First Grow Ever Grandmommy Purple - Started With Ebb & Flow Then Forced To Change To DWC Mid-Grow

Hello! Thanks for checking this out. I want to start by saying please feel free to comment and discuss.

This is my first grow and, really, I have an idea of what to do but have no idea what I’m doing. It’s a lot of fun. With that in mind, any help, guidance, input, criticisms, suggestions, etc are totally welcome. Actually, I am posting here because I am looking for more interactivity, as I do have this log posted from the beginning somewhere else. So here we goooooo!

To start I am currently on day 25 of flower and will be back posting everything up until we are current. I have been keeping a lot more detailed of a log, like I mentioned above, so unfortunately these initial rapid fire posts will suffer day-to-day details until I get totally updated.

Strain: Grandmommy Purple - Photoperiod - Herbies Seeds

“Her terpene profile induces a powerful nostalgia that is unforgettable. Like something straight out of a fairy tale, good ol’ Grandmommy Purple will take you on a journey through the woods to Grandma’s house, with pungent scents of wild berries and sweet flavors of fruity hard candies along the way.
  • Combining Big Bud and Purple Urkle
  • 20% Sativa / 80% Indica
  • Marketed potency level averaging between 28-33% THC
Tent: 4x4

Light: Mars Hydro FC6500 – 730w

Medium: Hydroton/LECA

Nutrients: Advanced Nutrients - looking to replace this for next grow. Mixing nutes takes so much time with 10 million bottles Just look at the picture below, it's actually kind of funny... Although, the plants are doing awesome....
  • Mother veg period / After cloning veg period nutes - pH perfect sensi grow a/b, cal-mag xtra, b-52, epsom salt, and Botanicare Silica blast used for mother veg period and after cloning veg period.
  • Clonex Gel used during cloning
  • Flower nutes - pH perfect sensi bloom a/b, sensizym, piranha, cal-mag xtra, b-52, epsom salt(I backed off adding this as it raised ppm too much and with all this other stuff... I had to phase something out and it was epsom salt), and Botanicare Silica blast, bud candy, big bud, nirvana
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I germinated one seed on 9/7/22.

I know what you are thinking, “But Dabbert, 1 seed, 125 days ago? How have you not harvested yet?”. Well random internet denizen, let me tell you; I took that one seed and grew out a plant then harvested clones from it. So I am currently growing out 4 clones from one seed.

And now let’s get deeper into it.

Since this is my first grow, I had a lot to chose from. For some reason I am familiar with the concept of ebb and flow and it feels right for me. So I went ahead and designed what I thought was going to be the best ebb and flow system I could.
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Well that worked for the first 16 weeks but I ended up having to switch to a DWC system near the 12/12 flip. But we will get to all that. A quick breakdown of the system:

I built this to be ebb and flow system contained in a bucket. The medium is just clay balls(leca/hydroton) in a 10" net pot. The reservoir is a 12 gallon tote but I will only put 4-4.5 gallons of water in it. The res pumps into a 3.5 gal bucket that sits in a hole cut in the reservoir lid. The bucket sits on a rack in the reservoir to keep it out of the water otherwise the bucket would not drain. The pump will pump a minimum of every 3 hours for at most 2 minutes to flood the bucket completely. It drains empty usually around 5 minutes. Also, I put an air stone in each reservoir that ran for 30 mins 6x a day.


I just wanted to make sure I outlined the system I built for the grow before we move on to the growing.


9/7 – seed germinated after 24 hours in a glass of water then 2-3 days in a wet paper towel.
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9/12 – in the cube ready to rock
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Day 17 – I wasn’t taking many photos between 9/7 and 9/24
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Day 21 – I think I wasn’t giving nutrients yet, but I was PH-ing the water too high. I was thought high 6s mid 7s was a good ph level for hydro. I don’t know why, but this PH level continued for a few weeks before I figured out what I was doing.
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Day 23 – I decided to top the plant here. My end goal was many tops for clones. This is going to be a mother plant.
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- Tied the leaves back later in the day after the topping because they were crowding the new growth.


Day 25
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Day 27
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Day 29
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- The plant is only like 6 inches tall at this point and is stupid bushy and compact.


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- This is when I started suspecting problems going on and started looking into it. It was at this point that I corrected my PH and started keeping it within the range of 5.5-6.2 and also backed way way way off the nutrients.



Day 31

I cut a few leaves off the top to reveal the growth under. It’s like every leaf is crowding every other leaf and they are all fighting for the light.
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- It also has an aversion to getting taller. But I did top it so… there’s that. Also, I am starting to paint lids to block light.


Day 33
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- I topped it again, I topped both tops and I think a side branch or two. Not sure really. I know I was trying out topping and fimming.


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- Also, this is when I found the branch I call “special branch” and then eventually Sawtooth. It had developed “fasciation” of its stem and that caused unique growth that caught my eye early on.


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- Side view showing structure and some of the LST.


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- Really starting to question the Nitrogen content of the feeing here.


Day 34
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- Here’s more of that special branch.

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- I just liked how this leaf looked.


Day 35
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- Leaves keep getting in each other’s way.


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- I keep tucking leaves blocking the special branch’s new growth.


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- Side view



I have to post here for the 40 image per post limit
 
Day 36
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Day 37
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^ I cut off blocking leaves here to reveal undergrowth so thick it was squished up under and against the leaves I removed.



