v2 'dream system' DIY and diary

[GMax]

That is amazing!

Well Done

thanks bro..i see your trees coming along good keep it up

F*ckin' amazing is more like it! Great stuff gmax

thanks bro..i seen your buds the other day and was speechless.. shit looks so delicious..and that nightmare diesel looks like a real winner!! amazing right back at ya

Wonderwall! Love it!

On the subject of defoilation, i'd strongly suggest weekly sessions after stretch has ended. Possibly more often if your strain can take it, some do some don't. As a rule of thumb no more than 30% of the total leaf mass should be removed at any one time, but weekly removal increases budsite access to light. This has been proven in my garden to increase yields and decrease larf. The trick is finding out how much to remove each session for your strain, in your system, in your room. 20-30% is a good base to work off of .

i am too it kinda catchy...i think i am gonna go ahead and remove the leaves.. it is not that much probably like 10-15% total..been a long time since i have ran a true SCROG but i pretty sure i used to do a lot of leaf removal with great success...and the plants are growing so well i dont think it will slow them down, the extra light should help the buds be fatter.. next time i go i gonna get that handled..i wont go crazy, just remove only the neccessary leaves

if it convenient i will snap some before and after pics..but seems unlikely because i like to take the leaves during lights off to reduce stress

 

[redbudduckfoot]

yep, looking great, but MostDef take all those leaves off that are covering bud sites. Defoliating works for sure, as long as you have top-notch healthy plants, and you do most of it AFTER stretch. I wanna see a WaLL of bud, not a bunch of leaves.

is this 1800w, or 3K?

Rbdf

 

[GMax]

yep, looking great, but MostDef take all those leaves off that are covering bud sites. Defoliating works for sure, as long as you have top-notch healthy plants, and you do most of it AFTER stretch. I wanna see a WaLL of bud, not a bunch of leaves.

is this 1800w, or 3K?

Rbdf

yeah definately taking the leaves... i would rather see a wall of bud as well

these are 600w hortiluxs

 

[redbudduckfoot]

word. I have a 4.5 x 4.5 x 5ft high vert room, I was rocking just one 600w hps during the summer months, now I'm running (2) 600w hps stacked, and what a difference doubling the lumens makes.

loving ur gro, i really wanna do some vert hydro, currently both my vert and horizontal rooms run with pro-mix and blumats, and the growth is phenomenal.

rbdf

 

[speedemon]

Looking great GMax mate

 

[b00m]

Frigging Wonderwall alright bruz

 

[southflorida]

killing it bro! Here's one fore you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hzrDeceEKc

 

[GMax]

word. I have a 4.5 x 4.5 x 5ft high vert room, I was rocking just one 600w hps during the summer months, now I'm running (2) 600w hps stacked, and what a difference doubling the lumens makes.

loving ur gro, i really wanna do some vert hydro, currently both my vert and horizontal rooms run with pro-mix and blumats, and the growth is phenomenal.

rbdf

thanks bro.. hydro can bring on a whole new set of challenges if you are not familiar with it...i think aero is way easier than hydro and might even be the easiest of all..aero is a preference for me now, if i were to go back to soil i would probably struggle, but i only have one soil run under my belt lol

the quote by fhc in my sig is the truth

Looking great GMax mate

thanks man

Frigging Wonderwall alright bruz

killing it bro! Here's one fore you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hzrDeceEKc

great now i have this song stuck in my head everytime i in the grow lol

 

[GMax]

ok i am starting to slip up in my old flowering room.. the whole 8 system weekly harvest thing isnt that hard to do but i keep messing up or forgeting my schedule... its been harder to just do them all at once because my cloning/transplanting schedule just dont really line up like that..so i have been trying to spread it out between two visits and changing the ones that were due..debating whether to put one off til next time if it was couple days early...blah blah blah

long story short, i messed up 2 crops in the last couple weeks...one was in early stretch..was gonna change it on day 5 when i was there... decided to "wait til next time," when next time came around i thought i already changed it, so by next visit they were hungry and lanky, then fixed....second one, same story just in early flower, so they are now halfway through and showing deficiencies, but now fixed

i just need to get more organized, start writing shit down and keeping track...it is not that they are hard to take care of..most of their work is done in veg..once they hit flower it is just a rez change every week ( <10 min, x7 if i actually stay on schedule ) and probably about 20-30 min of training/defoliation throughout the flower cycle.. totals to about 1.5-2hr per system in a 7week period, not including harvest (about 2hrs) ....just gonna be difficult to keep it to once a week with all these staggered crops


but anyways first thing i did, was give the Wonderwall another leaf trim couple hours before lights on...i wish i could take a BEFORE picture, but i couldnt because it was lights off so you only have the AFTER picture.. here it is



it really opened up the buds and you can see it still got plenty of leaf and i took a decent amount

here some more shots



my camera lense was crooked but it gives it this cool shadow across the top...



close up of some inner buds...





