Diary Killing it with Urban Legends Cookies, Mandarine & Sour Cheese (auto) under MH FC3000

[exploziv]

i admire your LST skills
i'm always afraid i break the buggers when bending them over lol
can you take an above pic so i can learn some of your skills plz
thanks

Ofc, I will try to take some above pic at next update. Maybe some macros during tieing again. Hopefully some stem pics at harvest time as well.
But the way I go is simple, when the top or a sidebranch ventures too tall compared to the canopy I just try to find an anchor point in a part of the pot that is not as crowded and tie it there, so it fills that spot. The tops will be the hardest, since plants have way thicker stems than I was used to, already. So once one gets 2 or 3 nodes over the canopy, I have to act and lean it to a side or bend it over like a "C" shape, that will grow into an "S" shape once that top faces the light again. To avoid breaking them, I do this when they are drier, and not after watering. I also don't force them with the plastic ties, but bend by hand, then tie when pressure on it gets close to breaking. I even managed to break a top at last tieing (it was on a smaller plant that was still well saturated with water when others were dry already), snap left it hanging by the skin on just one side of the stem. I tied both parts of the stem (before and after the open wound) to the sugarcane stalk for suport and it seems to have survived and healed already.
A big mistake so far was that I been lazy at the first tieing session and put just a stalk on each pot, diagonally, instead of building a frame from more of them so i have more options for tieing. But plants grew and now I can tie to the underbranches that are supported by the stake , so I have more options. I should have also raised that frame from the pots a bit for air circulation and easier watering. But I never expected them to get so crowded down there. I guess I had to learn that the hard way. Pretty soon I will have to find a way to provide water, cause the canopy is getting too dense to put anything through or see what you are doing. I will also have to try to take more leaves from the underside, for air circulation.
So yeah, this will probably work, but it's not optimal. I should have planned it better and be lazy less.
Wow, I wrote a lot! It happens when you flying high on sativas....
See you soon for the update and hopefully some pics to make sense of what I said in here. Peace!

 

[exploziv]

Watering was regular feed + PK booster.
450ppm in @ 6.3 PH
760ppm out @ 6.5 PH
Some before tieing pics:



Some after pics: (sorry about quality the phone camera seems like just got broken from the intense light or something. Before pics seem ok, in the after pics will only focus in the center. I also tried my dslr camera and it will either not focus or get the colours really off. I think the tent reflective material reflects more light than my old tent, cause I had no problem taking pics in that one..)



This time they didn't need any exteme tieing, just rearanging some tops, and bringing them lower so they stay compact. I also took like 10-15 leaves (total from all plants) from the underside, to help with airflow and watering. The stretch seems like it calmed for a bit, while the budlets started to grow on most plants, more visible on the bigger plants. If the stretch will not restart/continue as fast as before they might only need another tieing session till I let them grow and flower in peace.
Hopefully soon I'll have buds to picture, cause at least I know I can take some good macros of buds with the dslr, if the pics that contain the tent walls continue to fail and look this bad..
P.S. Looking at the pics and looking at the plants I swear theres this big difference. I am very disapointed in how the pics look, but for now I can't seem to take better ones. Usually i take like 2-4 pics and I post 2 that are fairly good. Today I took like 30+, and the ones that I posted are the best of those all. Go figure..

 

[exploziv]

Forgot to mention runoff was 1000 ml out of 5000 ml that has been watered in. (Totals for all plants together.

Also, here is a snapshot at the environment from today, after the watering:

It stays pretty much 20 to 23 C, 8 to 10 mbar all day & night. Settings (for now) are 7 to 11 mbar, max 75% RH. And it rarely goes near the margins.

 

[aliceklar]

Looking good! I'm paying close attention to pH now

 

[gizmo666]

Dam you didn't half do some extreme tieing down
I'm learning every day
Plants are looking great gonna be a huge amount of bud sites

 

[exploziv]

Well... as I said I like my ladies well tied!
Now if I just didn't lazy out when I should have installed a proper frame for support, instead of a single stick, and left some space from the pot/soil surface to this frame, I would have been much happier now. But as you said, I am as well learning stuff everyday. Lesson 1: Don't be a lazy pothead!
While I may be taking this to an extreme, I must say keeping the whole canopy even, and in the sweetspot interval distance from the leds seems important to me. Because I want the majority of my buds to get as much light as possible. For now I am relaxing a bit, seeing how they starting to grow the buds instead of stretching, but I really don't know if the stretch is gonna be back or it's mostly passed. They did start stretching a bit earlier than usual, so maybe I am lucky and I just need to take care or tieing just once, maybe two times. Then it's time to watch them flower, and.. hopefully figure out how to take some focused pictures of them that show true colors..

And a bonus pic.. since I am trying to see if I can get better pics somehow..

