Sweet Amnesic Gorilla Girl in the Hazy Tropic of Canna.

[NezA]

Looking really nice in here mate fantastic diariy lots of detail and plants seem to be responding well.

 

Be interested to see how you get on with the blumats mate they look the bees knees and plants seem to really love em.

[badbillybob]

iwas watching a yootoob vid about those fire bombs. they set a skip alight and threw one in, it didnt put the fire out

 

plants are looking on point though, very nice growing. 

[KC]

Them plants are looking tip top, good luck with the comp   

[Shumroom]

Plants are looking great,

it's almost like you've done this before  

 

Best of luck with the Blumats and the rest of the grow/competition 

 

 

[jadenugs]

@Punta Roja Cheers P, loving the GG and her structure. They've all grown very well since the last update  

 

@NezA Hey up dude, thanks very much for taking the time to read through the diary  The Blumats will be getting set up very shortly. They've been soaking in a bucket for well over a week and the water was getting a bit stagnant. Put them in some fresh water tonight and purged any remaining air bubbles from them.

 

@badbillybob Cheers mate. Were there any vids on the tube of them hanging above a fire and exploding to spread powder over the flames, rather than being engulfed by flames from the start? I suspect they will work better like that and that's how I intend to use it. Fingers crossed they won't ever be needed  

 

@KC Cheers bud  

 

@Shumroom Cheers bud, just a few times   To add to the above to Neza, my regs are showing proper now. 1 female, 1 that had a bit of stem rot and was slowed down (I binned it in the end, no time to wait) and a cracker of a short fat indica male that I might do something with. I already had another fem seed in but potted up a bonzai mum about a week ago just in case. So I have a full house of 6 now and can set my Blumats up  These 3 taking centre stage, feminised, mum and reg fem at the back.

 

Thanks for the kind comments dudes  

[Amo]

This is where I though I was @jadenugs mate 

The one I was looking at was a FireChief, gonna take a look for your one now. 
 

Cheer’s pal 

[jadenugs]

@Amo  It's probs the same as mine mate.  There's a few makes of the same thing, as is usual over on amazon  

[jadenugs]

Feb 7th day 35.

Hi dudes, the plants came along great in the 4 days since the last update. Lot's of secondary shoots coming off the side branching now and they're filling out nicely. Side branching is looking nice and strong  

Day 32.
I moved my CMH to the back and hung my LED up at the front, set at 28" above the highest top (TP) and at a wattage of 124w on the blue. The red turned fully down. I'll get a pic of the lamp up soon, it's a Magnuslight/Parus 365w pro with a wired remote for dimming the blue and far red separately. 

Did a spot of leaf tucking on the girls to allow the lower branch tops to receive more light and also sorted my tent drip tray to tighten up the sides, as it's rubber lined fabric and not rigid. Hopefully if I get any runaway drippers it will hold enough water by the time I get to them. I will be shy with the res volumes to start with just in case.  

Pot level temps 20-25C, roots 20-22, RH 46-81, the 81 spike being after a watering.

Day 33.
I turned the blue dimmer up on the LED to 135w and raised both lamps to maintain 28" above the plants. The far red will stay fully dimmed until the plants are in bloom. 

The branches from the 3rd nodes on all 3 plants had overtaken the tops so I decided to remove the plant bends to allow the tops to grow back up level. All went well with the TP and SAH but I had a mishap with the GG. When taking the first one off, the stem was quite thick and awkward to get out and I managed to snap it. It was only hanging on by a thread but I thought I'd try and save it with some micropore tape. Then proceeded to free the other one with a lot more care. Anyway the other top bounced back up into the middle of the plant overnight and filled the space so I decided to cut the damaged top a bit lower down and settle for 6 main tops overall. It would have been a lot thinner than it's opposite anyway by the time it healed, if it did at all. 

 
With the plants getting taller and the lamps being raised I turned my Inkbird thermo for the leccy blanket up from 21C to 24C to compensate and keep the roots warm. 

Did a bit more leaf tucking and fed them 1L each of plain water.

Pot level temps 21-27C, roots 20-22, RH 48-64%.

Day 34.
Both the CMH and the LED were raised to maintain 28" above the back and front plants respectively, and I turned the LED up to 145w on the blue.

The TP's 3rd node branches were still racing away from the tops so I topped them as well to slow them down. So we're looking at 10 mains on this plant when they go into flower. 

Raised the LED again later on to 30" as the girls didn't look too happy with the raise in wattage. I could have just turned it back down but I want it up high and on higher power when I switch to 12/12 anyway.  

Fed them 700ml each of plain water.

Temps 21-27C, roots 21-24, RH 44-78%.

