2 Northern Lights Autos

First time grower - 3 northern light auto in a Rapid Rooter in coco/perlite in a dixie cup for starting 2 x 4 grow tent qb288x2 June 1st update Two of my three Northern Lights Autos popped - screwed up third by forgetting to cut holes in bottom cup for drainage (wow what a rookie mistake) I've been feeding a mix of ro water ph 6.2 ppm 0 and a gallon of ro water with 5ml root juice, 3ml bio grow, 1 ml bio heaven, 3 ml alga mic, 3 ml cal mag So Sunday I popped a C99 x Blueberry Fast photoperiod - been running 20/4 because I feel 24/0 is damaging some of them - this QB is very strong it seems because I run it at half power and prob should run it at it's very lowest. Here in 3 days I will finish my gallon so it will be about a gallon every 10 days of nutrients and maybe a quarter gallon of just RO water. I will soon do a feed, feed, ro water plan after I finish off my gallon (quarter gallon of nutes are left) Then I will make a new gallon with same but higher nutrient content and add in great white mycorrhizae. Any suggestions to avoid light burning them or is what I'm seeing a deficiency?

So this is end of week 2. The c99 x blueberry fast is growing well - didn't traumatize it like the northern lights autos so I feel that's why there are no deficiencies. The other two I'm not sure about. If you look one has brown spots on the lower leaves - not sure if its manganese or potassium, I'm leading towards manganese since the tips seem fine. I will admit I got pretty anxious and fimmed both of them then tied them down just to get the pain all over with at once, she seemed to like it because the 30 hours later she has shown growth - I did give them a nice feed about 20 hours before I did it. At the start of week 2 I finally got enough water in them to get 10% runoff - the ppm was 675, and 355 going in. At the end of the week I decided to give some it RO water with algamic and cal mag both around 4 ml each in 1 gallon, after testing the runoff wa sdown to 475. I'm into week 3 now and I plan to up the nutrient ppm content between 700 - 800 because I know Indicas like higher ppm (more food). Any suggestions please don't be afraid to comment and help me out. Peace!

So I believe this is actually the start of week 4 but I'm honestly a little confused when vegetation period from seedling actually starts so this might be end of week 3. Anyway, I started with a normal PHed 6.1 RO watering and then mixed up this nute batch that lasted me two feedings. The ppm that went in was 475 and that came out was still 675. So here in a day during the next watering I will mix up a higher ppm solution - probably around 500. The biobizz chart schedule has me with 0 bio grow and I feel that is strange as I'm not really seeing as explosive growth as I wanted, but I do realize these are organic nutes and I'm not gonna get any freak plants unless it's simply genetics. I would like a feedback as to what would be the best option around 30 to 50 dollars to get that explosive growth that I want. Would be it dry soil amendments or maybe one not-so-organic nutrient to really get these plants going. I've seen what the drip systems are capable of and it's pretty impressive, not sure if that's what I truly need though. Thanks for checking in and reading my first grow journal. Take care guys - as always any suggestions, tips, comments or critiques are always welcome!

So this week plant growth slowed for sure, not sure why. Maybe a p/k deficiency? I've been PHing properly between 5.8 and 6.2. PPM levels for intake are around 600. Multiple people on discord told me not to worry about measuring the runoff PPM, which I thought was strange. I still measure it but it is becoming more and more of a hassle. I'll make a nice post next week. No sign of flowering thank goodness, I think all the crappy LST has really stunted them. I took the stakes out of the coco, that also might be an issue since they go so far into the soil they might be hurting the roots. Then I saw the canopy rising again so I tied them down again. I think I'll try manifolding or supercropping next time around. The C99 x blueberry fast has the same issues as the other ones, making me think it's something lacking in my nutrients. I put Bio grow into the mix again thinking it needs nitrogen. The leaves seem to do this after they pop out nice and formed then start to brown at the tips and eventually see what you see. I'm thinking it's because I'm not using activera or fish mix, at least I hope so. I figured I needed some dry amendments so I bought some Down-to-Earth Bio-Live that I literally put in a salt shaker and I will be giving the top soil a some shakes as to not burn my plants more then they already are. Thanks for reading!