after that i i changed a couple rezs and harvested another crop from the old flowering room.. i meant to harvest it last time but, but didnt, so it got a couple days extra, and i needed it out today because my 1st round with the new SB is ready to be transplanted to flower...so i cut it down, and scrub/rinsed it out.

but the lights went out in the veg room before i could transplant or take pics of it..

so i changed the rez to the Wonderwall.. it is past halfway so i am gonna give them a quick 1-2 day flush before i hit them with some bloom boosters..

i drained the big rez and filled it with plain water..then i let it run for about an hour dtw before i set it back to 50gal RO with 100ml sm90 added to it for the roots..and set it back to recirculating

i wanna make sure that if my plants get burnt, i can be 100% sure it the koolbloom, and nothing wrong with a quick flush.... the new sb clones in veg are gonna get that extra 1-2 days in veg time, and i will transplant them when i change the big rez back to nutes


anyways, that is a diary of what i did today..i am gonna stop back either tomorrow or the next day to tranplant those sb clones and change my big rez ..i will snap some veg pics because the new Sb looks way different in veg than my original..and maybe a few shots of the old flowering room

thanks everybody

 

[Bud buster]

looking good and full didn't realize they were on a perpetual that can been confusing but much better than trimming it all at once. Can't wait to see the other rooms nice trim job best done young they will fatten up soon.

 

[GMax]

looking good and full didn't realize they were on a perpetual that can been confusing but much better than trimming it all at once. Can't wait to see the other rooms nice trim job best done young they will fatten up soon.

thanks bro..i am real proud of the way the canopy turned out....

perpetual can be confusing if you are not organized.. my old room has 8 small 15plant systems, and my new room will has two (eventually,only 1 atm) large 48plant systems..so they are all staggered.. i like to be able to divide the work.. but it requires more frequent short visits, instead of one long day to do all chores..

i am definately not looking forward to harvesting my big crop... i am to the point where i dread harvesting and bout to buy myself some sort of harvesting machine..

i will snap some pics of the old room next time, but the round 1-3 in my sig is riddled with pictures of them from before i even had this new system if u wanna have a look

 

[Bud buster]

Defoliate the plants a week or few days before chop it will ripen anything that was covered but better yet you have done most of the trim work before, saving you half the time trimming.

 

[redbudduckfoot]

yeah man, as long as its not showing problems, as soon as stretch is over, I would be taking 2-4 fans per plant every day I was in the grow.

rbdf

 

[GMax]

Defoliate the plants a week or few days before chop it will ripen anything that was covered but better yet you have done most of the trim work before, saving you half the time trimming.

yeah man, as long as its not showing problems, as soon as stretch is over, I would be taking 2-4 fans per plant every day I was in the grow.

rbdf

yeah leaf removal is gonna be routine now..i am not doing anything spectacular really.. i condsider this a SCROG, and part of growing like that is is excessive leaf removal...the real experiment is figuring out how much is too much, which i will continue to test...thanks dudes




OK... in the trial and error experiment that has been this grow/system...i have ran into another problem...here the story...



so last time i did an update was when i was at the grow.. like i said, i changed the big rez over to plain water and was planning on coming back yesterday or today to change it back and nutes and transplant the SB clones over to the old flowering room...

but i am making plans with my friends to do a little partying on friday, we were going to go to another friends house who lives couple hours away...i didnt know where the night would take me, or when i would be back..

so i got all ready to go and decided to be safe i would stop by the grow and finish up all my chores so i could have a worry free weekend...

i only needed 30 mins to do what i needed to do, but i was running behind, so i get there and stripped down into my underwear so i dont ruin my good clothes.. i walk down to the basement and i notice that my big rez is only half full....so obviously that is gonna need my immeadiate attention now...

so i start checking everything... checked the soleniod first since that was the problem last time.. but it was working....so i check the big pump, working... return pump, working...no leaks.. float valve was working.. for a second i i thought since it was just plain water in the rez, that my plants were just drinking like bosses and my float couldnt keep up...but then i noticed that after the big pump cycled, the flow to the return rez was pretty slow..

so i unhooked the tubing and tried to blow into it and there were roots growing a few feet into the tubing..no matter how hard i blew into it, i couldnt get the pipes cleared.. i was afraid this might happen, and someone already called it in here....

so i go over to the rubber capped end of the base of the system.. i loosen the cap and remove it and water just starts gushing out... i put the cap back on, but i realized there is nothing i can do.. i just gonna have to remove it and let all that water go on the floor and find its way to the drain... it was a lot of water..i keep 50 gals in the rez, and half was unaccounted for...well i found it...

so now i have found the problem, and i need to find a solution.. i am already there longer than i have planned, and my friends are all blowing me up and waiting on me.. on top of that home depot/lowes is closed at this point... so i have to macguyver something out of anything i already had..at least a temporary fix

luckily i had almost everything i needed, except i didnt have any type of glue or water sealant... since the system was originally built with 9 rows, i had an extra rubber cap for the top that had a 3/4'' hole drilled into it for PVC mainfold... i scavenged a lenght of tubing..slao found a barbed elbow and a grommet...

