ClosetCase420's - RDWC - 600W MH/HPS - Wonder Woman - Grow Journal - 2015

[closetcase420]

If your getting less than 50 from fridge, I'd just stick with that, no need to spend the extra money if you don't have to. Your plants seem to like it. Out of my fridge is still 550

No the 50 from the fridge is my drinking water.

For the plants I have tapped into one of the water lines in the house so it's actually a direct water line, no filtration. It doesn't seem to be very steady as it's ranged from 130 - 320 PPM before I start adding any nutrients.

 

[Papageno]

Cool beans. So do you want to tell me what you think is happening? or should I tell you?

 

[closetcase420]

Since the water level is going down and PPM is rising this means the plants are not taking in the nutrients, correct?

If that's the case; when I top off with CalMag water the PPMs should come down a bit right?

 

[Papageno]

EXACTLY...Well there is more to learn which I will explain now...But I wanted to read you saying that at the bare min so you just made my day.

So lets start with the Ph. As previously discussed you are in Veg so you want it closer to 6.2 but this is not an issue so I wouldn't touch it. The reason I bring it up is your plants will have slightly less accessible Veg nutes at the lower Ph so the PPM's may not drop REAL fast for that as well...but that really is nothing to consider at this point just something to think about.

The PPM going up while H2O drops you are correct implies H2O usage is faster than nutes. So the real question is why?

Again most of those plants are still living on the seed nutes. You have 1 plant that might be using res nutes but all of them are drinking water at this point. So if it were me I would have just now started introducing nutes...But you are fine. The concentration of nutes is still low so you are not going to burn anything. So now you can start to get a feel for how much nutes your setup will allow.

The nute requirements are a function of growth rate but do not cause the plants to grow. Nutes are not food for plants. Nutes are like the bacteria in your gut allowing the plant to use the results of photosynthesis to grow. Food for plants is the light. Water is only needed for 2 things..transportation of stuff and it is used in some of the chemical processes but not much... mainly it is for transportation and for sweating. Yes the bottom of the fan leaves have little holes in it and the plants will breath through them and perspire. (in DWC it is common to find on leaf under another one that is totally wet because the one above is perspiring all over it)

So the nute uptake depends on your PAR levels and your ventilation and the stage of growth. So if you are awesome then the plants is growing fast you can get the nute levels up to over 2K PPMs but don't think for a second that pushing the nutes up there is good or causing this. The Desired PPM is the result of things not the cause of things. So you monitor this and as the plants start to grow and take in more you just keep upping the PPM to a level that is just consistent whatever that is. You may end up never needing to go over 1000 PPM in your grow and that is fine.

 

[closetcase420]

Something I never really concerned myself with before is the fact that the plants will all consume at different levels especially considering the size difference. Do you think it would have been better to only have grown the one plant?

Also I just added back approx 2 gallons of water to the tank.

I took a base reading, added CalMag and took another reading, then added the water to the tank.

The base reading was 115 PPM 7.8 PH

After CalMag was 240 PPM

Normally I would adjust the PH to bring it down to a more reasonable level.
Since the tank PH is a bit today (5.5) I figured adding this could be a nice offset.

After adding the water to the tank the new sample reading is

PH 6.3
PPM 562

 

[Papageno]

Naw you can grow multiple plants not an issue. More of an issue is if one is male. Cutting it out when all the roots are intertwined is fun...Been there done that...we can work through that when we get there.

I think your res should be fine but that is a very big jump in Ph. Nothing will be harmed it will be fine it is just unnatural for the plant to see that typically so you may stress it out for a few hours. But I doubt it. I bet you wont notice a thing wrong. Give it 2 hours and take another reading and if it is drifting up then lets start to slowly try to bring it back to 6.

 

[closetcase420]

Took another reading..

PH 6.0
PPM 544

Looks like it's in a good zone now. I'll take another later tonight.

 

[Papageno]

Rock and roll...It may continue to drop but it wont go bad...you are looking stable I think.

 

[closetcase420]

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody

PH 6.0
PPM 557

 

[Papageno]

Gobble...gobble gobble gobble , gobble gobble.

 

[Emilya Green]

Gobble...gobble gobble gobble , gobble gobble.

the village turkey!

 

[Jayorganic]

I am in week 5 of flower with 3 wonder woman, DWC, 600 watt, GH flora 3 part whole line, I've grown other nirvana strains in DWC and soil, wonder woman seems to like a higher ppm

 

[closetcase420]

Thanks for the heads up Jay, any pics of your girls?

 

[closetcase420]

Today is 4 weeks (28 days under the lights)

All is looking well in my land.. I'm seeing nice continuous growth from each of the plants. The middle girl has just exploded in size so far.

The water level dropped a couple more gallons so I went ahead and refilled it again with non ph balanced cal mag water.
Before topping off the tank was reading 5.3/591 and now is reading 6.0/535

 

[Jayorganic]

 

[Jayorganic]

Sorry about it being sideways, still trying to figure out how the photo upload works

 

[Papageno]

So see how big and healthy they have gotten without adding nutes yet? Didn't expect that now did ya? So it is using some but the point is it isn't using a lot.

The light is the food. The nutes aid in converting the results of photo synthesis into stuff around the plant. But extra nutes don't help. If you up the light intensity then you get more photosynthesis and you will need more nutes. But nutes are only used in a supporting capacity and only needed when the plant is getting good light.

 

[Papageno]

So as it grows there are more fan leaves..therefore more solar panels...then we will need to up the nutes becaue more photosynthesis is happening. But let the res tell you when. Don't follow a prescription from someone else's setup. You are at a dose that is not bad enough to harm them so just keep it stable and when the nute uptake starts to exceed your water uptake then you know you are getting into the early teens.

 

[closetcase420]

Sounds like a plan VI

I just want to make sure, I should "not" defoliate the large fan leaves at this time?

 

[Papageno]

No defoliation is another one of those bad things you don't want to do that is spread by cannabis growers because they did something once and misinterpreted the results. It is fine and recommended to Tuck fan leaves but do not prune them to make space for other leaves that is a futile battle based on misunderstanding a basic premis. Our plants do not have the longevity or types of issues for defoliation to be helpful. The stalks and flowers do not do photosynthesis. The act of growing only comes from the leaves so removing them will slow overall growth.

Cannabis is a very robust plant and will quickly rebound from all kinds of abuse so people make mistakes and see it bounce back quickly and think it was the right thing to do.

When leaves are being blocked so much that they are not helping anymore they will turn yellow and come off easily by hand when ready and this will not slow the growth rate. So just tuck for now if you want light to get by to something else.

Every time you cut the plant is releases hormones that stunt and slow growth. A few cuts is not a big deal and hardly noticeable. When you prune off 1/3 or more of the plant it could go into shock and just not grow for a while. So when you get a setup with properly spaced pots you will have a much easier time at this and then you will want to try to limit pruning to once a week. NEVER more than 1/3 a plant in a week and preferably not little cuts here and there every day. That causes the plant to be perpetually in repair mode.


The problem is the net pots are too close but that is what it is. The answer is a SCROG so you can train everything away from each other.

I would have put 2 plants in a lid that size and SCROG them to fill that space in a very short time. Your SCROG is a bit open and since you have 5 plants in that space it may not even be all that necessary. I would use it only to even out the height of the plants and then start bloom because 5 plants in that space will fill it up. For me I would be pushing it to grow 2 in that space because I train and grow bushy plants.