Dstroy's first grow journal

10/8/17

Got some more help from someone else who knows their shit.

Changed the formula for what goes into the res now. I'm doing a 1:2:3 ratio of protekt:magpro:grow, there wasn't any foliage pro at the grow shop.

For 5 gallons,
1.5ml protekt
3ml magpro
4.5ml grow

which makes
ph 5.8
ppm 130
still keeping water temp at 68f
the starting water is 8ppm, so 120-ishppm of nutrients

when the ppm drops I plan on still topping up with RO water and replenishing with grow only.

Res changes are every seven days now, until all new growth looks proper, and stays that way for a few cycles. No big deal because I've got it set up for easy changes, I'll still be removing and scrubbing the reservoir monthly.

Changed the res yesterday, just drop a pump in the res and pump the old stuff into the drain, then pump new water into the res. I have two marks in there right now, one for 20g and one for 40g.

10/10/17

Been busy cleaning and whatnot getting the flower tent ready for the next round.

Built a thing to mount a fan on. Got the wall mount fan for above the canopy and a little fan for below.

The plants in the veg tent look tons better already, they'll be ready to go into the flower tent in no time, just want to make sure I've got a handle on res change interval and that adding a few ml of grow per day along with a couple ml of ph up per day is ok

Aero res
Ph 5.8
Ppm 130
Temp 68f

They've been eating a lot, I've been topping up and adding grow once daily to bring ppms back up to 130. Weekly res changes.

10/11/17

Need to add some mag pro on day 2 after the res change with the new formula or they get sulfur deficiency.

Been having to add about a ml or two of ph up since day 2.

Been having to add one to three ml of grow daily to keep ppm at 130

They've got sulfur deficiency, looks like the p deficiency is cleared up, all the new growth has green stems, and the petioles are green on the new growth as well.

So probably just need to add a couple ml of magpro every two days after changing the res. (Today is the third day, and they're showing signs of it)

Going to put them in the flower tent at the end of next week hopefully if adding the magpro every two days works with the next res change. Maybe I should just add the grow and magpro proportionately 2:3 daily, I don't know. We'll find out soon.

I ordered some new stuff for the grow room, got a new cloner, a table for a work surface and some more storage bins. building a light stand out of some wood, the cloner will be on the table.

I wanted a new cloner because the one that I have now requires me to use net pots. If I use just a collar they fall through the table into the water. The net pots that I'm using in the aero buckets have a larger lip so they can support the plant better and they aren't really compatible with the cloner that I have.

Have to use the sturdy net pots in my system or the plants just fall into the bucket when they get bigger. I've been Using 2.5" net pots from clone to harvest.

10/14/17

Res change today

Aero res
Ph 5.9
Ppm 130
Temp 68f

New cloning machine gets here tomorrow, got everything ready so I can use it after I clean it.

Doing a final wipedown of the flower tent, purging the plumbing and then I will move the largest plants in the veg tent into it.

10/14/17

Alright, this is what we're working with.

These two plants are both 2ft, back right one is a little more than 2ft.

Lights are at 60% in the flower tent (were 50% in the veg tent) so 10% more.

I'm going to do a LIGHT defoliation tomorrow while I'm cutting clones. I think I went a little too far last time, not by much because the plants did exactly what I wanted them to. Then again, I really don't know what I'm doing.

But I'm going to clean up the bottom of both plants a bit, they were monster crop clones so the foliage down there is really dense.

Not sure how much longer I will veg them for like I said but hopefully only one more week, need to see them go a week without experiencing deficiencies. I've got plenty of vertical space (inserting foot into mouth preemptively), they can grow another 3 feet almost before I would run into any real issues. If I train them and they go nuts vertically I'd start to worry about space.

I'm going to try and add the magpro and grow together proportionately 2:3 magpro:grow when I top up.

Sticking with weekly res changes, 20 gallons is very manageable. Might have to bump it up to 40 gallons since we're going to be feeding a larger plants and vegging simultaneously. Don't want the nutrient solution to get depleted too fast and have the ph swing around on me.

