Grow Mediums Preparing for an Alien RDWC invasion...
- Thread starter Groff
- Start date
Yeah bro. Great White is made for hydro and I believe Orca is the liquid form. They are they cheaper ones. I use the advanced line. They will protect your roots from rot , especially the fungi. But you have to keep you water temps low
Water temps are under 19'C always, lights on. Its a comfy 15'C outside and sunny, but they're having a 24h dark period before the 12/12 flip :stight:
I am pretty sure its not rot. But thanks for the help Kipster. If you check the sticky on "how to brew your own tea" here on the Hydro forum, you'll see I successfully made a good batch of Heisenberg style tea. Think its time to brew another batch as nothing but good things come with this tea!
In Europe I cant find any of the "classic" bug killers, Aquashield, ZHO etc etc... Great White I can get from the UK, but for my needs it would cost more to ship over here, than the product itself. But essencially if you know what you're looking for, its readily available everywhere and quite cheaper than the "top shelf" hydro brands too. I got a 20g horticulture grade myco mix powder for 3,5€ with a huge list of endomycorrhizae.
While researching Heisy-tea, I found gold! I found this info right about half-way through the 300+ page on the original Heisenberg thread. That non-ionic surfactants are 99.9% pythium killers, almost instantly. 100% safe and non-toxic and non sistemic, but cant run-along with bennies. The good thing about it is that its known to be excellent drought fighters and cutting water consumption by 40% by preventing evaporation, and in some flower species increases flower production 200%, typical is 30 to 40% in fruiting species. This is insane!
And that is not from marketing mumbo-jumbo. Straight out of peer reviewed published papers. Seems it also makes the root hyperactive for nute intake.
Polysorbate 20, street name Tween 20. Also used to make ice cream, shampoo, detergent and what not. loool
Anyway, I'm attaching a PhD thesis on the subject, everything is in there, but I also found a half-dozen published papers on recirculating systems where they induce pythium and all the time it get nuked with Tween 20.
Hope it helps. Just waiting for my card to clear so I can order. Quite cheap too.
View attachment 312012
I am pretty sure its not rot. But thanks for the help Kipster. If you check the sticky on "how to brew your own tea" here on the Hydro forum, you'll see I successfully made a good batch of Heisenberg style tea. Think its time to brew another batch as nothing but good things come with this tea!
In Europe I cant find any of the "classic" bug killers, Aquashield, ZHO etc etc... Great White I can get from the UK, but for my needs it would cost more to ship over here, than the product itself. But essencially if you know what you're looking for, its readily available everywhere and quite cheaper than the "top shelf" hydro brands too. I got a 20g horticulture grade myco mix powder for 3,5€ with a huge list of endomycorrhizae.
While researching Heisy-tea, I found gold! I found this info right about half-way through the 300+ page on the original Heisenberg thread. That non-ionic surfactants are 99.9% pythium killers, almost instantly. 100% safe and non-toxic and non sistemic, but cant run-along with bennies. The good thing about it is that its known to be excellent drought fighters and cutting water consumption by 40% by preventing evaporation, and in some flower species increases flower production 200%, typical is 30 to 40% in fruiting species. This is insane!
And that is not from marketing mumbo-jumbo. Straight out of peer reviewed published papers. Seems it also makes the root hyperactive for nute intake.
Polysorbate 20, street name Tween 20. Also used to make ice cream, shampoo, detergent and what not. loool
Anyway, I'm attaching a PhD thesis on the subject, everything is in there, but I also found a half-dozen published papers on recirculating systems where they induce pythium and all the time it get nuked with Tween 20.
Hope it helps. Just waiting for my card to clear so I can order. Quite cheap too.
View attachment 312012
Dear Dutch Passion,
I’d like to file a complaint. Clearly there is something wrong with the grower you’ve chosen to test your new strain Auto Ultimate. I’ve killed your new Auto Ultimate’s !!
Well… all except for one – quite ironically the one I discarded early on as being the weakest one, and put into a 2L mini DWC bucket feeding left over Canna Coco nutrients as an experiment, completely neglected, zero bucket changes only top-ups, no temperature control, never checked pH only when topping… mind boggling.
Auto Ultimate, Day 90 – will take her down in honor of her sister.
Ok, seriously now, its been almost a month since a proper update, but too much stuff’s been happening, including x-mas and new year’s, a cold and Emergency Plan BB. Yes, you read right, “BB”. More on that later.
I know what you must be thinking, but IMHO there was nothing wrong with the roots. I’m not in denial here, please bear with me… oohh.. crazy days… let try and be snappy about all this, no one likes a long read… (but it will be ha!)
