600W DWC Cabinet System - 1st Run

DAY 14


Chamber 1 temp 76 - 80f. Chamber 2 72f. PH 5.8, 510PPM

BD in the res has roots in the water now but looking thirsty and crispy. Gave it a small drink from the top, which i'm sure made no difference whatsoever except making me feel a little better about my involvement in the whole thing. OGs are looking good, no new discolorations or necrosis, very very slight burn signs on the tips are no larger than they were two days ago. Growth is really beginning to move under 600w.

Lowered the light to about 10" off the tops, keeping a close eye on the chamber temp. Vent fan on gives 77.5f, soon as it's off the temp climbs rapidly. I think it would help to have a small fan circulating air in the chamber, aside from the vent fan. Added to the short list.

Res got down to 63 for some reason today, had been pegged right around 67. Hasn't been much cooler in the room over the last few days, and temp isn't fluctuating at night.
OGs are very happy now but I see red stem creeping back up again. Added another 12ml of Cal-Mag to the res, bringing total concentration of Cal-Mag up to about 2ml per gallon.
PPM is slowly dropping now, down to 470 from 510 earlier today. PPM was rock steady before roots took off.
Had to PH down slightly, res drifted to 6.1 about 6 hours after lights on.
Temp is down to 66 in chamber 2 with lights off but the blue dream in there is loving life, so letting it be. Were she not so happy in there I'd try wiring a themostat to that 120mm pc fan. Will still do that when it's not circus freak onslaught at every store in town.

DAY 15

Vegetation is really picking up, growth starting to really blow up. Roots in the drink nicely all around and growing, each root getting about 2 inches a day. The ones I can see anyway.

PPM at lights on was down to 380. Added about 25ml each of sensi A & B, which brought PPM back up to 430. Planning to keep inching this up, I'd like to be up over 800 a week from now but we'll see what the ladies think.

Res temp is still down around 63.

Room temp 68 to 63 at the coldest point of the night. Humid at 40%, PH 5.8.

Note after adding the nutes today the ph crept up a little, but then settled back down to 5.8, no PH down needed.

Red stems are speading to newer growth again. Cal-mag doesn't seem to be doing squat about it, yet anyway. Maybe i've mis-diagnosed this as a mag deficiency? Dark veins in leaves have disappeared so I was thinking we'd made some headway on this. Will give the additional cal-mag from last night another day, then i'll up the concentration of cal-mag in the drink from 2ml/gal to around 3.5.

Is it possible to raise room temps? try to keep no less than say 67 in the coolest? My girls dont seem to like the cool too much. I try to keep my room around 70 all around, and the girls are responding well. before that I had temps in the low to mid 60's, and they kinda looked limp, even after being under the lights all day. Now they are very perky and happy

all things are possible, but late last night i figured out why that BD mom in chamber 2 has been so happy in the mid to upper 60s ..

.. the temp sensor had slipped out of place. Real temp in chamber 2 has been 75 - 79.

nice....that would be ideal all around...

DAY 16


More of the same. Plants grow, and they grow better as they develop more roots.
Overall growth is an inch plus per day.
The Blue Dream momma in the hempy bucket is very happy, showing really pretty blue green in the new growth. Most of her leaves are straight out and pointy horizontal, and dig the green stem. The BD in the main tank is now miserable by comparison. Hopefully another day or two of root development fixes that.



This is one of the OGs in the tank. It's growing fine, getting about as tall as the others but still has only 3 fans per leaf. /shrug

It's supposed to get down into the 30s tonight outside, both chambers fine so far at the usual temps, 75-79f. Humidity is 35% but i hate sticking that big ass humidifier in there.

DAY 17



Plants grow.
The two plants that took longest to show substantial root development had been slowly turning lime green all over. Roots in the water have reversed this, getting noticeably darker every few hours. The BD is finally perking up.

Calibration session found PPM meter way out of whack. Was probably dirty. Moved it to hole 4 on the left side where there is less coco residue. Once cleaned the meter gave a reading of over 1k. Yikes! No telling how out of whack ppm has been since last calibration (a week), so I diluted down to 750 just to see what'll happen. So far so good. I think these plants have just taken to my wacky overfeeding by now.

ppm has since risen to 810, everything fine, no signs of nute burn or lockout.

ph steady at 5.8, res temp 63-64f. chamber 2 is 75-79f fan off, BD mom in there is sucking down hand waterings twice a day, and she'd take a third if i was up all night to give it. Her roots haven't reached the bottom of the bucket yet but she's still doing great. She's taller than the plants in the dwc, but she's streching a lot more, not the least bit bushy yet. We'll bush her out once roots are a little more established.

Have been lowering the light a little each day. It's down now about as far as those yo yo things want to go, about 8" off the tops.

DAY 18


PH 5.8, 830 PPM, Res Temp 63f
Both chambers temp upper 70s.
Humid 35%
Room temp 67

Plants grow.

Blue dream in the tank still picking up. Doesn't even look like the same strain as its clone mate in chamber 2. Amazing what shocking the shit out of that clone has done. I think it half assed tried to start flowering under the stress. The one in chamber 2 looks happy and healthy and sativa stretchy, the one in the tank looks like a disheveled bush in comparison.

No new signs of nute burn or anything at this PPM so sticking with it.

BD in chamber two wants water every few hours. If I'm going to stick with these smallish hempy buckets in there, will need to install some sort of simple drip or flood system.

I cant believe your plants havent burned up yet! Very shitty about your TDS meter! Those ppm's are incredibly high. I try to keep my ppm as low as possbile to start and slowly raise it. I think you should use filtered water and get to a ppm of 400-500 and when you start to flower ramp it up! Thats just my 2 cents! Lookin great keep up the good work!

