High RednBlack What have you got for ppm now? Was way too low before. I usually start with well rooted clones for DWC at 300 or so ppm and that's not too high for tiny ones either. I wouldn't worry about changing nutes for a long time yet as long as they are staying clear. I usually don't change until after the stretch and just add small amounts of nutes to keep my ppm at the level I want or more to bump it up higher. I like the Rubbermaid tubs. Don't need any foil on top or other shading and the lids work on the tall or short ones. I'll start in the shorter ones then switch to the taller ones when the plants get big and are using a lot more water. Waiting is the hardest part.
+1 for the Rubbermaid. I just started my tomatoes Kratky in the 10 gallon. When it outgrows, I'll up the container size so I can set it and forget it. So far they are growing HUGE! Started a separate grow journal under the gardening section for all that. Also +1 for 300 PPM @.5. Or .6 EC. That's what I started mine at with 3 sets of leaves. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
Our ppm was bumped to 75. We have an extremely low ppm tap water to begin with. Probably nutes still too low compared to what we've read. Guess being too cautious for our first grow. Trying to slowly increase. Roots seem to be white and growing nicely. No slime. Water is staying clear. We did all the ducting tape since our water temps kept running in the 80s. We don't hate the tubs, but it's been a pain removing the lid and will only get worse when roots are thick and jumbled. We don't have a separate reservoir so that's another option to buckets. I'm not very good at waiting. Patience is not my virtue! Sent from my iPad using Grasscity Forum
Day 19-Feb 24 Plants are up to 1/2 nutes now with a ppm around 380. We added CalMag. Didn't realize it would turn the water brownish. Wondering if the roots will turn color as well because of that. They are loving it. They are nice and green again. We are at 5th node popping out. We have decided to Fim one and Top the other to see which we like better. Definitely looking at LST once they recover from the stress of damage. We have been keeping PH between 5.7-6.0. Humidity is staying between 47-61%. STRETCH SANDY- she's always had weird shaped leaves..curving sideways. Not sure why, but doesn't seem to affect her badly. Sent from my iPad using Grasscity Forum
Days 21-23 (Feb 27-Mar1) We added CalMag the other day and upped the nutes. The leaves are a much nicer green than before. They are a LOT healthier! BUT we noticed on Day 21 that there was foam and brown grit in the reservoir. I did some researching and some said it was fine (since we are not doing a sterile grow) and others said it was bad. Our water didn't smell, it was slightly off color, but the CalMag did that, and the brown grit just felt like dirt. There was no slime, no light leaks, etc. so we just rinsed the roots off & pressed on. We rinsed the roots twice daily. So the foam and grit took care of itself as we don't have it anymore and we haven't done a reservoir change since day 19. Roots grew like crazy and so did the plants! We did add more z7 and hydroguard on day 21. Our ppms were slowly dropping from 380 down to 340. We added more nutes and brought it up to 400ppm. DAY 22 Feb 28th I (wife and journal writer) had ankle reconstructive surgery today so hubby has to take care of everything by himself w/o me. I'm bed-ridden and can't get upstairs. So I'm a bit drugged up from the meds so if something seems off, I apologize. They gave me a nerve block, but that's going to wear off very soon. Just bear with me a bit. Wish we had some 420 for the pain, but ran out a couple weeks ago. We are new to the area so have no contacts anymore...partly why we decided to grow our own. Hubby has taken pics and I'll post. We are just using an iPad to take them. So I wanted to edit some and go through which are the best. Day 23 Mar 1 Holy hell, the pain is ridiculous in my ankle! Off topic, but damn it hurts! Hubby was so excited when he came down to talk about our babies. I guess the leaves are growing like crazy!!! Like a kid with a $1 in a penny candy store! He LST'd some more. We may Top and Fim one more time and then just stick with LST for the rest of the grow. We didn't go crazy with the training. We didn't bend the main stem. We just are bending the nodes. I wish I could see them in person. The pictures just don't do them justice. I don't know if we fimmed properly but I guess that's why they call it fimming. Lol He moved the light up a bit. Aurora Indica definitely likes to stay short...at least in this phase. Not complaining since it's a grow tent and space is a little limited. Temps have stayed in the mid 70s for the tent. Humidity has fluctuated between 36-50%. Water temps have been between 65-69 degrees. We've kept the PH around 5.8. Will add pics in the next post. Need to go through yesterday's photos.
