# OCCG Hydro - Round 2 - OG Kush



## occg.hydro (Feb 9, 2009)

Hey guys, I'm back! Spent the last few months teaching snowboard lessons, now it's back to work. If you followed my last journal I've made a few changes since. I replaced the 7,000 BTU air conditioner with a 14,000 BTU unit that only uses 100w more. It's waaaaay more efficient. I've re-done the ducting so that I don't have to deal with hot air blowing in to my room any more. Same as last time, the intake's HEPA filtered & the exhaust runs through a carbon scrubber. I washed down the walls with a mild bleach solution & sprayed the room with pyrethrin (sp?). This time instead of using just the expanded clay I added 6" rockwool hugo blocks & put the clay around them in the 10" mesh pots. Other than that I think everything else is the same. 9 plants, drip system, 1000W MH for veg & 1000W HPS for flower. I'll be running the same nutes, AN 2 part, & using RO water. The room's all set up and ready to go, I'm just waiting on clones. Later this week I'll be picking up 9 OG Kush SFV cut's.
The complete list of gear is still posted on my last grow journal so if your curious check out the first post of that one. Now that I'm done with all the clean up I'm gonna sit back and burn a spliff of some sour diesel and wait for the pics to upload. Enjoy!


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## Medman (Feb 9, 2009)

nice setup man. some tasty lookin buds too


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## occg.hydro (Feb 15, 2009)

Hey guys, I picked up clones today from a collective in Malibu. Pretty legit spot. I got 7 Sour D x OG Kush and 2 Master Kush. I really didn't want to grow two strains at the same time again but oh well. They're pretty decent looking clones. I'm going with the AN feeding schedule so right now they're at pH 5.6 & ppm 250. Next week they get upped to 500. If anybody has any questions or suggestions I'd love to hear them. I'll try to do weekly photo updates like I did on the last journal so stay posted for more.


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## JBonez (Feb 15, 2009)

dude, your grow gave me a lot of inspiration, particularly in the amount of detail you put into it, im a freak when it comes to doing things the right way, so yeah, ill def be following this, coming off a little hiatus myself, fist grow ever got just over a pound off 8 plants so i was happy, not to mention stoned for the last two months straight, be checkin ya from time to time, gonna get my seatbelt fastened for this one, hydro is so fast!


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## JBonez (Feb 15, 2009)

btw, thats an interesting utilization of an automotive intake filter


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## kushman44 (Feb 15, 2009)

Good looking setup, with strains i plan on having in my garden shortly. ill be :bong: :watchplant:


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## occg.hydro (Feb 15, 2009)

Thanks Bonez! yeah dude, people say that hydro's difficult but really it's just all about attention to detail. I figure the more neurotic you are about eliminating extraneous variables the better chance you have of keeping everything under control. That filter's actually not an automotive filter, it's a 6" organic HEPA filter, specifically designed for greenhouses. I'm sure there's probably something else on the market that would do the same thing for cheaper but this one's washable, reusable, etc...


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## JBonez (Feb 15, 2009)

I agree, and i think money holds most back. I designed my grow room that i want, problem is, its gonna set me back about 8 grand, and this only a 2x600w grow. But ive got it calculated to be fully automated, when i can, im going hydro with clones from a momma, that way they can all be in the same nute bath and i can have some control. But you dont have to spend money to be attentive and observant, two of the biggest downfalls i see on this site with growers, god i love researching. Keep it up man, i love how dialed your grow is, mines getting there, but my life is so crazy right now its kinda hard, its not really the money, but the time and energy. Something i dont have when im stoned, lol.


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## occg.hydro (Feb 15, 2009)

for sure dude, the money thing's a big issue for most people. I have over 4k invested just in this one room not including bills and clones. It's definitely time consuming but it's worth every bit of work you put in to it. I'm with you, I think a lot of people starting out underestimate how much attention to detail is needed to really do things right. There's a steep learning curve for sure. I've been using a spare cabinet I have as a clone room and I'm thinking about turning it in to a small veg room. As soon as these plants are big enough to start pruning I'm going to cut some clones and start some mothers. The cabinets I've got are longer than they are tall so I'm going to experiment with doing some LST and growing the moms sideways. We'll see how it works out. If I can pull it off it'd make things a lot more efficient as opposed to having to go buy more clones every time I harvest.


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## kushman44 (Feb 15, 2009)

Mothers growing sideways. Sounds cool, keep us updated!


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## occg.hydro (Feb 18, 2009)

hey guys. thought I'd drop by and give a little update. The clones look like they've rooted in to the rockwool plugs and they're starting to make some good growth. One of the tiny ones wilted after I put it in the 6" block so I tossed a humidity dome over it and sprayed it with some carbonated water. 24 hours later it perked back up so I took the dome off and now it's doing fine. Other than that all of them are showing an inch or two of new growth. I'll post pics on saturday to show the difference. So far I'm very happy with how I've got the system dialed in this time. No problems with temperature, pH drift, algae, etc. PPM stays at 250 until saturday when I dump the reservoir. Then it gets upped to 500ppm, should start seeing some really good growth next week.


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## cadlakmike1 (Feb 18, 2009)

Very impressive set up, I'm looking forward to following along.


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## 420benny (Feb 18, 2009)

:yeahthat:


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## TerrorAP2 (Feb 18, 2009)

Awesome stuff! I always love the way these plants look when they are young. I am awaiting the outcome


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## Cam09 (Feb 19, 2009)

looks like a great set up. ill be watching this one forsure.


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## JBonez (Feb 19, 2009)

hey occ, click the link in my sig for my setup, about the same as yours in dimensions as far as plant layout, square of 9, but i am running the same variables as you, just in soil. And i have a little less control over temps, not that they arent fine, but i have to manually do it.


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## IRISH (Feb 19, 2009)

nice setup oc. hydro. lik'in it much. gotta love the kush. grab'in up my seat if you don't mind. ...bb...


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## bombbudpuffa (Feb 20, 2009)

Very nice setup...i'm jealous.


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## occg.hydro (Feb 22, 2009)

Ok guys, we're at the end of week one and everything is looking good. I've got one plant that's struggling a little bit (bad clone to begin with but oh well). It just needs to grow some more leaves. I'm a little hesitant to up the nutes right now b/c that one plant's still pretty small. I'm going to wait until day 10 and then up them to 500ppm. Hopefully in the next 2-3 days the root system on that one straggler will catch up a little and it won't get nute burn. I've started spraying with neem oil twice a week and it's made a really nice difference in the way the leaves look. No problems with mold/insects but I figured I might as well take preventative measures other than pyrethrum. Pics 3 & 5 are the master kush and the rest of them are the SD x OG.


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## kushman44 (Feb 22, 2009)

Lookin good bro, I love your setup


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## occg.hydro (Feb 24, 2009)

I had a bunch of AN piranha left over from my last grow. It's some kind of beneficial fungi or something that's supposed to help promote healthy root growth. I wasn't able to use it last time because I was using h202 to control algae. This stuff says it's supposed to increase root mass by up to 700% so we'll see how well it works.


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## JBonez (Feb 24, 2009)

keep us posted brotha!


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## IRISH (Feb 26, 2009)

hows gimp handl'in 500? bump her up man ...bb...


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## occg.hydro (Feb 27, 2009)

banjobuzz said:
			
		

> hows gimp handl'in 500? bump her up man ...bb...



