My First Grow Journal...EVER! 600W MH/HPS Bubbleponics Cabinet Grow

[alltatup]

You mean the crossed stipules? Yes, you're right; best to wait until you're sure they aren't calyces forming. This pic is how my male plant looked right before I removed him from my grow box. I took the picture with my SuperVision+ app on my iphone which was the only way I could get a close enough look at that point.

[ellz]

08/14/2017:

03:30AM: Below are updated photos from the Rug Burn OG plant. The first two are from the same plant (suspected male). The third one is from the other plant. Looks like a girl!!

[ellz]

08/14/2017:

06:30PM: Posted the following photos on the main GWE forum to get opinions on them. I am almost certain this plant is a male! All of the pictures below are from the same plant. What do you all think?

[ellz]

I was hoping to take it out before I did my water change. Would make things a lot less cluttered in there. Plus, it's taking up light that the other plants can use, lol! The other three all have single horn-like preflowers and a few have pistils coming out. This is the only one that looks like this. My only real hesitation is that there are crossed stipules but I have read over and over again that males can have those too.

[alltatup]

I don't actually see any crossed stipules in those pics. I'm highly suspicious of this plant...

[ellz]

alltatup the crossed stipules are not visible in any of the photos and only appear in a couple of areas on that plant. I will most likely be removing it today. Waiting on the light to come on to check it.

[ellz]

08/14/2017:

07:30PM: Went ahead and did my nutrient change for both reservoirs, feeding them using week 6's schedule on my feed schedule and have decided to let the one suspected male remain for a bit longer just to make sure. The other 3 are most likely female as they all have a single, horn-like preflower with pistils extending out of some of them. I would have to get my good camera out to try to snap some photos of them but it's very crowded in my cabinet now as you can see by the photo below. Thanks for reading!

[Daskahn]

I'd remove him just for the space lol more light more bud..

[ellz]

Most likely will be removing it today when the light comes back on. Have to wait another hour and a half but will update the post then.

[Daskahn]

Sometimes it's hard but must be done sorry about him

[ellz]

Very true, but 1 out of 4 isn't horrible. Having 3 girls in the bunch was actually more than I expected so that is always a good thing. Trying to think positive about it, lol but it's really never easy to kill a plant for me.

[ellz]

08/15/2017:

06:30PM: After checking the plants again, I made the decision to remove the suspected male plant. Not only did it have no pistils while all of the other 3 do, the clusters were getting bigger and now forming in the nodes so it was time to go! I took photos but I have to edit them so they can be uploaded. In the meantime, I have attached photos of the remaining 3 plants, all of which I am 99.9999% sure are females since they all have pistils extending out of the calyxes. The photos show this as best they can with my phone's camera but I visibly saw pistils on the remaining plants so I am positive they are fine.

To remove the suspected male plant, I first turned off my water pump so I could remove the net pot. I then cut back some of the larger branches on the outer part of the plant to clear a path to the main stalk. After removing any remaining plant ties, I cut the main stalk and placed the plant matter in a plastic tote. Then I ran into a dilemma...the roots from the male plant were inter-tangled with the female plant in the same reservoir. Basically, to avoid damaging any roots from the female plant I decided to simply cut the roots below the net pot. This left some of the roots from the removed plant in the reservoir which could become a problem later if they begin to rot so the only thing I can think to do is check on the roots over the next few days and try to remove any dead looking roots as I see them. However, I still risk damaging the healthy plant if I remove them so any ideas or thoughts would be more than welcome right now! As for the net pot with the plant in it, I removed it upon cutting the roots and replaced it with an empty net pot filled with clay pebbles (I washed them out completely before placing them into my system) then turned the water pump back on.

[Daskahn]

Depending on how intertangled you could generally tug/shack and see if they unlodges them..
also if it's not thickly intertwined a little root cutting won't hurt to much

[ellz]

Oh it's really mangled together! LOL. I tried to tug it and it moved the other plant around! It basically looks like a big wad of wet spaghetti! I have no idea what is what down there and to make it worse, part of the roots are wrapped around the drip tubing! LOL! Guess if it rots, the other roots will push it out. Not much I can really do if I don't want to harm the other plant unfortunately.

[ellz]

Suspected Male Plant Photos:

[alltatup]

Dude looks like a dude. Good luck getting all the dead roots out!!

[ellz]

I agree...and thank you! Those roots are really stuck together! LOL.

[ellz]

08/16/2017:

07:00PM: Checked on the plants today and they are looking great! I am now certain I have nothing but females left in the cabinet as all them have calyxes with pistils coming out! I had to add about 2.5 gallons to each reservoir today so I made up 5 gallons of pHed, HydroGuard. It turns out the cooling fan for the reservoir wasn't blowing so I checked the back and noticed it had come unplugged so I plugged it back in and it's working fine now. The reservoir temp was still only 74ºF with the fan not running so I imagine it will be fine. Not seeing any dead roots from the Rug Burn OG plant I removed so I will just keep watching the reservoir every couple of days. I had to move the light up another inch or so due to the growth of the plants. I was getting high lux readings in some spots, as high as 100k in one location so I raised it and now the readings are back down neark 80k in that spot. Below is a photo of both groups of plants today and a confirmation of each plant's sex. The arrow shows a calyx with a pistil coming out but some are hard to see. Thanks for reading!