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^ So this was a funny situation. I was cutting away things not knowing what I was doing and I actually removed all the new shoot growth on this one branch. I had left only one, but forgot when I was clipping leaves. I actually wasn’t trying to try “fimming”. What had happened was that I tried removing growth by pinching with my fingers instead of a clipper. Well, a few things happened. First thing was that I immediately noticed that I just pulled off the last of the growing shoots on a lower branch and I thought I had condemned it to death or something. Then the second thing I noticed was that I didn’t get it all with my fingers. I didn’t think much of it as I was more worried about the lack of shoots. Well, the tiny tiny part I missed FORCED it’s way into being and what is pictured here are the willing, striving, determined, and deformed nubs fighting to break into the light.



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^ Here is that special branch





Day 38
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^ I swear it’s turning into 4 leaves instead of 3 instead of 2.



Day 39 –

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^ Well where there’s a will there’s a way. The fimmed spot marches on



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^ Got the lid painted with it's final coat. Along with all the other reservoir lids.





Day 40 –

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^ Special branch



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^ Still so short and bushy





Day 41 –

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^ I am not sure what this special branch is even doing anymore



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^ Wow that fimmed shoot though.


Day 42 –

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^ Special branch shot



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^ Fimmed new growth


Day 43 –

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^Are plants supposed to be so bushy like this? I always thought they were lankier.



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^ Yea, that is definitely 4 leaves now.


Day 46 -

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^ Special branch still going.


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^ Side view of the crazy special branch growth. I found out later, this is due to "Fasciation" of the stem.


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^ So short and bushy



Day 47 -

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^ One day before I take cuttings


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^ Close up of where I accidentally fimmed that shoot. Did fine. Just fine.



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^ Special branch doing special branch things. Double serration is also becoming a prominent feature of the leaves.


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^ Another side shot of the special branch.
 
Day 49 -

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^ Day of the chop.

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^ Special branch

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^ Assessing the structure after cutting away branches to reveal how the plant grew.

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^ After taking a lot of the plant off for cuttings.

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^ Here is the fimmed branch that sprouted from nothing.

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^ This was an anomaly, I found a 3rd shoot coming off the new topped stem instead of 2. It didn't get much light so it didn't really establish, but was unique to see.

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^ I saved the special branch for last so I could see it's whole structure in all it's glory. It has crazy growth and since this is my first grow, I had no idea what this was. I ended up doing research later on down the line in the grow and found out what it was. Super odd.


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^ This was crazy, I was just sitting in the tent finishing up and my peripheral vision kept triggering and when I looked nothing was there. Well, it was water dripping out of every cut stem. It dripped for hours... I felt bad, it was like it was crying.


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^ WOWOWOWOW ROOTS!

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^ This was the first indication of a problem. The roots had grown into the bottom of the bucket. I noticed this and started trying to combat it. I placed something in the bottom of the bucket that would block the roots from getting to the drainage holes. Because I started finding roots growing through the holes I drilled for drainage in the bottom of the bucket. What really surprised me was that the roots had grown completely around and encapsulated the thing I put in the bottom of the bucket and ended up getting back to the drainage holes. This is going to end up being a reoccurring issue that I have to start dealing with more and more. It will eventually lead to me having to change to DWC. I was severely unprepared for the tenacity and amount(volume) of roots I would have to deal with. This was not something I thought about too much in my design. Actually, it was supposed to be a bucket in a bucket system that sat in a tote. But I deleted the 2nd bucket because it was pointless after finding how the roots grew.



I still actually need to figure this issue out. Because I love this system, I want a contained ebb and flow. I will be redesigning my system after this grow is done because of all the things I have learned so far. I need to figure out a better way to return the water. I was doing research into copper and how roots avoid it. I may try and put a mesh layer of copper at the bottom of a bucket then put some other stuff on top of it that water can go through. In my mind, this will stop the roots from growing through the holes in the bottom of the bucket. But really, that design does not work and I will be looking to delete the individual reservoirs to have a single reservoir outside the tent for ease of mixing and ph adjustments.



The way I designed the system now, is kind of a pain that I did not foresee. Like I have to go to each reservoir and adjust the ph individually. Early on, I had to go into the tent to do this because of how I arranged the reservoirs in the tent. After that became impossible because of there not being any space, I spun the reservoirs so that I could access each res from outside the tent. But then I kept having to apply bandaids to the problems that came up. So there were a bunch of light leaks. So I had to use a lot of aluminum foil to block it. But to open the reservoirs, I have to move the aluminum foil each time then put it back. It's really just a lot of stuff.



Another issue with the system I built is the time it takes for water transfer. Like I have to empty each reservoir one at a time and then fill them up one at a time. It's a lot. But a good learning experience nonetheless for how to build a better less labor intensive system. I already have quite a few ideas that I can't wait to put into action once I complete this grow.



Anyways, let's continue.



We are still on Day 49 -

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^ The last thing I did on Day 49(10/26) was put the clones I picked into an aeroponic cloner I built. They looked so sad and droopy after I cut them from their mother. I actually had to prop them up otherwise they would have just flopped over. I was kind of scared at this point actually. I was like oh F!@# oh F!@# oh F!@#, prop em up prop em up it's fine just a little droop don't worry I definitely didn't strip you of your home and transplant you into some weird alien hospital for breeding.


Anyways, I built a pretty basic cloner and it was easy with stuff I already had for the system lying around. But I did have to buy sprayer nozzles. Either way, I built it and it worked for what I needed. There were fatalities, but I got the 4 clones I needed and that's all that mattered to me.




Day 50 -

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^ Phew, they look awesome now. I removed the supports. They not dead! I'm not a failure, well at least in this endeavor.

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^ I had extras just in case.


Day 52 -

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^ Definitely doing a lot better. I also had to add something to block light. Enter the foil.