I decided to up them to 350 instead of 500 _because _of gimpy. We'll see how she's doing on day 15. So far she's handling it pretty well. I'm almost considering pulling the bucket that she's in out of the system and putting her in her own DWC so that I can keep the nutes seperate on her. The rest of the babies are handling it fine and look like they're ready for the switch to 500. I'll up them in 2 more days. The AN feeding schedule is a little bit aggressive for my taste. In the mean time I think I'm going to work on switching one of the buckets to DWC and isolating it from the rest of the system. I've never done a DWC before so this is a complete crap shoot but it seems like a better idea than holding back 8 beautiful plants on account of one stunted one. I'll hold off a couple of days and see if she makes any progress but I think the solution for the runt is a seperate reservoir @ a lower ppm than the rest of the plants.


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## blownupnostril (Feb 27, 2009)

sorry bro didnt realize


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## occg.hydro (Feb 28, 2009)

Sorry nostril, I wasn't try'n to be harsh earlier, just not in a great mood this morning. Anyway, I went ahead and did it. I switched the bucket that the gimp is in to it's own DWC system. Hopefully this'll work. I guess it's either going to fall over dead or pop back to life. At least this way I can control the ppm for that one plant independent of the rest of the system. I went ahead and dropped the ppm on gimpy down to 150 @ 5.6 pH and upped the rest of the girls to 500ppm. If anybody has any advice on DWC let me know. I've never tried this so it should be interesting. The rest of the girls look beautiful!!! I'm really excited to see how they take the nute increase.


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## JBonez (Feb 28, 2009)

what kind of air pump are you using, also, when you change out nutes, do you take them out of their buckets and put them in a fresh bucket? or do you just drain and refill?

I built a dwc setup, pretty nice actually, but i wanna wait until i have a good mother plant to take cuttings from.


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## occg.hydro (Feb 28, 2009)

JBonez said:
			
		

> what kind of air pump are you using, also, when you change out nutes, do you take them out of their buckets and put them in a fresh bucket? or do you just drain and refill?
> 
> I built a dwc setup, pretty nice actually, but i wanna wait until i have a good mother plant to take cuttings from.



I can't remember the exact specs on my air pump. It has 2 outputs. one of them goes to my reservoir and the other goes to the DWC bucket. Both leads have 6" air stones on the end. I put the air pump on top of the reservoir lid and let the A/C blow cold air over it so that it keeps my res. at about 68 degrees. The plants are all in 10" mesh pots, which hang in the 5gal buckets. The pots have a 6" rockwool block surrounded by hydroton. All of the DWC setups I've seen use 4" mesh pots and straight hydroton with a 1" rockwool plug, so we'll see if this works. I checked the gimp this morning and she looks the same, no better no worse, so I guess it's a good sign that she's not dead. When I do nute changes for the drip system I drain all the water in the reservoir, refill with RO water and pump it through the drain system (all of the buckets are connected to one another by 1/2" tubing) instead of the drippers. That way the RO water mixes with the water sitting in the bottom of the buckets and drains back to the reservoir. Then I drain all the water again and re-fill with new nutes. Run through the drain again to mix it, re-adjust the nutes again & then run it through the drippers. Every two nute changes I flush the plants so instead of running the RO water through the drain line I just run it through the drippers and let it drain out. The DWC bucket is attached to the rest of the system at the drain line but it has no dripper and it has an on/off knob on it so it's independent of the rest of the buckets. When I need to change the nutes in that I'll turn the knob & let the bucket drain out to the reservoir & then re-fill it with fresh nutes. Not quite sure what you mean by putting them in a fresh bucket. Not quite sure if I'm really stoned and just rambling nonsense. Hopefully my explaination of how I have everything set up makes sense.


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## JBonez (Feb 28, 2009)

thanks, i guess thats pretty cool, by changing buckets i meant having spare buckets that are cleaned between use.


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## occg.hydro (Feb 28, 2009)

JBonez said:
			
		

> thanks, i guess thats pretty cool, by changing buckets i meant having spare buckets that are cleaned between use.


nope, the buckets are all connected to one another so they don't move once they're in there. I take them out in between crops and clean them with bleach. Once they go in they stay there. They get cleaned by flushing them out with straight RO water when I change the nutes. The hydroton leaves red clay powder in the bottom of the buckets no matter what so trying to keep them spotless is kind of a losing battle and doesn't really make a difference. I use a filter bag for my water pump so that thing catches most of the junk floating around in the water.


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## occg.hydro (Mar 2, 2009)

I cut 16 clones today so I figured I'd post some pics and do a little update. Other than breaking a brand new snowboard yesterday, the girls are still doin' great & everything is going well!


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## kushman44 (Mar 3, 2009)

Looks good bro!


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## occg.hydro (Mar 4, 2009)

Cut 12 more clones today. The ones I cut the other day are starting to spring back up towards the lights. The gimp that I switched over to the DWC bucket is finally starting to show some new growth and the other girls are branching out great after the pruning.


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## JBonez (Mar 4, 2009)

nice man, question, what was your last yield from a 9 bucket setup?


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## occg.hydro (Mar 5, 2009)

JBonez said:
			
		

> nice man, question, what was your last yield from a 9 bucket setup?


 Around 23oz


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## MeNtAlPaTiEnT (Mar 5, 2009)

*whistles. thats a nice yield. Your current set-up looks A-Ok by my standards .


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## occg.hydro (Mar 5, 2009)

Thanks guys! I feel like I've got it way more dialed in this time too! We'll have to see how the runt affects the yield but everything's looking verrrrrrrry promising!


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## occg.hydro (Mar 10, 2009)

Hey guys! The girls are on day 23 of veg @ 800ppm & doing great! The runt is still doing its runt thing so I'm going to start training the rest of the plants toward the center to try and maximize the space I have available. It's not looking too good for the little guy. I'd say that in 23 days it's grown about an inch. I'm almost wondering if it's a problem leaving it in there. I don't know what's wrong with it and I'm kind of wondering if I should worry about it being a virus or something. Any suggestions would be great!


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## occg.hydro (Mar 13, 2009)

So we're at day 27 & the girls are EXPLOSIVE!!! I upped them to 1000ppm today, we'll see how they handle it. I think that's about as high as I'm going to take them before switching to flower. I got some trellis netting and started pulling the branches back under the net to train them towards the center. The runt is still a runt. It looks like it always will be, so I think I'm gonna call the time of death in a few days & pull it. I'm not sure why I keep waiting on this plant. I think I'm hoping that it'll magically bust out a bunch of nodes overnight or something . Anyway, the girls look like they've got about 10 more days until I switch them over to 12/12. Just waiting for them to fill up the screen a little bit more.


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## kushman44 (Mar 13, 2009)

I dont know if its your first time using that net bro, but your gonna love when there in flower! Ive been using 1 for a lil bit and the buds just lean on them


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## occg.hydro (Mar 14, 2009)

yeah man, this is my first time with the net. I had to use bamboo stakes last time b/c the branches got so heavy that they would break themselves. I figured the net would save a lot of headache and allow me to train them more easily. 
I went ahead and pulled out the runt today and drained the bucket she was in. I took a look at the roots and it looks like she only had one little taproot coming out with very few root hairs and no lateral roots. Pretty poor plant. Oh well...


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## bombbudpuffa (Mar 14, 2009)

Looking good OH.


