Stoney's Candylicious Hydro scrog

[Stoneyluv]

I am attempting my second hydro grow and this time i will be growing a feminized photo period cultivar named Candylicious by Erie Genetics

i will be using my 25 gallon DIY RDWC two site system with five gallon plant sites. the system itself performed well on it's maiden voyage and i only made two small changes for this round. first change is i added an aquarium heater to the rez because with winter coming my water temps are already around 66° so i installed that today and the second change i made was i added some weather stripping on the lip of the buckets. i had a small issue where they dripped a little if not centered correctly so i gave this a try, i smeared some permatex on the seam too... initial test was a success so i will just keep an eye on the stripping adhesive, if that holds i should be in good shape.



Water being used is Rain water less than 10ppm

Air Pump is a ALITA little guy.

Nutrients are FloraNova series and Agsil16H as a buffer along with plant revolution Orca and King Crab>
starting solution levels are:
70 ppm of K buffer

• 70 ppm of cal/mag
• 100 ppm of Nova grow

=240 total ppm @ 5.5 ph


Light is a CLW solarsystem 550 gen2 with programmable spectrum.



this will be a SCROG style grow and will be a first for me so i will be seeking guidance on that from our very own @CannaGranny !!!

things are just getting started now and showing signs of life!!!!



so with that it's time to get this journal started!

 

[steamroller]

You know I'm following.
You make it look easy.

 

[Zen_seeker]

I know it’s going to be a good show.
Still waiting for the racetrack background like Bandits space station.

 

[Stoneyluv]

You know I'm following.
You make it look easy.

so easy even a caveman could do it!!!

I know it’s going to be a good show.
Still waiting for the racetrack background like Bandits space station.

how awesome would that be to have a tyco slot car track in there!!!!! one of the wall hugger series!!!!! that would be so badass... i still have some slot car stuff around somewhere.

.
loaded and living!!!!!



had to put the heater in, basement is around 66° right now. put the heater in and the rh fell like a stone so in went the humidifier too. water temps are holding perfect at 70, heater set to 69 but water is actually 70° .. spectrum is same as last time, light is 20 inches above the plants.



i put them in bare naked lady style and even have a rooty root poking out already!!!!!

 

[steamroller]

Is this for the radiator or the aquarium heater?

 

[Stoneyluv]

View attachment 78192
Is this for the radiator or the aquarium heater?

that's the aquarium heater for the rez...

i ran it inline along with the pump cables on the wall of hydro control....



i snuck the wire along side the lid and then mounted the heater just under the recirc pipe inside the rez...



for the air heater and humidifier i use one of these to control both...

 

[steamroller]

Get your air pump above water level so it can not syphon back during power failure.

 

[moe.red]

Looks great man. Everything looks down the fairway. You aren't scared to jump right in there are ya.

This is personal preference, but I really like my roots to start growing laterally as quickly as possible. I started with the same setup - rawdoging the tap root right thru the hole in the netcup and dumping hydroton around it.

For me the tap root always seems to dive down in order to find the bottom of the bucket. After it sees some resistance it starts to branch out from the top much faster.

You can steer this behavior with PGRs, but in the end I went with smaller netcups and coco packed a little tighter than you would normally. It makes the tap root start to make side shoots while still in the netcup. I prefer this method, especially when scrogging. The morphology of what grows below seems to correlate to the shape of the bush above.

I use the 3.5" netcups. I still grow lumber, the netcup is not a limitation to trees.

 

[Stoneyluv]

Get your air pump above water level so it can not syphon back during power failure.

thanks.. i must have gotten lucky, i turned it off a few times already!!

rev B...

 

[Stoneyluv]

Looks great man. Everything looks down the fairway. You aren't scared to jump right in there are ya.

This is personal preference, but I really like my roots to start growing laterally as quickly as possible. I started with the same setup - rawdoging the tap root right thru the hole in the netcup and dumping hydroton around it.

For me the tap root always seems to dive down in order to find the bottom of the bucket. After it sees some resistance it starts to branch out from the top much faster.

You can steer this behavior with PGRs, but in the end I went with smaller netcups and coco packed a little tighter than you would normally. It makes the tap root start to make side shoots while still in the netcup. I prefer this method, especially when scrogging. The morphology of what grows below seems to correlate to the shape of the bush above.

I use the 3.5" netcups. I still grow lumber, the netcup is not a limitation to trees.

i noticed you grow with coco and perlite in your cups back when i first built this and always wanted to ask you why.. my first though was because of oxygen but this makes much better sense!

i'll give it a go next round.. hell i'll try anything once!!! i appreciate the input man!!!

it can be done with chemicals? making the roots more lateral growth? never knew that!!!!

while i got your attention do you think my next upgrade should be bigger plant sites or an oxygen concentrator? and you can't say yes both... hehe

both will cost me around the same and was curios which is better to have?