Day 56 -

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Day 57 -


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^ Woooooo roots, I'm doing it

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Day 58 -

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^ Side shot of the special branch as a clone.

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^ I started doing stupid stuff though, like cutting off the bottom of the clone because I didn't like how the stem with no roots looked.

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^ Here's a shot of the special branch's roots.
 
Day 60 -

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^ Special branches roots

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^ Side view of the special branch and it's roots.

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- I have decided that it is time to transplant them into their final homes.

Day 61 - This is where I started trying to implement preventative measures for root containment. It eventually failed. I saw a photo of someone using mesh bags to contain their roots. Initially I bought the same type of bag they had but the microns were way to big and roots grew right through them. I eventually removed them and changed to a much smaller micron bag, but the roots grew through those as well! You will see.

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^ Here's how I used the mesh net bags

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^ Ok, they ready


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^ Finally! The tent is ready to go, everything set and ready.


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^ POOF! Transplanted.

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Day 63 -

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^ One of the cuttings seems to have developed a deficiency.

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^ Special branch is starting up the busy growth again
 
Day 64 -

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- The plants started to have really light green growth.


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- This cutting ended up being a lot taller than the other cuttings, so what I did was flooded the bucket completely and removed some LECA. That way, when the water flooded the bucket, the water level was above the LECA and made it really easy to reseat the cutting deeper into the LECA. So the sinking procedure went really well.

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- The deficiency on this plant continued until I ended up fixing it. The problem was something to do with PH. Like I needed to keep the ph at a better level on this one because the imbalance was causing the plant to not take up certain nutrients. Once I balanced it and kept it balanced, the plant recovered quickly. However, this plant was stunted initially because of the deficiency.


Day 71 -


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Week 10 - days 67-73 - To make things a little easier on me, since this is getting long, I will try and zoom through the next weeks(with few notes) until flower and then current.

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^ Top of deficient plant

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^ Double serration is a very prominent feature throughout all the plants. When I first noticed it, it was on the special branch I with Fasciation I cloned. So I designated that plant sawtooth.

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^top of biggest plant



\/ top of smallest plant that had a deficiency
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^ First of the 4 plants topped


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^Sawtooth and its dense fasciated growth

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^ up close of Sawtooth


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^ deficient plant is recovering nicely

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^ I'm going to top Sawtooth here.

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^ this is a much more normal looking version of what I expected all the plants to look like. But they didn't and have been very short, stout, bushy, and dense with growth. This is actually the first time I noticed what I would call typical or standard growth. The way everything is spacing and how the leaves are growing further out from the to not be in the way of other growth behind it.


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Week 11 - days 74-80 -

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^ Yea, I am going to top Sawtooth here

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^ Sawtooth's top

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^ Sawtooth after topping

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^ The fasciation of Sawtooth's stem caused stunted growth and was not as tall as the other plants by a good amount. Only after topping it, did the plant catch up vertically and there was no more fasciated growth.

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- Topped all the plants and started LST on some of them. Trying to keep them in line with Sawtooth, the shortest plant.

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^ Sawtooth is crazy

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^ Plant B is responding well to LST

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^ Plant C is doing well after topping.

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^ Plant D is looking awesome

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^ First time I cleaned up inner growth


Week 12 - days 81-87 -


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^ The time had come to clean up Sawtooth's undergrowth


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^ Measured all 4 plants

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When the first bags didn't work. I ordered different bags with a smaller micron mesh. This did not work to contain the roots either as I learned the root tips are like 15 micron... and using a bag smaller than 70 micron really messed with drainage... I don't even remember the newer bag's micron size as it doesn't even matter now lololol

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^ Plant B and C comparison. C was deficient early on and topped differently

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^ Plant B is crazy
 
Week 13 - days 88-94 -

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^ Sawtooth height and overhead

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^ Plant B height and overhead

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^ Plant C height and overhead



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^ Plant D height and overhead


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^ See. The bags didn't work at all to contain the roots.


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^ This was one of my huge mess ups. During a water change I didn't plug 2 pumps back in and they plants didn't get water for 12 hours and they were on a frequent flooding schedule. I was so sorry.


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^ They bounced back quick though


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^ Mixing up those nutes

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^ By the end of this week, it was hard to take individual photos of the plants anymore.


Week 14 - days 95-101 - I had a deficiency this week because I was only topping up with ph'd tap water and I went longer than usual when I needed to mix a new batch of nutes. So the plants were basically just on water for a few days. This caused several deficiencies across all the plants. This was problematic as I wanted to flip to 12/12, but I didn't want to start flower on a deficiency. So I waited until I saw things correct.

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- Sawtooth

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- Plant B

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- Plant C

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- Plant D


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- The deficiency appears


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- I continue monitoring the leaves

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- Canopy shot, girls are filling out the tent nicely

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- and the green is returning to the leaves.

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- This leaf looked like it was eating itself
 
Week 15 - days 102-108 - The plants bounced right back from the deficiency and are thriving. This is a huge week for the grow. This is the week we flip to 12/12 and also it is the first major defoliation I do to the plants.

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^ 12/20 Group photo - Sawtooth and Plant D in the front

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- Such dense growth. I timidly tried to clean this up

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- You can barely tell I even did anything

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- I pulled plant D out for access all around the plant.

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- Here's how that ended up

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- With this wall of growth I have a lot more pruning / defoliation to do.


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^ Cleaned those plants up nice



Week 16 - First week of flower - days 109-115 -

Ok, so this is a huge week. That is why I am updating early in the week. After switching the lights last week, I think I am seeing signs of flowering. So this will be the first week of flower.