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## 420benny (Mar 14, 2009)

Nice grow occg. I like that you did a rootopsy. Not too many want to know why something happened or didn't.


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## occg.hydro (Mar 14, 2009)

Thanks man, I'm taking a plant biology / botany class right now. I think it's all fascinating stuff. A lot of it's really confusing when you get down to the cellular level but I'm sure starting to understand plants way better than I did before.


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## IRISH (Mar 14, 2009)

sweet growth at 30 days? i am just finishing up my first dwc, kinda a test.
loving it so far. its not as elaborate as yours. hmm, maybe next time.

still watching closely OH. you go dude. those look very nice.

i would have pitched gimp long ago. i know, its the connection thing.  ...bb...


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## occg.hydro (Mar 20, 2009)

Ok guys, we're on day 33 now. The girls are at 1000ppm and are drinking about 2 gal of water/day with the ppm dropping every time they feed! Figured I'd post a couple pics. The canopy's lookin great! I love that trellis net! It makes it so much easier to train these things where I want them. I'm going to flush the system with clearex on sunday night and then monday it's time for the switch to 12/12. Stay posted, it's almost time for the fun to start! Stinky dog's getting anxious! she likes to chew on the stems when I'm done harvesting & trimming the plants.


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## cannabis037 (Mar 20, 2009)

wow i love this method. you seem to do scrog the nicest! im uber jealous.


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## occg.hydro (Mar 20, 2009)

thanks dude! this is actually my first time using the screen but it seems to work great! it's way more convenient than trying to stake and tie plants all the time.


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## IRISH (Mar 20, 2009)

very nice oc hydro. . how old will they be monday when you flower?

did you top them? nice color, and growth. grow on...bb...


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## occg.hydro (Mar 20, 2009)

they'll be 37 days old on monday. I topped them, waited about a week and then pruned them up from the bottom to encourage more branching and allow for better air flow through the plants when they start flowering


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## occg.hydro (Mar 24, 2009)

Switched the girls over to 12/12 on sunday night, flushed them all night & loaded up the bloom nutes @ 1000ppm on monday. Today I pruned up the area below the net to get better air flow and encourage bigger buds above the net where they're gonna get more light. I'm happy with the way the canopy looks, hopefully they don't stretch too much. I leave the MH on for the first two weeks of flower to help keep them from stretching out and then it's time for the monster HPS.


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## JBonez (Mar 25, 2009)

great job brother, just switched mine on the 18th, ill post a pic here in your thread, or just check my sig for updates, i love the way your plants look, your taking good care of them.


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## IRISH (Mar 25, 2009)

beauty oc hydro.  . man, i hope you make it on height restriction. 

i'm very interested here on 1- is the trim in late veg going to help slow the upward growth, 2- is the mh going to do what you want as far as slowing upward growth,?

how much up you got in there? am i missing something oc? cause it don't look enough. if they stretch 3x, well??? 

i'm watching closely. look toward another week. those are gonna be monsters if you pull this one off bro...bb...


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## occg.hydro (Mar 25, 2009)

The late veg trim won't help with height. I top them to get them to branch more and that helps with the height a little. The pruning on the bottom is for air flow and shaping. If anything it might make them stretch _more _from the stress of pruning right before flowering. I usually do my pruning in 2 stages (after they've been topped) so that there's a week or two between the last pruning (major prune) and the switch to 12/12 and then I do a little bit of clean up within a day or two of the switch. If you prune too much, to close to the switch to 12/12, it delays flowering because of the stress and you end up with more stretch than normal. I learned the MH trick years ago when I was doing soil. If you leave the MH on them for 2 weeks they still stretch but it keeps the internode length more compact than you get with a HPS. The plants are about 24-26 inches right now. I've got about another 18" before my light's as high as it gets. with 18" of growth they'll be about 14" from the light when it's maxed out. Any taller than that and they're gonna start getting too close to the bulb. This is a 60% indica cross on both varieties so I'm expecting that it won't stretch that much. If it does I'm going to be more worried about the branches supporting themselves than I am about how close they get to the light. In that case I'll just do some really unconventional training up towards the corners.


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## JBonez (Mar 25, 2009)

i remove half of lower growth 2 weeks into flowering, after alot of stretch has occured. I thought about using a mh in the first few weeks of flower, but i keep my 1000w air cooled and about a foot off my plants, so they stay pretty bushy, not enough stretch for me to try an mh, but hey, maybe down the road!

great job man, i always look forward to your updates, your doing things the way they should be done, i respect that alot, seems a lot of people dont do that.

BTW, have you tried bloombastic? Everyone local says 40-50% increase in harvest weight, trying it now, but have yet to see results, im only a week in, but my hydro stores cant keep it in stock, and one guy bought 5 bottles. Thats about 1100.00 for 5 bottles, he sais he will never use anything else. I will let you know how it goes, but im in soil, so my yields shouldnt be as much as yours. GL brother.


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## Darth BongWongDong (Mar 25, 2009)

very nice


http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=25&page=2&order=desc

http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38577&goto=newpost


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## occg.hydro (Mar 27, 2009)

little tiny, itty-bitty buds starting to pop out at the meristems! I'll post pics on sunday when I do the res change. The girls are at 1000ppm right now, on their 6th day of 12/12 and lookin great! They're MONSTERS now. I'm hoping they don't have too much stretch left in 'em. Still got about another 16" I can raise the light if I need to.


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## JBonez (Mar 28, 2009)

6th day? man, me and you are gonna be harvesting roughly the same time, this should be a fun grow man.


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## occg.hydro (Mar 28, 2009)

I thought I'd post a little update on the LST mother I've got growing under CFL's. She was one of the MK clones that I cut a few weeks ago. I planted her in a small pot full of loose rockwool. She got plain RO water with no nutes for a while so she's a little on the light side, with a little bit of yellowing at the leaf tips. She's at 250ppm right now, going up to 500 next week. I just LST'd her yesterday and she's responding well. As she grows I'm going to train her in a circle around the rim of the pot. I'm still waiting on a bunch of the SDxOG clones to show good roots. About 1/2 of them have rooted so I'll probably end up doing the same with one of them and donating the rest. Eventually the mothers are going to get transplanted in to their own DWC buckets.


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## occg.hydro (Mar 29, 2009)

Today's the end of week 1 of 12/12. Just did the reservoir change. Upped the girls to 1150ppm instead of 1200. It seemed a little quick to me. If the PPM starts dropping I'll go ahead and up them but at the moment they're taking in more water than nutes so I don't want to burn them. Everything's going really well. They're HUGE and they're starting to pop out little buds!


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## swiftgt (Mar 30, 2009)

yea they look realy good!
nice and green!
and they seem to be growing very fast,
looks like you have everything down to a fine art!
what yeild are you hoping to get off them?


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## occg.hydro (Mar 30, 2009)

Thanks Swift! My last harvest in the same area got me about 1.25lbs. Anything over 1 makes me happy. These guys are a good deal bigger though so I would say probably closer to 1.5 on this one. Keep your fingers crossed for me!


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## JBonez (Mar 30, 2009)

ninja edit


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## JBonez (Mar 30, 2009)

man, hydro grows so fast, man, well, heres mine and they dont look as big, healthy yes, but in the height dept, your up, wow. Youre gonna make me use my bubble bucket setup i built before im ready, im convinced its a fast way to grow.


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## occg.hydro (Mar 30, 2009)

lookin' good bonez! I ended up pulling the one in the bubble bucket and training the rest of them to fill in that space. All the rest of the buckets are on a drip system.


