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Most of the week was spent setting up the hydro grow. Needed to build a DIY chiller since air temp in our grow room is hot, and water needs to be a good deal colder. Fridge from kijiji, garden hose, fittings, and submersible pump all in were under $100 but knowing what I know now I'd likely go with a thermoelectric chiller (DIY, with power supply and temp controller) next time around. Looking forward to tracking metrics and seeing how it goes :). Seems there's a lot of contradiction in terms of level of nutrients recommended, max water temperature, using H2O2 to boost water temp that can keep algae and rot at bay, etc. Got my hands on some Hydroguard via Amazon... despite local shops saying you can't get it in Canada... so I'm going to go with that instead of H2O2 to start, despite water temp getting up above 21 C (70 f) during the day. Fingers crossed.
Update - keeping water reservoir tank under 20 C now by using reflective bubble wrap insulation on the reservoir itself and pipe insulation as well. It's a 10 C difference from the room temp, so I'm SUPER pleased with that.
My seedling poked out on day 7 of week 1 (after setup, germination, putting the cube into the clay balls etc.) so week 2 will be exciting. Got my pH stabilized around 5.7, EC stable around 0.5. Now my budmaiden is going to do a soil grow of the same seed genetics right beside my hydro setup... but a week behind and ScrOG trained under the uber light.
Comparing LST under average light in Hydro vs. ScrOG under super light in soil will be fun 😜
So this week was marked by a failed experiment. I had decided I wanted to up my game and move to a more automated "bottleponics" setup, with a feed pump for top feeding and gravity to drain the pots. I attempted to use food grade 64 ounce plastic jars with small 3" net pots in the top, fed by the reservoir I started with (and am now using again). It looked easy enough, and I had what I thought were the right kinds of drip irrigation fittings, tubing, bulkheads, etc... but the devil is in the details. I set it up, did a test without the plant (success) and proceeded to very carefully move the plant in it's rockwool cube into a new and smaller net pot, and then into one of the 3 bottleponics jars I'd built. The other two were to remain in place but without plants. Around 9:30 pm Saturday night it was set up, pumps going, with nutrients settled and pH balanced. So exciting! Well, too good to be true. Woke up Sunday morning (today) to a small puddle and pumps running dry in the reservoir. Turns out I had a number of problems. Problem one was that being outside the grow tent the reservoir was being severely over cooled and the line froze... Problem two was that the gravity draining was somehow compromised not keeping up with the feed pump, despite the test suggesting this was not an issue. It must have been a VERY near thing, as only a small rag's worth of water had collected on the floor, so the difference in flow rate was nearly identical to the evaporation rate overnight (with a period of lights off). Took a good 2 hours to clean up, disassemble, and put the old system back together again. Guess my plans for another hydro cohort on the same grow will have to wait!. Word to the wise, don't try to build a complicated drip and gravity irrigation system with bits and pieces cobbled together from your gardening stuff, Amazon, the aquarium store, etc. Get yourself to a proper hydroponics store and make sure EVERYTHING is made to work together. The crazy number of different sizes for outer and inner diameter, hose flexibility, ability to form seals over one barb or another etc. is both truly amazing and frustrating as all hell. Learned my lesson, though, and will take stock before making any further adjustments. I think a fully custom setup using wood with plasticized inside liner and proper large diameter PVC piping to fit standard irrigation hoses would be a million times easier and better.... just a lot more expensive LOL.
This lady bounced back quite well after the major disruption last weekend in a failed attempt to move to a different hydro setup. I started up with a nice totally clean system, one less pump (used a drip feed from the water re-circulation to top feed), and a higher concentration of nutrients. I did end up with a bit of pH creep (went up from about 5.6 to 6.8 over 5 days) and a tiny bit of brown on a leaf tip, but I got it back in zone and she's loving life now. Hardest thing is resisting the urge to tinker, lol. With only one little baby plant in early stages there's so little to do!
Cannabush! Wasn't expecting it to look like this at any stage of growth... not sure what it means. Supremely healthy? Stunted height? I'm going to go with vertically challenged but very powerful over short distances.
This week was the start of training. Using a couple of rubber coated gardening wires to bend the mainline and open up additional growth. Between the training, the bump in nutrients this week, and watching pH like a hawk, she's decided to go all bush.
Overall super happy withe the top fed DWC setup 😁😁😸. It's spot on for air and water temps, and the Hydroguard is keeping the reservoir supremely clean. Roots are starting to fill the reservoir. Will update with pics when I get around to taking some in a darker setting.
Since it's a mystery genetics tester I don't know what to expect other than by watching other diaries of the same tester... but I WANNA VAPE IT, LOL. I'm so fucking impatient.
