Billys watery wonderland- The Sweetest edition.....so far!

[badbillybob]

You did too, ha ha .

#

Well this growing game has its ups and downs eh.

More issues. Remember the leak I had, where I cut out the section of  pipe  and tested it, and there wasn't a leak!!

I stuck it all back together didn't I?

guess what...

 

after almost ditching the complete res and fucking the whole system idea in the bin and going back to soil (bit dramatic eh), I was loking around the pipes, where is this fukn leak coming from, I gotsta know? I got the kitchen roll out and dried everything off, still water flowing.... got down real close to the fitting at the pot, on my knees (praying for a miracle lol) when I felt something like a fine mist hititing the old baldy heed!! ….eh? aye the noggin was getting misted. so further investigation revealed the spray bar was leaking , from a corner fitting, must be a really small pinhole, but its leaking enough to soak the floor comprehensively.... SO leak found I got some duct tape, dried the fitting off and plastered it with duct tape. …...fuk it. , and its true, duct tape does fix anything, well the things that zip ties cant.

I will fix it properly, but doing this and putting the lid on the pot solved my wet floor worries -- hurrah>..

I decided to get them all potted up. roots weren't as long as id like from the cubes but they are now in the system. Heres where I start, get the airstones directly under the net pot, and place in some hydroton till its just bubbling thru the hydroton, like this, below. 

 

next up get cube and place it directly on top of bubbling water, and back fill. 

Here they are now,

SAD x 1

cream caramel (including wonkey donkey stem) x 2

blackjacks x 2.

 

Ive got a spare SAD and the others I germed, so a selection will go under the air cooled lights. the other part of the room - 4 pot side, has other strains from another seedbank so I wont mention them here.. so far so good. 

 

the res is set to 0.6ec and the ph is set to 5.9.

 

[badbillybob]

As if the leak wasn't enough problems, the lights. Remember I said the other day I tested them and they were all working fine, can you guess what comes next...……….

cant you???

That's right one of them decides not to work. After going through the rigmarole of tracing cables back I thought my ballast was fuct, but tried it on another light and its fine, so its a cable, so because ive got extention cables, these were prime suspect (Miss Marple ….me). the lead from the adjustawing to the extension it turns out was shot....

Ive had issues with adjustawing e45 (or is that the cream....yeah it is, the cream, oh well you know what I mean)  sockets before, but still I tried to sort it. Electrical tester found, after an hour....battery on its flat....oh golly that's a touch inconvenient...….., I never said, ….at any time......

Fuck it, wheres the cheap lumii shades I got with my last ballasts. SO an hour of bodgery and I have , drumroll.....ta....daaaa….

 

Its a lumii fitting attached to the adjustawing metalwork ( its made of 100% Pure Chinese-ium, the crappiest metal known to man). iws grommet to prevent the cable getting cut on the crappium metal and its good to go...

However it works, its back and fitted and working and heres the proof, its the one at the back , see it,...…….. see it working...….course you don't, its out of picture duh.,

 

You can see that ive still not pulled my finger out of my arse to set up the middle row. im gonna do that when my last pump fitting arrives, by which time the 3 spare amigos will be poking above the root it cubes.

 

I thoroughly tested the air cooled shades with my head, on numerous occasions and can confirm that they can take a good knock, numerous times, in like 10 minutes. My head can confirm they are made out of pointy stuff that hurts.....

 

Heres the chiller...its not needed so ive switched it off, water temps are 13 degrees, and that's with the aquarium heater set for 19 degrees. its the biggest heater I could find a 300 watt job - more electric......great!!

 

And here is mission control, the ballast racks, and the fan controller which tells me that the temps are 22 degrees, with all the air cooled lights on, which is great.

Not for the plants , but when I get the air cooled ones going it should be in the sweet spot around 26 degrees. 

Things are going great, aren't they?

 

Oh wait, my big oscillating fan....the one that worked yesterday, has shit itself...……… 

As the crazy haired cockney/ jock Rod Stewart used to croon-- to any blonde bint --"Some guys have all the luck"  

 

 

Edited January 8, 2020 by badbillybob

[GreenVision]

Jesus wept mate  

 

Oh the joys of Hydro.... Seeing many a problem I've had myself in the Alien RDWC. I had to stick everything that was made to come off back together with silicone sealant last grow, which worked really well, until I had to take it back apart.

