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Fiddynut's second run - Larry OG

Fiddynut

Active member
Update and pics

Update and pics

Checked in on the plants this evening and found them droopy and the soil was dry. I wasn't expecting this since I had watered less than 48 hours ago. I may have watered too quickly last time and not have gotten good saturation. That's the only reason I can think of. Watered at pH 7.0 and first ounce of runoff was 6.7. Girl #2 was really droopy and #1 was starting to get bad too. I'm pretty sure they will be fine but I have to be more carful with them.

They looked good this morning so I think that overall plant health of #1&2 are good. #3 looks great and is starting to grow faster every day.

Pics.
 

pop_rocks

In my empire of dirt
this is good!
it mean they are building their root system and taking in all that water
may be time to move them to bigger containers soon
 

Fiddynut

Active member
this is why a lot of people use RO water when running hydro
you can have excelent water but to be totally dialed in you need to be as close to "pure" as you can get
depending on how precise you want ot make things, thats just how it is
/i agree, taking out natural minerals only to add them back in seems kind of wacky

at this point friend, i think its good to practice, jsut to learn about ph and how to manage it
also you say your water fluctuates so it may be in that sweet spot part of the year and need attention at other times

how are the kids looking today?
is the new growth nice and healthy?

i have a couple quick pics i took but dident think how fast it would get dark
/i actually look better in the dark but that is another story

here is a quick shot of the bikes at "the falls"
i will try and grab some better shots next time we ride
Good evening pop_rocks.
I'm not sure if the water is my problem but if so I'm sure I'm handy enough to install an RO/DI system. I'm starting to doubt it's the water though. Maybe me making it too acidic with pH down and earth juice. Not sure.

I think you are right I need to practice a bit and keep learning. I'm making some careless mistakes and I need to focus a bit. I can't believe I let my plants dry out today. Time to get a grip and take this a little more seriously.

Girls were looking good before 1&2 dried out and got droopy.
New growth might have a little rust spot on the #1 plant and still no spots anywhere on #2. Otherwise looking good and growing vigorously.

Nice bikes! Did you know trek is a Wisconsin company. I ride one as well. Mine is 10 or so years old but still nice and light. There is an indoor mountain bike park in an old furniture warehouse about 15 miles from where I live and I'm thinking about going up and checking it out. It's really the only option for winter riding for me.
 

Fiddynut

Active member
this is good!
it mean they are building their root system and taking in all that water
may be time to move them to bigger containers soon
They freaked me out a bit when I opened up the tent I didn't know what was wrong. As soon as I picked one up to get a closer look I realized how dry they were. If they are drinking all that water then I guess I'll have to pot up sooner than I thought. I was planing on going to my final pots a week or so before flipping 12/12. Maybe I should go from the 6" pots they are in now to 10" pots and then to the 14" before flower.
 

Fiddynut

Active member
Looking better

Looking better

Checked in on the girls this morning and they are looking happy once again. I decided to top plants 1&2 this morning and gave them both a snip. Plant 3 is looking great and is catching up fast. Plants 1&2 are 6" tall and 3 is 4".
1&2 got 2 cups water and maybe had 1/4 cup runoff apiece. I'm sure I saturated the soil well last night so it will be interesting to see how quickly they dry out this time. If they dry in less than 60 hours or so I will have to pot up to 10" pots with them. Might be good to get some fresh nutrient rich soil for them anyway since I'm not feeding them.
If all goes well I should be able to take cuttings from them in a week or so. If I transplant I'll wait a week from the pot up time.
I'm keeping an eye on the rust spots on plant 1. Other than a little spot on a newer secondary growth leave and some on the same two leaves that I first spotted it on things look good. No sign of spots on plant 2 or 3.
Pics from this morning.
 

pop_rocks

In my empire of dirt
looking really good man
i like the way the leaflets overlap, some strong indica influence there
i ithnk in about another week they should be ready to move into larger pastures
when you transplant them, could you try and post a pic of the rootball

sometimes i am amazed at how few roots it takes to support plants
ive seen plants much larger growing in like 2l containers and when i transplanted them they looked like they could hvae filled in the soil more

about how much did you take off the top?
jsut the newest growth or was it a couple inches long?

they all look really nice man

yeah, isnt it waterloo wis, where they make trek bikes?
are you familiar with that area?
i have a super old gt bike that i might convert to single speed but all my other bikes are treks ( we currently have four treks)
do you recall the model you ahev
i have a mamba hardtail in addition to the two pictured, it was the first 29" wheel sized bike i ever owned and it is a rocket!
i would love to visit the factory one day
 