Seriously, I can't believe it either. I figure if they haven't absolutely revotled by now (blue dream freaking out aside) then let's see what happens. I'll calibrate again tomorrow, maybe the reading is off again. I'm sure it was just dirty causing the bad readings last time. The readings now are much more in line with what i was expecting in the first place.

Here's a bit for others on this topic: I should have known my TDS meter needed cleaning or calibration when I saw PPM start to make unrealistic changes, dropping from 450 to 250 in an hour or two. If you see this, check your meter.

ya 250 sounds pretty good you could prolly keep it at 350 or so. plants should start lookin a lot better now! Keep up the good work! Should be a good harest!

DAY 19


PH 5.8 PPM 700 Res temp 63
Both chambers temp steady at 78. Humidity 36%.
Room temp 70 -75f.

With room temp above 70 the chamber 1 vent fan must remain on to keep temp under 85. Scavenged an AC 120mm fan from an old rack but foud it not nearly as powerful as the Panaflo in chamber 2. I swapped the panaflo into chamber 1, and somehow managed to break it in the process. Will investigate further tomorrow. The less powerful 120mm now in chamber 2 does a much better job of maintaining temp in upper 70s. Panaflo was taking the chamber down to under 75.
Wired up a crappy 80mm pc fan to blow across the tops in chamber one.
Also got tired of mistrusting the thermometer probe so I used an old cellular antenna and a clothespin to make an adjustable mount. Now I can put it right where my OCD self wants it. Also made a quick shade for the probe out of duct tape. This immediately put the reading a few degrees lower, right where it seemed like it ought to be. Doesn't mean squat but makes me content, so is good.

Still no new signs of nute burn. Just a hint on the BD momma in chamber two, but she's getting a diluted solution so .. as usual, we'll see.

Otherwise, plants grow, all looking better each day. Especially BD in the main tank.

Lookin better man! Keep it up!

DAY 20


Plants grow. Plants grow well.



Fim'ed up everything that could use it. Been doing this in earnest over the last week or so.



Pics above show results of last weeks choppings. Looking for 8 - 10 branches on each plant as they hit the screen.

All plants are now branched out and bushy enough to be gettin all up in each other's grills. I will spread them out this weekend maybe, soon as the light is ready to go up a bit.

Calibrated PPM again. Was off by about +100. Need to keep up on this calibration every few days until we sort this out.

PH 5.8, 790 PPM, Res temp 65
Room temp 70f, chambers 1 and 2 both 78f.
Humid 38%

Went to put the giant humidfier in there for a bit this morning but that fucking thing pissed me off and is hereby expelled from the skunklab. I will sort out a smaller, friendlier replacement asap. I'd like to have humid at 55-60%.

DAY 21


The plants were really getting all up in each other's business so I moved the blue dream over a notch and adjusted the others some.
Growth is kicking ass, no signs of burn at 780ppm. Added cal-mag to 870ppm, making just under 5ml/gal total in the res. This was on advice specific to growing OG.



Very cool how the OGs are growing horizontally. I was getting a little worried, as the blue dream stem is arrow straight and twice as rigid, but other pics of OG don't look too different. No LST or supercropping needed so far, they are smart enough to do it on their own.

PH 5.8, 870PPM, 65f res
room 67, both chambers 75f. humid 40%

those roots are lookin real healthy man!

DAY 22




Showing some signs of not liking the bump in ppm. Very sharp, V shaped leaves again. Used ph'd tap water to drop back down from 880 to 800ppm. Needed to refill a about 2.5 gallons, water level just slightly touching bottom of net pots. I will not mess with this much further during veg. I hope.

good sign that plants had been drawing down the water level without drastic movements in ppm. betting they will do fine at 800 now. More root development and we'll start raising it again.



Added some eye screws to the res lid and got into some hot saturday night plant bondage action yo. Used 2lb test and some small split shot (tin. lead is bad for you.) to bend some branches around in anticipation of hitting the scrog screen in a few days. I figure if I can get things going with a decent canopy spread then it will be a whole lot easier to fill the screen.

The BD has a very solid and straight stem, will need to tighten it down gradually. Again with this plant, glad it's an experiment. It does not want to bush out.

The OG on the other hand.. wow they practically just go where you want them. You can almost hear them say "alright fuck .. stop with the OW! .. stop with the torture.. where do you want me? here? is that fucking cool for you? happy now?" and then generally cooperate. Stems are ready to twist and bend in any direction, and best of all, they need very little help. They are LSTing themselves out nicely for the most part. I made few serious adjustments, and the one on the rear left didn't need a thing.

Noticed for the first time, the BD in chamber 2 looked saggy just before lights off this morning. It was perky again upon lights on, no addition of water or anything. Proof positive I suppose, plants like rest.

PH 5.8, 800ppm, 65f res
room 71, both chambers 79
43% humidity

DAY 23



Red stems are much improved now. I think about 5ml/gal of cal-mag did the trick.
The red stems definitely change back to green. Whatever the reason, had seen several posts stating that, once red, they don't turn back. Not true in this case. the re-greening starts at the base of the main stem and seems to work its way up.

growth doing great. plants responded wonderfully to lst last night, the OGs adjusting to point the right direction within an hour. Found a few hopeful branches that needed further adjustment this morning but not much. fim'd a few tops, figure it will help the promising shorter branches to catch up.

Res level is dropping by about 2mm a day. Ppm maintining at 820 now. If ppm creeps up much further will dilute again, this time to 750 or 700. If it stays stable and water level is dropping, we're good.

Counted around 25 tops with potential on each OG plant, about half that on the blue dream. This should be fine. Was planning on giving the BD around 1/8 to 1/6 of the scrog screen.

PH 5.8, 820PPM, 66f res
room 70, chamber 1 78f, chamber 2 75f
48% humidity