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This has been a learning curve, it's my first hydroponic system. also its RDWC
Things I learned this week throughout the building process.
- finding fittings as a mechanic is not hard, but mechanics ≠ being good at sealing things.
- Following internet sources, peat pellets were a poor choice, and I'm sure I'll pay the price. (particles in the water??)
- Amazon water chillers, unless 200 dollars are a scam, I Live in a hot environment and having no water chiller is a needs. Temps are 95 constantly around here so AC is on and freezed bottles in place.
- Flex seal really seals, did not slap my bucket.
- Leaks, OH MY GOd IT LEAKS. (It doesn't now).
- No reservoir so will have to lift the lids to add water
- Water with bottles stays at 78 F, and by the time I'm home it reaches 85, so I think I'll be okay, on Tuesday 16 I'll order the chiller and it arrives on the 19.
Haven't fed the water, tested pH, it's 7.1, will adjust once plants are in, currently it has some H2o2 and Epson salt in it, calibrated it once and levels went back up. PPM is 96
I will soon buy a real water chiller that uses r134a so temps will improve, also humidity stays around 40, thinking on buying a humidifier, should I?, Next in line will be a oscillating fan, cooler, scrog and the viparspectra. Also some black tape for light leaks.
UPDATE 12/08/23
The leaking actually continued, so i decided to do things properly and bought 1 in threaded bulkheads, they arrive on the 16, really hoping it's before to be able to transplant on time, or well a bit late but it's okay.
plants are fine, just a little yellowing because had lights too close but eveything is fine now, will continue to update once I recive the pieces, will be buying the chiller on the 15.
old water form the system i was trialing actually had some strange things going on, it seems like algae or something was starting to develop so next time will use H2o2 and dark hoses, previous hoses were transparent so i guess thats how that happened, monitered the water for 3 days and ppm went fron 95 to 120 in 3 days.
So okay, this is the start of week 2 of plants life, as i stated in the previous week I bought a chiller with a compressor because the one that i bought previously did not work, so far had to change the bulkheads because of leaks and it seems that leaking just ended, so today i finally put some fresh water into the system and things look great. pH was 5.85, ppm 49, no juice is added yet, I'm suporting the humidity witha humidity dome over them and PPFD is 250-ish, can't adjust much, the lights i've got dont have a dimmer box , because of the lack of that some of the initial leaves did burn but eveythings nice so far.
Will continue to update as I go, but for my first hydro I'm exhausted, learned a lot and wil continue to do so.
Also!!!!, if someone comes by can anyone tell me WHY on earth one of my bucket fills more than the others??, i have 3 25w pumps, saame pumps distributing water and one of them is ALWAYS fuller than the others, ahd to adjust the knob that the pump has to level them out, and even after taht is not perfect.
When looking at your diary, the one filled up to where you can see the water, that water is to high. Also your buckets being homedepot orange will let light through to your roots. This is also not good. Maybe wrap some tin foil or duct tape or paint them black. Also in hydroponics we feed from day 1 and we start at 400 ppm, 0.8 ec for photo period plants and 200 to 250 ppm, 0.4 to 0.5 for autos. Increase 100 ppm 0.2 ec once every week if you see good growth. Autos can go up to 600 to 650 ppm 1.2 to 1.3 ec only more if you see they really need it. Photos can go up to 800 to 900 ppm 1.6 to 1.8 ec. and only more if they really need it. Try to keep your chiller at 58
So whats new?, well recently, as of 08/23/23 got my water chiller, which is A BLESSING, honestly the constant bottle changing was driving me NUTS, not only that, i had to use my roomates fridge (in secret) and mine to keep enough water bottles to last for a day, and most of the time it was just not enough so water temps were gettin all the way up to 90, a pain in my assholes that seems to be over. great success.
have seen some strange thigns going on with the water, such as EC level that keeps going up, which i think it was realetd to the plants drinking more water than nutrients and don't know if it was becasue of the temps as I'm very new to the hydro space, but will soon be paying 12 buckaroos to the youtuber that got me started in hydro, shotout to "How Weed Grow at Home - Indoor Cannabis Tutorials", So far i've been folowing his Hydro guide to the theet, so thats why I'll be subbing to his personalized patreon.
Here's a small log of how water's been in the last 6 days.