Fiddynut

Active member
looking really good man
i like the way the leaflets overlap, some strong indica influence there
i ithnk in about another week they should be ready to move into larger pastures
when you transplant them, could you try and post a pic of the rootball

sometimes i am amazed at how few roots it takes to support plants
ive seen plants much larger growing in like 2l containers and when i transplanted them they looked like they could hvae filled in the soil more

about how much did you take off the top?
jsut the newest growth or was it a couple inches long?

they all look really nice man

yeah, isnt it waterloo wis, where they make trek bikes?
are you familiar with that area?
i have a super old gt bike that i might convert to single speed but all my other bikes are treks ( we currently have four treks)
do you recall the model you ahev
i have a mamba hardtail in addition to the two pictured, it was the first 29" wheel sized bike i ever owned and it is a rocket!
i would love to visit the factory one day
Good morning pop_rocks.
They were looking great yesterday morning but starting to droop again last night and the soil was still moist. I'm going to cover this mornings plant adventure in an update next.
Will take pics of the roots and transplant soon.
I have a feeling there are a lot of roots at the bottom of pot. I will go to 10" pots soon.
I just took the tiny top node off and didn't shorten them at all. The cuttings will take a few inches off the top when the time comes.
Trek has it's world headquarters and it's two factories in Waterloo and whitewater Wisconsin. They still make about 10,000 bikes a year here. Most of their bikes are made overseas now but they make more in America than any other manufacture. I've had some friends over the years that worked in the factory in whitewater and said it was a good company to work for.
I have a fuel 90 that I got in about 2004 or so. It's been a good bike but I got it at around the same time that I started riding less. I always rode hard tails before that.
That mamba sounds bad ass.
If you come to visit the trek headquarters bring your bike, there are some world class trails here.
Time for me to do that update.
 

Fiddynut

Active member
Update

Update

Over the last couple of days my plants have been up and down a bit. They were really droopy a couple nights ago and the pots were pretty dry so I thought they just needed water. The next morning they were looking happy again and I topped them and put up an update and a couple pics. By that evening they were looking droopy again and I new it wasn't dry soil this time. Not sure what to do I decided to sleep on it and check them in the morning. This morning they looked about the same as last night.

I can only presume that something is pissing off the roots and they aren't taking in water or something else that they need. Can't be salt buildup because no synthetic nutes have been used. I got to thinking that my pH may be way off. I've tested it and according to the pH pen I have it should be ok, but I'm having weird symptoms and some spots on fan leaves that an icmag user told me looked like it was from pH lockout. I have started to suspect that my pH pen may be inaccurate. So I went to wal mart this morning and got some pH test strips and a few gallons of drinking water.

When I tested the bottled drinking water with my pen it said it was pH 7.0. Then I used the strips and it was coming out a lot lower at like 6.4. I added GH pHup at 0.5 ml at a time and retested the 3 gallons that I was adjusting. I did this 3 times and watched the color of the test strip change each time. At 1.5ml of pHup per 3 gallons of water it was testing at a pH of 6.8 or so. I put my pH pen in the same water and it read 8.6. One or both of them have to be wrong. I retested with strips to make sure I was getting consistent results and the strips all reat the same. Then I put my pen back in the standard solution a and it read low 6's. My pen seems to be all over the place. I'm starting to think it may have been acting up for a while and I'm just now seeing symptoms.

I flushed each pot with 1 gallon of the water that had been adjusted and tested with the test strips. The pots hold about 4 cups of soil each so I put at least 4x the volume that they hold through them.

I'm hoping that this flush will correct the declining health of my girls. If they look ok I'm planing to transplant them to 10" pots soon. I wanted to flush first even if it is more of a pH correcting flush than anything.

I guess I'll know in a couple days if they are improving or not. I don't know what else the problem could be so I'm hopefully that they will bounce back. I'll update again as soon as I see any changes for better or worse.

Pics.
 

tleaf jr.

Came up off 75w
Veteran
Dont trust the pen the strips or dye will def be more acc. PH is very important to plant growth sounds use the strips until you get some calibration solu for you pen.
 

pop_rocks

In my empire of dirt
yeah, they only make their project one bikes here in the US now
/basically custom made high end rides

that is cool you knew guys who worked there, it sounds like a great company to work for
one of the bikes pictured is a fuel
thats the one im riding right now
the other bike (with the pink head lamp) is a remedy
great bikes for sure

yeah man, def get your pen calibrated when you can
i would use a ph10 and ph4 solution and calibrate weekly
get a couple shot glasses and pour the solution into them to avoid contaminating the bottles
you can get both on amazon pretty cheap
 

Fiddynut

Active member
Dont trust the pen the strips or dye will def be more acc. PH is very important to plant growth sounds use the strips until you get some calibration solu for you pen.
Good afternoon tleaf.
I think I will use the strips from now on. In fact I think I'm going to get a dye kit as well. I don't think I'll rely on just one method of checking pH anymore. I calibrate my pen almost every time I use it and I think it's just fucked. It seems to show 7 in the standard solution but the farther from neutral the pH gets the more inaccurate the pen is. This pen worked ok on my last grow but I have no confidence in it anymore.
I wasn't expecting this type of equipment failure but I guess the theme of the grow is going to be expect the unexpected. Thank you for following along on this journey and sharing your thoughts and wisdom.
 

