Cloudponic GroController - 2x Jacker Herrer + 2x NorthernLight x BigBud

Day 28 - Veg

This is the last day of vegetation, the light schedule flips to flower starting tomorrow. Did some more SCROG training today have some minor discolorations on the plant in the back right. Will research some and see what is the issue. I am using R/O water + cal/mag so I think the culprit might be from that. It is not too concerning right now but will keep a closer eye on it daily.

Cool robot! I thought that company only did those grow closet things. Cool. Did you dilute those concentrates at all? You should mix them with water 1:5 unless they (cloudponics) tell you to specifically not do that.

You can “crash” minerals out of solution by adding ph concentrates straight into the res rendering the nutrient useless to your plants. I believe that the bottle label reads to dilute it before adding as well, for the aforementioned reason.

dstroy said:

Cool robot! I thought that company only did those grow closet things. Cool. Did you dilute those concentrates at all? You should mix them with water 1:5 unless they (cloudponics) tell you to specifically not do that.

You can “crash” minerals out of solution by adding ph concentrates straight into the res rendering the nutrient useless to your plants. I believe that the bottle label reads to dilute it before adding as well, for the aforementioned reason.

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The grocontroller is what they use in their full cabinets but you can also piece the items out. I use a stealth grow with a 5x4x2 tent inside of a closet so I didn't want to get the full unit. I bought the GroController and their Aeroponics bucket system and placed them inside my existing tent.

The instructions for the nutrients say to place the hose directly into the nutrients themselves, and then the other end in the nutrient reservoir directly. Using caution to keep the hoses from directly sitting in the water. The controller then uses pumps to pump the nutrients into the reservoir which already has water in it and feeds from the fresh water res. Only one plant is currently being effected and the signs all point to a calcium deficiency. I had been adding about 3mL of Cal/Mag per gallon of water up to this point so I upped the ratio to 4mL / gallon. Going to monitor next few days and go from there.

The controller does a fairly good job of maintaining EC levels for the nutrients as well as the PH of the water all on its own and I am not sure how it could work if the hoses were not added directly to the nutrient res. I do have the hoses spaced out tho so they are not dripping into the same area. There is also really good water flow in this tank since there are two pumps, one feeding the water chiller and the other feeding the irrigation in the root tank above the system. All in all there are 3 tanks, a root tank that is fed from the nutrient tank. A clean water tank which feeds the nutrient tank as water is used up.

I'll try and get more pictures showing all this tomorrow.

Day 6 Flower (34 Total)

Continuing to tuck branches in the scrog net + pruning. All issues I had with nutrients are gone, it must have been the cal/mag. Increasing to 4mL/gal seems to have done the trick.

Day 8 Flower (36 Total)

Still tucking branches and pruning fan leaves that are blocking light. Can start to notice little baby buds growing. Fixed an issue with my PH controller. The feeder tube got pulled out too much and was no longer siphoning in ph+. Complete user error but the grow controller was awesome enough to alert me to the problem right away so I was able to fix it.

Day 15 Flower (43 Total)

Tucking and trimming fan leafs that are blocking light. Minor tucking just to keep the canopy even. Starting to form buds and has a great smell already. Changed the nutrient reservoir today and gave it fresh water. The Clouponics screenshot shows it needs ph and nutrient balancing because the water was just changed. This will balance over night and show regular numbers in the morning.

Looking great! Again, Nice setup!

How long would you estimate it took you to set up the cloudponic gear?

BMWEATER said:

How long would you estimate it took you to set up the cloudponic gear?

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It was pretty easy to set up. Took me maybe an hour to assemble and install the aeroponic system, minus the home made irrigation I made. The GroController is pretty much plug in play out of the box. You just need to sync it to the app, plug in the sensors, and prefill the hose lines. This took maybe 30 minutes?

So far I am a big fan of the Cloudponics system, if I had any complaints it would be with their customer service but it isnt anything bad enough to chase me away from the company.

Day 20 Flower (48 Total)

No longer trimming fan leaves, just tucking them under the screen as much as possible out of the way. Good bud growth so far and loving the smell. Ran into an issue where the center tallest buds were getting some light bleach. I moved them in the screen to lower their height as well as moved the lights to their maximum height. Seems as the issue is solved but at this point I can't afford much more stretch. Next grow I am going to have to work on the height issue.

Day 28 Flower (56 Total)

Not much to do at this point. Just keeping the clean water reservoir full and letting the Grocontroller do the rest.

Day 35 Flower (63 Total)

Tops of my colas are getting light bleached. I have no way to lower the plants or raise the lights. I will have to solve this issue next grow. Planning on getting a 48x24xz72 inch tent which will add another foot to my height.

Other issue is the front right plant (see the last 2 pics) the buds are barely growing. No density through the entire plant. The plant is under the light fine so don't believe that is the issue. As of now I am just chalking it up to plant genetics unless someone has a few other thoughts on it. I'll let the plant grow and maybe just give it some extra time or just throw the whole thing in bubble bags and take what I can get from it.

Other three plants are doing just fine, very fat nuggets and some a couple really nice primo ones so far. I just did another nutrient tank flush and refill so the numbers on the Cloudponic app are a little skewed while it re-balances.

Day 43 Flower (72 Total)
Small update, just posting some pictures of the trichomes, I am scheduled to start flushing this week but I am thinking of adding 1 more week. Thoughts?

Well the trichomes are hard to see in your pics except for on the leaf edges which leads me to the main point of this post! Don't check the trichomes on your leaves! They develop prematurely! Check trichomes on the calyces! Otherwise looking great and good job!

Cheers

I tried to take some pictures directly of the calyces, its a lot harder to do this since I have a hard time holding the camera still enough to capture them in focus. I apologize for any blurry shots.

From what I can tell, they need more time. Going to give at least another week.

They appear to be all cloudy! A few ambers showing! I think another week is good! But be aware that they can "ripen" overnight!

Can you post some pics of the flowers and plants as they are now? That will give me a better idea too!

Day 49 Flower (78 Total)

I am seeing mostly all cloudy a few amber, I am going to start flushing soonish.

Looking at the structure of your flowers. Calyces swollen, pistils red, fan leaves and sugar leaves yellowing, flowers full and plump! I would say you are ready for harvest!

I don't subscribe to the "flushing" idea! JMHO!

Cheers

ktmac20 said:

Looking at the structure of your flowers. Calyces swollen, pistils red, fan leaves and sugar leaves yellowing, flowers full and plump! I would say you are ready for harvest!

I don't subscribe to the "flushing" idea! JMHO!

Cheers

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Thanks! I haven't done enough grows or tests to determine if there is any merit to the flushing theory for me. The other theory I want to test is the 2 days of darkness before harvest. I can't really test either of these scenarios with this grow since I don't have the controls set up for it. Maybe something in the future I will try and determine. I plan on starting the flush tonight just the same since I actually would like a little more time to get a 20% amber. Just my preference on how I like my buds nothing more to it than that.