LONG story short, girls were looking like this... (both big girls had to be super-cropped about 5 -7 tops, each, notice the flat top...)
Then this started happening, lost 1/4 off of each in about 2 or 3 days… this is the dreaded sudden wilting I guess…
So that was that… I threw the towel in. I am defeated. Time to re-asses this whole situation. What a magnificent disaster!! And the shame, ohhh the shame of public humiliation!! Just when they were starting to fatten up…
I have to take them down now and salvage what I can. Give’em another weak and they’re 100% dead for sure.
So after I insulted half the planet, smoked a mind-numbing J, and spent the rest of the day sulking - a mate came over. He told me he wanted my help to start his own little garden, and asked for my advice (irony striking twice!!) on which nutes and medium, method, lights tent etc etc you know the drill… He knew I had airpots and collect trays, drippers, coco, pump, etc etc etc… and if I’d be willing to sell my left over gear and help him get started. Yes please, lucky me!!
So we had a little chat and coincidentally this tent is ideal for his loft. We did some numbers and struck a nice mutual deal, and celebrated with a nice fat one and beer. Almost immediately I formulated Emergency Plan BB. “BB” standing for Bigger and Better!!
In mutual bliss for earning/saving cash, and since he’s going to take the tent with him, how about some help taking it down then? Lets do it! Have to make way for a new tent quick! I have 15 regular’s recently flipped to 12/12 in the XL system and starting to fly. If I do this snappy I could make up for lost time in a big way!!
So we got the lighter stuff out of the way to cut down the girls. Here’s my mate a little camera shy.
I hope you can tell the camera’s white balance is off and that the roots are looking quite healthy.
Buckets right after draining, squeaky clean, zero sign of gunk, slime, snot whatever…
Then if not the roots, wtf just happened? … pity, never had such sized plants in my life.
Cannabituary: Auto Ultimate, Jan the 2nd, 2014, Death by grower, day 79 from sprout.
To the entire DP team my most sincere apologies.
End of Part 1
I’d like to file a complaint. Clearly there is something wrong with the grower you’ve chosen to test your new strain Auto Ultimate. I’ve killed your new Auto Ultimate’s !!
Well… all except for one – quite ironically the one I discarded early on as being the weakest one, and put into a 2L mini DWC bucket feeding left over Canna Coco nutrients as an experiment, completely neglected, zero bucket changes only top-ups, no temperature control, never checked pH only when topping… mind boggling.
Auto Ultimate, Day 90 – will take her down in honor of her sister.
Ok, seriously now, its been almost a month since a proper update, but too much stuff’s been happening, including x-mas and new year’s, a cold and Emergency Plan BB. Yes, you read right, “BB”. More on that later.
I know what you must be thinking, but IMHO there was nothing wrong with the roots. I’m not in denial here, please bear with me… oohh.. crazy days… let try and be snappy about all this, no one likes a long read… (but it will be ha!)
LONG story short, girls were looking like this... (both big girls had to be super-cropped about 5 -7 tops, each, notice the flat top...)
Then this started happening, lost 1/4 off of each in about 2 or 3 days… this is the dreaded sudden wilting I guess…
So that was that… I threw the towel in. I am defeated. Time to re-asses this whole situation. What a magnificent disaster!! And the shame, ohhh the shame of public humiliation!! Just when they were starting to fatten up…
I have to take them down now and salvage what I can. Give’em another weak and they’re 100% dead for sure.
So after I insulted half the planet, smoked a mind-numbing J, and spent the rest of the day sulking - a mate came over. He told me he wanted my help to start his own little garden, and asked for my advice (irony striking twice!!) on which nutes and medium, method, lights tent etc etc you know the drill… He knew I had airpots and collect trays, drippers, coco, pump, etc etc etc… and if I’d be willing to sell my left over gear and help him get started. Yes please, lucky me!!
So we had a little chat and coincidentally this tent is ideal for his loft. We did some numbers and struck a nice mutual deal, and celebrated with a nice fat one and beer. Almost immediately I formulated Emergency Plan BB. “BB” standing for Bigger and Better!!
In mutual bliss for earning/saving cash, and since he’s going to take the tent with him, how about some help taking it down then? Lets do it! Have to make way for a new tent quick! I have 15 regular’s recently flipped to 12/12 in the XL system and starting to fly. If I do this snappy I could make up for lost time in a big way!!
So we got the lighter stuff out of the way to cut down the girls. Here’s my mate a little camera shy.
