It pays to be attentive:
Do you remember last week when I wrote about my temps hitting 93 and realizing my inline 160 cfm fan for the light hood had expired? Had I not been paying attention to my tent's environment, I could have easily lost the crop.
Today while tending to the scrog and reworking some grow tips, I looked up at my light, expected to be blinded, and lo and behold, the glass lens is filthy. Now mind you, I never touch it between bulb changes, and even then, I always wipe off any prints.
Well, I guess it had been awhile since I looked at the inside pane of the lens, because it was covered in dust! My inline fan at the other end was pulling in fresh unfiltered air from my room, and with it, dust. There is no telling how many lumen were lost during the last 5 days. But I caught it early in flowering and hope it has diminished my yield. If anything, I might have lost a day in flower time.
I'm merely writing this to show that it pays to pay close attention to your grow and your environment, and equipment. I know to pay attention to the plant and study the leaves for any signs of problems, but I need to constantly remind myself to check timers, make sure all fans are operating, the hood glass is clean, that the exhaust and hood fans are in good working order.
I'm going to have to either rig up a 6" diam. filter, or go buy some thigh high panty hose and fashion one. I should probably filter my passive intake as well. I occasionally find a stray dog hair inside.
Update:
The plants are looking great. The flower cycle flip stretch is one, big time. The PPM is up to 1600 as I've introduced Open Sesame to the nutrient mix. The PH has dropped a bit down to 5.6 from 5.8, however that is due to the plant's consumption of nutrients, I really don't want to go much higher, even though the plant is signaling it's OK. Babylicious is the offender mostly, as I have to add fresh nutes to her res each day. The other plant is going steady and some days just gets fresh water. She isn't as big as her sister yet.
The new Waterfarm arrived yesterday. The Reserva Pravada Kandy Kush UFO germed somewhat in the Rapid Rooter, but I have removed it and placed the seed and tap root directly on the hydroton and I have a small irrigation dike made with tin foil directing drips over the seed. I hope this seed takes. After 5 days in the rooter, I began poking around a bit and saw the tap root, so I misted the rooter and placed it back in the dark dome. 3 days later, the tap root is still bright white, but it has gone nowhere.
Since going hydro and switching to rapid rooters for germination, I have had nothing but trouble. I have had 2 seeds do nothing, one seed grew the tap root straight up until it was almost 1/2". I was able to save the seedling by removing it from the plug and placing it on the hydroton in the farm. I went through the trouble of buying a heating mat, a nice hard plastic 6" high tray and dome, getting rapid rooters, and still I have trouble germing seeds in these damn things. I had trouble with peat pellets too and gave up on those all together.
When growing in soil, I always used a seed starter and solo cups and had nearly a 100% germ rate. My germ rate for rapid rooters is about 20%. What the fuck am I doing wrong? I'm beginning to think Rapid Rooters suck for seeds. Please don't advise me to use paper towels and a zip lock. I can get a tap root going just fine in the rooters. I just want help making the rapid rooters work. I PH water, I soak, I shake excess, I place seed about 1/4" deep, maybe a tad deeper, at most, 3/8" from surface. I use no nutes. I leave rooter in 1/4" water, as instructed on package to prevent the rooter from drying out.