Blitzman734's Capnish Style Blue Dream & Crimea Blue First Grow - 2016

[blitzman734]

Hello Everyone,
This is my first grow and grow journal so hopefully you'll be understanding if im not some elite grower immediately but after a couple months of research and reading particularly of the capn style method I decided to pull the trigger and give it a shot. I understand my method may not be exactly capn style. I'm trying to stay as close as I can though.

What strain is it? Blue Dream and Crimea Blue

Is it in Veg or Flower stage? Veg

If in Veg... For how long? I've had the blue dream for a week today and have had the crimea blue for 3 days. I received them both very rooted and in 2 inch rockwool cubes that I transplanted into a 6inch netpot of rockwool mini cubes. The 6inch netpot sits currently inside a 1 gallon nursery pot until I feel its time to go bigger. My focus like the capn method is for them to have a daily wet and dry cycle and be significantly lighter and need water every morning. I was told the blue dream had received 2 weeks of 24/7 light and i didnt get a estimate on the blue crimea but having much less growth i assume 1 week of light for it. Its one of the surprisingly hard things I noticed when you get clones, you get bs answers as to how old they are and I am not educated enough to tell completely myself.

Indoor or outdoor? Indoor, in a 4x4x7 Apollo Tent.

Soil or Hydro? Soil-less rockwool minicubes
If soil... what is in your mix? 100% rockwool minicubes
If soil... What size pot? 6inch netpot sitting in a 1 gallon nursery pot.
Size of light? 4 light T5 6500k.
Temp of Room/cab? Can be seen in the pics I will post but 77 degrees and I try to come as close to 50% humidity as possible. I try to stay at 50 or under for powdery mildew fear lol.
PH of media or res? 5.8, currently being hand watered.
Any Pests ? No
How often are you watering? Daily but checking a couple times a dry for dryness of the rockwool.
Type and strength of ferts used? I'm using the GH three part that capn recommends.


So starting off i'll give you the brief history of how my first week has been. Its funny how you read so much material and obsess over the details and still make the mistakes of things you remember reading lol. I also found some things to be true that I didnt read or see posted commonly. I started off with just the blue dream and I fed it the full capn line of GH products. I did 400 ppm of a 3-2-1 G-M-B. I added all of the additives first as well mixing properly individually, etc including PH after. Additives included the calmag, silica, florablend, and floralicious. PH was at 5.8 and i fed it for two days with this. Maybe it was too much i'm not sure but first lesson learned I on day three waking up. What in the hell, why do all my leaves look droopy and have the claw really bad. Well appears it was nitrogen toxicity. I fed for a day with only RO water (which is what i've used for the start) and after I switched to a 300-400ppm of 1-1-1 GMB per gallon with 4ml of calmag and a couple drops of silica to fine tune the ph up to 5.8. This has been working well and i'm going to attach progress pics of what i've seen progress ways from the last fews days of that. I'm curious when I should switch to the 3-2-1 and when I should top the blue dream as well which is the plant on the left.

Hopefully it is a productive grow, fingers crossed.

 

[Stinky Snid]

Nice start man, looks like you've got a hang of things. Interesting that your using rockwool cubes as a medium, suppose it's basically hydro then eh? Cool beans, I'll keep watching as they grow.
KiG cheers

 

[blitzman734]

Blitzman734's Capnish Style Blue Dream & Crimea Blue First Grow - 2016

Hey snidrajsed,
appreciate the positive feedback. Yea rockwool cubes is what I chose as they allow for a lot of oxygen in the root zone, ensure the ph of the root zone isnt very different from what your feeding because of how easy it drains every watering is kind of a flush. Im focusing at the moment on the plants and getting comfortable with how much the ph drifts in my res, etc but after i plan to setup a top feed hydro halo to run once daily with top offs and frequent changes of the res. Im building towards it but after the nitrogen toxicity im a little fearful of anything automated and not micromanaged. Ive setup the webcam to snap pictures and automatically create time lapses that i view throughout the day to ensure i catch issues early.

 

[blitzman734]

Im curious if anyone can offer the help, when to top. On the bigger point none of the nodes have a clear Y, the new growth springs up like halfway up the y arch. That plus when to switch from 1-1-1 to 3-2-1 nutrient mix

 

[blitzman734]

I ended up topping the blue dream, it had new growth showing enough on both sides of the apical top so i gave my first attempt at topping a shot and turned out well i think.

