First grow! Super excited

First week of the grow! I'm obviously pumped to do this and I've done lots of research while waiting almost a month for my seeds to arrive. I originally had plans to grow the GSC auto alongside a photo-period blueberry. Unfortunately, the blueberry didn't take hold! I am starting the second of three of these seeds today aswell. I've dropped the seed to soak water on April 19th, and planted into rockwool on 4/20/2020! I've hardly done anything to her besides put her on a seedling mat in a windowsill, and on the 7th day into the hydroponics system. I was very happy to see how fast she sprouted from the cube, and the rapid leaf development. I am using a deep water hydroponics setup. While patiently waiting for my seeds to arrive, I planted basil and rosemary in the hydroponics system to get a feel for it. The water solution is about two weeks old by now and had very minuscule amounts of nutes to begin with, so I cannot gauge for you effective nutrient strength of the water at this moment. In early week two I will replace the water and post the nutes used!

Timelapse! I've meant to get a timelapse camera set up since I first started this grow. I am reasonably confident that future weeks will include full-week timelapses. For most of this week, my plant has seemed to have stopped growing. It got to a point where the leaves were becoming wilted, which prompted me to add nutrients. I was a bit skeptical regarding whether it was a good time to do this, or if I would be adding nutrients prematurely. All has seemed to have gone well with the nutrients, as the next day the leaves perked up substantially. Mid week, I changed the light schedule form 18/6 to 20/4 because I figured more light would enable better growth. Currently, I am puzzled as to why the leaves have developed some light and dark splotches. Could this be a result of light stress? EDIT (in response to my leaf spotting question): Thanks to those who have responded to my leaf spotting question! I have raised the light from 18.5in (I never measured it until now) to the recommended 24in. There is no chance of nutrient solution getting on the leafs to cause the spotting, but I did spray the tent with water + (dilute) hydrogen peroxide in an attempt to raise the humidity. Maybe this is the cause? I am currently battling the relative humidity. As someone mention, it is low! If i plug in my room-humidifier, the humidity will get way to high (80%+). I've placed an open container of tap water + hydrogen peroxide mix in the tent, but it doesn't appear to do much! I'd like to note here that I am using liquid indicator drops for my pH, so the pH is only my best measurement at the time of mixing solution. My pH may not be as low as I indicated this week! I think I'll throw in some tap water in lieu of cal-mag supplements,. I figure my city's hard water may be of benefit here!

First off, I hope all who visit this journal watch the timelapse. I'm very happy with how it turned out. The GSC is in the foreground. Comparing the beginning to the end shows just how dramatically my plant has grown in the past week. This plant now has a photo-period neighbor! I have changed the light schedule back to 18-6 to accommodate. Her chronicles will be in a separate journal. Towards the end of week two, I noticed the leaves were forming brown spots that I took as a sign of calcium deficiency. To treat this, I used a gallon of (hard) tap water, adding calcium to the reservoir. Luckily this seems to have done the trick! The spots have been absent on all subsequent leaf growth. Sometime in the middle of this week, I had to re balance the pH from ~7 to ~6. Perhaps this pH fluctuation came from the tap water transfusion. In an effort to raise the RH in the tent, I've repetitively spilled a small amount of water on the floor of the tent. Doing this keeps the RH around 45-50%. I've made some other small changes to my grow setup as shown in the pictures. Prior to this week, I'd thought my plant was hopelessly behind developmentally compared to other user's because I'd compare their week two plants to mine. Luckily, this week has seen some growth! It's crazy how fast they shoot off after their first three-fingered leaves form. The first "real" set of leaves to grow in (not three-fingered yet), seemed to take forever to grow into their full size while not much else (besides the roots) seemed to grow. This week's three-pointed leaves have practically fully formed already. Alongside them, are the beginnings of yet more leaves! I'm not certain what I will do this next week. I may start LSTing this plant, though I'm not sure when exactly I should do this. My original plan for my plants was to implement a screen of green using a trellis. I have sense realized this may not be the best approach while using a DWC, because water changed would be made much more difficult. Have any of you DWC growers experiment with this? Is it worthwhile? I will likely not replace the water for another week, though that's not set in stone. I appreciate any advise regarding the training techniques I mentioned, water switch outs and anything else that may be relevant to this grow. I will more than likely ask a few designated questions. To those who take the time to answer, thank you!

This entry covers days 23-31. There is a timelapse of this past week, I hope you watch! I upped the nutrients DRAMATICALLY! I was quite concerned, checking on the plants multiple times a day checking for signs of nutrient toxicity. Luckily, all was good this week. In part due to upping her nutes, she grew so much! I can't believe how many more leaves she has. This week was the first week of some bondage for this girl. This was my first time performing that act, so I was nervous and made sure not to hurt her developing nodes. I tied her down in two spots at first, and in a third spot at a later date.

