Milk and Qookies // Night Owl // RDWC

Summary: Overall growth ramped up this week. Plants are healthy, the system is healthy/. I took a peek at roots from the beginning of the week and end of the week and the difference is stark. MQ3 This week I took the opportunity to have some fun. I topped MQ3 plant and it took it like a champ. . It was growing nodes every 36 hours before and after the top. A bit of leaf tucking was needed for the new growth to get some light but I may top again or maybe mainline if she is ready for it by day 22. If not, I probably wouldn't consider it because she will be throwing her first pistils around day 30. MQ4 Working with stationary square buckets is a bit challenging. Added an LST anchor, and added the first tie on the top. The bottom anchor came loose but I didn't notice and now the stalk is growing at 45-degree angle. No worries, I'll just work with it, but the side shoots are already shooting for the sky, so I'll be doing lots of training this week on this one. Other than a small deficiency on MQ4 (possible ph swing from water change or calmag issue) was fixed very quickly and didn't slow them down at all. Overall, great week! --------------------------------------- April 3 (Day 20) --------------------------------------- Recalibrated Bluelab Guardian PH probe. Water change! Added 35L RO to flush for 1 hour then dumped elbow to res and drained and filled with about 50L. Added 75ml a+b sensigrow Added 12ml orca Added 8ml z9 *No B52 - just used small dose for toughening the main stalk before LST starts. Total values: Ppm 530 Ph 5.8 Water temp 64F About 54L after mixing and adding nutrients. --------------------------------------- April 4 (Day 21) --------------------------------------- Tent: 78-80F (Day) / 69-71F (Night) Rh: 67% (Day) / 60% (Night) Water Temp: 67F-70F PH: 6.1 PPM: 530 / 600 Leaf Temp: 80f Ph went to 6.0 overnight Ppm didn't budge. Turned up led light to 24k lux. Added a second LST tie-down point to the top of mq4. She took well to the first one. Measured led from tallest plant mq3. Was 33inches, set to 31. Adjusted distance to t5 from the plant. Reset to 8inches after new growth. Plants are about 4 inches tall from the visor covering the net pot. 5th node popping now - (4th true node after the cotyledons and single set of leaves) Topped MQ3 above node 3 ( if you count the first set of single leaves after cotyledons with internode growth as a node which I do) - yup, I’m keeping it fun. --------------------------------------- April 5 (Day 22) --------------------------------------- Tent: 78-80F (Day) / 69-71F (Night) Rh: 67% (Day) / 60% (Night) Water Temp: 67F-70F PH: 6.1 PPM: 530 / 600 Leaf Temp: 80f PPM bouncing between 520 and 530. PH rose to 6.1 overnight. Added 15ml ab today for total of 600ppm Ph stayed at 6.1 after nutrient boost. Added 10ml of Orca Added 10ml of z9 Turned led light up from 27k to 28k. Maxed now. Dropped led light from 32 to 30 inches. Mounted a 6" fan on the wall of the tent for better airflow between light and canopy now that I’ll begin to drop the light. Tightened LST top point on mq4 Defoliated mq3 under node two; Trimmed cotyledons and first node (single leaves). Peeked at mq3 roots, nice and white with a little nute stain --------------------------------------- April 6 (Day 23) --------------------------------------- Tent: 78-80F (Day) / 69-71F (Night) Rh: 67% (Day) / 60% (Night) Water Temp: 67F-70F PH: 6.1 PPM: 600 / 590 Leaf Temp: 80f PPM dropped to 590 overnight. Dropped LED light from 30” to 28” 18-24 is recommended so now that it's 100%, it gets dropped 1-2 inches at a time until they tell me they have had enough. Removed first tie-down on MQ4. I want the top to grow a bit more and develop the next node before I tie it back down. Loosened the second tie on MQ4 so I’d get a bit more height from the bucket. Nothing else. Let them grow. PPM dropped to 580. ------------- So I take a peek later in day and as I’m zipping up the tent, I notice some minor spotting on mq4 bottom leaf. Bronze and tan - middle of the leaf. One leaf on mq4 is curling upwards but could be due to dropping the light 2 inches, but it's at 28” so I don’t think so. It is too early to diagnose but I want to catch it early, I don’t want it to affect the topped mq3 and slow it down, so I want to be on top of it. I haven’t given any calmag yet because SensiGrow coco A+B supposedly has added calmag, but I am using RO water. I gave a light dose 15ml of calmag - put ppm at 640 ppm - I didn’t want to push it too hard in case it was just pushing notes too far. If the issue continues when I check tomorrow afternoon, I’ll drain the system a bit and reduce the ppm back to 550ppm If that doesn’t help, then I’ll go for the potassium route. If thought it could be ph fluctuation from 6.7 to 5.8 on the water change, but that was 3 days ago and just showed up this afternoon. The topped MQ3 is growing, the branches at node three were pretty closed up this morning. Throughout the day, they’ve opened and the next node is showing now. To end the day, I forgot to kick the AC back on because I was interrupted and the water temp had gotten to 74f. Gave a double dose 20ml of Orca beneficials since I haven’t done that since I started up the system (but just gave normal yesterday) - should snap the system in check. --------------------------------------- April 7 (Day 24) --------------------------------------- Tent: 78-80F (Day) / 69-71F (Night) Rh: 68% (Day) / 74% (Night) Water Temp: 67F-70F PH: 6.1 PPM: 650 / 780 Leaf Temp: 80f They looked great all day. No more spotting. Defoliated MQ3 for last time for now. The second node is totally gone now. Dropped LED to 26” from top of plant. Began LSTing the topped node branches. The next node that comes out will be topped. Day 19 today, plenty of time right? No clawing happened until I checked at about 11pm. I feel that they are hungry if that calmag may have fixed part of the issue last night (or it was ph swing) Added 20ml of a/b Added 10ml calmag Added 8ml of Z9 part 1 and part 2. After nutrients added, PPM went from 650 Total ppm 780 Humidity was very high during lights out due to transpiring and summer-like temps outside. RH was hitting Mid 70’s with lights and humidifier off because the humidity controller was set lower than the plants were transpiring and never met the value. I could bump up the heater but I need that cool-down period for the water temps to reset to 66f. It's time to switch to active intake. Will install it this weekend. --------------------------------------- April 8 (Day 25) --------------------------------------- Tent: 77-79F (Day) / 69-71F (Night) Rh: 68% (Day) / 54% (Night) Water Temp: 66F-70F PH: 6.1 PPM: 780 / 750 Leaf Temp: 78F Let them grow all day. Adjusted programming in AC Infinity T8 controller to lower RH at night. Adjusted the LST on MQ3. Dropped LED light to 24” from top of plants. A bit of clawing late in the day on a few leaves, both plants. Minor. --------------------------------------- April 9 (Day 26) --------------------------------------- Tent: 77-79F (Day) / 68-70F (Night) Rh: 68% (Day) / 48% (Night) Water Temp: 68F-71F PH: 6.1/6.0 PPM: 780 / 780 Leaf Temp: 78f Plants looked healthy all day! Dropped LED light to 23” from top of plants. MQ3: Second nodes on the main top are out and the third is popping, just being patient for a bit more one of the stems on node 2 to grow so I don’t have any splitting issues at the joint later on. Will probably top tomorrow night. MQ4: Tightened top LST tie-down on MQ4. Loosened the bottom LST - anchor did not hold and now the base stalk is growing at a 45 angle so I’m going to keep the top tied down for now because the side shoots are getting higher than the top now. Plants are in one side of the bucket so I guess I’m going to try to train it over the backside of the bucket until the top hist end of the bucket then let it shoot for the sky. Training it from here on could be fun and different from a typical circle LST star pattern. Worry a bit about structural integrity later on. PPMs stayed around 780 with slight fluctuations so I’ll assume they are drinking water and nutes at a similar rate. PH dropped to 6.0 late in the day. Heater set to 79f (Day) / 75f (night) AC T8 Exhaust fan set to 3 w/ negative pressure for night exhaust to lower RH around 50% due to transpiration. Set to exhaust at 70% / 79F during the day since the heater fluctuates ambient from 75f-80f, it pulls fresh air every few minutes. Have some upgrades to do this weekend: (1) Exhaust fan whistling at high RPMs (2) mount active intake fan (3) water change w/ silicate, (3) top MQ3, (4) install up top off bucket for res now that they are drinking more, (5) Add 3M command clips and LST both plants I’m hoping to mount them to the lid so the plants can be movable for next weeks system scrub before they go into flowering but may have to redesign my net pot visor into the circle to make that work.