600W DWC Cabinet System - 1st Run

FLOWER DAY 16





OG should take around 70 days. Not sure on the blue dream but shouldnt be quite that long. So far so good!



Light burn is pretty nasty on that one tall girl. Trimmed off what I could, we'll see what recovers. Might just need to top it.

PH still holding. Had not refilled in 4 or 5 days. Topped off with about 3.5 gallons of leftover RO, 50ml each bloom A / B, 25ml cal/mag plus.

Calibrated meters. No huge adjustments this time.

Finished trimming everything below the screen. Need more air flow for this overgrown screen. Need a dehumidifier asap.

Most of the clones in the other chamber have rooted enough to stick down with the momma blue dream. In all, about a 75% success rate so far. Let's see if I can get them to veg.

Took all the cuttings that had accumulated in the cup of water, plus a few new ones from tonight's trimming, and stocked that clone tray back up again. Same drill minus the great white this time. Just a notch on the end and a dip in the clonex, then into rockwool, smeared shut with a little flathead.

PH 5.5, ppm 1450, res 61.5f
room 64, chamber one 67, chamber two 70
room humidity 66%

FLOWER DAY 17



Still stretching. Things looking frostier by the hour. The blue dream smells faintly of that classic blue dream flavaaa.



A little Ph drift down today, more than the previous day. Suspect this may very well be ph buffering, with added RO water destabilizing it a little again. Keeping it maintained with very very slight amounts of baking soda. Next top off will be with tap water, will see if any difference.

I see a slight bit of nute burn developing today so no bumping ppm for a day or two while we see what happens.

moved temp sensor to tops level.

added usb hub to interior of chamber one. Now supports 4 webcams, and can put them just about anywhere.

all rooted clones still doing great. Will need to top BD momma tomorrow, and we'll get some of them into little party cups or soemthing, get them vegging under the T5 since it's there.

going to scrap together a homemade CO2 bucket since I'm fucking broke this month and can't swing $300 on a real setup. Soon though. Dehumidifier is higher priority.

PH 5.6, 1490 PPM, 62f res
66 room, chamber one 73, chamber two 71
64% room humid

I hear you with the ph issues i also when i had my ebb & flow system i had to adjust the ph almost everyday, i think this is most common in hydro setups.

this is my first hydroponics grow, so i bet most every damn problem i've had can be traced back to my dumb ass!

still, i rise.

for what it's worth, ph has been no problem for 48+ hours now. I'm sure once you get your particular water and nute regimen dialed in then minimal issues. Knowing a little now about basic water chemistry also helps alot. Hopefully I'm not doing something stupid using baking soda to get the ph stable, because it sure seems to have finally worked.

this plant is stubborn, persistent, even patient. a great teacher.

FLOWER DAY 18



PH was 5.3 this morning. Brought it up to 5.8 with 1/4 tsp baking soda. Gave it another 1/8 tsp tonight to bring it to 5.7.



The stretch has slowed down and flowers are really starting to take off. The OGs smell like cat shit. Still don't smell anything in the room other than fertilizer.

Added ghetto CO2. Bottle has an old vaporizer hose running to above the light. Set the vent fan to cycle air out at 82f. It stays on for a few minutes, shuts off for at least 5, and temp stays 77 - 82 ish. No idea if this bit of CO2 will make any difference whatsoever, but cant hurt for $1.50 and 10 minutes of effort. Might just shotgun chug this next bottle of apple juice and make another one.



PH 5.7, 1550 PPM, 62.5f res
69 room, 80 chamber one, 73 chamber two
room humid 61%
(estimated chamber one daytime humidity at 35% today)

PH very stable again. Has not dropped a single point overnight. This really does look to be a ph buffering issue. I will switch nutes next run, or if this gets bad again, to see if that changes the situation.

After adding 3.5 gallons of RO a few days ago, it took less than 2 tsp total of baking soda over 2 days to get it stable.

looking good man except for that light burn! Keep up the good work!

What, you didn't order your OG extra crispy? That burnt stalk is already healing up and trying to bud back up again at the top. Fucking trooper plant. You might take it's life, but it will take yours too. You fire your musket my OG will run you through.

Just saw PH creep UP. Been weeks since we've seen that! Don't think it's happened since flowering, certainly not since hitting the bloom sauce. A good sign yes!

FLOWER DAY 19



Recalibrated PPM.
Added 2.5 gallons or so of good ole LA tap water.
Added 75ml cal/mag, 50ml each sensi bloom a & b

Ph has been cool, just in time to top it off and destabilize it a bit again. Let's see what happens. I bet it isn't nearly as bad as last week.



Seeing what looks like Mg deficiency spreading as spots on leaves and the praying effect described here:
http://www.onlinepot.org/grow/PHfluctuationsornutrients3.htm
Hence the dose of cal/mag. Also above page shows banding on leaves as zinc deficiency. Seeing exactly that on some of the leaves that were very N deficient a week or two ago. Lots of signs re: micro nutrients point to PH problems. Now that things are hopefully more stable let's see if these signs continue.

Foliar fed some diluted newb juice.



Otherwise plants growing great, flowers looking better and better, nothing seems stunted or anything like that. Smells great in there. Roots checked and looking great, no problems detected in the sauce.

note PH went up after adding the tap water. Brought it down with a bit of PH down.

PH 5.6, 1750 PPM, 64f res
70f room, 79f chamber 1, 74f chamber 2
room humid 64%

Reading through above link again, I didn't know that Ca could lock out Mg. If no joy getting this Mg deficiency under control, will flush and try RO again. Tap is almost 400ppm so, even though it seems easier on the ph stability, that's alot of Ca, plus all the cal/mag i've been dumping in.

FLOWER DAY 20

decided to bomb it with cal mag, see if it gets worse or maybe ?
add 75ml cal/mag
foliar feed x3 epsom salt solution
add 8.5tsp epsom salt to res

plants love the foliar but need to be careful. should not be foliar feeding with flowers forming, especially at 40%+ humidity.

have had to baking soda up twice today. never got below 5.4 early this morning.

PH 5.8, 2150 PPM, 66f res
room 65, 79f chamber one, 71f chamber two
room humid 66%

FLOWER DAY 21

Zero PH adjustment needed today. Set to 5.8 last night, 5.7 now almost 24 hours later. Beautiful, man.

refreshed ghetto CO2 bottle. gave old one to the hippy down the block who swears he will drink that shit. sick.

Mg spots don't look much better, but they are definitely not worse, not spreading like previous days. Going to continue to treat as a shortage of Mg rather than a surplus of Ca. Can't put my finger on it, but plants do seem greener and healthier today, no data to back this up though so maybe just in my head. Much like other times I've foliar fed, it just seems to make them happy.

quick note on cloning. had a number of cuttings sitting in a cup of plain water for a week or two before going in to rockwool. Doing this, you must not dip too much of the stem into the water, only the tip where you'll eventually plant it. Too much of the stem in water weakens it, so you end up with a clone in rockwool later that is basically surviving, but can't hold itself up and just wilts into a smear. however, i think if done carefully, sticking clones in water to hold them for awhile is fine, maybe even beneficial.

PH 5.7, 2200 PPM, 66.5f res
69f room, chamber one 79f, chamber two 73f
room humid 68%

found this post here today. a reply from fatman7574 a few down is outstanding PH knowledge, and I think it completely explains what i've been up against.
cal/mag is what stabilized my ph. incorrect nutrient blending, probably not nearly enough nutes in the water, is what de-stabilized it.
https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/138246-controlling-ph-hydroponics-aeroponics-3.html

very likely going to flush later, refill with ro, blend again from scratch just to see if i can get it right.
damn what a cool breakdown in that post. i finally feel like im getting my head around this properly.