Day 35.
Raised the LED another 2" to maintain 30".

The 3rd node branches of the TP were still going for it so I topped them yet again, but at the next node down to maintain 10 tops overall. 

You might have noticed that my inlet ducting comes into the tent by about 2'. This is so I can point it along the side to the back of the tent or along the front, depending on how my plants are situated. After having problems in the past with the cooler air coming in when the rad starts cooling down in between the thermostat workings, I don't like to have it blowing straight onto a pot when the tent is full. Anyway, I've used this to my advantage (I think) and tied the end up so it's pointing at my circ fan and that blows the air coming in down into the canopy. This should hopefully work well with the under floor blanket keeping things warm down below. When the rad switches off at desired temp and cools down a bit, the cooler air should hopefully mix with the warm air being blown down from the lamps before it hits the canopy. We'll see how that one pans out  

Temps 21-26C, roots 21=23, RH 44-76%. 
If I can get the Blumat drippers dialled in properly when I get them set up, I'll be aiming for dryish compost at the top with just a wet patch where they drip. The RH highs will be lower then me thinks  

Onto the pics.

Group shots.
I'll include the one from day 31 to compare the 4 days growth. Both lamps off for the day 35 pic. All 3 growing at different sizes now, with not training them low and wide but I'm looking for better colas this time round, and less hassle supporting flimsy multiple colas.

 

 

Gorilla Girl.
The breakage of the branch might work out ok here with only having 6 tops instead of 8. They might stretch a bit more to keep up nearer the lamp. You can see how the other top node branch shot back upwards towards the middle of the plant.  

When I potted up into this compost I noticed it smelled much more rich than the previous few bags I've used, very dank and earthy. The leaves have gone very dark with the tips clawing down slightly, same can be said for the other 2 girls. Also looks like the tips are burning in places and they've only had a couple feeds of Foundation root stim since pot up. The rest plain water. The overdue watering could have contributed to the yellow tips, with the compost drying too much.  

Stem rub gives a fruity aroma but nothing strong yet. 

I struggled to get right in close with my lens to show the pistils forming, without touching fan leaves and moving the plant. And the tent was soon cooling down with the lamps off. So the pistil shots are the closest I could get without messing about for too long and stressing the girls.

 

Sweet Amnesia haze.
Nice tightly spaced internodes but the fresh growth is still a little twisty. Could be the strong compost or might need some Calmag soon. I have 2 types, Magne Cal+ at 2.6-0.1-0.3 or MagnifiCal at 3-0-0 and don't wanna give any N just yet with the leaves being dark and slightly clawed. I already know my Ca/Mg ratio in my water is out, after having a test done from grower's Ark so can't wait to get a balanced feed into them when it's time to feed. I shouldn't have used this bat special really if I'm to use mineral nutes in the res, I haven't learnt it properly yet. It confuses me not knowing how long it takes for the Guano to break down after the N is depleted. I have a 75L bag of Clover in the garage but that was a no no in case of pests. I've just found half a bag in my attic I could have used to mix with this bat special and cooled it down. That's not mentioning the coco I've got that could've done the same job diluting it  

Stem rub gives a subtle lemony aroma i think, not sure yet as it's mild. 

Not sure about the hollow under the stem here but I probably nicked it while topping at the node below. 

 

Tropicanna Poison F1FV.
I'm hoping this girl slows down a bit after all the topping. You can see in the group shot above that the plants step up in stages from the GG to this. Also the amount of main tops step up in stages too. 6 on the GG, 8 on the SAH and 10 on this so I'm hoping they level out a bit in the stretch. Wishful thinking I'll just have to see how they grow, if there's more training needs doing that will change the amount of tops. 

Stem rub gives a very strong, sickly sweet cat pissy aroma I bet she's gonna be a real stinker, we'll see. 

Pre flowers forming but no pistils yet.

 
That's all for now. Next update will be on the Blumat set up.
Happy growing, be  

[growinggold]

Love bit cat piss and blumat setup me.

Edited February 9, 2021 by growinggold
Removing.

[Amo]

Hey-up @jadenugs mate 

I enjoyed that. 
Nicely readable 

 

Gettin good at this diary malarkey eh dude 

[jadenugs]

@Amo hey up dude, glad it's readable. Takes me ages editing to try and make it make sense   Cheers mate  

[jadenugs]

Feb 11th day 39.

Hi dudes, hope your gardens are green and you're all in good health
I finally got my Blumat drippers set up on day 37 and they've been settled in a few days. I took some pictures on day 39 so here's an update for then and the Blumat set up, lamp etc.  

