March 15th 2017 Lights• 2x Mars Hydro 300w leds --- one only on at the moment. Grow Area - Equipment• 4x4 HomeBox Evolution Grow tent ••• Manrose 4 inch 241m3 L/hr inline fan ••• Mountain Air 4 inch carbon filter ••• Hailea 9610 600L/hr air pump ••• Desk fan ••• 500w oil filled radiator with thermostat. Hydro• DWC --- 10 litre buckets for Veg --- 25 litre buckets for Flowering. Strains• Unknown, Sensi Seeds Feminised mix. PH• adjusted to 5.6 and will let it rise to 5.9 before bringing it down again. Nutrients• General Hydroponics Flora Series. Temperatures• 22 to 25 degrees day and night. Humidity• Currently at 80% EC/PPM• Currently at 1.2 EC or 600PPM Plants are just over 2 weeks old now, germinated in paper towels then moved to one inch rockwool cubes for 1 week then transplanted to 3 inch rockwool cubes for one more week before being put into DWC today. Up until now they have only received Super Thrive in plain tap water with a PPM of just under 300, EC 0.6....chlorine removed overnight, the 3 inch rockwool cubes were soaked overnight in a mild solution of Flora Bloom PH'd to 5.5. 2 days ago they got a first light feeding 1.1.1 ratio of Nutrients + Epsom Salt PPM 400 or EC 0.8 Growth has been slow for the first 2 weeks up until 2 days ago when they got their first light feeding and now have gathered some speed, I have 3 plants growing at the moment all the pics below are the same plant. The other 2 plants are one week behind and more pics will follow. Any advice or questions welcome. Thanks for looking
With the GH 3 part I have found that my pH is the easier to keep stable at 6.0 - 6.2 with good growth and end results Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk
18th March 2017 Plant 1 nearly three weeks old from seed looking like it could be sativa but could be wrong. plant 2 two weeks old from seed has a broader leaf and is looking more indica. EC 1.2 PH 5.8 Temps 20 to 25 degrees day and night. Still no roots in the water after nearly three days since transplant, hoping for some fast growth once this happens......plants looking healthy considering EC might be a bit too high for such small plants. Top fed a little bit yesterday to make sure their getting enough nutes...not much stretching under the 300w led which is good. I will probably turn on the second 300w led next week and see what happens from there. This is my first hydro grow so if anyone has any advice or sees any obvious mistakes I'm making please feel free to post below. Thanks
Hey man and welcome to my grow journal. I usually mix my nutes at 5.3 PH and let it creep up to around 6.2 before adjusting back down so the plants can receive different nutrients at different ph levels
21st March 2017 Plant 1, 22 days old Plant 2, 16 days old Plant 3, 16 days old Temps 20 degrees Humidity 65% EC 1.2 PH 5.9 Girls are still a little small as I'd like for this stage I'm thinking due to starting their life's out under shitty T8 4000k bulbs I got cheap and I think I maybe over did it with the super Thrive starting out, plant 3 is still way behind after the seed casing issue but seems to be bouncing back now. Roots only dropped into the water on plant 1 today and no visible signs of roots in 2 and 3 yet, going to hold off on changing the nutes for one more week as they haven't really been drinking that much. Noticed a tiny bit of leaf burn on one of the lower leafs but gonna leave the EC at 1.2 for now and if it gets worse I'll drop to 1.0, other than that they're loving the mars hydro 300w and I'll turn on the second one tomorrow, I'm still thinking plant 1 maybe sativa and 2 and 3 indica but could be wrong? anyways that's it for now, thanks for looking
27th March 2017 Plant 1, 28 days old Plant 2, 22 days old Plant 3, 22 days old PH 5.8 EC 1.2 Humidity 58% Temp 20 degrees Plants have really started to grow since the roots hit the water number 3 is still way behind but I'm hoping it catches up, number 1 got topped today and I will top number 2 week. I think my biggest mistake this grow was starting in 1 inch rockwool cubes then transplanting to 3 inch cube, next time I'll go from 1 inch cubes straight into DWC. I haven't changed the nutes in two weeks because the plants were not drinking much so I'll change them out tomorrow and keep the EC at 1.2 and add a little Epsom salt to each bucket, purple stems disappeared when the roots hit the water so it must have been some kind of nutrient deficiency. Getting some of the leafs curling up and not sure if it's a heat of ph problem. Plan on vegging these for a good while so I can fill the 4x4 tent as much as possible.
