[quote name='"JohnnyScience"']You said 3 ml/g for protek to act as ph up How much flavorful per gallon for ph down?[/quote] I run 3 or 4ml of the pro-tekt and 3 to 5 ml of the fulvic acid. I haven't really worried about pH in coco for a long time. Organic systems, like this one prefer a 6.5pH which the coco mix should have no problem buffering to without much work on your behalf.
With the stuff you have... The CNS17 is your base macro system and once your plants are about 15 days old and 3 or 4 nodes tall you'll want to start running this at 5ml/g or so. The BioWeed at 2.5ml/g at this point too. You can start using 5ml/g of the BioRoot on the third watering. Seedlings need very little water, so this should be around days 8 to 10. Save the flavorful and the pro-tekt until around days 20 to 24 or 6 nodes tall or so. Liquid Karma can be used right from the start. I suggest 3 to 5 ml until you start feeding with the CNS17, then increasing to 8ml/g. The first two weeks are pretty slow going. The vast majority of what they need in these first two weeks is already present in the seed, the water, and the coco mix. Things do start to progress fast after the seedling stage and it helps to be ready with the nutrients. By the 30th day of growth you should be basically following the instructions on the bottles more or less. We can cross that bridge when we get there. Now that you have all the things you need I suggest starting a journal in a new thread and posting some pictures.
Ok so PH was high, like over 8.0 on the water we've had sitting out with a pump for a couple of days. I used Flavorful, about 5ml at first to get it down to around 5.8, then I add some Great White & Liquid Karma & it jumped the PH up again & I added about another 1ml of Flavorful to bring it down, I brought it down just a bit too much & added a few drops of Pro-tekt & ended up with a PH of 5.9 I was told before that I wanted to shoot for 5.5-5.9, but you're saying for coco I want my nutrient tea water PH to be 6.5? You said not to use Flavorful or Pro-tekt until day 20 or 24... but it's ok to use them for PH up/down now correct? I assume around day 20 or 24 I increase the amount of them? At what point do I use CES Micro, Uncle John's & the Epsom salt? Which Epsom Salt is the best to get? Thanks again.
Try not to use all those products at the moment. Don't aerate your water. Just keep it around 65 degrees and it will retain plenty of dissolved oxygen. Coco is going to buffer the pH and there is very little you can do about that. For the time being I recommend treating your coco like soil, running a 6.5pH because that is what the beneficial organic microbes and fungi prefer and it will help them get a foot hold in the "spongy" coco fibers. The idea while they are building roots and the coco hasn't been enriched with nutrients much is to go from totally saturated to almost dry. This is a process that takes some getting used to but you'll get the idea as you lift the planter. Don't go poking around in it! The weight will tell you how much water remains. Do this two or three times and the roots will fill the media well enough to withstand regular feedings with a low level vegetative solution. Right now you want the EC to be between 0.2 and 0.6. The pH really is negligible because it is such a small amount of solution (like ounces to get some runoff, maybe 1 gallon a week for two dozen seedlings in 8oz party cups) and all we're doing is building organics and letting the plant acclimate to that kind of lifestyle. The Liquid Karma and the tap water, at this point, is enough. You can lay off the other stuff as best you can until they have a couple of nodes on them, after 2 or 3 near dry-outs. Hold off on the CES Micro until you get onto filtered water. It's hard to tune things with the two. This bottle of Micro is going to last you a looooooong time. 1-2ml per gallon is all you need, so it's going to be on that shelf through more than 500 gallons of solution, unless you find another use for it (like mimicking the Lucas formula with the Bloom). The Uncle John's is for flowering only, it is a resin enhancer and potassium boost. I start at 5ml/gallon in the first week of 12/12 eventually hitting around 12ml/gallon by day 30, and holding it there through to the end of feeding. Epsom salt we will begin to work in once we start looking at your nutrient profile and the health of the plants. The first time with a strain you want to try and avoid deviating very far from the base nutrient. The CNS17 is going to do all the heavy lifting here later on, with the organic side of things helping break it all down and make it available to the plant. The rooting supplements are going to expedite their growth and when it all works right, when you take it slow and steady and use low levels working them in over time, then the flowers you get will only be more enhanced by the Fulvic, the UJB, and the silicon. Right now they're just seedlings. Be patient. Treat it like soil and think more about building an organic community like it were an ant farm under the surface of the coco. The plant will do it's thing, it only needs light and a healthy environment, and once she does need food the system will be in place to provide it. Until then, LKB and rested water at <68 degrees when the media is nearly dry by weight.
