sm0ke's 2nd Grow: Cheese in Ebb & Flow

Wow! what a nice set up. thanks Db for dropping a line!

I see the yellowing but it looks like all that new growth is bright green and beautiful! If that changes - then I'd worry.

I have a few comments/questions - hope you don't mind (and i apologize if you've already mentioned it)....
i think your reservoir temps are too high - the water/root zone should be around 68 F and if you can get the canopy temp down to about 74-75 F i think your plants would appreciate it.

are you using tap water? even if you aren't i'd consider lowering your PPM to around 2-400

I've never tried flood & drain so i won't be able to recognize or give advice on water cycle issues.

But the new growth looks fine so i'm not convinced there is a nute deficiency - if new growth continues to look good and no more yellowing of older leaves I'd leave well enough alone. If the yellowing continues - make sure you pH meter is calibrated and start gradually adding nutrients.

The set-up looks great!

Thank You Sir....db!!!

B. THC R+D said:

Thank You Sir....db!!!

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thank you man - it is a tough call - some strains are nute sensitive - others can take 2000 PPM and just sizzle on the edges a little bit! so i try to err on the side of caution.

Start with the basics. If the water is hitting the rockwool cube then you are overwatering. the clay pellets need to be watered not the rockwool initial cube. At 32 days you would be at full strength nutes and that isn't 600ppm for anything I am aware of. At 32 days full 1400ppm + additives then ph'd to 5.8. Top off your tank with just what ever water you are using and adjust ph if necessary. You will want to check what others are doing with that medium, Pot Roast talks about it in his Hydroponic thread, I have never used it. I am sure he tells what works best with the rockwool and hydroton. E-mail is right on about the res temp and the room temp, I think you have enough exhaust, what is your intake, I missed it. Sorry VV

First of all I'd like to thank everyone for their replies. All of the posts in this thread have helped me.

The plants are doing quite well it seems.As I mentioned before the plants have slightly started to grow again. The newest growth is a very good color. As others have indicated that this is a good sign.

Heres a shot from today of one of the growth tips that I topped more than a week ago:




Here's a few pics to answer the questions below as well as further ones.

PPM/WATER TEMP


Electric continuity (uS) is 1705. <-- Can someone elaborate on what this means?

ROOM TEMP


VENTILATION




The room is ventilated in a vent in the door, and by back pressure from the intake of the blower. The blower sucks an intake from the end of the light and then vents into the attic.

B. THC R+D said:

3= Your N
1.5=p
4=k

U Knew That Right.??? Does Your Thoght Pattern Pos. Suggest That An Over Water Issue May Be The Prob.??? Your There Were Not.!!!
With The Vegitation Im Seeing, And The Green Loss Im Leaning Toward Upping The Nutes, Not The Watering Cycle, And Giveing A Little Nitro To The Diet... Ima Link U To Email, He's A Qiucky... If He's Not Here Already...lol Db.

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DB!
Of course! I'm just not sure exactly how many parts nitrogen my rez is however.
I'm running the nutes currently at 15/ml a gal. I will slowly induce more nutrients as soon as i can establish a bit more growth as I want to introduce it slowly.

email468 said:

Wow! what a nice set up. thanks Db for dropping a line!

I see the yellowing but it looks like all that new growth is bright green and beautiful! If that changes - then I'd worry.

I have a few comments/questions - hope you don't mind (and i apologize if you've already mentioned it)....
i think your reservoir temps are too high - the water/root zone should be around 68 F and if you can get the canopy temp down to about 74-75 F i think your plants would appreciate it.

are you using tap water? even if you aren't i'd consider lowering your PPM to around 2-400

I've never tried flood & drain so i won't be able to recognize or give advice on water cycle issues.

But the new growth looks fine so i'm not convinced there is a nute deficiency - if new growth continues to look good and no more yellowing of older leaves I'd leave well enough alone. If the yellowing continues - make sure you pH meter is calibrated and start gradually adding nutrients.

The set-up looks great!

Click to expand...

Thanks very much for the compliment, I've put quite a bit of work into this, I hope it doesn't look to half ass.

How can I lower my res temps?
I've tried to lower the canopy temp but It seems to want to stay at 80, i'm comfortable with that.

I'm using tap water from a shower head that filters chlorine. It has an initial PPM of about 150.

Thanks much for the advice!

VictorVIcious said:

Start with the basics. If the water is hitting the rockwool cube then you are overwatering. the clay pellets need to be watered not the rockwool initial cube. At 32 days you would be at full strength nutes and that isn't 600ppm for anything I am aware of. At 32 days full 1400ppm + additives then ph'd to 5.8. Top off your tank with just what ever water you are using and adjust ph if necessary. You will want to check what others are doing with that medium, Pot Roast talks about it in his Hydroponic thread, I have never used it. I am sure he tells what works best with the rockwool and hydroton. E-mail is right on about the res temp and the room temp, I think you have enough exhaust, what is your intake, I missed it. Sorry VV

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I think you are very right VV, As my plants have now started to grow again due to your advice. My nutes will be def be getting increased over the next few days.

