First Proper Grow, How does it look? (also Wierd EC issues)

[Devilman]

Hey all.. tried posting this in the indoor hydro section a few days ago, but meh, seems if your not running a top-of-the-line 5KW setup with all the bells and whistles, people cant be bothered to read or help in that forum, so I came here.

Its my first real attempt (had a few screw-arounds a few times before but nothing proper), current setup is a 600w HPS cooltubed, in a 4x4 tent.

Plant count is rather high (had more than I anticipated) so they are a bit pinned in, but overall not doing too badly...

One of my main concerns which you may be able to tell from the pics, is bud size / phatness, the plants are now 6 weeks into 12/12 and some are starting to stack together nicely, but still not really very fat.

Current nute setup, is using Optimum @ 2.5ml/L and Carbaload @ recommended 1ml/L. Havent tried using any bloom boosters as the only thing I had laying around was an old bottle of "Bloombastic" which is really thick and clay-like and settles out like feck, which I didnt fancy.

Im noticing quite an "exchange rate" of fan leaves etc on the plants.. they are quite rapidly yellowing out a leaf and then dropping it, tho generally dont seem to be suffering any major ill effects from it.


My EC concerns mainly are 2-fold.. The base water here is between 0.6 and 0.8EC (acordin to my bluelab) and while I know that nute manufacturer recomended doses can be a bit high, the recommended level is 3.5ml/l, However at just 2.5ml/l im already at around 1.8EC and dont really want to push it any higher.

So I guess my first question is... are the nute doses recomended on the bottle etc... based upon the usage of RO water which has basically no EC to start with, and also, do the kinda "ballpark" EC figures people suggest mean total EC, or the ammount of EC they raise the existing water by? (so are they looking for say 2.0 EC total, so if base water is 0.8 they would add 1.2, or are they looking to increase by 2.0, so with 0.8 base water, end EC Would be 2.8)

Lastly.. The current feeding regimine, is fully dunking the pots into the bucket once per day, to totally saturate the pot etc.. However, I am noticing that after just a couple or 3 days of doing so, the thats left in the bucket is significantly higher than it was when it was prepared.
Currently when this happens I just tip the rest away and make up a new batch, but I would like to know if this is indicitive of any issues / salt builds / nute imbalaces, becuase to my way of thinking, the bucket is not really acting any different to a res in a flood & Drain or similar setup?

And onto the pics...

 

[Devilman]

And a few close-ups


Thanks all, any help / input is appreciated

 

[DocCrow]

First off I think they look good. They will pack on a lot of weight these last few weeks. You probably did not get much attention in the hydro section because you are not running a hydro setup. What is your medium?

With EC they refer to the ec of the output. so if my water is ec .5 and I want an ec of 2.0 then I add nutes until my total ec is 2.0. Make sense? Whatever ec you want to feed at you need to subtract your tapwater ec. BTW .6-.8 is REALLY high for tap water. I would look into a different water source. You can get an 50GPD ro unit for pretty cheap.

 

[Crowmax]

sounds like a RO until will be a good investment if you go on growing

 

[willyweed]

what strain is it please?

 

[Devilman]

First off I think they look good. They will pack on a lot of weight these last few weeks. You probably did not get much attention in the hydro section because you are not running a hydro setup. What is your medium?

Well I figured it was closer to hydro than anything else since its essentially clay pebbles in pots being fed hydro nutes each day (full submersion of the pot until airbubbles stop, then a good shake to drain excess)

With EC they refer to the ec of the output. so if my water is ec .5 and I want an ec of 2.0 then I add nutes until my total ec is 2.0. Make sense? Whatever ec you want to feed at you need to subtract your tapwater ec. BTW .6-.8 is REALLY high for tap water. I would look into a different water source. You can get an 50GPD ro unit for pretty cheap.

Yeh I figured it would be total value, but my main point is more that say you get some hydro nutes for hard water, you would think it would be somewhat "weaker" since its obviously going into hard water which has some (if not significant) ec levels. Yet at the values being recommended on the bottles (3.5ml/L) my EC would be rediculously high.