I hope you can tell the camera’s white balance is off and that the roots are looking quite healthy.
Buckets right after draining, squeaky clean, zero sign of gunk, slime, snot whatever…
Then if not the roots, wtf just happened? … pity, never had such sized plants in my life.
Cannabituary: Auto Ultimate, Jan the 2nd, 2014, Death by grower, day 79 from sprout.
To the entire DP team my most sincere apologies.
End of Part 1
Part 2
Emergency Plan "BB"
Ok, so now I'm on the run to take everything down, get a proper tent in, set it all back up again and try to do it in time to get 4 girls that are happily starting 12/12 cycle in the XL system.
So my mate and I continued our labors, and that's when the curtain fell. As we moved everything out the way, we started finding black, white and green mold everywhere.
Wtf !?!?
Under the 2 month old ikea table for the aquatank, all around the tent, behind the cupboard, black dots all over the walls.. wtf !!! This is not normal by any measure of reason. What the heeellll...
No wonder I've been having a persisting cough this past moth!!
When setting up the room I stacked empty carton boxes above the tent to hide the ducting from prying eyes. When I got them out I found this little number...
Bazinga!! $%##$&#$%#$%/%&#%/#$&
The bracket holding the two ducts together must have slid off, maybe when putting the damn boxes up? I had been venting back into the room the whole time. Complete face-palm moment. In a flash everything makes sense.
As I held the acoustic ducting, the completely saturated rockwool started pouring water out. Pictures make no justice, I got about half a litre out to a bucket just from letting it hang straight. The ducting was much heavier than you'd expect.
What is it with New Years and me growing? Last year I almost had a fire hazard, this year I lose my first crop
Using such a small room, the dehumidifier blasting away 24/7, I was dumping 5-8L a day down the drain, didn't really make sense to me, but my thoughts were "wow, hydro really pumps up RH%...but hey, its what it is..."
It was set to 0%, and blasting at the girls must have made a pocket of 55%RH, but in reality the entire room was really high up there. I remember going out for a weekend and come back to water droplet on the ceiling and little puddles on the floor , that's when I fired up the dehumidifier early December.
That, and me trying to fight the dense canopy, very very slowly lolipopping so as not to stress the girls. But the extremely high humidity was unforgiving.
After much reading, IMHO the plants died from a systemic fungal infection caused by mold entering the plant�s vascular system - Fusarium wilt or Fusarium oxysporum.
2 days later after the early chop, my 3 weeks old persisting cough was gone.
Time to set Plan BB into action!
Now with funds for a proper 1,2 x 1,,2 x 2m, first step is to sterilize the room.
And so I did, with strong bleach, all 6 walls scrubbed down like crazy. The whole alien system dismantled, in minutes actually. I feared I would crack a bucket or something, but hot water softens the PVC pipes real easy. All scrubbed down and popped back in the room where I blasted the dehumidifier until the tent arrived by mail order. Nothing like a 10% RH to kick fungi in the nuts and recolonize.
So on the 3rd of January 2014 the tent arrived - yey. Unfortunately they sent the wrong tent and I got a really really nasty thing. I wouldn't hang a banana in there. So I had to deal with the whole sending back for inspection and replacement thing. Brilliant. Thing is, in Spain, the "real" christmas with family and kids and toys is on the 6th of January, so I'm only getting the tent today, at around 5pm.
Barely slept since Friday! Worked like mad to get everything going as fast as I could. Sunday I transplanted the 4 smallest ones to give them space to bounce back (fingers crossed).
[video=youtube;v5gEMvAijp4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5gEMvAijp4&[/video]
TentLapse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5gEMvAijp4&
Santa's water chiller has since arrived and installed, pH 5.8, EC 0.9, added a second airpump today to boost oxygen levels as precaution. Started brewing beneficial EWC tea to aid the horrible stress of untangling the roots. I have 3-4 plants per pot in the XL. I was gutted, but had to make way. Extra cannazym was added to help deal with broken roots before all hell breaks loose.
They've just gone to sleep an hour ago, went to tuck them in.
Not much point in keeping the strain a secret. The strain is Orange Hill, regular photoperiod by Dutch Passion.
I will do my best not to kill them.
Emergency Plan "BB"
Ok, so now I'm on the run to take everything down, get a proper tent in, set it all back up again and try to do it in time to get 4 girls that are happily starting 12/12 cycle in the XL system.
So my mate and I continued our labors, and that's when the curtain fell. As we moved everything out the way, we started finding black, white and green mold everywhere.
Wtf !?!?
