4 Site RDWC Fallponics - U.K. Cheese & Pink Cookies

[Pigeonman]

This will be my first grow journal here and I’m excited to both share and learn as this adventure continues!

Medium Type: RDWC/Fallponics
Number of Sites: 4
Reservoir Total L/G: 81L/30G (reservoir is mounted outside of the tent)
Lights: 2x Mars Hydro TSL-2000
Tent: Fusion Hut 4x4
Nutrient Family: Trip Tonic (local brand)
Air Pump: 45L/min (or) 700 GPH (stone in each site)
Water Pump: 25L/min (or) 400 GPH (outside of reservoir)
Fans (Intake): 4" inline Canfan (air taken from the AC/Ducting system)
Fans (Exhaust): 6" vVvosun inline vented directly outdoors.
Fans (Movement): 3x 6" Hurricane clip-on (base of tent on sites 3&4, top of tent at the LED drivers), 1x 42" Tower fan (mounted horizontally on sites 1&2),
Passive Intake: All vents are wide open, with light proof baffle boxes attached that I made out of dollar store materials.
Measurement: Vivosun thermometer (until I get an Inkbird), Inkbird Humidity Controller, inline fan speed controllers, HM Digital PH pen, HM Digital PPM/EC pen.
Plant Biofeedback stimulation: 1x small radio playing a local Jazz radio station 24/7 at low volume.
Paranoia Monitoring/Sharing the love: 1x Wyzecam v2 (IR OFF), 2x WIFI water leak monitors

This will be my second grow in this set-up, with some major upgrades occurring in between as I have baseboard heating, and with the temperatures varying outside between -25c through +8c the last few months it’s been… well, weird.

Until I added forced air from the attic via the duct work my growing room would heat AND vent itself outdoors sometimes spiking the rooms temperature because the baseboard had no chance to maintain the ambient temperature before it vacated… so, with this insane balance I can now have the room at 18c, the tent at 20-23c (lights on), tent at 18-20c (lights off), and MY ELECTRICITY BILL is better for it!

Here is the set-up and my Veg week 1 & 2 images.

Overview of my growing room; a little messy as it was after taking everything apart and re-installing it all after a full wipe-down and sanitization. The 2x2 on the right is my Mother’s tent, and the glowing tub is a DIY clone rooter (airstones/clay aggregate, 2" netpots, LED grow light).

Interior of the tent:

Week 1 Veg:

Week 2 Veg:

Week 2 Veg: Close-ups

Week 2 Veg: Root Porn

[dequilo]

out of like but I will follow along

all the best and be safe

Dequilo

[Pigeonman]

All my passive intake vents have dollar store made baffles. Made a world of difference during flower.

Material list:
2x black foam core sheets
1x hot glue gun + sticks of glue
2x hook & loop strips (from hardware, NOT crafting).

Bad Photo:

Concept inside: (an example from Instructables)

[Pigeonman]

Veg Week 3 Update:

So far so good. Plants have exploded in their growth after adding the 150w aquarium heater last week to stabilise the water temperature during lights off. I’m also very happy to see bone-white roots in all my growing sites since day 1.

Sites 1 & 2 (tent left) are from the same UK Cheese Mother; site 2 was the last of the cuttings to take root and it shows.

Sites 3 & 4 (tent right) are from the same Pink Cookies Mother; site 3 is leading the pack but site 4’s veg is all “Salad fingers” but the roots are solid. It’s the last site in the passive return flow before a u-bend pipe out of the tent into the reservoir, so my hopes are things change in the week after this complete res change. (*I’ve been creeping up my PPM/EC and topping for the past 3 weeks. (week 0/1/2 = same res).

I use nutes from the same family made locally by experienced growers. I’ve been using their salts for some 8 years now and love the stuff for my smoking flowers and for my veg garden outdoors.

Photography equipment = double life. It’s all just salt manipulation anyways…

Site 1: UK Cheese

Site 2: UK Cheese

Site 3: Pink Cookies (Leading by example!)

Site 4: “Punk” Cookies* (*It’s the same Pink Cookies as before; but it’s clearly decided to live a Punk lifestyle.)