Besides the flowering, the big updates are that I have changed the system to be DWC and no longer ebb and flow... I really like my original systems design / the idea behind how the original system worked. So it sucks to have to retire it. But it's for the best as now I can rebuild better, stronger and hopefully way less clogging prone. Either way, everything seems to have come together as I had no choice to do this. Otherwise, the buckets would eventually totally clog and not drain and I don't even know how I would handle that. This is because I am no longer able to separate the net pots from the buckets.

Since the bucket design I have has a ring tube going around the inside of the bucket, this causes the opening to be narrower than the bucket. The roots, over the past week, have grown into a mass in the bottom of the bucket and are no longer able to clear the ring tube. Since the tube is connected to the bucket I can't pull any of it out.

So the solution I came up with was to take 4 5-gallon buckets and cut them up. I turned them into risers to hold the net pots and put that in the reservoir. The roots are exposed in the buckets and I fill the reservoirs with water. Pop in the air stones, slap em on 24/7 and boom... DWC I think. lol. I actually don't know anything about DWC and probably should have looked into it before doing this. But after I was unable to remove the net pots from the bucket to relieve blockage, I had to make a decision before I had a catastrophic failure.

This week for the reservoir change, I changed the nutes to the Bloom side.

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^ Here's what the roots looked like. You can see its a crazy mass in there. The roots actually hold water as well. They were easily able to clog the drainage and kept messing with flooding and draining timing. So I had to. Also, there is no black on the roots, they are just really oddly transparent and color ummm flows through them.

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^ Here's how the buckets sit in the reservoir

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^ I tried to apply a trellis net I bought, but I didn't like how it was recessed away from the wall and the squares didn't go from wall to wall.

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^ Up close of early flowering signs


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^ Got and put up a different trellis net
 
Week 17 - 2nd week of flower - days 116-122 - This week I learned a bunch about DWC as I knew nothing about it really and had to address a few issues. I was feeding way way too hot for DWC apparently. I was also topping off with mixed nutes and not checking ppms. I was only checking ph and that was spiking up to 6.4-6.7 from 5.5 daily. I was starting to have to check and adjust ph 2x a day during lights on. Some reservoirs also started needing a lot more like 6x-10x more ph down to adjust down to 5.5. Like I used to be able to adjust with 3-5ml of ph down but after the nutrient line up change and the change to DWC for some reason I was putting up to 30ml in the same reservoirs to get down from 6.6. It's kind of crazy really.

I figured it out though... Or at least am working toward figuring it out. I learned because the whole grow I was struggling with ph issues and burnt tips. I was doing very well mid veg after cloning to keep ph in check and had drastically reduced yellowing burning tips. Then the res change messes with the ph hard and the ppms spike too. When I finally ended up testing the ppms, I found them in the 1800s. This was after mixing up 1100-1200ppm feedings.

This is where I also learned what VPD really was. I thought it was something totally different tied to the amount of air being displaced within the tent as it was tied to kPa and thought it had to do with the exhaust system. Nope.

So at the end of this week is when I started replacing water with ph'd tap water only and trying to keep the ppms in the 800-1000 range for now. I will keep trying to make it go down as I now know what to look for. I had retired the note pad for tracking data sets, but I had to pull it out now to track ppm movements over time.


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- 1/2 - Should I pull off the calyxes? I never did when removing leaves and shoots. This won't turn into a bud site and produce flower, right?


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^ Flowers are starting to look like flowers.


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^ showing dense growth under canopy level... needs defoliation badly

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^ This is Plant B and C side, photos before defoliation

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^ After defoliation on B / C side

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^ All cleaned up on B / C side


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^ The plants are still in the stretch

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^ Much darker on this side because the growth is so thick there is no light penetration. But if you look across, Plants B and C have a much brighter side cause I thinned them out.

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Week 18 - 3rd week of flower - days 123-129 - Ok, so her we are. We made it. We are basically almost all caught up. I'll post what I have from this week and will continue all subsequent updates for the grow. We are currently in this week.

Good thing - flowers look great.
Bad thing - many flowers and leaf regrowth causes hard to control high humidity.

Good thing - After monitoring ph more closely and checking 2x during lights on I noticed an improvement with ph swings and less ph down has been needed.
Bad thing - I had to change the reservoir water so hopefully this issues doesn't come back with replenished nutes cause maybe the problem went away cause plants ate all bud candy juice. ::shruggy face::

Good thing - In addition to the ph correction, I have been topping off the reservoirs with ph'd water or distilled water and that, in addition to keeping ph in check, has reduced the foam issues in some reservoirs and also helped keep the ppms down.
Bad thing - The increased amount of water in each reservoir means that my 27gallon tote for mixing is no longer large enough and I have to go and get a larger one as each reservoir is holding 7 gallons. I will need at least 35 gallon tote I think.

Good thing - did I mention the flowers look great?
Bad thing - doesn't really smell like anything yet unless I rub a frosty leaf, but even then very tame smelling. Kinda like berry gunpowder. But the gunpowder is on the front of the smell and berry is a secondary note. Looking forward to smelling this evolve.

Good thing - we are marching steadily toward the end.
Bad thing - I am losing my mind


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^^^^^^^^ All above; day 20 flower

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^^^^^^^^^^ Above photos; Day 21 flower



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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Above photos; Day 22 flower



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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Above photos; Day 23(1/11) flower
 
Ok, so first official "live" update here lol. Not much to report on, which feels nice. It has been a busy 18 weeks otherwise. Things are starting to level out with regard to the reservoirs and issues I was having. The foaming in Sawtooth's reservoir was really... um.... voluminous. It's definitely something in the nutes. All the reservoirs had it, but Sawtooth's is always the craziest. Although, when I checked at lights on today there was way less foam in there and in all the other ones and no mountain puffball. The pHs were all not what I would call high and I didn't have to adjust a few.

