1st grow - Grandmommy Purple - *Now DWC*

11/6 - 11/12 Week 9 11/6 - Was going to pick cuttings and put into systems but I didn't think they were ready when the day came. I wanted to do it 11/5. At this point, I'm looking at 11/7. I am struggling with a PH issue I think. This may be what is and has been causing the tip discoloration. I actually have no idea what is causing that. I have been catching the ph in the 6s and keep ph downing the cloner. I had to keep ph downing the res in the system with the mother as well. The plant likes to bring the water to 6.2-6.3, although it does seem to constantly climb with the air stone. Either way, I am constantly fighting the rising ph. I am going to be a lot more on top of ph now. I was using one of those crappy yellow ph meters that was like 10 dollars. Well it broke on me because I left it in the tent when it was too humid. Like it worked fine until I took the cuttings and cranked the rh% to 80-90. Then when I went to use the meter it wouldn't work. The instructions were all damp and I figure the humidity killed it. Anyways, instead of buying another junky yellow one I bought a better waterproof one. So now if there's an issue with humidity it won't kill the meter. Although, a better meter comes with all this like maintenance to keep it working properly. But whatever because the sensor in it is guaranteed to die in 1-3 years anyways. The plants are looking good, for the most part. The tips are all yellowed. There seems to be a little yellowing of some leaves and also some yellowing of serrations on one. I do see a little bit of bright green new growth. This was very prominent on the mother plant. I thought it was a sulphur deficiency. For a time these cuttings were balanced perfectly. The backup cuttings in the cup are doing way way worse but what is interesting is that the stems look way better. That doesn't make much sense to me because those stems are just sitting in still water and the ones in the cloner looked gross before I put any nutes in. They were getting 24/0 spray at first though, but that should be way better than sitting in still water. There are 2 clones of the 8 in the cloner that don't have any roots. There are, however, bumps starting and if left alone would probably develop roots. But there are 5 with definite roots and a good amount of them. That leaves 1. This one is a funny one because it only developed 1 root. There is only 1 single root coming straight out the side of the stem. What makes this funny is that it proves something I read about rooting hormone concentration in cuttings from different locations on the plant. I read that The tops/higher branches will have a lower amount of rooting hormone and more like growth hormone. This is in contrast to the lower branches of the plant which, apparently, are supposed to have a higher amount of rooting hormone in them. So the one cutting with the single root is actually the top; the tallest top that outgrew the other 3 tops(I topped the plant 2x so I had 4 main growing stems). Then the cutting with the most roots is the special branch which happens to be a lower branch cutting. Interesting how that worked out. Although, I don't know where the 2 that didn't develop visible roots yet were taken from. But I think something was wrong with them cause of the smell in the cloner. =========================================================================================== UPDATE 11/6: I stay up late and typed up the first update early in the morning. It's still 11/6 but it's like another day. Plus I did a bunch of stuff in preparation of the plantening tomorrow 👻 I put up photos of updates. Also, this is the week where I construct multiple systems to bring my total functioning individual ebb and flow bucket systems to 4. I will go through the photos and explain what's going on and where I'm at with this system. So in the first few photos with the tubing, this is the only tubing in the system. I have the curved tube for connecting to the pump and then to the tube that is bent into a ring. I cut a bunch of holes in the ring tube with a box cutter so that water would get pumped in to the bucket evenly. The ring tubing is connected with a T connector so that the ring can go inside a bucket to pump water in and the other part sticks outside the bucket to connect to the curved tube to get water from the pump. I measured out the tubes for rings to be 32" as this is good for a tight fit in the bucket and it firmly holds its place against the walls without support. The curved tube has a quick release disconnect to make it really easy to disconnect the bucket/plant from the reservoir for removal and maintenance. All the tubing is 1/2" irrigation tubing and 1/2" T connectors. But the elbow is a 3/4" male pipe thread to a 1/2" barb. The brass disconnect thing is a 1/2 inch barb quick coupler to 3/4" GHT female garden hose adapter for 5/8" garden hose or tubing. It has this 5/8" irrigation tube hookup port with a piece that screws on over the tube to lock it in place... I guess I should have taken a photo of that. I will tomorrow when I do the transfer. Anyways, the bucket is a 3.5 gallon bucket. I drilled 7 holes in the bottom for slow drainage. I didn't want the water to drain too fast or too slow. So I drilled a few holes and ended up with 7. I think I used a 1/16th bit? I'd have to check to be sure, but it was a smaller bit definitely... fuck I suppose I could check. Ok, it's an 1/8th bit. Glad I checked. Oh what I wouldn't do for you random people reading my nonsense. So 7 