10/21/2025 Week 3 of veg. We are looking great for Lemon Cherry Cookies. She's 8" tall. Not quite the 12 inches I was hoping for at this age. But she is strong. Great stem, or should I say stalk or trunk? It's hardening off now and getting big. She's not taking in a ton of water. I'll top her up this afternoon after lights out. Papaya Cookies looks like she's about to tip over from the affected area on her stem. I think the infection is gone now. It's just a matter of healing. I'll continue using crop defender 3 until she's totally healed and no longer cannibalizing herself. But I don't know how I'm going to prop her up. As it is definitely needed. Or well from what I can see, she needs it. See picture. Anyway, this week, I'm going to try to be a bit more organized. You know, organize the pics so you see the same plant over and over. So you can see the progress without having to flip through pics. Also, I'll try to keep my thoughts in check. Environment this week. So it's about the same as last week. 63% humidity and 75° for temp. The VPD should stay around that 1.10 kPa. The difference is I'm increasing the nutrients a little bit and officially adding silica blast. I'm also trying to increase the CO2 so I can increase the light intensity. The light distance is also going to change. I may lift it up and crank the power so I have a tent flooded with light. I'm gonna want a DLI of like 30 mol. Right now it's around 20. Should be higher than that. Who knows, maybe I'll start today at 25 mol, and bring it up slowly to 30 by the end of the week. If I'm not mistaken, I should be around 40 when flowering hits. 45 to 50 if I can get the CO2 to work. The light is 300 watts in a 3x3 tent. So I should t have a problem with intensity. I'd also like to note that the hangers the light came with take away about 8 inches of space. I'll be fixing that as soon as I run out of space. I also have the CO2 bag sitting just above the light. The bag is pretty big, so it might take up more space than I can handle. I'll figure it out though. For the light, I think I'll add independent clips to each corner. So I can lift it up high enough for more growth. Anyway, that's my pre lights out briefing. I'll be back with the days numbers. Although, the numbers should be spot on. And they aren't. I'll be back with more stable numbers later on today. They really are mostly stable I promise. PPFD: 650 DLI: 42.5 mol (kinda high, but I'm seeing no light issues.) Temp: 73.3° RH: 62.9% VPD: 1.04 kPa 10/22/2025 I'd like to start today with a thanks to all that have been answering my recent questions. If you are one of those and you're reading this, again thank you all for your fountain of information. I'd like to explain what I believe happened. The environment was and still is perfect. The humidifier is barely running. There's also heat in the tent, so there's no issue with things drying out as they should. While I 100% believe there was a moisture issue, I don't believe it was from the environment. It's super perfect thanks to the efficiency of the AI controller I have. The roots look perfect as well. Nice and white. So no root rot. Also, for those of you who don't know I have a second plant in the tent and it's doing wonderfully. It's a Lemon Cherry Cookies by FastBuds. Great branching, awesome color, no issues whatsoever. She was fed and treated exactly the same as the dying Papaya Cookies. What I think happened is the splash from the top feeder was getting onto that specific area of the stem. You can tell when you touch it and all that comes off is salt. Not powdery mildew, but salt. Lots of it. SO, it was definitely from moisture, but not where everyone thought. But all your answers helped me to know what to look out for next time. Personally I don't think I need to go back to soil. As this is my first hydro grow and I have 1 plant that is perfect and one that is still growing pretty well, but is definitely having feeding troubles now. I do like the idea of tying a string to the top of the tent and holding her up. I might do that instead of the stake. The EC and PPM are on point. So it's not that. It has to be the splash of the top feeder. Which I fixed by adding more clay pebbles to help block the splash. So far it's working wonders. One last thing and I think it's a shot in the dark, but I have "The Other One" which is also a Papaya Cookies. If you're reading this you already know. But I haven't mentioned it. That one has what looks like the exact same problem. It was no where near the salts, humidifier or anything wet except for the tray with the water in the bottom. She has great roots for still in a seedling tray. But also has the same squeeze on her stem. Doesn't anyone find that odd? Let me know in a dm or the comments. I'm