RDWC Barney’s Farm Gorilla Zkittles

7 days officially since putting the seeds into their pods. Roots are not quite fully stretched out of the net basket (they are still in water however), but I imagine they will be by next week. Next week I’ll begin to add Hydroguard into the mix as well. PH is sitting at a 5.5 with an EC of 0.8. Mars Hyrdo SF6500 light is at 30% power 18 inches above the plants. Do any of you know when in the process I should be adding in the RapidStart? Today I added the Armor Si Silica Supplement about 30 minutes before adding the Flora Series (micro then gro then bloom), where I then added the rapidstart. I tested the PH and it was sitting at about 7, where I then added the PH Down to get to about 5.5 as I know the PH can rise after a couple of days.

Growth definitely took off from week 1 - 2. The PH kept creeping up and at one point made its way up to 6.8, so I kept adjusting w PH down to get it at about 6.0. This time around when adding the PH down after adding all of my nutrients, I accidentally dropped it too much and it made its way down to 4.7. I added a touch of PH up in addition to a gallon of tap water (naturally sits at 7.1), so at the time of me typing this it’s about 5.6 but I know it’ll creep up again.

Since my last diary it’s been a little chaotic with the plants. I was feeding week 2 based off the general hydroponics recommendations and I believe I was watt over feeding. At the same time I felt like the yellowing leaves could’ve been caused by light leaks, hence all of the aluminum foil you now see over clay pebbles. I did get a chiller so my temps are staying solid at 67 degrees. Hoping they’ll look much better by the next post!

So this week I decided to reintroduce the Armor Si and Rapid Start now that the plants bounced back from my overkill feeding for week 2. Only one of my plants is giving me issues where the leaves like are getting all wrinkled up. Not sure what’s going on there. I was thinking a cal mag deficiency, but I could be wrong. I also topped last week and have now began Low Stress training w the net.

The plants are doing well for now lol! They experienced a ton of growth since my last post. I started defoliating and have a decent LST scrog action going on. I fed them the same dosage as I did last week. Mars Hydro FC 6500 is set to 50% 20 inches above them

Plants still appear to be going strong. Did a lot of defoliating over the past 10 days or so including lollipopping.

Considering how awfully bad the humidity has been in this tent, I’m surprised they seem as healthy as they are. 80+ for the last few weeks - 99 at the time of me typing this but I could also have a bad hydrometer. I have a good dehumidifier and hydrometer coming in a couple of days that should get that straightened out. Overall things are going well all things considered! All 4 plants are Lollipopped and I’ll continue to defoliate a bit here and there.

The girls have been doing very well since my last update! The dehumidifier has been doing wonders. I’ve still been removing the lower foliage to promote growth at the top of the canopy. I’ve also stopped using the Armor Si at this point because the stem is very strong and I don’t want to be using too much PH Down in the solution MARS HYDRO FC6500 at 60% power

Starting to develop some nice bud structures. I’ve realized that I vegged these plants too long, as they’re already within 20 inches of the light when they’re not bent. Next time around I’ll flip to flower after about week 5. For now they’re still doing well, especially now that I’ve got the humidity issue under control. Wish me luck!

Every week I’m more and more stressed about the size of the plants, as I can only lift the light up about another couple of inches. Next grow I’ll do a better job of tying my stems down early in veg to promote a more even canopy, along with flipping to flower around week 5. At this point my stems are too thick so if I try bending them down to lower the canopy they’ll snap. Do any of you have any suggestions as to how I can work through this issue?

All has continued to go well over here. Looks like the plants have stopped stretching which is a total relief. Earlier in the grow I was doing switching my water out every week, but now it’s about every 2 weeks since the plants are so big. I know that’s not ideal, but these girls are super heavy. Wish me continued luck!

Over the past week I’ve noticed that on some of the top bud sites there’s some discoloration in the leaves, which I feel at this point the plant is absorbing nitrogen from the leaves. I’m about 2 weeks away from chopping 3 of the 4 plants down. I’ll likely let the shorter plant flower for another couple of weeks when I can position the light closer to the plant. All in all they’re seeming pretty healthy! Very excited so see what these girls bring to the scales.

This is likely my last week, where I’ll be harvesting on Sunday the 7th. All in all this grow has been a huge learning experience for me. Ultimately my mistake for the grow was allowing them to veg for so long as the plants were too big for me to move around easily. Not gonna lie the last 3-4 weeks I’ve been slacking because of how heavy the plants were I couldn’t get really move them around to fully drain and replace my water, which is something I’ll be changing around on the next grow. Had I flipped them to flower in week 6, I feel I could’ve gotten a better yield as they would’ve had more room to stretch upwards and I could’ve used my light to it’s full potential as my fear was giving the top larger bud sights light burn. I also ran into issues where some of the skinnier stems were so skinny that they couldn’t really support the weight of the buds without the trellis net so when I’d take the net off, some of the stems would snap and I’d have to tape them back up. I could’ve also done a much better job with defoliating. It’s crazy how many leaves these things get lol, you’ll feel like you’ve taken a significant amount off but then 3 days later it’s almost like you didn’t even defoliate at all! My next post will be of the chopped buds where I’ll hopefully have it all weighed out. Might be another 2 weeks or so before that post though. I’ll definitely be growing these seeds again, I just need to remember how much faster these girls veg than they traditionally would have in a soil based medium, but hey it was my first Hydro grow so I’m very proud of it! Thank you for reading and for all of the tips and support you’ve given me along the journey!

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