GHE Aerofarm featuring CBD Skunk haze, Euforia and Skywalker

infectah

New Member
Hi fellow growers, this is my first indoor grow, I had few outdoors successfull so I decided to go straight forward into aeroponics. I did few mistakes already but I believe that intelligent mind + internet will do the job :)

used materials:
1x1,2m wardrobe covered with thermal blankets (much cheaper than myriad foil and non-tearable)
GHE Aerofarm set (very cheap with pump, I replaced sprinklers with better ones from Gardena 360)
lights: 2x39W T5 aquarium lights, 1 white 6500K and other 25000K coral reef (very nice only blue spectrum)
lights will be replaced with 9 spectrum LEDs soon
grow medium: small rockwool cubes with clay pebbles
nutes: GHE Flora 3 bottles set (for hard water)
water: demineralized water (6PH, 0.1 EC) + some mineral bottled hard water (1700mg/L total dissolved components)
tools: 12W Fan (just to simulate natural conditions), EC meter, PH test (GHE), PH down (GHE)

mistakes:
1. germinating in paper towels, 1 seed got almost dried up root but survived, another's root also weakened cause of lack of moisture and broken while putting into rockwool cube hence it died
2. did not know about high PH of rockwools so it was a reason for high 7-9PH so I flushed them with 5PH mineral water and it helped a bit.
3. using mineral water with high ammount of dissolved mineral comonents (1700mg/L) quickly caused a white residue on the bottom of res and on clay pebbles.

Seeds were put to paper towels on 13th of September after 4 hour soaking, 48h hours later seedlings were put into rockwools and in Aerofarm baskets under the lamp which was by the way hanged too high (1 meter between). A was not running aero but watering them with a syringe of clear mineral water PH6. 3 days later after they started growing 1st real leaves I filled the tank with hard mineral water PH6 and added nutes according to instructions 2,5ml/10L of every 1-3 nute bottles, and started aero. First week was not good for my plants as the PH was growing up very fast and I was not checking it daily. After realized that PH was like 8 or even 9 I changed the res, used 5L of demineralized and hard mineral water (1,5L), both PH6, cause my nutes are for hard water. Aero was running 15min by hour but I now changed it to 15min watering - 30min drying. I also lowered the lamp.

Now after a full week I finally got EC meter and res was 0,45 cause I put only half of recommended dosage of nutes so I raised that by adding full recom. dose and now I got 0.7 EC, I think it should go to 1 but I want to be careful.
Now I need to learn how to prepare and maintain the res, lets say I need to have 1.0 EC but water I'm using is distilled (0.1 EC) + mineral (0.45 EC) so that's the question for you guys :)
Appreciate you answers.
 

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infectah

New Member
my plants are already growing third leaves and are very healthy, greeny, res is stable at 6PH and 0.8EC temp 24C, sprinklers are 15 on / 30 off, temp is around 25 and fan running on the flor jus to give a litlle breese
BUT
my plants started to bend a little (to the light) and I had to support them with pebbles on the bottom, today I even put the sticks into the rockwools and bind them to stalks so they won't fall aside,
it seems like their stalks are to weak I'm worrying that if I let them free they will break ,not all of them have that problem, only the largest/oldest, germinated in papertowels

it doesn't seem to be a fungus, actually rockwools and pebbles are covered in white residue (calcium from hard mineral water) from the old badly done res, it was replaced a week ago, do you think that could cause a problem? please help! (attached pic is from yesterday)DSC04011.jpg
 

infectah

New Member
DAY 19, so the FAN solved all the problems and my babies are standing well without any support, I was mainly afraid of a white residue from calcium I suppose but I flushed the netpots a little bit and let the rest stay on the pebbles. PH is stable and I raised EC to 1.1 as I noticed one of the plant's leaves were lighter (low nutrients sign). I also installed a breakfast tray for the roots to not reach the res, it hangs on a strings in the middle of a container and makes whole system much more silent, I guess I will remove it later as the roots will become heavier and install aquarium air pump.
anyway, sprinklers are running 15min ON / 15min OFF which is not good for aero, hopefully I found the way how to modify every analog timer to set it to something like 3min ON / 10min OFF which really speeds up the grow, modification is about removing 1 gear, you may find it on youtube (DIY repeat timer)
 

