Grower’s Paradise

Used less than recommended manufacturers ML/EC/PPM on all products. My goal for now is to get the beneficial microbes and bacteria flowing and stable with minimal nutrients. This is a new setup and nutrient to me, trying to take it easy on the seedlings until I see their reaction. Placed small domes over seedlings to help shade the lights a bit until I see how they react. 48 hours later there is minor growth, will give them another 24-36 hours of monitoring and then remove the domes, LEDS are dimmed to 40% and 40” high currently. Installed Bluelab PH controller to maintain 5.8 PH, trying to work smarter, not harder. So far it’s a breeze and PH has been stable ever since. Interested to see how it performs once the plants are much larger. See you in a week 😀

apologies for the washed out photos, didn't look as bad on my phone but now I can see it. will try to take better photos here forward under the lights. 18/6 lighting Daily Light Integral The daily light integral (DLI) you provide is 13.3 mol/m²d whereas the ideal is 12 mol/m²d. For the most part, all is well this week. Temp and RH has been very steady around 73-74 degrees and 45-55% RH. Decent growth on all four except the one plant, Apex by Ethos. The plants taproot grew up instead of down. It was a little light in color as well, I believe that it has since corrected itself and found the right path downward. I’ve been hand watering about half a gallon a day from the reservoir to make sure the roots are getting water and food. I increased the EC of megacrop to 0.8, roots are just now hitting the water with all the plants (except Apex). I’ll keep hand watering until they do. I lowered the water height to .5” below the net pots, I suspect they’ll be off to the races now. Added an air stone inside of the reservoir itself as well, to help keep everything nicely mixed at all times. PH still sitting perfect at 5.8. So far so good outside of that.

We’re updated and running on cruise control for now, total res EC is 1.5 at 5.7 PH, bumped up the EC to 1.0 of MegaCrop the other .5 is made up of my well water tap, PH adjustment, microbes, and a small shot of cal-mag (20ml). I added a small bump of cal-mag from Botanicare due to some slight purpling on the stems, which may or may not be the issue, figured it might’ve been a slight magnesium deficiency, either way it seemed the plants accepted it well and the purpling stopped. Tossed in a XL Exhale bag, have a fan blowing to mix up the air down low and my exhaust fan hardly runs. No idea what my co2 is right now, I’d need a meter to check. Just by guessing, I’m assuming the bag mycelium will take a couple weeks to get going.. so, if I’m a betting man and I had to guess, we’re probably around a total of 4-500 ppm of co2 in the space. Starting week four, I just adjusted my ChilLED’s up to a DLI of 30, expecting to see explosive growth this week. See you next weekend.

Not much to update.. but, a few things.. Lowered EC from 1.5 down to 1.0, noticed some slight tip burn. Ran into some spots on the leaves and I suppose it’s PH fluctuation from doing a bi-weekly res change.. but it only made one plant upset really. Letting things run their course to see if it clears up.. like I said when I started, this is an entirely new fertilizer to me and I’m trying to dial it in. Since lowering EC the plants are perky again. I’m going to let things be for a couple days and monitor the water level/PH/EC and plants to see if we’re still progressing. Things seemed to have turned around the last 36 hours, hoping it stays that way.

Been back to cruise control now after having a few questionable spots pop up on random leaves which I’m pretty confident was PH swing and temp shock when changing the res out. Once everything is back to being stable, new growth looked fine. The EC/PPM is dropping slowly along with water consumption daily, looks to be in a good spot for now. I have been defoliating leaves blocking tops in the middle, and I’ve been pinching out the tops on the plants as well. I cut my lights back just a touch in hopes I could get a little more vertical growth, these things are stocky!! Maybe that’s the Mammoth Si at work.. See you next week!

Unusual late year warm weather has put a hurting on my grow. I intentionally did RDWC in winter to utilize cool temps for my res and not need a chiller, after having random 78 degree days, I’ve ordered a chiller. The temps are a death sentence in hydro, I was adding ice to the res to battle it, won’t happen again after this chiller is put in. Definitely hurt the Apex plant, which has been a pain the entire grow.. it all started when Apex was a seedling, with its tap root growing up instead of down. She looks sad, If she dies or falls too far behind, I’ll train the other three around to fill in the space. No visible signs of root rot but I’m suspicious after those temps, have treated with Orca, SLF-100, and Hydroguard. Worst case scenario, I’ll dump the system and sanitize as best I can.

So after my hot spell and it nearly killing Apex.. which to be honest has had many issues this grow to begin with.. she’s back again, but far behind the others. I will be training the other three out towards her to fill in the space and just let her keep going, she will always be a smaller plant. I have a 1/4HP chiller now I’m about to install, the company didn’t send me the required fittings so they’re re-shipping them. The trellis net is temporary just to open the canopy, I have a larger net coming and I need to do some trimming in there. The growth is thicccck. Upped EC to 1.2

Experiment with Megacrop, is over. I emptied my system and flushed, switching nutrients to Jacks tap + Magnesium So far, I like what I’ve seen compared to the Megacrop. Maybe Megacrop works better with soil, but I didn’t like it in my RDWC and felt I was continuously chasing issues. I’ve sterilized the system and she’s running clean, roots are exploding and very white. Lastly, I removed the Ethos APEX which imo has been a mutant from the start. It started by growing upside down early on, I saved it but ever since, she refuses to grow and is falling far behind. I have her removed from the system and will train these outwards to fill the void. Defoliating has been a nightmare! These girls are thick, I’m hoping that was mostly to blame on the Megacrop. Using a smaller net for now to open the tops up then I will train them again in a 5x5 net from gorilla. See you next week.

Was on cruise control this week. The chiller is holding temps at 68 degrees on the money. These plants are so much happier on Jacks. I’ve defoliated twice and I’m trying to weave some branches for another week, then It’ll be time to flip. They’re just about big enough for me. See you next week.

Last week of veg, they’re really big girls. Especially the Red Runtz and Blood Honey. Tired of defoliating, these things are machines and are back to normal after 2-3 days.

Week 1 of flower in (roughly 10 days from this post) Swapped res out and added back with silica, Jacks Bloom and Epsom salt, defoliated and plants bushed right back out within 3 days. minimal stretch so far, turned back the lights to encourage a little bit. Will see you next week! About to change out the res back to jacks tap for the rest of flower.

Welp, ran into some issues with the red runtz, she got some burn and a lockout (potassium?) Did a major flush with low PPM of 300 for two days, things are back on track. Have worked PPM back up to 600 and switched back to Jacks Tap. (700 scale). I’m really glad I didn’t run the nutrients at the level Jacks Recommended, would’ve been much worse. The other two didn’t mind much but the red runtz sure did. That’s what I get for mixing strains in one hydro setup. I knew better before I started. I didn’t defoliate like I wanted to either, I figured the plants were going through enough and with the big flush I didn’t want to stress them any further. It’ll be ok, I’ll selectively remove some leaves as I go. Plants are eating again, frost is starting to develop, the smell is coming out. Will update next week. The exotic genetix blood honey is AMAZING so far. I cannot express how easy this plant has been to grow thus far. Very forgiving, vigorous, healthy looking, and frosting early. I took clones before flower, I’m really hoping she’s a winner in the end.

Smell starting to kick up and plants are starting to get some frost Blood honey is still the best plant of the bunch, I saved the pheno to run again with my new gained knowledge on this setup and nutrient. Bumped up PPM back up to 800 See you next week

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