1200w HID Flood&Drain SCRoG w/ fem seeds

Hello RIU!
going to try and keep an active journal on my current grow,
and of course if anyone wants to commment or has questions feel free!
so here we go!

Equipment:

2x 600w M.H., (H.P.S. in flower) in 3x3 XXXL Reflectors. Intaking air from outside the tent, cooling the sealed lights, and exhausting back out of tent, with a 350cfm 8" fan.

4" Coco pots filled with 4-7mm Hydrolite Silica Rock and topped with 3/4" Vermiculite, that sit in 2 gal. Smart Pots folded in half and filled with 13-17mm Hydrolite Silica Rock, that sit in the tables filled 3" up with 1-2" "Rocks That Dont Roll," lava rock. Surrounding the Smartpots, to block light and encourage root penetration, i circled each pot with white aquarium gravel.

Complete Flora-Series nutes, with Subculture m&b, and CALiMAGic. Aswell as Humbolt County's Own Crystal Burst&Snow Storm Ultra.

12"x 20"L DiY Carbon Scrubber, attached to a 750cfm fan exhausting the 10x5x6.5'T, tent

Water is RO filtered water from a secondary 32gal res, dual air-stoned for 7 days until the 30gal reservoir change.

lighting is 20/4, cutting one hour off every week of veg.

flood frequency (for now) is 5hrs. allowing one hour after final flood of day before the lights go off, and 15min with lights on before first flood of day.

Strains:

all feminized.
2x Blue Dream (Humbolt Seed Organization)
2x L.A. Woman (DNA Genetics)
2x Skywalker Kush (Reservida Pravida)
2x Blueberry x Northernlights (Delicious seeds)

all of the babies are already on week 1,
so here's some pics of pre-week 1, when i was waiting for everyone to come up and show their 2nd or 3rd set.

res temp for this week was around 68, i know a little high, but i didnt want to shock the seedlings.
as it was, both blue dreams and one la woman needed to be pulled out of the vermiculite and germmed in towels,
then placed back in to pop up 2 days later than the rest.

ph was 5.8, ppm was 150, upping the calmag 10ml everyday until res change. (one of the seedlings was showing cal-def rust spots)

Today was the start of week 1.

Changed the reservoir yesterday, left the res at 30ppm for 2 feedings last night, and one this morning.
added in my nutes at 1/2 strength listed on GH's Flora-Series Expert Feeding Chart, then pumping fresh water in to bring the ppm down to 420 and ph of 5.7.

still havent hooked up my 240v power for my 2 lights, so im running one 600mh, and one 8-bulb badboy t-5, alternating sides. for now there seems to be no visible difference in growth.



for some, unknown to me, reason, this girl is wrinkling and tweaking out :/ all the others are perfect as you can see.
im scared to treat for ph or deficiencies, so ive just been letting her ride out. any thoughts??

Start of week 1.5 now, day 16ish. ( last week I had the nutes of "week 1" at half strength until this week when their metabolism is high enough to tolerate full strength "week 1" nutes according to GH's FloraSeries Advanced Chart.)

So this reservoir change, with almost full strength nutes,( its calls for 2.5, i gave them 2.),
the ppm came out to 980, which i thought might have been a tad high, for last week being 400,
so i vac'd and pumped in fresh water to bring the ppm down to 750, and the ph at 5.5.

everyday ive been having to add in 5-7 ml of ph down,
because it keeps wanting to rise up to 7, in a matter of 6-8 floods. ( i think the Botanicare's Hydrolyte may have something to do with it.)
but there are no apparent adverse affects on any of the girls except the one BB x NL that has always had problems.

still havent hooked up my 240v. i have to add in another damn panel because the house is already over loaded haha.
so every 10 days ive been switching the 8-bulb t-5 i have back and forth. cannabis seems to stretch way more under the MH than under the t-5 where they stay nice fat and short,
so there is that benefit, but i would rather let them stretch a little, equally, than have to switch that damn 8 bulb back and forth every few days just to keep them a couple inches shorter.


