RQS - First grow! Indoor/Coco/Canna/Auto

Hey there! This is my first ever grow and I'm super excited to get going. Any input is welcome and appreciated :) I'll be growing Green Gelato Automatic by Royal Queen Seeds in Ecothrive Coco Lite, using CANNA nutrients. I have made my own self draining saucers for watering and collecting run off. The nutrient values that I write here are at full strength to achieve the correct NER. I then dilute with low EC water to my target EC, also ensuring the Ph is in the correct range (5.5-6.5). --- Firstly, to germinate the seeds, I put them in a glass of deionized water. I then put the glass on top of my water heater (as its a nice warm space) for 12 hours and covered it with a towel. I then transferred the seeds, without touching them, into individual paper towels that were damp but not soaked. The paper towels were folded over each seed and placed in a sealed container, on top of my water heater. I checked on them every 12 hours until the tap roots had reached a good size. After 48hrs, 3 out of 4 seeds had a good size emerging tap root and were ready to pot. The 4th seed failed to germinate, but the good people at RQS were kind enough to send me a replacement. As they are autos, from my research, I decided to plant the seeds straight into their final pots to avoid the shock of transplanting later. From further research, I have learned that if you are careful with transplanting autos, you won't have any problems, and it can be a lot more beneficial for root development for them to be started in smaller pots and transplanted, like you would a photoperiod (www.cocoforcannabis.com). Good information to learn, but either way, I started my seeds in their final pots of 15L. After roughly 36hrs, they had all popped their heads above the soil and 24hrs after that, had shed their casing, the cotyledons had opened and they were officially seedlings. They started off as healthy looking seedlings, but in this first week I ran into a couple of problems. To fertigate, I mixed 5ml of CalMag and 20ml of Rhizotonic into a gallon of bottled spring water. I started with a low EC of around 0.4. I watered with that for a few days and then started to include a low EC feed of calmag, coco A+B, rhizotonic and cannazym. The first problem I encountered was that after the first couple of days, my EC meter stopped working, and it took over a week to replace, so I was guessing the EC from estimates taken previously. My seedlings then froze. They did not look sick, but they were not growing at all. I was watering with what I assumed to be a very light nutrient water, watering until 20% run off every time, temps, ventilation, lights etc were good but even after 5 days, there was no growth at all on the seedlings. They then started showing signs of nutrient lock out. Finally my new EC meter arrived, and when I tested the run off EC it was around 1.4 which was obviously the problem, was too much salt in the medium. Even though I was estimating, the input EC definitely would not have been over 1, which makes me think that the buffered coco lite may not have been rinsed properly, leaving a high EC in the coco from the buffering. I learned that I should have rinsed and checked the EC of the coco before planting the seedlings, even though it was labeled 'ready to plant'. It was a good lesson to learn. Around day 7, I flushed the seedlings with PH balanced water, until the run off EC reading was around 0.5. I then fertigated with a feed of EC 0.4 which I plan to increase slightly each day as to not have too much shift in the root zone PH and NER. It took them a few days to recover from the shock, and may have stunted them slightly, but after a few days, they are now slowly growing! They may just be a few days behind, or not get as big as they could have but we shall see.. I have faith! I do not have many pictures of this initial period as I was frustrated trying to figure out why they weren't growing, and there was not much to photograph haha! So, at this point (end of week one) they are just 3 small seedlings looking out of place in their big 15L pots. But - hopefully now have a nice balanced coco to grow in and can thrive once they recover from the initial high EC and shock from the flush etc. I will update from week two with proper pictures and more consistent details. I have learned some good stuff so far and am (hopefully) back on track! :)

End of week 2: After flushing at the end of week one, due to high EC run off and slight nutrient burn, the girls are recovering and starting to grow again! - What I believe happened last week is, the EC of the coco was too high to begin with and I did not flush it (as it said it was buffered and rinsed), but it's a lesson learned! Rinse your coco and test the run off before planting!! This week - I have kept the EC of the nutrient solution low, at 0.4 while the plants have been recovering, and will start increasing the EC next week as needed. I also raised the lights a little so it wasn't so strong as they recovered. Another lesson I've learned - read and listen to your plants!! As you can see in the pictures, there are a couple of burnt tips (from the initial high coco EC), but new growth is looking promising. I'm unsure if the first week of minimal growth will have stunted the plants or if I'll just add an extra week onto my into timeline, we shall see!

End of week 3: There has been some awesome growth this week, and I'm finally starting to feel like I'm on the right track. I have kept the EC low, increasing it to 0.6 by the end of this week. I have also kept an eye on the run off EC, which has also remained low. I have been fertigating once a day, 30mins after the lights come on. New leaf growth is looking good, the plants are looking healthy over all. I'm keeping the EC low, as I know auto flowers generally need less nutrients. I'll keep an eye on what the plants are telling me and will boost nutrient strength gradually. I have learned too little is better than too much. At the end of this week, I tried some LST on all 3 of the plants and also topped one of them. I was very weary to top an autoflower, as I heard it can stunt growth, but I thought what the heck, I'll try it on one of them and see what happens! I topped the biggest plant that was looking the strongest and growing the fastest. I learned after I topped it, that it is best to top after at least 4 nodes have grown, this plant had 3 at the time. I'm interested to see how the LST, and topping on one plant, will affect their growth. I have been watering once every 24hrs from the beginning, but I am beginning to see some algae on the prelate. I think this is just because the top of the coco doesn't get a chance to dry out. I don't think this is harmful so will just keep an eye on it. Another point to add, my lights aren't the greatest. They work very well, are built well and very silent but they are not super powerful. 300w HPS equivalent, 80w actual draw, which may be another reason that plants aren't looking as big as they should at the 3 week mark. They don't give off a lot of heat either, and the weather has been cool, so average grow temps in the day can range from 16-19 degrees C.The weather is starting to get a little warmer, so hopefully that will also help the growth. I will work on taking better pictures next week so they don't look purple! Thank you for checking out my grow so far! As always, all comments/questions/advice are welcome! :)

Week 4: Things are looking good! More growth, lots of new shoots emerging! The height of all plants is still quite low, due to the consistent LST. They are looking short and bushy. The plant that I topped last week has recovered very well with lots of new shoots. I have increased the EC to 0.8. Depending on growth and how the plants are looking, I may aim to increase EC to 1.2 by the end of next week, with the same NER at the moment. I'm still watering once per day, roughly 1L per plant, which achieves about 20% run off. I also had a thought that maybe I need to raise my lights a little. They do not get hot, and there is no signs of light burn, but I think maybe they will achieve more vertical growth if they are moved slightly further away, they can then grow up into the light. I've kept them at roughly 4 inches away the entire time. I'll raise them slightly next week. Over all, happy so far for it being my first grow! Any comments welcome and appreciated, happy growing :)