Dick23rk's Fresh Start: Mantis Nutrients Featuring MedicGrow's New Spectrum X+ 880w Light Panel

Well im not to sure what's up here but I'm guessing it's a mix of the low humidity and ph issue from the tap water used at the beginning. More so a ph issue. New growth seems unaffected which is good. Humidity domes went back on the pots and it seemed to take the crispness of the leaves away. I willnhave more of an update on this later tonight, sitting in first aid course today. Here's some pictures of them.

The SBC babies seem unaffected as well.

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Good day everyone! Another day of work done, but was just sitting in a first aid course lol Glad to be home where I could get back in the garden though considering I wasn't too sure what to expect this morning when I looked at the Skunks. So far this still just seems like a ph issue mixed with low humidity and there's no one to blame but myself haha. I'm sure they will come back around.

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So after I got home I got some things ready for the 2 new Big Bangs, both had split open and were showing the taproot. I decided to start these in some rockwool plugs I had kicking around, I don't have any of the rapid rooters or peat pods left right now. I mixed up another liter of my mantis nutrient mix (5ml/L) and poured some into a cup, then dropped 2 rockwool cubes in to soak. I read conflicting things about soaking until you seen bubbles stop appearing all the way up to 24 hours, I soaked them for a 1/2 hour. Once ready I let the cubes drip off the excess water, placed on a tray and set the seeds into the holes with taproot pointed up. Then took a very small piece of rockwool off the corner and covered up the hole so not light gets in and placed a dome over them under the T5's.

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I am not overly familiar with clay balls, but I rinsed these while in the net pots with RO water and they started to turn white like this on top after drying off. I'd imagine it's nothing to really worry about but I will keep an eye on it. The buckets have been running steady as a test with the equipment I have at the moment, it seems even the small pump and stones are still keeping half of the clay balls moist and the bottom of the net pots are wet with the water level being 2 or 3 inches below the bottom of the pot. Not bad, I cant imagine what it will be like once I get the bigger pump and stones :cheesygrinsmiley:
I will also be cutting out some tops from black/white poly to ensure no light gets into the res, the lids don't fit perfectly so I have to try something but also not restrict access. As well these will serve the purpose of keeping the rockwool and seedlings roots moist while I'm not home to top feed for the first couple weeks.

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Sundae Banana Cookie wee ones are still doing great, I have noticed some growth since feeding and there have been no adverse effects to be seen aside from one very tiny spot on a leaf tip. So the feed may be a little strong for seedlings but they can still take it just fine providing all other conditions are favorable. The real test will be to see how they hold up in the long run in flower for both the promix and dwc. Not much else to report on these ones, the only odd thing I've noticed is some of the next sets of leaves sprouting out are different sizes than the opposite side lol


Sundae Banana Cookies - Day 7
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Skunk #1 girls aren't so much babies anymore, I guess they are now kids. And with kids, sometimes there comes trouble lol. Nah it's not all that bad, just a little tattered and torn around the edges, they're coming out of it. Again as mentioned above, I'm quite sure this is the ph fluctuation from using that dreaded tap water and it should come out of it soon. Eventually those off looking leaves wont be there because it will be topped and stripped to be trained, likely all having 8 tops in the end. The switch to flower will likely be whenever the dwc plants are ready to flip since im sure they will catch up. So here's some pictures of the skunks, let me know what you think could be going on.

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That's all for today folks. Likely another update in 2 days. I will always keep you informed of any big changes though if they come up or a simple couple pictures to keep a daily update of sorts. Take care and keep it green! :snowboating:
 
HashFart said:
I don't know what to say dick you seem to be set up like a boss with awesome photos ,,,,,, brother you got a God dam water analysis from the town!!!!! Hell yeah brother! It makes me nervous about what's hiding in my tap water I'm stoked to see the sundae banana cookies
Click to expand...
It's far from perfect, you may not see the low budgeting in did in the pictures but its all there haha it's been a work in progress, I actually started Journaling in a 4x4x7 home made poly tent with an old style ballast and 430w hps. Moved up from there to the room and been purchasing things here and there for about 5 years.

Yeah, anyone can go to their town or city office and get a copy of their water analysis, they have to do it every month and you pay for the water they deliver, dam right they'll give you one lol ornof you have a drilled or dug well you can still pay for one to be done. It's good to know what's in there, now I won't be using tap water at all with almost 1500ppm.