2nd April 2017 Plant #1, 33 days old Plant #2, 27 days old Plant #3, 27 days old PH 5.9 EC 1.7 Humidity 45% Temps 20 degrees Changed the nutes out 4 days ago and raised the EC to 1.7 and added some Epsom salt , the leaf curling problem was a heat issue and was fixed by raising the lights and moving the radiator further away from the plants. All plants have now been topped and I plan on vegging for at least another 2 to 3 weeks before flipping into flower, struggling a bit to keep the humidity in the 60% range and have added trays of water into the tent but might need to invest in a humidifier. Apart from the slow growth at the start I am really happy how my first hydro grow is turning out, plants are looking really healthy and I'm impressed with the two 300w Mars Hydro led lights.
6th April 2017 Plant #1, 37 days old Plant #2, 31 days old Plant #3, 31 days old PH 5.8 EC 1.7 Humidity 35% Temps, 18 degrees lights off - 24 degrees lights on. Water temps 20 degrees. Changed the nutrients out yesterday with a ph of 5.8 and when I checked today the ph had raised to 6.7 so everything is looking a bit sad at the moment......first time adding silica to my nutes which could be the problem, my tent yesterday started to really stink so I finally hooked up my carbon filter. Still struggling with the humidity because my extraction fan is sucking it all out so if anyone has any suggestions that would be great. Think I'm just gonna give these one more week in Veg before I flip to Flower as I don't like not knowing what strains I'm dealing with and want to move on quickly, plant 3 has bounced back really good now and has the thickest stem of all 3 plants. Thanks
Looking good ..... this is about the time dwc plant growth starts taking off like a rocket Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk
8th April 2017 Checked them again this morning and some of the bottom leaves were dying off....turning brown and wilting. Looks like I got nute lock out or some deficiency after my last nute change, it was spreading from the bottom of the plant upwards and some of the leaves started getting pale green in places. Freaked me out a bit, I'm flushing them since this afternoon with just plain tap water ph'd to 5.8 and they seem to be bouncing back now. My last nute change I gave them 12ml grow, 6ml micro, 3ml bloom per 4 litres of water, tap water EC is 0.6 starting off, total EC 1.7, The only thing I can think of why this happened is I usually add micro/grow/bloom in that order but forgot to do this on this nute change and added it grow/micro/bloom... I've read in the past not adding micro first can lock out nutrients this coupled with the fact my ph shot up to 6.7 I'd say didn't help matters much. Tomorrow I'm going to half the nutes for the last week of veg 6ml grow, 3ml micro, 2ml bloom, 3ml silica and 1tsp Epsom salt per 4 litres of water.
I've had a few problems along the way, nearly finished updating my post and you'll see the grow as it is today. Thanks
9th April 2017 I'm just flushing with normal tap water with an EC 0.6, they have been flushing now for 48 hours and the new growth seems healthy. As you can see from the pic below I think I over did it with the nutrients and some of the lower leaves got some bad nute burn, I mixed up a batch of nutes last night at half strength and let them sit then ph'd today to 5.8... I will check the ph again before changing out the nutes today. Yeah unfortunately I don't know what strains I'm growing and these plants don't seem to be heavy feeders so I will proceed with caution when upping the EC in future.
9th April 2017 The damage to the affected leaves seems to be still spreading after the nute change, not sure if this is normal. I'm just keeping an eye on newer growth to make sure it's not spreading to these.
12th April 2017 Day 2 of flower PH 6.1 EC 1.6 Humidity 40% Temps 25 to 20 degrees lights on/off Water temps 17 to 20 degrees Still on Veg feeding schedule for the first week of flower. So I finally solved the problem why the lower leaves were wilting and dying off, it seems my root zone was getting colder than it should be at lights off causing the plants to go into shock and lockout nutrients. I removed about 5 of the really bad leaves and everything is doing a lot better now. Only issue now is a small bit of purpling of the leaf stems, I think this a calcium issue even though I have very hard water with an EC of 0.6 and have ruled out a magnesium issue as I've been adding Epsom salt. Haven't done any training on these as I don't see them getting huge in height, all 3 have really bushed out since being topped and plant 2 looks like it will be the most impressive in a few weeks....this one is the only plant with no issues yet and just keeps growing and growing. Next week I will be putting these into 20 litre buckets and hopefully I will have a trouble free grow from here on in Learning a lot from this first Hydro grow
14th April 2017 I'm going to add hydroguard,Cal Mag, Bio-root and Diamond nectar to my feeding schedule this week once I receive delivery and add everything in the order below. Silica Hydroguard Cal mag Micro Bio-root Diamond nectar Grow Bloom I wasn't going to do any lst training or super cropping on these girls but decided to start yesterday, plant 2 has now been super cropped as it was starting to stretch a good bit and I'm just doing some light bending of branches on the other two plants. Plant 1 and 3 has 7 tops and plant 2 has 8 tops.