1/8th inch holes in the bottom of the 3.5 gal bucket and then I also drilled a hole in the side of the bucket near the top. The hole had to be big enough for the other part of the T to poke through. The net bucket is a 10" net pot and fits perfectly on standard buckets. It also has the clearance from the sides to allow the ring tube to go around it. So the ring tube is tucked in between the bucket wall and the net bucket perfectly without touching the net bucket. Initially, I was going to put the 3.5 gallon bucket inside a 5 gallon bucket that all drained back into the reservoir. The reason was because, in my ignorance, I thought the roots were only going to grow through the first bucket and I didn't want them getting into the reservoir so I figured the 5 gallon bucket would act as a buffer and stop the roots. HA! I didn't think the roots would entirely clog the holes. I figured they were small enough to not be interesting for the roots and they would just grow and hang in the bottom of the bucket.... Though, the 5 gallon bucket did help with drainage because when the 3.5 gal bucket was too close to the surface of the water it wouldn't want to drain all the way out. I figured it was some kind of air pressure thing. But the 5 gal bucket fixed that cause the 3.5 gal would always full dump(lol) into the 5 gal. But when I put it all together something about it seemed unnecessary and awkward, so I tried the system without the 5 gallon bucket just to see. Oh, I know. I think I saw someone growing in the tote like I have with just the 10" net pot that was in a hole cut in the lid. So that's what made me think about cutting out a bucket or two. The reservoir I just mentioned is a 12 gallon storage tote that will be filled with 4 to 4.5 gallons of water max. It cannot have more in it or the water level will touch the bottom of the bucket and the bucket won't drain. The only way to increase the amount of water in the reservoir is to get a different bucket support. The lid of the tote was cut with a jigsaw to make a hole big enough in it for the bucket to sit inside. The first lid was such a pain in the ass to cut though. I used a mix of a box cutter and a blow torch. Jigsaw is the way to go. Anyways, the reason I cut the hole in the lid like this was because, in my head, the bucket was just going to be supported by this lid with a hole in it for the whole grow. I didn't really think about it until I filled the bucket for the first time in a test and realized that the bucket is going to get heavy and relying on the tote lid for support during flooding periods was not an option. So that's where that white rack looking thing comes in. It sits in the res and lifts the bucket up and out of the water and supports it so the bucket isn't held up by the tote lid at all. It also allows for easy drainage out of the bucket into the res. Once I encountered this and due to how I have the tubing connected, I cut the lid in half. This makes working with the res really easy since I don't have to do anything special to open it up part way and it also provides a space for the pump power cord to slip out along with an air tube hose for an air pump. After the lids were cut I spray painted them with a few coats of grey primer then I hit it with that glossy bright green. This was to prevent light leakage into the res since the res is in the tent. Otherwise, light easily got through the lid from the factory. So the system came together. But building it was interesting and I ran into a lot of like ok so wtf do I do now situations. I really would prefer to get something better than the rack for bucket support as the rack is metal and the coating on it sucks. So it will begin to rust soon. I really want it made out of plastic but what I need is so specific. Oh well, I'll figure that out. Really makes me want a 3d printer cause I'd just print what I need. The way I will have the system working is that the pump will be on a timer cycle(on for xx hours/min/sec, off for xx hours/min/sec). Initially it will take 2 minutes 5 seconds to fill the bucket with the hydroton in the net pot all together. But as the plant grows I will need to reduce the pump on time down. I know this because in a stroke of luck, finally, the hole in the tote lid and the way it sits just a little bit off of the bucket allows for overflow drainage back into the reservoir. This was important since the pump was on a timer and as the roots grew and displaced water volume with their root mass it will took less time for the water to fill. It drains empty usually around 5 minutes. Also, I will put an air stone in each reservoir that runs for 30 mins 12x a day. and that's the system =========================================================================================== UPDATE: 11/7: Wow ok, that was actually a lot of work. But it was the first time I put all the systems together. I did have to build stuff today, too. Like the cloner was using one of the buckets, T connectors, and water pumps. I needed those for one of the systems. So I put everything I could put together without that stuff and then went in. But it really came together nice. I am very pleased with the result. Everything fits, everything works, no leaks. I am having an issue with the flooding times though... It's like every bucket reaches max fill at a different rate and one of the buckets is much slower. But that is my fault cause 3 of the 4 pumps are the same. The 4th pump is like 20-30gph less than the other 3 so I figured it would take longer but not as long as it is... So