White Widow (2nd Grow)

[CheCulo]

Hi everyone, started my second grow on Aug 23. My first grow was fairly successful, enough weed for me, and was able to share with friends. Unfortunately I may have shared a little to much because I'm running low. But anyway I made a hydroponic system using vinyl downspouts. I guess you could call it a hybrid NFT/Ebb and flow system.

White Widow from ILGM Started 5, but only 3 made it. I'm pretty sure it was my fault, not theirs.

4x4 tent with 20 helloify BR30 LED Plant Grow 9W Light Bulbs that I wired on a piece of plywood. Purchased some grow lights for this grow, but they produced so much heat it scared me so I went with the helloify

I have a 7 gallon resevoir that I use Peters Professional Hydroponic Special Fertilizer, 5-11-26 (25 Pound Bag), Cal Mag, Hydroguard, Epsom Salts, and a little bit of Calcium Nitrate 15.5 during Veg, try to keep the PH 5.8-6.0, tent temp 71 degrees and humidity 53 to 65%

Trying to do a SCROG grow but my webbing is way to big, fixing that next run.

Thinking about flipping to flower, but would like your opinions

 

[CheCulo]

October pictures

 

[SubmarineGirl]

Interesting setup

 

[oldfogey8]

You could snake the branches over/under the netting to get more of a complete canopy. You will get more buds sites and thus yield that way(sorry if I am telling you something you are already aware of). 2 months of veg is the minimum I usually do but you could flip to flower at any time. I would just want more of the net filled out if it were me. Nice set up. I am not familiar with the lights. Are they putting out enough light?

 

[CheCulo]

You could snake the branches over/under the netting to get more of a complete canopy. You will get more buds sites and thus yield that way(sorry if I am telling you something you are already aware of). 2 months of veg is the minimum I usually do but you could flip to flower at any time. I would just want more of the net filled out if it were me. Nice set up. I am not familiar with the lights. Are they putting out enough light?

I'm not sure about the lights, so far so good. I don't have any meters or anything.

 

[CheCulo]

Interesting setup

I saw this when I was looking for videos for a hydroponic vegetable grow, which is going really good so far. need to make a few adjustments

 

[oldfogey8]

I looked them up on Amazon. It says each bulb puts out 14 umols/sec. With 20 of them, that is only 280 umols/sec. That is pretty low even for vegging. For flowering I think I recall 700 being on the low end of acceptable for growing cannabis. You will probably get buds but they will be fluffy.

 

[SubmarineGirl]

I saw this when I was looking for videos for a hydroponic vegetable grow, which is going really good so far. need to make a few adjustments

Wow that’s an amazing garden. Everything so pretty too. I’ve never seen your setup but it’s really cool.

 

[SubmarineGirl]

You do need some good lighting for weed tho, not that it won’t grow but they really grow better with a cool LED in your awesome tent. You may decide after this grow to upgrade but I love the look. Is that your vegetable garden too?

 

[CrashMagnet]

Nice setup, though I'm not sure the roots from a full size plant won't clog up those down spouts. I had something similar in mind, but never made one myself. I will be watching and taking notes : )

Curious about your pump and timing on the ebb and flow setup. Yours is setup to always have some water, it looks like, with maybe 1" of air at the top?

On the lighting, I don't see much stretch from your plants, so it's probably enough. But when you flip them, if they turn into bean stalks, you need more light. Those plants will get a lot bigger if you leave them in veg, but you can flip them any time at this point.

 

[CheCulo]

I'm not sure about the lights, so far so good. I don't have any meters or anything.

 

[CheCulo]

Well, I'm open to suggestions...seriously. What is a good light for a 4 x 4 tent? I can legally have 4 and thats all I want and I have a 4 x 4 tent. What is a good LED light that won't bankrupt me and doesn't get crazy hot. My first grow was two different strains and 1 of the plants did have very light buds, looked very good, but no weight; the other plant did well, with what I thought were nice buds. I would definitely like them to get better. The picture will be attached and that was with a 3x3 tent and 9 of those same lights.

I took a video of me pulling the roots out of my first grow system, which was basically the same but with 4" PVC

I will try and get the video reduced so I can attach tomorrow. I ate half an oreo and am hammered. medicated

 

[oldfogey8]

I have crappy ‘blurple’ LEDs but if I were to buy a new one, I would buy a Spider Farmer light. The folks using them grow some incredible plants. I would say, if you are happy with what you are getting for quality and yield, you should stick with what you have. Like you, I don’t grow to sell or to supply anyone else(though I do supply others) so I can’t justify spending the money for a better light. I am a hobbyist.

 

[CheCulo]

Nice setup, though I'm not sure the roots from a full size plant won't clog up those down spouts. I had something similar in mind, but never made one myself. I will be watching and taking notes : )

Curious about your pump and timing on the ebb and flow setup. Yours is setup to always have some water, it looks like, with maybe 1" of air at the top?

On the lighting, I don't see much stretch from your plants, so it's probably enough. But when you flip them, if they turn into bean stalks, you need more light. Those plants will get a lot bigger if you leave them in veg, but you can flip them any time at this point.

I have the pump set for 15 minutes run, 15 Off. Not sure of the size, 1/2" inlets and 1" drains. So far so good as far as clogs.

 

[SubmarineGirl]

I have the pump set for 15 minutes run, 15 Off. Not sure of the size, 1/2" inlets and 1" drains. So far so good as far as clogs.

This is a picture of boos roots. Is there room for something like this in those lines?

 

[CheCulo]

This is a picture of boos roots. Is there room for something like this in those lines?


View attachment 312049

No, pretty sure that would wreck my system. I'm going to try a bato bucket system for my tomatoes, peppers and eggplant.

 

[CrashMagnet]

I have the pump set for 15 minutes run, 15 Off. Not sure of the size, 1/2" inlets and 1" drains. So far so good as far as clogs.

Pulling the roots out of that PVC pipe is about what I went through with the bok choi and spinach I grew in one. I had 12 plants per pipe, though, so the roots both filled the pipe and tangled with the roots of adjacent plants. It slowed the water flow, but never really stopped it completely. I did have to adjust the pump output regularly.

I had much better success with tomatoes in beto buckets. Except for the occasional perlite clog in the drain, that setup required almost no maintenance. I topped the reservoir with tap water every couple of days, and every other week I opened the drain so it emptied into the yard, then refilled with fresh water and nutes. That was pretty much all I did to it all spring and summer. Timer was set for 15 minutes three times a day.

 

[CheCulo]

Good morning! Update to my grow. Everything was going fairly smoothly until I left the pump unplugged for a day or 2 after doing some work on the system. I was looking through these forums for leaf symptoms and deficiencies, then I discovered that it was a just a case of *******. When I trim I always think I'm not doing enough and then when I'm done, I feel like I might have killed it. Hopefully with practice. The picture with the blue circle is a bud site, below the main cola. These are the ones I'm not sure about. How do you all decide what stays and what goes? This was supposed to be a SCROG grow with a nice even canopy, maybe next time.

 

[oldfogey8]

My rule of thumb during flower is to remove bud sites too far away from the lights to develop well and gradually any fan leaves that are blocking light from the bud sites in addition to dead or dying fan leaves. During flower, you don’t want to stress the plants so prune gradually over a week or two and take notes(I use my grow journals for that) so you can refer back on future grows for what worked and what didn’t.

 

[CheCulo]

Haven't posted in awhile, life has given me a few kicks right in the balls and haven't felt much like it. My grows been chuggin along. Getting close to harvest, waiting for the trichomes to turn. I think this grow would have gone much better, with a much better yield with better lights.