The Midnight Farm Grow Journal: Welcome to the Harem
- Thread starter MidnightSun72
- Start date
MidnightSun72
Well-Known Member
Wow times flies once you are in cycle. Ladies made it through their third week ok. I gotta look into drip clean or something else to help unclog my emitters. Starting to have to hand water some pots.
Picked up some icecream cake moms from my buddy he was gonna kill. Might throw a couple extra trays in the room and flower these with.
Blueberry muffins. Recovered since dropping the EC.
pineapple chunk Barney's farm
Colin OG ethos
end game ethos
Picked up some icecream cake moms from my buddy he was gonna kill. Might throw a couple extra trays in the room and flower these with.
Blueberry muffins. Recovered since dropping the EC.
pineapple chunk Barney's farm
Colin OG ethos
end game ethos
MidnightSun72
Well-Known Member
Starting to get some deficiencies fml been mixing at 2.3EC dunno if I gotta raise it or what some plants chugging along fine some got way too much yellow I'd expect at that EC there's enough of everything 
JustBlazin
Well-Known Member
Got any pics of the problem plants?
I'm just a stooge but might be some knowledgeable growers venture in and give some advice
MidnightSun72
Well-Known Member
I'll check run off and get some pics tonight.
MidnightSun72
Well-Known Member
Thug pug ghost breathe. Thought she'd make bigger buds on this run. But. Nooo.
MidnightSun72
Well-Known Member
Most are going ok. I have really hard water so I started to get some clogging. So now I hand water the pots I know to have slacking emitters. There's something like 12 pots out 50 that need hand watering. I just ordered a 55lb bag of PEKacid which is like a powder form PH down and "fertilizer" supposed to help clear the drippers of mineral build up. Also will be more convenient than the liquid phosphoric acid I've been using.
MidnightSun72
Well-Known Member
I've heard of the PEDacid. There was a thread (probably here) where someone was questioning whether it was the same thing as drip clean, or trying to diy drip clean.Most are going ok. I have really hard water so I started to get some clogging. So now I hand water the pots I know to have slacking emitters. There's something like 12 pots out 50 that need hand watering. I just ordered a 55lb bag of PEKacid which is like a powder form PH down and "fertilizer" supposed to help clear the drippers of mineral build up. Also will be more convenient than the liquid phosphoric acid I've been using.
Do you think 55lbs will be enough though?...
It'd be interesting to take one of those drip emitters apart and see what's going on inside. Can you see visible clogging/salt buildup on the end of the length of tubing coming from the drip emitter (where it connects to the drip stake, I guess)? The dripper shouldn't clog, unless it's the "last thing in the line", ie: if there's a length of tubing after the dripper, and that goes to the plant/stake.
That's what I thought.
MidnightSun72
Well-Known Member
There's like a membrane that gets pushed when the pump applies pressure, salts build up there and stop it opening as much or at all. The tubing doesn't really get clogged it's like 1/4. At least I haven't found any clogged tubing and I checked by blowing them all out. Also when I take the tubing off the drip emitter you can visibly see that some are at way lower output than others.
Oh. Well, that's fucked.
When an irrigation cycle has just finished, does the water in the lines drain back down through and into the res?
JustBlazin
Well-Known Member
How's the harem coming along?
MidnightSun72
Well-Known Member
That's good then. Working right I'd think.
MidnightSun72
Well-Known Member
This is what came out of the lines.
Any thoughts on what, specifically, it might be? Calcium from your hardwater? Some other salt that's precipitating out? You're using floraflex now (on this run)? Were the pots drain holes surrounded with dry salt 'crust'? Had you been using that PEKacid?
I'm just curious.
MidnightSun72
Well-Known Member
I believe it's precipitated calcium carbonate. Similar to what comes out of your kettle if you have hard water like me. When I fill my reservoirs the water is cold as fuck. As the water warms up to the room temp it's ability to dissolve calcium carbonate actually goes down not up. So then calcium carbonate sediments into the reservoir and the lines.
ive started using PEK acid as Ph down. And maybe will implement a weekly or monthly acid flush where I run low Ph stuff through to help clear out any mineral build up. In the mean time I just did an acid soak for all the emitters and seems to have unclogged all of them.
the white powder around the emitters in the PEKacid I added left like this for about 24H
here's the solubility curve of calcium carbonate
That's interesting about the solubility.
By the way, I've been doing the same thing with citric acid. It just melts the crusty salt builups away (24 hours-ish). Very acidic. I haven't figured out an rate of mixing yet though.