highchome

I'm surprised you get as many bubbles using that as you do. I guess the one I tried was old, or perhaps its because I used a bendable diffuser rather than an air stone. I'll try with some good quality ones to see For my cloner I'm submerging the stems 100% of the time. When I was looking initially I could not see a definite answer on which way was better or why. If I sort out the airstones perhaps I'll try the next set of clones this way and compare results Its great to see different ideas, thanks for posting this

Ja, take a look at "supercropping". The first time I saw that I thought it was insane. I've done it a couple of times and it still makes me queasy...

Yup, I would guess that changes things a lot. The 30-50% perlite is added to the coco to make it drain better / have more air. So the medium is always wet but there is enough air to prevent the roots drowning. Also the good drainage means that you are constantly flushing out build up (target ~20% runoff per feed + occasional larger flushes if needed). I think that adding soil will change all of that a lot, possibly you now have a good draining soil grow rather than a hydro grow with coco/perlite. Again there is no issue if that is what you are after but I don't think you can then follow the advice from the coco growers

Also many of the organics are not bio-available as is and I don't think coco is idea for the soil bacteria to grow in, esp with the constant watering. However I've heard a few people talking about it, though I've not paid much attention. I think some of the people at cocoforcannabis did it if you want to check. Also remember it has to be pure coco/perlite anything else in the mix (soil etc) could change things a lot. Personally I'd rather pick a lane and go with one of the well tested paths unless you are doing it just to learn I hear you , a great example of optimising for your situation. My daughter is a little older now, so I've got way more time that I did when she was small. I'd say that atm I'm spending 20 mins twice a day and ~45 mins a week max mixing ferts with coco/perlite. And I would like to automate the watering at some point so that should make it pretty easy. But that is exactly the kind of thing you can optimise for when selecting what works for you

Let me be the voice of dissent (though there are way more experienced growers here so you should probably rather listen to them...) I think it depends on you, your interests and which tradeoffs you want to make. I've gone with pure coco/perlite & inorganic nutrients and personally I've found that much simpler than the issues I was having with soil. I like having the control and being involved daily, and using the inorganic nutrients is extremely simple. The cost being daily (usually more) waterings and more EC & Ph checks etc, all of which I really enjoy With soil & organics you get a whole other set of things to think about, like how the soil bacteria break down the organics and make it bioavailable for the plants. So if you find that interesting there is so much to learn there. You get less frequent waterings as a benefit etc. Not sure that was helpful

As far as I know, yeah that is exactly what you do. If you google for SCROG you should find some nice videos/tutorials that show how people bend their plants

Yeah, the lights are the big limiting factor for me. I've got CFLs in the bonsai/clone box and they seem to be working well. So that is one option to stretch things a bit further

I'm also using a shower. The built in drainage is great

@CreX do cuttings that size often grow well? Do you use rooting hormone and do you open for /change the water at any point? That looks amazingly simple, I'll be trying that

I used ethanol, rather than butane or iso. Just a 3 min single wash, then boiled the alcohol off. And yeah very happy with the result Roughly RSO

That worked quite well. From about 30g of lowish quality flower I got ~6ml of oil.

It took a bit longer than expected, probably because of the low ambient temperature despite the fish tank heater in the water. But good results, 100% of the 14 clones grew. I've given away a few and trashed a couple who's mothers were actually fathers. Below is a pic of what the roots look like, I'm potting the remaining ones today

Welcome @michaelbrutal83. I hope you find the forum helpful With a grow area that size you may want to consider having a very short or even no veg phase. It means smaller yields but faster results. Looking forward to seeing the pics, you should start a grow diary

What is your preferred way to make the oil? Seems to be a few different techniques... Any links you'd recommend? @Gnome @420sake

Also if you are doing a hydroponic/coco grow the calmag takes up a chunk of the target EC/ppm, esp for seedlings. I use a lower than suggested amount of calmag to fertigate and then do a folia spray daily. So far I've seen no Ca/Mg deficiency issues.

I've got the food-grade ethanol on the way to make oil that I'm happy to ingest. But I wonder even if you were totally opposed to ingesting BHO, if there would be any reasonable issues with using it topically. I'll do some googling to see what I can find

As it happens I just ordered my first batch of food grade ethanol today. Hopefully I'll have time this weekend to try making oil for the first time. I'm still nervous about butane so ethanol seemed like a good option, though it is a little expensive. FWIW the reason I decided to try oil is that we use the cannabutter as an ointment but its very oily (obviously ) and my wife is not thrilled with using that on her face too often. I'd be able to mix the oil into a normal cream and avoid the issue. I can't wait to give it a try.

Great, perhaps start a grow diary Also ping me when you have your setup going, I will probably have a few spare clones

Welcome @nakes Take a look at the Cape Town club on the forum (https://www.420sa.co.za/clubs/3-cape-town/). Once you get to 30 posts there is also a seed & clone exchange club you can join. What are you planning for your setup?

PAXI at Pep is pretty cost effective

Yeah, I'll also vouch for it. Very simple and reliable. Just watch the reviews and then its pretty easy to get the hand of it

Hi and welcome

At the Crazy Store, about R40. Possibly also available at nurseries but they may be higher quality and harder to cut

My previous attempt to build a cloner was ok-ish but it was a bit of a pain to work with. I've just thrown together a different and very DIY one and I'm pretty happy with the results The biggest issue I had was the polystyrene holders for the clones. This time I used a foam knee pad as the base. I cut circles in it by using the bottom of a silicone tube, even the hole making is DIY... I drilled a hole in each foam disk, and cut from the centre to one edge. This make a perfect holder for the stems and is easy to put back in the hole. The final result looks like this The bottom container is filled with water Fish tank heater Air pump and two large air stones - the bubbler part The foam pad rests on the water, so the stems are submerged Clear container of the same size used as the humidity dome Low wattage CFL light, resting on the block of wood to keep the heat of of the box I've just planted cloned a few of the plants, so I'm hoping I'll be seeing roots in about a week.

Yeah its a bit stupid for now. As I understand it the actual law is that its allowed for "personal use" and the police need to make a case that you are selling, i.e. they should have evidence. The problem is that the police can come in and confiscate things and make a mess even if your case is thrown out by the court later. Also it seems like "evidence for selling" is used pretty loosely. So I'd say its still best to play it safe, don't sell, don't have hundreds of plants and most importantly don't go around telling people that you are growing. However its hard to tell how bad the situation really is. Most of the cases I've seen in the news lately have had other factors, e.g. mushrooms / other illegal drugs / unlicensed guns / really large scale grow rooms. Personally I think we are reasonably safe with a little caution These links may help a little - https://fieldsofgreenforall.org.za/join-the-queue/