Hobbes Gets Wet with Mars Hydro (DWC, Mars II 1600W)

[Qman1515]

oh geese 31 days?? thats very impressive! I have to do DWC again..

Yeah, I drive them hard But they like it. Both in preflower. Lots of air too, I could run five stones on they pump, I run two.
Thanks for the complement

 

[Son of Hobbes]

SoH one other thing I use in my Rez is SM-90. It breaks the surface tension of the water and it smells good.
The H2O2 is nasty stuff. Not very caustic. I have some will use it clean stuff or as an oxygen boost. I bleach everything! Buckets, air stones, air lines, tools, walls, floor, you get the point. I don't have much space, so I try and get it clean before I start.

What kind of air stones do you use, do you clean them? Soaking them overnight then rinsing them in hot water, them bubbling them for an hour seems to get them cleaned out. Although I am using GH Floranova, I hear it's dirtier then other blends.

As far as the roots thing. I water once a day till I see them. Think it took a week, but would have to go back and look to be sure, I do like the smaller net pots over the big one. Way lighter, easier to work with, and better roots.

I've tried a few things as far as gear goes; I'm finding some things work far better than others, and others work far less than as advertised.

I started out getting some of these cheap O2 air pumps off of the 'bay', which seemed like a great bargain for what they claimed the air output was. Well, the one of two quit working halfway through the night the very first night I turned it on. Overheated. Pump wasn't running, no oxygen to the buckets for who knows how long during that night, and the pump itself was INCREDIBLY hot. Like, burn your skin touching it hot. Fire hazard. The second one of those ended up being a working unit, but again ran very hot and man it was pumping HOT HOT air into my reservoirs (which for a long time, were my most recent autos from this last grow.) So that didn't help out my reservoir temps at all, plus I noticed over time a grease buildup in the main air hose coming from the pump.

If anyone is reading this on the fence, don't skimp on the air pump.

I replaced them with a dual diaphragm General Hydroponics pump, and liked it so damn much I bought 3 more of them haha! Right now I have about 1 pump per two bucket, I think it comes out to like 10,000 L/min per bucket. Lots of oxygen.

I still constantly look at those commercial pond pumps, like the AP-60 or AP-100. I just thought having more smaller but powerful pumps would be better in case one fails. The rebuild kits are super cheap, single diaphragms are $10 and you can get the two packs. I rebuilt one already, just make sure you TIGHTEN THE SHIT out of the nut when putting them back on. I'm not going to say what happens if you don't. It's bad though. Whoooooopsiiiieeee! Yeah. Loud knocking sound and grinded out metal. Still works. Had to get clever with the stripped threads I'll show you some pictures next time I change it out lol...

As for air stones, I've so far used the small blue aquarium cylinders, grey cylinders, like 3/4" or 1" ball stones, and some big 4" discs. Honestly. have had the best luck with those SUPER CHEAP, blue air stones. The ball stones are equally pretty nice, but the 4" discs seemed to clog the fastest.

I have tried cleaning them in bleach water and hot water, it definitely makes a difference.

I saw a video online of a guy taking a piece of rockwool and a clamp, and putting it over the end of the air hose and using that as the diffuser. Thought it was interesting, I actually tried it in a bucket of water and it definitely bubbles out a bit. Would think that would get super nasty real quick though depending on what you're putting in that bucket

I've been debating about pulling the trigger on a set of those bubble mac micro diffusers; just to see if it's worth the hype.

I don't use SM-90, but have some Physan 20 that I looked up and it did the job the one time I had to use it. Everything I read said it's INCREDIBLY powerful and can KILL things very easily if not dosed correctly, but it's supposed to be safe for edible veggies from what I read, so.... if I can eat it. I should be able to smoke it, right? I really think prevention is the best course with that kind of stuff, after dealing with it. And like, once you get it under control, you can just SEE those roots coming back and it's so easy to draw the comparison to "wow, I made X change and the result is Y."