As you can see they pretty much rearranged themselves to the light, looks pretty even but some tops already trying to escape the uniformity of the group..
Environment is 23C 67%RH 9.25 mbar VPD.
All good so far!
Thank you for checking my thread.

 

[ColaBud]

Looks nice thank you for your help under my post. But there are some questions popping up in my mind, is this a single lamp from them or an assemble of 2?
Did u used that particular setup already with HPS or only for LED grows?

 

[exploziv]

Single lamp. 300w. But they have other models as well if you need different size. This tent is new so I haven't used it with hps. But I did used 400w hps in older tent, and also bigger hps and mh in bigger rooms. And I never got more than 1.3 gpw ever with hps or mh. With the TS series from mars hydro I been able to get 1.7 gpw from the get go, and then again 1.8 for next grow, even with slight defficiencies.
I hope that is good enaugh of an answer.
I actually think 2 gpw is possible with this FC line, that is more efficient than the ones I used before.
Thank you for coming by!

 

[exploziv]

Time for an update, I guess!
Just after a watering: (regular feed + CalMag booster, PH6.3 @ 450 ppm in, PH 6.5 @ 750 ppm out)

P.S. They are about 4.5 weeks from seed. See you guys soon!

 

[Chevy cHaze]

buds are starting to form eh?
Although nowhere near an expert on autos, I like the one way street express kind of attitude. hope your harvest will be bountiful!

 

[exploziv]

Yep, brother! Fast and quite productive. Since I hit 1.7-1.8 gpw before with the TS line of leds, this time it should be better, I think! Light is still a around 75% on the dimmer, and was under 60% till a week ago. So going sweet so far. I seen signs of a bit of P and maybe K deffs, so i fed them 2 foliars (probably last ones, cause buds start to get bigger already) and gone to flower nutes regimen starting today. Till now I only used regular veg feed with a bit of PK booster, last watering before the one today I replaced PK booster with CalMag and I think that is why I seen the PK deffs. Deffs were noticeable second day after the no PK booster watering. I guess that shows how fast of a metabolism they have.
Thank you for the visit! Will post an update with pics in about 2 days, at next watering.

 

[exploziv]

Hello! I decided to tie them a bit again!
Before pics (a bit thirsty and underfed as well):

After pics:

5 weeks from seed, started flower nutes.
See you soon!

 

[bibi40]

Great !!!

 

[exploziv]

Great !!!

Thank you, bro! Going fine so far. Light is so intense @ 75% that some bottom leaves are facing down to capture side-reflected lighting!

 

[exploziv]

Time for an update! They were showing signs of Mg def already, so I applied epsom salt foliar spray and also started using 50 ppm of it with each watering. I also upped the feed from 400 ppm total to 500 ppm (~1EC). I feel like no matter what I do I can't get the nutes in them fast enaugh, so I have been asking around and one of my smart friends told me to water more often, so will spread the watering that usually keep them hydrated for 2 days into 2 smaller waterings. For now the Mg def is better than before, after 2 epsom salt sprays and a epsom salt watering. We'll see how it progresses.

 

[Chevy cHaze]

Olala turning into a proper thicket now!!!

 

[aliceklar]

Time for an update! They were showing signs of Mg def already, so I applied epsom salt foliar spray and also started using 50 ppm of it with each watering. I also upped the feed from 400 ppm total to 500 ppm (~1EC). I feel like no matter what I do I can't get the nutes in them fast enaugh, so I have been asking around and one of my smart friends told me to water more often, so will spread the watering that usually keep them hydrated for 2 days into 2 smaller waterings. For now the Mg def is better than before, after 2 epsom salt sprays and a epsom salt watering. We'll see how it progresses.

They are still looking good! Re the Epsom salts, how much volume would 50ppm be - roughly - to a litre? (or to a gallon?) in terms of adding epsom salt crystals to water?

 

[exploziv]

Its in grams, maybe under a gram per liter. I could measure it next time I do it, but the mineral composition and percentages in epsom salts vary so wildly it will be incredibly inacurate to consider you can reproduce what I am measuring. A teaspoon of the stuff did over 1000 ppm to a liter of water. So I had to dilute that very much, both for the spraying and even more for feeding. It's very concentrated.

 

[gizmo666]

dam exploziv that room has exploded
superb tie dowwn work the benefits really show

i used epsom salts for the first time and i followed the same as you at 5ml/l but i found that too strong i ended up with 1/2 a teaspoon/litre

 

[exploziv]

Thank you mate!
I am shooting for around 400ppm foliars usually so I used even less than half a teaspoon per liter. I will measure next time I mix any but it will take a while. The original teaspoon I mixed still left me with a lot of solution for many foliars and waterings. I still have like 1.5 liters at around 800 ppm left, that I still need to dilute to use.