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1/24/24 - Dropped seeds into rapid rooters in a seedling tray with a heat mat. Sprayed humidity dome with water to keep humidity up. Now I wait 3 days for the magic to happen.
1/25/24 - Tweaked settings on my Controller 69 Pro to make sure that I could maintain a good environment for the seedlings. Currently holding at 72° with RH of 70%.
Turned down the seedling heat mat because the temp got up to 89°
1/26/24 - RH in the seedling tray got up to 92%, so I dried out the dome a little to get it back in the 80s. Temp is right around 80°
1/27/24 - The babies have arrived! 2/2 on Fast Buds seeds!
1/28/24 - Seedlings stretched on me overnight, so I increased the PPFD to closer to 200. Moving them to the system today.
Babies have been moved to the system! Light is 24" above plants and the PPFD is ~200
1/29/24 - the humidifier in the tent ran out of water at about 5am, so the humidity dropped down to 34%. Will set a reminder to fill humidifier(s) before going to bed. Seedlings seem to be fine. Misted the domes.
1/30/24 - The cool weather is making it a real struggle in the tent. Re-misted the humidity domes. Temp and RH are fluctuating like crazy in the tent, but I'm maintaining the VPD between 0.8-1.0 kpa
1/31/24 - Continuing to top feed until roots hit the water. Maintaining optimum environment in tent. Seedlings growing nicely.
2/1/24 - Double checked the PPFD at the plants and I'm sitting at around 240. Tent environment is within parameters. Top fed the plants and removed the humidity domes. Plants developing nicely. Will start checking for roots in the water in a couple days.
2/2/24 - Had some issues yesterday with the AC Infinity outlet that is controlling the space heater in the tent. Even though I had set it as 'Heater' with a target temp of 71°, it kept defaulting to 'Outlet' which doesn't allow target temp, just high & low temp. This was causing the space heater to run constantly. Thankfully it was only an hour and I was able to catch it. I am now using an automation in the Controller 69 Pro to force that port to trigger on temp. We'll see if it will stick. Overall, I think the plants did ok with the fluctuation, but I'm a little concerned with the curling leaf on Crystal. I will closely monitor this situation over the next 24 hours. Top fed again today and will check for roots in the water starting tomorrow.
2/3/24 - checked for roots and still no roots in the water. I will extend the germination week until roots in water is eminent. Top fed both plants. Crystal still has a curled leaf, but other than that she looks good. Adjusted the PPFD up slightly to 275. Added a camera to the tent and will be shooting a time lapse video for the rest of this grow. Fingers crossed.
2/4/24 - I have a root that is just about in the water, so I will switch to Week 1 Veg in 2 days. Top fed both plants again and things are going very nicely.
2/5/24 - Confirmed root touching water. Tomorrow will flush and fill the system and begin Veg Week 1. Top fed again today and the plants are showing great progress.
2/6/24 - Veg Week 1 Day 1 - Flush and fill day. Drained system completely and wiped all down. Added 15 gallons of fresh RO water. Added Week 1 nutrients. Will allow system to recirculate for 24 hours and then make any pH adjustments. Plants are looking great! PPFD is at ~280 measured with Photone App with diffuser.
2/7/24 - Veg Week 1 Day 2 - pH adjustment day. Unfortunately, I had a huge discrepancy between my two main pH meters. Thankfully I have a total of 4 meters. I re-calibrated all of them and got the solution as close to 5.89 as possible. I have ordered a 5th pH pen and will make sure it is dialed in. The good news is that it is definitely between 5.5-6.5 so the plants continue to thrive.
2/8/24 - Veg Week 1 Day 3 - adjusted pH again to bring it back down to 5.89. Tent environment and lung room have been pretty stable and I'm maintaining the VPD at 0.8 - 1.0 kPa
2/9/24 - Veg Week 1 Day 4 - So, I realized last night that my PPFD had been way too low for the last few days which was causing an undesired stretch. I use the Photone app with the Lightray diffuser for measuring PPFD. Apparently, I forgot to change the setting in the app for the diffuser. I corrected my error and hopefully all will be well. I added some more Silica to the reservoir to help bulk up the stems. Adjusted the pH back down to 5.90. Plant growth looks good.
2/10/24 - Veg Week 1 Day 5 - More roots in the water. Adjusted pH back down to 5.89. Plants still growing nicely.
2/11/24 - Veg Week 1 Day 6 - pH is steady at 5.89. Checked PPFD at top of plants and we're sitting at 275. All is looking good
2/12/24 - Veg Week 1 Day 7 - Final day of Week 1. pH is still stable at 5.89 Double checked the light distance from the top of the plants (18 inches). Got some pictures of the roots in the water.