(tables were in the middle of flooding when i took these)

blue dream

BB x NL <--gimpy one with unknown problem<---its perfect twin sister


LA Woman

Skywalker OG Kush

The nursery that i work at, just got some Bush Doctor in.
So yesterday I changed my res which brought the ppm down to 100(is it normal to have left over water in the res when changing/refilling due to airstones, pumps etc?)
and today ill be changing the res again, and adding in the Bush Doctor at 15ml/gal. This is mainly to see if i can help the BB x NL that's straggling so hard.

anyone have any thoughts on bushdoctor? trials? fails?
it seems to be loaded with good stuff, so i dont think it could hurt the rest of my thriving girls, only help them. but that is just imo, i dont know forsure.

its the start of week two of the GH feeding schedule, day 20-23 from seed
and i already have the girls tied down as of friday(they all turned completely back up in 4 hours! i couldnt believe it!)

(pics are from friday, 5/7)


as for the sick BBxNL, she still hasnt gotten better
although the new growth ontop doesnt look half as bad as the rest.
bad spotting all over the sick girl
similar spotting that is starting to show on all the other girls D':

cal-mag deficiency?? but ive had 1/2-1tsp per gallon in my reservoir since day 1..? my ph is 5.5-6.5 it makes that swing daily. every morning adjusting it back down. could that be it?

ill post more pics later today when i change the res.

pics are from today: 7/7, girls are about 20-23 days old from seed.

ive been tightenting the ties daily, maintaining the lst.
roots growing through the Coco Baskets
roots growing through the Smart Pots, into my Lava Rock filled tables
the LA Woman, fat and happy(;

more spots on the other plants
The really sick BBxNL

could all the green nasty algae growing on my pots, and all over my rocks, have anything to do with it?

took some more pics today,

both BB x NL girls are showing the brown spots really bad, and they're getting worse on all the others.

the recently affected BB x NL look at the older fan laves

some discoloration in the LA Woman(left)and the Bluedream (right)
maybe super early lockout?
ive been adjusting the ph down to 5.3or4 and keeping under 5.8, every day. could this be locking out other nutes?
reason i keep it so low is because the super sick BB x NL seems to perk up and fill out more with the lower ph. the others have been unaffected until now by the ph,
if that is infact what is causing all this grief.

any thoughts?

Hey mate, nice grow

Ive found that rust spots develop on overwatered plants but looking at your schedule of every 5 hours it seems weird. My NLxBlueberry started to get them as well but I changed my watering to every 3 hours during lights on and every 4 during lights off and it seemed to clear up...

thanks for the reply man! ill try that flood schedule tomorrow morning when i go back in there. they're big enough now, and i finally got the other 600w hooked up, so i think they can handle that much water.

what was your watering schedule before you changed?
took a look at your grow but couldn't find anything... very nice btw!

Start of week 3 today, and the girls are getting huge fast!
still seeing newly emerging spots in all the girls, but it doesnt seem to be affecting their metabolism, or structure in anyway.
the difference in size is due to not having both 600watters up, instead an 8bulb t-5 alternating sides every week.
the left one has been under the t-5 for the last week, where the right one has been under the 600w MH. notably incredible growth difference.
these three are only on the two NLxBB girls.all the others aren't a fraction as bad.
an arm of an LA Womangrew into the fan before i could save her!

friday i went and picked up another air pump and a couple stones for making some benny compost tea!
picked up some Marine Cuisine and Bat Guano from the nursery i work at,
filled a 5gal bucket with RO water,
added in only 2 of the 5 cups the Marine Cuisine asked for,
1/2 cup guano
2/3 cup EWC from my WormFactory 360 (fed fresh kitchen scraps and vegetables)
5tbs unsulf. molasses
5tbs BioWeed Seaweed extract
1tbs Subculture M
1tbs Subculture B

and let dual air stone for 24 hours.
bubbles were overflowing out of the bucket haha

mixed 2.25 liters in my 30gal res,
along with 473 ml of BushDoctor, bringing my res to 630 ppm and 5.2ph. (it calls for 450ml, but the bottle only has 473. figured the extra 23ml wasnt a big deal when by itself, all 473ml in my 30gal fresh res has a ppm of 350)


dimmed my ballasts down to 300w, so i could foliar feed with a mix of
1/2gal comp tea
1/2gal carbonated water
5-6 oz of Diamond Nectar

after a flood, and the foliar feed, everyone is much greener and apparently happier!
going to be making benny tea all the time now haha

Since they were in such a good mood,
I lst'd all the girls for the final time before i FIM top them and throw on the screen.

tokestur said:

thanks for the reply man! ill try that flood schedule tomorrow morning when i go back in there. they're big enough now, and i finally got the other 600w hooked up, so i think they can handle that much water.

what was your watering schedule before you changed?
took a look at your grow but couldn't find anything... very nice btw!