Day 24-Mar 2 Word is the plants are growing super fast at this point. Since my surgery requires me to elevate my ankle and not walk, I can't really describe them for you. Lucky me, that hubby took pics. We are using the digital camera this time instead of the ipad. I don't know yet if we prefer the topped plant, stretch, or the fimmed plant, sandy. Fimming grows strange after it's cut and I can't even tell if we fimmed it correctly...despite looking at pics and videos. For simple sake, I might prefer topping best. Hubby had to do a little more LST, but very basic LST...nothing fancy for our first grow. PH is at 5.91 this morning. RT: 75.6, WT: 66.6, H: 36% (don't know how long the tent door was open for it to drop this low. It's typically in the upper 40s-very low 60s. Didn't add any nutes or bennies today as the ppm was where it was yesterday. Will check again this evening before going to bed. Here's some pics taken today:
DAYS 25-27 Mar 3-5 These babies are GROWING!!! Last I wrote, we weren't sure how we felt about Fimming. Still don't know. I think we will just stick to topping and mostly LST. The leaves are gorgeously green, large and abundant. We've only hit 7 fan leaves at 4 weeks from popping through the rapid rooter. Roots are strong and white...well as white as CalMag will let them be. They are still eating at 400ppm. We were thinking of upping it to 450, but not sure what to look for to really tell us when to do it. The PH was a little wonky last 2 days. Spiked into the 7s over 12 hours which hasn't been typical. We try to keep it around 5.8ish. It was time for a reservoir change anyway so hubby did just that. He didn't find anything unusual like slime or algae so not going to stress the ph spikes. Water temps are staying between 65-68. One of our humidifiers is a quitter so humidity hasn't been above 45 again. We aren't dropping anymore $$$ into this grow so we are just going to make do. Can't afford to stress when I have an ankle that needs to heal and I can't even walk. Hubby decided to top Sandy today (the one we think we fimmed cause I don't even know if we truly fimmed her correctly). He says we are having some crazy off shoots and nodes from side branches. I can't tell because this strain grows very densely. I imagine we will need to some pruning on these, but that'll be later on. These girls will be short and bushy. Not sure how to tell how many colas these 2 will have. No matter how much I read about this, I still feel like I haven't learned much or I'm just not getting it. Can't be too stupid because they are growing. But then they are a weed so I don't know if that's saying much. Lol Pics I'm attaching were taken today. We'd love feedback. 1. Because it's great to hear from the "pros" and 2. Because I'm bed-ridden and bored out of my mind!!!! Help a girl out, please!!!! Sent from my iPad using Grasscity Forum
Plants are looking healthy. Glad to see them taking off a bit. They seemed slow going there for a while. This would def. help with getting that humidity up and would be well worth it in my opinion. Humidity Dome in Humidity Dome Also, check into realgrowers recharge. I was having all sorts of PH issues before. May be premature to say, but after speaking with the companies owner. He told me literally just leave my PH alone and don't even worry about it. It's been almost 2 weeks of only slightly adjusting PH and I have only seen GREAT things. All my girls look 100x better. I have been dialing in my system though so it's prob a combination. I'm testing my newest addition Dance World with not doing anything to the PH. She is sitting at 6.69 as of this morning up from 6.53 after yesterday's res change and looks great. This product is a beneficial bacteria "bennies" that eliminates nutrient & PH lockout. I use 1/4 tsp - 1/2 tsp max for 3 gallons. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
Day 46-Mar 24th *UPDATE FOR PAST 20 DAYS* It's been 20 days since we wrote in our journal. It's been a rough 20 days...tiny part our plants, huge part my surgery. So let's get caught up. Massive growth in 20 days. We raised the light a little because it seems Aurora loves to grow very compact and extremely dense. We didn't want to defoliate or start cutting off leaves this grow since we are still learning. We LST'ed the best we could and topped twice. It wasn't all problem free that's for sure. The leaves were curling under and the tips were curling down, BUT there was no nute burn signs, no spots, no discoloration, nothing. Just the curling under. In DWC, we knew it wasn't over/under watering and our PH, temps etc were great. We googled...a lot! But there were 20 different answers for the same problem. We changed the water, dropped the nutes lower, changed the light level, everything. The roots were clean, white, water was good, no slime/algae. It wasn't until a couple days ago we found a possible solution. We believe we have a nitrogen toxicity. Between the GH Trio and CalMag, it was too much! So lowering the nutes had no effect because it was the same amount of nitrogen. We are flushing it now for a day or 2 with just PH water, z7 and Hydroguard. They seem to be perking up after just 12 hours. We have 9 leaves sprouting on new growth. Pre-flowers and alternating nodes. Since we are flushing and the plant is improving, we are going to flip it to flowering when we start to put nutes back in the water. We are going to go straight to 12/12 with an HPS bulb vs the MH we have in now. Aurora definitely has a skunky smell. It's been smelling like that since around day 35 and just getting stronger. We purchased ONA gel on top of already having the carbon filter. Some days we have to open one of the screen vents in the tent since our weather here is cold one day then super warm the next. Snow, then warm, then rain, then snow again. It's crazy! Our intake vent brings in air from the outside and really messes with the room temp. So we got the ONA for when we need to have the vents open on the tent. Our temps have fluctuated between 67-82 throughout the day and night over the past 20 days. Our water temp stays between 65-69. Humidity has been between 50-70. PH stays between 5.8-6.3. We don't mind the fluctuation. Nutes we keep around 450ppm. We tried raising it and they didn't like it. They don't seem to be overly hungry eaters. We will see how they are in flowering. Thankfully the nitrogen level decreases for flowering nutes so hopefully we won't see a toxicity again. So today is actually day 46. The pictures were from yesterday, Day 45, March 23rd. Nitrogen Toxicity Nitrogen Toxicity Sent from my iPad using Grasscity Forum