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## JBonez (Mar 30, 2009)

occg.hydro said:
			
		

> lookin' good bonez! I ended up pulling the one in the bubble bucket and training the rest of them to fill in that space. All the rest of the buckets are on a drip system.



ld like to know the details of your drip system, seems more manageable than dwc, but similar in supplies, maybe not now but sometime you could send me a detailed description of your setup, thanks.


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## JBonez (Mar 30, 2009)

How did you hookup the hose to the bottom of the bucket, i mean, the little flange, is that a rubber grommet? just curious, cuz mine is a lot different, and yours looks simple, with no leaks, lol.


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## occg.hydro (Mar 30, 2009)

yeah, I used rubber grommets. That's the only way to go. No leaks at all! You can find all the fittings at a hydro store. Most of them are at home depot as well. Don't know if they have the grommets too thought.


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## JBonez (Mar 31, 2009)

found exactly what i need at the local shop today, they have everything i could possibly need to get a similar setup to yours, thanks man. I was thinking that with dwc, youve got about, 45 gallons of water to change since solution is contained in each bucket. But, with a drip setup like yours, i can automate the res and not even have to worry about the plants, just let the res self adjust, i wanna get solenoid operated dosers and a controller, that way my res can be whatever i program it to. Gonna wait on this for a bit, gotta get a RO machine up and running first, im tired of buying/carrying distilled water when i can make it myself.


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## occg.hydro (Mar 31, 2009)

good call man. I've looked in to automation a bit. Seems pretty expensive. I'm sure there's a way to do it for cheaper than what I've seen. When you get it figured out let me know! The RO filter is probably one of the best investments you'll ever make. I bought one on ebay with 2x DI filters on it and my water comes out 0 ppm. Waaaaaaayyyyyyy better than going to the stupid alhambra machine and lugging around water. It only cost $130 or something too. Figure that stupid machine costs $1/gal but even if it were free it's worth the $130 just to not have to carry water up my stairs.


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## JBonez (Mar 31, 2009)

did you install it yourself? Difficult? pm me a link, i may buy one right now for that price, how long does it take to make 20 gallons? 

sry for the questions, just very interested in getting this going, im a freak, you have no idea.


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## occg.hydro (Mar 31, 2009)

hxxp://cgi.ebay.com/150GPD-0ppm-Reverse-Osmosis-2-DI-Aquarium-Water-Filter_W0QQitemZ120399826521QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item120399826521&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50


Try that out. Kind of a long link but if it doesn't work go to ebay and search for "0ppm" and it'll come up. Installation was pretty easy but I spent way too much time at ace hardware looking for the right fittings. Once I got the right fittings for my pipe it was easy. I wanted to be able to turn it on and off independently of the cold water b/c it's not hooked up to a tank. This one's 150 gallons per day but I'm not sure how that actually breaks down in to gallons per hour. Mine takes a couple hours to fill up a 5 gal bucket. I know you can get ones that go a little faster, they just cost a little more.


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## swiftgt (Mar 31, 2009)

thats prity cool thanks for the link!
my water is very hard, it has a ec of .8 !
so i think i need to get one of these!


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## occg.hydro (Mar 31, 2009)

swiftgt said:
			
		

> thats prity cool thanks for the link!
> my water is very hard, it has a ec of .8 !
> so i think i need to get one of these!



yeah, I feel u dude. Down here in so cal the water comes out between 400 & 600 ppm. It's pretty gross. I don't even drink the stuff. Sh*t, I don't even give it to my dog!


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## swiftgt (Mar 31, 2009)

so do you think its worth it?


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## IRISH (Mar 31, 2009)

very nice OH. i can see a lb.5 up in there.:hubba:  . getting ready for our outdoors up here. can't wait. keep'er green bud...bb...


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## occg.hydro (Mar 31, 2009)

swiftgt said:
			
		

> so do you think its worth it?


 dude, the RO filter's probably the best hundred bucks I've spent in a long time.


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## Dr.Gr33nThumb (Apr 1, 2009)

this is an extreamly informative thread, particulalry useful..cheers


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## swiftgt (Apr 1, 2009)

thats what i thought you would say! looks like ill be getting one so!
to they waste much water?


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## occg.hydro (Apr 1, 2009)

Thanks Dr. Green! You got that sizzleen screen? lol


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## occg.hydro (Apr 1, 2009)

I'm not 100% sure how much they waste. I think it might be a 1:1 ratio of waste to clean but I could be wrong. I saddle clamped my drain pipe and just run the waste down there so I don't really know what the flow looks like. They charge me a flat rate for water every month so I don't see a change in my bill.


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## swiftgt (Apr 1, 2009)

yea i saw ratios of 1/1 and 1.2/1
looks good ill have to clear my credit card!
and have you had trouble with low mains pressure not being strong enough to get a good rate of flow?


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## occg.hydro (Apr 1, 2009)

No problems with pressure at all. You can get a little gauge that goes inline with the filter and it'll tell you if you're cool. I don't think it's usually a problem unless you have a well or something. Do you have any water pressure problems with anything else? How's the flow on the shower?


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## JBonez (Apr 1, 2009)

just bought one of those ro units, did you clamp your cold water feed to a brass, steel or plastic pipe? (the clamp with the pipe piercing needle)

thanks brother, your helping out a lot man, and thanks for the info you sent, i think i will be going your route very soon, with my own modifications of course, but nonetheless!


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## occg.hydro (Apr 1, 2009)

right on man! I didn't use that piercing thing. I went to ace hardware and bought a couple of pieces to give me a Y off of the pipe, an on/off knob and a reducer that fit the tubing to the R/O filter. Major pain in the a** to find all the right parts but I didn't feel like poking holes through metal pipes and stuff. The only hole I made was in my drain pipe for the waste line. That pipe was plastic though and it'll be way easier to replace when I move.


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## JBonez (Apr 1, 2009)

occg.hydro said:
			
		

> right on man! I didn't use that piercing thing. I went to ace hardware and bought a couple of pieces to give me a Y off of the pipe, an on/off knob and a reducer that fit the tubing to the R/O filter. Major pain in the a** to find all the right parts but I didn't feel like poking holes through metal pipes and stuff. The only hole I made was in my drain pipe for the waste line. That pipe was plastic though and it'll be way easier to replace when I move.



yeah, i was really trying to avoid having to modify the plumbing, but hey, i can tear a motor apart, apparently i can grow mj pretty darn good, should be nothing to mod out the plumbing while im at it.

i tell ya what, ive learned more about things non mj related all because i grow pot, crazy how handy you have to become to grow, i love it!

thanks again brother, 

one more question.

do your buckets have any water in them other than the water that drains out do to you having the res lower than the buckets? I was checking out the waterfarm system, it appears to have a dwc/drip setup, like the roots are on a drip system, but still sit in a bath of oxygenated water, could you clear that up for me, sorry man, you must be sick by now, lol. thanks


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## occg.hydro (Apr 1, 2009)

no worries bro! The buckets have about 1.5" of water in the bottom just because I drilled the holes a little high. It's kind of up to you. If you drill the holes higher than that make sure to put an airstone in each bucket like you would with a DWC. I don't have airstones in the buckets, only in the reservoir but not all that much water sits in the bottom. I've definately been thinking about adding them though. I don't think it could hurt at all. Keep in mind that when you up the ppm in your res. it's going to drop a lot if you have more water in the bottom of the buckets because it's going to act like a bunch of little individual reservoirs. The less water you have in the bottom of the buckets the easier it is to adjust everything.


