My first real attempt at horticulture. You can get some info about the grow (including pictures) from these two threads: Questions from a first-time DWC grower Prepping First Grow (long, rambly, pics, etc.) Week 0 Sprouts are in the tent erupting from Rapid Rooters. Despite being behind in terms of tap root eruption, JH is well ahead as a seedling. Blue Dream is just pushing out of the plug as of this morning. See attached for a snapshot of the running record from my spreadsheet.
Water temp to high, PH to low, PPM's are way to fukn much. I'm only running at 650ppm and I'm 2 weeks into flowering. Run no more than 200 ppm on RO water.
Thanks for that chart. I've seen similar, but this one looks useful. My tap water is coming out at about 300 ppm. That's the water I'm going with. We'll have to see how it works out.
And guess what showed up this morning? Yup, we have two actual leaves. Which begs the question, what happened to the cotoledins? I have to assume they're still trapped under the shell half of which I know was discarded. I may need to post pictured. I'm pretty sure the Blue Dream is fine, but the Jock Horror does not look good.
I'm not convinced. This stuff started before I added anything to the tank. Here are some pics. It's difficult to get good pics from under the light, but these are what I have. This first one is probably the worst. These have been processed to overcome the purple grow light so that colors are a bit more natural. The seed coat is obviously sitting on top of the cotyledons. I'm not worried about that. You can also see a leaf peaking up behind the thing. What I'm looking at is that gnarly stem. You can see a little crookedness in the pic, but it doesn't do the subject justice. That's a gnarly stem. Then there's the Blue Dream. Not a great pic but it's Monday. Just note the seed coat sitting on the rooter and what I take to be the cots bound up by some organic material. Here's another shot that might be more informative. So, it'll be interesting to see where this goes. Tonight's numbers are: tent temp: 83.0 ℉ tent rh: 51% water temp: 77 ℉ tds: 577 ppm ph: 5.55 If the JH goes south at least I've still got the BD. Not sure there is actually any trouble at this point. It continues....
Everything I've read says the TDS are good and the PH is nearly perfect. My understanding is that these seeds are of unknown age and provenance. That could explain what I'm seeing from the JH. Can I get a link to your sources on this? Even the chart you sent me says that PH is well within range. Can I please get some more information?
Your ppm looks fine, I wouldn't go above 550ppm for early growth and 1200ppm for bloom without C02(1500ppm with C02). I'd ride the 6.5 side of ph early then fluctuate from 6.3 to 5.7 throughout, it will help with different nuit absorption. Your Colodial leaves are stuck in the seeds Interior cover. Carefully remove and your seedling will look normal.
Ha! Okay, removed that seed cover and all is better. The Blue Dream looks like it doubled in size over last night, very encouraging. The pair of first leaves look robust and healthy and the cotyledons don't seem to have suffered much from being held captive by the inner seed cover. I wonder what causes that? The Jock Horror is dying. It's about dead. I will be very surprised if I'm still writing about this plant next week. I'm not sure what happened, but it grew way too fast. The root wound up pushing the top of the plant, and the top of the root, out of the Rapid Rooter plug. The root itself actually looks pretty good, but the stem is dry and thin and the leaves are just not happening. That's okay. I can chalk that up to an old seed, not germinating in a Rapid Rooter under a dome, too much soaking, I don't know, but I will likely have one good plant to work with and for my first grow, shakedown cruise as it were, I can focus on getting that plant to a decent harvest. Onward. Tonight's numbers are: tent temp: 85.5 ℉ tent rh: 69% water temp: 77 ℉ tds: 577 ppm ph: 5.57
Tomorrow is the official start of Week 1. Things look good for the Jock Horror in that the JH isn't dead yet. The Blue Dream is looking very nice. And there are suddenly roots! Tonight's numbers: tent temp: 83.3 ℉ tent rh: 69% water temp: 77 ℉ tds: 588 ppm ph: 5.6 Looking at the TDS. Water level and PH are good. The BD is coming on and Fox Farms recommends a TDS of 840 - 980 for week 1. I'm well below that, but what does the plant want? So far, it looks pretty happy to me. How about you?
The chart show 5.9 to be perfect, BUT my grow now likes 6.2. I think it's the strain. I only run GH 3 part nutes. I've damages leaves etc... with a higher PPM, say around 1k or so. My water is 12 PPM's and PH is 6.8 out of the RO system. I run a lower PPM because most will grow great without burning them up. As you grow, you will learn from the leaves, limbs, etc... what each strain likes. The bad thing in RDWC is the plants need to be the same strain as each may require a little tweeking to get it perfect. Over the past years, my info has come from reading journals, the breeders recommendations on the basic requirements of the strain etc...
Thanks for that info. I'm looking into the JH issue since it's not dead yet. Really durable little thing.
End of Week 1 I've run into a thing. The Blue Dream has put on a lot of leaves and roots but hasn't gained any height yet. It's still in the cup. I've moved the light (600W LED) up to about 18" and we'll see how it goes. And here are the roots so far. The Jack Horror has not died yet. Just to see what will happen, I took HardDrive's advice and poked it back into the hole in the rooter. It's not apparent looking at it with the naked eye, but there appears to be something green growing on that rooter. I'm assuming the combination of light, temperature and moisture have conspired to grow plant life. Who knew? In the meantime, I'm going to have to add liquid to the res. My numbers today saw a TDS spike: Tent temp. 83.3 ℉ RH in the tent 65% Nute solution temp 79 ℉ Total Dissolved Solids 1154 (EC ~ 2.3) Nute solution PH 5.69 Light cycle (on/off) 18/6 I've got a gallon of water offgassing chlorine and processing some PH Down. It should be ready to add to the res tonight. Not going to add more nutes yet. Edit: Hang on, that TDS should be 577. I had the meter set for EC rather than PPM. Oops.