Even though there is not much new activity to report on, I am documenting the tests so I can track it.

I think the plants are growing just a little tiny bit. I see them just barely inching their way up little by little. Although, there can't be much left in the vertical tank anymore. With this in mind, I have begun starting to swing the temps, well the best I can, so there is a larger gap between lights on temp and lights off temp. Lights off I can hit a pretty low temp right now because of Winter but the average lights off temp is around 62f right now.

For lights on I am aiming for 75fish, no higher than 76f. I will bring this down as we move through flower. But for now we are going with that. The average is probably 74f or so and that is good enough for now. I really want to try and induce some colors on this. But I don't want to do anything detrimental. So I will swing the temps within reason and not drastically.

RH is an up and down issue, lol. But really it's about time I think, for the last defoliation. I don't really know how I would do this one though. Because all the leaves I would want to cut are, well, a lot of them are sugar leave looking leaves. I know I can grab the fan leaves off, and the seed bank even suggests removing larger fan leaves for bigger harvests, but the problem is all the little leaves sticking off the bud site stalks. Like there are so many bud sites it's super crowded.

Don't get me wrong, I can, so far, keep the humidity at 50%. I think I can achieve 46% with exhaust at power 10. But I don't know how much farther under 50% I can keep and hold it. I think I will be fine with a lot of air flow. I have my 6inch exhaust fan at 60% power so the air is flowing and we are at 50% rh. There's also the 2 circulating fans(one above and one below canopy) and I did put in a 3rd fan under the canopy blowing up from center. I am trying to prevent dead air pockets... For now I am aiming for VPD between 1.3 and 1.5. with these temps and this rh, I am able to do that.

Part of me thinks I should cut out some of the bud sites that are just barely at the canopy. But it's hard to think of reasons why I would do that... other than to maybe improve airflow and not be so crowded? I think I will just be as careful as I can and I will have to make several passes looking for larger leaves and leaves that are crashing into each other, overlapping, and bunching up.

The canopy is pretty thick in some spots again. This will be my main problem to close out the week: How to defoliate at this stage? I know I can remove the fan leaves, they will be the easiest. The problem is with all the little leaves that will probably be those sugar leaves(?). Like I don't know how close of a hair cut I can give the plants. I might just have to strip some down and see what happens...

My main concern with this is reducing contact between the sites as much as possible to improve air flow and to assist in lowering humidity for later in flower. Because if I shut down the exhaust rh will spike to above 70% fast. I have never done this before, but I can tell a lot of flower is coming and I don't want any issues with that after all this.



Here are the test results I am tracking and will continue to track as we move forward and I learn about DWC and how to operate the system without burning my plants --

Sawtooth:
1/12 @ 1800 - 948ppm after adjustments
1/13 @ 2000 - 5.8ph @ 940ppm - This was before replenishing with plain ph'd water - 918ppm after adding water back and I adjusted to 5.6ph to let it rise up and see how long it takes to get back to 6ish
1/14 @ 0115 - 967ppm 5.7pH

Plant B:
1/12 @ 1800 - 958ppm - 6.6 ph - downed to 5.5ph
1/13 @ 2000 - 6.4ph / 1040ppm - added water and ph down - 808ppm / 5.5ph
1/14 @ 0115 - 6.0ph / 967ppm - added water and adjusted ph - 859ppm / 5.7ph

Plant C:
1/12 @ 1800 - 950ppm added water - 858ppm.
1/12 @ 0200 - 945ppm - ph 5.7
1/13 @ 1700 - 5.5ph - 959ppm - added a little water but ran out
1/13 @ 1938 - 890ppm - added more water down to 828ppm
1/14 @ 0115 - 845ppm after adding water, ph was 5.4 I added a tiny little bit of ph up on this one to get to 5.6ph

Plant D:
1/12 @ 1800 - 909ppm, added water to 858ppm
1/12 @ 0200 - 952ppm - 6.2 ph, I must have just left it cause there are no notes about changing the ph
1/13 @ 1700 - 6.4ph downed to 5.6 - 799ppm - added ph'd water and some light sprinkles of nutes to 919ppm
1/13 @ 1738 - 888ppm / 5.5ph
1/14 @ 0115 - 906ppm - 6.1ph adjusted to 5.6ph


Photos:

Flower Day 24 -
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Sawtooth's reservoir had the most dramatic looking foam

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View from the front

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View from the back

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OoOoOoOoOoooo they gettin that week 3 flower look all having all them puffy hairs and such

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It is getting crowded here. I think I will have to defoliate before the end of the week. The problem I mentioned earlier is kind of showcased here. Like what leaves here can I cut besides the ones that are obvious fan leaves protruding out and away from the forming colas? It's like all the leaves are tucked up in the flower/bud site if they are not fan leaves.

My burning question - How do I thin this out? -- Then this question spawns other questions.

Or is there just no easy way to do it?
Just go in, snip and clip what I can, try and hope for the best probly.

Is this something I should have addressed prior to the flip?
Do I have too many bud sites? Is that even a real problem!?!?!


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- I also found 3 bud sites / flowers that have premature reddening hairs. I will have to check real close for some male bits, right? Could this have been cause by the ridiculously high ppms the plants were subjected to for the first 2 weeks of flower? Or is it more likely a sign of a hermie? I don't even know where to look for the male bits. Should I look more closely into this? Or is it not really a cause for concern?