 

[steamroller]

I bet he says O2 concentrator.

 

[Stoneyluv]

I bet he says O2 concentrator.

i'm hoping he does... i'm pretty sure AquaMan agrees too!!! he once told me there is no better bang for your buck when it comes to hydro and that comment has stuck with me.. been pricing them ever since!!

 

[moe.red]

Man it comes down to what you want.

If your space can support trees a bigger water volume will help.

O2 helps a ton to speed up veg so more turns of smaller plants I’d say o2.

Btw I like my ph closer to 6 when establishing Bennie’s.

Biological Characterization of the Biocontrol Agent Bacillus amyloliquefaciens CPA-8: The Effect of Temperature, pH and Water Activity on Growth, Susceptibility to Antibiotics and Detection of Enterotoxic Genes - Current Microbiology

This work focuses on the biological understanding of the biocontrol agent Bacillus amyloliquefaciens CPA-8 in order to accomplish the characterization required in the registration process for the development of a microorganism-based product. The tolerance of CPA-8 to grow under different...

link.springer.com

 

[Stoneyluv]

Man it comes down to what you want.

If your space can support trees a bigger water volume will help.

O2 helps a ton to speed up veg so more turns of smaller plants I’d say o2.

Btw I like my ph closer to 6 when establishing Bennie’s.

Biological Characterization of the Biocontrol Agent Bacillus amyloliquefaciens CPA-8: The Effect of Temperature, pH and Water Activity on Growth, Susceptibility to Antibiotics and Detection of Enterotoxic Genes - Current Microbiology

This work focuses on the biological understanding of the biocontrol agent Bacillus amyloliquefaciens CPA-8 in order to accomplish the characterization required in the registration process for the development of a microorganism-based product. The tolerance of CPA-8 to grow under different...

link.springer.com

you're fuckin awesome Moe!! you come in like The Shadow!! swoop in out of the darkness and fix the email server and drop a bunch of good tips and back in the shadows until evil strikes again!!!

Man it comes down to what you want.

If your space can support trees a bigger water volume will help.

the space is my issue and i realized this on the first grow that if it were much bigger i might have an issue. this is why i decided to give the scrog a go to keep a shorter canopy but still have a bigger plant, my theory anyway...

O2 helps a ton to speed up veg so more turns of smaller plants I’d say o2.

this sounds like a great marriage for the scrog too... maybe help with the longer veg time needed, again stoner logic..

Btw I like my ph closer to 6 when establishing Bennie’s.

ya know ph seems to be the biggest difference between growing with soil and hydro to me. both require the same temps and rh, both need most oxygen possible while still providing moisture to the plant, both need the same lighting, proper amounts of food, co2, etc... the only difference to me seems to be the ph. in soil i ignore it, the soil buffers it and it's automatic drift like a transmission in a car. in hydro you gotta manually choose that gear and then shift properly.

one thing i would like to build is a small starter system like you and Smoke have with a multi site rdwc tote and multiple interchangeable net cups to move into the system after fully established. i only put them in bare root to the clay because it's all i really knew to do and seemed natural to me with starting out in a VG.. but i have enough stuff laying around that i could make a cool starter area with a different size/setup of netcup to really mess around and try different styles to learn without tying up the one system i have now.

 

[moe.red]

Yeah in hydro there is no CEC. Big difference. We try to simulate cec with buffers.

There are a few other differences too. Take a close look at your hydro roots vs soil.

Hydro is more tunable. For example you are precisely controlling root zone temp with your aquarium heater. It would be much more difficult to do with a 5 gallon pail of soil.

Hydro lends itself more to automation.

Hydro does not require drybacks to get o2 into the root zone. The need to temporarily stop growing up top while you starve the plant (in soil) in order to replenish o2 in the root zone - the dryback- means if everything else is equal soil cannot compete in veg growth. Hydro never has to stop there is a constant supply of o2.

Moving netcups between systems is the best way to grow hydro / fog / aero imo. The drawback is stability of little cups when the plants get big, and the ability to pass the root ball thru the hole for the netcup. That’s why I print the twist lock system. Fixes both problems.

 

[moe.red]

That’s the twist lock system. I’ll send you the printer files if you want.

Also look at the root structure compared to yours.

 

[GrumpAzz]

the space is my issue and i realized this on the first grow that if it were much bigger i might have an issue. this is why i decided to give the scrog a go to keep a shorter canopy but still have a bigger plant, my theory anyway...