Site 4: Bone white root porn.

[Pigeonman]

Veg Week 4 Update:

Wow. Really happy with these girls this past week. I found the side 6" were starting to produce wind burn so I mounted them on a 2x2 strip of cedar hung to match the tower fan on the other side of the tent. There’s no image of it, but I also added a 6" clip fan to the roof of the tent, aimed downwards, increasing airflow circulation around the Mars Hydro drivers.

After watching them explode this past week, I’m going to defoliate in a weeks time, let go for another veg week and then defoliate just before flipping to flower.

Res Total: 81 L
PPM: 725
EC: 1,5
Humidity: 35%
Room Temp: 22 C (Day), 18 C (Night)
Water Temp: 19.5 C (throughout)
Light Height: 20 inch

Tent - Day 22 Veg:

Close-up’s of the ladies:

Week 3 / Week 4 - UK Cheese Site 1:

Week 3 / Week 4 - UK Cheese Site 2:

Week 3 / Week 4 - Pink Cookies Site 3:

Week 3 / Week 4 - Pink Cookies Site 4:

Week 4 (Day 22) - Pink Cookies Site 4 - Root Porn (Bone white roots, solution tanned due to Fulvik):

[Heliosphear]

Fantastic set up! Welcome to OG.

[Pigeonman]

Thank you @Heliosphear , this place is a great resource and I’m happy to be involved! Cheers and happy growing!

[Pigeonman]

Update: Week 4 - Veg - Day 24:

Only 2 days since last update but 2 things are going on that forced my attention more so than just daily maintenance.

First, the temperature outside and high winds are recently so dramatically shifting that they are still wreaking havoc with keeping things stable during lights off period.

Today it’s +8c(+5c), and tonight it’ll be -5c(-12c)…

This drops the tent to 16c if not lower when the lights are not supplementing the heat.

Rather than ADD a heater, I ordered an Inkbird ITC-308 and am running it a little backwards:

Target Temperature: 18 C
Heating Differential: 2 C (Heat on: 16 C / Heat off: 18 C)
Cooling Differential: 1 C (Cool on: 19 C / Cool off: 18 C)

Logics: The vented 6" exhaust fan is powered by the Cooling plug, so when the temperature hits 18 C (target) it will turn off; thus retaining the heat in the tent.

If the the tent creeps lower and hits 16 C the Heating plug will kick in and turn on a 2" inline fan that will force the warm air from the room INTO the passive intake venting tube closest to the baseboard heater.

When the temperature rises (by room heat or lights on), the 6" vented exhaust fan will kick back on when it hit’s 19 C. Adding the worry of humidity spiking, I reset my Inkbird Humidity controller to turn off the tent’s humidifier when it hits 40% R.H.

CROSSING MY FINGERS THIS ALL WORKS!

Secondly; and this was another big one. My gut was telling me I needed to jump on my defoliation earlier than later. I planned on doing in next Monday at the start of Veg week 5 but I took a look into the heart of the bushes and noticed the START of PM!!!

So, 1 hour later, 99% isopropyl cleaning of all tools and hands in between each plant, all leaves removed accounted for and bagged outside I and the ladies feel so much better. I had no idea about the amount and sheer density of branch and node growth hidden underneath all those PALM SIZED fan leaves soaking up the false 0)))'s!

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

Before I lowered the lights again to 20", I gave them a misting of food grade mineral oil (10ml Oil to 1L dechlorinated water) to nip the PM in the butt. If it shows up again, I’ll foliar with Harvest Miracle in addition to it already being a part of the nutrient solution.

Next defoliation should be in a few weeks time… unless my gut says otherwise.

[Foreigner]

Holy temperature/humidity control! Looks like some very clever solutions. Really getting it dialled in.

How much PM did you find?

I can’t tell if you’ve done this from your pics but did you defoliate just the bottom leaves or did you also thin out the canopy? I’m just thinking about maximum airflow, especially when you’re facing PM.