Click to expand...

Hey man, sorry for the late reply, didnt see it before now!
I had my watering schedule on every 5 hours during lights on for 25 mins so i changed it to every 3 hours during lights on and only for 15 mins. Also came on every 4 hours for 15 mins during lights off. So while they were being watered more often, i reduced the amount of water they got over all.

Cheers for the kind words too mate, glad you liked the thread

Your girls are looking good though man, lovely and green

no worries!
i appreciate you dropping back by!

i switched the schedule this morning,
and when i came back today, it looked as though they were all kinda stressed,
and i noticed a few more yellowing stripes in the veins of the new growth of the bluedream, and the la woman.
though, this could be attributed partially to hooking up the other 600w M.H.(my reflectors are kept around 3ft, could this be burning them? temp is 80@canopy)

so i kicked both my 600's back to 300(figuring it would relax them alittle), and did a res change. swapping out the comp tea i made over the weekend,
with "Week 3" of General Hydroponics FloraSeries Advanced chart, with subculture m, and 5tbs of molasses.(not sure about the amount of molasses to use in my 30gal res?)

going to check them tomorrow morning,
but i think that 4 hours might be too often,
although there are no signs of overwatering, yet.

Having a look at your pH, are you still getting a big swing every day? This may be whats stressing them out, it may also have been what happened to mine but i put it down to overwatering...i had massive pH swings as well, had to mix up the silica and water one day then add the nitrogen and base nutes the next day. Just remember that pH down is phosphoric acid so its adding phosphorus to your mix every time its added and if your adding every day it may be causing a salt build up...so many things to think about ahhhh lol

definitely still getting bad swings daily.
sometimes i have to let it go for a feeding at ph7 because i either dont have time in the morning,
or the res wont have time to fully adjust before it feeds, so i have to wait until i get home from work,
adding more stress and buildup/lockout.

its nearly impossible to keep the res at a steady 5.5-5.8. i find it being more like 5.2-6, with three feedings in 20hours, 7 hours apart, first 1 hour after lights on, last 5 hours before lights off.
not sure how to keep the res from swinging so hard..

very possible that i could be building up mass amounts of salts from the ph down. im adding in 1-2 tablespoons every day.....

i switched back from every 4 hours, as all the tips started to hook down, and my leaves were getting droopy haha.
i think 6-7 hours between floods is perfect right now

Yeah sounds like you got the watering sorted then. Id be very surprised if it isnt something to do with the pH swings hey. 5.2 is a bit too low too, it will be locking out vital nutes like calcium when its that low. Try aiming for about 5.8-6 for a week amd see how that goes. 2 tablespoons of pH down a day is also heaps, no idea why the swings are so massive...should really only need a tsp tops mixed in water. I'm thinking there may be a build up of salts in your medium and table, the pH shouldn't be jumping like that unless the plants are using up heaps of water each day or heaps of water is evaporating...how often are you adding water to your res?

im adding atleast 2-3 gallons every morning, if not more,(havent actually measured it out. just making an est. by the time it takes for the same fill line to fill gallon jugs)
with 1-2 tablespoons of ph down, trying to hit 5.4, but more often it settles to 5.3or2.
it impossible for me to calc how much the res will need, because it starts needing more ph down to do a smaller fix when my ppm is high from my nutes.
but everytime i keep the ph steady for a day at 5.6ish they start to look happier. thats just pretty much impossible to do while im at work, because they have to be adjusted after every feeding.

I took some clones last night of the bbxnl and the blue dream, to try and make the canopy as large as the Skywalker/la woman side.

Pics are this morning, under saranwrap, in a tucker tote. Clones are in 6" Hugo RW Blocks, rooted in roottech. Blocks were soaked over night in ph5.5, and super super light nute mix, hand flushed twice with same mix. Mix was rapidstart, florablend, diamondnectar, floragro, and floramicro.