Buds Buddy's 1st Grow Journal

OK, OK already .... I get the picture. I mean I got the pictures. But you got to wait a minute.
Today is Day 20 of this grow & all my Topping on the Auto's is done. Another week & they'll be big enough to LST.
Anyway, I had mentioned in a previous post about my Haze XL & AK 47 having Dark Green Leaves & edges curling down.
The AK seems fine now but the Haze XL still has the Dark Green Shiny Leaves. I fed tonight & run off came back at 5.8 so the pH is fine. I was thinking the nutes were too strong for this particular plant. They say Haze is Hard to Grow.
I'm going to go ahead & post pics of it by itself 1st so maybe I can get some opinions. Thing is it doesn't look quite as bad under regular lights. But under LED's .... Not so good.
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A few group photo's .........
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Hey Emilya, Is this how they should look ?
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And More Pics...
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Hope I'm not over doing it on pics. I figure it's the best way to get help if needed.
The AK 47 reminds me of a Bonzai Tree. Very short & bushy so far.
The N.L. has grown the tallest so far & that happened like over night. It was shorter than most a few days ago.
But if you look closely at the pics you can see where a Fruit Fly nibbled on a leave. The fly is dead now & no more nibbling on any more leaves so I guess it's all good. Still did a spray with Neem Oil to be safe though.
Well .... tell me what you guys think of the grow so far. Does everything look fine or is there something you see I need to tend to ? LMK .... you wont hurt my feelings .... LOL.
 
Yeah that's nothing to worry about mate. It is the start of N tox but it's cool :)

There's 2 ways to fix things in coco.

These are extremely advanced methods and should only be attempted by the most masterful of Jedi growers. You may wish to sit down before reading this as it may be too much and just blow your mind right into the stratosphere.

Are you ready for It.....
Sitting down with a phone handy just in case it gives you a heart attack...
Drum roll.....
Tatatatatatatatatatat......

Rule No1-
Feed quarter strength nutes. Always feed every day to run off.
If your plants are a bit bigger and that makes the bottom leaves go yellow then engage rule No2...
Half strength nutes fed every day till run off.
Can't go wrong mate. As in like literally nothing at all can possibly go wrong.
That's all there is to growing in coco In a nutshell.

Feed veg nutes for veg.
Feed bloom nutes for bloom.
Don't feed them vodka.
Don't let cats play in the grow room.
If it looks like the light is about to set them on fire raise it a little.
If there's Gail force winds comming from a fan and it's threatening to blow them out the tent then turn it down a little.

It's honestly that easy mate.
Don't need to know anything to grow in coco man. Just quarter strength till they start to yellow at the bottom then go up to half strength.

If you feed to run off every day at quarter strength you'll pretty much eliminate the possibility of anything at all going wrong.
Can feed them 20 times a day or even 24/7 if it makes you happy and absolutely nothing will go wrong.
I've got plants in 4inch Rockwools which is basically the same thing as coco and I feed them a few hundred litres a day from a recirc pump. 300 roughly I think.
Gotta be careful to start with Seedlings.(you're at exactly the point where I stop calling them that) they can only handle maybe a hundred litres a day.

You'll be sitting there thinking "aye right, who's this idiot thinking he can explain how to grow in 2 sentences and feeding his plants half a liquid ton every day"
But after my many moons of research, research, research, I've come to the conclusion that that's all there is to know for a perfect coco grow mate.

Quarter strength then half strength. Feed every day to run off.

That's it man. 11 words explain it all.
Bit of an anti climax isn't it lol.
I was fuckin gutted when I realised I'd wasted 3 years figuring that out :).
 
It's White Widow crossed with _______ Breath ? Can't remember what the guy said it was. The seed was given to me because I liked the weed so much. LB might be it .... but not sure what LB is.
So you think it may be the start of N tox also. I kind of thought that by what I've read & seen pics of but wasn't sure.
I thought my nute mix seemed pretty strong. I was just following the directions on the bottles & thinking wow I sure have to use a lot compared to the General Hydroponics nutes I use to use. I would think with Advanced Nutrients at close to 3 times the cost you would use even less. But no, they want you to use 4 times more. Sure wondering if it's worth the price. The end result will tell.
I did start with 1/4 strength, then 1/2 & then 3/4. Everything looked good at 1/4 & 1/2 strength but 3/4 strength seems too strong to me. I'll go back down to 1/4 strength & see if things look better. Perfect timing because I have to mix this weeks nutes today.
So far I've only fed every 2 days. So you think i should feed everyday ? Takes about a 1/2 gallon per plant in order to get run off. Pot weight is always still heavy the next day. This is the part that's kind of confusing. They say go by pot weight to know when to feed. Then I'm told to feed everyday. If I go by pot weight then it takes 2 days to lighten up enough.
If I give less water I don't get run off. What to do? Go by pot weight or feed every day? It seems most people feed every day in Coco & they say it's hard to over water so I guess i'll feed everyday from now on. Bad part is I have to mix twice as many gallons.
So since Coco uses a lot of Cal Mag (so I'm told) should I be feeding it every time ? Should that only be 1/4 strength also ? I've been using it at 3/4 strength (12 ml. per gallon) which seems like a lot to me. However, I haven't gotten any more red spots on my leaves since I upped the dosage from 1/2 strength to 3/4.
Thank you for your input. It's much appreciated !!!
 
I've heard of people using Epsom salts in place of Cal Mag. Can you give me some insight on this ? I have a small bag in case I ever need it but hell, I'm not sure how to tell if or when I'll need it. Just figured it best to have on hand just in case someone said I needed it to help with something so bought some. But I'd still like to know the story on it & what it's used for, etc. Just an extra piece of knowledge I'd like to have.
 
