Leaderboard

I am done with load shedding. I have been looking to invest in this for years now. Eventually saved up enough. 2 x 110aH batteries 1 x 1440w inverter Fuck Eskom thanks for LED's. Will be adding another 2 batteries when I have the funds.

Sjo howzit. I'm ready to share what I've been up to since the last grow. Right from the get-go, I know this setup has flaws. I've got two different kinds of lights, three different strains and two different growing methods. I'd like to say this is on purpose but honestly it just kinda happened. Somewhere between an upgrade and circumstance I've now ended up here. I've decided I am going to do one last hoorah with DWC, going back to my roots from when I first began growing and also use the HID lamps I've had tucked away since acquiring my LED. I really like DWC, it's hellah fun and technical. I just love the amount of control you have with it. However I really want to do a serious ScrOG attempt next and the last time I did a ScrOG it was with DWC and couldn't even finish that grow If not DWC with a ScrOG, what medium to use then? I've never grown in a solid medium before so I'd have to learn soil/coco. So I decided to throw in a couple plants in Freedom Farms Premium Classic and have them grow in the space I had left in my tent aside from the DWC setups, so that I am not a complete n00b when I do the ScrOG. Did I mention I got a bigger tent? I am now rocking a 1.2x2.4x2.05 meter tent and oh boy, I think a ScrOG will do just super.. but that's next time. Why waste time and not just do the ScrOG now? Well, I've got some very nice seeds on the way (enough time for another grow) and I'd like to create a mother from that pack of seeds and then use clones from the mother to fill the ScrOG. I also do not feel like my previous DWC grow was very good either, so I want to get a solid one in before dumping the buckets. The plan is to do 4 DWC cooler boxes, same design as before. They will have 250W MH to veg and 400W HPS to flower. The ladies in the DWC will be mainlined into 8 queen colas each and I am going to be extremely aggressive on the defoliation. No kak cheap branches this time with poopy airy buds. I want 24 thicc and solid queen colas that look like the Grinch took a shit on my desk.. multiple times. After setting up the 4 DWC systems I couldn't help but notice that I had a third of my tent unused. I had already gotten a few extra things to expand my HID lamp setup to accommodate the increase in DWC buckets and number of plants, so I don't want to invest in more HID power. I want to keep the power below 1000W in the tent, I don't think anything more is necessary for what I'm doing. Although I have my 250W LED still, so I decided to just throw that into the tent in the unoccupied space and do two plants of the same strain in soil to learn the ropes. The two plants in soil turned into five plants.. during the propagation stage one seed didn't pop, so I decided to pop more seeds to compensate and got a little paranoid and decided to pop more than necessary in case some didn't germinate.. they all germinated. So now I have five plants in soil, 4 of which are the same strain, 1 is a very long flowering strain. Once again I have done this to myself, putting different strains with different flowering times in the same tent. But mama didn't raise no simp so imma let them finish as is. But bro why not use the 80x80x180 tent you have sitting empty now? It's way too cold to veg under LED and no heating. The beauty of HID lamps in Winter is that you get your photons and a comfortable temperature in your tent all in one! So I've just put the soil plants under the LED in the same tent so they can share the heat. I did however add a small heater with a Sonof switch just to help the temp with the dips at night and these wacky cold fronts. Also because of the different flowering times I can then use this smaller tent as a drying tent as a harvest. Even better, if the 5 soil plants get too big in their corner I can just take a few outside to flower Strains! DWC: Pink Mango Gelato - Green Smoke Room Seeds Soil: Aurora Indica (1) - Nirvana Seeds Skywalker OG (4) - Nirvana Seeds

Dude [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23] they went off last night. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The smell is getting very much noticeable when you enter the room.. rest. I clean out the old leaves and keep a clean pot.. that is all. Day 4 Week 9 Feeding is on 4/4/4 (Grow/Bloom/TopMax)

Solar would be ideal. But that is a huge investment.

If I may add mine too... I run my 1000w draw off it for 6 hours and made coffee too over dec with power off 3 times that day, at 2 hours each time. 3kva with 4x 105ah heavy duty

I'm 200% with you brother, So glad there are no purists, who might argue that those 65 parts, are parts you dont know Oh and while you are here, was chilling earlier dying of laughter, when it fell on me, KLS from our High-Jack thread last, must either have been thinking, hectic bae is blowing up my phone, or if bae was there, he must have questioned who's this now

I battery though. Aint got a operation like u going.