Lots of nodes. Lots of dense green leaves. NOT lots of height. No real particular way to see much other than dense greenery. Wondering if my water temperatures are now too low. 17C on the off-light schedule, 19C lights on. Thinking that with the hydroguard I could get the temps up a touch with no harm done. Looking forward to some flowering... nothing yet. AnneW's soil grow next to mine are already flowering and they were started a week afterwards. Hard to know the details there but the lights and heat in soil vs. cooled water are my guess. I've been nutrient-light as well... thinking I could bump them up substantially. EC is still 1400 and thinking a boost to 1800 would be good.
It's a bush! It's a plant! It's madness. This lady keeps refusing to grow up, and instead is growing out and growing thick. The inter nodal distances are small. The leaf and stem / stalk density is very high. No signs of nutrient deficiency or burn. Newly installed controller for the chiller (bar fridge) is doing a good job keeping the water right around 19 C (it was getting too cold now that the air temp is cooler).
Eagerly awaiting some buds to say their hellos. Hello? Where ARE YOU??? Ladies?
UPDATE: Had some great advice on thinning, and hands-on guidance from AnneW, and did the thinning out thing. Added some pics. Less Chaos Bush now, and opened up some branches to LST. I'm feeling good about this plant.
I've been trimming this lady daily and she just keeps growing leaves like mad. Trimmed a ton of the under canopy and any leaves that shield what appear to be bud sites... and keep trying to do that while balancing maximum photosynthesis. I keep training her down and trimming her down, and she keeps filling out! A touch of lightened green at the inner new leaves is making me nervous. Doing a full reservoir swap today so that may help. Still pretty far behind what I was expecting for an auto at this stage, but growth is wicked.
Real flowering started this week. The stretch just started and the crazy bushiness continues. Did some fairly heavy defoliation on the under canopy and select large leaves blocking light to the bud sights.... but controlling the growth is a balance. Trying to keep as much photosynthesis as possible until I can really tell which bud sites will be the real colas.
I did a full reservoir swap with flowering nutrients, and a pH balanced water only flush in between (about 18 hours just running pH 5.9 water). Once I put the new nutrient solution in, the plant just shot up. It was spectacular the difference in literally only half a day.
I have noticed that a thin coating of something was on the air line of the bubbler and a couple other surfaces. Cleaned it off before the water flush, but still note a very slight film on the top of the fresh nutrient solution. It's a touch worrying but not sure it's an issue. Will watch carefully.
Flowering REALLY taking off this week. This lady is turning into a monster. Loving the growth, but also having a hard time controlling the foliage. Not clear I need to prune all that much more. Seems to me the buds are all getting the nutes and light they need. Giving it another week of growth before any hard pruning I think.
Fun fact: apparently this plant can drink through a good 3-4 liters of nutrient solution a day when the grow room fans are on full and lights are on.
Mid week update: did the defoliation over a couple of days. she looks gooood. so many lovely buds.
Stretch started this week! waaaaattttt. she's once again one BUSHY lady. was advised to limit pruning once flowering started, but things are getting out of control 😂. think i'm going to have to do some ladyscaping as a mid week update.
Slow growth as expected with the lower set point on the reservoir temp (19 C) - as a result of a slight smell. still has the smell, but nothing in the water on on the sides of the reservoir so not going to worry for now.
Bought another air stone and need to install ASAP. SO many roots and with sooooo much volume that the one stone just gets swamped. pretty impressive root system.
Shout out to all the growmies that have helped me on this journey. Things are good.
So WHY is this auto taking so damn long to mature??? Is this normal? It's my first hydro grow, but my wife's soil grow started after mine (more than a week) + was grown in the exact same room .... but has been harvested over the past TWO weeks. Thoughts?
Not much needed doing this week. Did a huge trim mid week that was posted to a mid week update in last week's diary entry. She didn't like it at first but then bounced back pretty well. I think I have a very slight touch of nutrient burn on some of the tips, but it could also be a touch dry as we're having a hard time keeping the room over 40% humidity as the outdoor temps here are stupid cold recently.
Hoping to harvest in 2 weeks or so.. but could be longer. Urgh.
She's a big, bountiful, heat-loving lady that's finally a under a bit of vegetative control... but apparently REALLY likes to take things slow.
Wanna know what pH fluctuation and a Calcium / Magnesium deficiency looks like? THIS.
Worst part? Got that input LAST week and did nothing about it. Lots of sick in the family, no time for plant care. Wasn't dying or rotting, buds looked good, so I let it coast.
Been pH testing, calibrating the damn pH pen regularly, and dosing with CalMag for a couple of days now... not sure it's going to matter a lot this late in the game other that the "pretty" factor, but why not, eh?
Take home leaning for my next hydro grow?
(1) LARGER reservoir so I don't have to add new solution quite as much. (2) pH pens suck, so calibrate them often. (3) when you get expert advice, act on it.
