A noob's guide to doin it right the 1st time

So I am still struggling with a temperature problem. Got all my fans, just need to get back to the home dePOT to get some clamps. I found out the hard way that duct tape sucks in warm environments. One of my inline fans fell on top of one of my tanks and BARELY missed 2 of my plants. I count myself lucky on that one!

So, I thought I would show you guys some pics and help to dispel some of these evil rumors that HPS light suck for vegetative growth. I defy you to show me tighter internodal structure than what you are about to behold!!

Ph is still below 7, so we're not seeing much fluctuation in that. The girls are definitely eating their nutes, which is a good thing I'm changing the tanks again here in a couple of days as I've notice that salt buildup is choking my air curtains to death, which is not good in a DWC setup. I'm noticing some plants are a little pale green in the leaves, but the stems in the leaves are dark green. This could possibly be due to a Magnesium deficiency, but I'm not sure so I'll do some more research. Seems like every time I look in there these girls are bigger than the last time. Root growth has EXPLODED since my last tank change

First pic is of my biggest AK, the other two are about 5 days behind, as I had bad luck germinating those seeds for some reason. The last is of all 3 of my NL's.

So I think I have what may be a Magnesium deficiency, but I'm not 100% positive. Temps are around 87, with a 6.62 Ph and 571 PPM's with only about 200 or so being my nutes. I have very hard water here, 374 PPM's the last time I tested it. I read that calcium rich hard water can lock out Magnesium, but seeing as how this is my first grow, I'm not 100% sure. Anyone have any input?

why what happened?

Eh? What the hell happened there?

i'm not cut out for this game i guess. i can kill a plant like a mofo, just can't grow em. seem to have inherited that trait from my mom :/

Ok, here's the scoop. I have been battling with my airflow situation pretty much since I got my HydroHut. I made several mistakes along the way. One of which was trying to use duct tape where only a worm clamp would do. Duct tape loses its adhesive properties at around 80-85 degrees, and ceases to hold anything together with any real strength. So I finally got all my clamps today, and struggled, I mean fought putting together my damn airflow system so I could, A: take advantage of my cooltube finally, and B: filter my damned air so I don't have to deal with nosy noses. I spent roughly 2 very frustrating hours trying to put the whole thing together. The metal "flex tube" shit sucks my ass. If I had to do it over again, I would have bought the less rigid shit which probably would have shaved off about 4 hours of just screwing around with ducts.

On top of all of this, I have been trying to diagnose my plant issues. I have come to believe that my extremely hard water is causing a Magnesium deficiency, and is also partially responsible for a Nitrogen lockout. On my two smaller AK's, they were definitely suffering from nute burn due to the fact they were a full 5 days behind my big one, and I was adjusting my nute strength based on that plant.

Long story short, I changed both tanks after finally getting my cooltube ventilation set up. I added 1/2 tbsp. per gallon of Epsom Salts to try and free some shit up. I boosted my nute strength to 1/2 full for vegetative grow on my NL and full strength light growth for the AK's in an attempt to get my two smaller babies to catch up to the larger one since it seems to be doing rather fine on its own. All of these circumstances combined made me start to lose faith. But once I got in there and started adjusting my nutes and Ph, the calmness of gardening returned to me. I have a tendency to get frustrated with crap easy, which is why ganja is good for me

Anyways, over the next couple of days I'll be watching the situation closely to see if I in fact guessed correctly on what is currently ailing my plants. Hopefully, I didn't over-do it and inadvertently cause another problem. You live and you learn I guess.

i built this little stealth grow box one time. i got some of the shiny emergency blankets to cover the inside for reflectiveness. that shit was crinkling and tape was sticking everywhere and it was ripping everywhere unevenly. it took like 2 hours to line the box and i was frustrated as shit. i was sweating and cussing. my wife was like wtf is wrong with you. after all that work it still looked like shit. that mylar shit wooped my ass. so i feel your pain. my new improved box i left out the mylar and painted it flat white to avoid the mylar. but in the end its all worth the headache for the love of it lol.