17th April 2017 Day 7 of flower PH 5.3 EC 1.5 Temps 23 degrees Humidity 58% Water temps 20 degrees Just changed out the nutrients into 20 litre buckets and switched over to bloom mix, still no sign of pre-flowers at day 7. Dropped the PH to 5.3 for this nute change and I will let it steadily rise to 6.2 before adjusting back down.....hopefully this will give the plants a good range of nutrients at different ph levels. I was having some issues with EC and PH rising and water levels dropping before the last nutrient change, I'm guessing this in down to my nute mix being to strong and the plants are taking up water faster than nutrients but maybe I'm wrong. Hopefully some experienced hydro growers can point me in the right direction regarding this My understanding is EC levels should be dropping as the plants feed, I lowered the EC to 1.5 and I'm hoping this fixes the problem. Feeding mix for this nute change is as follows. General Hydroponics Flora Series Per 12 litres of water or 3 gallons 9ml Grow 9ml Micro 15ml Bloom 32ml silica 0.5ml Super Thrive Tap water starting at 0.7 EC or 350 PPM Total EC 1.5 or 750 PPM I'm waiting on a delivery of Cal Mag and Diamond Nectar which I will also be adding, I would like to add B52 by Advanced Nutrients but it's out of my price range at the moment so any suggestions on something similar would be great. The two Mars Hydro 300w lights have been lowered to 18 inches from the canopy and the plants are really starting to bush out now. Thats it for now, if anyone has any ideas about the issues above I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks
Ok guys I'm pretty much up to date until my next post. This is my first hydro grow so if anyone has any advice or can see me doing anything wrong it would be much appreciated. Thanks for looking and happy growing
For Optimum nutrient strength what you want is your ppm's to stay the same as water level goes down.... if your nutrients are too strong your ppm's will go up as the water goes down and if your nutrients are too weak your ppm's will go down as the water level goes down..... there's a guy named gold grower on this forum that has a thread about determining nutrient strength.... you definitely should check it out ...your ppms seem high to me but your ppm meter will tell you the truth..... plants and journal look really good Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk
Thanks for the info man, yeah my PPM's are rising and water levels are not dropping much. Think your definitely right about the nutes being too strong, I will drop them on my next nutes change for sure. I only started giving them cal mag and diamond Nectar a few days ago and have seen a big difference much more growth and they look a lot happier. Going to add mammothP if my free samples ever get here.
Day 13 of flower PH: 5.8 EC: 1.6 or 800 PPM Humidity: 53% Temps: 24 degrees lights on - 19 degrees lights off. Water Temps: 20 degrees Ok so I'm 13 days into flower now and still no signs of any of the 3 plants showing their sex, no white pistols at all. This has me a bit concerned and the only thing I could think of doing was adjusting my light timer so lights on will be 11 hours 45 minutes and lights off will be 12 hours 15 minutes.... hopefully this will move them along a bit faster. I decided not to change the nutes out for another week as my EC was raising and the plants didn't take up much nutrients. In one week the EC has raised from 1.5 to 1.8, my next nutrients change I'm going to drop the EC to 1.3 or 1.4 and see if this fixes the problem of my EC raising. For this week I plan on dropping the EC slowly by adding just plane tap water PH'd to 5.3 until I find the sweet spot where my water levels are dropping and EC stays around the same. I have narrowed the strains down to either Shiva Skunk or Skunk Kush or maybe even both. Overall I'm happy with growth and they seem to be happy enough for now, over the next week I'll open them up a bit and remove some leaves for better light penetration and do some lst on them. Any advice or criticism welcome Thanks for looking and happy growing guys