Hey thanks for the continued interest. It's been a bit weird. We took 16 seeds originally to germinate, after 3 days they all had a clam tongue, but only a few actually had a nice tap root. I transplanted them all into coco mix inside of a tray with a dome & heater. That was the 5th, and as of today, only 8 have actually made a seedling with one of them already dying. There are a couple more that should pop into a seedling, but I took a closer look & moved enough coco away to see that another 5-6 seeds haven't even gotten past the clam tongue stage. I don't understand why. We bought high quality seeds from Attitude, germinated them in tupperware in wet paper towels in the dark for 3 days. Once I transplanted them to the coco dome I watered them with PH'd water of 5.9 which I used Flavorful to adjust the PH down initially, a bit of Liquid Karma & Great White. I haven't watered them since as they are still moist & damp (I put a lot of water in the bottom of the tray like a reservoir) The seedlings that are growing seem to be doing well, they do have some dead leave material on the tips, I think this is residual from the seed casing. Although a couple of the seedlings seem to have burnt/dying tips. (only like 1-2) The ones that are doing well are starting to grow their 2nd set of leaves, the ones that look like cannabis leaves. The attach function was giving me issues for pics, so here they are from my photobucket: Thoughts?
They're hurting dude. Get the temperature down, and rinse your coco with clean water. Pull off the dome and get a breeze going, it will help strengthen the stem and allow you to put the light closer in order to prevent further stretching. And if you've been spraying them you should not do that either. What I do to start seeds is put them right into coco and keep the coco moist until the break ground, usually in a party cup or starter tray like you have. Then I let the coco go wet/dry three or four times, with low level feedings, usually just rooting supplements and organics . Once they are good to go I can keep them cruising until I transplant, then the process is continued as the roots build into the new media. I keep my CFL bulbs turned on right from when they are planted, 2" maximum, no other special treatment needed. Having a breeze on them is really important to growing thick stems early on and encourages the plant to grow roots laterally to hold it in place.
ok, so just use plain water? Don't try to adjust the PH or anything? We removed the dome, lowered the light, added a slight breeze & unplugged the heater. We had water sitting in a garbage can for a few days with out any movement or aeration at all, so we are turning the pump on for a little bit before using that water just to kind of freshen it up.
Cool. Yes, just regular clean water right now. Next time around we're going to add some stuff back though. It can wait until morning if need be.
Things took a turn for the worse... We did everything as you said and checked on it daily, things got progressively worse. I wasn't able to see them everyday but had phone contact with a friend who tended to them everyday. Another issue is that 8 or 9 of the 16 seeds we tried never even got past the clam tongue. When I came over today to tend to the situation I realized they were almost gone (if not gone at this point) so I turned the heater back on, add some fresh water to the tray and a bit around the seedlings themselves and put the dome back on. The light is as close as it can be. Thoughts?
I just delicately help up the ones that are near death and added coco around the bent stems to help give them support to maybe revive. I'm just trying anything I can to save these. The 9 seeds not going last the clam tongue really makes no sense. We germinated them for over 3 days in wet paper towels in the dark in Tupperware.
I never germinate that way. Odds are that they were cooked while in your dome with the heater. Do you have any idea what the temperature was under the dome? The only seedling in those pictures that has a chance is the Jack Herrer. You just put them on a destructive path. I personally germinate and grow my seedlings much different than the method you chose. I have spoken about how I grow at length throughout this but you never did ask me how to start your plants. I thought you had it under control but I knew when you posted that first picture and I told you that your plants were hurting that there was little which could be done. Here's how I do it: 1. Saturate coco 2. Plant seeds 2cm deep, cover them, and tamp firmly 3. Place a 27w daylight cfl in a clamp light reflector about 2" above coco and turn it on a 24-hour schedule 4. Keep coco from going dry by adding a few ounces daily until the seedling breaks ground. 5. Wait 4 days 6. Turn on circulation fan as soon as seedlings are above ground and cut to 18/6 lighting 7. Increase the number of bulbs to cover the tray properly 8. Go from saturated to nearly dry a few times with the media using clean water 9. Initiate feedings after the third leaf set is present (see picture) 10. Maintain a <2" distance from CFL bulbs to canopy until transplanting and moving to HID. No Paper Towels. No Tupperware. No heaters. No dome. Just good old fashioned nature doing what it does when us humans get out of the way. Seedlings are too "hands off" for most new growers to accept and often times it is good intentions and "over-loving" them that has killed off quite a few genetics. This is my result regularly after 18 days from planting the seed. http://forum.grasscity.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=659776&d=1312015356
We will try germinating the way you just wrote about, but people have clearly been successfully germinated in paper towels all the time, there isn't any real reason why 60% of the seeds never got past the clam tongue when we took much care & went the length to get them to germinate properly. I posted about it here on GC & people said that after 3 or 4 days that I was ok to plant them right into coco & they will take root. I just don't understand why they didn't get past the clam tongue. They were stretching for light, no doubt. I realize this now after seeing you say you keep your light 2" above the coco - but they were still looking green & healthy under the dome with the heater pad. Once we removed the dome & turned off the heater pad, they shriveled up & died. Even if the light wasn't as intense as it needed to be (there's a good chance the T5 bulbs were old, they shouldn't have shriveled up & died the way they did. (btw, I'm not placing blame, just stating what the situation is, obviously we are new to this & there is a learning curve especially when dealing with seeds. It just sucks it was hundreds of dollars with of seeds.) We still have around a dozen seeds left I think. We are going to try & re-do the germination the exact way you detailed over the next few days probably. I just really hope we have much better luck. We are going to get a new light too like the one you mentioned.