I Am assuming that a general rule of thumb to not really exceed 2.0 EC (total) is not a bad idea though?

sounds like a RO until will be a good investment if you go on growing

I am very tempted by the RO to be honest, even if just mixing it 50/50 or 75/25 with tap (to get some PH buffering) it would at least be 2.0ECs worth of nutes, not 1.2-1.4ECs worth of food and the rest whatever is in the tapwater here.

what strain is it please?

One is a Mazarr I think, the rest are all cloned from an Amnesia cutting I was gifted by a friend a while back.

Thanks all, Really hope they do pack on a bit more weight in these last few weeks (they are approx 6 weeks into 12/12 in the pics, about 6 and a half now) but Im not expecting miracles.. environment isnt ideal for them currently, plant count is too high so they are a bit crowded and got "held back" in veg quite a while which resulted in some rather spindly branches.

Hopefully have some more pics soon and maybe another update.. Just added some P/K booster (Bloombastic, 0-20-21 with a few traces of ca, mg etc..) to their diet for the last few weeks, hopefully get things going

 

[Devilman]

Week 8/9 Update

Week 8/9 Update

Hey all, just a quick update to see what you guys think, its now 9 weeks from 12/12 and things are looking nice.. Still seeing some fresh pistol growth etc.. but they never really did bulk out like I had hoped. I suspect this is for many reasons though, including bad water, the lack of a regular feeding regimine (either topfed or flood & drain) and so on.

Still, Im not too disapointed with the results.. Im planning to wait 1 more week before the chop, but interested to see what you guys think?

Mazar


Amnesia

 

[Devilman]

And a few more trich shots, all from the amnesia.

Just starting to see the odd one amber'ing up now, but most are cloudly with a few still clear, so planning to give them 1 more week before chopping.

 

[willyweed]

keep both eyes on those trich's .looking close ! also have a read about the colour of those trick's .on google etc then decide a what point you want to chop them,some people leave them in the dark the last 24/48hours or more int he end its up to you but never hurts to read up a bit first, good luck .ps i find bigger pots give more weed but looking good

 

[Devilman]

Yeh keeping a real close eye on the trich's, checking them every couple days for the last week or so. Have read a few things about leaving them in the dark or not, still undecided to be honest, the general consensus seems to be that its not really worth it / gaining anything since the plants are not really doing anything in the dark anyway, so I may just chop them at the end of their light period, or at most, at the end of a normal "night" 12hr dark period.

 

[Riippe]

Gongrats on your soon to be harvest,looks like nice meds headed your way!
You are saying your enviroment is not dialed?
Then you might benefit of that darkness,because they appreciate the ease of stress..

Keep it growing,blessings!

 

[Devilman]

Gongrats on your soon to be harvest,looks like nice meds headed your way!
You are saying your enviroment is not dialed?
Then you might benefit of that darkness,because they appreciate the ease of stress..

Keep it growing,blessings!

Yeh its not perfectly dialed, but its not miles out, so they shouldnt be too stressed to be honest..

Main things are just stuff like, night temps a little low, etc.. Its more that the humidity / temps fluctuate a bit more than most people would like tbh, but I dont think its causing any undue stress.

I Suspect my relatively low yield is more just a culmination of factors, including poor starting water, a not-ideal feeding schedule, aswell as slightly off environmentals.

I am starting to wonder if a big part of it is the lack of regular timed feeds in the clay pebbles (like you would normally do with flood & drain).

 

[willyweed]

the plants do a lot of growing in the night cycle, temps here are very important the closer you get them to ideal the better it is for the plants !

 

[opiumo]

keep on rocking and dont forget its the way to get there thats the most fun part!

 

[DocCrow]

It looks like you are growing in pots full of hydro-ton (expanded clay balls). Your feeding them by dunking them once per day in a bucket of water. The hydroton does not retain water enough for this. I suspect this is the biggest factor in your low yields. they would need to be fed several times per day (like ebb and flow).

I would look at some of the PPK threads.

4 Plants in PPKs around your light will yield VERY well.

Check it out. PPK.