 

13C is gona kick you in the arse mate, I know your pain with the small res heaters, for some reason the world of growing hasn't got around to us poor sods that use these kinda systems in the winter. All good lights on but once they go dark..... Why nobody has made a "One does all" heating and chilling system is beyond me, they do everything else. Why I can buy a bloody Ozone Machine but not a purpose made RDWC heater is mind numbing. I think there is some stuff out there for exotic fish ponds, but I don't have £3K to spare atm  

 

 

Glad you found the leak though mate. Hopefully you get that and the lights sorted then it's smooth sailing. 

[badbillybob]

light is sorted mate, its working fine now. I dumped the adjustawing lead for it....and the lumii one is doing grand

i put it back in last night, and went in this morning, thinking oh, that bulb must be fuct its not very bright. Then I checked the ballast and id set it on 250 watts. ha ha , im such a stoned doofus sometimes.

  Its now on 600 watts since this morning, and temps have crept up to 26 degrees in there. hmm not so sure about these air cooled hoods now, but I will run them, before making up the system and see how they go, temp wise. If the temps soar with them on, I wont bother using them, I will just veg the rest a bit longer.

im not too fussed if I run the extra system or not now, because its such a pain in the ass to try get down between the pots and those air cooled hoods are head bashing magnets..

 

And yeah the water temps were  a bit low, they are up to 20 now, so ive stuck the chiller back on and unplugged the aquarium heater. 

I think they were maybe at 13 because I had only had the heater on for a couple of hours before filling the system, and it had not enough time to heat up everything

I will see how it goes without the heater for a day and if the temps are stable around 19, then, its not needed ill pull it out, and rejoice at saving 300watts of electric ha ha 

 

And the oscillating fan that didn't work yesterday has decided to work today, so that's a bonus, im never turning it off again....

plants look happy enough today all perked up and seeking out the lights, ……..great stuff.

[UKsFinest]

1 hour ago, badbillybob said:

ha ha , im such a stoned doofus sometimes.

 

 

I think we can all relate to this  sounds like you've had some proper ball aches going on hopefully it's all out of the way now.

[GreenVision]

3 hours ago, badbillybob said:

set it on 250 watts.

 

 Classic. Done that a few times. 

 

Good to hear its sorted though mate, as I say it should sail through now. 

[Sweet Seeds-tommy]

All very interesting so far

 

Keep it up mate.. and all the best with it

 

Sweet smokes,

 

tommy

[delagdo]

You've been working hard already battling a few bits of misfortune but I'm glad to see it's not stopped you, or driven you back to soil!

[badbillybob]

Thanks man, yeah the soil thing was a bit tongue in cheek, I doubt I would ever go back, unless it was to keep some mums in, which I might, if I can find a space for the extra seeds I germed.

 

I ran the lights up the other night, before I made up the extra 3 pot rdwc system.

 

Oh dear, temps were skyward, so, well I took the air cooled reflectors back down today, all the ducting, leads and ballasts are now boxed up and put away for another day.

I patched up the ceiling duct holes with plasterboard, held  in place with silicone, fixed from the outside of the room. its a bit of a bodge, but, works and covers the holes.

 

It was a shame about the temps with the extra lighting, a real pity, I was kinda looking forward to having a full room, but that's life.

 

Temps tonight are around 26-28, which is acceptable, ph took a jump to 6.7, but ive put it back to 5.8. ec hasn't changed. 

 

All the plants are looking fine so far, which is good.

 

We have 2 blackjack,, 2 cream caramel and 1 SAD s1. 

Think im gonna put the screen up when they get a bit bigger, in like a fortnights time.

Im not scrogging them but it helps with support after flip, when they get big. 

I might even veg them a bit longer and see if I can fill the gap in the middle of the room...

 

I will be back next week unless anything exciting happens...….don't hold yer breath.

Edited January 10, 2020 by badbillybob

[Dankasaurus]

Loving your antics mate! Your like my weekly dose of comedy. All the sort of stuff that happens to me if it werent for bad luck i wouldnt have none at all! 