 

[blitzman734]

Mixed up a new batch of nutrients. Added florablend to the mix again and after watering each with runoff I gave them each some recharge beneficial bacteria at the base of the plant. I inspected the blue dream on the left the bigger of the two and it appears a couple of pearly white roots are about to be poking out of the bottom. I may be transplanting it into the 1 gallon nursery pot to avoid having the roots grow through the mesh of the netpot. I was only utilizing the net pot because it was smaller and would ensure a proper wet dry cycle everyday. I think at this point with its size it will still see that with the 1 gallon size.

A nice trick I've learned while mixing nutrients is that silica is a natural ph up so instead of having to use the GH ph up ive been using a couple extra drops of silica at the end if needed. Still at 400ppm and 1ml per gallon of GMB and Florablend. CalMag at 4ml per gallon and enough silica to get the ph to 5.7 or 5.8.

I did a little very light bending on the fan leaves near the new growth on the blue dream I just topped to hopefully encourage a little faster growth.

This weekend I will be researching some foliar feeding. I've seen capn using dutchmaster liquid light and saturator but haven't got around to that yet with all the other learning I've been doing. I assume at the least I should be giving them a mist every few days with an atomizer bottle and I'll need to research and get that going this weekend as well. I've been hand watering them daily and giving them a lot of attention but I need to hook up some top feed automation this weekend so when I go out of town next weekend I have a way of watering them at least until I'm back on sunday. I'm thinking of just setting up a smaller scale version of capn's flowering top feed boxes with a hydro halo.

Thats all for now. Here is an up to date pic. As its my first grow let me know if anything from my pics is showing some form of issue i'm not catching.

 

[Stinky Snid]

Bending those leaf stems will benefit the new growth shoots to emit from the internodes quicker. That tip on the silicate as a Ph up is excellent, only my Ph is always high so I need to bring it down. But I've now started the Ph perfect AN three part mix, it helps alot buy still need to bring the Ph down from 6.6+-, to 6.0 or less since it's soiless. My new Ph pen is great for the adjustments.

Goodluck with your hydro top feeder, there's tons of great tutorials on how to make one. Looking forward to seeing it in action.

KiG cheers

 

[blitzman734]

Transplanted the larger of the two which is the blue dream into a one gallon nursery pot as the roots were starting to poke through the net pot.

This being my first grow i'm looking for a little guidance and reference as to whether or not i'm on the right track. Visually i'm a little nervous. I guess I'm not sure what to expect to be seeing at this stage but I feel like I haven't quite dialed in the nutrient mix correctly. I'm watering with a large amount of runoff to ensure the ph of the root zone is getting exchanged with the 5.8 i'm mixing up but when I check the runoff a day later its usually a whole integer higher typically around 6.3-6.5. This is the first thing making me uneasy.

Second i'm watering daily with my nutrient mix but am I supposed to be giving just flat RO water every other day? I dont believe so but checking.

All of my leaves seem to have a little bit of a different look so I can comprehensively this or that matches how mine look. I do see progress though, I see productive growth and the roots are growing as well and looked pearly white and healthy when I checked them during transplant. Am I overreacting? Here is some close up pictures of each plant. I'd be very happy to get some feedback on how they look.

Blue Dream

Crimea Blue

 

[blitzman734]

My research led me to believe it might be an iron issue so i added a little more gh grow to give it a little phosphorus boost and it seems happy, leaves are perking and i see growth so ill just continue to monitor.

 

[Stinky Snid]

Is that algea on your cubes, that will lead to problems. As for the leaves it looks like a variety of deficiencies. I would just give them a slightly increased broad spectrum nute solution, cover all the bases. Some leaves look like nitrogen, others look like magnesium and/or like iron. But then they're clawing down also. I fear a lockout. Check everything again, and give them the broad nutes. Imo. Also keep in mind I'm not a hydro guy either

Sorry I'm not more specific, I'm learning to diagnose as well. Lits of pics to go by, I'm sure your research is as much mine.

KiG cheers

Ps. If you've fed already wait to see if it gets better before trying something else.

 

[blitzman734]

both ladies seem very happy with the small nutrient tweaks. Blue dream starting to rapidly grow. I topped the crimea blue as well.

 

[blitzman734]

What I did was add a little more micro and grow to the mix to make it more along the lines of the 3-2-1 GMB formula just not per gallon as it would have it way above 400ppm.

Ill clear out those algae cubes on the crimea blue. Its strange that ive only had an issue on that plant though. I may come up with some kind of reflective covering if it continues to happen. Thanks for the feedback though. I agreed with your diagnosis for sure. Seemed like it wanted a little more in general like you said.

 

[Stinky Snid]

Glad they're clearing up, that's what I assumed was needed. and algae is easy to rid yourself of... You got that covered... Pun intended.