Bro. Excelent investment. Just finished putting mine together about a month ago. Even if its just for the home use. 1 of the best investments

Oh there are definitely purists around. RO has it's uses but not on the scale that we are growing. If you have 1000 plants in a facility that has dialed-in feeding schedules and they all pull from the same set of reservoirs, you'll probably use RO water to ensure consistent results and outcomes across multiple seasons. Didn't even consider @KLS's phone would have been lighting up while we burning that midnight oil/dab/vape/kush

I blast tap water from a hose into 25L containers and let sit with the screw tops open for a minimum 12 hours but preferably 24 hours. I try to create as much aeration and disturbance of the water in the containers as possible. I believe this method to be of the "good enough" variety.

Careful with this distinction. Tap water in CT is hard, tap water in Jozi/PTA is soft. My tap water comes out at about 40ppm TDS. I personally use soft water nutes from GHE and have gotten it nailed, adjusting for deficiencies/toxicity has gotten better over time.

I use soft water. My tap water comes out around 65ppm so it's not that bad. And it's not a problem. Sent from my POCOPHONE F1 using Tapatalk

This is correct [emoji1362]. Constant use of salt based nutes will eventually stop the symbiotic relationship between the tree and the microbes in soil. @Newbie_2020 Microbes break down things in the soil into nutrients for the tree, and the tree produces carbs and sugars for the microbes. If you continually add salt based nutrients, the tree will no longer have a purpose for producing food for the microbes (since its getting fed directly with the added nutes) and the microbial life will eventually die off. *my opinion* The thing with FFF1 is that it has Bone meal, Worm Castings AND fermented probiotic bran... Which leads me to believe that there is in fact microbial life, and that they crafted the mix quite intuitively. The microbes will continue to feed on what's in the mix until they starve, I feel its enough to veg for 2 or 3 weeks if you don't want to use nutes, but the tree will require much more nutes than what's left in the mix after that, which is why salt based nutrients is stated to be essential for FFF1. They claim to have a boosted growth rate and I feel its due to the probiotic bran breaking down those base amendments and making the nutrients available, and then the added nutrients give it a good boost throughout the entire veg. *end of my opinion* LOL, fire away at me if anyone has any comments on that please. Sent from my POCOPHONE F1 using Tapatalk

I think most that grow in soil or coco, are using biobizz or GHE. just check which version you get or have, there is a hard water and soft water type of GHE But that wont feed the microbes and is food directly for the plants roots, Biobizz is for the living type of soil or conditions.

Always wondered how the indoor guys deal with effin loadshedding ☺...

...choo choo

Nice start to the thread brother, Congratulations on the new tent, it must be so nice having something that size and with 4 corners for the scrog net, I am so excited for your next posts, and fully understand where you coming from with the situation you in, as also upgraded lights and had to make plan with plants and such. Not easy but sure you got this and next run you going to be on tops with, I just know.

Most definitely[emoji1431] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Please do not be shy to continue updating us on your grow as per usual. We are here to see your ladies

@CreX @Ill_Evan Thanks for your input. I will start the first nutrients on Friday. Week 3 to be exact. So the girl is a bit droopy currently so want to dry up the medium and be ready with a solution close to Friday.

Did you guys hijack @KLS 's thread by any chance...

Finally confident in my setup to post an update here. After advice from @Prom, I reached out to Growopz. Unfortunately, there was only a 75watt QB available at the time but I thought it was worth a try. Just doing a run of 3 autos then I'll most likely add a second QB to the setup. Setup: 80cmx80cmx160cm grow tent (purchased from takealot) 75watt QB oscillating desk fan 6" 20watt bathroom extractor (bright star lighting) Thermometer and Hygrometer Seeds (biltongandbudz): Sour Diesel (Bulk Seed Bank) Gelato Samba (Bulk Seed Bank) Cocopopo (Bulk Seed Bank) Nutes: Biobiz - Biogrow Biobizz - Biobloom Molasses

First of @SkunkPharm Awesome thread bro, honestly I didn't make it through everything, lol. Will try to follow along. And@StickyD420 Bro I'm seriously interested in setting this up. Could you message me like a pricing of some sort? And a general list of components... I have - I would say - a good knowledge on electrical circuits and have designed a solar powered system somewhere lying around. Just never thought of actually doing this to compensate for my lighting hours... Always set it up to have dark cycles during the load shedding hours and opened the tent for a hour or however long to wake the plants up if I needed to while the lights were out. Sent from my POCOPHONE F1 using Tapatalk

Nah the chlorine wont harm the plant, in fact seen something somewhere about it liking it in small amounts. The issue is if you like the Microbes and you water with chlorine, it harms them faster than if just airing it a day or 2.

