1st Hydro - LED Grow With Crop King White Widow From Seed

[Bamalabrat]

Dab I appreciate that advice and encouragement. I will add the zone today as soon as I get it. I will fill the res up to make sure it gets all over. I think the pH has been solved. It was not a design problem but I think a problem with the meter. I do not know when it broke or how. So I could have been getting all of those 7 and 7.2 readings and just kept adding down and was probably bathing the plants in acid after a few hours. I feel like a complete ass over that. I am very comfortable in a lab and using test equipment. So not spotting that for 1 -3 days (who knows) is like a kick to the stomach. I really could have used a nice fatty last night. Really, really needed one. The last big problem for me to overcome is the damn heat. It is a big problem. The tent gets too hot for the plants. This is starting to really affect their health and vitality. I will continue to figure this out and hope for cooler weather.
Just a quick observation about the deviousness of our Canadian cousins. When you really wish they would send a nice big blast of cold air south, they don't. They sit up there all nice and comfortable with 23 hours of sunlight and perfect weather. Then when you have had enough of winter and are trying to get the warm air from the Gulf, all the Canadians line up at Niagra Falls and fart in unison and you get a late season winter storm. They are really frustrating some times.

 

[OldMedUser]

Sure sure. Blame the Canadians when it's really Obama's fault like everything else wrong with the US.

If heat is that big a problem with plants that small you could set a CFL by each one for now and drop the temps right away. Babies don't need a big hot light to grow under.

I looked up that DM Zone and it doesn't look like it will hurt anything but I've never used an innoculant in any of my grows so it's on you. If you can get the temps down in your nutes by insulating, don't forget the rez, and using CFLs for a bit until the plants get some growth on them you shouldn't need it. My tub still has dead roots in it but the temp is at 64F so they aren't causing a problem.

Putting bottles of frozen, salted water in the rez is a temporary way to get the temps down as well.

That little floppy plant needed the support up near the top more but if the stem split it likely won't make it.

Those grow rocks are different than the hydroton I use. Maybe even better with all the different shapes and sizes.

L8r

 

[Bamalabrat]

OMU,
I spent an hour today washing more of them and trying to get enough big ones to fill in the pots. Yeah the floppy PPP has a split stem and it is doing absolutely nothing right now. So I pulled it. I am considering the cfl's. The forecast is not bad after Saturday with the cooling trend. That is why a month ago I really was considering waiting till now to start a grow. I really did think about just waiting another 5 or 6 weeks before going. However, excitement got the better of me and I started right away full bore. I thought that I could over come the heat with good air flow. But hot is hot doesn't matter how fast it is moving.
I had the chiller unit in the tent and that was dumb. That thing stayed running to try and keep the res cool but it put out a lot of heat into the tent. I have just moved it this morning and I saw a five degree drop in temp already. So the cfl's maybe worth looking at for me but I do not know yet.
I will be using the DM zone as soon as it gets to me. I am seeing just the tiniest bit of life from the other sprouts. I mean tiny. Before I was seeing new sets of leaves every 4 days, now I am struggling to see any growth day over day (or in this case over 4 days). Heat and pH issues ruined this weeks grow. The pH is fixed but still gotta deal with the heat. I will not have the pH perfect nutes until early next week. I do not have a date just a range of days. That will take so much worry and guess work out of this for me. Also starting Sunday the temps start going down a good bit, so that should solve or at least alleviate a lot of my heat issues. If these guys can just hold on for another few days, it should be a much better growing environment for them. I would love to get back on track next week.

 

[OldMedUser]

You might have bit off more than you could chew all at once but you're getting a grip on things.

If they can hang on a few more days you should get out of the woods and be on your way.

I never even thought about the heat from the chiller but with good air flow I didn't think it would raise temps in the grow space so much. I'm glad I don't have to deal with heat and high RH. Other way around for me and with the controllers on the exhaust fan and heater things stay pretty even as far as the environment in my room goes.

