01/17/2026
No changes to nutrients today. However, from last week to this week, the EC and TDS have increased. I'm guessing the nutrients from the hydroton are leeching in to the bucket. Probably a good thing. That way I don't need to make any adjustments right now.
No roots today. Oh well. Not too sure how she's doing. She has the right amount of nodes, but she isn't really growing. Still 2" tall. I know she's still working those roots, but still I should at least see a root. Just 1. But I see nothing.
I increased the light intensity to level 2. See readings below. So far she seems to be happy with it. It's been a couple hours and I'm not seeing any signs of stress. Still very green and pretty sturdy. If I'm guessing right, I don't think this little lady is going to get very big. I can just tell. But we'll have to see now. I hope I'm wrong. This is one of my absolute favorites and my first time growing it. I'd love to see a nice plant with long colas thick with trichomes. But we'll see.
Weekly Readings:
Water Readings:
pH: 6.3
EC: 1012
TDS: 500
Temp: 70°
Lighting:
DLI: 21.6
PPFD: 318
Environment:
Temp: 75°
RH: 62%
VPD: 1.07 kPa
CO2: 754
01/18/2026
We have a root! Just 1 root. Lol, but it's a root! I knew we'd see roots before the Apple Strudel I'm also running. It keeps stretching. So it wasn't focusing on the roots. This little lady, on the other hand, barely stretched. I was concerned at first, but now it's fine. She'll start to grow significantly soon enough. Probably tomorrow we'll see some impressive growth. Or well the start of it.
However, her leaves are kinda crinkly. I need to figure this out. Is the light too bright?! No way. No fucking way. The DLI is like 21 mol. And was 16.7 mol. last week. I'm pretty sure this strain likes light. Imma take a peeky peek... Says nothing about lighting. But it does like nutrients and lots of them. I'll have to keep that in mind. Maybe I don't have enough in there. That could be the cause of the deformed leaves. I'm going to find out somehow.
I looked it up and I have it narrowed down to lighting or Nutrients. It's really hard to tell when she just started to veg. I honestly should have left it in Germination for last week and started veg this week. Now it's all messed up. Lol. Oh well. So we'll have a 5 week veg stage. But it's still not gonna change the growth cycle.
Also, the pH was high. It was at 6.6. So that is now pHed down to 5.8. EC and TDS didn't change at all.
Temp was 67° after replacing the ice bottles.
01/19/2026
I think I figured out the issue with the crinkling leaves. The fans at night were blowing at level 6 which is really windy in a 3x3 with 2 fans. Now it's down to level 2 like it should be. Oops.
On a better note, she's on her third her node now and looking like she's about to explode with growth. I'm also seeing teeny tiny side branches coming out. So I'm not seeing any issues with growth. So I guess everything is all good. Great color. Nice full leaves. Thin though. Although it is like the first week of veg. We'll see.
Oh yah, the water was warm this morning. I definitely need to add ice bottles before I go to bed. No bad smell though, so that's good. Last run I got a brown algae bloom and it wreaked like warm piss. Nasty.
So far everything looks good in that regard.
I still need to figure out how to get temp in the tent to actually get stable. It can't hold anything. Like if the level goes below 8 on the heater, the temp drops to like 71° like immediately. I don't understand. Last run it was not like this. It hung out at a solid 75° with minimal assistance from the heater. I really don't get it. And the humidity is even worse. The humidity plummets hard. I get that it's winter and the temps are low and the humidity next to nothing, but like damn man.
However, I just thought of something. I had my AC running the whole time last run. Just to keep the temp in check and the air quality better. That could have played a major role. Granted it's the exact temp in here that I was keeping it at with the AC. I dunno. Just a thought. Clean air and all.
That's all for now.
Update:
She has 2 long roots now. Looking awesome!
01/20/2026
She's starting to grow now. The roots are getting super long and more are popping out. I have a good feeling about this. She looks great! And seems to be quite happy with the nutrient water. Very green growth. She's definitely healthy and happy.
I totally forgot to change the ice bottles out again, so I did as soon as I got out of bed. Saying "shit! I forgot the damned ice bottles!" Lol. I didn't even take measurements as I was like half awake when I did it. Now I'm waiting a few hours while the ice bottles do the thing. Unfortunately, I won't be able to swap them out again until later this evening. I set a reminder on my phone, so I'll remember.
As for measurements. I'm not expecting any changes just because there's 2 roots in the water. So I'm looking for the pH and temp. I'll check the EC and TDS, but I don't think those measurements are needed currently. That's more for next week when the growth becomes vigorous, or well should if not already.
The lighting is perfect btw, she has a great reach and isn't stretching super fast. Very evenly paced. Slightly praying just like she should be. The environment on the other hand is a solid mess. The humidity is bouncing all over the place because of the fans. But also because I don't have the air filter in the ventilation system yet.
I need to change out the charcoal or take it out, shake all the nasty stuff out and put it back in. The carbon isn't bad yet, just clogged. I need some canned air I think. I don't have an air compressor. Lol. But what I think I need to do is dump the charcoal, clean out the mesh from the filter and put the charcoal back in. Gotta wait for my new handy dandy compressed air thingy to come in.
01/21/2026
I finally remembered to switch out the ice bottles last night. The water was somewhat cool. Around 70° f. I forgot to take readings. But I'm pretty good at feeling the temp out.
She looks great! Broad leaves though. The description said really thin leaves. We'll see how she turns out. It's really too early to tell what she's gonna do.
So I definitely started the veg stage in the diary about a week too early. So now it's like day 3 of the veg stage in real life. We are on week 2 in the diary. SMH. Oh well. I think I addressed this when I started my second week as veg, but I can't remember. So here's a reminder I guess.
The heat seems to have caught up. It's now at 75°, but not holding very well. The heater remains on and overheated for like an hour last night. Then it did it again this morning, but I just turned it off for 10 minutes while I swapped out the ice bottles and took a couple pics.
Her tiny branches are starting to show more. I can't wait for them to shoot out so I can cut them off in 2 weeks. Lol. I also took a quick measurement. 3.5" tall. We started the week at 2" and have grew an inch and a half in 5 days. Not sure how much I like that. I'd love to see a half inch a day. Up until flowering. That'll give me a 17" plant by flower. If it grows twice that tall, I'll have a nice sized plant. That's based on a 4 week veg stage. If it turns out to be 5 weeks, well, the plant will be much bigger to start.
Not much else to talk about today. Kinda just letting her do her thing. I've observed. She's healthy, happy and a beautiful green.
01/22/2026
We have foliage! Wow. Like overnight boom. Right on time. Now there will be some vigorous growth.
What happened here? Oh I was busy. My bad everyone.
01/23/2026
The water was a bit warm this morning. I think I need to swap these bottles out every 4 to 5 hours. Not happening. I need a different solution. Maybe the heater hose needs to go somewhere else.
pH: 6.1
EC: 1059
TDS: 540
Temp: 68.5
So I bought a hand held air compressor to clean the dust from the air filter. The carbon isn't spent yet, it was just clogged. Now it's unclogged. Lesson learned. Use pre-filter and replace pre-filter when it gets all clogged up.
There's still a bit of resistance, but not bad.
She looks great. Good color, but it looks like she'll be needing a new dose of nutrients when next week starts. I think tomorrow. Half dose and we'll see what happens. Worst case scenario, it's too hot and I have to swap out a gallon of plain water. No big deal. A gallon would put it down between the 1/4 dose and the 1/2 dose. We'll see though.