17-08-23
- Ph, 5.85
- 29.2 C
- 49ppm (new water, i used purified)
18-08-23
- Ph 7.10
- 30.01 C
- 70 PPM (water bottles in place)
19-08-23
- Ph 6.69
- 26.9 C
- 96 PPM (14 hrs after first feed)
20-08-23
- Ph 5.89(been lowering it)
- 25.8 C
- 125 PPM
21-08-23
- Ph 6.31
- 28 C
- 127 PPM (here i noticed EC going up so started taking notes)
22-08-23
- Ph 6.36
- 28.3 C
- 137 PPM
- EC 274 (added more water to the reservoir)
-Ph 5.9 (ph down 1 ml)
- 141 PPM
- 28.3 C
- EC 282
AnnnnnnnnnNDDDD today is the 23 of august and levels after chiller are as follows:
- Ph 6.31
- 145 PPM
- 23.2 C
- EC 290 +
So some things that will come, the viparspectra lights and will soon lst them, also i might change the reservoir as EC seems to keep rising.
Week 3, so whats new?
well, for once I don't feel like missing somethign, i belive that i'm getting used to looking after the plants and managing their specific conditions. As this was my frist attempt in hydro i did not know how to manage the variables but as it turns out, is not that hard.
I did buy the patreon from howweedgrow which helped me to feel clam about plant development, so far this is how it has looked in the previous days.
24/08/23
PH 5.9
174 PPM
23.0 C
EC 349
26/08/23
PH 5.93 (fisrt time i did not need to lower ph, it lowered by itself.
201 PPM
24.0 C
EC 403
29/08/23
PH 5.91
204 PPM
EC 408
23.7 C
Will soon feed, preparing for the growth with the help of pieces of electrical cable. had a little helper too.
overall great success, will update soon.
So, what's new?
water levels seems to be a pain in my assholes that hasn't had a great success, however it matters little becuase roots are very long now so no need for the levels to be even steven, great success.
have had some mistakes were the LST was so strong i actually broke one stem and was about to break another but noticed in time and manage to save it
been speakign with how weed grow in regards to the grow and so far so good, really recomend his patreon in cae you're seeking peace of mind with your grows.
Just recived my SCROG!!!!, so will be managing plant training with the net and also got my new viparspectra 1500xs pro, whatever name is, looks fancy and feels fancy so greta success there too.
not much to add other than my mistakes and that it's week 4.
wish you all great things with y'all grows, thanks for stopping by.
How things are going now?
well, as you can see been training the girls to grow more colas, theres some discoloration of the leaves which has been addressed by adding some epson salsalt to my rez, while I hope that clears things out my main concern would be that not all of them are growing at the same height, however this will also be adressed once the main stem grows more so i can do some suppercropping,
so far so good, recently calibrated my meter as it was giving me incorrect measurments, noticed by using the buffer powder that came with the meter, thinking on buying some more
current rez stats are as follows:
EC 402 uS/cm
TDS: 210 PPM
PH 5.93
Temp 74.1 F or 23.4 C
I'm really looking foward to their growth, the new light really came in clutch and plants seem to be loving it, gotta be careful though, sometimes the tent gets really hot inside (95F , 35 C)
Until next week. have a great grow
Whats up?
sorry for no post last week, I had dengue. feeling much better now but plants sure suffered a bit trought the week, ran out from nutrients and did not have the strength to care for them. Gladly, I had some assistance with my own health issues, so the little energy i had i spent on training the girls and watering them, as you can see there was a deficiency that led to some bleaching and discoloration of new growth and old, water levels started to change and it stabilized in 145 PPM and 6.1 pH.
I was worried about not giving them anything to eat, but when i spoke to Howweedgrow about it, he recommended me to only water them without nutes, although i think he did not read my message properly as he answered with a "its better to water them than not at all", when my original question was in regards of making some food without FloraMicro (the ONE nutrient i ran out of), luckily i was able to get some and in 5 days time it arrived.
Firls looked like this for the week
Lvls in bucket where as follows:
EC 283 uS/cm
TDS: 141 ppm
pH 6.02
Temps 23.3 C 73.9 F
Double post?
Well, Had to some catch up to do, but here's how the girls are currently looking, finally recived the flora micro i was missing and girls ate 1.5Lts of nutes just to get back to original levels, or where they where supposed to be. Now that I'm feeling calmer about the situation I'm planning on finally flipping the girls as not only am i running out of space in the tent, all the scrog is finally ocupied, cannopy is taking shape so i think it's the perfect time for flip. or maybe I'll wait another week, we'll see. for the moment i already made the bloom juice and will be mixing 80 veg 20 bloom once i flip for the first week,
Current Rez lvlvs are:
EC 500
SALT: 250 PPM
pH 5.92
Temp: 21.7 C 71.1 F
Hows is growing?
