Sweet Gelato Auto - Test Run

Anna-J This week i'm planning on re-familiarizing myself with my HLG grow light and with the AC Infinity Cloudline T6 exhaust fan's automated settings. Now that my light fixture has a dimmer knob instead of using the bluetooth controller with an app to adjust intensity, I'm going to have to figure out how much light is being output from the different knob settings. I'll be using the "Photone" app, following the app directions to take accurate readings from an LED light source. Day 1: - 1 seed sprouted about 8hrs before the other 3. - RH inside humidity domes: 80% - Temp inside humidity domes: 78F - LUX inside humidity domes: 7,000 LUX - Light schedule: 24hrs Day 2: - removed humidity domes - Temp: 77F - RH: 78% - lowered intensity of light fixture - LUX at plants: 8,000 LUX Day 3: - I set the AC Infinity Cloudline T6 controller to turn on whenever the RH reaches 82% or whenever the temperature reaches 80F - Temp: 77F - RH: 75-82% Day 4: - increased light intensity to around 10,000 LUX (5,000 from the HLG Elite 360 fixture and 5,000 from the Sunblaster 48W LED) - watered with a small amount (less than 100ml each) of dechlorinated tap water, pH adjust to 6.3. Day 5: - no changes Day 6: - increased light intensity to around 12,000 LUX (6,000 from the HLG Elite 360 fixture and 6,000 from the Sunblaster 48W LED) - adjusted Cloudline T6 exhaust fan settings to turn on when the RH reaches 80% instead of 82% - Temp Avg: 76F to 78F - RH Avg: 74% to 80% Day 7: - watered each plant with a small amount (less than 100ml each) of dechlorinated tap water, pH adjusted to 6.2 - added a 4" flexible duct between the tent and the outdoors, for fresh air intake. The intake is controlled only by the negative air pressure in the tent that's caused by the exhaust fan turning on.

Anna-J This week, I'm planning on starting to use nutrients, in low strength. I was hoping to use the BioBizz liquid fertilizer that i used on my last couple of grows but sadly, it seems quite hard to get here in Canada and when you do find it, it's expensive. I've decided to try going back to Remo Nutrients, which is what I used to use before switching to BioBizz. I'll see how this grow goes to decide if i'll stick with Remo Nutrients in the future. Veg Week 2: Day 8: - lowered only the HLG light fixture to 40 inches from plants, resulting in approximately 14,000-15,000 LUX at canopy (6,000 LUX from the Sunblaster 48W LED and 8,000-9,000 LUX from the HLG fixture) - light cycle: 24/0 - added humidifier to tent - RH was fluctuating wildly after i added the 4" fresh air intake yesterday, getting as low as 54% and as high as 84% so hopefully having the humidifer in the tent will help even things out a little better. - Temp: 76F - 79F Day 9: - no changes Day 10: - watered with a nutrient solution of dechlorinated tap water mixed with approximately 1ml per gallon each of Remo Nutrients' "Micro", "Grow", "VeloKelp" & "MagNifiCal". This resulted in a solution measuring about 250ppm in strength. - pH adjusted to 6.2 using BlueSky Organics PH Down - watered only around the seedlings, maybe roughly 350-400ml of nutrient solution per plant Day 11: - no changes Day 12: - refilled humidifer - lowered both the HLG & Sunblaster lights by about 1", resulting in an increase of 1,000 LUX at canopy, a total of approximately 16,000 LUX - increased AC Infinity Cloudline S6 ciruclation fan speed, from '3' to '4' - Temp: 77-78F - RH: 62-67% Day 13: - no changes - Temp reached a high of 82F for around 8 hours due to outside temperatures (I'm going to need to dig out the air conditioner soon!) - RH: 58-68% Day 14: - watered each plant with around 450ml of dechlorinated tap water mixed with .5ml per gallon of Remo Nutrients' "Micro", "Grow", "Velokelp" and "MagNifiCal", resulting in a weak 112ppm solution, pH adjusted down to 6.2. - lowered both the Sunblaster and HLG light fixtures to 32 inches from the plants and increased the HLG fixture's intensity by just a small amount, resulting in around 17,500 LUX at canopy. - starting to see signs of possible magnesium deficiency, most notably in Plant #3. If it continues, I'll likely do a foliar feeding with an epsom salt solution