KiG cheers

 

[blitzman734]

Blitzman734's Capnish Style Blue Dream & Crimea Blue First Grow - 2016

So I come bearing great news today. I finally got around to setting up the top feed recirculation system. I have a 160gph subpump and an airstone in the res. That travels up 1/2 tubing to the t splitter and then equal length tubing to two separate 6" hydro halos. I cut a hole in the top of a sterlite container big enough for a 6inch netpot for blocking the light but allowing drainage. I placed the piece of plastic I cut out roughly over the center of the netpot for increased coverage to keep the light from warming the res temp.

I'm again in rockwool minicubes so theres fast wet and dry cycle daily until the next scheduled feeding and with beneficial bacteria like recharge that i'm using once or twice a week I have some healthy pearly white roots.

The blue dream on the left is 3 weeks 3 days so a week or so here I need to setup the carbon filter and convert over to a 600w MH which will be my next project.

I've topped the blue dream in probably three or four more spots and bushing her out nicely. With a good amount of tops going and with the silica i'm using i've also been giving her some bending (only LST no supercropping, no having to waste energy on healing).

Here is a pic of the setup after the days adjustments.

 

[blitzman734]

Hello All,
Wanted to update my journal with current progress photos and info. For the blue dream on the left i'm currently at Week 3 Day 5 in these photos. The recirculation system got me through the weekend trip but wouldn't call it optimal. I'm dealing with a large amount of daily pH drift going from 5.6-7 to 6.5 or higher in 24 hours which seems crazy to me. I've heard of buffering RO water with 20% tap if its not hard. My tap is around 80-100ppm so debating trying that but i just dont like the idea of have my nutrient regime hijacked by tap water minerals / possible chroline. Not sure if everyone deals with this but im having to add ph down every night now making it less than automated lol.

Plant growth has been phenomenal I actually burned just a couple of leaves because the growth over the weekend was so vigorous a couple of fan leaves made there way into the t5. They are both getting bushy as I've taken multiple tops from each.

I've got my carbon filter and exhaust system operational now. Having to run the humidifier a little more to compensate for the greater rate of air exchange which i'm sure the plants are happy with. I plan on purchasing a 600w HID system this week and not looking forward to having to deal with all the variables that go with that change but i'm sure the plants will enjoy the extra light penetration, etc and i really want this second month of veg to beef them up.

Here are the images but please let me know if you have any ideas on how to minimize the pH swing. I'd like it to swing from 5.7 to 6.3 over the course of a couple days, not one lol.

 

[blitzman734]

Heyyyy everybody,
Hope everyone had an amazing 4-20. I spent mine enjoying some fine smoke and at the beginning of week 7 putting the first scrog net down on my girls. Sorry for the lack of updates along the way but once I get the nutrient mix dialed in which is really just following the capn nutrient schedule (google it) and removing floralicious plus. I don't know what it is about floralicious my girls don't like but i tried it twice in small amounts and it caused the same nitrogen toxicity each time. Other than that they are doing amazing. The blue dream is nice as bushy and the crimea blue is a amazing strain for a tent. very dense foliage and compact.

Both girls are in 5 gallon pots and have a very large root mass. The root growth is so fast and i'm not even into flower yet i'm debating transplanting them into a 7 gallon fabric pot with the hopes they will finish without being root bound because I don't have a ton of clearance to keep getting bigger pots every week in a half like its been going. I know the fabric/airpots air prune the roots so hopefully it doesnt stunt it too much but I can worry less about the circling going on in the nursery pots.

I will say now I completely agree with the capn. Vegging for 7 to 8 weeks instead of 4 exponentially increases the growth and i'm hopeful to say it pay large dense dividends in the upcoming two months. I just placed the net last night so i'm going to give it a couple days to bounce back before switching her over to 12/12. The good news is that with all the silicate I've been feeding her and daily low stress training I got both plants under the net and flat with no monster cropping or stems breaking.

Wish me luck. My first flower cycle is upon me.

The RO System I hooked up, got a great deal on amazon and its highly reviewed. Has been working great under my sink with a 3.5 gallon res.

April 9th - 5 weeks in

April 11th - beginning of week 6

April 15th - almost end of week 6

The net finally on - ignore the object in the front, thats gone now, just needed weight while setting it.

Top view of the net.

Zoomed out net view

Lower view

 

[David Bowman]

Hope all is well in your world.

Is this grow still alive?

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I am moving this to Abandoned Journals until we get updates.

Sending you lots of love and positive energy.