Yeah... my first try without a scrog ended up turning my tent into a convertible

 

[Max]

Yeah... my first try without a scrog ended up turning my tent into a convertible

Haha…has a sunroof ..

 

[moe.red]

Yeah... my first try without a scrog ended up turning my tent into a convertible

Meh, there is worse problems than too much weed.

 

[Observer]

Yeah in hydro there is no CEC. Big difference. We try to simulate cec with buffers.

There are a few other differences too. Take a close look at your hydro roots vs soil.

Hydro is more tunable. For example you are precisely controlling root zone temp with your aquarium heater. It would be much more difficult to do with a 5 gallon pail of soil.

Hydro lends itself more to automation.

Hydro does not require drybacks to get o2 into the root zone. The need to temporarily stop growing up top while you starve the plant (in soil) in order to replenish o2 in the root zone - the dryback- means if everything else is equal soil cannot compete in veg growth. Hydro never has to stop there is a constant supply of o2.

Moving netcups between systems is the best way to grow hydro / fog / aero imo. The drawback is stability of little cups when the plants get big, and the ability to pass the root ball thru the hole for the netcup. That’s why I print the twist lock system. Fixes both problems.

But how/what did you use to get the twist lock base neatly secured in top lid of you're tote

Need to go back and look

 

[moe.red]

But how/what did you use to get the twist lock base neatly secured in top lid of you're tote

Need to go back and look

View attachment IMG_3031.mov

 

[moe.red]

Start in VG

Move to this system to shake out the seedlings and cull down to 12


Those net cups just drop in holes.

Then when ready to move to veg pop the ones you want to keep into the twist lock assembly

Same design for DWC, RWDC, Fog and Aero. move plants between systems easily, or move them around in the growspace to accommodate different size plants as they grow.

Profit!

 

[moe.red]

End result

 

[Observer]

Start in VG

Move to this system to shake out the seedlings and cull down to 12

View attachment 78263
Those net cups just drop in holes.

Then when ready to move to veg pop the ones you want to keep into the twist lock assembly

Same design for DWC, RWDC, Fog and Aero. move plants between systems easily, or move them around in the growspace to accommodate different size plants as they grow.

Profit!

Wait

What was the red tote?

Did you vent the fog into one of these systems or was that o2 injection

 

[moe.red]

Wait

What was the red tote?

Did you vent the fog into one of these systems or was that o2 injection

I think you are looking at the humidifier for that tent.

I gotta run, but let's take the fog talk off Stoney's RDWC thread and I'll explain more.

 

[Stoneyluv]

There are a few other differences too. Take a close look at your hydro roots vs soil.

i've had some airpot roots that were comparable. it can be done in soil.

Hydro is more tunable. For example you are precisely controlling root zone temp with your aquarium heater. It would be much more difficult to do with a 5 gallon pail of soil.

it's more convenient a little maybe to change that temp but with soil containers your root temps match your air temps within a few degrees. just as a regular DWC would where the rez is in the grow room.

but t's not hard to use a heat mat under soil plants if needed. more expensive than an aquarium heater but all costs involved it would balance out.

Hydro lends itself more to automation

i agree with you on this one, much easier to water a hydro system than it is a soil system. less time and less effort 100%!

Hydro does not require drybacks to get o2 into the root zone. The need to temporarily stop growing up top while you starve the plant (in soil) in order to replenish o2 in the root zone - the dryback- means if everything else is equal soil cannot compete in veg growth. Hydro never has to stop there is a constant supply of o2.

soil doesn't require dry backs... i don't do it, never have never will!! my ladies stay wet!!!

Moving netcups between systems is the best way to grow hydro / fog / aero imo. The drawback is stability of little cups when the plants get big, and the ability to pass the root ball thru the hole for the netcup.

ahhhh advantage soil!!!!!!!!

That’s why I print the twist lock system. Fixes both problems.

ahhhhh advantage Moe!!!!!

View attachment 78240
That’s the twist lock system. I’ll send you the printer files if you want.

Also look at the root structure compared to yours.

yes please, i would love to print a six pack of those out!!!!! i wouldn't be able to use em this round but hell yea!!

Yeah... my first try without a scrog ended up turning my tent into a convertible

one of the best things you did too!!!! i wish i could or i would, got to many beams n stuff...

View attachment 78257
View attachment 78258

what is the neoprene for, was this to add cuttings into your system?

I was fucking typing and trying to show ya more then budbuilders crashed =(

oh noooooo don't say that!!!!! it's all good i looked, no errors.. you're gonna make Moe twitch saying it crashed!!!