Well, as you al can see girls are pretty and healthy, i did flip them as i started seeing that there was no more space for the plants to continue growing, and even after defoliating multiple times, almost no light penetrates the cannopy, for the moment at least, I will continue to defoliate certain leaves that either don't produce or are dying. I'm really happy to be finally flipping them and not only that, all 3 are fems (as expected but always great to see). Plants will continue to grow and now they're getting bloom juice which is going to really help them in the path fowards to making buds. Let's see how it goes :)
Reservoir looks like this:
PPFD:600-715
EC: 531
TDS: 265 PPM
PH 5.98
TEMP 21.4 C 70.5 F
So whats going on???, plants are growing CRAZY fast and crazy thick, i had to defoliate like 3 times because i kept missing leafs that were either stuck inside the structure already dying or dead and didnt fall to the ground as there was no space for them to do so, by the end of the defoliation process i ended up piling a whole ass pizza box worh of dead leaves. that was the 3rd defoliation, btw.
As i feared the tent is way to small for the size of the plants but this will have to do, already hanged the lights from zip ties to give some more room to them, also the strains are not compatible as one grows slower than the other. The Rntz also is a much bigger plant in leaf size but this is how one learns, you fuck up and then you unfuck things. so heres how my attempt is looking like, also im sorry for those that sent me messages, i did not know this page ahd messages, this is more of a personal log to keep memories of this grow.
current rez stats are as follows:
EC: 533 uS/cm
tds 226 ppm
pH 5.97
Temp 21.0 C 69.8 F
Hows it gorwing??
well, to asnwer the question it is growing A LOT, and really hecking fast, about 2 weeks ago plants barely made it to the utility bag and now they're close to the roof, well at least some of the branches, which i know that is my fault but i didn't consider them growing this much. so might have to do some suppercropping to manage the size of these lads.
I'm honetly impressed by trich formation on sugar leaves at this point, looking foward to my jewlers lens to get some HD photos here and also to sweeten my theet while i wait for them to be ready, for the moment I'm relal enjoying the process, asltho im kinda worried about the branches that don't stop growing and thinking on LST'ing them so they can continue growing, also PLANTS ARE HECKING THIRSTY, it's just mindbloging the ammount of liquids they can intake in one day, i have to be checking rez states to see wheter or not they are hungry or just thristy,
current rez looks as follows:
EC:584
TDS 292 PPM
PH 6.12
TEMP 21.3 C 70.3 F
So, how is it growing?
well, aside from the fact that pH drops are real (they are and they will haunt you too, even if you rez change an pray to little jesus) they're growing and developing to be lovely flowers, haven't seen much color variations in them so fat but they are starting to produce flower, resin an a whole lot of smell, Runtz reminds me of lemon zest with some orange tones to it and some pine in the middle, GMO its a little late to the party and is yet developing so far, it smells like grass (literally) idk whats with that im pretty happy about how they're turning. some issues like the fact that i ran out of FloraMicro (today i recive more) and that i had to rez change recently. other than that all is well.
rez stats are not avilable this week as I'm not in my house writting this, so don't know. soemthign around 500 ec , 400 ppm and 5.9 that goes to 5 if you blink your eyes.
How is it growing?
well, as you can see one of the firls suffered some burns due to me being absent cause my grandma died and leaving lights at 100% fro one weekned which was around 2000 PPFD at 8 inches?, this caused one of the grils to resent it but other than that big colas on the way.
I've noticed that compared to the other weeek where ppm fluctuations were the norm currently its quite strange for pH and PPPM to move, whenever it does is usually cause it need water but daily it consumes round 50 ppfd, been putting 3ML of GH grow every other day as i don't have tps signal (woudl rather use that one but it is not avilable in this country). so GH is the best second option.
current REZ looks liek this:
726 EC
363 PPM
pH 6.02
temp 21.5 C 70.7 F
How is it growing?
This week has been great, as of late plants have been really stable and eating well, i trimmed the leafs ends of the plant that sadly burned a bit and its looking nice, im really sad about the precious girl but she's doing her best and I'm taking good care of her now. lowered the rez temps and some plants have been showing more trichs which looks nice on them, i anticipate another 3ish weeks for flower or maybe more, don't know at the moment but this is how they look like. one of the plants suffered that "belaching" on the top of the nug but look at that massive cola, is just huge. Will soon update but fro today this is eveything.
