My very first grow. RIP: PH issue. ✞ ✞

@HakunaMatata,Yes Sir!!--👊😎--Spot On! I've noticed a lot of ppl treat the nutrients like it was plant food, when in reality the "macro nutrients NPK, micro nutrients Ca, Mg, S and trace elements all combined added to the water just consists of a miniscule; less than 1‰ of what you are administering "feeding (!sic)" to your plant. Your goal is to stay somewhere in the lower than 0,25‰ nutrient to water weight the initial week for proper root development. Any pimping will just slow down the plants ability to process the basic nutrients; carbon, hydrogen and oxygen that is already avaliable to the plant in sufficient quantities simply through the air, soil and water. Also the roots arent very happy with too much H+ ions around em, so the closer to neutral the water is the first week, the better in my opinion, until week 1 veg is over and the plant is already developing it's 3:rd set of leaves. So unless your tap water is highly acidic or basic, adding pH down / up might actually delay the root develpment of the seedling, a phenomena easilly noticed by those poor bastards who get chlorosis etc the first week from too much "care" when regular tap-water on some other plant in depleted, neutral pH soil would look fine the first week. The real food is the actual water (H2O), the content in the air (Oxygen+Carbon dioxide), then a huge portion the light (photons) pushing the process forward. This in combination with the excess of what the seedling needs, already stored in the seedling itself from seed has made me draw the conclusion that the less effort you put in the grow the first week, the better the outcome. Probably why paper-towel tecnique works so good, yet the seedling might die as it's roots gets burned when being transferred from the moist paper to the hot & pimped-soil, with excess of nutrients, love and what not. I've also noticed how much better the small plants grow, the lower the TDS is in the soil, and how a subtle move, like adding a teaspoon of wet-used-cofee-grounds added as top-dressing to the seedling used in good faith might delay the root development and leave its roots severly stunted and behind in development in comparison to her seedling-sisters, just given neutral water the first week. First week --Less is more.

@MalumProhibitum, whoa!! thanks for the info, I really appreaciate it!!!! I was feeling a bit down after killing the Blueberry so yeah, thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed comment! I potted the blueberry on a Monkey Light Mix Pro. The Tangie was potted on a custom soil. The custom soil seems to be more aireated than the Light Mix. I actually thought i made a mistake when making the custom soil because i felt it didn't have much water retention, and I thought the Monkey Light Mix Pro was better (surely in terms of nutrients is better balanced). However, after a couple of waterings I realized the the Mix wasn't drying at all, the top first inch was drying but the rest of the soil was extremely moist, not swamped though. So I kept watering thinking that was the expected behavior of the mix... Now I think I know what to look for in terms of watering. Probably I can use that monkey light mix but following your advice and mixing with coco. This is key -> "the bigger the pot, the more coco, to compensate for the decreased area to volume ratio of big containers"

@HakunaMatata, Yes, autos are a bit more delicate when it comes to development before flower and any changes along the way might affect the harvest in a negative way whereas regular seeds you have the opportunity to extend veg if things goes sideways and can switch to 12/12 whenever you think the grow-room is populated and plants are ready for flower. I think I'd stick with what other ppl recommended and go for one pot, but you could keep the watering in check and there are few tricks to avoid drowning the poor plant 😁 I had same issues too with watering too much until I started adding a dishcloth to the bottom of the pot, and made 4x finger sized holes for the corners to peek through, and then added another 4x dishcloth on the outside to passivly suck out and absorb any excess water (lowers the time to recover and soil to get an apropriate water-content within 3-4 days if I overwater instead of months, when I start a seedling in a 30liter++ pot)😜 Then I just squeeze out any excess water gathering in the dishcloths and remove them when they start to dry out and I know there isnt any abundance of water in the soil anymore. Some ppl want stones at the bottom, big coarse stuff, and I went the other route and added the cloth to be able to regulate the water content, then I add Coconut Coir to the soil to make the texture of the soil more airy, the bigger the pot, the more coco, to compensate for the decreased area to volume ratio of big containers. The soil is like a sponge with massive surface area and ability to exchange gasses, add too much water and the surface area in the soil decreases drasticly and you end up starving the roots of oxygen. If you starve the roots of oxygen, their development halts and within days they start to die, and as the roots is like a mirror image of how the development above the soil is, you want big roots. Try get a feel for the weight of the pots and let the top layer dry out some atleast before adding more water. You want moist soil, not a swamp 😂 Your diary -BSF Tangie XXL Auto- looks promising 👊😊--🍀

@@mrmateo, great you managed to save that one! Yeah I agree. And probably in the next couple of grows I’ll try coco or living soil. I think what was confusing for me here is that the bag of Monkey Light Mix is advertised as already balanced in nutes, composition and water retention. So I didn’t expect to have the need to add stuff to it. I explicitly bought that mix as a beginner because I didn’t fully understand how the plant behaves and all the possible substrates. I’m on a second grow now on the same soil and the same symptoms appeared. And while now I think I understand how to fix it, I’m certainly not happy on how the brand advertises this mix.

@HakunaMatata, Thank you, and I'm happy if you find something useful. Just buzz me if you have any questions.

@love_2_grow, thanks man! Had a quick look at some of your diaries; Great info and awesome results, i'll take a couple of ideas from them.