I think you are looking at the humidifier for that tent.

I gotta run, but let's take the fog talk off Stoney's RDWC thread and I'll explain more.

ah you didn't have to delete those posts man, it's all gravy!!!! what am i gonna post now anyway... my tiny plant with no roots out the bottom yet!!!
ok...

 

[CannaGranny]

This.. Not the way I will have you prep it, but you get the idea about the tables.

 

[moe.red]

i've had some airpot roots that were comparable. it can be done in soil.



it's more convenient a little maybe to change that temp but with soil containers your root temps match your air temps within a few degrees. just as a regular DWC would where the rez is in the grow room.

but t's not hard to use a heat mat under soil plants if needed. more expensive than an aquarium heater but all costs involved it would balance out.



i agree with you on this one, much easier to water a hydro system than it is a soil system. less time and less effort 100%!



soil doesn't require dry backs... i don't do it, never have never will!! my ladies stay wet!!!



ahhhh advantage soil!!!!!!!!



ahhhhh advantage Moe!!!!!



yes please, i would love to print a six pack of those out!!!!! i wouldn't be able to use em this round but hell yea!!



one of the best things you did too!!!! i wish i could or i would, got to many beams n stuff...

View attachment 78281



what is the neoprene for, was this to add cuttings into your system?



oh noooooo don't say that!!!!! it's all good i looked, no errors.. you're gonna make Moe twitch saying it crashed!!!



ah you didn't have to delete those posts man, it's all gravy!!!! what am i gonna post now anyway... my tiny plant with no roots out the bottom yet!!!
ok...
View attachment 78282View attachment 78283

I think my term dryback is not the same as yours. If the soil is constantly drenched the only oi2 getting to the roots is in the water you are adding. Vs active bubbling with hydro.

In terms of root zone temp, yeah soil will somewhat reach some kinda equilibrium with surrounding air, but that temp should be changing up and down night and day, right? And when you water it gets a jolt of temp whatever the water is sitting at? Seems kinda different to me. I’m thinking the bottom sitting on a concrete slab will be colder than the top which gets direct light?

As far as root morphology yeah they grow different depending on media. Not that one is necessarily better than another just an observation

 

[Observer]

Omg look at these little solo cups

 

[Stoneyluv]

This.. Not the way I will have you prep it, but you get the idea about the tables.
View attachment 78287

oh hell yeah Granny i want that^^^ help me make that for sure!!!!!!!

.
in all seriousness though,
i won't be able to have the exact same layout as that because of where my buckets are positioned. i understand them being near the edges of the screen like in that photo is probably the best situation. i will have to settle for less than best as my two buckets will be closer to the middle of the screen.

good news is i can put the screen anywhere we want. the cabinet has 16" center studs and the left wall is all plywood and i can mount it any height we choose and at any time we choose.

what size openings do you suggest for the screen? and it is to be made of stiff wire with no flex, correct?

I think my term dryback is not the same as yours. If the soil is constantly drenched the only oi2 getting to the roots is in the water you are adding. Vs active bubbling with hydro.

In terms of root zone temp, yeah soil will somewhat reach some kinda equilibrium with surrounding air, but that temp should be changing up and down night and day, right? And when you water it gets a jolt of temp whatever the water is sitting at? Seems kinda different to me. I’m thinking the bottom sitting on a concrete slab will be colder than the top which gets direct light?

As far as root morphology yeah they grow different depending on media. Not that one is necessarily better than another just an observation

question for ya, because you probably know better than i.. if you fill a jug with water and measure the o2 level, and let that jug sit for two days and measure it again, is there a significant drop in o2? more than say 20%?

just curios because i've always wondered but never had the equipment to find out.

and i do agree with you on your explanation of dry back, the reason an airpot grows roots so well is because it gets o2 from the air pruning along with the moisture from the soil. the air pruning in turn forces the roots to grow laterally creating a much bigger surface area of active roots similar to the results you get with the coco.
the major difference i;ve seen so far is the speed of which it does that... and the ph of coarse, that really is only difference i notice is ph.. one makes my hands a little dirty, one a little cleaner.. hydro does in fact veg much faster BUT in the world of no-veg soil it doesn't matter as much, it's more about growing flowers.

Moe, right now i am using those 6" netcups because it was cheap and easy to get. what size do you suggest? you said you use 3.5? if i stuck with wat you use than the prints would be 1:1 scale and would already be tried and true... then i just have to pay the patent fee!!!!!

Omg look at these little solo cups

just think how many thousands of those you could grow at once man??? would be totally epic!!!!