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## JBonez (Apr 1, 2009)

occg.hydro said:
			
		

> no worries bro! The buckets have about 1.5" of water in the bottom just because I drilled the holes a little high. It's kind of up to you. If you drill the holes higher than that make sure to put an airstone in each bucket like you would with a DWC. I don't have airstones in the buckets, only in the reservoir but not all that much water sits in the bottom. I've definately been thinking about adding them though. I don't think it could hurt at all. Keep in mind that when you up the ppm in your res. it's going to drop a lot if you have more water in the bottom of the buckets because it's going to act like a bunch of little individual reservoirs. The less water you have in the bottom of the buckets the easier it is to adjust everything.



FINALLY! The answer ive been looking for, i figured exactly what you said, i didnt see any air lines going into your buckets and was wondering. Man, i can wait to setup my first hydro grow, im pretty sure it will go smoothly, im way to attentive to mess it up, besides, im pretty sure that if i start at a lower ppm and work my way up ill be fine, I noticed the print out of your ppm,tds, ph and stuff, is your monitor computer controlled? The ph seems to be up and down like crazy, my hanna grocheck is pretty accurate, so i guess i dont see how ph could swing that much, i know as the plants consume, the ph and tds will change. Do you find yourself using ph up and down? i only use ph up since my nutes drop my ph, then i adjust to 6.6 for soil. lemme know brotha! and thanks for helping a fellow grower like yourself!


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## occg.hydro (Apr 1, 2009)

One thing that might be cool to try is putting the drain holes about 1/3 way up the 5gal buckets so each one holds about 1.75 gal of water like a DWC, with airstones in each bucket. You could still do the external reservoir and top drip but have roots like a DWC. There's a million ways to do it. I've kind of been thinking about trying this out on the next grow. The system, overall, would hold more water so I'm wondering if it would be more pH stable than mine is.


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## occg.hydro (Apr 1, 2009)

the pH charts were from my last grow, I made those all in excel. I had a lot of problems with heat affecting the reservoir and the plants, so I kept track of everything in spreadsheets until I got it all figured out. I've noticed that the pH is pretty unstable and takes a lot more adjusting when you're at lower ppm's and then as you up the nutrients and the ppm's increase everything starts to get more stable. I think it has something to do with the nutrients buffering the solution. I've also noticed that at lower ppm's it takes way less pH up & pH down to adjust than it does at higher levels so be really careful with that. It's kind of easy to over shoot your adjustments so take your time and go slow. That last grow was really hard b/c we were having a heat wave and I had a really weak AC so everything bounced around a lot. My temps went from 85 degrees on average (last grow) to about 75 degrees this time around. That made everything waaaaay more stable. My air pump sits on top of the reservoir, right in front of the AC, so it pumps cold air in and keeps the reservoir about 68 degrees. Keeping the water cool is really important otherwise you get problems with algae and stuff. The algae raises your pH I guess. This time around the pH has more of a tendency to go down. I just add more water to bring the pH back up and then add nutes to get the PPM back to where I want it and then readjust the pH one last time with the right amount of up or down (it usually doesn't take all that much at that point).


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## JBonez (Apr 1, 2009)

thanks man, your nutes must not affect your ph that much, i use botanicare pureblend pro, and when i add it to distilled water, the ph is steady at 3.3 at full rec. dosage. I only use ph up as a result, so ive never messed with ph down. I have found a trick, Take a small glass, fill it with your water and add a calculable amount of ph up or down, it will still work, just diluted for easier adjusting, swings in ph wont be so drastic.

i know the sensi two part once added is pretty ph stable, small adjustments im sure, but thats what ive heard.

keeping my res cool shouldnt be hard, so hopefully my ph wont swing as bad.

What gets me is how im going to calculate how much Bloom and supplemental bloom formula to bring tds levels back up, i thinks theres is a formula for adding back, but not sure how to execute it.


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## occg.hydro (Apr 2, 2009)

The plants will do one of three things. They can 1)use more water than nutrients --> pH drops, PPM rises. 2) more nutrients than water --> pH rises, PPM drops. 3) equal amounts of both --> pH stays stable, may rise or fall a bit, PPM stays the same.
I add water to the reservoir every day, so I take a look at what the ppm is doing and if the plants are using more water than nutes I lower the PPM (just add water & adjust pH). If they're using the same amt. of both (PPM hasn't changed but the water level has dropped) I add water and nutrients to maintain the PPM. If they're using more nutrients than water (PPM has gone down) I add water and then top off with nutrients and either bring the PPM back to where it was or bump it up a little bit. I don't really use a specific formula for adding nutrients, I just follow the AN feeding schedule and adjust based on how my plants respond to it. I know there's some people who top off with water and 1/4 strength nutrients as a rule of thumb but I like to make sure that the plants actually _need_ the nutrients before I put them in.


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## swiftgt (Apr 2, 2009)

so hydro have you any pics of your babys today?!


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## occg.hydro (Apr 3, 2009)

Here are some new pics from last night. Got some good closeups of the little buds forming. I dropped the nutrients back down to 1000ppm b/c I was startin to get some nute burn on a few of the leaves. The pic I included was about the worst one I could find. It's not all that widespread, really only a few leaves. I guess I'll take it a little slower with the bloom nutes.


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## swiftgt (Apr 3, 2009)

i like the way you keep every thing spick and span!
looks good,
and i see you went mylar crazy!nice
they seem to be doing very well,
nice and green,
do you just have the one airpump? and is it about a 70gph pump?
keep up the good work!


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## JBonez (Apr 3, 2009)

as always, going phenomenally, mine look about the same (only shorter) but then again, im growing some heavy indica phenos, the only sativa pheno i have is almost as tall as one of yours, but thats it.

Yo OC, btw, i got all my connectors, grommets, tubing and some stuff i needed, other than that i had most of what i need to get this going, next round should be a hydro grow, im just gonna do exactly like you with a few modifications tailored to my grow space (i have a whole room in my house for growing, actually two, one for vegging and one for flowering)

Its nice to see someone react to a nute burn situation instead of posting in the sick plants forum!

Bro, ive given one Bloombastic feeding, and man, im telling ya, ive got little nugs already and im not even at three weeks, so far so good, ill post pics in my journal later tonight, peace.


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## JBonez (Apr 3, 2009)

how do those drippers work for ya? Seems like they dont water the entire rootball, but then im sure the roots grow towards the flow of water.


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## occg.hydro (Apr 3, 2009)

They didn't work for me at all when I was just using hydroton but now The medium is mostly rockwool. They work great with the big blocks. The rockwool seems to wet really evenly. They get watered 4 times a day for 15 minutes, so after about 5 the rockwool has as much water as it can hold and it just flows through the rest of the medium. I pulled the mesh pots up a little bit the other day to take a look and there are tons of nice white roots coming through the sides and bottom of the pots. They look good to me!


