16-jan-13
i put my fastbud and afrodita at around 11 days old(went into water)
as you know, ive been having problems with fungus gnats. well my first treatment failed because my soil was so dry that the watering just ran off it mostly and very little absorbed. so this next part of my journal is dedicated to the fixing of bone dry soil.
Hydrophobic soil
Hydrophobic soil (waterproof) is caused by organic matter leaving a waxy residue on the surface of the soil particles, as the soil dries this seals the dirt from absorbing water.
the cure?
now we have all heard about using dishsoap (washing up liquid) to make water 'wetter', but i dont like the idea of the mixed chemicals and antibacs in there and what is really needed is just a detergent to dissolve the wax layer. so i have gone with pure soap.
i mix up 30l and grind up 1 table spoon worth or 15l and a teaspoon worth. i make a small cup of boiling water and sprinkle in the soap granuals as i stir then pour the lot into the water and bubble for a while. for my 2 and 3 litre pots i flushed with 1l of soap solution and left for over an hour to soak in before feeding again with a normal ph balanced nutried drink of half a litre.
so far as i can tell this does a very good job and doesnt appear to cause any harm.
Here we have a side by side comparison. right one is plain tap water and left one is my solution. there are visible differences =)
just me mixing up the food for post soap solution. i fill my tanks up at 30degrees celsius and bubble it until its 25C then add my foods and PH down and feed right away. my grow room is always between 25 and 30c so i like my water to be thermally invisible to the plants sorta thing.
I dropped one of my KC45s and snapped a limb, here is my quick fix..worked a treat.
Group shot...look at the size of the central afrodita's!!! 2 weeks ago they were dry seeds.
a few of my kc45 #2 are starting to get very tall. i can drop them by a foot soon and keep them on the edge of the grow for best spread of the light left over from my fastbud grow.
this is my gnat infested kc45 #1 batch a few days after a defoliation...thats definate new growth at the top so they are coming right out of shock, but still look pale.
and thats it for this mini update =D