I will def check out that thread, thanks again for your help. Check above pics for the intake!

the new growth is looking good sm0ke. i havent fed my cheese any nutes yet so i wouldnt be able to help you out if there sensative or not. they will get there 1st feeding this sunday or so, so ill let you know how that goes. i just updated my journal just now if ya wanna check that out. lookin good though man! looks like your working some of those kinks out.

Hey smoke the EC (Electrical Conductivity) translates to ppm by Multiplying by 500 or 700 depending on the meter you have, I am not familiar with any of the other meters, like your Hanna. the 1705 sounds more like a ppm reading than an EC reading. My EC reading of 2.8 translates to 1400ppm. And yes it does look like they are recovering, good job. VV

looking better - keep us posted!

If you want to cool off your reservoir, the only way I know if with a chiller and they are kind of pricey. I thought i was going to have to get one but I ended up having to put an AC in my grow box which keeps the res nice and cool.

VictorVIcious said:

Hey smoke the EC (Electrical Conductivity) translates to ppm by Multiplying by 500 or 700 depending on the meter you have, I am not familiar with any of the other meters, like your Hanna. the 1705 sounds more like a ppm reading than an EC reading. My EC reading of 2.8 translates to 1400ppm. And yes it does look like they are recovering, good job. VV

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Well the Hanna meter I have has a conversion rate of .50
The meter has three readings.
PH, PPM, and uS. So the uS is the EC?
My dosage is 20ml per gallon.
I tested 15ml of my ferts in a gallon of water straight from the faucent and on my pen it reads
7.5 PH Before 6.5 After
150PPM Before 630 After
"uS" 330 Before 1230 After

Should I be reading uS or PPM????

Day 38

So we're on day 38 of veg. Plants are doing AWESOME! They are doing so much better. I cut off all of the dead shit and the new growth is just exploding.

PH stable at 5.8
Nutes at 1500 PPM
Plants now get watered once every 3 hours(and love it)

I'm excited, most likely going to go to 12/12 here pretty quick, I'm going to wait till all of them have some pretty big stems.

Some of the plants have sprouted 4 new chutes! I'm very proud

Now for the pics:







Here's a few seedlings I started (Black Domina)


Also tried my hand at cloning. I think this bugger is dying though, haha. (5 days old)

Congratulations on the nice turn-around! well done and I'm glad to see your plants are perking up.

I have two things to mention - the first regarding temperature - i don't know if this is true but it comes from Ed Rosenthal - if you can counteract high res temps by having lower canopy temps and vice versa (if your res temp is too low you can counteract by having canopy temps a little higher) - but like i said i don't know if this is true and would think having the right temp would be better. just some food for thought.

The second thing is 1500 PPM seems high to me. Earl (who obviously knows his shit pretty well) told me once if you are using tap water - your PPM should never rise above 1000 PPM - and he rarely goes above 800 PPM even with RO.

But ultimately - if your plants aren't bothered by it - you're doing it right!

I Second The Ppm, Vv I Belive Dosnt Bread The 1000 Mrk. And I Think Maybe Even Lower For This Stage In His Game.
But Nice Turn Around, Some Good Pic's As Well.
The Bb's Look Like They Might Be Streching A Bit... Can There Light Be Moved Closer, Taking The Heat, And We Dont Want To Cook Them Into Mind. Jmt's Db.

B. THC R+D said:

I Second The Ppm, Vv I Belive Dosnt Bread The 1000 Mrk. And I Think Maybe Even Lower For This Stage In His Game.
But Nice Turn Around, Some Good Pic's As Well.
The Bb's Look Like They Might Be Streching A Bit... Can There Light Be Moved Closer, Taking The Heat, And We Dont Want To Cook Them Into Mind. Jmt's Db.

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Yep! I believe VV will second the motion.

email468 said:

Yep! I believe VV will second the motion.

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well heres the thing, my hanna meter is wierd, a lot of people confuse me by using a different setting on their meters, my uS reads 1500 and my "ppm" reads 700

sm0ke5150 said:

well heres the thing, my hanna meter is wierd, a lot of people confuse me by using a different setting on their meters, my uS reads 1500 and my "ppm" reads 700

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So the PPM is 700 - that sounds good.

nice turnaround, lookin solid man!

the smaller ones are getting tip burn, so i backed off the nutes a bit.

Day 41

Alright I picked up some clones from the dispensary today. 2 Purple Kush clones. They are pretty healthy, no spider mites, doing good. I'm going to make them into mother plants. They are already in soil, so I'm going to leave them like that and transplant them into bigger pots and keep em in veg forever under a 85 Watt CFL. Hopefully I can keep them alive. Now, they are in red cups and I don't know how old/how rooted they are so how much nutes should I give them?

Pics:




Also, got my 6 Black Domina seedlings. which are doing quite well and enjoying the light.



As for my cheese, it's also doing great. Still very small for day 41 but i'm still proud, I'm going to veg for a while as time is something that I can deal with.

this plant is about a foot tall

hell yea man! congrats on the new clones. cheese is lookin good as well.

Looken Good Mahn....nice Pic's So Crisp Looking. Db.