L8r

 

[Bamalabrat]

Yeah it is easier/cheaper to heat than to cool. The good news is that I have all four seasons. About 3 months per season. Summer does take a bit longer but we have nice falls and springs. I want to be able to grow at least 2 if not 3 per year. I will just sit out for late summer. There is no way to beat or get around this heat with out using some expensive ac units and running ridiculous amounts of electricity.

 

[Bamalabrat]

It is so sad to see them go so young. We had so short amount of time, but I really feel close to this one.
Any who, these are the pics of the PPP that I took when I pulled it out. By all accounts it was not gonna recover and after looking at the roots I am glad I did. The tap was starting to brown. Oh well. I do not know how I snapped it's stem. I think when I was moving a power cord it went over the plant and just broke the stem. The plant was so stressed anyway it could not handle it.

 

[Bamalabrat]

Update Day 18 in Veg:
Ok, so it has been three days since my last update. Sorry about that. So I got the DM zone on Thursday and put it in. I had grave concerns about the grow. One of the PPP had to be culled (look at the pics above) and the rest of them and the Tut all looked like they were going to die. To make matters worse, WW 1 looked like it had stopped growing and that made me think that I would lose it as well. They were all suffering from extreme stress due to the pH swings in the system and the heat and probably from pythium as well. Being as young as they are, they were not really able to cope with all of that. So last week was an epic fail for me.
Well after three days of sitting watch over them, today was the first time that everyone of them showed growth from where they had been in the morning to where they are now 17 hours later. My Tut is still recovering and I am not sure if it will make it. I am hopeful that it will recover and start to catch up. I will give it till Tuesday before I do a res dump and refill with the AN pH perfect nutes. They have come in and I would have already done the res dump and change over but I want to see if Tut will catch up. I really would like to have that strain in there. I will post pics tomorrow when I do the update.
OMU was right about if you mess up a FIM. I have some funny looking leaves now on WW2. I will not try that again until next weekend. Want to give her time to recover and put on a few more nodes. She is growing very strong, her stem looks great and her leaves are getting very big.
I seriously was depressed about the setbacks this week. On friday when I was checking on the grow, I could not see any improvements from Thursday. That had me thinking that I had just doomed this grow. And I am sure a bunch of the "Old Hands" following this journal thought the same. However, I am now convinced that at least six of my plants will continue growing and the seventh has a chance at making it. I am at least giving her 55 hours to see if she can get back on track. I will admit that I opened the cube to peek at the roots, and the roots were still white so that gave me hope and was the reason I gave her some more time.
Well that is it for now. Thanks for stopping by and thanks for your support with this grow. Now think happy thoughts for my Tut.

 

[dabbledo]

Doing great my man. Glad to see you are sticking with it. What do you mean opened the cube? If you're saying what I think you are saying then STOP!!!. NO MORE OPENING PLUGS. Those roots are delicate and fragile. No good will ever come of it. Only the strong survive.

Stay strong, stay green Bamalabrat. I rooting for you Tut

 

[Bamalabrat]

LOL Dab,
Yeah it meant exactly what you thought that it meant. I did it ever so gently.
The Tut is growing. It's first set of leaves are stunted. It second set is coming in. They were barely visible yesterday and today they are visible but not a lot bigger. All of the PPP is working on their third set of leaves. 2 of them are growing faster than the other two. So that is a big tell tale of how much it was shocked. I am sure if I spend the time waiting for it to catch up it will. I am just not sure if I will be ready to spend that time. On Tuesday I will do a res change and switch over to the AN pH perfect nutes. When I do that I will give a small amount of nutes. I will treat it as the first week of veg in other words. If the tut does not put on the leaves and try to catch up then I will be forced to move on with out it. The other plants are going full speed and I do not want to stunt 6 good sprouts just to accommodate one beat up slow poke. At least that is my thinking. Right now the other plants look fine. They are expressing new leaves every 3 or 4 days. So right now being patient for the tut is not hurting the others. But soon it will start to hurt the other plants growth.
So that is what I am thinking and dealing with. The good news is that the cooling trend is now begining here. It will be 3 degrees cooler every day this week! After today no more 90F temps in the forecast. By the end of the week it is predicted to be in low 70s. So that should really help my grow. I will say that moving my chiller outside of the grow tent was a really good idea for lowering the temps. I feel dumb for putting it in the tent in the first place. But that is why we say experience matters. I like going out and looking at the grow. It actually relaxes me. This is what I was hoping for with this hobby. My wife was asking me this morning when this grow will be done. I laughed and said probably in late November.

