pH was at 5.2 so I added about a fifth of a gallon of tap water with 10-12 drops of pH up in it. About an hour later it was at 5.5 so ill leave it there and check again/adjust it tonight
pH was at 5.2 when I woke up this morning so I decided it was time for a res change (its been 11 days). My solution mixture was as such: 7 gallons of tap water 62 mL Aqua A 62 mL Aqua B 53 mL Rhizotonic 66 mL Cannazym 3.5 teaspoons of CaliMagic and 22 mL pH down to bring it to 5.2 (it rose to 5.9 after aerating it for a couple hours) ppm was around 820 / 1.6 EC Hopefully she likes the new mix and continues to do as well as she has been!
I put a side by side together to show the 1 week change in my plant. The before image is 1 day after I replaced my 96 watt t5 cfl setup with a 400 watt mh. The after image is from earlier today (keep in mind I have recently defoliated the inner branches to open up light for the smaller shoots).
I've been very impressed by the growth this week too. I've been considering doing coco my next grow mixed with perlite and expanded clay.
Yeah I'm trying to decided whether to stick with coco or start fresh with DWC. I've already learnt heaps with my first coco grow and know the next grow will be allot better but DWC just seems to have so many pro's that suit my lifestyle.
Looking good man. Glad to see she is coming along nicely. I would try getting those temps down under 80 just to avoid any problems. Temp could be what is affecting your ph. With those temps, your rez temps could be climbing as well causing a drop in ph. The reason temperature affects water's pH is that water molecules have a slight tendency to break down into their constituents, hydrogen and oxygen, as temperature increases. As temperatures increase, a larger proportion of water molecules break up, releasing a few more hydrogen ions, which then decreases the pH of the water. If not that, it could also be your medium. Are you using hydroton? If so, did you wash and rinse very well before use? This could also cause ph drop until the hydroton is completely rinsed. I would suggest bumping your ph up to the 5.8-5.9 range. That way your plants are taking up all the available nutes that they can. 5.5 is what is considered the bottom. Get your rez at 5.8-5.9 and that allows your plants maximum uptake, as well as allows the ph to swing a bit without constantly adjusting ph. Ph swing is normal, however maintaining a ph of 5.5 doesn't allow for a swing down without dropping out of the acceptable range. Keep up the good work bro. Im subbed up. BD Green
If you have the space you should give it a shot with just a single bucket and do the coco alongside. It's pretty easy to setup just 1 bucket and cost effective too. You could even run the same strain with comparable nutrients and do a comparison thread. Welcome BD Green, thanks for subbing! Yeah, I try to keep the res as cold as possible. I'd say it sits between 62-75 F 95% of the time. Temps are beginning to fall here so it should be much more manageable in the next couple months. I'm using these things called growstones for my medium. They are little rocks made from recycled glass and they are supposed to be inert. They are a bit dusty/sandy when they get dry but before using them I washed em and soaked em in pH'd water. I just changed the res today and the pH was 5.9 when the lights went out so hopefully it hangs there. I'm gonna try to keep it right around 5.8 for the rest of veg. I've heard people run a little more acidic when the plants are in flower. What's your take on this? -Dupe
I am by no means a pro when it comes to hydro, but in my environment with my strains, anything under 5.6 during flower and I was noticing some ca/mg deficiencies. Now considering I do not run cal mag or any other ca supplement, this could be why. I know alot of guys say between 5.2 & 5.8, but I have found 5.8 to be my magic number. Another thing I have learned is it is best to check my ph a few hours after lights on. Your ph will read different when lights are off than they will once they wake up and get kickin. BD Green
I've been running at 5.5-5.4 for a few days. They've been growing well but getting some marks that are potential defs. The lights came on about 20 minutes ago and the pH was 5.9. Ill check again in a couple hours and adjust if necessary. Also, I added some calmag today for the first time. My tap water is very soft (125 ppm) and I don't think it was cutting it.
Looking good man! Im still working on my first grow and had a hard time with the temps in my cab. Some of your leaves are showing signs of heat stress like mine were doing; serrated edges of the leaves turned up. Once I was able to keep my temps under 86F at least for most of the day, my girl really started filling in. My understanding is higher temps will begin to inhibit the uptake of certain nutrients, 86F being the debatable "magic number". I dont recall the specifics, but basic chemistry would explain it as a result of changes in chemical structure in tandem with increases in temperature. I dont recall if you mentioned any additional ventilation in your tent, but I would highly recommend getting some airflow through that thick canopy. Only problem with having an awesome top is getting adequate circulation through all the foliage. This all comes from my recent experiences in my grow in addition to months of reading (forums AND real books). Cheers and good luck!