Anna-J Week 3! So far things are going fairly well. Light cycle is still 24hrs on, 0hrs off. This is the first time i've run plants at 24hrs but they seem to be handling it just fine so far. I'm thinking i might reduce the light to 18 or 20hrs once flowering starts. I plan to continue feeding with nutrients this week and I'm going to have to start considering setting up the air conditioner, especially if i keep increasing the light output from my HLG Elite 360 fixture. The passive outdoor air intake seems to be able to keep things from going over 82F but as the outdoor weather gets warmer, the cooling effect is going to start becoming ineffective. One plant seems to be doing better than the rest. One plant also seems to be doing noticeably worse than the rest. I may end up taking one plant out of the tent, either giving it to a friend, or just letting it grow in window sill as a houseplant. We'll see how it does this week before i decide. Day 15: - increased the light intensity of the HLG Elite 360 fixture so that the plants are getting about 20,000 LUX. - light distance from canopy: 32 inches - increased the AC Infinity circulation fan speed to 50% (5/10) - set the AC Infinity exhaust fan to turn on when the temperature equals 80F or higher, or when the RH reaches 75% or higher. The negative pressure caused by the exhaust fan pulls in fresh outside air via a 4" flexible duct - Temp: 78-80F - RH: 63-71% Day 16: - added saucers underneath the pots - the soil in the fabric pots noticeably dries out faster than the soil in the plastic pot - Temp: 79-80F - RH: 65-72% Day 17: - watered each to plant to runoff with dechlorinated tap water mixed with 1.5ml/gal of Remo Nutrients’ “Micro”, “Grow”, “VeloKelp”, “MagNifiCal” and 1ml/gal of “Nature’s Candy”, resulting in a 320ppm nutrient solution. pH adjusted to 6.4 - temporarily turned off the humidifier - minor LST on Plant #2 - Temp: 78-80F - RH: 65-72% Day 18: - raised pots off the floor, on wire racks, to help provide better airflow around the fabric pots - light distance: 25 inches - this increased the light intensity to about 21,000 LUX across the canopy - increased circulation fan speed to 60% - humidifier is still temporarily turned off - I'm still seeing signs of possible magnesium deficiency. It's not too bad at the moment so I'm just going to continue to watch closely and may do an Epsom salt foliar feeding before the end of the week. - Temp: 77-80F - RH: 68-72% Day 19: - topped Plant #2. This plant has been ahead of the rest since germination, so I went ahead and topped it. I probably won't top any of the other three. - increased the light intensity of the HLG fixture, resulting in an increase of 1,000 LUX, for a total of 22,000 LUX across canopy - Temp: 75-80F - RH: 70-72% Day 20: - seeing some signs of light stress, including slight "tacoing" of the leaves. I will leave the light intensity as is for now. - swapped positions of Plant #1 and Plant #2. Plant #1 so far is the smallest and the light intensity is just slightly higher (about 500 LUX) when i move the plant closer to the center of the tent. - did some leaf tucking on Plant #2 to better expose the side branches Day 21: - watered each plant with around 2.5L of dechlorinated tap water with 1ml/gal each of Remo Nuttients' "Micro", "Grow", "VeloKelp", "MagNifiCal", "Nature's Candy" and .5ml/gal of "Bloom", resulting in a 310ppm nutrient solution, pH adjusted to 6.3. - runoff of each plant was measuring between 1500-1800ppm, which is a bit higher than I'd prefer but I'm not going to worry too much about it just yet.