Hopefully you’ve nipped it in the bud. It might be something you’ll need to stay on top of the whole cycle. I’ve had to trash some beautiful plants that just got infested over a very short period of time.

I think we’ve talked about this before but I’ve had some success with a bleach solution, but I only did it as an experiment to buy myself a few weeks at the end of a flower cycle. This was in the fall when that shit is everywhere.

[Pigeonman]

Tiny spots in the lowest most leaves; and very little but this stuff has broken my heart before too when it gets out of hand.

I defoliated the entire plant. Will lollipop after stretch during the last defoliation.

[Pigeonman]

Tent Upgrade:

OCD + ADHD + scrap 2x2 pine + quick ties =

1. No more walls sucking in.
2. Tent is more stable.
3. Extra mounting points.
4. Cable & ratchet rope tuck* (*big bonus)

[Gpaw]

Excellent idea!!

That is one of those “Why the hell didn’t I think of that” ideas…
(… and I’m stealing it! )

Cheers
G

[Pigeonman]

@Gpaw , no worries! MY GIFT TO ALL!

[Pigeonman]

UPGRADE: Low Stress Training Clips

I’ve been looking into these for a while now. Outdoors it’s simple enough to use garden staples to LST using the planting medium to anchor down everything.

Rather than add a secondary lower net i’m trying these out for a spin.

They support up to 4mm wide branches, and while reusable the plastic feels like it would break or simply pop off the plant if I don’t remove them before they outgrow the clips. At $25 Cad for 100x why not?

BEFORE

AFTER

[Pigeonman]

Veg Week 5 - Day 29

The ladies have taken to both the defoliation and LST training clips very well.

It’s been only 5 days since stripping most all of their fan leaves and already they’re looking like I didn’t do much of anything.

I also added a 172 GPH mini pump with an aeration kit into my reservoir to act as a wave machine to boost the overal o2.

PPM: 760
PH: 5.7
EC: 1,6
LIGHTS @ 18"

Site 1: UK Cheese

Site 2: UK Cheese

Site 3: Pink Cookies

Site 4: Pink Cookies

[Pigeonman]

Week 5 Veg - Defoliation #2

It’s been 1 week and already the ladies are bushy 70’s porn stars again!

There are so many more nodes growing than before with the applied application of both defoliation and LST. I’m also loving the mini power-head water pump with aireation unit adding continuous agitation the reservoir. Every time I open it up to check on things it greets me as a living entity and wave machine.

BEFORE

AFTER

Flipping to 12/12 on Monday. Will defoliate as needed as they stretch upwards and onwards and lollipop when they’re done.

[Pigeonman]

Flower Transitioning Week - (Veg Day 36)

Things continue to progress wonderfully as these ladies start their transitioning period into flowering. Once they show pistils the week 1 clock will commence!

The defoliation is continuing to boost the overall node growth and as they seem be taking well to the weekly treatment i’m going to keep at it until they stop stretching.

Otherwise I have been spraying them (lights off) after each defoliation with a mix of 10ml food grade mineral oil to 1L distilled water.

PPM: 800
PH: 5.9
EC: 1,6
Lights: 12"
EnviroTemp: 25-28c lights on, 18-20c lights off
ResTemp: 18-21c
Addatives: Harvest Miracle (.5ml/L) & Gro-Silic (.15ml/L)

Site 1 - UK Cheese

Site 2 - UK Cheese

Site 3 - Pink Cookies

Site 4 - Pink Cookies

Site 4 - Pink Cookies (Root Porn*)

(*I wish i took a picture of these when the site was drained. The dark brown colour of the fulvik acid in the nutrient solution hides 50% of the growth mass.)

Site 4 - Pink Cookies (Stem Porn*)

(*Fyi: a Canadian Quarter has a diameter of 23.88mm)

And now we continue on this Grande adventure!

[Pigeonman]

Transition Week - Defoliation

There are so many nodes!

Site 1 - UK Cheese

Site 2 - UK Cheese

Site 3 - Pink Cookies

Site 4 - Pink Cookies

[Hydro921]

Looks good.
Got to love hydro

[Pigeonman]

For my indoors, agreed