av8or's PPK - First Grow

[Miraculous Meds]

Happy New Years to all!! Figured id throw My cape on rite quick and save you from time wasted lol simply keep water temps a steady 72 degrees or below and a E.c of 1.0-1.4 and you're Golden never acknowledge PPM's or P.H!! So long as your E.c and water temps are Great no problems will arise, only when you add additives and uppers and downers does the battle begin K.I.S.S P.s You're running the best nutes ever allow that ph to swing, want matter one bit with them nutes only concern yourself with e.c and water temps. #growersluv

Actually this system is designed to grow roots in the medium, not in water. So keeping water temps down is not necessary. much below 70 and ur going to contribute to nutrient availability problems.

I like using ec too. but ec is converted to ppm. Problem is different manufacturers use different conversions. So ec readings are universal.

 

[av8or]

hey are you ph'ing it to get it to that 5.8? if you are that could explain the 5.3 reading.

with the nice tap water you have you should just mix on top of the tap water as if it doesn't exist.

i think your tap is around 100 ppm like mine here and i mix 360 on top of it bringing it to 460 ppm before the calcinit. then 240 calcinit bringing it to about 700 total. this is for veg but you can run everything off of it if you like.

also all at the .5 ppm conversion on a bluelab handheld.

if you are getting an initially higher ph reading and ph'ing down to 5.8 you may be inducing the display because it will continue to move downward after the initial correction.

also you are probably running the bottoms too wet. you might try dropping the water level an inch for effect.

D9 - yes, I have to Ph the water to get it to 5.8. The tap water is 155 ppm with a ph of 8.0. When I mix 600 ppm on top of that, the ph lowers to 6.8 and I still have to ph it down to 5.8. I run the RO filter with a kdf85 filter for chloramine. Do I need to worry about the chloramine? This is probably a newb question, but what is this .5ppm conversion all about? I'm not converting anything...just taking a reading off my Hanna handheld pen.

 

[Miraculous Meds]

on a bluelab combo 1ec =500ppm. On my old eutech and oaktons 1ec =700ppm. Its nice to know ur pens conversion because u can see they can be very different.

 

[av8or]

I think I understand what you're saying, MM. My Hanna combo pen has Ph, ec and ppm. I've always just used the ppm. Should I be paying more attention to the ec reading instead?

 

[Mister_D]

PPM is just a conversion of EC. Different pens convert EC to ppm with different conversion factors (either .5 or .7). This can be somewhat confusing if you don't know what conversion your pen is using. As med's mentioned, if your pen uses a .5 conversion factor 1 EC is equal to 500ppm. If however you have a pen that uses a .7 conversion factor 1 EC is equal to 700ppm on that meter. This is important in the event you want to copy another persons/companies nute recipe. For example, that person/company says you should be using 500ppm at X point the grow. If that person/company fails to mention which conversion factor they are using, you could be up to 200ppm off because you are using a different conversion factor. This isn't a problem with EC as there is no conversion happening. 1 EC equals 1 EC on every meter in the world .

 

[av8or]

Thanks, Mr. D. I'll keep that in mind.

I chopped the J1. Strawberry cough moved into flower at 18" x 18". She's not as full as the other strawberry cough in veg, but I'd like to push my other plant a bit more before flipping her.

Two sour urkels moved into the veg site from the pre-veg. I got some more j1 clones that look terrible. I'm hoping to nurse them to health and grow a really large j1.

Nutes were swapped today, too. We will see what happens.

 

[av8or]

I swapped nutes. Everything is set back to 600 ppm. This time I only ph downed the nutes to 6.2 and it seems to be holding steady. However, my ppm is dropping now. I'm guessing this means the plants are finally up-taking again? I'm going to increase input res to 750ppm and see where that lands me in a few days.

One note to mention is the flood cycle timing for my six sites is actually going really well. With minimal effort in a six site perpetual with the plants all 14-18 days apart from each other, the floods are all occurring every 90 minutes achieving full flood in 70 seconds.

 

[av8or]

Jack Herer is almost ready to come down. I'm glad I set up a perpetual. Having a crop every two or three weeks is more entertaining.

The ph issues mostly affected the strawberry cough just put into flower. Hardly any stretch.

The other strawberry cough still in veg is super full. This was a fun experiment. She's tied down to the yellow handle on the green tub.