Hello, hi and hola.
how is it growing?, well, as it's been kind of the theme with this grow i ran out of a nutrient, which was the dyna grow in this ocation. Planst were hungry and ppm stayed about 180 for the week, i got tired of waitign for this one nute so i gave the rez every other nute that i had to not starve them of. specially during flower, we can see some discoloration of the leafs for lack of food and im sorry for the girls but the selelr didn't put my addres correct on the package so it was not delivered on time. Ph damaged girl is still fighting on and fattening the colas, i belive that it's still 3 weeks off but well be seeing, im about to buy the magnifying glass to appriciate the trichomes better and decide when to chop.
current rez states are as follows
pH 6.02
PPM 370
EC 560
TEMP 19.6 C
Another week, more growth. some checmichal burning but girls are getting fat, so fat that branches have started moving and resting over the scrog, tried ulpoading a video that i took so you all could see the whole tent but it won't upload.
Things have been good but theres been some discoloring ont he bud leafs that i can't figure out, maybe lack of somethign of too much of another thing, i asked to how weed grow and he didn't get back to me. sad abt it as i'm paying for the patreon but probs will not continue to do so ne xt month. If anyone has any idea feel free to coment.
I'm hopefull for the next week as i think it's starting to be the end of the grow, bought a jewlers glass to be able to study the trichs and determine when i need to chop, still a pair of weeks left tho, this grow will be massive, don't know how much but it'll be good, at least a fewc good oz.
no stats today ass i'm kind of lazy but wanted to document how they're doing and share it here.
So when is it ready then?!?!?!, soon, soon TM
Started to starve them girls and it seems like one of them is going to get its top colas removed while imma let the other 2 and 1/12 girls live for at least 2 more weeks, gotta be fast with this as I'm moving out from this apt in a month and some change.
it's going to be interesting as i'll be lettign lower bud sites get some more lights for 2 weeks before the chopping spree, rn I'm thinking on just cutting part of the main colas on the plant thats developed the most, as the other two have some buds that are still maturing on the top.
to sumarize this, plant that is closes to the door its going to get main colas choppend and imma leave lower bud sites to mature some more before havign to move out, I'll be doing this with all them girls and will be sharing results here as they go. they smell amazing, I'm not worried about the changing in colours as this is Senescence but iw as sure hoping on better colours. is not as frosty as i hoped they be but I'm pretty happy with how the're looking, maybe i don't see them as amazing because i tend for them daily so i've lost my point of reference, still, i'm really happy and eager to smoke at least the scissor hash.
NO VIDEOS BECAUSE SITE IS BROKEN
have a great day, thanks for stopping by and reading this.
If it wasn't clear, i suffer from dyslexia, so sorry about how i write, i don't realize it until i read it over.
Site is broken, can barely upload anything and it's sad because I'm really proud, of what we've achived here and i tought this may be the place to sahre it but it seems this palce is more for self promotions for brands and so on.
regardless, with all the effort that it took to select pictures heres some of a PARTIAL harvest, i did not harvest the whole plant as the cannopy did not allow lower bud sites to have light and i mean, theres at least 700 grams more waiting from those 2 plants (and thatsd a low ball estimate), currently "only" harvested 672 grams from the top colas, and not all of them were chopped, left some of the auxiliary bud sites that the MASSIVE colas had, im honestly shoked at one of them that weighted on its own 145.4 grams, and still had 4 auxiliary bud sites that i decided to leave for them to rippen, alltogether pretty sure this cola wouldve been 250 g's with all the other bud sites that it developed.
yesterday i decided to chop based on the fact that i felt nugs were moist and was afraid of them developing botrytis. none did and while im suspisicious on some of the nugs no definite answer as of right no nug shows it, but they were moist and better be safe than sorry, still would've given them another week if it was possible, but also i need GMO to rippen, so thats why i decided to do a stage chop, in one week will be chopping everything or maybe more, perhaps 2 weeks more, who knows now. one thing I know is that my house smells DANK, that it was 700 g's a partial harvest and that I still have more than half to chop and harvest, this will be plenty, im really happy with how they're turning out, ocne they dry I'll write here how they smoke and add some nug photos.
THERES STILL WORK TO DO, THIS IS NOT OVER YET. and I'm all for it :)
Lucyfer
