I've been around but never posted. A lot of good info on here, hope this helps someone. Details on the room: 8x6 flower room 2x1000w HPS Internal cool tube hoods Sentinel environmental controller Hydrologic small boy water filter Modified octopots FFOF soil Ionic nutes Plant is a 2.5' Critical Kush given to me. It's about 1.5 months from clone in a 1gal pot with ffof. I transplanted it into an Octopot with a 1/4" float valve installed and a 12" air stone. ~3gal of ffof was used. Well water ran through a Small Boy filter was used, ~150 Tds before nutes. Scrog frame is 2x4 feet and made from 1x2" ceder. Holes in net measure 2x2". A 1" piece of pvc was tied to the main stem to lay it over without major injury. More to come soon. This is 4/26
This is 5/27. One month under the screen. I keep pulling the auxiliary branchs under the screen and spreading them outwards. Only nutes at this time is the Ionic grow. Temp set at 80* and RH at 60%. Lights flipped to 12/12.
This is 6/4. 1 week of flower. Cutting half of grow nutes out and replacing with bloom. Removed pvc from main stem. It has filled the entire screen at this point.
This is 6/7. Still in the 2nd week of flower. At this point all grow nutes are cut out and she's on full strength bloom. Most budsites are about 2-3" above the screen at this point. I like to trim back any branchs that are looking significantly taller then the rest around this time. The early flower stretch is starting to slow down.
This is 6/13. Almost half way. She is on full strength bloom at this point and now adding Ionic PK booster. The stretch is coming to an end, nothing but bud production now. Bud sites are about 4-5" above the screen. I have continued to trim off everything under the screen. On a side note I do not pH my water. I know it comes out of the filter kind of high so I use the Ionic Hard Water line of nutes. Its mixed slightly acidic to help bring the pH down. I'm a minimalist when it comes to nutes, I don't like to run 17 bottles of additives. If they develop a deficiency I will use whats needed to correct it at that time but usually not an issue.
Nice job Cjaholic!! I agree about the nutes. I stopped with the bottled sets because I got sick and tired of spending days at the sink mixing up nutes just to end up scorching my plants. I tossed all the multi-bottle types and started using Jack's by J.R. Peters about 2 years ago. I imagine you've probably heard of it, but it's a water soluble powder that I toss in when I'm drawing my water to prepare to feed. Man, what a wonderful thing!!! I try to give my plants only enough to thrive and no more. As you, I don't like the idea of my buds being saturated with chemicals. Have a great day and happy growing!! TWW
Thanks White Widow. I have heard Jack's but never tried it. Still nice to hear like minded people vouch for products I've never tried, gives me options for future grows. With the octos each plant has a 4gal res. I installed float valves and built a pvc manifold that the Small Boy plumbs into. They are always full this way and I just pour my nutes into each pot each week or as needed. This is where the Ionic came in, 1 bottle for each stage of growth. This is a completed grow I am just sorting through notes and pics and posting as I can. It just gets better from here.
This is 6/18. Week 5. Really seeing nice bud development now. Starting to taper off the nutes at this point in time, running about 75% strength on the bloom and still full strength PK booster. I will continue decreasing bloom and PK every feed now. If I shut off the water she will drink almost 2 gallons a day.