Under the 2 month old ikea table for the aquatank, all around the tent, behind the cupboard, black dots all over the walls.. wtf !!! This is not normal by any measure of reason. What the heeellll...
No wonder I've been having a persisting cough this past moth!!
When setting up the room I stacked empty carton boxes above the tent to hide the ducting from prying eyes. When I got them out I found this little number...
Bazinga!! $%##$&#$%#$%/%&#%/#$&
The bracket holding the two ducts together must have slid off, maybe when putting the damn boxes up? I had been venting back into the room the whole time. Complete face-palm moment. In a flash everything makes sense.
As I held the acoustic ducting, the completely saturated rockwool started pouring water out. Pictures make no justice, I got about half a litre out to a bucket just from letting it hang straight. The ducting was much heavier than you'd expect.
What is it with New Years and me growing? Last year I almost had a fire hazard, this year I lose my first crop
Using such a small room, the dehumidifier blasting away 24/7, I was dumping 5-8L a day down the drain, didn't really make sense to me, but my thoughts were "wow, hydro really pumps up RH%...but hey, its what it is..."
It was set to 0%, and blasting at the girls must have made a pocket of 55%RH, but in reality the entire room was really high up there. I remember going out for a weekend and come back to water droplet on the ceiling and little puddles on the floor , that's when I fired up the dehumidifier early December.
That, and me trying to fight the dense canopy, very very slowly lolipopping so as not to stress the girls. But the extremely high humidity was unforgiving.
After much reading, IMHO the plants died from a systemic fungal infection caused by mold entering the plant�s vascular system - Fusarium wilt or Fusarium oxysporum.
2 days later after the early chop, my 3 weeks old persisting cough was gone.
Time to set Plan BB into action!
Now with funds for a proper 1,2 x 1,,2 x 2m, first step is to sterilize the room.
And so I did, with strong bleach, all 6 walls scrubbed down like crazy. The whole alien system dismantled, in minutes actually. I feared I would crack a bucket or something, but hot water softens the PVC pipes real easy. All scrubbed down and popped back in the room where I blasted the dehumidifier until the tent arrived by mail order. Nothing like a 10% RH to kick fungi in the nuts and recolonize.
So on the 3rd of January 2014 the tent arrived - yey. Unfortunately they sent the wrong tent and I got a really really nasty thing. I wouldn't hang a banana in there. So I had to deal with the whole sending back for inspection and replacement thing. Brilliant. Thing is, in Spain, the "real" christmas with family and kids and toys is on the 6th of January, so I'm only getting the tent today, at around 5pm.
Barely slept since Friday! Worked like mad to get everything going as fast as I could. Sunday I transplanted the 4 smallest ones to give them space to bounce back (fingers crossed).
[video=youtube;v5gEMvAijp4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5gEMvAijp4&[/video]
TentLapse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5gEMvAijp4&
Santa's water chiller has since arrived and installed, pH 5.8, EC 0.9, added a second airpump today to boost oxygen levels as precaution. Started brewing beneficial EWC tea to aid the horrible stress of untangling the roots. I have 3-4 plants per pot in the XL. I was gutted, but had to make way. Extra cannazym was added to help deal with broken roots before all hell breaks loose.
They've just gone to sleep an hour ago, went to tuck them in.
Not much point in keeping the strain a secret. The strain is Orange Hill, regular photoperiod by Dutch Passion.
I will do my best not to kill them.
Alien XL: Orange Hill Special - Day 44 from sprout, Week 2 since the flip, and 3 days.
A new DP sativa dom, that crosses two very respected orange lineages.
During all this time, life went on in the other tent. I slowly increased EC as they flourished, looking closely for signs, soon to realize the mix was too strong. Green became darker, then downward clawing began. Feeding 1.3, I immediately dropped to 0.9. The next few days they started reacting very positively and 2 weeks later you can see a lush green back.
Pics taken right after lights off, 11 plants in there total. Hope they sex soon, they're starting to get big.
A new DP sativa dom, that crosses two very respected orange lineages.
During all this time, life went on in the other tent. I slowly increased EC as they flourished, looking closely for signs, soon to realize the mix was too strong. Green became darker, then downward clawing began. Feeding 1.3, I immediately dropped to 0.9. The next few days they started reacting very positively and 2 weeks later you can see a lush green back.
Pics taken right after lights off, 11 plants in there total. Hope they sex soon, they're starting to get big.
Grim Reefer
DWC & LST
Looking good man, id say they are going to be getting really smelly soon now that you have done the switch.
I can't wait to see flowers!! But hey, nature's doing its thing... :Sharing One:
