Runtz Muffin 3x3 Hydroton Ebb/Flow

Hadn’t really planned on starting veg in the middle of the night but I’m an insomniac and I think they were ready. Transplanted into clay pellets pre washed and pre soaked in ph 5.8 RO water. Going to flood for 15 minutes every 6 hours. Wanted to start off very light and technaflora recipe for success didn’t exactly say what to do for early veg, so decided to go 1/4 strength to start and work up from there. Starting at roughly 50% on the dimmer and will gradually ramp up. Added a humidifier since I’m in a very dry climate. First grow, hoping I’m not overthinking this. Wish me luck. Update 3/27 Realized I didn’t have enough water in my reservoir and plants were looking pretty stretchy. Added 5 gallons of ph5.8 1/4 strength solution. Shooting for 400 ppm for week 1 of actual veg. Plants are officially a week old from dropping in soil plugs. I think I’m going to count this as start of veg since I kinda screwed up with water level. Thankfully clay was soaked when I transplanted. Update 3/30 Plants stretched a little bit yesterday and started to topple over. Spent the better part of yesterday trying to keep them upright. In retrospect I originally transplanted these way too tall. Carefully dug away pellets and replanted deeper so leaves are just above ground level. All plant root systems look healthy. Bottom left plant is looking sadder than the rest with some droopy leaves. It was the stretchiest of the bunch. Update 3/31 PH had crept up to 6.4. Added 5 gal of ro water to top off. Brought ppm up to 400 and ph down to 5.8. Plants bounced back very nicely from deeper transplant. Running humidifier on lowest setting while lights are on to keep it around 70% rh Update 4/1 Upped nutes from 400 to 650ppm. Trying to ramp up to full strength by second week of veg. PH had crept up to like 6.5, brought it down to 5.8. Humidifier is only on during the day. At night it causes humidity to skyrocket and droplets to form on leaves even on lowest setting. May need to get it on a timer or just get a better humidifier. This 2.2L sucks

Started the week off by ramping up nutes from 600ppm to recommended 1000 ppm. Update 4/4 I noticed some burning so flushed with ph 5.8 water and did a 25% water change that brought the ppm down to 800. Update 4/5 Plants were still getting burnt, so did another 5 gallon water change to get it down to 650ppm and continued flushing plants with ro water when diluting reservoir. Kept topping off with RO until 600ppm. Update 4/7 Plants are recovering nicely from the slight burn. Most either have or are working on their 5th node. Will be topping them soon. Added 45ml boost, 22.5ml grow, 7.5ml B-1 red, 7.5ml magical, and 30ml sugardaddy to bring ppm from 630-->730. Would like to get to 1000ppm by end of veg, but will have to see how the plants react. Still kicking myself for listening to the guys at the hydro store and hitting these with 1000ppm so early. Plants were looking good so topped 2/5 above 4th node. Waiting for others to have 5th node grow out a little more. It’s a close cut right now and I’m not a surgeon. Will probably top the rest in the next day or so. Update 4/9 Everything else got topped yesterday. Did some light defoliation of burnt lower leaves. Transplanted into final 7x7 pot. Flushed for two watering cycles. Did 100% water change. Going to start off week 3 veg at 700ppm.

Started the week off with 100% water change. 700 ppm ph 5.8. Also transplanted into larger 7x7 pots. This ended up being a disaster. Pots were too tall and roots on one of the plant dried out overnight and nearly killed it. When I saw plant on second day, I immediately replanted all plants back into smaller pots. I’m so dumb. Lots of learning on this trial run. Update 17V Plants are bouncing back ok. The one really bad one had some leaves that looked really bad so I took them off. Only like 3 main fan leaves on that one now. Fingers crossed. Trained one of the stretchier ones with some wire. Trying to get 4 main colas. Update 18V Trained all the plants. Went for a cross shape LST with 4 mains to get them ready for scrog. Noticed some new growth at 2 of the topping sites, so cleaned those up as well. Update 20V Plants are still getting burnt. New growth looks good. Hard to tell how much was done from the 1000ppm nuke I dropped on them a week ago in my infinite wisdom. Going to keep these in veg longer than I planned to get it sorted out. This is mostly trial run to try and get some things dialed in. Going to keep adding fresh ro water through week 4 veg then water change and try 700 ppm again for a week or two.

Going to go another week of only topping off with RO. Started week 3 at 750ppm and plants were still getting burnt. Been defoliating lower burnt fan leaves so plants are shaped a bit odd. Last week was a disaster, so hopefully this week goes smoothly. Going to let these veg for a while until I can get all the kinks out. Update 23V Tied the plants down some more and tried to shape them. One I’m leaving alone after I split it and have to duct tape it back together. PPM is down around 640 and plants look happy finally. Update 25V Transplanted to 7x7x9 pots as roots were coming through all the holes in the bottom of the 5x5x5 pots. Plants are looking a little hungry for N in particular. Was waiting for them to show signs they were hungry after my fiasco burning them. Did 100% water change brought PPM up to 750 ph 5.8 Update 27V Been slowly increasing ppm about 50 a day and adding more cal mag than usual to correct nitrogen deficiency. Plants are getting noticeably greener. Going to start week 5 Veg around 950ppm.

Ended last week diagnosing a Nitrogen deficiency. After burning early on I got scared and was waiting until plants looked hungry. Ramped from 650 ppm to 960 in a week and plants are responding well. I plan to keep ramping up nutes slowly to around 1000ppm and keeping them there. Maybe one or two more weeks of Veg then scrog and flip. Update 30V Added nutes to bring ppm from 975 to 1075. Was going up by 50 ppm at a time, but plants still look hungry. This is highest ppm since I nuked them way back when. Let’s see how they respond. Update 32V Stopped ramping up nutes around 1075. Plants look better. Saw roots poking through corners of the 7x7x9 pots, which is crazy sine they haven’t been in there that long. Found these 10” round 8” tall squat pots that look like they will work for hydro. Transplanted all plants into those, which will serve as final pot. Installed scrog net and started the scrog process of weaving and filling out the canopy. Should be fun to see how they respond! Hopefully only another week or two of Veg and canopy will be full enough to flip. Update from later that day- plants look hungry. Haven’t been upping nutes, but they look like they are hungry for N. I use RO so I added 20ml Calmag (1ml/gallon). We will see

Still filling out the Scrog net. One more week and I will flip to flower. Update 37V Lollipopped plants and have them 20ml calmag. Going to flush at the end of the week and flip to flower on Saturday. My hands smelled very strongly of citrus after handling the plants.

Flipped to flower after 6.5 weeks of Veg. Plants were filling out canopy quickly so I decided to pull the trigger. Update 3F Plants look hungry. Upped PPM to 1150

—