Northern Lights Auto Hydroponics

10/5 Day 31. I've added a dehumidifier now that the plants are starting to show signs of pre-flower or flower. Maybe one of the expert growers can let me know. :o) 10/6 Day 32. I did some more defoliation to open up the air flow at the base of the stem (mini lollipoping). I also re-arranged the pots and lifted the air pumps so that I could have more room for training them. This should also improve air flow. I moved the rotating fan so that it is pulling air from the lower tent intake. Move the 6'' hurricane fan so that it is blowing down at the center of the tent. More LST training after giving everyone some more "elbow" room! I will allow them to recovery for a few days after the defoliation, but will keep adjusting the LST wires. - Added 1 gallon of purified H2O to each plant. No signs of any deficiencies on the leaves. Nice and Green with new nodes popping up (I think). Red - PH 5.54 TDS 703 EC 1.459 Blue - PH 5.77 TDS 735 EC 1503 Yellow - PH 5.6 TDS 693 EC 1.482 Blue (runt) is finally showing a growth spurt and has almost caught up to Red who seems to have healed from the partial stem tear. Yellow seems to still be the front runner in size and horizontal stretching. I will continue to train them until they definitely show signs of vertical growth and bud formation. At that time I will switch over their feeding to decrease N and increase P & K. SO far the GHE products are doing well, I might switch over to advanced nutrients for the next grow. Roots in all 3 pots are filling up and are still nice and white. Thankfully I am able to keep the water temp around 74-75 F. The UC Roots product is doing it's job as well. As of right now I'm not using any type of extra CO2 generator, but have watched some videos on You Tube on making a DIY. I wish there was more community involvement on questions and the need help section of this site. Also a lot of the You Tube sites that claim to cater to the "beginner grower" seem more interested in their "hip" music selection, video shots of their plants, and talking a lot of nothingness just to get viewers, verses providing quality content to really help the newbie growers. Ok off my soap box. I am really enjoying this grow and today after spending about an hour in the tent it was quite relaxing and therapeutic tending to the plants. 😊 10/7 Day 33. Rest in Peace Eddie Van Halen! Your influence in rock and roll will always be remembered! Feeding day! I am liking the 4 day schedule giving them 1/2 of the weekly recommended amounts per a consensus of growers who all say it's better to feed a little less, and make any additional increases as needed. The extra day helps to spread it out too. Also the importance of looking at the plants daily to see if there are any issues. Yellow is drinking more water that the other 2 and is still the front runner in overall growth and size. To think Yellow almost didn't make it past the seedling stage due to a "stretching bend" injury during week 1. - Amounts total in 4 gallons. UC Roots 8ml, CalMag 5ml, Micro 6ml, Gro 2ml, Bloom 6ml. These amounts are overall as the pots have 4 gallons of water in them. I adjusted to pot size in the description above. I made some small adjustments to the LST wires. All of the plants are now competing to who will become "Top Cola." I've also decided to name the plants per their growing pot color. Ruby, Bertha, Yuki. I picked Bertha as she was the runt, hopefully the name with inspire a great weigh in on dried flowers! 10/8 Day 34. Plants showing some signs of heat stress. I raised the lights up 2 inches. Now that I'm in flowering, heat and humidity reduction will get more of a focus. Tested the PH and it dropped to 5.2. I re-calibrated the pen just to make sure. Since they are starting to really drink more water I added 1/2 gallon of regular tap water that had been de-chlorinated. Checked PH 3 hours later and it is back up to 5.8. I have some PH up solution that I use for the aquarium, so will decided if I should adjust PH with watering using purified store water to lower PH and tap water to raise it since I anticipate them needing a gallon of water added every other day. Or I could just PH up the store bought water. 10/9 Day 35. Heat stress seems to be subsiding, but have noticed a few of the leaf tips are showing signs of nute burn. Overall they are looking great. I will monitor the leaf's for any additional issues. I know autoflowers like to be under feed compared to what the fertilizer companies recommend. I might look at going to a feed every 5 days using 1/2 of the recommended feeding amounts, along with seeing what the plant leaf's, water chemistry is telling me. As this is my first Cannabis grow it feels like I'm trying to "learn how to fly this particular model while I'm building it!" Anyone else feel like that on their 1st grow? 10/11 Day 37. All is growing well. Added a mixture of store water and tap to make adjustments to PH dropping. Each girl needed 1 gallon of water. Flowers are starting to grow :O) Ruby - PH 5.0 TDS 786 EC 1.651 (added PH up water to correct and an extra dose of 5ml UC Roots) Bertha - PH 5.96 TDS 858 EC 1.831 Yuki - PH 6.09 TDS 753 EC 1.725 Week 5 Lessons Learned: 1. Bought some Botanicare Silica Blast for the next grow. 2. Need to ensure the lid holes for adding water, and the air stone line is placed correctly with the water level sight guage. Yuki (Yellow) will need a new lid for the next grow. 3. More and a bit larger bore drill holes for the LST tie down points on the edges of the lids.