Auto pots - second grow

So this is only my second grow. 4 x Pure Ak from female seeds and I am growing this strain as I have read its fairly easy to grow and its good for chronic pain. I love learning new things by making mistakes and this journal will be no exception. So my first grow I soley used a Mars hydro 300 on one plant. This grow I started 2 plants but got worried about killing the plants and started another pair to increase my odds. After coming to my senses I realised that 4 plants under that one light was never really going to get the job done so I bought a Viparspectre 650 to supplement the mars hydro. With regards to germinating the seeds I used the paper towel method followed by red paper cups. Once the leaves reached the edges of the cups I then transferred them. Due to personal circumstances on my last grow I also purchased the 4 auto pot set with the 47 litre tank just in case I had to go away for a few days. After 4 weeks I can say that the system was easy to set up though I was missing 2 root control matts with the delivery. Within the pots I used the matts, an inch of ph'd clay balls along with biobizz light mix. Once I put the plants into the autopots I poured 3 litres of ph'd 5.8 water into each pot. A note. The mistake I made was I did not realise how far the biobizz would fall within the pot so all my pots are only 3/4 full of biobizz and Clay pebbles. After 14 days which was reccomended by auto pots I filled the res with just ph'd 5.8 water. I did not use any nutes as I read lost growers over feed thier plants and the plants can still do well with minamal nutes ( more on this later) So after checking the res over the next couple of days I noticed that the res was a ph of 5.8 but the trays all had ph's of 6.3 - 6.7. I have no idea if this is a problem but the girls were still growing nicley. The next thing I noticed was the roots were growing in the trays towards the aquavalves. The roots looked healthy but I did not want them clogging the valves and after some research purchased 4 auto pot socks whih fitted nicley. The next potential issue was the two plants on the left started getting brown spots. After more research I am guessing nute deficiency becuse one I hadn't fed them any nutes and looking at other pure ak diary's they are nute Hungry. The only nutes I had in the house was this formulex growth technology which is pretty weak but good for seedling so I started putting thatin res slowly increasing it to 700 ppm over a couplel of days. If its not nute deficiency could someone let me know please? Currently have shogan a&b on order as it seems tryed and tested on this website. After researching I then decided to top 3 of the plants with sterile scissors. So the res has been feeding into the girls for a week now. Whilst I have had good growth on the older girls. I'm wondering how much I hindered the growth by not feeding them nutriants. Thats everything for now and I will keep updating with my mistakes =)

Started flowering 3 days ago as I'm running out of medication. Also, just switched to a new tent set up today Green Qube 150, with a HLG 150w quantum & Viparspectra 600w. The HLG brightness surprised me and I have another on order. It was my first time topping, but it seems Pure AK is a strong strain and reacted well. Really liking the Growth technology nutes, my water is pH 7.4 and the formulex takes it down to 5.8 so I do not even have to amend the pH. Raised the ppm to 900 - No further deficiency with the young plants, First time using autopots and its very simple.

Girls have now gone into 2nd week of flowering and the first little pistils are starting to form. I defoiliated just after the last update 5 days ago, this was my first time but all advice was be brutal, so I was. Female Seeds Pure Ak seems like a really tough strain becuase it produced lovley growth in such a short time despite the defoliation. Defoilation has helped lower my humidity also which now sits at a nice 52% Added a fan controller as my exhaust fan sounded like a helicopter taking off. At full pelt it was drawing about 55w but now half that. Cleaned the res and started using hydro bloom today. Thes nutes just work perfectly with my water ph so I dont have to adjust after adding the nutes. I am currently keeping the ppm at 900 just becuase they are growing really nice at this level. Had a mini panic earlier as noticed the res had really dropped in the last 24 hours and I was worried about a leak with the auto pots. Everything was fine after checking, the girls must have really increased their water uptake. I have placed a marker for myself to see how much they are drinking over a 24 hour period and will update tomorrow. Note to myself - You didnt use enough soil at the begining ( loosing root growth) - You did not pot up to help root growth - Pure AK likes nutes, do not under feed this strain next time.

