Mephisto Girl Scout Monkeys RDWC

Put into their final homes on 4/9, nothing much to see here.

We are on to week two. I started seeing roots coming through the net pots two days ago on the two plants in the front, it's harder for me to get at the back two due to the tent location and having a small basement. I can really only access the tent from the front, and the way this system works I can't unzip the right side due to the pipe that leads to the res outside of the tent, so I will just let them go for now trusting that we will have roots in the water soon if they aren't there already. I wanted to keep it stupid simple this grow so I am just using GH Flora Trio for now, with Calimagic to be added eventually since I run RO water. I may add a bloom booster later if things are going well.

Getting going on week 3. The plants are starting to take off and so far no issues. My res temps are teetering around the 72-73 degree range so I will be adding Hydroguard today when I do my first res change. I may invest in a chiller but at this point I don't want to commit to the 250+ price tag for a decent one. I am also using a hose water meter to get a better idea of exactly how much water this system takes which will help me dial in nutrient levels. I plan on adding a touch of calimagic this week since I am using RO water. Assuming growth continues at the rate it has been going I will probably top these in 7-10 days. Sometime this week I will be lowering the light and using my PAR meter to get things dialed in, I really want to find the right distance to intensity ratio to help reduce total wattage being pulled from the light. This thing is strong enough that I could just crank it up at the distance I'm at and get an acceptable amount of umols but that is a bit wasteful.

It's been 21 days since sprout, so we are going into week 4. Everything seems to be going well and the plants seem very happy. I have topped two of the plants and will top the others in the next couple of days. I usually do weekly res changes but I'll let this one run an extra week.

Definitely overfed them this week, signs of nitrogen excess in the front left one, lots of clawing as well as burnt tips on the back left. I diluted my nutrient mix by about half and they seem to be tolerating that better. Seeing the first signs of pistils this week so I expect the plants to really start stretching over the next 7 days.

We are at the start of week 7, or 42 days from sprout. I was out of town last week so I skipped a week. The plants exploded while I was gone with the front right one really starting to stretch out. Going pretty light on the nutes again this week with about 440ppm coming from the flora trio + cali magic. I went in and trimmed the front two plants up a bit and removed some stuff that I thought would just be larfy buds, I don't have great access to the two in the back so I will probably just let them go for the most part. I'd like to pull the tent away from the wall so I can get at the backside, but it would just take up so much space in my small basement.

Here we are on day 51, I think the plants are done stretching for the most part. These autos have really filled out this 5x5 nicely. I have gone through and trimmed off most of the undergrowth and lower bud sites. I have some new nutrients coming in from CropSalt (https://cropsalt.com/) that I think I am going to switch to for the rest of Bloom. I saw they have a finisher called Cake that is meant to give the plant a bit of what it needs during the last few weeks with no nitrogen, so you still get the benefits of a long flush while giving the bud sites some extra nutrients. Flora Trio has been working great, but I would rather just weigh out the powder and mix it up in two parts instead of having to go through the process of adding cal-mag, then micro, then bloom, then grow in a bunch of separate steps. I also feel better about proper dosing when I can weigh them instead of trying to measure liquids. Overall I am super happy with how this grow has turned out so far. All of the plants are relatively close to the same size and for only topping the canopy is relatively even. Edit: Got the CropSalt in the mail and was due for a res change. Mixed up a batch of 3.4 grams per gallon of Part A and 1.74 grams per gallon of Part B

About 60 days in now and the plants are done getting taller. Buds are starting to get bigger and everything is starting to get nice and frosty, still have a long way to go on this one I think. I just got done with a res change and filled it back up with more Cropsalt at 3.4 g/Gal Bloom A and 1.74 g/Gal Bloom B. This stuff seems great so far, PH is super stable and the plants seem to like it.

Few days late on this one. Plants are still doing well, one plant even has pistils that are starting to turn pink. I think this will probably go for another 3-4 weeks with a harvest closer to 100 days. They didn't start flowering until 30+ days in and seem like they have a lot of bulking up left to do.

It's been 78 days since sprout, the plants are all still coming along nicely, getting heavier by the day even though it doesn't always seem like it. I always have difficulty realizing how much growth happens in a week. I felt like they hadn't bulked up much but then I looked back at my last update and clearly was wrong. I am trying to figure out how much time before harvest, but I am still leaning toward closer to 100 days. The plants are still being fed crop salt at the ratios posted a few weeks ago, currently I plan to do one more res change with full strength nutes and then after that two weeks of their Cake finishing nutrients (https://cropsalt.com/products/cake) which would put me a few days past 100 days with a harvest date of July 18th or 19th. This past week I also set up a Home Assistant dashboard to monitor the tent and added a camera as well. Kind of a bit late for this grow but it will be awesome for the next time around. Aside from the sensor in the tent, I have also purchased a wireless battery-powered temp and humidity sensor that will be going in the 5-gallon bucket I am going to use to cure. Here is a guide I made if anyone is interested in setting something similar up. https://gist.github.com/Jamal-J-Jackson/f47baa9e5a9f9534affa543583022abf#file-home-assistant-guide-md

89 Days since sprout, getting close to the end here. This week I have switched them over to Crop Salt's Cake finisher. Haven't noticed much yet, the one plant that is pretty faded was already getting that way before I switched over. I am still going to shoot for harvesting at 100 days, 3 of the plants are probably good to go right now but I want to give the other one time to finish ripening up and give them all time to fade and I need to harvest them all simultaneously because I will be drying in this tent. I will keep an eye on things over the next couple of days and will harvest sooner if needed.