Fiddynut

Active member
yeah, they only make their project one bikes here in the US now
/basically custom made high end rides

that is cool you knew guys who worked there, it sounds like a great company to work for
one of the bikes pictured is a fuel
thats the one im riding right now
the other bike (with the pink head lamp) is a remedy
great bikes for sure

yeah man, def get your pen calibrated when you can
i would use a ph10 and ph4 solution and calibrate weekly
get a couple shot glasses and pour the solution into them to avoid contaminating the bottles
you can get both on amazon pretty cheap
Good afternoon pop_rocks.
Your right not many bikes made in the US anymore kind of like everything else these days. But they make more here than anyone else and as a company they do it right and employ a lot of people. The factory in whitewater is about 25 miles from where I live. In fact whitewater is a cool collage town that is a great place to party. Plenty of friends went to school there over the years and I spent many a night partying with them. Great female to male ratio because they have a huge nursing program on campus.
Whitewater is close to the trails at John Muir and Emma Carlin which have some of the best single track anywhere in the world. These 2 parks have their own loops and a connected trail that runs between them. You can make a day of biking when you start out at one of them do some loops and take the connecter to the other more loops then back.

The instructions for the pen I have and the recommendation from the guy at the hydro store that I got it from says to use the pH7 standard solution to calibrate it. It basically says to calibrate with the solution closest to the pH you will be testing. I could get the 4&10 solutions but I'm thinking I should get the dropper kit and just use strips and droppers. I don't want to rely on just one testing method because things like this could happen. I think the strips and dye should be accurate enough for a soil grow and they seem less susceptible to failure. It's possible that my pen dried out between grows and that is why it's acting up. I was warned about letting it get dry but I don't remember if it was moist or not when I started using it this time.

That's funny you mention using shot glasses to hold your calibrating solution since that's how I do it too. Shot glass is perfect for holding just enough fluid.

The girls still pretty droopy this morning about like yesterday right after the flush. They did get water one day then a flush 24 hours later so they look over watered. I want them to perk up a bit before a repot. I think some fresh soil will be good for them.
 

Fiddynut

Active member
Quick update

Quick update

Just a quick update this morning the 2 droopy girls are looking a little more perky today. With the soil drying the roots are starting to get some air for the first time in a few days. The leave spots are slightly worse than a couple days ago but hopefully the imbalance is corrected and they are getting happy. I'm going to check runoff pH with the test strips when I water next and see whare it's at.

I want to transplant them to some fresh soil and give them some room to stretch their roots a bit but I'd like to see them perk up a bit first. They have been a bit stressed the last few days and I'd like them to recover a bit.

The only newer growth affected by the discoloration is on the #2 plant which was the first to show symptoms a few days ago. The leaf is straingly shaped and has a different discoloration than the fan leaves that show some spoting. Here is a pic of that leaf.


I also found a couple spots on the oldest fan leaves of plant 3 which haven't showen signs of spots and also has not been as droopy as the 1&2. Plant 3 did not dry out like 1&2 did which is when the droopyness started. It is also probably a little too small to transplant at this time.

I think the only thing I can do now is give them a little water when they want it and see how they recover. Here is a group shot from this morning.
 

tleaf jr.

Came up off 75w
Veteran
Their fine..let em dry then water w nutes their gtn hungry remember nute solu should be 6.5 -6.8
 

Tri_Cho_Me

Member
Just a quick update this morning the 2 droopy girls are looking a little more perky today. With the soil drying the roots are starting to get some air for the first time in a few days. The leave spots are slightly worse than a couple days ago but hopefully the imbalance is corrected and they are getting happy. I'm going to check runoff pH with the test strips when I water next and see whare it's at.

I want to transplant them to some fresh soil and give them some room to stretch their roots a bit but I'd like to see them perk up a bit first. They have been a bit stressed the last few days and I'd like them to recover a bit.