keeping her alive to see what happens. With that. I mean, she has no oxygen getting to the roots, so she will die eventually. But til then, I'll use her as a reference for under feeding and overfeeding. As I've done both so far. And she's not dead! But it definitely is doing the same thing. I took a picture just now. I'll post it for everyone to see. This makes me think that the specific type of fungus is dangerous to this specific strain. Has to be something like that. I'm gonna contact FastBuds for some insight. Again, thank you all for the help. Oh, the dying Papaya Cookies isn't dying anymore. She looks healthy except for the already damaged parts of the leaves. But nothing is spreading anymore. So I killed the fungus and the plant seems to be on the mend. I'll keep it and see what happens. If anything it's for... SCIENCE! Back to our regularly scheduled program. So today is a great day for Lemon Cherry Cookies. I'm not training her yet, I'm gonna wait for the scrog net I think. However, I really do want to train her down a bit. Maybe I'll do that today. Just a bit. I can't express how healthy she is. Never have I ever. And this is my first time in DWC. I think I like it to be honest. It's easier than guessing what's happening in the soil. I bought some training clips for her. I'm not really sure how I would attach tie downs to this particular bucket system. The lids kinda seal themselves to the bucket... In a way. So there's no space to put a clip or hook. So training clips it is! I really don't like them, but I've only had experience with cheap small ones. Maybe these larger ones will do better. They're the BudClips brand. So good I guess? I haven't really seen anything else that I recognize. So I just hung up the Papaya Cookies with some plant tie. I also took the largest 2 leaves on top. It opened up so much space and took some weight off. I know when a plant is recovering, clipping leaves is a no no, but as it stands ,she might die anyway, so why not give the bud sites a chance. Temp: 73.1° RH: 61.2% VPD: 1.08 kPa Quick update: I increased the light intensity to 450 PPFD. It was a bit too low for this stage. I think next week I can put it up to a 35 DLI. We'll see. 10/23/2025 This was a floating day for the pH. It was sitting pretty at 6.18 for the whole day and night. When dark time is over, I'll pH them back down to 5.8. A lot of growth from Lemon Cherry Cookies. Not much upward, but who cares, she's growing outward. All I need to do is trim some leaves and tuck some others. Papaya Cookies looks like she is mostly recovered from her infection. The leaves look great, I left 2 semi damaged ones on just in case. So I'll see what's happening with already damaged leaves and leave the rest alone for the most part. She's been tied up to the light which is maxed out in height. So she won't tip over. We'll see how she does in the coming weeks. Both ladies are given the same mix of nutrients. And Lemon Cherry Cookies is looking fantastic. Papaya Cookies looks pretty good herself. I think next week, we'll bump the nutes up another 1/4 teaspoon. So that would be 1.5 teaspoons. 10/24/2025 It's still lights out for the next 45 minutes, so I'll just update quick and then a quick update later. Right now, Papaya Cookies is stretching. Not fast, but still fast enough where I need to tighten the plant tie so there's less slack. Lemon Cherry Cookies is completely perfect. I'll be upping the nutrients for sure next week. I snipped some leaves off before lights out, so technically yesterday. Just a few. A couple big ones that were pointing in. And a couple others. I also got my budclips training things. I hope the branches aren't too stiff. I could definitely have worked a couple days ago, but these things grow really fast. The only problem I'm having is tie downs. I can't use them. Not with DWC. Atnleast not with this system. It's completely sealed. As in no gaps from the lid to the bucket. Anyway, that's all for today. Our ladies are alive and kicking. Temp: 73.6° average daily (includes lights out) RH: 61% VPD: 1.10 kPa Quick update: so it's after lights out and still the 24th. But I had to share. I just did the absolute best training I have ever done. Those BudClips. So easy! Well, Lemon Cherry Cookies was a bit difficult because she was starting to really stiffen up. But I got all of it on the long run. Papaya Cookies was super easy and came out perfect. At least perfect for my experience. Lol. Best I've ever done. Too bad she isn't going to do much because of the thin stem. 10/25/2025 Good things today, good things. Let's see, real quick, both ladies got a small haircut today. Just freeing up a little space. Cutting the inward facing leaves and ones that were pointing straight down. Not a