2/13/24 - VEG Week 2 Day 1 - Flushed and filled the system with 16 gallons of fresh RO water. Added Week 2 nutrients and got a PPM of 508. Light still at 18 inches, but bumped it up to 50% to get a PPFD of ~310 at top of plants. Crystal is slightly taller than Zkittlez by 1.5". Will allow the system to recirculate for 24 hours and adjust pH level.
2/14/24 - VEG Week 2 Day 2 - Added about 2.3ml of pH Down to get the pH back to the 5.90 range. PPM has also gone down.
2/15/24 - VEG Week 2 Day 3 - Added about 5ml of pH Down to get the pH back to the 5.90 range. Noticed some droopy leaves last night, so I double checked my PPFD and re-adjusted to make sure I am as close to 300 as possible. Will monitor the situation.
2/16/24 - VEG Week 2 Day 4 - Well, today is a shit day for the grow. First, my camera that I was recording time lapse footage on has failed. Then I noticed quite a bit of algae in my RDWC system despite adding H2O2 to every fill. Not sure where it came from, but now I have to focus on trying to clean it up and save this grow. Happy Friday!
2/17/24 - VEG Week 2 Day 5 - After many hours of research, I believe I have developed a cyanobacteria called "brown slime". Because these plants are autoflowers, this grow is pretty much ruined and I debated just ending this diary. But I am a man of science and so I will push on until the plants have either given up or produce a very sad yield. In retrospect, I was trying a new nutrient line with this grow and also trying to run sterile (adding H2O2 2x a week to the reservoir). From what I have read, this particular cyanobacteria does NOT need light to thrive. Water temperature (mine was always between 67°-71°) does NOT prohibit it's growth, and H2O2 actually feeds it oxygen which helps it to thrive. So this diary will be a lesson to me and might help others in the future. In the coming days, I will be trying numerous things to try and turn around this situation (for scientific data), but I have lowered my expectations for this grow and if things don't improve I will scrap the grow and start over better informed.
2/18/24 - VEG Week 2 Day 6 - Because this grow is now a science experiment, I added about 300ml of H2O2 to the reservoir yesterday. I also removed some of the slime (the picture in the blue bowl) to soak in H2O2 and after 24 hours, it does appear to have died. The plants are showing no signs of dying as of right now. I added a hefty dose of beneficial bacteria to the reservoir to try and combat the slime.
2/19/24 - VEG Week 2 Day 7 - Final day in Week 2 and tomorrow will be VERY busy. My plan is to move the plants to temporary "hospital buckets" and drain and thoroughly clean/sanitize the system. I will then move the plants back to the system and fill with fresh RO water and add Week 3 nutrients AND beneficial bacteria. As you can see from today's pictures....the slime appears to be continuing to break down after 48 hours in H2O2. The plants continue to grow and Crystal is even showing pre-flower pistils. pH has dropped slightly from 5.89 but haven't noticed any drastic swings. Can I beat this slime and finish this grow with a reduced yield?
2/20/24 - VEG Week 2 Day 7 (extended edition) - Starting Week 3, but I want to put this part here so I can try and forget about it. Setup emergency "hospital buckets" for the plants and transferred them to the buckets with a solution of water and H2O2. I was surprised that the roots looked as good as they did given the amount of slime in the system. I poured a heavy dose of Athena Cleanse into the system and ran it while I used brushes to brush off every area that was covered in slime. Drained the system completely and sprayed down EVERY surface with straight H2O2 and wiped it down. Finally I gave everything a coating of 99% isopropyl alcohol. Wiped it all down and let it dry. System clean and ready for habitation.....on to Week 3 with fingers crossed.
2/20/24 - VEG W3D1 - Well, today was an eventful day as I completely cleaned and sanitized the system from the brown slime outbreak. Plants are doing well, although I'm sure that the bacteria has retarded their growth. Hoping for the best. I also added Orca to the system to introduce some beneficial bacteria and hopefully keep the slime at bay. If it comes back, I will be scrapping this grow. Added 15 gallons of fresh RO water to the system. Added Week 3 nutrients and I'm sitting at 687ppm. The pH is low, but with RDWC you have to wait 24 hours for the system to cycle before making adjustments. Increased the light to 50% to get ~400 PPFD at the canopy.
2/21/24 - VEG W3D2 - Plants seem to be doing great after the trauma from yesterday. Started LST on Zkittlez today because she is finally tall enough. Roots are looking really clean today. Still have about 4 hours to wait for the pH to stabilize, but it is continuing to climb back towards normal range. I also raised the light and increased the power to maintain ~400 PPFD
2/22/24 - VEG W3D3 - End of life....the brown slime has returned in less than 24 hours and that will be the end of this grow.
I will try again in the Spring (maybe)
Heretic