Day 25 -

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As above, so below. Above is the canopy above the trellis net, and below are the plants below the trellis net.
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It is getting very thick now.

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The THC structures are so pronounced and look elongated =D

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Lol at the burnt tip leaf photobombing

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I might have my work cut out for me coming up with this one. Going to be tough with the added difficulty of everything being super sticky now and trying not to touch or brush up against bud sites....

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Very excited though

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So excited

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Crazy how there is little to no smell unless you touch it, even then it's this pungent hard to describe fruit like smell kind of like berries. It's really hard to place. I can't wait until the smell profile is more pronounced and has less guess work in it.

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I am starting to second guess doing another defoliation at this stage. I did some targeted research about this last night and found people are split on defoliation in flower. Granted, the posts and questions I was looking at were all over the place in terms of plant stages, volume of growth, and amount of plants. So there are very few posts or topics I was able to find that answered the question.

However, there was one response I found to someone who had a similar situation which made a lot of logical sense to me. They were advocating for not removing any leaves and said there's no reason, really, for the defoliation unless things are overcrowded and even then to just remove leaves that will create more benefits than loss for the plant... like revealing bud sites under leaves. There was a lot more said but, the point was not to defoliate.

I think I might just.... leave them alone. What would you do? Is this too crowded? My proposed defoliation might just turn into plucking off a handful of leaves off and calling it a day, lol

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Day 26 - Things are going very well. The plants are looking good. The foam in the water has all but cleared up, too. I'll be keeping an eye on this. I still haven't defoliated yet. But I did go in and pluck a few leaves here and there. Also, snipped a few sucker sites below canopy I left. But it was very minimal.


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This is Sawtooth's reservoir and it's much better than before

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These are frosty, the one below is like a frosty palm tree
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Flowering week 3 and week 4 update -

I figured out how to upload and embed from my gallery, so yay that lol

-Week 3 -
For a few days I was heavily focused on a weird looking flower I found. You'll see it, cause I took a lot of photos of it. So I had been seeing flowers with more reddening pistils than what I would call normal based on what all the other flowers in the tent look like. But I wasn't too concerned because of how high ppm I was using. I figured maybe I stressed them and this is the result.

But I did research it and it seems like the conclusion to most of these questions was some kind of pollination or hermie event. My concern rose when I found a flower on day 28 that looked crazy with retracted pistils, almost all hairs red, and is a little lighter green in the leaves on the branch than everything else in the tent. So... what the heck is causing that? I am actively trying to find out. I may have to ask a grow question here.

Otherwise, everything is looking awesome and even better than I could have thought plants would look when I imagined growing. On top of that, they keep improving and I feel like it's directly related to me not burning them with high ppm. A lot of problems are resolving now that I am keeping the ppms down and driving them down further. I think I will aim for an end goal of between 700-900. Something like that. It seems to be working very well to reduce foaming in the reservoirs and there's no foam at all anymore in Sawtooth's res; the worst offender.

I even have started to have to use pH up for the first time ever. I was waiting for that to happen in flower because I read about it. But with everything needing so much pH down I didn't know what was going on. So I feel like I'm on the right track. It's almost over though and then I can debrief and regroup to move into a new evolved phase for the sequel. Because I have learned so much to put into use for next time...

Oh... I haven't changed the reservoirs yet... I kinda stalled out on getting a larger tote. But I grabbed one last night and its dechlorinating water now. I will change the reservoirs later tonight and update the nutrient amounts the next time I add information here. But I plan on trying to hit my numbers so we will see how that goes. It's a much larger mixing reservoir now currently holding 30.5 gallons so I can use at least 28 of them between the girls. So I will have to look back on the previous numbers to do nutrient math which, by the way, want-to-be-hydro-growers, is SO MUCH FUN 😙😊

======================== Week 3 =========================






































 
- Week 4 update -

I took an extra day to change the reservoirs. It's just that it takes so long to mix nutes and do a lot this stuff. I actually ran out of time on yesterday and had to wait until lights on today to do it. It was fine though. Everyone was doing good except one. Sawtooth seems to like to spike the pH way down. I caught it at 4.9, Like wtf is that? I just made it 6.0 last night. Weird.

Hopefully with this new reservoir change it will be all good. Otherwise, the ppms in all the reservoirs are just where I want them. Or at least where I think I want them? I am not entirely sure. Lol. But I mixed up this new feeding to be 795ppm. So It should be good. I will start putting in less pH down when I change the reservoirs now because all the tanks are lowering the pH instead of raising it. This is awesome for me cause I have been using soo much pH down and no pH up. So it's nice to get use out of something I bought to use, lol.

As far as that goes, not much going on. I learned to chill out about the flowers. I should probably be find and the whole tent isn't going to get knocked up and seed. ... Probably. Come on 4 more weeks. Almost there. Oh I noticed a smell in the tent for the first time. It's light but it's something it's not super weedy yet, but it's competing with the smell of the reservoirs.

I have to say... this weed looks amazing. It's crazy I'm growing what looks like something this quality and it's my first time. But that's what proper research and investment does I guess.

======================== Week 4 =========================
































 
Day 31 -

It has to be something in the nutes that is causing the pH swings and foam. The water was great before water change, ph going down instead of up, no foam, and not much adjustment needed. After res change it's like all hell breaks loose. Spikes in ph to 6.4-6.6 if I don't catch it probably higher. All reservoirs spiking like that and need pH down. Minor amounts of foam developing in all reservoirs. PPMs are trending the way they should and are 800-900. This will only get lower as we go. I am not sure how to tell if I should dilute or concentrate the reservoirs. I want to see how low it will go.

