Wedding Cake | Seed Junkies | Plat LED

These are mostly images of the damaged leaves and trouble spots, as well as the best darn advice I could give after some serious googling and research, on display in hopes of receiving critique. Overall advice based on all of this: ( looking for improvements to this or critique ) - Any time you see cal/mag def up the level of Epsom Salts, but don't go over 1000 ppm when you do, dilute the res. - Get the RO hooked up ASAP and reset your reservoirs. - Separate the plants by soil type onto diff tables and reservoirs, so you can treat the soil with 6.0 and the soilless with 5.0 ph and can adapt the nutes correctly to the soil, even if that means prolonging veg for another 2 weeks to let the new spread-out canopies fill out the scrog nets. - Take the next 2 weeks to insulate the enclosing room so that you can ditch the nets because those lights are already 2' apart, so your plants, no matter how much scrogging you do, will absolutely reach the plants, and if you don't your back to hand watering everything and putting them on the floor. Insulate and sterilize the surrounding room, then ditch the tents and remount the lights. Would love advice, criticism, noticed lessons from my failings, and any form of suggestions on how this garden can be improved. Deeply grateful! Recent Changes: Stocked up on Rockwool to start swapping over Completed Ebb and Flow Setup and tried it with the 3 gal smart pots, clearly not going to get the tops wet without hand watering or drip: lesson learned... it did help me see that this is soil dependant, noticed when in rogue soils "rocket fuel" the peat like substance wicks the water up from an ebb / flow run within minutes and saturates the whole of the pot. When in soil x vermiculite x peat - it fails to wick and leaves the top half bone dry. Got the RO, need to connect it tomorrow/ the next day Added epsom salts today for the first time at 1 tsp/gal. Brought ppm to 1350 or so, thinking its too high Co2 Controllers on the fritz, resorting to a cycle timer, 3m on, 55m off, its got me close Some serious issues when plants are inside, zero issues when outside, so tempted to draw a connection to the lights. Checked, these lights have a rep for causing the plants to hyper demand cal-mag, hoping using epsom salts will fix those issues. Lockout of nutes starting with burnt leave tips... not sure if thats an ok level to tolerate.

Alrighty... so... I wanted to have the best of both worlds, hydro and soil. 40% of my girls were in cheap soil though... I filled my reservoirs, tried to oxygenate them well ( half assed it I have learned ), and watered every 3 hrs with oxygentated nutes ebb and flow, into 3 gallon smart pots. Had I dont this right, would it have worked? I learned the hard way that overwatering kills... my hope was that if I was to continuously refresh the water ( as in hydro ) I would have a constant supply of oxygen and in the pots with spendy airy peat based soil it did seem to work, but in the pots with the cheap stuff ( from when I was broke and it was time to transplant ). - it didnt. they got super unhappy looking like nute deficiencies a plenty... tried to address by searching the nute deficiencies and fixing... first epsom salts amending.. When transplanting I smelled the problem under the pots... root rot. Did I know to add a fungicide when doing a recirc with soil? Nope. Do I know now? Yep. But heres the thing: would that even have fixed it? Can you do recirc with soil? Is that stupid? I hunger for the ease of automated watering, and I am hunting for a solution that does not risk overwatering the plants.... I cannot bet on 'hyper oxygenated water constantly flowing through and replacing the old' at the moment unless someone steps up and says ' yea, that would work, I do that ' The solution I have found - best so far, is this one https://www.happyhydro.com/collections/blumat-systems/products/blumat-medium-box-kit-automatic-irrigation-for-up-to-12-plants Has anyone tried that product? Sensors in each pot for under $10/plant, adjust to make it perfect and it never over waters. Partly Im asking because I am being guided by a new mentor who suggests aiming for living soil, and have been doing my research, found this: https://overgrow.com/t/whats-your-favorite-living-soil-recipes/17984/2 This pursuit started when I was spraying everything under the sun ( only organic ) to try to kill aphids, and each spray would subsequenty burn the plants. Some solid googling, and I am now using neem exclusively, and mixing a plant food into it. The article pointed me to Neem, Silica, and Maybe aloe.. And while Aloe is on order, I mixed up the following ( feedback? ) Neem, Silica, Kelp, Humic Acids, Fulvic Acids I followed a guide and made 5 gallons of the stuff so I dont have to keep mixing it up. Just sprayed, and sprayed, idea being that I am actually feeding the plants while knocking down the aphids. Planning to try a pyrethrium bomb as well. Been fighting these guys since the mom plant came ( she came w em ). Present day, my system uses a peat based nute infused light quick drain rogue soil baseline On ebb tables with drip Most likely drain to waste, but decided overwatering was killing em / slowing them with experiement #1 ( above ), so the waters off, transplanted into dry soil to dry them sooner, they are still 3 days after transplant, measuring 10/10 on the moisture scale What did em in? Trying to narrow factors here, these are the possibilities I see - Overwatering - sure, but if it had better oxygenation would that had eliminated the problem? - Trying to recirc in a res with soil - ummm... dont know anyone doing that. - Trying to recirc without funcicide in the rest... def could be ( referring to bacterial fungicide, all natural ) - Spraying with everything under the sun thats organic ( could be ) Anyhow... Im coming out the other side I also found some mold growing on the wood in the roof of my garage... meh... I had been following VPD studies, which indicate that with Co2, plant ideal growth temps hit 80 - 85, and the corresponding ideal humidity based on VPD charts is thus 80% RH, so I tried it, without covering the wood in the garage.. and the beginnings of mold... experiment over. Inbirk controlling dehum now, running at all times - check Humidity down to 60% RH with 1 dehum, setting set to 50% RH, thus getting a 2nd dehum Temps at 75 with co2 at 1500 Plants gotten no water for 3 days, letting em dry till 45% moisture, then will use auto drips moisture sensing ( 1st link ) to boost to 55 and keep em in that range Recirc with soil most likely over, will swap to drain to waste, and will hook up a sump in the drain buckets/ reservoirs / tubs to channel that waste to the back yard where I will put some veggies in Restructured away from grow tents, ditched em, took one out, spread out the tables, got rid of the scrog net, so I FINALLY have access to the girls from all around the tables instead of having to 'wing it' in solid canopy with no access to certain ones... Planning to feed with my custom feed/neem blend likely daily or 2x a day till I see ZERO aphids, with a bomb in there somewhere to really trip that cord and hopefully make it through bloom w no bugs 20% of the growth tips look unhealthy from the root rot issues, so clearing the reservoirs, resetting them, adding fungicide to the new ones, just a smidge, and switching to drain to waste... Damn... last 4 weeks have been nutty... so many lessons, so fast... had I never pruned, nor scrogged, nor defoliated these girls would be at 6' already, and Im thinking that would have been smarter, since I am still not dialed in enough to confidently flip to bloom. Also going to take immediate steps towards creating living soil, adding vermicompost, a couple inches, on top.. might add clover cover crops, and doing a super deep, super strong innoculation with recharge Replacing my ghetto fans with oscillating fans And looking into a dosatron, to be able to ditch the reservoirs altogether... Phew... geez... this was a hard zero to google it to try to get pro couple weeks for this couple of plants Im trying to keep alive and kickin. Damn.

Oof, so many lessons since the last check in, which was 12/20 12/21 In the aero cloner, I am noticing growth that is at least 50 - 60% faster than anything else. They rooted, and I left them in. Converted to DWC today to prevent roots in the pump. Given that speed, wondering if I should leave in DWC or devise an Aero plan for the bloom. After noticing root rot, emptied and disinfected my reservoir, refilled. Also had gotten feedback that my plants were waterlogged, so I turned off all irrigation and am waiting for them to try. I transplanted from 3gal to 7gal and only added 1/4 cup of RO to the bottoms, left the rest of the soil dry, to speed up the resolving of the overwatering. Was that the right call? In transplanted I put them in good soil, this one: https://www.roguesoil.com/rocket-fuel-components With these ingredients: Sphagnum Peat Moss, Perlite, Aged Forest Product, Coconut Coir, Green Waste Compost, Earthworm Castings, Glacial Rock Dust, Limestone (ph adjuster), Fertilizers, Mycorrhizal Fungi The hope was to devise an automated watering system. With this soil, is it impossible to automate watering? It is designed to be fast draining and light: "Rocket Fuel was designed for the grower who enjoys a fast draining and lighter medium. Based on growers grade Manitoban long fiber peat, Rocket Fuel is one of the best indoor and greenhouse blends on the market today. To make sure there is an instant punch of nitrogen available, we use a blast of powdered calcium nitrate. Rocket Fuel allows the farmer to transplant, water plants as needed, relax, and leave the Outlaw flying to us the first couple of weeks." I installed 1 quality recirc fan, need to install a 2nd one. And, I transplanted a couple of new clones, which TOOK OFF in the last 5 days and are already 1' tall! They were put into rocket fuel soil, in tiny tea bags like 10oz big, and put in an ebb and flow with 400ppm of nutes at 6.0PH, nutes had all the extras from fulvic to humic and a 1/2 gallon of super strong compost tea direct into the recirc reservoir. 