PPM is going in at around 700 and coming out around 1200-1400 - I will give a normal RO watering next and get these numbers a little lower. The C99 X Blueberry I took all the dead leaves off and I'm back to where I started if I just topped her. I prob won't do the tie down method again, doesn't seem to work so well in a 3 gal pot or I don't have the patience. The new seeds are a Gelato.OG and Black Sugar both feminized and photoperiods. The rest are Desert Lemon by Equilibrium Seeds, just normal seeds that hopefully will turn out to all be female (huge hopefully there). The smallest seedlings are some Thai Basil if anyone was curious about them. Not much else to say, I will remind any new people reading this that this is my first grow. I spent a lot on equipment and it seems to have gotten me halfway there. I'm really not liking having to constantly PH my nutrient mixture, it's not easy to do but I'm slowly getting the hang of it. Like how my RO water comes out at 6.0 but the nutrients bring it down the 5.2... then about 20-30 drops of PH UP brings it up back to near 6.0 range depending on the PPM of my nutrients (higher ppm needing more PH up). I'm already looking to step up my fertigation process. Still can't decide on drip to waste or deep water culture, even ebb and flow table would be cool. Thanks for reading! Any comments, critiques, suggestions or tips welcome! -AthanasGrow

Really wishing I had the complete BioBizz set this week. I guess I stupidly tried to substitute more Bio-Grow and Bio-Bloom for Acti-vera and Fish Mix that I'm lacking. Anyone able to tell me some cheaper alternatives or any reps out there feeling generous? The PPMs going were around 700 and I thought that was fine. But when the waste was reading 1200 after the first of the week I got scared. The last few days I've been flushing and the PPMs are much lower in the 600 range. I guess I've been lazy and mixing one gallon for all three plants, lesson learned. I'll now change to having one gallon for the flowering NL set around 900 ppm and the other gallon for the two struggling plants at around 400 or 500 ppm. Any objections? The seedlings are coming in strong and I'm really excited. One of the Desert Lemons by Equillibrium Seeds is kind of a mammoth, and honestly they came out really impressively, just hope it is female. The two on the right of my pan are Black Sugar and Gelat.OG from Seedsman both feminized and they look really uniform and pretty as well, or is pure bred a better term? Definitely in form. I've looked at so many drip to waste or ebb and flow automatic irrigation systems I'm beginning to feel nauseous. I wish I could actually find a deal online for a 3 or 4 plant setup, or at the very least find which ones are the top 3, would love some suggestions from my viewers. I can code so I would obviously turn it into very easy to maintain and cloud connected system. I guess this week what I learned is don't go by the charts, go by what your plant looks like and determine what stage of growth it's in for yourself. It was my first time growing and the fimming not flushing the coco enough and not staying low on the nutes is where I feel like I messed up. Not much else to say other then I'm not liking running BioBizz without the full line. I only have access to them via Amazon and right now the Starter Pack which I have is 75 plus 27 for 1L of Fish Mix and 45 for 1L of Acti-Vera. At 45 dollars this seems outrageous for some what is in it? Beet root extract and aloevera? I'll honestly just let my plants suffer until I find an alternative. Which is my question of the week and I'd love you to give your advice if you have some. Oh, I really would like someone to give me some suggestions if it's a deficiency or excess of nutes I'm seeing, or if my 3000k QB set at 60-70% is still too high (I'm just gonna link it not sure if it's against TOS). I've used a light meter on my phone that I don't trust, the light meter attached to my moisture meter is reading 500 out of 2000. https://wholesaler.alibaba.com/product-detail/Kingbrite-240W-Samsung-lm301b-v2-mix_62018007012.html?tracelog=null

Couldn't post last week unfortunately. This week I caved and got the t6 inline with a filter. Temps strangely stayed around the same but the humidity did go down from 55 to about 45. Flowers are starting to show and I will be giving it a full dose of bio grow and bloom next feeding because it does seem to a bit pallid. All I can say this week unfortunately. Thanks for checking it out and sorry I missed a week.