Do people try and put in just barely enough and watch ppms dip low by res change?

I'll keep winging it cause that's kind of working. Like this bud is soooo frosty and it seems like it's very early for that to have developed. Grandmommy Purple, visually, seems to be living up to the marketed ~30% thc. Cause it still needs to really start dumping energy into thc production over the next few weeks, right? I am going to try my very best to push this plant into giving me everything it has. Then, I will do my best to get an official lab test. How could I not when it looks like this. Time is just tickin down. Almost there.






















 
Days 32 and 33 -

I didn't think I was going to update again this week. Usually nothing is that important to mention. I feel like I'm seeing really slight signs of maybe a deficiency starting? I don't know. I've been seeing random light spots on leaves, or like one rust spot here or there. The tips seem to still be burning and it looks like it might be happening on new growth? So I don't know, it can't be a deficiency with too hot feedings. Unless there's lockout...

I found a branch that has a few discoloring leaves. I am not sure what to do about it. Hopefully lowering the ppms, further helps.

Anyways, Plant D and Plant B have something going on in the reservoirs. The water is cloudy and these 2 reservoirs take the most amount of pH adjustment fluid to change the numbers. Last reservoir change Plant B's reservoir smelled strongly of eggs when cleaning out. The smell went away after the change, but as the week progressed it returned. Also, it is kind of starting in Plant D's reservoir.

I didn't really like the look of Plant D's water and then Plant B looks like there is a dark patch forming in the roots where the water line was. I cannot abide.

So I took some actions. I had 4 extra gallons of fresh mixed nutes off to the side. So I decided to siphon out 4 gallons of reservoir water from Plant D's tank. I replaced it with 2.5 fresh nutrient mixed gallons and 1.5 gallon of just tap water. Plant D's ppm ended up in the high 600s. AHHHH I DONT KNOW WHAT PPM TO KEEP IT AT! lolol

Then I went to Plant B and I took out 4 gallons of reservoir water from that tank and replaced with the remaining 1 gallon of fresh mixed nutes. But I only added 2 gallons back to lower the water level. So I removed a full gallon of liquid volume from Plant B. Additionally, I mixed in 1/4 teaspoon Great White Mycorrhizae with one of that gallons I poured in to plant B. Yesterday, I had also mixed up 1/4 of Great White Mycorrhizae and distributed that between the 4 plant's reservoirs. Just today, plant B got more.

Looking forward to some easier weeks ahead...


== Day 32 ==














== Day 33 ==
















 
Week 5 Flower
Days 34-37

It sucks to start a week like this, but here we go. There's got to be something going in here causing the discoloration in the leaves on Plant D. Also, I started finding signs of different issues and similar issues across a few other plants. The burning tips is continuing. Water in Plant B and Plant D is still cloudy. This lines up with the water smelling bad. It smells like eggs and rotten asparagus. This also lines up with how Plant B's roots were looking funky.

I tried reaching out and received some feedback on other sites. But I don't know... It was suggested potassium deficiency or light burn/bleaching. But the discoloration isn't on a tall cola and those were like 8-10 inches from the light instead of 18 and they are fine. All the plants have burnt tips, they all don't have discoloration. Some are starting to have classic margin burning found in potassium deficiency. But also found in light burn.

So because I'm, well I guess impatient, I slammed all the solutions at them. I raised the light. As it was suggested to reduce the light. I personally didn't think the light was causing an issue. But sure. I had and still have space, so I raised it a little and didn't dim the intensity.

Ok, boom. Light better. Easy.

That was the only easy thing.

As for the discoloration and possible potassium deficiency, which look like it could be the same and there are copper spots, I didn't really know what to do.

I think it's something to do with Plant B and Plant D's roots. Like Sawtooth and Plant C found harmony in and around 750ppm. pH stayed the same and within level for days. ppms barely changed with water decreases. Water in Sawtooth and Plant C's reservoirs was crystal clear and no foam formed.

However, Plant B and D's reservoirs are cloudy and smell bad. The water smells terrible. The pH climbs higher than the others and they both need more pH down to adjust.

So I started draining the reservoirs and replacing the water. Sometimes I use extra mixed nutes, so they get a fresh clean feed what I just did before this last feeding was flushed them with pH'd water, let them sit for a while, drain, and put in more pH'd water. Then drained again to fill with the feeding mix with the others. I have noticed the water has been getting less cloudy... I also added some Great White Mycorrhizae directly to the root clusters.

I will keep flushing out the reservoirs in these problem tanks when they get too cloudy or if anything like that happens. Plant D had a lot of bubbles at the roots and the water had a weird look to it. That's what started me changing it all out.

I also reduced the water level in both of what I'm calling the problem reservoirs, Plant B and D. Plant B, as shown in photos from last week I think, had a weird dark spot developing at the water level. I also noticed, that the smell really got bad when I reduced the water level past a certain point. This happened in both of the problem reservoirs. So, I decided to reduce the level and that has, visually to me, helped notably with Plant B's weird spot. So much so that in a few days I may raise the water level.

Also, while I was changing the water and being disgusted by that(I don't know how it got so gross so fast), I went an extra step in cleaning a little and pulled the air stones. In the two problem reservoirs they were gross... So I cleaned them and placed them in different locations in the tanks. Then I cleaned the others and placed them in different spots, too.

I am thinking, something funky is going on in the reservoirs that is messing with the nutrient uptake. This might also be working in concert with my HIGH AF ppm/ec feedings lol. SO I actually think it might be nutrient lockout and not nutrient deficiency cause of something with the roots. This is why I'm doing what I am with it.