12/22/2020 Brainstorming the possible causes to issues with the girls I checked the ph of the soil. 8.0 average!! What the f... I dug deep into google looking for causes and solutions: most likely cause I deduced, I had added molasses to the res in the last feeding... Was advised to ph balance to 6.0 for a while the res to fix it, I tried 5.5, perhaps foolishly, and my 1' tall clones revealed their very first signs of deficiency/toxicity for the first time. Damnit... hard lessons. Adjusted to 6.0. Cultiwool brand rockwool clones are literally a month behind the new clones and still looking sick as fu@#. Not sure what to do with that besides toss them. Theories: they seem waterlogged, and they are running a ph at 8.0... so maybe need either drippers with ph balanced ongoing watering, or to have been soaked prior to use instead of just had water run through them for a bit. pulled a clone out, it had been transplanted from oasis to the rockwool.. when the clones tried to make the transition from one media to the next, they turned yellow and stopped growing. Stumped. Tried flushing nutes with the hose through them to see if they would perk up. The grow tips perked a lil, but growth is at almost month behind everything else, so they went to the compost today. Still waiting for southern ags bacterial fungicide to treat the root rot, though by stopping watering, most of the plants recovered, only 2 showing still super stunted growth. They are plants that are 2 months old, so I dont want to toss them.. but need feedback on that. They still look stunted slowly recovering. Found directions on a brand of compost tea mix where the vendors suggest using it as a mix with actual molasses, a 1/4 cup, and 250ml of their powder, aerated, for 24 hrs... I used the recharge brand I had on hand and made 5 gallsons. Came out black, super thick. Connected up my drip emitters to all the girls and pumped it into them. 12 hrs later 97% had healthy growth tips. Theory: adding molasses to res caused ph of soil spike, overwatering and ph of soil at 8.0 and lights being too close caused nute lockout, nute lockout caused water uptake to slow, water uptake slowing and cheap unpure soil ( on 40% of them ) caused root rot, then super strong compost tea provided more ph range flexibility and helped the plants start to take in nutes, started to re-regulate them, having stopped all watering and transplanting into almost dry soil helped waterlogged status pass, and resulted in healthy grow tips on most, showing that the present state of the girls is actually doing ok. Thoughts? Critiques? Trying my best to make meaning of all this madness. General plan going forward: keep withholding water until I see signs of them needing water, then turn on the drip with RO that has no grow formula, ( the new soil has nutes in it ), but includes humic acids, fulvic, kelp, bacterial fungicide, silica, and cal mag, to support rebalancing, at 6.0, since my efforts to bring soil ph down by phing to 5.5 bit me in the ass already. Bought hydrated lime, but before using, further googling told me that was a mistake for acidifying soil, as is typically used for alkalizing acid soil. Whoops. any other solutions to soil that measures 8.0 ph?? should I just start measuring runoff and ignore the ph of the soil for now? planning to flip to bloom ASAP, just thinking I have to transplant the lil babies before I do. Is it ok to wait till after I flip to transplant? It would make life easier. Wanting to hook up another light and add some hydroton ebb and flow or dwc, but not sure if my breakers can hold it. I honestly think they cant... is it ok to try and use the breaker flipping as the indication that its too much? Or an affordable device I can buy to test how close it is to capacity? I don't want to introduce any fire risks, been super cautious about that. On that note, been looking for an affordable way to replace splitters connected to splitters, noticing a bit of a cluster f in that area and have not found a legit alternative yet that would not break the bank. 12/23 learned about lux, got a light meter, learned about daily integral, checked all the plants light levels, most were too high, those getting 80 DLI were frying, pulled all my lights back to give about 30 DLI. another super hard lesson. damn. 12/24 Put some small girls ( the clones that are kicking ass ) into hydroton. They are currently in the rockfuel soil in 10oz tea bags on ebb and flow, and since I added kelp and humic and fulvic the roots just freaking exploded out of the sides, they look crazy, pic attached... But in essence, after trying everything under the freaking sun, what I can see is working the best are those tea bags in ebb and flow every 3hrs getting flooded, and the aero, so I figure unless I want to go full out aeroponics, that transplanting the tea bag girls into hydroton is the closest thing to following my most successful pattern I can find. Ordered the parts needed. Googled how to prep hydroton, soaked in RO water, phed to 5.0, pumped out the cloudy water, refilled, phed to 5.0, checked 2h later, already at 6.3 again, phed to 5.0 again, will wait till tomorrow to check it, when it stabilizes at 6.0 I add 1/4 strength bloom nutes, soak for another hr or two and call it done. I desperately want to automate watering, and I don't know that I have set myself up to do that thanks to feedback from @BluntZilla ( thank you ), so I googled the F@# out of it and think I found a solution. Blumat sensors. Ordered one for each soil plant, will stop the drip when they are watered and thus prevent overwatering.