So I kinda fucked up.. the res ph is actually 4.2! I hope I haven't damaged the roots D: The actual seedlings look healthy, though I'm not sure if they should be growing faster. My new ph meter came today and I tested and calibrated it, the one I was using was an analogue POS one from the hardware store and shows about 1 ph level higher.. No wonder so few of the seeds germinated And now I know why my rockwool is so mushy :S I think I'll have to transplant these seedlings asap. All because I was to impatient for the damn digital ph meter to come in the mail. I think next time I water I'll flush it with ph 5. I've also been busy with my lights' fans, and since day one of the grow the fan noise made me too paranoid, I could still faintly hear them with the door shut. Today I got some fan speed controllers for computer fans, stripped every fan wire and connected them to fan speed controllers, now I can adjust the speed of every fan with a dial, got a silent grow now
Good call on the fan speed controller! How much was that little gizzmo? I have issues with my air pumps and fans too, but its not noticable as long as my ACs on. I wouldn't be too worried about the ph level, as long as you caught it in do time, and the plant still looks healthy. you say you got a new ph pen? I'm still rockin the papers but they get the job done...ish...
Okay great, so I just dropped the new ph meter in the water and turns out it's not waterproof, now I have no ph meter again! Time to order another damn ph meter that's actually waterproof, every ph meter in town is crap, it'll take forever to arrive and I'll just have to use regular tap water for now which is ~ ph 6.8 When I realised the chinese piece of crap wasn't even waterproof, when it was something you dip in water, I was like.. are u fucking serious..
Try Hanna or general hydroponics pen...me personally I got the bluelab ppm it tells water temp also and bluelab Ph pen there a little expensive Ph 80$ ppm95$ but they are waterproof I've dropped mine many time she works great in my opinion you get what you pay for goodluck!!!
Ya man I'm using a Hanna pHep meter and it's waterproof. They are a little pricey at $50+ online. You can see what it looks like in my LED UFO grow journal in my sig. I'm subbing to your grow because I want to see how your LED's perform. They are blue as hell man Keep it goin'
Thanks guys, and I will keep an eye on your journal thepotroast Yeah my ppm pen isn't waterproof either.. great, the inevitable is coming ):< lol I think I'll have to start the nutes a lil later, hopefully they'll do okay and I can get them transplanted soon.
Day 17: Okay last watering res ph was around 6.8, and now some yellow spots have appeared on the plants. So I think that ph adjustment was a bad idea, probably stressed the plants, mabye I should start nuts soon. Or mabye I'm overwatering, so I will let the tray dry before watering again, no more letting the cubes sit in the shallow water. Tomorrow I'm watering with a reading of 6.0, on my inaccurate hardware store meter. However, growth seems to be speeding up a fair bit now, some of my seedlings have third sets visible. This week I've had the lights raised to about 15" to work on the fans aswell, I think this may have slowed growth down and I've lowered them back down to 5". Rockwool cubes seem abit firmer and stronger now with the higher ph, but its still pretty messy and once I buy them I'll be transplanting to square 4" perlite pots. Out of the 6 seedlings each: Two of the white rhino germinated but never sprouted, one sugar haze never germinated, one sugar haze never sprouted. Comments for each seedling: Haze 2 afew yellow dots, Haze 1 looking healthy, Haze 3 going very well with 3rd set appearing. Thought haze 4 was dead, but as I picked up the sugar haze cube to investigate, I see healthy green sprouts wrapped around the watering tube which I put in 5 days ago, wtf!? I must have planted it too deep and it sprouted out the side. Does this have any chance of survival, LOL? Rhino 1 looking good tips slightly yellowed, rhino 2 shriveling up and yellow bits, rhino 3 looking great but tips starting to yellow slightly, rhino 4 healthy but tips yellowing.
Day 19: Transplanted to 4" perlite pots and got new dripper stakes, they're battling on well, no more damage has appeared and they look like they're starting to get abit stronger.
Hello I am gunna try and help you with something. Vinegar will kill your plants. I know this cause i tried useing it on my first grow. It will lower your ph yes but it also blocks the roots from absorbing nutes needed for the plant. In otherwords it starves your plant. I did some serious research on vinegar after my plants died and found all this out after some extensive searching. Get some real ph down cause you are killing ur plants with the vinegar and in a hydro settup it will consitently poison them and then they will just DIE. I know this from experience so pls don't make the mistake I did.
I tried vinager in the first few days but I found the ph went right back up within hours, it wasn't stable enough anyway. For the last two weeks I've been using hydrochloric acid, and it's been pretty stable. However, due to shitty ph meters my ph was at 4-5 for the first two weeks instead of 5-6. The biggest problem is I have no way of measuring the ph atm and am growing blind for the next week D: The res was ph'd 3 days ago and I've been using that water, no way to measure ph changes. It could be anywhere between like 6 and 7 atm. However despite all this they're really battling on now and third sets of leaves are visible on 3 of the haze and 2 of the rhino. Soon my ph meter which hopefully isn't a piece of shit this time, will arrive, waterproof this time so I've got no worries when I'm ph'ing blazed XD I will probably give 1/8 strength nutes after I've got my ph meter aswell, photo of the new perlite setup coming soon. It's doing an excellent job with watering, drains quickly and doesn't hold much but hard to over-water, I've been running my pumps (with new 1 gal/hour drippers for 2x half hour each day now. No new yellow shit has appeared on them, and the one that shriveled abit is growing third leaves now, so whatever I did wrong (my guess is ph stress), they appear to overcoming it and growing on and most of them are a healthy green colour
Got my ph meter and white rhino res is 6.5, great, sugar haze res is 8.5, o shit D: So reassuring to know if i drop it, it will still work XD Still looking quite healthy lately and I am about to change res.
Day 21: - Nutes added, 1/8 strength. - Tap water ppm 90 - White Rhino res 5.4ph, 215ppm - Sugar Haze res 6.0ph, 215ppm - Water temp 63F/18C, need to install my water heaters asap All those yellow blotches are now fading away by the way, they're looking very bright, healthy green now. However the first sets of trues leaves are drooping, probably over-watering abit. They haven't gotten much taller/bigger but the second sets of true leaves are forming. *switches on pumps* Hope this goes well.. Pic of perlite setup below, new photos of plants coming soon too
Try not to put anything foreign like vinegar in ur system. Get ph up and ph down. Best investment I ever made. Just don't add them together. If you mix in too much of one, don't add the other to correct it, just start over.
Yeah I'm not using vinager, just hydrochloric acid, it's the most suitable thing I have found so far in any of my local shops, I may have to order something from the internet. Good point, will keep this in mind next time, this probably explains the ppm increase.
Day 24 They're growing alright, I think I need to increase the temp, as they're growing too slowly, res is 18C/63F. Changed res, and I learned the increased ppm was a result of salt buildup from mixing ph up and down. Ph 5.0, ppm 400. Just broke my ppm meter too, fuck yes.. Judging by the leaves I think I'm over-watering them. I have upgraded to 2gal/hr drippers, will set them to 2x6 minutes each day. Just planted 3 feminized pinapple kush seeds a fellow grower had spare in rockwool cubes as well today. It's a strong indica and It will be interesting to compare the results of this strain to the white rhino The sugar haze haze taken the lead here and I think these genetics must tolerate the colder, harsher climates. My res and tent is too cold, will be installing res heaters soon which hopefully will do the trick. Sugar Haze White Rhino