 

[Bamalabrat]

Update Day 20 in Veg:
Well I have growth on all of the sprouts now. Everything seems to be back on track. The Tut is still the smallest and it is growing but it is not going as fast as the others. I have pics and we will get to them...Well let me show you the tut over the past three days and then we will get to the rest.
So here is the Tut on the 5 - 7th of Sep.

As shown in the pics, it is about twice the size it was three days ago but so what! It just is not growing fast.

Now for the PPP. They are all doing well but 2 of them in particular are doing very well.

 

[Bamalabrat]

I did not mean to hit the post button yet so I will continue with the WW's. They are alive and well. WW2 looks funny because I attempted to FIM and messed it up. So instead of stems coming up, the clipped leaves came up and it looks pretty bad. LOL I had loved the way she looked but now with these funny looking leaves I am waiting for the next couple of nodes to cover them up. :
So first up is WW2

And this is WW1

 

[Bamalabrat]

If I get time to do so tomorrow, I will be doing a res change to the AN pH perfect nutes. I need enough time to get a wash of the buckets done. I want to check to make sure the DM zone did what it was suppose to do. We will see. I really hope this goes smoothly. I do not need the plants to go back into shock. They literally took 5 days to come out of shock last time. It was completely my fault. So I really want this one to go smooth and avoid any unforced errors. I have to say that there are three sprouts that I am really happy with right now. They are of course the best growers in the bunch. I really wish the others would hurry up and get to growing as well, but not every bean is equal. I am tired and going to go crash. Thanks for stopping by. Hope you like the pics. (when I do the res change, I will look for roots and hope to have some root porn to post.)

 

[dabbledo]

Just start really low with the AN. I wouldn't worry about the WWs and the PPPs as much as Tut. They are all drinking from the same res and tut cannot handle the nutrients that ww and ppp can at this point. I forget what or how much you are already feeding them but 2ml/gal might be a safe place to start. Did you ever get your buckets insulated?

 

[Bamalabrat]

Hey Dab.
Thanks for stopping by. This res still has the canna nutes in it. I had it on a light first week feed. It was 200 ml of parts a/b with 250 ml of a root supplement. I agree that there could be nute lock out for Tut. I really think that it's problem was the plant was almost dead and now it is recovering from that. I went back and looked at it's pictures and the stem looks really dark in a lot of the picks. Now when I look at the stem it is greening up and that makes me think it is recovering but it may not be getting real good uptake. I have not opened the cube or messed with it at all since we talked about it last time . I would love to have a look again though to see if the roots grew out and are white.
Any who, I will do a res dump and clean the buckets this morning. When I refill the res I will only be using 2 ml/gal of the AN pH perfect. I will also add 50 ml of the DM zone. When you do a top off, do you add the nutes to raise the ppm or do you only raise nutes on a weekly basis?

 

[Bamalabrat]

I have not gotten the buckets insulated yet. Holiday weekend with lots of family duties really cut into my time with my plants.

 

[Bamalabrat]