They were slow going! I also think we waited too long to start adding nutes. We waited til it had 3 nodes, but Aurora seemed to want nutes sooner. How would the recharge affect Hydroguard and can we use it with Z7? We liked Hydro and using good bennies. We may try that after the Hydro is gone. No issues except in very beginning, but that's because of light leaks. We had a nitrogen toxicity there for a while. Fixed that so maybe the recharge would be better than Hydro. We also bought a new humidifier that's wickless so no filters. The other ones were so old and couldn't find filters anymore. Now that we are going into flowering, our 40% humidity will be perfect. Lol The hardest part lately has been the weather outside and maintaining temps inside. We adjusted the timers on the fans and so far we've found the right combo. We decided not to grow in the summer and only in the fall/winter. Unless we find another area to grow in. We are also looking into an RDWC as opposed to just a DWC for the next grow. Who knows! We just want to make it through this one with a decent yield and quality. I sure could've used this during my surgery healing. 3 weeks after surgery and I still can't walk! Sent from my iPad using Grasscity Forum
I stopped using the hydroguard. No need for it with the recharge. Also wouldn't be any need for the Z7 either. Healthy plants seem to correct PH on their own as I'm told. I haven't adjusted my PH in two weeks. It's been super nice.. It stays between 5.8-6.3. The recharge helps expand the PH range that the plant can absorb nutrients as well. I ran one bucket at 6.8 for over a week and saw no negative effect while experimenting. Love this stuff.. and a jar will last a LONG time. Barely use any each time. For chasing the temps of the tent, you should really get a temp controller. I have the this one and I never worry about temps. I stay between 70-78. Titan Controls - Spartan Series Cooling Controller Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
Day 82 total BUT Day 36 Flower We switched to 12/12 back on Mar 25th...trying to go off memory cause the written journal is upstairs. She fully recovered from her nitrogen issue. So what have we done in all this time? We defoliated and opened up some room in the middle so air could pass through and light to reach those areas better. We stopped adding the CalMag because it was just adding way too much nitrogen with the other GH nutes. We've raised the light a lot. We've had to change our intake and exhaust fan timing cycles and opened up a vent during the day when the light is on. We've increased nutes to 1050ppm with no side effects. Our girls are eating and drinking steadily. Our PH tends to drop to 5.6 and we keep it around 5.8 so nothing major. Our girls grow so differently despite being the same exact strain. The one that stretched in the beginning has stayed more dense and short. Her buds are more dense as well. The other that started short and dense has stretched a bit so she's now taller. They've both exploded with buds everywhere. Trichomes look great, but we aren't even close to harvesting. They have a good 4 weeks to go still. The HPS bulb doesn't put out as much heat as the MH one. So we were able to keep it closer to the taller plant so the shorter one can catch up if it ever does. We took a lot of pics so I can't really say what days specifically they were taken (I can't remember and that's what I get for not updating this regularly), BUT they are BEAUTIFUL. Sent from my iPad using Grasscity Forum
Day 58 of flower Day 103 total They are doing well. Growing so differently. She's looking so great. Had to take pics immediately after the light turns off. The HPS light gives off a bad color for good pictures. It also hides how orange the pistils are. Very deceiving! I also broke down and bought a phone camera lens set to take pics of trichomes instead of just looking at them through a loupe. I'm LOVING these lenses!! It seems the trichomes are roughly 75% clear. But my eyes could be wrong. It's our first time and all. You tell me. I'm sure I'll post a "how long to harvest" thread to see if we are on track. Enjoy the pictures! Sent from my iPad using Grasscity Forum
That was my comment. I don't think he's using recharge unless he didn't mention it after our replies. You can see it in my grow below. Dual Mars Hydro 144 Multi Strain Grow Journal - Dual MarsHydro 144 - Multi Strain DWC 4x4 LED Grow Journal
We never used recharge. We just stuck with the hydroguard for this first grow. And I'm a she..lol! Sent from my iPad using Grasscity Forum
So I know this is 1 1/2 years late, buuttttt... We harvested in June 2017. Dry weight was a tad over 10oz total between both plants. It was our first time so I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. Btw, this strain will give you some straight couch lock if you aren’t careful. It is potent as hell! Things we’d do differently: grow in the winter (due to room heat), use individual buckets and do a RDWC (under current most likely), keep the main water container outside of the tent instead of inside, and Scrog. This year we are doing 4 plants, different strains. I’ll be starting a different journal and will keep up a bit better than I did last year.