This week she really looks good, I've been defoliating even if it doesn't look like it, because my oh my do these 250w QB288V2 put out a lot of light and the canopy penetration is the best part. I do plan on letting all the buds grow even if I should cut some of them, simply because I want to know for sure what this board is capable of - and if I cut them then I'll never know if keeping them on would of been beneficial, so instead it's better I feel to let them grow and then see if removing them next time will be better. So I finally got my PPM nutrient mixing back on target with a solution mixture of around 750 for the past week and the runoff PPM has been dead on at 1120 for all the feedings I've given her. My crappy PH pen is going out after 2 months, I just tried to calibrate it and it would come up with Error. So I bought another one that comes with calibration solution and I will definitely be storing/treating it properly. The cheap 12 dollar ones are perfect for first time so you really know how delicate these things are. The other plants are looking even better, the two big Desert Lemon by Equillibrium got topped 2 weeks ago then I just topped them both again, if you can look you will see about 8 or 9 nodes topped on each plant. Since they are photoperiods and the way my setup has been performing I'm not scared about harming them at all. The only issue is that they are both normal seeds and they could turn out males, I check everyday don't worry. Thanks for tuning in, until next time! -AthanasGrow

So we are in the middle of week 10 and I feel pretty comfortable feeding them now, pretty much the same until next week when I give more Top Max. I've seen much more explosive growth on other diaries but I have to say I'm pretty proud so far for my first attempt. Staring at those fresh furry little balls of life is surreal, getting to this point is great, but it's far from over. So I kept the same feeding this week, still adding the Great White with mycorrhizae (and like 40+ other microbes) once a week as it says per directions. The BioBizz products are easy to use and hold up well, so I'm feeling better about going with them even though I had some issues at the beginning (all my fault most likely). I can dial in the feeding mixture PPM now first try to where I want it, so far 700ppm of a gallon every 2 days has been working out. I feel like at the start I was over watering because people say water everyday in coco, well that seems to be for the coco bricks. I am using FoxFarm Bush Doctor Coco Loco (long ass title just for some coco coir) with additional perlite and it has a lot more holding capacity than just normal bricked coco coir. For checking on when it needs water I still use the method of digging into the topsoil an inch and weighing the pots by hand. Also I've noticed if they are pretty tired looking after lights on then I'll water. Like everyone said, consistent fertigation has been the hardest part as a beginner. First week I'm posting a video, the fan can't oscillate so I turn it to the right, left, and keep it center as well as raise and lower it so there is decent airflow. I wouldn't say it's optimal but it works for now. I've raised the lights about 3 inches just so the top colas don't get burnt, I've also found the sweet spot on the potentiometer (power knob) where I can get maximum power without raising the temperature above 77f, which it quickly goes above 80f if I exceed it. I've done minor defoliation before each feeding (so like every 2 or 3 days), mostly just clearing the leaves from above while keeping the important sugar leaves and some fan leaves, even though most the large fan leaves have long died/turned. If you watch the first video I've posted you'll notice an injury on her, unfortunately I didn' I feel like I've failed on the C99 X Blueberry Auto, in fact I took it out of the title. I definitely kept it in nutrient lock even after repeated flushings, it seems to have grown a little and even looks like it's accepted its new life as a stunted sideshow geek never thinking of being the in the spotlight under my grow tent. On the plus side, the two normal Desert Lemon photo's look great, even if one is starting to look leggy. They haven't shown their sexes but it looks like they soon will, because frankly I don't have enough room and would like the leggy one to be gone. The two other shortest plants looks nice and green, shortest being the Black Sugar photo that I did some minor LST with tent stakes - and the very beautiful Gelat.OG photo that is so symmetrical it makes me want to put her in the spotlight (aka position 1 which I give most room/light priority too). Okay so that's it for this week folks, thanks for checking in and please comment or critique on my first grow! Any questions also welcome. -AthanasGrow

Unable to make a written portion this week - pics will have to suffice.