That's it for this week growmies. If you didn't see my video last week, check it out. Might to a follow on at harvest :P
FINALLY!!! Got the first touch of amber in my trichomes... SWEEET. FFS that took a damn long time.
Buds are looking freaking huge, too...
So, decided to flush PROPER. This is where it gets interesting.
Put the plant in another bucket briefly to clean the reservoir... no biggie. Thought, hey, why not run a clean through the circulation hose (for the chiller). WELL..... THAT was eye opening. A TON of nasty buildup inside the hose... that took hours to flow out. Went through 5 buckets of H2O2 solution (hot water) to finally clear all the crud out... or at least no more was coming, so I hope it's all out. Literally took 3 hours. I can only imagine what this was doing to my nutrient balance, pH, etc. Yikes. Anyway, took long enough that I'm only now getting around to posting.
Now I'm onto a flush for a couple of days with a pH balanced solution (6.0) with FloraKleen in it. Since this is my first plant and I have no reference, I'm hoping this does what it advertises - brings out the best aromas and flavours.
What did I learn from this week?
1 - when flushing, flush the entire system (including hoses)
2 - hydro in an over hot room where a chiller is required is a LOT of work... maybe soil is best in this particular grow space
3 - if in doubt, flush
3 days of flush with a fully cleaned out system (reservoir, hose, etc) in a solution of FloraKleen and pH balanced water. Now in a room with a much weaker light and cooler temp (23 C) and higher humidity (40%) for a couple of days... then it's harvest time!
Super excited to take some trichome pics and get a wet weight :) Stay tuned.
@Njaak, I would personally do a pretty heavy defoliation now since she should start flowering any time. I would start on the bottom and remove the first set of nodes on every branch and remove any little budsites that aren't trying to grow up. Then pluck any big fan leaf from the top that is blocking light to lower buds. There is almost no recovery time like you would have in soil so it is pretty hard to over do it at this point. She will bush out again pretty quick and if she is nice and clean when she hits her flowering stretch you will end up with more top buds. She will like the better air flow
hey bro, she's looking strange... looks like she has been eating a lot, no? I wish I could help more, but I've got no experience with Hydro yet
I wish this lady a happy ending.
Tchau, do Brazil! =]
@amazongrow, Yeah man, she's drinking / eating TONS. to the point it's a bit crazy. only thing I've not ruled out is pH. My pen might need to be re-calibrated.
Agreed about the deleafing needed.. maybe a lolipop too.. time for the fans from veg to go.. by now I usually start removing all the leaves that don't show any signs of trichs.
Not all at once mind you but I do remove the leaves laying on top of any buds around 6-8 inches down from the tops with indicas, less with sativas, BUT! I leave the top several large fans as these are the "pumps" or rather the transpiration that takes place will draw up the sap from the roots and bring new nutes to the top colas.. and any buds below as well.. it's a fine balance... Cheers bud!
Hey man, try adding a few extra feet of airline, get an IGLOO like cooler and lay the extra airline in the igloo, add ice and close the lid best you can without pinching the line, or drill two holes in the lid for enter and exit... This will chill the air going through the line and given enough time, lower the temps in the res. Once they're down to temp, reduce the ice amount until it stabilizes.. a couple of frozen pop bottles filled with water should do the trick.. two in the freezer and two in the cooler.. depending on the size of the cooler determines how long the ice lasts..
have fun playing around with the length of line too, just don't overwork the air pump with too much line...
Cheers! Keep it Green 👌 DWCHC 👈👍
The buds still look great! Nothing a little trimming won't fix. I spent more time calibrating my pH pens then I did using them. The GHE test drops are the way to go in my opinion.
@Njaak, Damn, I think you told me that before. I have heard that some of the high dollar pens hold calibration for a long time, but I am too cheap to find out for myself.
@Wicked_Stix, if I could keep the room temp below 25 C, that's exactly what I'd do. Unfortunately the grow room is in a 5 ft tall basement storage area, with the only air flow via duct fans, and with a massively over-powered light that sheds waaaay too much heat. We struggle to keep the air temp down and humidity up. I could ditch the high output light and just use the older less powerful (and less hot) light - basically trading off yield for ease of growing (if I could keep the room cool enough to ditch the water chiller). Plan is to build up a much better grow room in the garage for the fall indoor season. TBD, but it would be awesome.
Nice setup. I just started a FBTO1 in a dutch bucket. Some tubular pipe insulation on your hoses will probably help the temp a couple degrees. I will follow along. Good luck!
@Wicked_Stix, thanks! Yup, put pipe insulation on the outside of pipes that aren't in the grow space. Kept the section inside the tent uninsulated to also help with air temp. Any little bit helps :)
Njaak