Anna-J This week i'm considering moving one of the plants out of the tent. I don't want to overcrowd the tent but I also haven't put much effort into training each plant in order to maximize the growing space that i have, so we'll see how the next few days go and whether i do end up pulling one plant out or whether i just keep all four in there and maybe trim back some of the lower branches of each plant to prevent too much horizontal spreading. I'm going to start transitioning to flowering nutrients at some point this week but will probably water with just plain decholorinated tap water first, as my runoff ppm's from last week were a bit on the high side. I'm also going to be increasing the light intensity this week, although i still don't have the air conditioner set up and the outside air temperatures are getting into the high 20's and low 30's (Celsius), so the passive fresh air intake is going to start becoming less effective at cooling the tent, especially during the afternoon hours. Day 22: - defoliated 2-4 fan leaves from each plant and did some leaf tucking - Temp: 77-81F - RH: 67-72% Day 23: - no changes Day 24: - increased the light intensity of my HLG fixture so that the plants were receiving between 25,000-28,000 LUX - I wanted to water the plants today but ended up being busy so it'll have to wait until tomorrow. The plants are thirsty looking. - Temp: 79-81F - RH: 65-72% Day 25: - watered each plant to runoff (approximately 1 gallon per plant) with plain, dechlorinated tap water, pH adjusted to 6.3/6.4 - runoff for each plant varied A LOT! One contributing factor might be that the amount of runoff that i test for each plant was slightly different. I should have watered each plant with equal amounts of water and then tested the runoff after a given amount was collected. Instead, the runoff volume varied somewhere between 350ml to 650ml. I'll try to do a better job next time of getting more accurate readings but this is roughly what i had today: - Plant 1: 1500ppm - Plant 2: 900ppm - Plant 3: 1300ppm - Plant 4 (plastic pot): 1900ppm - LST and defoliation (of varying amounts) on each plant. I mostly removed a few more fan leaves and cleaned up some of the lower branches. Day 26: - plants are looking happier after their watering yesterday. I did some minor leaf tucking on a couple of the plants. I've finally got my portable air conditioner out of storage and will be setting it up today. I'm hoping to only use it during the afternoons right now, when the outside air temperatures get too warm to be able to cool the tent. - Temp: 75-81F - RH: 70-73% Day 27: - increased the light intensity of my HLG Elite 360 fixture so that the plants are receiving around 29,000 - 31,000 LUX - Temp: 77-79F - RH: 63-70% Day 28: - I probably could have waited one more day but I went ahead and watered each plant with about 3/4 gallon of a 480ppm nutrient solution, consisting of 2ml/gal each of Remo Nuttients' "Micro", "Grow", "MagNifiCal", "VeloKelp" and "Nature's Candy" and also 1ml/gal of "Bloom" and "Astro flower". The pH naturally settled at around 6.4.

Anna-J Week 5 and the plants have started their pre-flowering. 🌹 I was intending to switch to a 20/4 light cycle once flowering started but i think i'll continue this week with the 24/0 light cycle. I really haven't been putting as much attention on training these plants up to now. A bit of LST and leaf tucking and removing the odd fan leaf here and there but I'm thinking I should devote some more focus on training. I do always love putting on some music, hitting my bubbler or bong and just spending time tending to my little garden and getting to know my plants, manipulating them and trying to make them happy. 😊 I'm starting to see a few small signs of deficiencies in some of the leaves. I suspect that i should be concerning myself more with the high runoff ppm's, in the event that i end up with a nutrient lockout issue. I'll probably do a good plain water flush this week, then continue with using flowering nutrients at a low strength, depending on how things look. Day 29: - I usually don't like to do a heavy defoliation at the start of the flowering flip but i decided to just go for it and hope that the plants recover quickly. I trimmed quite a few of the small side branches and cleaned up some of the lower growth, as well as doing some LST, tying branches in a way that lets the tent better accommodate 4 plants. Most of the defoliation and LST was done on Plants #1, #3 and #4 and just a small bit on