400w sunpulse, blumat, herihaze (herijuana x O Haze) and more

[Mantra]

Thanks Reg and MIG yeah, I'm kind of fond of the cat too, so all is forgiven. I just need to make sure shes nowhere around when i open the tent. The plants she smashed are actually bouncing back ok. The one she munched down to the first node is actually putting up two tops, although is pretty stunted.

I've been a little up against it getting my sea legs back, and with gear I haven't used for a couple of years. Plants are a bit stunted. I think I've found out why. I bought a new ec truncheon and ph meter, to find my ec out of the tap at this place is .6! Old pipes I reckon. I mentioned ph earlier, but something still felt off. My old ph meter was calibrating at 7 ok, but at 4 was reading 5. I soaked it for a few days, same deal. The new pen dials in to the calibrating liquids just fine. So maybe ph has been continuing to be an issue due to the old pen. Anyway, I'm getting slammed at work at the moment, so very little time to post! I will put these in the bigger tent ASAP under MH. I'm hoping that will give them a kick along.

Happy growing, all!

 

[Mantra]

Hi all!

So update time.

In short, things aren't going as well as I would like and I'd appreciate some input.

So we are six weeks from seed, and the plants aren't looking so great. I didn't have high hopes for this grow as I'm rusty as hell. I was still hoping for a little better than this.*

Plants are now in my tent under a 400w sunpulse. I will swap this out for a 400w HPS tonight.

I've been battling EC problems, and it's really showing. Plants are about 12 inches tall now:

I fimmed the plants a week ago, and this is generally working well, with 3 or 4 tops on each. I was thinking of scrogging them, but might just LST as I'm thinking these will be a little stunted. Anyway, the fimming was a success:

The plants are under 16/8 at the moment, and one early bird is showing sex already. She's a girl. I'm taking this to mean I should flip into 12/12. Was hoping for a longer veg time and more height, but will roll with putting them into flower soon I think.Can fimming cause sex to show early? I thought it was fairly low stress.

 

[Mantra]

Now. Onto the problems.

I'm feeding once a week with a thorough bottom feed. I'm giving PH'd water on the second weekly feed. They are wanting watering every 4 days at the moment to allow for drying out between waterings.

I gave a feed last week to EC 1.8 (the lower end of the H&G chart) and they showed signs of getting burned, so this week I backed off to an EC of 1.5.

I'm starting with water that has an EC of .6 and I think this may be the problem. It means I can only give about a third of the recommended nute strength (at 1.5 EC). As I have mentioned, going higher than this seems to burn them.

Specifically, with an 8.5 litre watering container, I am adding:

Sixth feed - moved to 8.5l res now

Cocos A 7 ml
Cocos B 7 ml
Drip Clean 2 ml
Roots Excelurator 2.4 ml
Amino Treatment 4.5 ml

Which puts me at 1.5 exactly. My PH is 5.8. I should be giving 21ml of cocos a&b according to the H&G feed calculator, which tends to be heavy anyway. Still, I'm running light. I am adding more drip clean than recommended to try and keep salts a non issue.

Here you can see some shots that are representative of the worst of the leaves. You can see spotting and other irregularities.

Any thoughts? I can't really change my baseline EC of the water here, so am a bit stumped. I will look at RO next time, but for various reasons need to run with it as it comes out of the tap for now.

 

[Mantra]

Oh, I did flush with PH'd water with drip clean added a few days after the 1.8 feeding once it was apparent the mix was too hot for them.

 

[canna woop!]

Mantra

The drip clean willnot help your issue although the concept is slightly related it is totally ineffective In my opinion ( former flusher here). I quit flushing when i quit adding soluble fertilizer into the waters. Your water probably has metals in it that is not terrible in itself. I have the same issue, high ph and ec relative to stream or well water. So the plants can use the calcium, iron, zinc, magnesium, etc. that are coming in from the tap.