i stretched the hole in the rubber cap around the grommet to get it sealed tight.. then i attached a elbow with tubing to the grommet and replaced the original plain rubber cap, with the new drain hole cap..then i tee'd into the drain line to the return rez, so i now have an extra drain hole on the side of th system too...luckily since there was no drain hole there before, there are no built up roots there..then i also added a shutoff valve to the original clogged line, so i can make it drain out the side only or both... i set it to both so the majority of the water can drain out the side and the rest can slow drain out the bottom... i refilled the rez, and watched it for a couple cycles and it seemed to be working with no leaks ...

at this point i was out of time though and had no choice but to leave, not even doing what i came here for in the first place..i really did not want to, but i would have been a dick to make my friends wait and then flake, and really not have a good enough excuse since i wouldnt be able to tell them the real reason...i kept my fingers crossed that everything would be ok and decided i would come back literally asap

i didnt make it back until early afternoon today.. when i got there the water level in the rez was low again but not as low as before..so i rechecked everything but it was still working and there was no built up water in the system's pipes ..so now i am starting to think my plant are actually drinking like beasts since it is just plain water, but i am not sure.. i dont want to add nutes back until i know i got it fixed though..

i mean, they drink plain water faster than nute water right ????

idk i am chilling keeping an eye on it... i set the valves to make it drain just out the side to see if that makes a difference.. but i am ready to put nutes back in it as soon as i got it figured out...

once again this was another last minute desperation attempt at a fix, but i think i am gonna implement this same idea with the next system....during the first few weeks i will have the side hole near the top so it simply acts as a overflow drain in the base of the system and keep roots from building up there...then about a few weeks in, after the roots are real developed and trained towards the drain holes, i will rotate the cap to put the hole on the bottom to act as the primary drain..the only downfall is there may be nothing i can do about a very shallow puddle along the base...just gonna have to work with what i can for right now...

no plants or equipment was harmed in the making of this story

 

[DaveTheNewbie]

i REALLY hate those time rushed problem fix moments. All you can think about is the possible damage and cost of everything dying while you run about like a madman on speed trying to do everything at once.

 

[bobblehead]

You're my hero Gmax. Keep on keeping on.

 

[GMax]

i REALLY hate those time rushed problem fix moments. All you can think about is the possible damage and cost of everything dying while you run about like a madman on speed trying to do everything at once.

yeah i dont like them either...luckily i have been able to make some pretty decent decisions when under pressure...but believe me the entire time i was trying to figure it out i was panicing

You're my hero Gmax. Keep on keeping on.

thanks bobble






with the 5 pic limit i will throw these in here...
i still havent transplanted them, but here is my next round in the old room....new sour bubble



got the system all cleaned out and ready to go but again ran out of daylight so i get to them in the morning..

pics and update of the new system coming up in few min...

 

[GMax]

ok so i have been close to the system keeping an eye on it... here is the update i did to it last night...



it definately helped with draining the system after each watering.. but like i said i still seemed to be losing water in the main rez, just at a slower rate... i am starting to think that the system is working a little different now that there is a mass of roots inside..


i did a little fiddling with the return rez timer.. my main pump is set for 10sec ON/6.5min OFF... and my return pump is set for 1min ON/5min OFF....upon further inspection of the return rez, i noticed that the water would only reach up to a few inches in the return rez, which is where i like to keep my 'sea level'..so u would assume that would be the level of the water throughout the system...

but i noticed after the return rez pump kicked on... more water would come flowing back into it and the 'sea level' would be right back where it started even though no more water had been pumped...so basically i am thinking that the water loss that i am having now is because more water is going to the system than coming back...

so i set my timer to the return rez pump to do little bursts instead of one long drain.. the lowest setting my timer an go to is 1min OFF.... and i noticed that it takes my pump a little under 20sec to drain my return rez back to empty...so that is what i set it for...1min OFF/20 sec ON....

it is definately draining it more than before, but i think it just barely enough.. i did some testing of it, and with that setting, there is bout 5-6 return rez drains per 1 misting cycle... the first 4 take most of the 20 secs to drain before it starts dribbling off as the water in the return rez gets low... the very last return rez drain takes only bout ten second and then it starts dribbling off....

i cant go any lower on the settings of my timer to have more frequent return rez pumps... and having it run 24/7 would probably be bad on the pump and not work as well anyways..i do personally think however that i might be able to spread my misting cycle by another 1-1.5min at least... we will see how it goes and then go from there...i have to figure something out, we coming up close to harvest real soon...


anyways here are some more pics

whole room... foliage bouncing back..starting to get that leafy look again already...been being flushed for 1day 2nights..bout to give it one more light cycle then change it back to nutes..




left side...




right side....



thats it for now... i am going out for a little bit, but i am staying at my grow tonight, and see how things look in the morning, then try to get the big rez changed...thanks everybody

 

[5th]

It's shit like that man...your V2.5 will have all these things factored...killin' it with the Wonderwall GMax.

 

[redbudduckfoot]

looking good. Just checking in yo.

rbdf