 

1 question- why use those expensive net pots over the typical ones? Only reason i ask is i used some simple looking ones but have also got 2 of those xl alien ones you use sitting around doing nothing! 

 

As always appreciate your input mate 

[badbillybob]

Well I used to use the smaller IWS 200mm ones, but found that when the plants got big, they would tend to fall over, but with the big flood and drain net pots, they have a wide brimmed lid, which helps prevent this from happening. They are also deeper, and are a bit thicker plastic than the smaller pots, so the roots don't tend to rip great holes in them, like they do the smaller ones. 

Keeping my water level to the base of the net pots also helps prevent this.

 

That's the only reason I have for using them.

 

Went out today and they are looking fine, room temps are a little bit high at 28, and the water temp is a little bit low at 17 degrees, but its early days and the plants aren't complaining.

 

I did try out a higher ec to start them off at this time (0.8EC) and I should have stuck with my normal 0.6EC, as a couple are showing signs that its too much for them, at this early stage.

No roots out of the bottom of the net pots yet, but they shouldn't be too far away.

I will post some pics in a couple of days, that'll be them a week in the system.

Cheers

Edited January 13, 2020 by badbillybob

[badbillybob]

Hello again, time for a quick update. I have introduced my old humidifier in the room to up the relative humidity in veg, it cant do any harm. 

Its a 10 lite one and I can set it on a timer with various amounts of humidity, but I generally just whack it up to max and fill it up every day. 

Here it is

 

I place this under the big oscillating fan to spread the humid air about the room. 

The plants have been in the system now for 6 days and have developed their 2nd set of true leaves. they are looking ok...not great, but ok, but that's my own fault for overfeeding them early doors with 0.8ec, instead of my normal 0.6, but you have to try these things, to see if it makes any odds...…... lesson learnt.

I changed out the solitary dual spectrum HPS  lamp today, when I found what I thought was a dud Metal halide. I remembered it was thought dud because it didn't fire in the adjustawing e40 socket which I replaced last week. So I gave it a try , and it works fine now, so that's a result, for a change...

here are a selection of photos I took. You can see that they are slightly over fed.

Its a cream caramel, 2 blackjacks and a sweet afghani delicious S1.

 

 

you can see some slight edge curling on the last pic SAD, because the temps are a little bit high at 28/29. but im not lowering the lights wattage.

ive moved the lights up a bit to try and keep them a bit cooler. hopefully it will have the added benefit of encouraging them up out of the netpots a bit.

Heres the room, needs a sweep up, but its looking ok

Notice my hi-tech oscillating fan stands- no expense spent.....

The 2 little ones on the left hand side of the last pic are a spare blackjack and a SADs1, in coco (shhh, don't tell anyone...)

Edited January 14, 2020 by badbillybob

[Tenchie]

@badbillybob

 

Fantastic stuff mate,I love your setup fella,top notch!

 

Grow them well chief.

 

Tenchie.

[badbillybob]

Psssst, hey......you over there...…….

You wanna see something?

course you do,….huh...…you do eh...…….no, no.  not that………………………….... its a mini hydro growth spurt, here have a look...….

I used the same bits of paper , for scale..

 

First up...

Black jack

 

 

cream caramel

 

 

 

and the sweet afghan delicious s1

 

 

these pics are taken only 3 days after the last ones... god, I love my hydro system.

they are still on 0.8 EC and ph is sitting at 6 today.

 

temps are still around 28/29, a bit high really.You can see a little bit of curl on the leaves at the edges. this is due to the temps, but its not so bad im going to do anything about it, they will be fine...The blackjack is not so affected, but that's probably because its nearest to the big oscillating fan.

 

Also, the humidifier is getting filled up daily when i remember, and I lowered the lights down a bit yesterday, we will see how it goes ..

 

Im away this weekend, so next update will be next week...………..stay tuned,...... don't move that dial etc. 

 

Edited January 17, 2020 by badbillybob

[InTheSystem]

Nice one mate - looking great. 0.8 EC seems quite high to me for that early on to be honest with you - but they look perfectly healthy and the PH is rising so only goodness coming from it! Do you swing your PH? I am a firm believer of that in hydroponics from my experience.