Pure Ak - flowering update day 20 These girls have been defoilated twice heavily yet they still continue to regrow fan leaves at a very fast rate. Will have lightly defoilaite to keep the buds in the light again over the next few days. Absolutley loving the sweet fresh aroma they are now giving off. I have raised the 2 hlgs and added a spare marshydro 300 to make sure all the plants are getting total coverage. Each plant is getting roughly 60,000 lux at thia height. With the 3 leds temps in the day are 24-25 degrees and in the night 22 degrees. They are on 950ppm until I clean the res in the next few days. After that rasing the blom nutes too 1100. PH is totally stable and has not moved from 5.8 for the last week. All I have done is stir the res and that's it. Day 22 The res was almost done this morning so I cleaned and refilled. Soley using Ionic Hydro bloom and went with 1200ppm. This took my ph down to 5.3 so for the first time I had to ph the res back up to 5.8 Also lowered the lights to increase lux to 65,000 - 75,000 across the board. I will continue to check on these daily with the increased nutes and lowered lights to see how they react. Im fully expecting them to explode now since I am no longer defoliating. Really great grow so far and a great first experience with pure ak and autopots. Will update again next week.

Day 28 They are a little behind as i defoliated too soon for the 2nd time. (week 2 instead of 3) Starting to smell beutiful now though and the leaves are frosting up. As you may see by the pictures i have some furry little freinds that like to add flavour to my grow... ( personal use only) Res change later, 45 litres gone in 6 days but im convinced the dehumidifer has aided that. Adding pk boost nutrients from today, look at 1ml per litre. Peace out! Res change completed, the pk boost raised the ph to 6.5 along with the hydrobloom, seems like its potent stuff. Ended up with a PH of 6.0 and ppm of 900. Will check and adjust tomorrow morning as was rushing due to being 20 mins over the lights going out. Note also realised I was only using 4ml per ltr of Hydro but kept the same.

Day 35 of flowering for my girls. Interesting week but has been a bit of a pain as I have been really ill. So for this week I pulled my viparspectra 600w to cover two of the girls and then the other two had a quantum 135w each. This was just an Interim measure until my other two quantum 135w arrived yesterday. What seems to have happened is that the girls with the quantum have developed more buds than the two girls under the vipar. I really wanted to lower the humidity as it was constantly 55% so I pulled my intake fan from my now smaller veg tent and started pulling in fresh air from outside. This air ranges from 0 degrees - 10 degrees currently and along with a dehumidifier is now giving me humidity of 40% in the night and 45% in the day. The biggest Suprise of the week is that I accidently set the ppm to 2100 and decided to leave it at that as I read these are really heavy feeders. It stayed at 2100 ppm for 5 days until a couple of leaves started showing very slight nute burn. I have now lowered the ppm to 1600 but just shows how much these girls love the nutes. Hoping the buds keep developing at ti His rate as they really took off this week, so much resin and the smell is beautiful even though I am completely bunged up. Will update again next week.

Apologies for the late update due to really poor mobility as of late. The girls have really packed on some nice weight since the last update and the buds seem really nice and dense. An Absolutely beautiful smell explodes from the tent when opened. It's a very sweet and fuity smell that needs to be turned into an air freshener flavour. The 4 girls are still drinking roughly 47 litres a week at a ppm of 1300. I have had to secure a couple of stems as one snapped due to weight of the bud. Im so happy how these are turning out considering two of them were only vegged for 3 weeks. Other information is that I have been dropping the night temps down to 17 degrees and humidity to 45% recently. Hopefully these should be ready to harvest in the next two weeks as I am in serious need of pain medication. What ever happens. I will not rush the harvest or the cure. Peace out till next time people.

Will be back in 4 weeks with a smoke report. Was a pleasure to grow for a total beginer, thank you female seeds for my first proper harvest.