I'm actually out of herb so I've been taking some sample buds of things to tide us over, here's a few of some ET x Frost (Terrestrial Bean Company.) This was vegged and flowered under the Mars II 1600W. I'm so pumped to start the next grow, it's going to be so much better this next time. It's a nice feeling to feel jazzed that you're armed with some good knowledge I don't even care if I muck it up. Just going to keep at it!

 

[Son of Hobbes]

Here's a sample bud of some Ripley I have going. It's soooooooooooooooooooo sticky. Oh my gosh. Like, keep some alcohol swabs handy. This will turn mortal men into Spider Man, capable of climbing walls and ceilings.

Never tried it before. Will be a few days before the sample it smokeable. Unless it finds it's way into the vape tonight.... hmmmmmmm! I can't wait to see it when it's all finished up!

 

[Doug25]

Nice looking plants and buds, buddy. Good Job. Peace.

 

[Marshydro]

looking cool Soh.

 

[Qman1515]

Hobbs. Half way through my grow, I am loving the bennies in he Rez. You should try them.

 

[pop22]

Insulate the buckets and res! by using both Reflectix and 1" foil faced foam insulation, I could keep my res below 70F for up to 30 hours! IU chilled it with frozen 2 liter bottles of water. with a room temp of 76 it would stay below below 70 for that long by taking the res temp down to 65F ( that was with one 2 liter of ice to an 18 gallon res ) Beats the hell outa buying a $500 chiller!

 

[pop22]

Thats why they invented pumps............LOL!

I used a garden hose adapter and ran the hose to my bathtub. That's also how I filled the res. I make my RO in buckets in the bathtub and pumped it to the res! Screw lugging buckets!

Its got me thinking that too, King
I just keep remembering the 30 gallon rez changes, every 10-14 days...
Makes a man want to medicate...

 

[Roark]

Insulate the buckets and res! by using both Reflectix and 1" foil faced foam insulation, I could keep my res below 70F for up to 30 hours! IU chilled it with frozen 2 liter bottles of water. with a room temp of 76 it would stay below below 70 for that long by taking the res temp down to 65F ( that was with one 2 liter of ice to an 18 gallon res ) Beats the hell outa buying a $500 chiller!

I hear that. But now I have cooler temps and I move to keeping the rooms warm during lights out. Always something.

 

[Son of Hobbes]

Insulate the buckets and res! by using both Reflectix and 1" foil faced foam insulation, I could keep my res below 70F for up to 30 hours! IU chilled it with frozen 2 liter bottles of water. with a room temp of 76 it would stay below below 70 for that long by taking the res temp down to 65F ( that was with one 2 liter of ice to an 18 gallon res ) Beats the hell outa buying a $500 chiller!

You're the 2nd person to recommend the reflectix; it makes that much of a difference eh? I'm using square 4 1/2 gallon buckets; so just box the bucket with the 1" foam and then wrap it with the reflectix? How strong is that reflectix tensile-wise? Could I stick adhesive-backed velcro to them to create a removable "sleeve?"

I was thinking of taking heavy mil black plastic and putting it on top of the bucket lid, with slits cut in so the main stem can come through. Little worried I'm getting too much light leak through my cut holes (which are not perfect circles) on the net pots and that some is coming through gaps in the clay pebbles.

Here's a pic of the photo tent from a few days ago; these are under two 400W HPS lights (I started with one 400W and decided to add the second one about 2 weeks ago.) Forgive the disgusting yellow lighting.

I found one of the Durban Poison's almost completely folded over on itself from the weight of the buds. Nothing snapped though; so got them supported with the wire ties and now they've all formed nice little knuckles on 'em. I've got three buckets in this 4 x 4 and it's pretty much filled.

I will say one thing I really don't like about the LED light, is that I wish there was a way to attach the exhaust of it to a duct. It still generates heat. And I want to pipe that heat directly out of the tent. I mean I have an exhaust in there (400 CFM on a 6" scrubber) but I'd still just prefer to direct pipe it out. Maybe I'm just being too picky lol!

Anyway, I have several buckets freshly washed and scrubbed waiting for some new plants to get put in under the Mars II 1600W; I'll be running some Short Stuff tester beans under it and a couple tests crosses for a member on here.