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## JBonez (Apr 3, 2009)

occg.hydro said:
			
		

> They didn't work for me at all when I was just using hydroton but now The medium is mostly rockwool. They work great with the big blocks. The rockwool seems to wet really evenly. They get watered 4 times a day for 15 minutes, so after about 5 the rockwool has as much water as it can hold and it just flows through the rest of the medium. I pulled the mesh pots up a little bit the other day to take a look and there are tons of nice white roots coming through the sides and bottom of the pots. They look good to me!



yeah, i remember you saying that you use the rockwool cubes, how big are the cubes squared ( 1 square inch?) im gonna do the same, if it aint broke, dont fix it, and i can pretty much tell from the overall look of your leaves that youve got it dialed, very healthy and uniformly green, i get nute burn like in your pics too, but i do it on purpose usually to see what my limits are, especially a strain im not familiar with. Cant friggin wait to grow in water.


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## occg.hydro (Apr 3, 2009)

Actually I use the 6x6x6 "hugo blocks" they have a hole for a 1x1x1 block in the top. I put them in the 10" pot and then fill the rest of the space with hydroton. It's worked great so far! They actually saved my a** one night. My roommate knocked the pump plug out of the timer and I didn't notice until I got back to town the next day. They didn't get watered for about 30 hours but still didn't dry up to the point of wilting. Probably wouldn't work out the same if it happened again, with them as big as they are, but it was nice not to come back to a closet full of shriveled up plants.


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## occg.hydro (Apr 3, 2009)

swiftgt said:
			
		

> do you just have the one airpump? and is it about a 70gph pump?



Yup, just the one air pump. Don't remember what the rating on it is. I'll check it out tonight when the lights come on and let you know.


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## goneindawind (Apr 3, 2009)

dang bro cant believe i missed this incredible grow i really want to grow the og kush next. i got a pack og kush(abusive)xblue moonshine. wats the difference between abusive and sfv?


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## occg.hydro (Apr 3, 2009)

goneindawind said:
			
		

> dang bro cant believe i missed this incredible grow i really want to grow the og kush next. i got a pack og kush(abusive)xblue moonshine. wats the difference between abusive and sfv?


I'm not really sure of the difference. I found the same thing when I was looking for clones of the strain. There are soooooo many different OG kush varieties, I've seen SFV, abusive, Larry's, apothecary and then a bunch of OG crosses with other strains. One of the guys I go to for clones had the Apothecary and the SFV. He said the apothecary was a little stonier and better for pain, but stretched more and the SFV had a higher yield but didn't smell or taste as strong. I'm sure there are other differences as well, but I'm not really sure what they are.


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## JBonez (Apr 3, 2009)

occg.hydro said:
			
		

> Actually I use the 6x6x6 "hugo blocks" they have a hole for a 1x1x1 block in the top. I put them in the 10" pot and then fill the rest of the space with hydroton. It's worked great so far! They actually saved my a** one night. My roommate knocked the pump plug out of the timer and I didn't notice until I got back to town the next day. They didn't get watered for about 30 hours but still didn't dry up to the point of wilting. Probably wouldn't work out the same if it happened again, with them as big as they are, but it was nice not to come back to a closet full of shriveled up plants.



wow, thats great! i was gonna use the little cubesoil rockwool, tiny little blocks. But i think i will just follow you yet again with the big blocks, and like you said as long as water is flowing downward on the roots that are hanging things should be good, not to mention inside the bucket is 100% RH, so, i think that your "drip setup" is very successful and a slight twist on something conventional drip systems, i like your idea the best, even over the 700.00 manufactured setups, and yours is less than 100.00 bucks to setup for the supplies.


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## occg.hydro (Apr 3, 2009)

yeah man, I studied a lot of the different pre-fab systems out there before I designed this one and kind of took all the ideas that I liked. Learned a ton in the process. It's a real trip when you see how much complete setups go for when you can build it yourself and customize it to your liking for a fraction of the price!


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## occg.hydro (Apr 3, 2009)

I've been looking in to fog systems a lot lately. I'm thinking it would be kind of cool to add to the bucket setup. I could do kind of a controller bucket type of thing and use it for the fogger and pump the fog in to each of the buckets


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## JBonez (Apr 3, 2009)

man, that would be awesome, i saw a prefab fogponics machine, uber expensive tho, like thousands i think, but its very nice and delivers a water fog that consists of water particles that are smaller than anything yet. I would love to make my way into fogponics, its the fastest way to grow i hear, so a mist type setup is prob what i wil end up up doing, i love growing and cant stop until i conquer it all, my wife really hates me growing.


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## goneindawind (Apr 3, 2009)

thnx for the great info.


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## occg.hydro (Apr 3, 2009)

Here's what I'm thinking:
hxxp://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=8533&cmpid=11csegb&ref=3312&subref=AA&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=0012669000000

This site sells an ultrasonic fogger with 5 membranes on it. I could take one of those and put it in a 3.5gal bucket full of nutrient solution with a lid on it. Run air lines from the fog bucket to each of the buckets w/ plants in them. Get a small air pump, like the one I've got but not as powerful, and an airstone and put it in the bucket with the fog. That way you could use the air pump to pressurize the fog bucket and pump the fog out in to the other buckets. If you put it on a timer or turned it down low enough it seems like you could have it pump fog in to the buckets in intervals and keep the humidity in the root zone as close to 100% as possible. It would take a little tweaking to get it all figured out but it seems totally viable.


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## JBonez (Apr 5, 2009)

Thats awesome man! Do you use something to reduce the flow from your pump? like maybe "1 gallon per hour" pressure reducers? I saw this 6 nozzle multiplex dripper at my local store, i think it was only like 7 bucks, but it reduces the pressure from the water pump down to about 1 gph, i was just curious if you were just running full pressure from the pump, or if the drip stakes maintained the flow down to a steady drip. thanks


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## occg.hydro (Apr 5, 2009)

nope, just a splitter to go from 1/2" from the pump to 9x 1/4" for the drippers


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## JBonez (Apr 6, 2009)

wow, so they must get a lot more than a steady flow of solution then, hmm...


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## swiftgt (Apr 6, 2009)

i was looking at using Ultrasonic foggers but the price and i hear they can block up quite frequently when using high levels of nutes, so in was thinking that i might do a dwc setup but with foggers, and just lower the level of the water, and if they do block at least there is still a sorce of water for the plants,
did you find out what your airpumd puts out occg?


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## swiftgt (Apr 6, 2009)

i saw this fogger and it looks good , but a little expensive!
hxxp://www.futuregarden.com/hydroponics/systems_nutramist.html


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## occg.hydro (Apr 6, 2009)

Sorry swift, I spaced out. I'll check it tonight. I like the DWC/fogger idea. I'd build the DWC setup first and do a grow in it before adding the fog if it was me though. That way you can get the system tweaked without the extra variables so if something starts going wrong you don't have the extra stuff to deal with. I also wonder how much of a difference the fogger would make in a DWC, seeing how close the RH inside of each bucket is to 100% already. Interesting experiment though. It seems like fog is definitely something that has to be combined with a backup.


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## occg.hydro (Apr 6, 2009)

Those nutramist foggers look pretty sweet! one thing that I wonder about though is that they claim "Roots fed with an aeroponic fog develop single and *multi-cell* hairs which significantly increase their surface area and ability to uptake and metabolize nutrients". Sounds like they might be talking out their a**... Yes, root hairs increase surface area of roots, that's their purpose, but there is no such thing as a "multi-cell root hair". The hairs are single cell modifications of the epidermis within the region of maturation of the root. There is something called a "lateral" root that is multi-cellular new growth that starts in the root but I don't think this is what they're talking about. Two completely different things. Not to be super nitpicky but I'm always wary when companies make claims that they can't back up scientifically. Like the idea, but it seems waaaaayyyyy overpriced & kind of gimmicky. Might as well just order the fog disks and build one yourself. Sh**, you could probably build them & sell 'em on ebay for double the price.