I am currently in the process of flooding, timing that, draining, plugging up a drain hole, flooding, and timing again. I figure I'll just plug up drain holes until I can even out the flooding time. I am going to buy a matching pump though because plugging the holes is a ridiculous and stupid solution. Either way, the differences between the buckets is, with the exception of the aforementioned bucket, not big enough to cause me to worry but it's is something I will need to keep an eye on. Now that we are at this stage I will get a lot more detailed. I have designated the plants -- A,B,C,D. So I will reference the plants as that when needed and for my own notes. Light PPFD for the plants is 102 PPM was a little high and that was my fault. It ended up at 754ppm. It was my first time mixing nutes into a 20 gallon reservoir so I didn't know how it would all work out. I'm used to mixing in a 4-4.5 gallon res. The main issue was that I added epsom salts and that kicked up the ppm way faster than I expected it. I added a pretty serious suite of juice to this for a strong start. I would update the list in the diary but I'll just keep it like it is until the next week's update. Really 20 gallons is 75.7 liters... And that translates to a lot of juice... I'll put the recommended and the amount I put. For now, here is what I added: * Part A: @ 1ml/L it would be 75ml. For this I added 35ml * * Cal Mag Xtra: @ 1ml/L it would be 75ml. For this I added 40ml * Part B: @ 1ml/L it would be 75ml. For this I added 75ml B-52: @ 2ml/L it would be 150ml. For this I added 30ml Silica Blast: For this I added 20ml, 5ml per gallon Piranha: @ 2ml/L it would be 151.4ml! I added 50ml Epsom Salts: @ 1tblspn per 5 liters would be 15 tblspn, I added 10 tblspn Great White Mycorrhizae liberally sprinkled on each cuttings roots *These two are the same thing, just cal mag xtra is a stronger concentration. So I put 35ml weaker part A, and 40ml of stronger Cal Mag Xtra to total 75ml, then I matched this with 75ml of part B. PH readings: Plant A: 5.5 ph Plant B: 5.5 ph Plant C: 5.7 ph Plant D: 5.6 ph =========================================================================================== UPDATE 11/10: I know it has been a few days since I have updated the growdiary, but I just wasn't able to get around to posting. But I have been hard at work in the garden. The annoying garden that is taking a lot of effort. I keep running into stupid annoying problems and it's wearing me down. I have actually been incredibly frustrated with everything the past few days and it's boiling over today. It peaked with some stupid quest issue or bug or some BS stopping me from progressing in the new god of war game. So I had enough and went to mess around in the garden for more frustrations. Anyways, here's what's been going on the past few days. On 11/8 I noticed one of the plants was way taller for some reason. Maybe the others were just shorter or pushed in more. Who knows. Either way, I solved this problem and am quite pleased with the way I solved it. After thinking about it I decided to flood the bucket to the max after taking a good amount of the expanded clay out of the net pot. I took as much of it as I could without disturbing any roots. Like I stopped removing when I saw roots. I got a lot out so that the water level was going to be higher than the clay. This is important because a good amount of them float. So flooding the underfilled net pot loosened all the balls up and the plant and allowed me to shimmy the plant a little lower in the net pot. When I got to the height I wanted, I just drained and the balls fell into place and I refilled the net pot. It was perfect really. Only something I can do at this stage though, so close after transplant, because the root system has not had a chance to really develop. So that was a plus. Otherwise, between 11/8 and today(11/10) I have been trying to monitor PH and also solve a really annoying water pump timing issue. I can't seem to get all the buckets to get to max fill at the same time without one or more of them overfilling and leaking. Over the past few days I have gotten it pretty close and with just one bucket overfilling. So today, I decided I was going to drill the holes out with maybe a bigger bit for one of the holes as well. At least that's what I was thinking. When I went to check the bucket though, for blockages or anything that may cause slower draining, I found some of the holes were a little blocked. So I redrilled the holes with the same size bit, but I also deburred them really clean. Now they really clean holes. Actually... I think all the buckets may be like this. I was really lazy with cleaning/deburring the drilled holes when I first drilled them and there were some plastic twirlies and burrs that I left or didn't fully pick off. Well good news and bad news. Good news: the bucket drains awesome and the drainage holes are totally clear of debris. Bad news: now the bucket drains too fast and the fastest to fill and overfill now is behind the other buckets... Soooooooooooooo I plugged one of the holes. LOL. But at this point I have been flooding and draining all the buckets a few times I backed off to let the net pots drain and dry a little before I flood again because I don't want to blast the plants so much while I figure this out. I mean I could flood the buckets without the net pots/plants in but I need the clay balls to displace the water mass otherwise the time it takes to fill will be longer since it would require more water to fill each bucket