Ahoy There Me Hearties! Yarrrr

Well well then, welcome back fellow danksters for the latest and greatest (or, possibly not so great) instalment of Captain Danks hydroponic DWC fucking epic yieldathon .. it’s also my first ever grow, second if you count my first attempt where I managed quite amazingly to smother my seeds with a shit load of love and killed them .. But old Danks doesn’t make the same mistake twice! Actually I prefer making every possible mistake, so gather round the campfire kids, let’s review what I cocked up this week! Honestly, it’s a miracle these plants are still alive. Starting off, I managed to cook the poor things. I dialled in the light pretty high at 30k lux right before leaving for the weekend, and when I came back they were practically burned to a crisp, leaves shrivelled, curled leaves, leaves with brown spots. Luckily this wasn't my first rodeo, because I very nearly cooked them to death way earlier in the growth cycle, so I was fast to whip out the foliar spray, back off the light by 33% to 20k lux, and I switched up my res PH to 6.2 to let my plants get at the calcium, magnesium and boron in the water and eat up as much as they need. Amazingly they seemed to recover in just a few days - what an amazing plant, but I’ve definitely fucked my yield with that mistake. This week I kicked in some low stress training .. And in the process I managed to grab at the stem a little too hard, and two of my plants snapped in the middle. Clucking bell! Luckily there was no tearing, meaning the damage was entirely internal and thus possible to heal. To help the poor things recover I made supports out of gaffer tape, and backed off the lst, it actually worked quite well and the plant stems are starting to look very sturdy now. I’ve since adapted my approach and I’m now rolling the stems over some small glasses, which has helped to get the right shape without stressing the stem in a single place like in my first attempt. I'm pretty sure this has (also) stunted my grow, so if my yield wasn't fucked before, then it will be now! I performed the first ever full res change this week. I was amazed and absolutely disgusted with how totally caked in filth everything was, with brown slime coating the res, air pipes, and even worse, the plants roots! What surprised me was how quickly the build-up was returning after cleaning everything very thoroughly, and I was quite concerned about how mucky the roots were, because that coating is going to restrict nutrient uptake. So in my usual style, I went on the Internet and did some searching, and I came up with Flying Skull Z7, a probiotic enzyme cleaner. Let old Danky fill you in, if your water is as shit as mine, and even Hydroguard isn’t sorting your shit out, then get you some Z7! Within hours of dosing my water the roots were looking visibly better, and after a few days everything is looking better than ever! Roots are pearly white, red looks clean, air line is clear. Highly recommended, and from now on I won’t even think of starting a grow without this in reserve. This week the humidifier stopped working because my shit tap water is 380ppm (!!!) and the solids completely blocked it up so now it won’t humidify the air at all. Even better, the particles it threw into the air also clogged up my air pumps, and my filter! They don’t fucking teach you any of this on growweedeasy.com, that’s right dank friends Captain Dank brings you the real shit! My MH bulb broke. I had some unrelated maintenance to do which requires turning off the power at the mains, and when I switched it back on, the lamp wouldn’t strike. I tried everything, over the course of hours, until eventually I switched the bulb for a HPS I was saving for flower. And then to cap it all off, my fucking carbon filter stopped working, completely clogged up with - you guessed it - the same particulate my humidifier was throwing into the air! Shiver me timbers, now I have to get a new humidifier, a new carbon filter, and some distilled water from somewhere. Well there you have it. Virtually everything that can go tits went tits this week. Practically the only thing that went right was the Flying Skull Z7, and to be fair the low stress training is now in a much better place than it was, I actually think I might be able to salvage a bit of the yield if they make it through bloom .. which is a pretty big if! The other thing that went well is that I came up with a cunning solution for increasing airflow through my air stones, and also adding a redundancy pump in case of failure. Before, if a pump bust it would have taken down two plants with it. Now with two pumps, the worst that can happen is two plants get 50% aeration until the failed pump can be replaced.