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infectah

New Member
NEW LAMP from eBay Member: ledgrowlightmanufacturer-uk, they produce in China but got stock in UK, USA so its very cheap and very powerful, it's 8 spectrum light so it has 2xblue wave lenhgts, 2xred, white and infra red (real IR), it's 300W power but it takes only 175Watts and temperatures are very low, 28C on plants, 24C closed grow room.

plants seem to be very happy but I must say that they also loved the old fluorescent tube 24000K (also kown as 14000K) which was mostly blue wave lenght and plants were bending as much as possible to go to its light rather than other tube which was regular white 5000K
 

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infectah

New Member
...been gone for 2 days and here is ... boom, these LEDs are really great, they do not produce any unwanted temperature, and, they started to smell! My boyfriend could only smell from very close distance but I am a girl! :) anyway, the plant on bottom right corner is curling leafs but I guess it was because of one sprinkler was badly set, I also once forgotten to plug the pump back and plans were dry for about 8 hours, turned out OK without any signs of dryness. The one on left bottom corner has brighter (yellowy) edges, well, the EC raised from 1.2 to 1.5 in 2 days (evaporation) so I guess overfeeding? rather not, maybe because lights were too close (30cm, suggested 50cm)
 

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infectah

New Member
WEEK 3 ending in 2 days, using GHE Flora micro for hardwater with RO water was fatal (even though I added SOME high mineral water EC 0.65), plants went yellowy on the borders and some old leaves already started to dry out, that's why I jumped to the local grow shop and bought Micro formula from Advanced hydroponics (did not have any GHE), they have only one for all types of water, I hope this will help me, what do you think?

also installed the extractor pipe so the fan takes the air from reservoir chamber giving the plants some moist breeze and cooling down the res, don't know the results yet but I guess it's worth trying

not expecting any comments here :( but could anyone tell what's wrong with that plant on 3rd pic? (meaning deformed leafs)

DSC04220.jpgDSC04199.jpgDSC04202.jpg
 

infectah

New Member
week 4 already starting and babies just recovered from 2 problems:
- cal/mag deficiency - due to GHE micro for hard water while using RO water, adding mineral water was not enough so now I'm using grow/bloom from GHE and micro from Advanced Hydroponics of Holland, seems to be a good choice as both products have same recommended dosages;
- air stone - wooden one (smaller bubbles), unfortunately it worked for many months in aquarium with very hard water and even though I soaked it for 2 days in RO water before using it, it started to raise PH of my res. to 8 like crazy, that's why my girls almost stopped to grow for like 2 days, removed, will get regular one

I changed the res 2 days ago, used only RO water from market and added double doses of nutes (like suggested in Lucas formula) so it gave me 1.2 EC and ideal yellow PH ~6. still stable after 2 days, that's a great success for me :) they are thriving now :) no more of yellowing on the edges of leafs, plenty of new nodes starting, more smell and that's not all, the idea of ventilating reservoir was awesome, res temp dropped from 25 to ~21C which means less evaporation, no root problems, overall room temp and under the lamp is just 25-27C so it's also great.

I'm only wondering about adding more nutes, 1.2 EC is not much and it could easily be at 1.8 which would mean triple recommended dosage, also, the distance between the lamp and plants could be lower I think, it's at recommended value which is 45cm (1.5ft) but as it's not producing any heat - why so much?

DSC04232.jpgDSC04236.jpg
 

infectah

New Member
day 34
two days ago I strenghtened the res so it's 3x recommended dosage (1,6EC) which means 18Grow/18Bloom/18Micro ml/10L but it got me a little scared so I added more water, also changed the pump schedule by lowering the sprinkler running times to 3min ON/8min OFF
everything seems to be fine except that Euforia plant stopped growing (the one in the middle), it's lower leafs dried out but that was surely effect of the shock they received last time, hopefully it gets better slowly, it was a biggest girl at the beginning and now it's the smallest, that worries me a bit as this is my only sativa

other guys look fantastic, CBD Skunk Haze on the left, and Skywalker (indica) on the right, their stems got thick, same as the leafs, I shall start to think about putting the net on or use the strings, I don't think I should use any super cropping etc methods as these 5 plants will stretch up quickly and they are very bushy and low, what you guys think?
 

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infectah

New Member
I'm going to quit this forum and move to other one, maybe grasscity, nobody helps me and I need it a bit, so as this is a last post I have a last question:
why some are thriving (indicas and less but still, CBD skunk - hybrid) but sativa's (Euforia on the middle) leaves are yellowing on the tips and drying out?
 

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