Grow 1

Transplanted to buckets-a little nerve wracking. Dealt with overflow leaks, poor return flow, and general set up woes. Starting to settle and stay even keeled now though...so far. Waiting on replacement part for Stealth RO unit, a Torus Hydro inline pH unit and a lot of Lotus Nutrients! Every day a new exciting adventure

Gotta be honest - I was starting to get worried. Thankfully everyone, including scragglers took off in the past 48 hours. Filling out leaves without adding tremendous height - that's great because they were stretching initially. Had some light burn on a single robust Magnum and moved one LED light which was slightly closer to that side and plant. Overall, just getting comfortable with monitors, controller, troubleshooting and tweaking as I find things. Equipment: Shout-out to Link4 iPonic 614 - This controller is incredible! What I didn't anticipate was just how beneficial the monitoring and data graphs would be. Allows you to see trends and adjust for the future by evaluating the past. Spendy but worth it. Kind LEDs are ridiculous and the preset phases kick it! I bought some additional cross poles, not to counter the vent fan but to have extra placed to hang stuff and prep for drying in the future (I'm an optimist!) Everything else is working perfectly and I can't imagine a hydroponic grow like this without it all. Bluelab Guardian for EC, water temp and pH is key for the reservoir. Finally received a replacement part for the Hydrologic Stelth RO system so that will be in use for a partial reservoir water change later in the week. Equipment I'm still waiting on are the inline Torus Perfect pH unit, and the final big toy purchase, a 12-Spider electrolysis O2 unit by O2Grow....can't wait and I'll include pics soon. Only problems are primarily with bubbleflow buckets - These things a a pain in the arse! Returns aren't flowing as well as they should so I had to grit my teeth and poked holes through the tent to better align and level the return tubes. Then the dripping coming from the lid edges have accumulated into a lake on the floor - I ended up closing the ball valve from the water pump tube just to slow the flow a little and give the returns time to empty and not over-flood the buckets. I even adjusted the air pump flow to the air-stones because the agitation was lending to the high bucket water volume and to the dripping from under the lid edges. On this note-I'm kinda pissed off at SuperCloset after trying to contact them multiple times and in various ways over the past 2-3 weeks with absolutely no reply until today when someone finally left me a message and asked me to call them back. I'll let you know what they say. So here we are. On our way into the grow and looking forward to the weeks to come

Ladies starting to take off. Since my last entry in V week 2, I added a few additional pics. It was brutal torture to me to start topping and LST with them but they have responded beautifully. I know everyone says, just do it and don't get hung up on snapping some or killing others....ugh, easy to say, another thing to "try out". Equipment is now complete because quite honestly there isn't much more I can add - keep quiet out there.... I'm bloody done! Have a filter for the camera now so I don't need to use glasses - great little "toy" Love the idea of photography as these plants are so beuatiful Additions: O2 grow electrolysis unit which cycles on for 30 minutes, and off for 150 minutes, alternating with the air pump/air stones. Torus Hydro in line pH perfect unit Problems: I added a thin, narrow adhesive linear sponge gasket along the long edges of each bucket so the lids rest on them in a manner of a "seal" just in attempt to stop the constant low volume dripping that was happening. Definitely resolved "lake juanita" that was forming on the floor. I resolved all the other bucket issues before SuperCloset contacted me but it was good to confirm my troubleshooting with them. I'm not really keeping track of overall water consumption, just adding to reservoir as needed. Adding the Lotus Grow as recommended and monitoring through EC and pH. Seems to be doing well.

Last week I was impressed with the amount of filling out so there was some topping and everyone seemed to respond really well! This week they branched out with some apparent cost to height. Although that's the case, due to their bushing up, I elected to place the first level scrog nets although it did feel like they're all still a bit immature. Everyone was back to standing tall and working their way about the net as they should - phew! Troubles - keeping the humidity above 55% but only sometimes. Identified that this has been because of 1) reservoir needs topping 2) monitoring of humidifier 3) colder, dry outside air. Silly comment-despite careful labeling, some of the plants don't quite look as they should so I thing in error, one magnum is not a magnum and one Maui is not a Maui. Eye roll-but if that's my worst muck up lol I'm till okay

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Turns out I have an auto in the group (tsk tsk) lol. No plans to switch lights for another 2 weeks Upped the air exchange because humidity was becoming a booger. Now parameters-Temp, RH, CO2 all well. Have roots reaching the reservoir so root system is doing well lol. Not blocking return, fortunately. PH has crept up to 6.1-6.2 so keeping an eye on the new inline pH Perfect unit. Little disappointed with the amount of non dissolved granular food material in reservoir-may be an argument for liquid food products. Added cal mag because one plant indicating a mild deficiency so I believe it was caught quickly enough - all ladies bushy, green and happy.

Elected to switch over to flower. The auto plants, despite not relizing we had them, are popping and the regulars are doing so well that figured it was time and maybe keep them "equal". Venting and air exchanges doing great. Trimming , and scrogged again. Trimmed quite well to allow focus to flower production. Still having trouble with buckets and overflow - troubleshooting with lids, bubblers, and reservoir pump - seems like neverending pain in the arse. Seriously look forward to the breakdown and clean up after this grow just to make major adjustments to buckets, thier configuration, elight orientation, etc. Here goes next phase....oh boy...gulp