Indoor Anthro's Perpetual Vol 3: Hempy/Soil/Autos/MarsHydro/Experiments

[Anthropolis]

Greetings All! After a long break, Anthro is back in the dirt. This will be my catch-all thread for now: the grow, hardware thoughts, experiments, tips.
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It's been awhile friends and fam! Not sure I even finished documenting my last rounds of 2017-winter 2018, it was a busy time.

Good news: got some fresh hardware and still haven't managed to kill my years-old MarsHydro blurple Reflector series. Thing is built like a tank! I'll be transitioning to the sunlike TS series over the coming months.

Bad news: my dang seed stock at this moment is from 2017 all the way back to 2012 lmao. Soooo, germination is low, slow, and generally abysmal right now but figured I'd just do my best at clearing out the old stock, even if I had to restart some pots.
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Have a brand spankin new MarsHydro 4x4x6.5, and it is really a nice enclosure. I've been a fan of Mars for a few years now and have had great experience with their hardware. This tent is absolutely built well above its' price point. I cannot really find any problems or cons with the unit, in fact it impresses in every way.

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I came up with a new trick today for unused vent socks! After tightening down each side, use a ziptie on the inner one and put in half a craft twisty before zipping it down all the way:

Then use the craft twisty / 'pipe cleaner' / / LST tie down ;D to secure the excess tightening string:

This should pretty much guarantee all the light stays in and the bugs stay out. I plan to ziptie the sock that carries the electrical once I'm finished setting that up to my satisfaction.
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Very satisfied with the overall fit and finish of the Mars tent. I'd buy another right now without question if I needed a tent. Here's the many years old Mars Reflector haha! I can't seem to kill the thing. The paint is even fading and the label curling off but otherwise functionally perfect still. Yeah this isn't enough light for the full run, I have a couple trash no-name blurples to add front and back when I have plants up.

Still gotta finish the ducting and hang filter but no rush yet, I'm a ways away from stinky yet.

Haha the label is almost gone to label heaven <3 I'm leaving it to see just how long it stays on lol.

The zippers, stitching, frame bars, spill tray, shell, lining, everything about this tent has impressed me beyond my expectations.

I actually quite like the square beveled reflective lining much better than that old skool crinkle style lining other brands use. It appears more uniform and durable, and actually does seem to reflect better.

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Seeds in the dirt!!! Really a random menagerie of the old auto bean stock to clear out. Some Royal Queen Seeds brand Diesels, couple Mephisto brand Sour Hound, couple Dinafem brand White Widow, a Dinafem Critical+ 2.0, a Seedsman house brand Lemon and a Kush, and the three pots with celophane instead of humidity cups are DRAGONS!! Auto regs and very old seeds so I did 4x per pot, figuring not all will come up and some males to cull. One pot is 4x Stone Dragon originals, one pot is 4x Stone Dragon, Black (marked as the F2 generation), one pot 4x Frost Dragon (marked as low germ, but think I see one about to sprout!).

I think a few pots aren't gonna come up and will need resetting due to ancient ass seeds haha. But I see the Seedsmans up, an RQS Diesel, a Mephisto, and a couple baby Dragons trying to come up!!

Got a few more things soaking, I'm not really having high expectations here lol. Still have some assorted freebie and beloved Dragon stock I can work through if a whole bunch of pots need resetting.

Still gotta hang my Phresh filter, finish ducting, maybe reset some pots, tighten up some wiring, buy and place runoff saucers, and add the two extra blurples for later.

Will go over medium and the weird space buckets real quick next. <3

 

[Anthropolis]

Buckets and Medium:
"WTF are those NASA space shuttle lookin buckets?"

It's a leftover creation from my Hempy Gen 3 experiment haha! Basically, I had found algea on the roots around the edges of the buckets and decided to use silver HVAC tape to cover the buckets. I'm using legit food grade buckets like you'd buy for restaurants, so they are not made with BPA.

Holes drilled along the top of some of em for LST tie down points, I didn't bother drilling the new ones. I'm trying for ultra simple this round. Tape is the solid metal layer kind like they use for heating and air conditioning ducting. It keeps all light out and seems to keep the root zone a bit cooler in the summer.

Typical Hempy style runoff hole about 1.5-2" up to create the passive reservoir. Perlite fills the bottom of each pot up to the hole.

I skipped all the other extra work that went into my Hempy Gen 3 experiments but I believe they were some good ideas, just didn't have the energy this time.

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Medium is about 30% Canna brand coco precharged with 1/2 strength micro nutrients, full strength CalMag, and a little Real Growers Recharge, Canna Boost, Mammoth P, 1/4 strength FloraNova Grow. Remainder of the medium is local organic OMRI soil plus the usual random organic ammendments I still have to use up: gypsum dust, azomite dust, kelp meal, alfalfa meal, earthworm castings, crab shell bits, dash of lignite.

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Luckily, my new location has pH 6.5 water with very low ppm, so that is worlds better than my last location 7.9-8.1 water with 200-225 ppm lmao eww.

Shouldn't have to feed too much, I have lots of Great White myco to water in, some Real Growers Recharge, Earth Juice micro nutes, and plenty of CalMag options for along the way. Have some FloraNova food I can water in once in awhile but generally gonna take a minimalist approach to the liquid nutrition. It'll probably look like plain water and CalMag most of the time with occasional RG Recharge + myco + micro.
<3

 

[Roach]

Well I reckon this is gonna be fun!! Think I'll keep my beady eye on this one! Currently rocking a retro panel myself and they seem to be loving it!
Happy growings Anthropolis!!!

 

[Anthropolis]

Got 7 or 8 up above the dirt now, so there's some hope for those old seeds haha! Have a Dinafem Blue Amnesia sprout to pot and place in there too. So, it's going to be okayish at least.

Happy Sprout

Tightened up some wiring, hung the two extra blurples for later, and wrestled the filter/exhaust more. Had ordered some pretty white ducting and better stainless clamps... but apparently different companies are using greatly different interpretations of " 6 inch diameter " lol. How you screw that up, I have no idea but yeah. So back the the clunky ugly aluminum ducting and ghetto looking duct tape.

Gonna give the non-starter through the weekend, then it'll have been over a week they've been in dirt and gonna reset those.

Peace and love from your favorite meowl <3

 

[hairyman]

i sure i use to check in on your old thread

 

[Anthropolis]

Coming along mostly okay, nothing special, couple early deficiencies but nothing bad. Some of the seedlings are very strange lookin haha, I've noticed that happen before with old seeds but they grow out of it.

little Dragons

Got quite maybe 3 pots that didn't germinate, just leaving em right there in the tent while waiting on some fresh seeds.

 

[Anthropolis]

Coming along just fine, nothing going bad, but nor really exciting yet haha. The little struggler runts are still dragging way behind but should pick up some steam soon and perform fine. At the moment, the freebie Seedman house brand Auto Lemon and Auto Kush are biggest, followed by a Mephisto Sour Hound. I predict those will be my soonest finishers.

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Finally lol, finished up the ducting. Had to fall back to the ol' semi rigid conduit and duct tape, dangit. I bought all this beautiful white ductwork and rather pricey stainless steel clamps... Wanted it all pro looking. But alas, the clamps didn't fit the pretty ductwork which didn't even fit the filter nor fan lol. So, womp womp. Works great though anyway.

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Since I have to maintain some pretty strict light discipline, I can't use the lower mesh rectangle vents. Thus, I cut about 6 inches of the 6in diameter conduit and made a nice, dark intake. On the outer side, I covered the tube with window screening followed by a Hydrofarm carbon filtered Bugshield, the inside also has a Hydrofarm Bugshield, and both ends' socks are zip-tied down tightly as well. Only a tiny tiny bit of light is visible through the tube. For now I'm satisfied.

 

[Anthropolis]

The Mephisto Sour Hound is looking great, it's got all the makings for a great plant! Good structure, leaves, showing node pistils. Couple tiny bit of leftover splotches from the resolved CalMag def, and a couple halves of leaves doing a little taco-ing but nothing to worry about in the slightest. It's on the way to great fruit! Best in the tent right now.

Awesome structure and internodal distances, it likes the Mars Hydro lamps for sure. I actually hope she stretches out quite a bit more lol.

(swear it's not that yellow in real life, rich lush normal green)

 

[Anthropolis]

Oh yeeeah! 2x new Mars Hydro TSL-2000's installed. They are bright, and I do mean bright! So, at long last, the blurple nurples are retired. I still never did kill that Mars Hydro Reflector series big boi shown in the first post. It doesn't even have any chips out lol, it ran for years (4? +?) and who knows how much longer it still has. I find that quite impressive, myself. I mean, I take good care of my hardware as can be seen, but I would consider that longevity to be well beyond what one could reasonably expect.

B R I G H T! I've placed the drivers outside the grow space as a personal preference. The drivers only get barely warm, the lamps also get barely warm, which is quite nice.

Happy plants! The white stuff is just Diatomaceous earth to stay ahead of any bugs. Haven't had any yet, just staying ahead of it just in case.

The Calcium deficiency came back strong on the Auto Lemon, I quadruple checked the pH and it's fine, varies from 6.2 to 6.5 throughout the medium. It's just a hungry strain, the others are fine, going to step up some heavy CalMag. Not overly concerned. Overall, everything's kinda "meh" but at least nothing tragic going on lol.

 

[Anthropolis]

Moving along well now, the flowering ones are starting to get fun and interesting. Overall general health is very good, just the Auto Lemon is fighting Calcium deficiency. I'm up to 150% strength CalMag lol, we'll see if that one stabilizes before going stronger. No worries yet, still going to make decent medicine.