In my opinion though, the burn you are seeing is not a result of ec level. It could be. A reaction between the excel (potassium hydroxide and ammonium n) and the metals in your water and that's my best guess.

I am looking forward to hear more about this and see where it goes

Canna woop!

 

[Mantra]

Mantra


In my opinion though, the burn you are seeing is not a result of ec level. It could be. A reaction between the excel (potassium hydroxide and ammonium n) and the metals in your water and that's my best guess.

I am looking forward to hear more about this and see where it goes

Canna woop!

That's a *very* interesting guess, Mr Woop. I'm grateful. It's not a factor I had thought of, so you may well be onto something here. I've just researched a little around what you are saying here, and it sounds plausible. I will back off on this and the amino treatment also and keep you posted. That's useful input. Thanks!

 

[mordecai]

With that tap you're probably gonna have to bite the bullet and get a RO filter and some cal/mag+

 

[Mantra]

With that tap you're probably gonna have to bite the bullet and get a RO filter and some cal/mag+

Ah. Yeah. The baseline EC doesn't give me much room to move with what I'm able to do with nutes etc. it's far from ideal, I grant you, and may well really limit this run. I've been looking into RO systems and for the amount of water I will want to be producing I'd need to plum a five or seven stage system into the kitchen here. There's just not the under bench space for it. I'm open to suggestions, though!

Anyway, the plants are cracking along quite well now and growing as fast as I would hope they would. I will need to pot them up soon and so need to sex them. 6 of the 24 are showing sex already. None of the herihaze (unsurprising with the haze influence) have sexed; two of the love potion; four of the queen kong. All girls. I want to take a clone and make a mum of the best of these, so might just ditch the other two so I have four girls to choose from. I'm starting to really need the space. It's a SOG in there at the moment. To nudge the others along into showing, I've swapped öut the sunpulse MH for a gavita HPS and flipped to 12/12.*

Also, I'm seeing a bunch of fungus gnats. Maybe three to five or so of them when I open the tent. So I've added GNAT OFF to the mix, thrown some sticky traps in, and have upped the EC to 1.6 running lower additives and higher base nutes to see if I can green them up a little.*

Despite having a checklist, I completely forgot to PH my last feed. Which means it was about a 6.8. So I had to repeat the whole process with properly 5.8 feed. Luckily (?) I realised halfway through.

 

[lazylathe]

If you cannot afford an RO system or justify it just yet why not go to your local water store and just fill up containers from them?
Some Wal-marts even have RO water available, you buy the jug for a few bucks and then it is a few bucks for one of those large jugs of pure water.

I have about 5 jugs that i routinely fill when growing and the water is perfect!
At least this way it is cheaper and you can add as much to the water as you need!

 

[Mantra]

If you cannot afford an RO system or justify it just yet why not go to your local water store and just fill up containers from them?
Some Wal-marts even have RO water available, you buy the jug for a few bucks and then it is a few bucks for one of those large jugs of pure water.

I have about 5 jugs that i routinely fill when growing and the water is perfect!
At least this way it is cheaper and you can add as much to the water as you need!

I can buy 15 litre containers of spring water from my local supermarket cheaply enough. It's about .2 EC and it's an option I'm considering. I hadn't thought of a water company. Thanks. I'll certainly think about that! I think there are companies that do home delivery of pure water too. The cost isn't the biggest issue, although its a factor. You simply can't buy good grass around here (not that I've found anyway) so investing a bit in getting good quality gear again is worth it to me.

 

[Reg Dixon]

home filtration systems are the cheapest in the long run. think of the convenience. it does depend of course upon your situation...

 

[Mantra]

Hey all!

So I've abandoned the idea of blumats for this grow. It's just an extra factor I don't want to be dealing with, given I'm having trouble with some of the fundamentals. Again, the idea here was to blow off the cobwebs after a three or so year absence from growing.

The high EC of my water here, coupled with delays in recognizing it and then further messing about trying to work with what I have, have proved to be the two biggest obstacles.

