Hey Chaz, you may want to check out Home Depot for your Perlite. I'm not sure if it's avaiable in all areas but my local HD has started to carry huge bags of plain perlite. If they don't have it in stock chances are they could order a few bags for you. BTW I 'm sure you know that that MG perlite has a small amount of time release ferts in it. I've never done Hempy before but I don't think MG perlite would be your best option. Duc
For the gardener who likes a little more "backside". Btw...chaz. Had you pegged as gone forever. Nice to see ya sticking around.
I do hempys all the time, I think the chunky perlite is the way to go, the smaller works but is more of a pain in the ass to rinse and it gets all over for some reason. You can transplant the RR straight into a 5 gallon if you want. Actually I have had better looking plants when doing this but that's if you are only running one light or dedicated area for veg. The reason I have use solo cups is because I veg in one area and flower in another. I still veg in a tent with t5's and I can fit literally 100 plants in solo cups in a tent vs a few 5 gallon buckets in the same tent...hopefully I making sense. Then when you want to flower transplant from the solo to it's new home. If you are going to grow hempys (more than a few 5 gallons at a time) here's a tip. first off go grab a tote 20gal. ish ...drill shit loads of holes into the bottom and make yourself a strainer that's capable of doing about 3 or 5 gall buckets at a time. This is why I prefer the chunky, when you use the smaller lowes, miracle grow type it clogs the holes that you just drilled. Rinse that shit til it runs clear, then stir it around and rinse it again. BTW, I haven't seen round Solo cups in a while, most all are squared around here except for generic ones. Also, if you are growing mutli strains, you want to get a couple different color cups to help color code your grow for ez ID and comparing a couple of my older pics showing how I do them The last is for shits and giggles, a plant I chopped last thanksgiving....in another thread you said it was to late
LOL, hey Mods...can you fix the pic size, I pulled from my OG account and cant figure out the resizing here
Thank you RR. I really do like it here and have learned a ton. So scrap the MG perlite? I'll def see what Home Depot has, I have one close by, but I was gonna try to get some good quality perlite (chunky) at the hydro store. Would you recommend hydro store perlite or HD perlite? And are their any other differences in types of perlite? Besides the size of the actual perlite? I didn't know the MG perlite had ferts in it, thanks for telling me. My dumb ass should have just read the bag. Cool, I get it, so make the V about 1/4 way down the cup. Thanks for the visual! I'll do what you do and stick with starting in the party cups. Wouldn't the plants have a hard time getting water transplanting directly into the 5 gallon buckets? Thanks for the tip on the chunky perlite and a good way to rinse it. I do have a few 18 gallon totes laying around. Should I scrap the MG perlite I got from lowes? I plan on starting veg in the 2x2x4 cab I made until my Auto Cheese is done (2-3 weeks), with just my 200W CFL (6500K), then placing the plants in my 3x3x6.5 tent to finish up veg. I want to have my 3x3 for vegging plants and my 4x4 for flowering and my 2x2 for seedlings, if that makes sense. No more running mulitiple lights like yall suggested and scrapped the LED (375$ loss =/). Let me know if this sounds good, 200W CFL 6500K in the 2x2, 400W MH in the 3x3, and a 1k in the 4x4 running on 75%? Tomorrow I will see how many 5 gallon buckets I can fit into the 3x3 tent. Hopefully 5 will fit. I have 4 Exodus Cheese, 1 Kandy Kush, and was gonna do the SCROG again. Sound good? This might actually all really work out well. My current 4x4 tent is into the 2nd week of flower, and they are all long flowering times, mainly sativa doms. My Cheese will be done in a few weeks, maybe an OZ to hold me over until the 4x4 is done, plus I saved a QP of the Rhino from my last grow. Cheese will finish, 5 new plants will go into the 3x3 to finish veg, then when the 4x4 is done, just move the plants over to that tent, and have some already started again in the 2x2. I'm trying to think this out down the line. Once this run of RDWC is over, I'm throwing that shit away, to much of a headache. So that last pic you posted was a clone of a budding plant? That's crazy looking. You have a very nice setup, damn those pics will help me alot. Thank you!
O.K., now you have a plan, stick to it. The lighting you have planned for your tents should work great. I've used the MG perlite for a while and have had no problems with it. I just didn't know there were any ferts in it. Yeah, I should have read the bag too. Peace....
Chaz I know I ve said some negatives but also gave praise. I am glad you decided to stay as GK has a very eclectic mix of personalities. You will learn about any style of growing you like. Good luck in your growing adventure
Yup, sticking to the plan! xD Hehe, Okay. Thanks Astro. Thanks buddy, let's just start fresh. And thanks for the best wishes on the grow! :jj: @ Nippie, oh wow about the pic. That's some pretty cool shit to see!
Here's a pic of the seedlings: 4 Exodus Cheese, unlabled, and the one Kandy Kush I plan I doing my first clone mom with. (The one in the front right corner, when it germinated its root grew upward and not downward, and I accidently broke the root it had growing trying to fix it, I took the broken root out, it still had the seed with just a little white root coming out, I broke 85% of it off, and I put it back up in the dark for another day and bam it fixed itself and sprouted the two leafs. xD ) Here's the back of the bag of perlite: (Actually had NPK values. I hope this doesn't hurt my seedlings.) Here is the front of the bag of perlite: (Heading to the grow shop tomorrow to get a big ass bag of it.) Edit: Won't washing the perlite remove the ferts it has in it? Or is it built into the perlite?
I think I bought 4 bags of it. 1 Bag should fill all the party cups (5). I went to the hydro store today and bought a huge bag of perlite, the dude said it would fill 10-12 full 5 gallon buckets. I bought the trays to sit under the hempy buckets. The guy at the hydro store said there are 3 sizes of the perlite, corse, semi-chunky, and big clumps. The only bag they had was the semi-chunky. This is gonna be a bitch to rinse. I don't have anything with small enough holes to properly rinse it. I will have to buy one of the real small screen filter things they sell at walmart. My strainer would let that shit slip right through. I'll transplant the seedlings into party cups tomorrow and post up some pics. I got five, 5 gallon buckets. Just need to cut the holes in the buckets and put the screen thing over the whole so the perlite doesn't fall out. What do you guys think about filling the buckets up to the res drain hole with hydroton and everything above the hole with perlite? Would that provide better drainage and have less waterings?
go to a local nursery and buy straight perlite without fertilizers. You can wash the miracle grow but as long as it has the fert crystals in it you are asking for trouble. If you cant find it order it online in 4 cubic foot bags t6
Wait for my next post. I'm just waiting for the video to upload to YouTube. I did go to the hydro store and bought a huge bag of un-ferted perlite, semi-chunky. Still I will have to find an ez way to rinse it. I just fed the 4x4 tent week #3 flower of the useless schedule, and my cheese at week #6 of the useless schedule. This is the Cheese's last feeding, most trichs are cloudy, one or two amber, and a few clear, next week begins flush for her, so I can free up my 3x3 tent to get the new seedlings in their hempy buckets.
Great on the perlite. I use large quantitys of perlite and I use a large round screen kind of like a spaghetti strainer to wash the dust out of the perlite. Look around stores for one. They work great and get a fine mesh screen. t6