As for the nutes. I have been watching reservoir ppmpH very closely and documenting it daily. I have noticed several trends. I have also found a good number for ppms/ec. At least one that works for 2 plants. I will try and apply that across the reservoirs. I have noticed that the plants, after they after they ate up a lot of the nutrients were very happy and then pH was even going down. Remember that? But then, as soon as I change the reservoir, it's like a bomb goes off. PH needs adjusting down in all of the reservoirs, most reservoirs have some amount of foam, ppms climb fast.

I guess I am feeding too high. Also, if there isn't a root issue and or there isn't nutrient lockout and it is a deficiency... that means that I'm not mixing in a good ratio. This might also be because last weeks feeding I, after adding everything, had more head room for ppms/ec and I added more supplemental things than base nutes. So maybe I added something in a bad combination that locked out potassium. I don't really know.

What I do know, is that I reduced the amount of nutrients across the board except with the base nutrients. So I put in a larger ratio of base nutes than anything. This brought my ppms to 727 for this feeding. I usually pH down to 5.5 but Sawtooth and Plant C were hovering at 6.0 pH with their feeding and I figured I didn't want to throw that too off as I was feeding less ppm than they had in the reservoirs at the time. But after a day, they all needed pH adjusting down from 6.4-6.6. Although, all the reservoirs, even the problem ones, after the feeding and my flushing on D, adjusted with minimal pH down for the first time in a long time.

Hopefully, with the raising of the light, the continued reduction in nutes to find the right ppm/ec, the increase in base nutes overall, and increased monitoring of ppms/pH to keep out of danger zones we should be back on track.

Oh, when I raised the light I tried to snag some leaves here and there. Actually, I have been trying to restrict to taking a leaf off a day and that works pretty well. But anyways, I cut a line in my trellis net by accident. I don't even know how I did that. The canopy is so thick I cant even get to it.

Speaking of the plants... lol, the plants are so sticky. I mean like if I open the tent and put my hand in, just like in the air, it gets sticky and is sticky the rest of the night. I have been interested to see how the trichomes develop after seeing how frosty the plants were early on. And it looks like they are getting longer. They look crazier now. I realize I am a new grower, but damn wtf these things are like really long. Then the leaves they are on are so coated the leaves are like hard with trics.

The smell is starting to come in and it smells super weird. The plant itself, like the resin, if you touch it on leaves it smells like weed strongly(myrcene) but also has a really berry punchy(linalool and limonene)smell. I asked Herbies for the terp profile and they were able to name the top 3. Myrcene, linalool and limonene. I have to agree with one of the comments, I can for sure smell that fruit loops smell in it. I will see how that develops. But the really weird smell is that the plants smell like DMT. Not sure how many people know what that smells like, but it smells very strongly of it. I have smelled that smell in nature before, but ooooooweeeeeee I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with this.


Day 34 -














Day 35 -





















Day 36 -











 
Week 5 Flower -
Day 37 -

After lights on today I checked, like always, and found some good, interesting, and bad things.

Good:
Water in Plant D and B's reservoir is looking surprisingly better
I can visibly see where Great White Mycorrhizae is germinating on Plant B's roots(I really hope that is what it is)
Reduced water is doing well for Plant B and D

Interesting:
Sawtooth and Plant C's reservoirs were looking less great than usual
pH across all reservoirs is not stabilizing and within same range
ppms very close across all reservoirs

Bad:
Found another type of early deficiency starting - it looks like calcium deficiency also in Plant D
Plant D may have at least 2 different types of deficiencies

Plants look good otherwise. They seem to be bulking up nicely. I reduced the light intensity a little. So the light is not as bright. I'm not sure the light was an issue. Whatever really. I'm not sure what to do about the deficiencies popping up. I really think it was something to do with lockout and bad root zone stuff. I think it will even out, I hope. The reservoir water looked good. I want to continue flushing Plant B and D. I just remembered I should mention, I put some of Sawtooth's reservoir water in with Plant D cause I figured since it was a good biome for Sawtooth, maybe it would impart onto Plant D.

I see mycelia growing on the roots of plant B. I wasn't even looking for it, I was just taking photos of the water and spotted it. I had just split a 1/4 teaspoon of Great White again between the 4 reservoirs inoculating the roots directly. I was surprised to see this. It looks like healthy rhizomorphic mycorrhizae just freshly germinating. I wonder how this will play out.

Later tonight I am going to reduce the water in Sawtooth and Plant C. They also had higher ppms than Plant B and D and were going out of range(breeching 800). So I'm going to remove a gallon or 2 from the reservoir and put back pH'd water to lower the ppm. I will probably do this at the same time I drain Plant B and D's reservoir to refill with only water for a few hours, to then drain and replace back with nute water. Since whatever I'm doing seems to be working. I will keep making it up as I go.


Day 37 -































 
Let's start with your problem. You need Hydro-Guard; this will eliminate your root problem and yes your foam problem also. I don't know where you live so I don't know how hard it is to get for you. If you can't get Hydro-Guard there are other brands that are comparable, but I like Hydro-Guard.

Now for the compliment; Your garden looks fantastic, back off a little on the nitrogen and you will stop getting burnt tips.

My personal tip would be to give them all a good flush for a couple hours before you replace the nutrient solution.
This will remove all the residual nutrients causing some of your fluctuation with ppm's and ph.

Hope this helps.

Stay safe, and grow well my friend,
Tok..

Now, I will finish reading the last part.
 
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