If I don't see any tip burn I will try increasing the concentration by 10% increments.

1:2:3 ml protekt:magpro:grow, and I am feeding 1.5 times that into 5 gallons. For make up water I was just adding RO and grow, which wasn't enough. They need the magpro, I'm only planning on dosing with protekt once weekly, at res change time. The rest of the time I'll just be adding ph up.

I got a chance to partially break down and clean the flower tent's plumbing, no visible biofilm, not that I was expecting any after purging it several times.

10/16/17

The new cloner ended up showing up today. Got it cleaned out, filled up and cut 6 clones for a test run.

Cloner
ph 5.8
ppm 250
temp 69f, little cool but it's because the water comes out of the tap at 65f. Shooting for 72f

Aero res
ph 5.9
ppm 130
temp 68f

Room ambient is 68-75f

The brand new growth on the plants looks like it should, so I'm really hoping that they are ready to flip this Sunday. If they're not, and I need to keep messing with nutrients, that's ok too. I want to know for sure what I'm doing now is working. It looks like it is, but it's too early to know for sure.

The plants in the veg/flower tent are eating a lot of food, I've been topping up water once and nutrients twice daily. Once in the morning and once in the evening, they've been eating more than one dose 1:2:3 daily.

10/18/17

Had a bit of a setback. The timer I was using for my cloner to control the pump failed, sometime this morning. I think I caught it in time, the clones perked back up. No more timer.

If it didn't work, and the clones die no big deal I'll just cut more.

I think I might need to just feed them more in general, so I upped the concentration to 140ppm in the aero res.

aero res
ph 5.7
ppm 140
temp 68f

veg tent ambient 75f
flower tent ambient 76f

I topped up with water and food this morning to 130ppm and ph 5.8. Six hours later ppm dropped to 110 and ph to 5.5, took up about a half gallon of water.

Probably not going to flip them this week unless they really turn around. That's ok. I really feel like I'm getting close to where they need to be, the window is just so small. Next res change I'll up the concentration if they take to 140ppm well.

I've always had tip and margin burn along with tip curl, some distorted leaves. So they're for sure P deficient, no more sulfur deficiency. The brand new growth is still green though, no purple yet. So that may have been fixed by me adding the nutrients proportionately to top up.

10/19/17

So I contacted Agrihouse, and asked them what concentration my nutrient solution should be at and they said around 600ppm. I'm not going to go from 140ppm all the way to 600ppm, I am going to increase the concentration to 350ppm which is 5ml:10ml:15ml protekt:magpro:grow per 5 gallons.

Doing that right now. Dumping the old water and purging the system.

New formula is 350ppm ph 5.8
per 5 gallons
5ml protekt
10ml magpro
15ml grow
1ml ph up

still using the ratios provided to me by someone who uses dyna gro and gets the results I'm looking for.

the plants look hungry in general, hopefully this fixes it without going too far.

10/20/17

Plants still look like shit, but they're already better than they were, not as droopy. So hopefully next Sunday they'll get flipped, and I'll cut some more clones.

They ate so much today, started at 350ppm yesterday and today the res was down to 280. Topped up with water and nutrients back to 350ppm ph5.7

I've been keeping track of any growth, and they're growing again but slowly. I'm sure they'll pick it up when they've got what they need.

Still doing weekly res changes, but this time I'll change it again on Sunday, then every seven days.

Just wanna say I love using Dyna Gro ! I run a veg/clone room and use Roots B2 soil mix...always fast growth and so easy to get the pH and ppm to where I want it every time... I never have to use pH up or down...start high with pro tekt... Then foliage pro and mag pro to bring the pH down..if I ever go to low, I use SM-90 to pH back up ...(i always aim for 6.5 end pH) and about 350-500ppm for my purposes of a veg/clone room

10/23/17

Plants are looking better (not as droopy), I cut all of the really jacked up leaves from the back right plant, and topped it on 5 of its branches, in an effort to slow down vertical growth until I'm sure that all the new growth is healthy and to let the other plant catch up in height a bit.

I upped the concentration to 380ppm, because ph is still trending downward.

