You are definitely correct about the plant size and they can handle multi feed and thanks for beating it in my head LOL...of which I began this morning!!! I've been so paranoid of root rot and oversaturation because of the first run experience, I waited a bit too long to go multi feed. Anyway...I did try a bump in nutes and it was too much, so I gave some PH'd water last night to knock it down, and this morning they look much better.
I started separate timers/probes for each strain. (4 lights - 4 Strains). The following is what have set up for evaluation
Growlink - initial setup VEG = Last feed 5pm - lights off 8pm
Lights on 2AM - First feed 5AM (this is to judge the overnight and morning dry backs)
10 second shots every hour until I see full saturation with runoff
I estimate about 7-10 shots needed to get to run off, but will make adjustments as needed
When I know where the run off spot is, I will create timer schedules to get to run off at mid light cycle, with a few hours or so of maintenance shots with run off till last feed. Would love to hear suggestions and input around this from the group....
Hopefully this post will help Phantom as well, as I made some changes that should fix my problem, (thanks to all the help I have received here) along with answering the block prep oversaturate issue for Phantom. Yes the block soak/flush...then 2 day dry back is the culprit for EC and PH spikes, which in turn had the DEF's beginning to show their face. I also noticed that as the plant grew and root zone became more established...that the plants demand for nutrients grew as well... obviously...so in turn any root zone imbalance had a quicker effect on the plant showing DEF's, that may not have shown up initially while plant was smaller.
So here is what ended up working for me with getting rooted clones, to root out a 4x4 block
I'm not saying this is correct way or the only way...just what ended up working for me
*Prep block by soaking at 5-PH overnight - then lay blocks out and rinse through .8 EC solution solution, and I add 1/2 tsp P/G recharge, PH'd at 5.5 (so long as not stronger EC than what the rooted clones were receiving...I like to transplant into a bit lighter EC than what clones were getting
*Let blocks rest and then put on towel to pull out 25% excess moisture
*transplant
*let dry back until feels pretty light...(for me it took 4-5 days going into 4x4x4. (after 1st dryback I saw roots coming out bottom) plants looked good
*second feed went in at same EC as long as plants looked good..."BUT"... lowered PH to 5, because the PH climbed during dryback
*fed second feed with plenty of run off...maybe 4-6 back to back feeds or so at 8-10 oz per. This pushed out salts and dropped PH to good range
*second feed took 3-4 days to dry back...plants still looked good and happy
*root started poking out the sides a bit...and then fed according to how they were doing using same philosophy etc...
*after they were drying back by next day I transplanted into next block and so on...
Sooooo. where I went wrong in this was waiting to long as the plant got larger to convert to Tripplefast's suggestion of frequent daily feeds to runoff.... It was certainly not way too long, nor became a bad problem that wasnt quickly fixed (one benefit of RW)...however, like Tripple told me over and over....as soon as the plant is established enough (which was sooner than I thought)...get to a frequent daily feed with runoff' which will keep the PH and EC consistent and balanced, so it can get dialed in. This in itself will likely solve most DEF issues, providing...EC, RH, PH, Temp, etc are correct. If RW is not fed in this fashion...it will be a never ending chase for DEF's etc...