I'm now handwatering with 10L spring water containers from my local supermarket and things have turned a corner. Previously, I was only able to get less than half strength nutes in. Now, to get at EC of 1.7 or so I can go to about 3/4 strength which is about bang on where I want to be.

Given the plants will be stunted, I have elected to go with 6 FIMMED (4 tops per plant) females, semi-SOG style. The earliest females showed sex three weeks ago, with the latest coming in a week and a half ago. Interestingly, the late bloomer (and the only herihaze I kept) is front center in the below pic. The amount of flower she has put on in a short time is remarkable. Once she decided to be a girl, she really went for it! Clones taken.

So here we are at week three and a bit from earliest flower:

Latest feed (10l) was:

Cocos A 18 ml
Cocos B 18 ml
Drip Clean 2 ml
Roots Excelurator 2. ml
Bud XL 8*ml
Gnat off 10ml

For an EC of 1.7 and a PH of 5.8

I'm feeling like the run will be much smoother from here on in.

I've just cracked some DNA Genetics Pure Afghan seeds for the next run. I have a wall-mounted 4 stage RO system on order which will go in the laundry and won't disturb the Missus. Clean water from here on in, and I'm confident enough to start working with some of the good strains I have in my seed bank now. The Affie (a nice old school landrace I have grown before, seeds from Mazar in Afghanistan) will be a good place to start. She is relatively forgiving. I'm thinking she will be about ready to go in this flower tent when I start harvesting some of these ones. I will flower these as long as I can.

 

[Mantra]

So, the girls are about halfway through flower. With the water issues resolved, all is well. One of the sati-leaning plants is still stretching a bit! Makes me wish I had put my scrog screen in. Anyway:

Canopy (yes - shamefully uneven):

Herihaze, heavy on the indica. I got super dense golf balls off this strain a few years back, but am not expecting miracles this time at all:

Love potion #9 with a fair bit of sati in her, looks like:

Cycled the ph up to 6.0. EC at 1.6. Feed (10l) consisted of:

Cocos A 20 ml
Cocos B 20 ml
Amino treatment 5ml
Drip Clean 2 ml
Roots Excelurator 2. ml
Multizyme 5ml
Bud XL 8 ml

 

[Globule]

G'day Mantra and may I say those plants are looking mighty fine sir!

Are they at 5 weeks of flowering now?
Those columns are looking fat and very,very happy.

Methinks you will have one very enjoyable trimming session on those logs...
Hope mine are looking that good at 5 weeks.

I love getting a few different phenos as I loves me my sativas but wifey likes a more nighty-night smoke when she partakes.

I'm enjoying watching your grow bro!

 

[Mantra]

G'day Mantra and may I say those plants are looking mighty fine sir!

Are they at 5 weeks of flowering now?
Those columns are looking fat and very,very happy.

Methinks you will have one very enjoyable trimming session on those logs...
Hope mine are looking that good at 5 weeks.

I love getting a few different phenos as I loves me my sativas but wifey likes a more nighty-night smoke when she partakes.

I'm enjoying watching your grow bro!

Hey digger!

Um, 30 days now since the very first ones showed sex, and 20 days since the slowpokes. So that is about four and three weeks respectively. The late bloomers have really been making up for lost time with their flower production.

Same. I'm a big Sati fan. My next run will be half pure Mazarin Affie, but also half some legacy Sam The Skunkman Original Haze - which is twitchy to grow but a mighty smoke. Celestial head high. My wife needs a good Indica for pain relief with a chronic medical condition. So, yeah. I get you. My seed storage over the last 3 years seems sound, as I've hit 100% germ rate this time.

Your grow is so much neater and more dialed in than mine has been. I just won't get good bulk with this lot, so will do what I can to ensure big fat buds on stunted plants. I'd be very surprised if your grow didn't piss all over mine. But things are dialed in here now, so next time around you bet your ass I'll give you a run for your money

 

[indiematth]

Hey buddy! Thought I would drop by to show my support. Your girls are looking great!