Sour Urkel must like the conditions because they seem entirely unaffected by any malodies they've encountered so far. Their leaves have an almost velvet appearance. Pretty cool.

I spent most the day marathoning Netflix due to the unexpected potency of these tasty little treats. Peanut butter glaze and bacon. Yeah.

 

[av8or]

Built a 16 head manifold on this Sour Urkel while it waits to hop into the veg site.

Jillybeans are topped to 8 heads.

I wanted to get J1 back in my garden so I'm trying to bring these straggling clones back to vigor.

Behind that, 9 Pound Hammer and The Flav seedlings are coming up.

 

[Snook]

I swapped nutes. Everything is set back to 600 ppm. This time I only ph downed the nutes to 6.2 and it seems to be holding steady. However, my ppm is dropping now. I'm guessing this means the plants are finally up-taking again? I'm going to increase input res to 750ppm and see where that lands me in a few days.

One note to mention is the flood cycle timing for my six sites is actually going really well. With minimal effort in a six site perpetual with the plants all 14-18 days apart from each other, the floods are all occurring every 90 minutes achieving full flood in 70 seconds.

what are your ppms at the other rezs? volume=600 (your going to increase to 750ppm, will net you ??? 675PPMs) what is your pulse/contorl rezs ppms/PH? how old is your RO unit?

 

[av8or]

Snook - the smallest seedlings and cuttings get the 300 ppm. Then they hop up onto the 600 ppm table. Once they max out my legal 12" immature plant specs per local law, they'll get put into the big ppk site. It's at 600 right now. The input is 750, yes. Just in a couple days I have noticed a decent increase in growth. Ph is holding steady just over 5.8. Every piece of equipment in my room is only three months old. I bought everything brand new. I'm wondering if the kdf85 filter does something to mess with ph?

I noticed something odd in an experiment. I took a res and filled it with RO water and JUST THE JACKS (not the calnit) and watched the ph plummet from 7.3 before mixing to 4.8 the next morning. Either my pen is being finicky or ...? Either way, I added calnit and ph up and it's holding steady at 5.8 easy. Ideas? Obviously, I'm doing something wrong and messing up my numbers or my pen is off or there's another issue I'm not seeing. There doesn't seem to be any drain or flood issues. Oh well. The plants are continuing to look better and better. Must be doing something right!

 

[Miraculous Meds]

I think when nutrients first get mixed they tend to show lower ph than they stabilize too. Maybe running a pump for an hour would speed up the process. But I know my nutrients and water so well that I really don't sweat ph and ppm till the next day after mixing a batch. that gives the nutes plenty of time to mix and stabilize and u get a more accurate reading. that way u don't go adding ph up or down and messing shit up.

 

[av8or]

Sounds about right, MM. I think I'm about set now. I am curious, though. How long do you all wait between mixing Jack's and Calnit? I have been doing almost immediately after the jacks is dissolved. Maybe waiting a few hours or a day would help? that's what I did this time and it seems not to be driving ph down. Maybe its dumb luck.

 

[av8or]

Jack Herer came down tonight. Put a strawberry cough in to flower. She has a large stem and the all the laterals are very strong. I'm excited to see how she turns out!

 

[Snook]

looks like you have sorted out your 'problems'.. very nicely..

 

[av8or]

I sure hope so. Now I'm trying to find the sweet spot for really aggressive growth. I don't think I'll be fimming anymore. These plants will get way too bushy for my room. I'm hoping these Sour Urkels have a good stretch and really stack up a tall, fat cola (or 16).

 

[av8or]

Here are a few shots from the garden this morning:

 

[av8or]

Is this normal? This strawberry cough was put into flower last week. The top growth is all super skinny instead of the wide leaves it produced in veg. Is this typical or is there something wrong?

 

[Miraculous Meds]

Hard to tell but get ur scope out and check out around the leaf veins, petiole, and new shoots for them tiny mites. Hope im wrong but it looks like the start of when I got broad mites. Maybe another pic from a different angle might help.

 

[av8or]

Ugh...I hope its not mites. Here are a few more pics. I'm waiting on a laser thermometer gun thing to show up in the mail so I can heat treat the room. Mega Wash worked wonders last time so I hit them with it and will again in a few days. Temps coming down below 75 to assist. I'm hoping its just the strain. My other strawberry cough did something similar and she's just fine with two weeks of flower left. Is this maybe just a sativa trait possibly?