For the light, you mentioned the clamp on reflector & 27w CFL Should we replace our T5 bulbs instead? It is a 28W setup (two 14w bulbs) and is either 18" or 24". The unit isn't like an awesome unit and I honestly don't even know how good the reflector is, so that may be another consideration to get the better reflector too. Thoughts?
Your posts are amazing man. Such valuable information. Why the pH of 6.5 with coco though? Did I miss something? I run a 2/1/1 coco/soil/perlite mix and pH @5.8-6.0?? Sorry for the hijack... And I don't think the light is the issue with your seedling
Jesus... Okay, for one last time. I am personally unconcerned about the pH in my own grow room. Completely! I have a basic idea, and I'm not talking about drastic shit here, but I really don't spend much (if any time) balancing my pH. With that said... Most essential elements are best available at a 5.8pH in hydroponic systems. Organic systems utilize a 6.5pH because this is where the beneficial microbes work best at providing food to the plant. IMO, do what ever you want to do with pH. I am not the person to talk to about this subject because I don't find it to be a subject worth talking about with regards to coco. Domes are more for clones. Some people use domes I guess... I haven't used a dome on the last 100 or so seedlings and it's worked wonderfully. All you need to do is keep the canopy temperature around 78 degree all day and night and the relative humidity over 50%. If the light and water are properly applied then there's really nothing else to it. Do you see trees folding up seeds in paper towels so they can start a new generation? No. The don't use heaters or domes either. Hell, they are outside even. The worst part about "germinating" in a paper towel is that you have to be EXTREMELY careful to not damage the tap root in any way. I am still of the opinion it was too hot inside the dome and the plants were dead before I had a chance to try and save them. Plants do not provide immediate reactions, things grow slow and take time, and there was unfortunately little which could have been done. I gave you good advice... it was just too late. It's like pulling a burning man out of a building. Just because he's outside the fire doesn't mean it isn't already burned.
Ok I went oh and bought a 10.5" clamp reflector & a 120w 30w draw cfl. (they didn't have any 27w so figured the 30w was ok. It was the brightest one they had. Should I remove the dome? I don't know what to do to save the 2 or 3 that are still hanging on I'm scared to...
The dome is just on to try to save the original batch. I'm going to do the straight coco With direct light tomorrow.
Looking back at your picture of your seedlings, it looks like you have 2 of these clamp lights right? Should I get a 2nd one as well? What bulb are you using exactly? Here is the bulb I got:
Bright white bulbs provide most of their light energy in the green spectrum which is not useable by the plants for photosynthesis. I have said it before. Daylight CFL. They correspond with the 5000K to 7500K color temperatures and provide a blueish light which the plants gobble up. I use a much CFL lighting as I can safely fit in there. I also only use the medium sized clamp light reflectors, the 6" ones, because the large ones have the reflection too far from the bulb to provide any real benefit and because the larger reflectors take up space I'd rather have another bulb in. Although, I bought 4 or 5 of those big ones myself before learning that lesson. Every 2.5" from the CFL bulb you lose 1/2 the power. So, at 5" you have 1050 lumens. At 7.5" you have 525 lumens. And so on. This is why it is so important to keep the CFL bulb close to the canopy. The heat they cast is so miniscule that you can place the bulbs as close as 1 inch away, which provides even more lumens to the plant than the label says. With the light so far away the plants cannot get enough energy to photosynthesize and will waste what little energy and nutrition was stored in the seed to try and stretch tall enough to get to the light. You can use as many or as few bulbs as you like. The way I figure it is that from a distance of 1" above the plant the total casting distance isn't very good. Maybe 6 to 8 square inches. So what I do is use a cfl bulb for every few square inches of canopy/seedling tray. In the picture I provided I actually had another lamp right where the camera is which I needed to remove to get the shot. When I get my laptop put back together I toss up some daily photographs to show you what to expect and when to expect it. Might take me another 2 days.