Hey CaptainKimura and thanks for your comment! You're right, the leaves are showing some signs of heat damage. I've been working on my ventilation. I have 2 240 cfm duct fans, one blowing air out at the end of ducting and one near the top at the start of the ducting blowing air through the reflector. I also have a clip on fan that blows air at the reflector's glass and a stick fan that oscilates air toward the canopy. Temps are under 86 most of the time in the tent but it can get up to 90 in the late afternoon. This is starting to go down as overall temps are dropping. Also, I've heard the HPS bulbs produce less heat than the MH so that should help after i switch.
I have also read the same about the HPS bulbs so I hope it's true! One thing to note that I learned the hard way; inline fans work best when they're sucking air as opposed to blowing it. I have an inline hooked up to my cool tube and blowing out the heat up top. Once I had the air being pulled out of my box, temps dropped to an acceptable level. Also, are you running your lights during the night or day?
Yea, I've heard the same thing about inlines. The way I've got mine setup is I have an elevated duct fan inside the tent sucking air from the top of the tent into the reflector. That air runs past the bulb, goes up some ducting, outside the tent then is exhausted through another fan at ground level next to the tent. Ideally id have it exhausting somewhere else but the tent is in my bedroom and I don't have any space to run the ducting. I have negative pressure and warm air is coming out of the exhaust so it seems to be working well. Once temps in my bedroom rise it doesn't stay as cool. My lights come on at 10pm and turn off at 4pm. I maintained good temps (below 86) until 2pm today so they get a good 12-14 hours of lights on and decent temps now that overall environment temps have dropped. I also keep the res nice and cool so they always have access to a cold drink.
Today is day #30 since getting her into the hydro! It's been 3 days since I last changed the res and I still am having trouble keeping the pH from falling. I think 800 ppm is still too much for her so I added a gallon of tap water yesterday. I've also added another 2/3 of a gallon with some pH up. It's still hanging around 5.5-5.6 so hopefully I've balanced out the mixture to her needs. I also suspect the cannazyme or some other force may be dissolving the grodan cube that the clone came in. I've heard this can make pH unstable. I've been trying to run the water level a little lower but having to add tap water is causing it to rise. Besides that issue, she is growing just splendidly. Temps have been lower recently and I can tell she is liking that, not so much taco'ing of the leaves. Growth has not slowed at all and she is really bushing out. The roots are becoming massive too. My plan so far is to hopefully have her at the screen level in 7-10 days and then I'm going to flower her and use the flower stretch to fill up the screen. Does this sound like a good idea? This is my first SCROG so I could really use some advice. Anyways...here are the pics!
Happy Fall Equinox everybody! There's been a ton of growth since my last post. The roots are growing like mad along with the foliage. I modified the screen rig to make it sit a bit lower and attached it to the res lid. I think I made the nutrient solution too strong in my last res change and I've been gradually watering it down with pH'd water. Today was the first day in about a week that the pH drifted upwards due to the plant and not me adding pH up so I think I've got a good baseline of where to set the nutrient levels next time. my #1 question right now is: Would it be too early to flower this girl considering the screen height? I see a lot of people saying that you should wait til the screen is 50% full but I feel like she is so spread out that it would get too crowded if I waited for 50% of the tops to reach the screen height. Won't the stretch from the first 2 weeks of flowering be enough for her to get up and past the screen? Her closest tops are about an inch from screen height. Thanks everybody for stopping in! Here are some pics of her progress:
I may be missing something, but it appears to me your screen is 0% full. You gotta get those tops through the screen before you flower.
Yeah, you're pH will keep dropping and the pH is going to be a daily fight because I assume your reservoir temps are to high causing bacteria to build up on the roots... There is 3 ways you can fix that....
Okay, I'm gonna veg it another week or so. This is my first scrog (2nd grow)ever and i've never grown this strain. I've seen a lot of people (in threads ive looked at through google searches) saying to experiment when youre new to growing and when growing an unfamiliar strain. My idea was that since the plant was already branched out it would stretch up for flowering and fill with buds right above the screen giving them plenty of support. I guess I'm just worried about it getting too crowded, i suppose i always have the option to thin it out if it gets too bushy. The roots seem to be okay to me. I got root rot my first grow and vowed to do whatever it took to prevent it. I've been constantly putting ice bottles in the nutrient water(i try to always keep it around 68 F) and i'm using cannazym to break down the roots that do die. I also have 2 airstones supplying a lot of bubbles right into the root ball. The roots are tinted but I think that is due to the nutrients because they seem to be healthy other than the color. They are growing very vigorously too. I think the pH falling was due to my mixture being too strong. I've been steadily diluting it with plain water and it's starting to rise slowly instead of falling.