[ellz]

I was curious about that myself Daskahn. I am going to keep an eye on the roots and make sure I don't run into any issues. This is a great reason why you should space your plants out as best as you can so at least I learned that much this grow. Next time I will only grow two plants at a time in a larger, single reservoir with space between them in case this happens again. I could have just pulled the whole thing up and out if not for the root issue!

[alltatup]

Isn't it lovely to see those pistils emerging...

[ellz]

Indeed it is alltatup!

[ellz]

08/18/2017:

01:00AM: Decided to snap some close up photos of the girls and post them below. Also have a photo of all the plants as they sit now. Not much to update other than that...just patiently waiting! LOL.

[Daskahn]

The waiting is the worst part.. I get so anxious.. I just wanna do something to help but there isn't anything you can.. just gotta sit back and watch the grass grow..

[ellz]

Pretty much, lol!

[ellz]

08/18/2017:

08:30PM: Checked on the plants and they are going strong. The left reservoir with only one plant was about 1.5 gallons low and the right was about 3 gallons low so I topped them both off with pHed, HydroGuard water. The White Poison is growing taller than the Rug Burn OG so my canopy is now uneven. For future grows, I would say that the White Poison has a maximum stretch, where as Rug Burn OG only has a medium stretch. Good info for later. The White Poison was getting pretty close to the light but I didn't raise the light because I wanted to see how much it would stretch the next day. Will raise it tomorrow.

08/19/2017:

06:15PM: Checked on the plants today and the White Poison canopy was only about an inch below the light! Yesterday it was about 4 inches below it! All of the plants have long pistils extending from the calyxes and multiple sites as well. The fan leaves are getting huge on the White Poison, some as large as my hand so I have been trying to tuck them under the other bud sites where I can. I have attached photos from yesterday and today, as well as closeups of each plant showing the pistils. Thanks for reading!

[bigtrucker315]

Nice, ellz. The bud sites look very healthy

[Daskahn]

Looking very nice.. I'm interested to see how you battle uneven canopies lol I'm not sure I'm doing great.. atleast you don't have three different canopies lol

[ellz]

I don't think you would need to. I looked at your photos and I see the 2 you are talking about and I think they would be okay in the back tall like that. If they were centered or close to the light then I would say yes but as they look now, I say let them grow. They look good!

[Daskahn]

As always thank you for your input you are appreciated

[ellz]

Happy to help!

[ellz]

08/21/2017:

06:30PM: Checked on the girls today and the White Poison is going crazy! It's almost 2x bigger than the Rug Burn OG plant!! I didn't raise the light yesterday because I wanted to see how much it would grow over night and it was almost 2 inches from the glass on the light today. I ended up raising the light hood and angling it so that the light is directed more towards the Rug Burn OG plant to the left. In the photos below you can see a before and after of the light hood, along with a photo of yesterday's growth to compare today's to. I did a nutrient change as well today and went with week 7's schedule. The White Poison reservoir is drinking up about 2x the water (as expected with 2x the plants, lol) so I will likely need to add another 3 gallons on Tuesday and about 1.5 to the Rug Burn OG. Thanks for reading!

[ellz]

08/22/2017:

06:00PM: Checked on the girls today and they are still doing great! I am seeing a lot of bud sites starting and the growth rate is phenomenal on both sets of plants! I considered defoliating again but with the amount of light reflected when the doors are closed, I don't think I need to. Below are some photos from today. Thanks for reading!

[Daskahn]

They look very lovely
ive actually been comparing yours to mine since I've been doing heavy defoliating and you have been doing lite to non defoliating.. seeing which is better so far I can't really tell a difference comparing stages you know..
im a little ahead just to be clear to everyone reading

[ellz]

Thank you! Will be good to see how they compare out indeed.

[oldskinflint]

I have been posting this around the forums and submit for your review: a very cheap root cooler. I upgraded the system to include two 17 gallon tubs from the big box store and then placed my 5 gallon buckets inside after wrapping the insides of the tubs with aluminum foil. It drops about 1 degree per hour. I also converted an old refrig I got on craigslist as the cooling source. Good luck and thanks for the grow log.

[ellz]

Hi oldskinflint. I assume the ice bucket has ice water in it to pump into your reservoir or is the reservoir water just passed through the ice bucket itself? If you are pumping water from the ice bucket into the reservoir, you want to make sure your pH stays okay. Ice will melt and alter pH unless you make pH water to freeze before hand and use that ice. Otherwise, if you are just passing your reservoir water through the ice bucket via a tube, the pH won't really change since the water going in is the same as going out. I have looked at using a PC Water Cooling radiator with fans, or even a peltier cooler to try to keep my temps down but I am always looking for new ideas. I had thought of something similar to this but with the ambient temps outside, the ice would be melting fast and need changing often. Either way, best of luck with it if you do try that and I am interested to see how it works out.