FLOWER DAY 22

saw ppm peak at 2270 then drop to 2250 a couple hours later. water level looking good. ph is locked at 5.7, fine by me.

added 20ml each sensi bloom a & b.
added 20ml cal/mag
raised light a bit.

stuff in chamber two all looking great. topped the momma the other day, going to have to do it again tomorrow or soon.

ph 5.7, 2350 PPM, 67f res
room 68, chamber one 79f, chamber two 72f
room humid 66%

FLOWER DAY 23




Deficiencies looking visibly better so continuing to increase.

added 25ml each sensi bloom a & b
added 50ml cal/mag
added 10ml hygrozyme
topped off with 1.5gal RO

had to ph up a hair after adding nutes.

here's my first actual conclusion of any use:
Don't chop off a top that has been light burned. Just trim the dead stuff as best you can, leaving as much as possible. It will recover. It also seems to have the same effect as if you had topped, with other nodes boosting growth as the new alpha top. kinda neat, i've got two level tops now where I had just one straight stalk before the light burn

.

hopefully this makes any sort of sense later.



OG now smelling like OG instead of cat shit. Zero odor change in the room. Still not even a striking odor in the cab, have to get your head down in there to smell it.

PH 5.6, 2450 PPM, 66f res
69 room, 79 chamber 1, 72 chamber 2
room humid 65%

quick note on "night" conditions

room temp varies from 60ish to "daytime" temp when lights come on. 65f is a good average for the night temp in the room, and in both chambers.
chamber two pulls fresh air in directly, same flow, 24 hours a day. No temp control in chamber two so, at night, it follows the outside room air.
Chamber one seals off for most of the night time, usually giving it a degree or two above room temp once things settle in.

chamber one still lights off from 5am to 5pm. chamber two is lights off 11am to 5pm.

have been having to make nighttime adjustments to the sauce now and then under a green cfl, as now. PH was 5.3 this morning, PH upped to 5.6, expecting to need another adjustment later today.

added another 15ml cal/mag.

looking to see if this arrests today's ph slide.

at 2600ppm now, which seems fucking crazy but no complaints from the plants. if i understand them correctly (HA!), they keep saying the want more.

that ppm is crazy dude ahahah! Cant believe your plants are dealing with it so well!

agreed. i've heard people say that OG likes it up into the high 2000s, but still it's making me nervous.

one of the toughest aspects of growing for me so far is knowing when to listen to the science, and when to listen to the plants. Doesn't help that my knowledge is novice in both regards. Science says ppm way too high. Plants seem to say give me more!

i've also noticed that there is alot less constant flow of sauce in the res now. Roots are taking up alot more room, preventing easy flow from one side to another. it's taking alot longer for added nutes to register a bump in ppm, so i know the flow isn't as fast. maybe this is contributing to a high reading on the ppmometer or something? i've calibrated every 48 hours and it hasn't been off but by maybe 10 ppm, so .. shrug.

almost lights on, we'll see what she thinks today.

the blue dream today has all leaves pointing up, grabbing for light, like i've dunked it in espresso. similar on the OG but not as much of a striking difference.
flowers on the BD are busting out, visibly larger, hairs sticking out further, reaching. Probably the biggest difference in flowering that i've seen so far, at least in the scope of a day or two.
banding on leaves is still present, although leaves with more N deficiency are getting greener, albeit slowly. Banding leaves are the same ones, no new banding, but not getting much better either. Talking about maybe half a dozen larger fan leaves. Especially present is banding in the area that was light burned.
this sign might be by design. This sensi bloom nutrient is formulated to decrease the distance between nodes, and it's definitely doing that. Zinc deficiency, im told, will do that too. Maybe this is just a side effect of the nute doing what it's designed to do. This, combined with PH trouble and other mistakes I've made could explain the banded leaves yet otherwise vigorous growth.