are willing to put in the time and work this is a solid method that works well and you can do it as simple as hand watered or intricate drip systems on timers and recirculating and what not. the possibilities are damn near endless

 

[Clsmooth415]

Im always on the fence about loose rockwool. I love it's growth. It's cleaner and I never have ph issues. I just hand water at 5.2 with some hygrozyme every now and then. However this year I switched to canna coco and nutes. Just rock it right out the bag. And am resuming the flowering pots and coco. Just grow bags till then. Mostly it save work and money to reuse coco and not have to dump out rockwool. For me 48 10 gallon pots at a time sucks. I might go back and try rockwool croutons right out the bag and water with nutes at 5.2. If I was just doin a couple lights, I would do the rockwool all day.

 

[Snype]

It's nice to see so much information DonJuan! You are very passionate about your work! Keep up the good work!

 

[DonJuanMatus]

-

 

[Dr. Buddington]

Thank you for the answer DJM. My well has a plethora of microorganisms in it; I have an Evolution with the Pre-Evolution filters. I have to add a clorination/declorination system before the filters, since after a while the pre-filters get colonized by whatever algae/cyanobacteria the live down there. Pre-Evolution filters also say that they cant be used with microbiologically unsafe water. Written in fine print too, as always.

 

[DonJuanMatus]

-

 

[Desert Hydro]

i dont wanna seem like a cheap ass but can i reuse my old wool or is it toast? it was flushed really well so i dont see why you couldnt but then again it would probably be a bitch to get those roots out lol

 

[DonJuanMatus]

-