Day 36.
I'd let them get a bit dry again so gave them a feed in 2 sessions. One of 500ml and another a few hours later of 700mm, both plain water.

Lighting was a bit intense with adding the LED to the CMH while still in veg so I raised both lamps to 33" above the TP. I know they need less umols in veg but I want them to get used to it before switching 12/12, and not stress them out at that point. 

I cleaned up the lowers and removed the main fan leaves from the main stems.

Pot level temps 19-26C, roots 21-23, RH 44-69%.

Day 37.
The lights out pot level temps were getting lower and the RH went sky high so I untied the inlect duct that was pointing towards the circ fan and laid it back on the floor. 

Temps 18-26C, roots 20-23, RH 49-99%.

So the idea of aiming the duct at the circ fan might come in useful in future, in earlier veg, if it raises the humidity that much. Maybe aim it slightly lower to balance the low temp and high humidity. Saying that, the 99% reading could have been a malfunction of the hygrometer. I can't understand how it could possibly get that high when the extraction is running :confused: Maybe I spilled some water on it or something.  

Filled my res with 20L of plain water. I checked the background EC and PH for future reference when I go back to coco, to see how much the values change when it's been sitting out of the tap for a few days. EC was 0.34 and PH 7.2  

Tropf Blumat drippers, tent insulation and lamp.
I've set things up in stages when I've had the time and while waiting for the other factors mentioned earlier in the diary. All was completed on day 37 so here's the rundown. 

The res was half set up during my last grow but I never got around to setting up fully. First I got 2 underbed storage box frames, coasters removed, and screwed them together, then diagonally braced them on all sides with timber. The attic floor slopes off so I chocked the right hand side with a thin piece of timber to level the frame. Onto the frame went an upside down storage box and it was screwed to it so nothing moves. The top of the box measures 970mm from the floor and the res is 450 deep and holds 45L so that's plenty pressure to go down to the tent floor, then back up through the feed pipes to the pots. It's working fine with a 20L fill that's down to about 10L now. There's an indent in the bottom of the drum that goes all the way round and it just happens to sit right on the back and front of the box where the ridge stands up. So it can't slide backwards if I knock it slightly. There were 2 holes drilled for tank connectors because originally I'd planned a continuous loop for my main pipe. Decided to use just the one as it's only a 6 plant grow, so the other connector will come in handy for draining the res. I know it's better lower down but I can always just tip the drum forward to empty the dregs if needed. The connectors were fixed high enough for the movement pump inlet to still be submerged if the feed level gets down to the holes. It's a Maxijet 500 so would cut out anyway if run dry.  

The lid on the drum is a screw top so I cut a slot down through the threads on the drum low enough to screw the lid on when my pump and heater cables are in. The lid won't be screwed down anyway, it's just pushed down a bit onto the first thread for time and ease. The drum isn't fully opaque but it's pitch black up there most of the time when I'm not tending the girls. Hopefully there'll be no algi. The pump cable is long enough to create a drip bend if any condensation runs out the hole and down the cable. The heater cable, however, is quite tight to the extension cable it's plugged into. So I've put the extension gangs behind the curtain draped down the side of the tent. This way if any condensation runs down it will be soaked up against the curtain before reaching the plug, hopefully. You can also see I've been adding insulation to the tent. 

I already had large bubble wrap and a duvet on top of the tent and also had some silver backed bubble wrap already cleaned and in the attic, sitting there for months waiting for my pushed for time self I won't say lazy I covered the back of the tent and one side with this. I have got more in the garage to do the front, and the side with the curtain, but it needs jet washing and drying before it goes anywhere near my grow room. So that's a summer job. The stuff on the front of the tent is just small bubble wrap stuck with black mastic I was using for sealing the hole in my tent wall (more on that soon). I've also got a duvet to hang over the front for now, until I do the job proper, or pull the tent down and build a space. Been thinking of that a lot lately, had great results in the past before I bought a tent. Waste of time having a tent in a cold attic room. I need to wrap some bubble wrap around the inlet duct you can see here. 

Here's the two 4" fans supplying the Y piece reducer to the 6" duct to the tent. The front one draws from the top of my veg cab and the back one draws straight from the rad box. That one still needs insulation on the ducting for better efficiency. Both fans are speed controlled to maintain neg pressure in the tent and control the temps/humidity in the veg cab. As you can see I've hung my aoto fire off ball, temporarily in it's box. It's between the veg cab (left) and tent. It's also above most of my electrics. If the box were to burn now the ball would probably drop to the floor before burning through and setting off, and not be as effective at smothering a fire, I suspect. There's a steel mounting frame in the box so one of my next jobs is to hang that from the ceiling with wire and the ball sat in the frame. This way, if there's a fire (god forbid) in my cab, tent, or fans and electrics in between, the ball will stay put and explode, covering the flames with powder from above and extinguish, hopefully! A little piece of mind at least, better than nowt  

The Blumat carrots were soaked a couple of weeks ago, so they'd be ready when my regs were sexed. The sub pump was turned on and the carrots and tops were put in the stream to purge any air bubbles, then the tops screwed on under water. I wasn't yet ready to install them and the water went stagnant. So it was changed for fresh and the air purged again. 