without the plants in there. So I'll check again in a few hours. Same goes with the PH. I adjusted it down and instead of check it again immediately, I'll just check before next feeding. As for the PH issue, I have been very good about not letting the ph get too high. It still likes to rise fast and seems to rise more after stabilizing a day or so after adjustments. I am finding that I use a lot of ph down. Not sure if this is common or not, but it is annoying. I am getting sick of constantly checking ph to make sure it's within parameters as I am not familiar enough with the process to predict the ph. I will need to see how it rises and falls over time to have any intuition when it comes to what the ph level is. For now, I have been documenting each time I check and what I do to correct. Here is that information(time in 24hours): 0000 11/8 - |Res A: 5.7ph | Res B: 5.7ph | Res C: 5.5ph | Res D: 5.6ph - no action taken 0900 11/8 - |Res A: 5.7ph | Res B: 5.8ph | Res C: 5.7ph | Res D: 5.7ph - no action taken 1700 11/8 - |Res A: 5.8ph/647ppm | Res B: 5.8ph/662ppm | Res C: 5.9ph/675ppm | Res D: 5.8ph/690ppm - no action taken 0100 11/9 - |Res A: 5.9ph/679ppm | Res B: 6.0ph/712ppm | Res C: 6.0ph/711ppm | Res D: 6.0ph/711 Drops added |Res A: 7 = 5.7ph | Res B: 9 = 5.8ph | Res C: 9 = 5.8ph | Res D: 9 = 5.8ph 1730 11/9 - |Res A: 6.1ph/711ppm | Res B: 6.2ph/694ppm | Res C: 6.4ph/691ppm | Res D: 6.2ph/678ppm Drops added |Res A: 75 = 5.7ph | Res B: 75 = 5.7ph | Res C: 85 = 5.6ph | Res D: 30 +1.5ml = 5.7ph 1700 11/10 -|Res A: 6.0ph/762ppm | Res B: 6.1ph/761ppm | Res C: 6.1ph/739 | Res D: 6.1ph/718pph PH Down + |Res A: 1ml = ? | Res B: 1ml = ? | Res C: 1ml = ? | Res D: 1ml = ? A couple things I noticed when taking notes instead of going off memory when testing ph/tds... 1) These testers/meters are junk. Inconsistent inaccurate nonsense. Dafuq I want with a ph meter I have to calibrate every 10 minutes or a ph meter that needs to test the water for upwards of 1 minute plus to get a reading. I shit you not, the instructions for my ph meter when reading distilled water is to wait between 1 and 3 minutes for an accurate reading LOL. I mean it explains this is due to ionization or lack of ionization of the water making it harder for the probe to read distilled water vs water with stuff in it. But this also translates to reading times of not distilled water. It like takes a while to stabilize. But even then, if you just shake off and re-test in a different part of the res you may get a different reading. This is the same for the ec/tds meter, which happens to be way way worse than the ph meter. Like this tds meter is always throwing different numbers at me I can re-dip the thing in the exact same spot and get 3 different readings. I mean all within like 10-30, but it's still like pick one. Also, wtf is up with the TDS readings of the ppm? On top of the meter shooting numbers that are +/-~ a few, it looks to be rising. This is weird because the plants should be eating... But I am rationalizing this by way of saying there is less water therefore the ppm is getting more concentrated whereas is I added the volume of water lost the overall ppm would go down. I think this is what is happening. So to get a real ppm reading I would need to always test the same exact volume of water?? dafuq? I should just stop thinking about it. So what I started doing is just having a glass of distilled water on the side in the tent and I keep the probes in there between readings of the reservoirs. The ph meter's instructions say to rinse with "pure" water between readings anyways so that works. Either way it's really turning into a chore. Actually, this brings me to my next complaint/annoyance: how I laid out the tent. Ok, so when I first thought, "hey I'll grow 4 plants" I figured sure, put them in tent, easy, right? lol, sure. But then it's like ok so how are you going to get to them? How are you going to work on them? Is there space in there for you? Will you be able to bring them out of the tent? What about if you use a screen, what then? So I had to arrange the systems in a way that gave me space to work on them and they still had their own space. But it got way too crowded way too fast. Then with my reservoirs having a tube going through one side of the lid makes it so I can really only access the water from one side of the res. So Now I am running into issues as to hard to access res lids. I did think about this when arranging the systems. But theory is definitely different than practice. So in this situation. I did have to turn one of them. This will give me better access but caused me to have to move all the power strips and re-run the air line tubing and figure out an issue with space again. UGH just typing about it is annoying. All of this. Oh yea, and the last thing that is also probably the most important thing is that one of the plants looks worse than the rest and I feel bad and I don't know how to make it feel better. I can't tell if the deficiencies are from the cloner stage or not. But one of the plants has yellowing leaves and yellowing serration tips. Also The plants are all rebounding and starting to look like the mother with the new growth being super light green like almost highlighter green/yellow. It's way brighter than it was before. However, the new leaves/tops always did this then once established turned into a more solid green color. I don't know if this is a sulphur deficiency or not. I think the one with the drastic yellowing is magnesium? I am not sure. I should probably ask someone.