update: algae growth on roots and nute burn oh my! stopped foliar spray as it was causing a bit of burn on the leaves. ill resume it again a bit slower later this week or next week. algae growth is still a mystery unless light is coming through the netpot/hydroton/starter plug area and I do not know how to avoid that then. I did a 30% h2o2 flush last night on the roots/res/medium to kill the algae growth and then flushed with pure RO water and then put my res back to 200ppm of nutes and ph balanced. the ph stopped dropping after the h2o2 flush so I think the algae is dead... my confidence is fairly low though now haha. the younger one has a low hanging leaf that is burned fairly recently, I think its from the h2o2 flush but if it gets any worse i'll drop the ppm a little bit. the green roots make me sad but I guess they're still alive.
Put reflective material on top of your lid, if a flashlight is shining through then your lights are gonna be worse(depending on the strength of your flashlight vs grow lights) And don't let it bring your confidence down, my grow was going great through the first 3 weeks and now has some deficiency or pest problem that had been minor before quickly spreading through to the new growth, shit happens, especially on your first grow, with the help of these forums though I'm confident things will get improve(for both of us)
it's not shining through but i can tell there is light on the other side. kind of like how if yo uput a flash light into your mouth, light does not come out of your cheeks but you can tell there is light inside.
That's what I was saying if the flashlight is getting enough light through to make it visible then with more light I'd assume more light would let more through I've seen rubbermaid grow boxes with lights in them that caused the box to pretty much glow due to the amount of light leaking through, don't know if the light leaking through is enough to matter but I figured there was a reason people usually light proof their res also
update: algae growth returned, ph started dropping again. rinsed hte roots in tap water with h2o2 in it and cleaned out the res. put black duct tape all over the top of the res and cut out where the holes were for hte netpots. also put a 1 cm wide strip of duct tape along the top-outside of the netpot to try and shield any direct light from getting in. since doing this, the green color in the roots is getting lighter instead of darker now and the PH is going up at a very high rate. it will jump from 5.4 to 6.1 in 6 hours or less. I'm hoping this is indicating it is eating up the nutes again and starting to grow more. Up top has never shown any negative signs of the algae except that the veg growth seemed to slow down. could be my perception. I believe it's looking good and getting bigger again in just the last 24 hrs. smallest is 13 days since it broke ground (and had the curling tap root problem, which stunted it), largest is 15 days since it broke ground. the white specs are particles of cotton from some cotton fiber string I used to hoist up one of the circulating 80mm pc fans. will not use this fiber again for this, one of the MANY things I have learned and will do differently with my next grow. no further nute burn since stopping excessive foliar feeding. am literally doing 1 spritz on each plant per 24 hrs.
newest growth has gotten bigger over night, ph rising at a more managable rate now. was 5.5 9 hours ago and 6.0 now until I dropped it a bit just now. Newest leaves look bigger than last night so I think I'm back on track.
updated pics from earlier today: bit of 'taco'ing on the smaller one's top leaves. trying to be patient to see if they straighten out hoping its not a heat stress issue. it is closest to the lowest point of the light. I'm approaching 3 weeks, I should see sex soon if not now, right? I see an area when looking at some undergrowth that looks like it could be pistils but I don't really know.
nice! you're doing soil, right? I don't remember which strain you said it was. i'm curious if i need to drop my resevoir down to zero nutes towards the last 2 weeks as well. I have made significant changes to my setup. I finally was too fed up with the cotton fibers getting everywhere and decided to not wait until my next grow to make drastic changes. I removed all cotton strings, removed the 80mm fans, removed the 125w 6500k cfl as it's jut too hot with the HPS and I believe I will start a 2nd box to grow simultaneously with this bulb soon. After removing the mogul socket for the 125w I put in a normal socket and put in a 23w 6500k bulb to supplement the 50w HPS light. I cleaned the case out as fairly well as I could. I also duct taped over the passive intake since I have a humidifer pumping into the side of this thing as an intake. There's now zero unfiltered air getting in here, plus no cotton fibers blowing around from strings getting baked under a light and blowing into a fan. Since doing this, my temp has dropped drastically and is ony about 2-4 degrees above room temp now. I'm going to keep this setup, hopefully nothing starts stretching but I don't think it will. I will have pics tomorrow. Going to go to fry's electronics tomorrow and scope out 22-24 inch cases for my 2nd box. will put a Y-connector on my induction fan and have it exhaust both boxes at once. even if my temp goes up a few degrees I don't mind. May go soil in the 2nd box or just duplicate what I'm doing now but have it completely DIY instead of paying out the arse for a pre-made kit that I end up modifying a zillion times.
everything is about 160 dollars thats over 20 inches at fry's so i'll be ordering one online soon. plants are looking good since the change. I've also increased my ppm to 500-600 since my biggest plant is getting to 4+ inches tall. I've noticed in the last 12 hours that some bottom leaves/branches have shot out like an inch almost overnight so they're longer than the taller branches and getting light. will take some pics later today or tomorrow.
new pics: they are about 3 weeks old since they broke ground now. they're quite stunted i'm sure from how hot it was with the 125w cfl, and prior algae issue. but they're surviving. I'll do much better next time/2nd box. I see some tiny pistols on both of them so I believe they are both girls! I' am not sure though. I do not know when I should swap the cfl from 6500 to 2700 either (how long I should wait/big the pistols should get). should I have any concern regarding the twisting or curling leaves?
i'm 99% sure they are both girls. good dice roll for my first 2 non-fem seeds. the bigger one is starting to get so big it is going to start shading the smaller. Should I make a scrog? I was not planning on it since It's an auto and I was not going to fim.
so the bigger one is getting bushy and shading the smaller one. still lots of curled leaves on the smaller plant. Smell is getting stronger from the plants. Do I trim the first 2 large leaves that turn yellow or just let them wilt? no response on if I should scrog with 1100 views? I assume I can get chicken wire at lowes and make one this evening. No idea what I'm going to attach it to.
could there be too much humidity hitting the smaller plant between the humidifier as intake and the exhaust that is causing the curled leaves? my sensor shows it at 45-55% and you can see it right behind the smaller plant. I'm concerned about this small plant falling so much behind the larger one that when I start increasing the nutes more for the larger plant it will burn the smaller one.
I am definately going to DIY scrog it up tomorrow when lowes is open. Else the fat girl will crush her little sister during flowering.