 

I cut some plastic squares from a 1L square pot and dug out some black sealant.

I spread some sealant on both squares.

They were stuck to the tent wall on both sides and a hole for the pipe drilled straight through the plastic and tent wall. The idea being a nice clean hole without ripping the tent and also something to protect the tent from ripping if the pipe gets moved about. Just to add though, I should have roughed the plastic up with sandpaper before sealing, as when I drilled through from the outside the drill pushed the inside plastic straight of. Not a very good bonding. If the hole was nearer the tent door I could have reached and held the back whilst drilling. It was drilled and re stuck anyways. I was originally gonna use some 6 or 8mm ply but thought this would be easier. Next time it will be ply.

Cut off valve attached for maintenance, the pipe was later cut shorter and the valve moved closer to the tent wall. 

The final delivery in the tent. 
I cut a length of main pipe 1m long and cut that into 170mm equal lengths to go between the outlets from the end outlet back towards the tap, the last piece ending up shorter. So all 6 plants in the tent get equal pressure. Probably doesn't matter with the res being high up, but thought it good practice anyway. With this layout and the final feed tubes being 500mm long I have a lot more room for manoevre of the plants than I would have done with the original plan of a closed loop. The main pipe is on the floor getting heat from the under floor heating. 

 

The drip tray for the tent is rubberised fabric and has velcro loops around the corner tent poles. The velcro comes undone easily and the sides sag so I tightened them up, pierced some holes and tie wrapped to tighten up the sides and keep them tight. The corners are seamless, folded and stitched across the top so should be water tight in the event of a Blumat running away or a connection coming loose. The tray measures 120x120x about 8cm so would hold 115L if the sides were rigid. Res is only 45L so in theory it would hold that no problem even if the sides were sagging a bit. It's yet to be tested, I hope not  

Next I made some raised drain racks for collecting run off, inspired by an idea from Delagdo who used a couple of oblong tins to raise his rack and slide the trays of run off from underneath.  @delagdo 
I'd already ordered some more drying racks in, as I already use them in my veg cab, and was just going to lay them on the saucers. They were 43cm wide so would have to be overlapped to get 3 wide in the tent. Anyway, cutting them down just after the final spars before the ends made them 40cm for a snug fit 3 wide. Next I cut some timber lats to fit and U nailed the racks to them. Only had enough nails for 2 on each side so fired some 12mm staples in between for extra strength. 

I'd given each plant 1.2L of water the night before and they should have had half dried pots by now so it was time to get the drippers in. Before installing the carrots I opened the tap until water was running free from all the outlets and closed it. I then blew through the final feed pipes that were cut to 500mm lengths, to clear any possible blockages. After fixing them to the outlets I opened the tap again to double check water ran through all feeds with no air. I then installed the carrots, screwed them down into the root ball clockwise to make good contact with the compost and roots. Fed the feed pipes of each through the tops by 100mm and screwed them down tight. I then started at the furthest from the tap and unscrewed the adjuster until water flowed freely, then screwed it down slowly until there was a drip suspended from the tube end. Then tightened down by another 2 arrows on the top. This is how it says to do it on Tropf's website. Only problem is, on the quick guide it says turn down by one arrow which is an 1/8th turn. If you find the full instructions download it says turn down by 2 arrows (1/4 turn) so I went with that. I unscrewed an adjusting top from a spare Blumat so I could inspect it closer and count the arrows. There's only 6 arrows ffs so turned down by 2 arrows is a 1/3rd, not a 1/4. Better under watered than over I say. Quicker to recover, if not without a few burnt tips Anyway it worked ok, they'll just need dialling in a bit to make sure the pots are at the right moisture levels and watering frequency for maximum oxygen as they root out. 

A pic of the LED as promissed. 
Magnuslight ML-365W Pro with wired multi dimmer, blue and far red. The dimmer is hanging up out of the way as it's very sensitive if you knock the dials by accident. Very small movement adjusts the wattage by a fair amount. I also don't want to knock the far red on by accident. 