The only newer growth affected by the discoloration is on the #2 plant which was the first to show symptoms a few days ago. The leaf is straingly shaped and has a different discoloration than the fan leaves that show some spoting. Here is a pic of that leaf.
[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=69722&pictureid=1668084&thumb=1]View Image[/url]

I also found a couple spots on the oldest fan leaves of plant 3 which haven't showen signs of spots and also has not been as droopy as the 1&2. Plant 3 did not dry out like 1&2 did which is when the droopyness started. It is also probably a little too small to transplant at this time.

I think the only thing I can do now is give them a little water when they want it and see how they recover. Here is a group shot from this morning.
[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=69722&pictureid=1668085&thumb=1]View Image[/url]

Lookin' good bro!

Tri_Cho_Me
 

pop_rocks

In my empire of dirt
i would get them into their new homes when you can
it seems that they are looking for something they just cant find and allowing the roots to expand could not hurt
also this will give you a chance to see how the roots look under the ground
i have repoted plants that i expected to be done dry, only to see that there was a lot or damp soil down below
and the opposite as well

when you transplant, give a guess to how moist the soil will be, i like to let it dry out a bit before moving them
the root ball holds together better when its a little dry and the whole thing just sort of pops out of the previous container better

that is rad that you live close to the trek factory!
it sounds like a fun place
 

Fiddynut

Active member
Their fine..let em dry then water w nutes their gtn hungry remember nute solu should be 6.5 -6.8
Good morning tleaf.
I think you are right that these girls are getting hungry. I've noticed the cotyledons getting yellow and I've read that is when you should start to feed. I wasn't sure if it was the stress that causing that or what. I'll get them in some fresh soil and give some light nutes in the next couple days.
I'm glad you think they are fine, as a new grower I worry too much. I want to get these lady's back to looking pretty and growing like crazy.
 

Fiddynut

Active member
i would get them into their new homes when you can
it seems that they are looking for something they just cant find and allowing the roots to expand could not hurt
also this will give you a chance to see how the roots look under the ground
i have repoted plants that i expected to be done dry, only to see that there was a lot or damp soil down below
and the opposite as well

when you transplant, give a guess to how moist the soil will be, i like to let it dry out a bit before moving them
the root ball holds together better when its a little dry and the whole thing just sort of pops out of the previous container better

that is rad that you live close to the trek factory!
it sounds like a fun place
Good morning pop_rocks.
I'm with you on wanting to get them into some new soil. I have the same feeling as you that they are not getting what they need from the soil they are in right now. I will for sure be transplanting them as soon as they dry out a bit.
I am thinking about picking up a bag of ocean forest to use for transplant. That's what you use isn't it? It has more nutes than happy frog and they look hungry. The cotyledons are starting to yellow. Do you think the hotter soil will piss them off? I don't want to stress them anymore than I have so far. I suppose I could mix happy frog and ocean forest together as some people do. Let me know your thoughts on this.

I'm looking forward to seeing the roots as well. I'm hoping for a rootball full of nice white thick roots. If I find it too moist on the bottom should I add extra perlite to the new soil for better drainage? If I do blend soils I was thinking about adding a little drainage anyway as I'm told it can't hurt. My pots have been getting nice and light between waterings but it will be interesting to see how dry the bottom is getting. Just like you I've found that they just pop out of the container when dry and the soil even pulls away from the sides.

I took a ride on the mountain bike yesterday, just around the neighborhood but it was a start. The nice weather is back around here and I'd like to take advantage of it. When it does get shitty I want to check out the indoor mountain biking place here. I'm sure it's not as good as riding the trails but it has to be better than riding a stationary bike.
 

Fiddynut

Active member
Quick update

Quick update

Another quick update today. I've been doing updates almost daily since my plants have been up and down. The girls are looking a little less droopy today after watering last night.

I watered with pH 7 or just above last night and checked runoff. The runoff was low again. My pH strips only show down to 6.2 and no color change tells me that the runoff was below 6.2. I had flushed with neutral bottled water on Saturday. My test strips also show hardness do water and the hardness was off the chart. The high end of the scale for hardness on these strips was 150ppm and like I said the color was off the chart so I know that there is a lot do stuff in the runoff. I tested the water I was using to water with and it was very low ppm.

My plan is to pot up to 10" pots in a couple days. The soil they are in is not giving them what they want right now. I'm not sure what I did to the soil to course this. I was using water with a high pH and was using a very small amount of earth juice grow to lower pH. I am pretty sure I had a pH pen accuarcy issues also. I am now using bottled drinking water and having to use pH up to get the pH to neutral. Whatever has happened I think they will be much happier in some fresh soil. I really want to get back to having happy good looking plants.

As of today I think the plants are getting a little better or not worse anyway. I think in hindsight that me topping them when they were already a little stressed has Ben tough on them. The improper pH'ing of my water haven't helped either. I hope I am on the right track now. Only time will tell.

Here they are this morning.
 
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