Grow some autoflowers its better than nothing.

I would suggest planting in September on the full moon. Except if you are planning on vegging indoors for a while. An then you must be prepared for quite a big tree. So for me I have height restrictions so the earliest I will plant is novembers full moon. I prefer growing multiple small plants as wind also restrict size of your plants in cape town. And then ther is also the problem with pollination of your plants. You dont really want to grow when every one else is. My plan this year is to only do 2 outdoor harvests instead of 3.

Bru when I first started meeting other growers on the scene in JHB (excluding the ones I've met here on the forum) they were all OG Cape Town ballies that moved up to Jozi. Haven't quite figured out why they decided to come this side, maybe the scene changed in CT over the years

@Ill_Evan When i purchased my nutrients from Futurama i think, they asked my PPM reading and recommend hard. Im in Randburg.

Thank you, I just noticed noob say that too... I have not been to jhb in years and have even less contact before this forum with any growing in jhb, pleased again to be here and meet all you beautiful people

@TheUltimateNoob I agreed with you, but wanted to thank you for elaborating more on that. Plus, if I may add to what you said, the bran in that mix, is fermented, and thus teaming with life already, I believe. Then fully correct in saying your Microbes will die off when they get hungry, but if you time this right, and feed them in time, they like anything when feel threatened, multiply and make a big come back, for interest sake.

Here I was thinking I'm the only one

Swopping out lights would not be an issue... I do it regularly with my setup now with load shedding. Tomorrow will be 50w cobs instead of the 150w HPS.

LED's are certainly the way to go and with your budget a Quantum Board will be perfect! 2x QB288's with a maximum draw of around 240w will fill your tent without issues, infact you will likely be running it dimmed, only putting out 120w - 180w so that will certainly save costs compared to your current setup and will without a doubt increase yields. Locally there are a few places which sell Quantum Boards, however you could get it for less if you are willing to do some DIY and and import - perhaps drop me a PM if you want a bit more info on importing QB's (quantum boards).

All-in-one ching chong. After this grow the smaller tent will be straight-up veg and this bigger tent will just be flower.

No special treatments

I treat my Formula 1 basically soil because it has a lot of amendments you usually add to soil - I have had to do anything a particular way just because the medium is coco. I water every 2nd or 3rd day and at a pH of 5.8-6.3. The medium buffers pH to 6.5 anyway so you're safe with feeding a slightly lower pH. Sent from my POCOPHONE F1 using Tapatalk

Aweeee, welcome bro. This is one of my best friends gents, finally convinced him to create a profile on 420sa. Let's grow [emoji1377][emoji654] Sent from my POCOPHONE F1 using Tapatalk

[emoji23] [emoji23] [emoji23] [emoji23] [emoji23] @KLS Apologies, your thread was an unwilling victim, we started off on topic and then I don't know what happened[emoji1787] At least we got you some more visitors here [emoji1303][emoji1303][emoji85] But yeah I do apologise, and look forward to seeing more of your plants. Happy Growing! Sent from my POCOPHONE F1 using Tapatalk

Hey Weedomics, Healthy plant in that oven brother, I have my ticket, it's been stamped and I'm seated, let's go

As @TheUltimateNoob said and I'd like to say now for us both... Askis Lovely plants you have there sister

When I saw this I had to save it for you Prom... Check this guys Autos They still growing

Whoha, I'm also a BIG Growopz fan [emoji868] Sent from my F5321 using Tapatalk

Coco in itself is inert and doesn't have any nutes. So depending on your setup, you can easily use either or in coco. Salt based products like hortimix are very good, but so are the more organic options

Awesome setup. thanks for sharing

Oh yeah, I basically bought the parts and then built that myself, I had the frame and i felt what I got charged for what I've got, is a huge steal for me. Everyone is different and understand that

[emoji23] [emoji23] Awe shot, you as well bro! Some people expect night and day differences when adding CO2 to the grow and changing nothing else... But everything works together. Sent from my POCOPHONE F1 using Tapatalk

Awesome initiative. Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk