12/12 From Seed Experiment - 21 Strains

Oh...worth mentioning. I'm going to estimate that they are drinking about 5 gallons a day now so yes, the water level drops by a noticeable amount on a daily basis.
One question on topping off. Since they are eating more of this and less of that, wouldn't topping off replace what they ate but double up on what they haven't thus risking issues? Is that why you chose to not mix your soup entirely up front and to gradually introduce it? Did you get really granular like certain things at first and then other stuff the next few days or was it the same recipe each time...just a little at a time?

Here are some new pictures of the problem taken with the HPS turned off.

Chapter 3 Update
Day 42
Flowering Day 9

Despite the issues we've been discussing, things are still going quite well. We lost 2 of the Chronic Thunders...their exposed roots just did not make it. There is one more at the bottom of the Blue Dream section that is on the chopping block too. A few of the really late additions are kind of strange. They appear to be entering flowering and completely skipped the stretch. These will likely be throw away's. Hopefully just a small handful. This proves that the initial 2 to 3 weeks is of critical importance....will be addressing this for the next round.

This morning I did a little defoliating. Nothing major but just cleared out a few leaves here and there to get more light to the inner canopy. It definitely looks thinned out now. I should have taken pictures before and after. Oh well...here are the pics from just a minute ago.

Alright, so how does this logic sound:

I had indicated that the 1st two days of a rez change has been resulting in PH rising a little and EC remaining constant. I think I misinterpreted what this meant. In the past, I've had weird issues with PH down where the PH would drop immediately and then slowly creep back up...as if it's effect diminishes. But after thinking about this some more, a rising PH and a constant EC might mean they are being fed correctly...in that the amount of water being consumed is consistent with the amount of food being eaten. If PH were to rise and EC fell, I would think they are being underfed and if PH rises and EC rises then they are being overfed. Does this logic sound reasonable? In my case, I think I've been feeding at an acceptable level and where I was fucking up was topping off with either plain water or PH'd water only...no nutes. I think the solution might be simple. If I don't want to top off regularly, get a larger rez. If I don't mind topping off frequently, just mix the new incoming water the way I would as if I was changing the rez.

Have you used silca before? It raises pH and gives you stronger plants.

Mohican said:

Have you used silca before? It raises pH and gives you stronger plants.

Click to expand...

I havent. Can you suggest a specific product or link? The only thing beyond my nutrients and PH down that I'm using is Dutch Masters Zone. Don't know if I even need it but it does not seem to affect anything and from what I've read is good to have to keep the yuckies away.

Dyna-Gro Pro-TeKt is the one that I use.



Cheers,
Mo

Mohican said:

Dyna-Gro Pro-TeKt is the one that I use.

Cheers,
Mo

Click to expand...

Cool, found it. Anything worth mentioning or just follow the instructions?

Hot Diggity Sog said:

One question on topping off. Since they are eating more of this and less of that, wouldn't topping off replace what they ate but double up on what they haven't thus risking issues? Is that why you chose to not mix your soup entirely up front and to gradually introduce it? Did you get really granular like certain things at first and then other stuff the next few days or was it the same recipe each time...just a little at a time?

Click to expand...

Good point. In that simple NPK example i used earlier for example, the ratio is skewed by some elements being used up so much that the P in that example is too high but relatively. Topping off with nutes would for example increase the depleted part tenfold while only adding 10% of the P still present. Simply put, everytime you top off with the desired ratio (or the one following nutrient manufacturer) the average of the soup becomes more like the ratio of that initial desires ratio.

For example, I want to use NPK 4-3-5, I add that to a 40 gallon rez.
4 days later, NPK of soup is 2-3-5, 20 gallon left
I add 20 gallon with 4-3-5, making the average of the soup 3-3-5.

Just an extreme example to show what happens. In reality it can be something like 10 gallon with a double nute dosis resulting in that same 3-3-5, but only if the EC dropped enough to be able to add enough.

The ideal EC is a range and dropping doesn't equal underfeeding. It just means it takes up water at a higher EC than the soup, lowering the EC more than the water. That's not only acceptable (for max yields) but desirable ime and trying to avoid that does not help the plant, just the rez balance, just the number. The EC number is a useful but misleading guideline. For example, if the EC dropped 10% and the water 5 gallon,the plants took up more nutes than when they take up 4 gallon without the EC dropping. In the end what matters is how much nutrients your plants take up in total.

Running at slightly lower EC yet topping off with nutes results in the same, if not more, total nutrient uptake on a weekly basis. You can for example use the same amount of nutrients in ML as you normally do per week, but instead of adding it all at the start of the week save some for a top off on day 3 or 4. The let the ec and water levek drop for 3-4 days and refresh ( or repeat, what I basically ended up doing).

A larger does have its advantages and tends to remain stable longer, but the smalLer the portion used the less influence you have when topping off. So there's a trade off. With a small rez you can refresh more often without wasting a lot or even most of the solution.

Hot Diggity Sog said:

If I don't mind topping off frequently, just mix the new incoming water the way I would as if I was changing the rez.

Click to expand...

Yes, or just slighlty more concentrated to bump the EC back to for example 1.1 so it drops to 1.0 in a few days. If it then drops must faster you can still add some.

I use pretty much the same recipe from start to finish. Started out with 7 bottles too, ended up using mainly just A and B which is like using micro, grow and bloom only. If imbalance is the issue it would be best to use those only when topping off, i.e. the base nutes.

Going to read a bit more about that nute line but did the problems appear after running with liquid blue added to the mix? I got to say though, using 7 parts does not make things easier and ime using only the base nutes gives the best results.

Sativied said:

Good point. In that simple NPK example i used earlier for example, the ratio is skewed by some elements being used up so much that the P in that example is too high but relatively. Topping off with nutes would for example increase the depleted part tenfold while only adding 10% of the P still present. Simply put, everytime you top off with the desired ratio (or the one following nutrient manufacturer) the average of the soup becomes more like the ratio of that initial desires ratio.

For example, I want to use NPK 4-3-5, I add that to a 40 gallon rez.
4 days later, NPK of soup is 2-3-5, 20 gallon left
I add 20 gallon with 4-3-5, making the average of the soup 3-3-5.

Just an extreme example to show what happens. In reality it can be something like 10 gallon with a double nute dosis resulting in that same 3-3-5, but only if the EC dropped enough to be able to add enough.

The ideal EC is a range and dropping doesn't equal underfeeding. It just means it takes up water at a higher EC than the soup, lowering the EC more than the water. That's not only acceptable (for max yields) but desirable ime and trying to avoid that does not help the plant, just the rez balance, just the number. The EC number is a useful but misleading guideline. For example, if the EC dropped 10% and the water 5 gallon,the plants took up more nutes than when they take up 4 gallon without the EC dropping. In the end what matters is how much nutrients your plants take up in total.

Running at slightly lower EC yet topping off with nutes results in the same, if not more, total nutrient uptake on a weekly basis. You can for example use the same amount of nutrients in ML as you normally do per week, but instead of adding it all at the start of the week save some for a top off on day 3 or 4. The let the ec and water levek drop for 3-4 days and refresh ( or repeat, what I basically ended up doing).

A larger does have its advantages and tends to remain stable longer, but the smalLer the portion used the less influence you have when topping off. So there's a trade off. With a small rez you can refresh more often without wasting a lot or even most of the solution.

Yes, or just slighlty more concentrated to bump the EC back to for example 1.1 so it drops to 1.0 in a few days. If it then drops must faster you can still add some.

I use pretty much the same recipe from start to finish. Started out with 7 bottles too, ended up using mainly just A and B which is like using micro, grow and bloom only. If imbalance is the issue it would be best to use those only when topping off, i.e. the base nutes.

Going to read a bit more about that nute line but did the problems appear after running with liquid blue added to the mix? I got to say though, using 7 parts does not make things easier and ime using only the base nutes gives the best results.

Click to expand...

Ya know...I was hoping you would bring your last point up. While I have nothing but good things to say about Blue Planet, I would really love to try and simplify. I'm in the middle of studying this right now to learn as much as I can: https://www.rollitup.org/t/beneficial-additives-in-hydroponics-a-must-read.574371/#post-8168615

Before this chapter started, I had intended on switching to GH FloraNova A&B but because of who now owns them I can't in good conscious use their product. A simple 2 part suggestion would be very welcome!

As far as the topping off topic goes, I am going to implement your approach and see how it goes. 20% of the suggested strength is probably going to get me my 1.0 EC and I will probably need to top off every other day for the next week. I'll add PH'd 20% strength top off and just see what happens. Fortunately I'm able to check on them pretty much all day so I can react when needed.

@Mohican
Silica is ordered. Will introduce cautiously when it arrives.

Hot Diggity Sog said:

A simple 2 part suggestion would be very welcome!

Click to expand...

In that case, House and Garden Aqua Flakes. Just A and B, contains everything the plants need. I went from nearly the complete line to just AB, over several runs ditching additives. I don't expect that to change again, I'm not saying all additives are useless, at least not entirely, but especially the flower additvies can quickly have undesired effects in mediumless hydro. The portion of the EC taken up by for example liquid blue is better spend on the 3 base part. Once you got it dialed in with base nutes you can still try certain additives but blue planet' schedule is not designed for the efficient system you build and tweaking it to your needs with 7 bottles is very hard (since we know only the ec and not the npk of the soup).

I actually went to the hydro store initially to get GHE(urope) tri part but they had a good deal on a H&G starter pack so ended up with that one, I considered floranova too, I know a mapito (rockwool like slabs) grower who gets great results with those too. I got a GHE tri pack later and while I didn't have major problems,

I'm frankly without logical reason perhaps a little biased when it comes to H&G aquaflakes but several others at RIU use it with great results too and @homebrewer who compared various brands had good things to say about it to so I can still safely recommend it. It's too my knowledge the only one specifically for recirculating hydro. Blue planet seems suitable for hydro but they do mention soil and soilless is best.
@skunkd0c uses something similar, also mostly or soley AB and littile over 1.0ec. He posted some pics of his latest results here: https://www.rollitup.org/t/bud-pics-bud-porn.628338/#post-11771710 (thread is worth the loading time )

Also, the liquid seaweed seems tricky. For all I know it actually contributes to your roots being healthy but I would avoid anything organic and anything that stains the roots for example. I like my soup to be bright as water, but there are plenty of guys getting great results with teas and stuff so.... It's basically a choise betweem running sterile or not.

but I would avoid anything organic and anything that stains the roots for example
I hear you. Especially early on, I could not really tell if I had root problems or not due to this.

Alright...I'm going to order some House and Garden A&B. Your recommendation is more than enough although I will still check out the links you shared.
What about PH management? I've been using GH PH Down. Should I look for acid alternatives? What are your thoughts on the ZONE product I've been using? If temps are kept under 70 and light is kept out can I do without? And finally Silica...I've read quite a bit over the last few hours and I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of it's purpose, the water solubility issues as well as the PH implications. In theory, it sounds like a worthwhile addon.

[Sillica] In theory, it sounds like a worthwhile addon.
Agreed. I never had problems 'not' using it though and some of those who noticed an improvement may have just solved the K def they had. I honestly don't know enough about its effect on cannabis and the usefulness for us bud growers.

What are your thoughts on the ZONE product I've been using?
Though one. Ime when using moderate and balanced base nutrients only the nutrient solution stays fresh and the roots healthy and nothing else is needed. I used to flush with a low concentration of bleech every refresh but that was before I got a chiller and before moderate EC. I used cannazym and H&G enzyms for my dwc boxes which are not chilled and get warm. I never did a good comparisson.

I do like to add a product that helps to keep the solution and the roots healthy, just don't know which one is most effective and luckily never had the need to find out. If zone seems to do the trick I would continue to use it for now.

GH PH down is phosphoric acid. I get better results with nitric acid. More stable ime, and instead of adding P it adds N and makes some of the calcium in your tapwater available in the right form. I prefer to have a bottle of both. I.e. when they clearly had too much N I rather not add nitric acid and use phosporic acid instead.

Zone is the shiznit. I suggest keep it on board. It's always done me wonders.

And silica is the ticket too. Those two products/ additives are the two things I suggest anyone growing in hydro use.

Just my 2c

Wow interesting method I have not seen this before. Will be keeping an eye on it to see your results great stuff very interesting

Sativied said:

In that case, House and Garden Aqua Flakes. Just A and B, contains everything the plants need. I went from nearly the complete line to just AB, over several runs ditching additives. I don't expect that to change again, I'm not saying all additives are useless, at least not entirely, but especially the flower additvies can quickly have undesired effects in mediumless hydro. The portion of the EC taken up by for example liquid blue is better spend on the 3 base part. Once you got it dialed in with base nutes you can still try certain additives but blue planet' schedule is not designed for the efficient system you build and tweaking it to your needs with 7 bottles is very hard (since we know only the ec and not the npk of the soup).

I actually went to the hydro store initially to get GHE(urope) tri part but they had a good deal on a H&G starter pack so ended up with that one, I considered floranova too, I know a mapito (rockwool like slabs) grower who gets great results with those too. I got a GHE tri pack later and while I didn't have major problems,

I'm frankly without logical reason perhaps a little biased when it comes to H&G aquaflakes but several others at RIU use it with great results too and @homebrewer who compared various brands had good things to say about it to so I can still safely recommend it. It's too my knowledge the only one specifically for recirculating hydro. Blue planet seems suitable for hydro but they do mention soil and soilless is best.
@skunkd0c uses something similar, also mostly or soley AB and littile over 1.0ec. He posted some pics of his latest results here: https://www.rollitup.org/t/bud-pics-bud-porn.628338/#post-11771710 (thread is worth the loading time )

Also, the liquid seaweed seems tricky. For all I know it actually contributes to your roots being healthy but I would avoid anything organic and anything that stains the roots for example. I like my soup to be bright as water, but there are plenty of guys getting great results with teas and stuff so.... It's basically a choise betweem running sterile or not.

Click to expand...

hey mate, i have you and alpha phase and a few others from the msn forum to thank
who have been showing me how plants grow fine on a 1.3 rather than a 2.0+ lol for years now, i have finally got round to letting them run into minor deficiencies to find the sweet spot

i ran the kush x cheese on a+b flower during veg on an ec of no more than 1.0
.8 most of the time, if i had some a+b veg i would of used that too but i ran out
i only normally buy a little bit of the veg and buy the flower in 10 or 20 liter to save money

i started to see some slightly lighter green leaves and a few orange/rust spots on some leaves
i changed the solution at 5 weeks for fresh nutes, i did not mind doing this
i normally go a complete crop with no res changes, but this is because i am topping up with water all the time
and nutes when needed, 1 res change per crop is ok with me,
if i ever see any problems with leaves looking a little odd i will just replace the res, rather than try to diagnose any kind of deficiency
and add separate elements like cal mag or whatever, i just pump it out and start again, this has worked for me
i have never seen any "nute imbalance"

i bought and added some veg a+b and brought the ec to 1.3 the plant was fully green in 3 days
with no more new orange spot leaves, i am happy to run the ec as low as possible now
until i see minor deficiencies as they can be fully corrected in a few days with a res change
in contrast i can burn them in less than 24 hours, with quite a few leaves affected
overall this does not really harm the plant as once the food is brought back down again the new growth is not affected
i am finding the sweet spot between deficiencies and burn

i am happy now to set them at 1.5 and allow it to drift i will add more food when it drops to 1.2

in the past i would of run them as high as 1.2-1.5 during veg and 2.0- 2.5 during flower, there is no advantage to this as far as i can see now
running them on a lower ec saves some food , and less is always more to me when growing weed plants


i would only use a+b foods. i have used 3 part foods before but i do not like the extra cost of them
and the way the foods are used in very uneven amounts,
like you need lots of pink a little bit of brown and the green is basically a bottle of piss,
so you end up with lots of left over brown, no pink and a bottle of green piss
then you work out that you don't need the green at all and feel like a cunt for wasting money on that shit

i have been looking at optimum bloom recently might give that a run
its made by the clonex people. growth technology it is the cheapest "branded" food i can find in the uk
you can get 20L of a+b for £80 or something like that making it like £4 per liter which is cheap
they do not give much info on the bottle so i sent them an email they sent back this



Iron is DTPA chelate

Manganese, zinc and copper are EDTA chelates

No pH stabilizers/buffers


vitalink max is the seconded cheapest branded food here , it seems to keep them green well
and the food is very clean, not like canna which makes the res nasty because of that fluvic acid or whatever is added
the brown food is like iodine lol one drip and it stains its nasty horrible stuff
but i must say overall the canna disolves very well into the solution quickly
i can get accurate readings within 10 minutes of adding food,
with vitalink you need to wait for a good few hours to get accurate readings

i am still waiting vitalink people to email me whether any ph buffers in there food
i doubt it or they would most likely be screaming about how great it is,
also i want to know more details about there chealted elements
they claim that all micros are chealted appart from 3 of them which would mean
8 elements are chealted if you count npk as primary and cal mag as secondary
with vitalink which is higher than most other foods

i would always recommend canna to folk as it works its not too expensive
its easy to get hold of, and you can take quick readings, dissolves very quickly
i ran both the aqua version for recirculating systems, and the regular version of canna
for years, i preferred the regular version mainly because it is less messy than that horrible brown shit but they both work fine in NFT

"plant magic" have a a+b hydro food now
i have never used any of their products they are quite popular here mostly with organic growers
they make a lot of shit for those type of growers too

"SHO GUN Samurai" is the slightly more expensive brand of a+b nutes getting pushed here at hydro shops
never tried it, have no plans to either

peace

When I started adding ProTeKt to both hydro and promix soil I had huge improvements in plant growth and bug resistance.

It also is the magic ingredient in my aero cloner (thanks @BobBitchen ).

Fast growing plants such as dandelions use a ton of silica to allow rapid growth without flopping over. In fact most fast growing weeds are very beneficial in teas and compost because the uptake so many beneficial nutrients and minerals from the soil.

The only thing negative about ProTeKt is the fact that it raises your pH. Add it after you have mixed up all of your water and additives.

I agree about not using any brown additives in your hydro. It promotes root slime. That is what got me.

The silica you suggested will be here tomorrow and the House and Garden A&B shipped today. Once these both arrive I will mix up 5 gallons and kind of learn how much I need for 1.0 - 1.2 EC and see how the PH is and what not. Once I experiment a little I'll be ready for the switch from Blue Planet over to these. I feel pretty good about this. Keeping it really simple.
A + B with silica and Zone. Next will be a replacement for my PH down.

Good info @skunkd0c, thanks for writing. I agree down to the canna recommendation (H&G is just a canna clone but ime slighlty better). The socalled cannabis specific nutes tend to be rip offs but only if you buy the entire line, a couple of bottles or jugs of the base nutes are relatively cheap and can last a very long time. I spend about $20 per run and don't get a gram less then when I spend 4 times that amount. Fun at first, being able to mix a soup with so many bottles but after a while AB becomes the obvious choice.

I should probably go back to grasscity some day and thank the guy who led me to lower ppms. Funny discussion, I was doing a pretty good job defending 2.0 EC and higher with haelthy plants to back it up but the dude was right in hindsight. Skeptic as I am it took me 3 runs to lower the EC from 2 to 1-ish, ended up doing a .72 run ( half from tap already) after that just to find the bottom of the range and still got very healthy plants with the usual results, just had to add nutes more often. Hence 0.9-1.3. Convenient, safe, and plenty. Heath, Lucas, and several other hydro guys here came to the same conclusion. Based on system difference and amount of leaves it can vary and slighlty higher may be neccessary. Eg when you remove leaves th plants transpire less (easily observable in soil pots too), thus drink less water. If the nutrient uptake remains similar but the water level drops less fast the EC of the rez will drop faster. I also think that the speed of the water flow plays a role. Up to a point recirculating faster should allow for lower EC while still having plenty of all ions available at a given moment. Similar to how proper ventilation can be better for refreshing the CO2 depleted zone around leaves than adding high amounts of stagnant CO2 in the air. The contents of tapwater plays a role too which is not used up in an amount equal to the nutrient portion of the soup. Lighting affects both water and nutrient uptake as well and all these factors is why a system like NFT requires some dialing in, even if they were all the same AeroFlo system.

skunkd0c said:

i normally go a complete crop with no res changes, but this is because i am topping up with water all the time
and nutes when needed, 1 res change per crop is ok with me,
if i ever see any problems with leaves looking a little odd i will just replace the res, rather than try to diagnose any kind of deficiency
and add separate elements like cal mag or whatever, i just pump it out and start again, this has worked for me
i have never seen any "nute imbalance"

Click to expand...

Not using bloom boosters or other additives high on one or more elements, but instead base nutes with good ratio, in combination with a not too large rez size that allows you to top off a good amount frequently should indeed avoid ever running into major imbalance. I started out refreshing every week regardless of usage and freshness, then I figured out if I don't dump my rez full with nutes and water, basically run with a smaller rez contents, I top off enough to avoid a complete refresh. I do think a weekly refresh is good practice for the first run or two. Just preventative.

Probably everyone who has grown mediumless noticed the improved nutrient uptake after a refresh. I try to keep that going by topping off with water and nutes frequently. It was the key to running as low as 0.72ec (which was a test and not what I recommend) as with such low ec the imbalance became obvious faster. I.e. When dropped to 0.70 after three days it appearantly still had a similar EC but undoubtedly a completely different composition, a different ratio with some elements more depleted than others. Ideally we'd be able to measure the npk and other elements in the soup and steer the ratio similar to the total amount based on EC. See Hanna photometer, $200 buck per piece and pretty much per element.

That turned out abit longer than planned...