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## purplephazes (Apr 6, 2009)

oooohhhh yeah buds, buds,buds, i hope you dont mind if i ride along !


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## occg.hydro (Apr 6, 2009)

absolutely! Hope you enjoy!


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## occg.hydro (Apr 6, 2009)

Switched over to the big 'ol HPS today as it looks like most of the stretch is over. That thing's a monster!!! I'll post pics in the next few days, no time right now.


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## commish21 (Apr 6, 2009)

you and I have very similar setups and I picked up the master kush and blackberry from the Malibu collective as well.  Let me know if you have any problems or any insights as the grow progresses and I will do the same

Comm


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## occg.hydro (Apr 6, 2009)

swiftgt said:
			
		

> did you find out what your airpumd puts out occg?



It's an EcoAir 2. The output's 4.5L/min


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## swiftgt (Apr 6, 2009)

do you find thats enough?
i use a 7l/min in just my bubbler with a 12" airstone and it doesnt see, enough, and my water temps are'nt high about 21c


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## occg.hydro (Apr 6, 2009)

swiftgt said:
			
		

> do you find thats enough?
> i use a 7l/min in just my bubbler with a 12" airstone and it doesnt see, enough, and my water temps are'nt high about 21c



Seems to work alright. I have 2 6" stones in there. I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to have more air. I was kind of thinking about putting 6" airstones in each of the buckets and getting a second pump but that may be kind of overkill. I haven't really had any problems with algae or root rot or anything like that. Reservoir temp's about the same as yours


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## occg.hydro (Apr 14, 2009)

Here they are at the beginning of week 4! Gotta take some pics at night so they don't turn out all yellow & overexposed.


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## JBonez (Apr 14, 2009)

they seem to be a bit underexposed. What kind of camera do you use? 

If you can, shoot in manual, set the white balance to "evaluate" and it should tell you what button to press to evaluate the lighting and adjust white balance accordingly. If you have a dslr this is even easier, but a point and shoot is fine, you just gotta change to manual, adjust white balance and start with the exposure in the middle setting, adjusting up or down until youve reached the desired exposure.

Plants are looking good brother, just started week four today myself, so its a race to the finish line! A couple of my plants will be ready in a few weeks, i can tell they are short flowering strains.

btw, Bloombastic is the TRUTH. Ive noticed a significant bud production campared to my last grow, im telling you, i know the strains are different, but ive got fricken nugs already and im only half way home.

check out my journal, and oh yeah, dont get mad, but im gonna be copying your grow verbatim, minus the environment, but ive got my res, buckets, fittings, timers, pumps and everything. Game time once i get a few clones from my potential mothers.


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## occg.hydro (Apr 15, 2009)

I set the exposure a point lower b/c they all come out waaaay to bright when I don't. I use a nikon coolpix L18. Not the most complicated of cameras, just your basic point & shoot. That's sick that you're gonna give my system a try! I'm excited to see how it works out for you.


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## highman (Apr 15, 2009)

dam cant wait to see what you yield!


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## occg.hydro (Apr 15, 2009)

word! me too!!!


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## swiftgt (Apr 15, 2009)

thats a fine crop you have there!


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## occg.hydro (Apr 16, 2009)

Thank you sir!


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## smokeup420 (Apr 16, 2009)

mmmmmm!! lookin yummy


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## JBonez (Apr 16, 2009)

hey brother! looking good, yo, i bought the 1 gallon per hour drippers, do you think that will be ok? They half gallon and 2 gallon per hour drippers, but i didnt exactly have your phone number while i was at the hydro shop to find out.

Here is my sativa dom, aint she cute! *Click here*


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## JBonez (Apr 16, 2009)

oh yeah, i installed my RO unit, i also ran the outlet tubing to a trash can with a float valve so it stores my RO water and stays topped off, Cuz man that water comes out super slow!

I also put a pump in it, that way it can be pumped to my other garbage can which is on a stand high up. I will use it to gravity feed my res, keeping my res topped off at all times, all i will be doing is adding back nutes and adjusting ph. I bought a 40 gallon res since its more convenient and it will have two pumps. One for the drip and one to circulate the solution periodically. Also got a air pump keeping the bubbles up.

Im so excited bro, this is a dream to grow with this level of ease and convenience.


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## swiftgt (Apr 17, 2009)

hay man i cut down my big bud, pop over to my g.j n cheak it out!


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## occg.hydro (Apr 17, 2009)

Dude, that's the way to go far sure bonez. the 40 gal res. is going to make things a lot more stable, especially if it tops off automatically. I'm thinkin my next grow is probably going to have to be in one of those growlab tents. Just got accepted at a new school so I'm looking for a new spot to live at the moment. The dog and the trees don't make the search any easier. I'm definitely thinking about upgrading to a larger reservoir for the next grow. I was also thinking about putting the buckets on the ground, instead of on a table above the res, and using an inline pump to bring the runoff back to the reservoir.


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## JBonez (Apr 17, 2009)

occg.hydro said:
			
		

> Dude, that's the way to go far sure bonez. the 40 gal res. is going to make things a lot more stable, especially if it tops off automatically. I'm thinkin my next grow is probably going to have to be in one of those growlab tents. Just got accepted at a new school so I'm looking for a new spot to live at the moment. The dog and the trees don't make the search any easier. I'm definitely thinking about upgrading to a larger reservoir for the next grow. I was also thinking about putting the buckets on the ground, instead of on a table above the res, and using an inline pump to bring the runoff back to the reservoir.



well, at my local grow shop, they have just setup a drip coco bucket setup with a 40 gallon res, and a controller bucket to remove any solution that accumulates in the controller. So thats exactly what you are talking about!

I must say tho, you would have to modify and wire in a float switch to the pump, that way the pump knows when to pump automatically with the solution reaches a certain level.

Ill get the details and let you know exactly how to do this, as i want to keep em on the ground as well. The guy at the hydro shop acted like his modified pump switch was some kinda secret, but, he said he would help me and i may be able to get the parts. Ill get you any info you need.

So, you're moving? Thats great, use your time wisely to pick out the ultimate top secret grow spot! oh wait your in cali, doh!


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## JBonez (Apr 17, 2009)

actually, the inline pump thing would be better, but it would be kinda hard to know when to set the timer on the pump to come on, maybe not, but i wonder if the pump would get to hot and malfunction if it doesnt have enough solution flowing through it. just a thought.

So do you think that 1 gph drippers are ok?


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## occg.hydro (Apr 17, 2009)

lol, seriously! gotta love cali!!! the 1ghp should be fine. I don't think the flow rate is going to make a huge difference with this setup. I was thinking about adding 3 buckets for 12 total and upgrading to the 40 gallon res. That way each bucket would hold 3.3 gal of solution MAX before being pumped back in to the reservoir. I would set it up so that the plants feed as usual for 15 min and then when the feed pump turns off the return pump turns on for however long it takes to fill the reservoir back up. no controller bucket necessary.The key all this is that the timing on the return pump has to be set up perfectly and the reservoir has to be kept at a constant level or the pump is going to run dry at the end of its cycle. Let me know what the guy says about his 'top secret' switch.