This entry covers days 31-38. There is a timelapse for this week. First off, I'm not sure whether this week should be the first flowering week. Evidence of preflowering is clearly visible. Again, another week of dramatic growth. This week the first nine pointed leaves have grown. What a crowded leaf! Unfortunately my LST efforts haven't achieved much in shaping the plant. This is because my net cup wasn't held in place enough, so the cup would tilt rather than the plant conforming to my bending. I plan on switching the nutrients for the transition from veg to flower.

Attached is a timelapse of this past week! GSC in the foreground. This week has seen some of the most dramatic changes. She's in flower! Its a beautiful sight to see the bud sites develop so quickly. When I realized this plant is in flower, I've focused more of the grow light on her, sacrificing some of the blueberry's light. This is because the light absorbed during flower will be directly put towards the buds. Another change is I've lowered the light to about 12 inches, providing stronger light during flower. I've noticed that to maintain an even canopy, I have to tie down this plant every day. My priority is to maintain and even canopy, allowing each bud site to receive ample light. I am constantly focusing attention towards the main stem of the plant because I don't want the plant to favor it over the other bud sites. After tying down the plant, I take the time to adjust near by leaves to cover any significant gaps I've created in the canopy. I do this to ensure light is not wasted. At the end of the week, my pH dropped considerably to around 5. Early signs of calcium deficiency are showing. Should be under control after nute change. My nutrients this week were balanced for the transition between veg and flower. In the coming weeks I will provide more flowering nutrients.

This entry covers days 46 - 53. The plant is still growing. I thought last week I'd seen the last of its veg growth, but I've had to raise the LED a few inches this week. I've started to give the GSC more bloom nutrients. It's always fascinating to see the change in leaf color following a nutrient change! Bud sites are looking great. It is hard to discern which is the main cola, which is a good thing. There are a few places where the leaves show signs of damage, or perhaps minor deformities. I will keep an eye out for more of these in the coming week. Lately I've grown concern for the higher humidity, between 60% - 70%. I'm fearful of bud rot in the future as the buds develop. I may defoliate for the purposes of increasing airflow and decreasing humidity in the tent, thought I'm unsure.

Hello! This covers days 53-60. She's flowering quite well! This week I've noticed slight tip burn on about half of my leaves. To counteract this, I've added extra (tap) water to dilute the nutrient solution. Luckily very little damage was done. In addition to tip burn, I've ran into yet more calcium deficiency issues. I bought General Hydroponics' 'Calimagic' and will be using this in future weeks to help avoid this persistent issue. This week I have began experimenting with slight defoliation. I have removed the bottom-most leaves that the plant has already started to kill off, a few leaves at a time when I notice them. Doing this should help with airflow. My roots are starting to turn a slight shade of brown! I am not too worried about root rot at the moment because it has not worsened within the past few days. I will keep an eye on the roots in the coming weeks to see if it gets worse, though!

This covers days 60-67. She's flowering nicely still, I uploaded a picture of the trichomes. Calimagic is doing its job, after adding 4-5ml/gallon. The advantage to using this over hard tap water is the more consistent pH. When I used hard water the pH would rise to pH of 7 after a few days. A bonus is I don't need to use pH down anymore, after mixing nutes the pH tends to be 6 already. My plant was tilted the past week or to. I corrected this tilt using ties. I continue to remove dying leaves for purposes of airflow.

This entry covers days 67-74. This week I have not been very attentive to the plants, though all seems to be well. I provided more calimagic this week. I was concerned about the high ppm of the water but the plant seems to have handled that well, with perhaps minimal signs of nute burn. Early this week I believe there was some light burn. The symptoms resembled calcium deficiency but with more severe damage to only the top leaves. Raising the led seems to have fixed this issue. She's progressing in her bud development. Perhaps 2 weeks until harvest?

This covers days 74- 81. Calcium deficiency is my bane. Flowering plants need more than none flowering? Checking trichomes is a little difficult, especially when the sugar leaves are in the way.

This covers days 81-88. Shes putting on good flower mass, but still seems to have calcium deficiency issues. I suppose flowering plants need a ton of calcium! I've changed the light schedule to 12hrs for my other plant. I'm not too sure how much longer until harvest. Maybe next week? Two weeks? I know to look at the trichomes and wait until cloudy / amber, but I'm not sure when to start the flush. Any suggestions?