Update Day 21 in Veg:
Well today was a busy one. I did a res dump and cleaned all my buckets. That was a job! I was going as fast as I could and it took 2 hours. Part of the reason was I also redid my grow setup again. I flipped the buckets to the inside and ran the lines on the outside. So now the net pots are directly under the lights instead of to the margins. I know I should have done that in the beginning but I didn't. It is done now, so that should help. I am hoping it helps with all the weird stems and stretching. I am not sure if weird stems slows down growth but, dammit I want pretty plants!
Ok, now on to some of the vitals
pH is ~6.2
PPM of 344
I used AN Sensi Grow A/B and B-52 all at 50 ml. I also added DM zone of 50 ml. And 40 ml of pH down before adding anything just to make sure I was in the AN range for their pH perfect nutes.
The reason I added so little to the nutes is because of my Tut. I now have 2 Tuts. I know that I said I would not pop another bean and just finish this grow, but I also decided that I really wanted to make sure I had a Tut in this grow. So on Friday I dropped another Tut seed into water and put it in a plug yesterday. This morning it had sprouted out and over the plug. So when I was finished putting the system back together I placed the Tuts in the first buckets. I then placed the four PPP in the 2 and 3 spots. The WW's were placed in the 4th spots. So now my grow makes sense as to what is where and that really makes my OCD happy.
So here are some pics of what I did today. The only plant that had roots coming out of the net pot was the WW2 (the big one) and they were small and only two of them. I did not take a pic of it. The rest have roots in the hydroton but not going out of the net pots yet. Maybe on the next res dump I will be able to show some decent root porn.
So first up is some pics of the plants while I was tearing apart my system.

Now the clean empty buckets (By the way, That DM zone works like a champ! There was no slime at all in the system!)

And now here are the pics of the system put back together and running. The first pic is of the 1 and 2 spots which are the Tuts in spot 1 and PPP in spot 2

Now the pics of spots 3 and 4 with PPP in spot 3 and WW in spot 4

I will really try to get some pics tonight to update if I shocked the plants with the res change. I really do not think that they suffered too much and the pH and PPM of the water should be right in the sweet spot. Also before I forget, I also insulated the buckets. That was another reason why it took 2 hours. I really do not want to keep doing 2 hour res dumps.

p.s. The spots start at the right and go left.

 

[Bamalabrat]

Ok, I went and took a pic only of the Tuts. Everything else is doing just fine. Does not appear to be any shock in the plants at the moment. I am very happy about that!
Tut1 is doing very well right now. It was so tiny in the previous posts but now it looks normal. It's stem is turning green. It has fully formed and perfect second set of leaves. Just a real pleasure to see it doing so well. I really had my doubts that it was going to make it. Thanks to everyone who was thinking happy thoughts about it. Tut2 is just opening up its first set of leaves. Remember that it just popped up out of the cube this morning, so I did not expect a whole bunch out of it over the next couple of days. I just want it to make some progress everyday and hopefully by Sunday we can start upping the nutes. So here they are. Thanks for stopping by.

 

[OldMedUser]

Ok, now on to some of the vitals
pH is ~6.2
PPM of 344
I used AN Sensi Grow A/B and B-52 all at 50 ml. I also added DM zone of 50 ml. And 40 ml of pH down before adding anything just to make sure I was in the AN range for their pH perfect nutes.

Why the heck are you trying to adjust the pH? The whole idea of using those nutes is you don't have to mess with the pH at all.

PPM is good for starting little ones but don't play with the pH.

L8r

 

[Bamalabrat]

OMU,
My starting pH is 8.4 and AN says that their nutes work in a range up to 8.5. So I drop it a little and let that run with the DM zone for an hour and a half. Was only going to be an hour but I got called away. Then I added the AN nutes. I have just for fun checked the pH and it is still running in the low 6 range. So it does not appear to have hurt it. The plants all have new growth on them this morning. So....I am thinking no harm done. Even the baby Tut grew a little taller and the leaves have grown a bit over night. I would like to add another 10 ml of each of the nutes on Friday when I add some more water. I really appreciate you dropping by. And congrats on your girls. I pop over to your journal at least once a day.
Also there is a cold front coming through today. Just a mild one. But the temps are 80 or less for the foreseeable future. And the lows are going to be in the 50's. So......Yeah no more heat issues.

 

[Bamalabrat]

OMU,

Also I need to take a pick of WW2 that I tried to FIM but did not. It is so funky looking right now man. You were so right that the leaves will come in funny if you don't do it right. I would like to know when you would recommend topping the WW's. I am thinking that I want to top them now, but I am also thinking that I might wait until next week and then probably top the WW and the PPP all at the same time.