The babies are really starting to develop a nice smell. The master kush is taking on a nice pinkish/purplish tone on the inside of the buds. Pretty cool lookin! The SDxOG smells like fruity loops! I love it!!!


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## occg.hydro (Apr 17, 2009)

Here's some new pics from today. Got the light balance thing a little better. my camera's so basic that it won't let me adjust anything. I tried messin' around with it for a minute and it looks a little better but I think it is what it is. Anyway, I've been keeping these things around 1100ppm.I'll probably take 'em up to 1200 - 1250 for a bit and then back down to 1150 or so until the last week. The light is literally tied to the eye hooks in the ceiling. It's about a 14" from the tops. I had gotten a little burning last week so I pulled it up as high as it goes. If I need any more space I can tie the plants out to the corners but it looks good for right now.


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## swiftgt (Apr 19, 2009)

aw cool man
they look real good!
wont be too long now!
i had the same problem i had to keep training the branches away from the light to stop the buds burning!
and i added a fan to blow across the tops of the plants,
it worked great!


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## occg.hydro (Apr 20, 2009)

Yeah man, only 5 more weeks. I'm gettin' excited! I went out of town for the weekend and came back to some lovely lookin' new growth.

I've actually got 2 circulating fans in the room. one's mounted on the wall, higher up, so it blows over the tops and the other's mounted to the door lower down so it blows through the bottoms of the plants where I've pruned them.


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## JBonez (Apr 20, 2009)

awesome man, i think my strains are gonna finish a little sooner, they seem to be getting close, all my plants have all cloudy trichs so im right around the corner.

Hey man, i think after some careful research im going to stick with soil for one more grow.

Reason is, i want to try growing 30 plants in a sog configuration with clones from the 4 mother plants i have right now, i wanna see if i can push the power of my 1000w hps and try and yield close to 2 bows just by doing sog.

if it works, then im going to go with an ebb and flow sog setup, should be interesting.

Sorry man, your grow is dialed, and since i have all of the equipage already i may try it in the near future.

In my state, its not the numbers of plants, its the weight of the product, so i should be good. Gulp.... lol


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## occg.hydro (Apr 20, 2009)

Here's the latest pics. I took them right before the light came on so they're a lot better this time.The master is starting to get some nice purple on it.


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## JBonez (Apr 21, 2009)

lucky you! 

It will be a nice suprise when i get a purple pheno eventually!


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## manels1111 (Apr 21, 2009)

Nice grow you got going occg. I will be watching this one.


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## commish21 (Apr 22, 2009)

I can't wait, I will be flowering mine soon.  How tall are they now?

hope all is well


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## commish21 (Apr 27, 2009)

One of my master's just shrivelled up and died.  No idea why...all the other ones are perfect.  Did you lose any?  When are you shooting more pics?  I can't wait to see em

thanks a


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## commish21 (Apr 27, 2009)

One of my master's just shrivelled up and died.  No idea why...all the other ones are perfect.  Did you lose any?  When are you shooting more pics?  I can't wait to see em

thanks


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## commish21 (Apr 27, 2009)

One of my master's just shrivelled up and died.  No idea why...all the other ones are perfect.  Did you lose any?  When are you shooting more pics?  I can't wait to see em

thanks a bunch


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## commish21 (Apr 27, 2009)

One of my master's just shrivelled up and died. No idea why...all the other ones are perfect. Did you lose any? When are you shooting more pics? I can't wait to see em

thanks a bunch man


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## occg.hydro (Apr 30, 2009)

Big big budddddzzz!!!! They're lookin nice and sugary now. Smell great! I've tied up just about every large branch in there just to keep them in place. Got about 3.5 more weeks until harvest. Gettin' close!


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## JBonez (Apr 30, 2009)

mother of god. they are gorgeous. 

giving mine a couple more weeks before the chop, ive been flushing and its looking like its gonna be a good harvest.

gl brother.


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## occg.hydro (May 1, 2009)

Thanks bonez! I think I'm gonna start the flush on the 14th. I'm gonna harvest on the 24th or 25th so that should give me 5 days of flushing with clearex and 5 days with nothing but RO water. I don't think I flushed my last crop enough, I went 5 days with clearex and harvested. I think 10 days should be good this time around. I've got finals the week of harvest so it should be a nice end of the semester treat when I'm all done!


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## JBonez (May 1, 2009)

thats so awesome bro, im so happy for your success.

If i may, and this is anecdotal, but what ive come to understand.

If you flushed for a week with clearex, you most likely didnt give them enough time.

Clearex will actually keep freeing up nutrients and make them more available to the plant, so yeah, Give em some ro water a bit longer and i think domination over the universe will be yours come harvest time.

I miss being in school, what are you studying if you dont mind? 

english major over here.


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## occg.hydro (May 2, 2009)

yeah dude, I've always done a 10 day flush in the past but I figured I'd give clearex a try. They say you can flush for 5-7 days and be fine but it's a little too short in my opinion. The last harvest didn't come out bad at all but you could still taste the nutes a little bit. After it had cured for a few months it was way smoother (kind of a given) but by that time it was almost gone. This time around should be great!

Lots of English majors in my family. I'm a business economics major. Interesting, mind numbing stuff. I miss taking lit classes. It's always been a passion of mine but right now I'm a little too focused on my major. I'm also considering a double major in communications. Even less free time, even more work...


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## commish21 (May 4, 2009)

thanks for the update brotha.  Which 2 are the master kush?


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## occg.hydro (May 4, 2009)

front left & right are the MK


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## occg.hydro (May 11, 2009)

2 weeks left until harvest!


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## occg.hydro (May 12, 2009)

damn, I can't wait to try these!!!!!


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## eastla_kushsmoka (May 12, 2009)

looks bomb hope mines fills out that good


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## commish21 (May 14, 2009)

looks great brotha.  Which ones of the latest picks are the master?
thanks...keep growin


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## occg.hydro (May 14, 2009)

1 & 5 are the MK. The rest are SDxOG. I think the MK is actually MK ultra. I've never seen regular mk turn purple like this. Pretty cool tho!


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## commish21 (May 15, 2009)

thanks a bunch man...looking good


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## occg.hydro (May 18, 2009)

Last week of flower!!! The plants have been flushing for a couple days now. Harvesting on sunday! I put up a pic for bud pic of the month. Go over and vote!!!


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## occg.hydro (May 19, 2009)

the days until harvest creep by....


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## commish21 (May 19, 2009)

very nice my friend


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## occg.hydro (May 21, 2009)

I thought it would be kind of interesting to see how much you guys think I'm gonna yield. I'm leaving the poll open until the end of the month.


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## commish21 (May 21, 2009)

for me to vote I need to see a view of all the plants
one shot of the whole thing...then I will give you a good number


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## occg.hydro (May 24, 2009)

sorry commish, they won't all fit in the frame. Best pic you're gonna get for an overall view is the one on 5/11, 4th over. They're in a closet and the door is only so wide. I'm chopping tomorrow morning & trimming all day. I'll take pics of the process along the way.


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## commish21 (May 24, 2009)

you know what brotha...that is not a bad problem to have "they all won't fit"
I kinda like tha problem
good luck brotha!!


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## occg.hydro (May 25, 2009)

Harvested today! Trimming took 4 people the better part of the afternoon. Making coma brownies with the trim! The master kush was seriously lacking in terms of yield but the SDxOG more than made up for it.


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