ton. Honestly, Lemon Cherry Cookies doesn't look like she had much cut, but it was enough. Papaya Cookies looks much more open, but that's because her leaves are smaller for now. She's about a week or so behind. So training turned out to be perfect. They were both completely recovered in less than 12 hours. Now for the awesome news! Lemon Cherry Cookies has white pistils! Preflower baby! We might actually have an 8 week plant on our hands here. Papaya Cookies seems to have them too, but not as prominent. I'm guessing she will follow in flower within the next few days. Maybe by the end of the week. Definitely time to up the nutrient dose. That being said, I believe after training, we have a couple 10" plants to start the preflower transition. I'd be very happy with a couple 30" plants. "The Other One" I dunno man, this plant is going to die someday. Imagine it pulls through and flowers. One big bud. Like the size of a regular cola. Pfft. Definitely not gonna happen, but we shall see. Temp: 73.2° RH: 60.8% VPD: 1.10 kPa Quick pic update. If you look at the pic of Papaya Cookies stem, you can see the bottom is getting thicker as the plant heals. I think she's gonna make it. I almost forgot a thing. So in my fungal infection question, someone mentioned that my humidifier was too close. Even though it doesn't run much, I decided to take the advice and stuck on the hose it came with and hung it about 2 ft above the canopy. From what I can tell, it's working better. So thanks for the advice! It barely ran before, but what it would do sometimes is blast fog for like 5 minutes to get the humidity back up. It's usually when I set the system to tent work. (It's a 15 minute timer where the heater and humidifier turn off and the light turns down to 1.) While I'm in there, obviously the temp and humidity drop. That could have been a contributing factor. Cuz when the tent turns back on, the heater blasts for a good 5 minutes with the humidifier dropping 8 levels of fog right on the stem. Now it drops on the leaves. I think we have a false alarm with Lemon Cherry Cookies. I don't think she's in preflower, but Papaya Cookies sure is. Definitely. I'll get some pistil pics tomorrow. 10/26/2025 Not much today. I'll be checking pH after lights on. I took off this tiny pathetic lowest branch off of Papaya Cookies. From what I can see, she didn't mind in the slightest. Honestly it popped off really easily. I didn't even use shears. Just a little push down and pop she goes. I hope the rest of the branches aren't like that. They'll be snapping from the weight of the buds. Lol. I also took 3 leaves off. The damaged ones from the infection. And one random huge leaf sticking out of the bottom. Lemon Cherry Cookies looks great! She could use a little more of a haircut. But I'll wait a few days. She's definitely not in preflower. Bummer. I was really hoping for a super fast run. Well, it looks like we might have a normal run. Let's hope for an insane plant. Can I just vent for a minutes about how annoying it is to live across from a church on Sundays. All the kids and I can't smoke a bowl yet. Damnit. I don't smoke in front of children. Damned kids coming to church and being all there and whatnot. Oh hey, they all went inside. BOWWWWWL! BAHAHAHAHAHA Update: I know I thought we had pistils on Lemon Cherry Cookies but not. Well they're here now. See picture. White pistils! And it starts! The race to the end. Who will win the glory of being sacrificed to the great Doobie Gods? 10/27/2025 Not much going on today. Did a little bit of extra training. Pulled the top down on the Papaya Cookies. It was starting to get way too high over the canopy. I have this one branch on Lemon Cherry Cookies is super long. I had to train it down twice. Good things are happening! The other one: I didn't even bother looking at her today. Environment: Perfect as always. The CO2 is super bouncy. I can't wait for the NEW exhale bag. Hopefully it works. Lighting: I'll be changing the lighting tomorrow with the new week in Flower. Currently the light is topped out on the ceiling. I'm pretty sure I can take the tethers off if need be. Anyway, I'll be increasing the light intensity tomorrow as well. All the way up from 9 to 10. Hahahaha. I might have to drop the light. But we shall see. Nutrients: I'll be adding some bloom nutes and backing off the grow nutes. I think I do this for 2 weeks starting tomorrow. It's perfect timing. I need to swap out the water, add new nutes and change the lighting. What a start to next week. Anyway, to wrap it up. We had a very good week. Both plants are healthy and happy. Even Papaya Cookies. We had some good growth, some perfect training and a super light defoliation. All is well. Welp, see you next week on the flowering side!