 

[Devilman]

the plants do a lot of growing in the night cycle, temps here are very important the closer you get them to ideal the better it is for the plants !

I do have some signs of a slight P-lockout due to cold night-time temps, but have taken measures to help raise night temps now.

I've often heard it said that plants do a lot of their growing at night etc.. but have wondered just how much this is true, it seems quite counter-intuitive to me that a plant which typically "grows" via photosynthesis during daylight, would really be doing much of anything at night?

keep on rocking and dont forget its the way to get there thats the most fun part!

Thanks, its been interesting trying different training techniques etc.. and putting into practice a lot of the things I have learned in theory, a lot of which came from these forums

It looks like you are growing in pots full of hydro-ton (expanded clay balls). Your feeding them by dunking them once per day in a bucket of water. The hydroton does not retain water enough for this. I suspect this is the biggest factor in your low yields. they would need to be fed several times per day (like ebb and flow).

Yep that is prettymuch the case, although the pots themselves are only 15cm pots and the plants were first "grown on" in 3" rockwool cubes, the corners of which just touch the edges of the pots. So I would say that probably 50% of the pot is rockwool and 50% pebbles.

I have long suspected that the larger air-gaps between the "medium" with clay pebbles would require much more regular irrigation to prevent root dry-up etc.., but the 3" rockwool does at least retain some moisture for quite a while. Unfortunatly due to a lack of resources at the time, It was'nt possible to do flood & drain or similar, so had to compromise.

Also I think that with more regular irrigation of clay pebbles via flood and drain or similar, I would probably be better ditching the 3" cube stage and go straight from a Root-Riot cube into a pot of pebbles.. It might require slightly more carefull watering early on, but would give a more even moisture etc.. across the whole pot, than a big chunk of semi-saturated Rockwool surrounded by clay pebbles.

I would look at some of the PPK threads.

4 Plants in PPKs around your light will yield VERY well.

Check it out. PPK.

I have been reading the PPK threads for quite a while now and they do look really good bits of kit, unfortunatly the current space is very cramped and I doubt it would actually be that easy to get all the extra buckets etc.. for control of the PPKs in there.


I've been considering doing a Flood & Drain style sog, perhaps in those "treepot" kinda pots, 11cm square and about 18cm long, filled with clay pebbles, but am still weighing up my options, as it were

Will try to grab a few more pics in the next couple days, as they do seem to have started to "pack it on" a bit more in this last (9th) week.

 

[DocCrow]

check out my grow in my sig. I have a PPK SOG in a 14" x 27" (2.5 sq') area. 36 sites, for a micro grow. I just use ONE control Reservoir for all of them, and a bulk res that keeps the control fed. What size is your tent?

I run Jacks Nutes at ~600 PPM into the bulk res. I could go for 2 weeks easily without touching my grow. I run in the MT38 treepots, and use Coco for my medium. Growth is all very healthy and vigorous.

 

[Devilman]

check out my grow in my sig. I have a PPK SOG in a 14" x 27" (2.5 sq') area. 36 sites, for a micro grow. I just use ONE control Reservoir for all of them, and a bulk res that keeps the control fed. What size is your tent?

I run Jacks Nutes at ~600 PPM into the bulk res. I could go for 2 weeks easily without touching my grow. I run in the MT38 treepots, and use Coco for my medium. Growth is all very healthy and vigorous.

My tent is 4x4. I must admit Im quite tempted by the sounds of a ppk sog, as I wasnt so keen on the idea of growing fewer, bigger plants due to the longer veg period (or needing more space to veg / flower seperately) which of course, sog does help get away from as you only need clone space.

Im also thinking of testing the rainwater (at least) if not, then getting R/O (perhaps a 75%RO 25% tap mix) since my tapwater is pretty awful, bluelab reads 0.6 on a good day and 0.8 on a bad day and I suspect that a lot of it is probably things like Ca, too much of which, combined with cold night temps, are probably contributing towards my slight P-lockout (seeing some purpling / mottling of leaves etc..)

Getting things like those treepots on this side of the pond isnt so easy however, which is a shame as I think the tall thin pots are idea for a sog.