They've been eating three doses a day of 1:2:3, so 3ml:6ml:9ml protekt:magpro:grow.

Aero res
ph 5.7
Ppm 380
Temp 68f

New growth on all plants is a normal color I think, no purple. The older leaves are pretty messed up.

jewsh808 said:

Just wanna say I love using Dyna Gro ! I run a veg/clone room and use Roots B2 soil mix...always fast growth and so easy to get the pH and ppm to where I want it every time... I never have to use pH up or down...start high with pro tekt... Then foliage pro and mag pro to bring the pH down..if I ever go to low, I use SM-90 to pH back up ...(i always aim for 6.5 end pH) and about 350-500ppm for my purposes of a veg/clone room

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Thanks for the tip, I'm really a novice so I'm still learning a lot all the time on what to do in certain situations. Right now I'm only using dyna gro stuff, once I'm comfortable using it I'll experiment with additives again. I have to adjust ph daily, because my system is recirculating.

dstroy said:

Thanks for the tip, I'm really a novice so I'm still learning a lot all the time on what to do in certain situations. Right now I'm only using dyna gro stuff, once I'm comfortable using it I'll experiment with additives again. I have to adjust ph daily, because my system is recirculating.

Click to expand...

You should be all good with just Dyna gro...can be a little overwhelming at very first with all the additives, like when to mix in and if its gonna affect pH and ppm but you'll get the hang of it quick...sometimes if my pH is too low after adding nutrients, I'll use sm-90 to pH up...I haven't had to use any pH up or down yet...but I grow in light soil and hand water ...

jewsh808 said:

You should be all good with just Dyna gro...can be a little overwhelming at very first with all the additives, like when to mix in and if its gonna affect pH and ppm but you'll get the hang of it quick...sometimes if my pH is too low after adding nutrients, I'll use sm-90 to pH up...I haven't had to use any pH up or down yet...but I grow in light soil and hand water ...

Click to expand...

I've got no problem mixing nutrients, or keeping them at a target ph. My problem is a general lack of experience with "reading plants", or knowing when to do certain things, I'm pretty clueless still.

I just really had no clue what I was doing when I first started, and right now I'd say that I have like 1/1000th of a clue. So to say it was overwhelming is an understatement in my case, I thought that since I grew some tomatoes in dwc successfully before that what I was doing would be cake, I was totally wrong.

Yep, I grow using a hydroponic method, but instead of sitting in water the roots are in air and misted periodically. Other than that it's pretty simple, fill up the reservoir with nutrient solution and adjust the ph daily.

Nice...I'm just running a veg room right now so soil is easy for me and I need a fast turnover..I always dream about running a rockwool ebb and flow or a hydroton ..

10/24/17

I LST'd one of the plants in the flower tent, going to do the other one later this afternoon or evening, I'll take pics then.

aero res
ph 5.8
ppm 390

ppm was 290 this morning after adding RO water.

Before/after LST, just using green rubber garden ties again. Topped the tallest branches as well.

New growth looks “good”

Im gonna switch to Grow..i want a bit more phosphorus for the roots and they're getting a bit too much Nitrogen with foliage pro..getting the leaf tip curl under and leaves get really really dark

10/26/17

Aero res
pH 5.8
ppm 400
Temp 68f

They’re beginning to fill in the middle of the canopy, nice amount of new growth.

The two plants in the veg tent are looking ok as well, forgot to take pics of them.

jewsh808 said:

Im gonna switch to Grow..i want a bit more phosphorus for the roots and they're getting a bit too much Nitrogen with foliage pro..getting the leaf tip curl under and leaves get really really dark[/QUOT

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dstroy said:

10/26/17

Aero res
pH 5.8
ppm 400
Temp 68f

They’re beginning to fill in the middle of the canopy, nice amount of new growth.

The two plants in the veg tent are looking ok as well, forgot to take pics of them.

Click to expand...

Lol nice man as long as you keeping track of pH and ppm and room climate don't forget to flush like me I'm a dumb ass and now dealing with a mag deficiency/lockout