I would also like to know more about this ppm thing. I've never paid attention to it so far. But today I decided to check it & Water right from the Tap is 204 ppm at 7.4 pH. Once I add Nutes & pH to 5.8 the ppm is around 804 ppm. Not sure where it's suppose to be or how to raise or lower it. Anyone care to explain ? The more info I can gather .... The better I'll get at this !
 
Yeah people do use Epsom for calmag but it's not something I've done tbh. Calmag only £10 A litre and lasts a while anyway.

I see a lot of people say that coco makes you need lots of calmag. Lots of people say blurples light makes you need more too. Yet here I am with coco and blurples and I still rarely touch the stuff lol.

Soil needs to dry out between waterings but not coco.

What happens when you feed coco like soil is that the nutes build in the pot which raises the ph and causes lock outs so everyone thinks they're getting deficits and ups the calmag. It fixes it for a while then the mag blocks out the cal. Etc etc etc.

With your tap water at over 200ppm you shouldn't need any calmag yet. Maybe a small amount from stretch to the end but shouldn't need much, if any for veg . Mine is only 48ppm.

Now the ppm thing. It's easy mate.
(Ppm) Parts per million of (tds) total disolved solids in a liquid.
In this case that means how strong the nutes are.

The nutes you're using are mostly salts that have been liquidized. If you pour some onto cardboard and leave it to dry out you'll see it.

What happens in coco if it dries out is the liquids turn back into solids and build up so you gotta feed little and often to get the best results. By getting lots of run off your ensuring these salts don't build up.

The result is that your run off ph and ppm will be almost identical to what went In.
That means you can reuse it too cos it's still properly balanced.
It also means you can use the ppm meter to tell you how strong to make it.
If the ppm is going up it's too strong.
If it's going down more than a little it's too weak. The coco is zero ppm (assuming you washed it and it's no additives?) So doesn't effect ppm.

When we talk about ppm, we should always miss out the ppm of the water.
That can throw things wildly off course.
Some guys got like 400ppm+ from the tap (which doesn't kill them) and it's full of chlorine (which is good for many coco/hydro growers).
If you're not using beneficial bacteria you need something to stop the bad bacteria growing and what's in your tap water? Bleach :) yaaay, Tada :)
 
Oh I missed the actual point again. Sorry lol.
Quarter strength means 300-400ppm worth of nutes, Not including the water.
So with your 200ppm water you want to be aiming for no more than 600ppm total. 400ppm total will more than suffice for the next couple weeks if you feed often enough. They really don't need much at all mate.

Lots of folk think you can force feed them by adding more of this and that. Foliar feeding while youre feeding the roots and lots of other wonderful things but the reality is the plant will only absorb what it wants to.
The roots have a certain level of intelligence and pluck different things out of the solution at different times. As and when required.
Providing everything is at a strength level and ph level that allow for it to be absorbed.

When you grow in a small enough reservoir you can see it by watching how the ph and ppm fluctuate. Painting by numbers sort of thing. How the 2 numbers react in relation to each other tells you what's happening to the nutrients and for big plants you can literally see hour to hour when they stop drinking nutes and stock up on water. Sometimes they have massive gulps of nutes and very little water. It's pretty cool when you notice it.
 
OK, Well I just mixed 10 gallons of Nutes & ppm is 804 ppm so I'm thinking of diluting it with 5 gallons of pH 5.8 water to bring it closer to 600 ppm. Will this work by diluting it ?
Good info. I understand it a little better now.
Next I'll have to learn the EEC thing but don't have a meter for that yet.
 
EC stand for electrical conductivity, basically it plays hand in hand with tds and ppm. The more salts in the solution the higher the electrical conductivity! I'm in the same boat as you buds I never knew there was so much science behind growing but there lots of articles relating to these relationships on google that can explain way better then I.
I've been reading like I never have before lol but your ladies are looking healthy!
 
Buds Buddy said:
I've heard of people using Epsom salts in place of Cal Mag. Can you give me some insight on this ? I have a small bag in case I ever need it but hell, I'm not sure how to tell if or when I'll need it. Just figured it best to have on hand just in case someone said I needed it to help with something so bought some. But I'd still like to know the story on it & what it's used for, etc. Just an extra piece of knowledge I'd like to have.
Click to expand...
In coco that will work fine, in soil it is not recommended to pre-load soil with magnesium, because according to Mulder's chart, that will lock out other needed nutrients. In soil, it is best to give magnesium in small amounts as needed, hence the huge popularity of the calmag products.
 
Yeah, that's about all I know about EC also. I have no idea what the reading should be or how to make proper adjustments though. It kinds of sounds like if the reading is too high you would either have to flush or use less nutrients if it's not too far off. And if it was low I guess you would increase the Nute strength. Got me ??? I hate to assume things. I'd rather know I'm on the right track.
I don't know where people get growing in Coco is easier than soil. I've been told that over & over. They're crazy !
There's a lot more tending to your plants in Coco. With soil it was water or feed every 2 - 3 days & that was it. Now I'm in my tent daily doing things. Sure hope it's worth all the extra effort. To me if I don't pull 4 - 6 oz. per plant this wont be worth all the trouble. But if it does, I'll try to perfect this grow method the best I can.
 
OK .... Tonight I fed each plant 4 - 12 oz. Cups of week 4 Nutes at 1/4 Strength & pH was 5.8 going in but came back at 5.6 so I'm thinking maybe I should up the pH to 6.0 til Run off is 5.8 & then go back to pH 5.8 Nutes. Thoughts ???
Also the ppm going in was 596 & Run Off was only 150 ppm. Not sure if ppm is suppose to come back the same as when it went in or not. @Barney86 will know though.
Other than that the girls are looking good. I'll add new pics in a day or 2.
 
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