Plant #2. - I added a yellow 'sticky trap' to the tent because i saw a couple of fungus gnats flying around near the lights (i temporarily remove the sticky trap when i'm taking photos because i just don't think it looks good in the photos). Day 30: - today i turned off the Sunblaster 48W LED light, which is a 6400K vegetative light. To compensate, i increased the light intensity of my HLG Elite 360 fixture, increasing the overall light levels that the plants were receiving, averaging around 35,000-38,000 LUX across the canopy. - Temp: 77-80F - RH: 60-67% Day 31: - I got very surprising results today when testing the runoff from each plant. Last week my runoff ppm's were very high (roughly 1800ppm). I was worried that the deficiency signs I've been seeing were due to a nutrient lockout but today's results have me realizing that the deficiencies are likely just that, deficiencies. - I watered with plain, dechlorinated tap water, pH adjusted to about 6.3. My tap water has a natural level of about 30ppm. - I watered each plant with around 100-150ml of water, waited a few minutes, added another 100-150ml and repeated the process until each plant had accumulated around 200ml of runoff. The runoff levels were: - Plant 1: 221ppm (pH 6.65) - Plant 2: 282ppm (pH6.72) - Plant 3: 289ppm (pH 6.73) - Plant 4 (plastic pot): 985ppm (pH 6.53) Day 32: - Hopefully this doesn't result in over-watering symptoms but i wanted to get some nutrients in to the plants, especially with the leaf deficiency issues showing and the low runoff ppm's from yesterday's plain watering - Watered each plant with just approximately 1L of a 750ppm nutrient solution, pH-adjusted to 6.2, consisting of 4ml/gal each of Remo Nutrients' "Micro", "Bloom", "Astroflower", "VeloKelp", "MagNifiCal" and "Nature's Candy". Day 33: - The plants are finally starting to get a bit of smell to them. It's still subtle. - I'm eager for the soil to start drying up so that i can get another feeding in ASAP. I'm starting to worry more about the deficiency symptoms. In retrospect, i should have paid more attention earlier but i'm still hoping there's enough time to correct the issues. - I've adjusted the settings on the exhaust fan to try and lower the temperature and humidity a little bit. Instead of aiming for 70%RH and 80F, i'm aiming more for 60%RH and 78F. - Today I also installed the Vivosun "High CFM Kit". I was a bit worried about ordering this because I'd read some pretty bad reviews. I was considering asking a friend to make me something similar but I ended up just ordering the kit and I'm actually very happy with it! It was easy to install, fit perfectly and does what it's intended to, by keeping the sides of my tent from sucking in so much due to the negative pressure in the tent. Day 34: - watered with a 950ppm nutrient solution, pH adjusted to just under 6.2. consisted of about 4.5ml/gal of Remo Nuttients' "Micro", "Bloom", "Astroflower", "MagNifiCal", "VeloKelp" and "Nature's Candy". - runoff for plants #1, #2 & #3 was roughly 850ppm. Runoff for plant #4 was significantly higher, around 1450ppm. Day 35: - I finished off this first week of flower by temporarily turning back on the 6400K Sunblaster 48W LED light, as well as turning up the HLG Elite 360 fixture to it's maximum setting, which was just one more small turn of the dimmer knob. I also moved the HLG fixture up an inch, to maintain roughly 18"-20" distance above the canopy. - With both lights on at maximum setting, it resulted in a range of 700-950 PPFD across the canopy. I wanted to compare my readings with one of the PPFD charts i found on YouTube. Credit to "LED Gardener" for the PPFD chart. 😊 - The Sunblaster light is a veg light so i'll likely turn it back off after 24 hours but i wanted to see how the effective the cooling of the tent is, given that I'm still just using passive fresh air intake and haven't really had to turn the air conditioner on except for 1 or 2 afternoons when the outside air temperatures got above 25 Celsium. The outside air temperatures have been cool this past week and are expected to be the same for this coming week. - I also swapped positions of Plant #1 and Plant #2 to have better consistency with the light levels across the canopy. The order, from left to right, now goes: Plant #4, #3, #2 & #1. Overall, despite being a bit disappointed in myself for not addressing the deficiency symptoms sooner, I still have hope that things will rebound and that week 2 of flower will be a good one. See you all next week! 😚