I'd drop your ph to 5.8ish. What's the temps like now with everything setup?

Not sure yet. The light just kicked on, so I reset my thermometer to record the high temp. I start off w/ my Ph around 5.8-5.9. I've been lazy about maintaining it though, but I never gets higher than 6.8ish. By the way, Epsom Salts really boost your PPM's. Like a lot, in case you didn't know.

Ok, so less than 24 hours after the tank change, my Ph jumped up about 0.8

For the NL, it rose to 6.68, and for the AK 6.7

Not sure why that happened, but I lowered the Ph in both tanks back down to 5.7

There is most definitely a Magnesium deficiency being caused by my hard water. I did add Epsom salts, so we'll see if they recover.

Anybody know why my Ph would jump so much in such a short time span? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

By the way, all of my girls seem to be eating their vitamins, as my PPM went down in both tanks, so this too is a good thing

Oh, and high temp is 87. Hooking all my ductwork up and both fans allow me to get my 600 watt about 10-12 from the top of my canopy with ease

So my air filter which weighs about 6 pounds decided to fall right on top of my best looking AK plant!

My world has been destroyed!

Ok, not really, but it did some damage to a couple of branches, but seems like there is a possibility that it will pull through. At least, that's what I'm telling myself.

This shit is hard work. 2nd time in 24 hours I've had to change tanks :/

Now I know why people charge so much for good fucking weed!!!!!

have you noticed improvement?

Change out your tanks with GOOD water...distilled or r.o. and watch your problems disappear. I'm on my third week, first time grow with Bubbleponics set-up ina grow hut. Damn near the same set-up except for I am running CFL to minimize the temp.

Since I've started using a good clean r.o. water I *never* have had to adjust ph.

Get good quality water and save yourself alot of headaches.

yeah, it's looking like my water SUCKS ASS!!!

basically, it smells like bleach coming out of the tap, so that should tell you something right there.

I haven't seen an improvement really, as the lights are off and i haven't had a chance to check them yet. However, when I was playing around with them earlier, i started to smell weed smell. this i like

well, it looks like on the one hand, i have some improvement as the nute burn seems to be reversing itself. the only problem i have now is the beginning of a nitrogen deficiency because i am out of Ph down and cannot change my water or add nutes until it gets here, which will be friday

i suck at this.

well, despite my best efforts to kill them, all 6 are still with us. i realized it had been quite some time since i posted pics, and knowing how you sluts like pot porn, i figured i should give you all what you crave, quality jackage material

the two in front made their debut above the "soil" on the 10th, the smaller NL's on the left came a couple of days later, and the smaller AK's on the right were a full 5 days later.

the place i ordered my Ph down from is in california, and for some reason the dumbass insisted on using fedex instead of using UPS. so instead of my stuff being here already, i have to wait a full 10 days after placing my order because fedex decided to sit on my package for a whole 2 fucking days for no god damned reason!!!! this is why i hate fedex. they fucking suck. i will never use them, and i tell everyone i know not to give them money either. even the canadian DHL is better than those lazy fuckers!!!!!!

[Que the pot porn music] ooooOo yeah, look at those uuhhh leaves, oh I think I'm gonna. Awesome all 6 are making it.

how are these things still alive? they are totally starved for nutes which i can't give them until my ph down gets here (hopefully tomorrow) all of them are a pale green. first i burn, then i flush and run out of ph down so we have deficiencies. i'm probably dooming myself to all males here. i probably should have started off in soil, but you live and you learn. this is about the 4th week. the 3rd for a couple of the smaller ones. feels like forever since i germed these girls.

It's that hard to get quality water there? If that's the case, get the big cook pot out and BOIL your water. For the life of me I cannot understand why you would *want* the drama of trying to be successful in hydroponics with a poor quality water?

The plants look good otherwise. The development is dense. I need to find a way to post my pics. If people think HPS is bad for growing, they would scoff at CFL....I'm thinking so far my plants look decent enuff.

Use good water...save yourself from the hermies!!!