-    Power consumption:         365 Watt 
-    Number of LEDs:              2x 100 LEDs
-    PPFD:                               280 μmol (distance 1000mm)
-    Comparible with:               1000 Watt HPS
-    Advised height:                  At least 60 cm above the canopy
-    Footprint:                          120x120 cm
-    Farred control:                  Dimmable control
-    Light spectrum                  RBFc or RBWFc
-    Lifespan:                           +50.000 hours
-    Weight:                             7.0 kilogram
-    Dimensions:                      W:303mm x L170mm x H160mm
-    Warranty:                          3 years
-    Input voltage                     100-240V AC Power Input

I won't put all the rest of the bumph in as I'm not advertising the lamp. Just showing you what tools I've got. Managed 1.5g/w on the first run but the girls took longer to finish. Hopefully I'll see benefit this run with the CMH at the side to keep things warmer, but I'll get less of a g/w ratio if I can't turn the LED up full. A bit less efficiency with the CMH creating more heat as opposed to light energy, and can't dim it to balance things. One thing's for sure though, I'd sooner have energy burnt through a CMH than having to turn my rad up fully. 

 

Closer look at the lamp and dimmer. 
According to the photo the blue dial is showing fully down and the red 1/3rd up. This is because the dimmer is wired wrong. That setting is actually red fully down and blue 1/3rd up at 105W. I first thought the knobs were on the wrong dials, then noticed the text stating the colours underneath them. So it must be wired wrong.   

Day 38.
I dimmed the LED wattage to 105w on the blue and raised both lamps as high as they'd go. Ratchets removed and attached straight to the roof bar. 420w combined wattage with the LED 36" above the TP and the CMH 34" above the tallest plant at the back. 

I checked the res, EC had risen to 0.4 and PH to 7.3  Temp was 15C so I switched the heater on set to lowest setting at 20C.

Pot level temps 19-26C, roots 18-22, RH 40-62%.

The root temps had dropped since sitting the pots up on the drainage racks.

Day 39.
Temps 19-26C, roots 18-20, RH 43-60%.

The lights on root temps had also dropped quite dramatically so I added insulation to the tent as shown in the pictures above, to try and combat raising the lamps and losing heat. I also gave the ducting joints to fans a good checking over to make sure no cold air was being drawn in before entering the tent. All was good there, no air was leaking but I added a bit of tape to one of the 4" fans as it was coming away slightly. Milder weather next week anyway and I've also got plans to try and raise lights off temps when they go into bloom  

Onto the plants.
They settled ok since installing the Blumats but looked a little saggy compared to what I was expecting when raising the lamps. I thought they'd be praying more. It's down to the lower temps though, can't win 'em all I did however turn the Blumat dials down by half a notch on the SAH and TP in case of over watering when cold. 

Gaps had filled in nicely since removing the main stem fans, and the under skirt trim.  

Gorilla Girl.
No more out of tent pics now the drippers are set up but I've kept the plants at the back out of the picture for now, while these girls are still small enough to get a back drop in there.
The GG was totally unphased by the dripper set up. Shame about the burnt tips from the couple of late waterings though. It's not that I let them properly dry out or owt, they were just a little bit thirsty and this compost is strong.

 

 

Sweet Amnesia Haze.
A touch more saggy than the others on her older fan leaves but still happy enough. Secondary shoots from the lower nodes stretching up through the canopy, so due another trim. 

 

Tropicanna Poison F1FV.
Managed to keep her in check for the time being with the multiple toppings but we'll see what happens with the transition to bloom stretch. 

 

 

Group shot. 

The GG is overtaking the SAH now so this is gonna be interesting. I was gonna change the timers tonight, day 42, 19 days in finals but I think I'll let them go a full 3 weeks in finals and flip on day 44 when they've got more used to the drippers. The saucers were removed later to allow more heat from the floor to the pots. 

Sorry for the essay. That's most of my set up covered now thank feck  
Happy growing, be

[Shumroom]

Great detailed update 

 

Everything looks good.

 

I hope that everything goes just as smoothly for the bloom phase. 

 

Atvb

 

 

[growinggold]

Great info and detail mate, like your Blumat setup. I see what you mean regards your tray now. With 45l tank it wouldn't be nice to clear up but it wouldn't be the end of the world. I doubt you will have too any way you seem really on it bud. So power to you bro!!! 

 

Lovely greens as ever. Good luck.

Edited February 16, 2021 by growinggold

[jadenugs]

@Shumroom @growinggold Thanks for the comments lads   Been mega busy lately, just gonna post my update and dash. I'll get back on here sometime over the weekend and catch up with your diaries  

 

Aye growinggold, liking these blumats at the minute bro, with minimum adjustment but that could all change