I'm stoked about the banana cookies as well, they were a bit more pricey than I'd like to pay for seeds but they were on sale and I have heard good things.
Grand Daddy Black said:
Brings back memories. :p
Click to expand...
Little flashback for ya gdb? I bet you were a master grower with lots of plants at one point in your life? :ganjamon: :cheesygrinsmiley:
 
Hello, hello, here we are again with another 2 day update. We have liftoff with a big bang and I've noticed a fair bit of difference in all the plants since the last update, I'd say they're getting their roots settled into that feed they just got.

I took all the pictures at a bit different angle this time around with a white background, let me know what you think, I could always find some black fabric. I need to make up a spot for taking my photos when the plants get bigger, it's easy to take nice pictures when they are small.

Let's keep this update simple and have a look at what's going on with all the up and coming ladies...

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Big Bang - Day 1
We have a newborn, and an almost born. I came home from work to this gal below poking out of the rockwool and starting to open up those cotyledon leaves. It's a beautiful sight. I pulled the tiny plug out of the hole on the other cube and the head is right there about to curve up, it's a tight squeeze coming up out of those little holes lol. I'm hoping the other one is out before the night is over or by morning so I can still consider both on day 1.

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Sundae Banana Cookies - Day 9
These gals are doing great, when I took the domes off earlier I was thinking wow, that 2nd set of leaves has really put on some size compared to the last pictures. They are soaking up the nutrients well and showing no signs of burn, pretty good for young seedlings at roughly 500ppm. Not much else to report on them today, they are loving life.

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Skunk #1 - Day 17
Seems like all of these plants are starting to come back around after their ph battle. The effected leaves are pretty much done for but all of the new growth still looks great. All of them have 3 nodes now and working on the 4th. Once they have a solid 5 nodes they will be topped and the bottom 2 nodes stripped off, leaving nodes 3 and 4 as my mains. Hoping they are back on track now, I am starting to see a few roots poking out the bottom of their pots as well.

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And that concludes another day in the garden. Everyone play safe and keep it green :snowboating:
 
We have more movement on the baby big bangs, the 2nd one has crept out of its hiding space and man are they on the move. I went in the room around 6am and snapped the first picture. Went to work and got home before 4pm, check on them again and wow, they are taller, opened up and full of green! Have a looksie..

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I got one of my packages today, not the one I was hoping for but it still helps. Other stuff will be here Monday.
What I have for now is some digital aquarium thermometers to get a readout on my bucket reservoirs instead of using the floating ones. Buckets are sitting on the foam mats and still cooler than the room itself by a few degrees or so, but I believe this is within range and cooler water Temps are better since they don't grow bad bacteria as easily. Hope they stay this way even as the summer months come, the basement stays relatively cool.

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Morning all! Well, at least it's morning here in my part of the world. Happy shatterday none the less! I decided to get in the garden early this morning and grab my pictures for todays update, my pictures may reflect that today since my eyes likely still weren't working properly :laughtwo: need more java and doobies :nomo: I also had some visitors this morning checking things out.

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All the ladies in the garden seem to be doing really well now. It will be time for another feeding likely tomorrow. I have been leaving the domes off for most of the day now (except the big bangs) as well as last night and they all seem to be adjusting to the low humidity. Also the small 6" fan blowing lightly on them to try and get the main stems built up some.

Lets have a look at everyone and get a little more into detail..

Big Bang - Day 2
Loving that these 2 are doing so well in the rockwool, I do not have a lot of experience with it and have read that the ph can rise in it sometimes? Can anyone confirm this? I have big 6" rockwool blocks for the bucket lids I have, but not going to try that yet. I have just been making sure the rockwool plugs don't get dry, a little squirt of the mantis nutrient mix is all they've gotten since they were soaked.

Starting to get a taproot poking out the bottom of one cube now, won't be long now and we will see more emerging. So this weekend I am going to clean out the buckets and rinse the clay balls once more to be ready for an easy transplant later in the week when there's lots of root growth and all my other supplies shows up. My first dwc well on it's way :yahoo: I feel like it should have had it's own journal. I hope it doesn't get too confusing in here.

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Sundae Banana Cookies - Day 11
All 6 of these little ones are still moving along and have a nice healthy green appearance, the growth rate on these is starting to pick up. The nutrients haven't phased them at all, in fact they should be ready for another quick feed tomorrow, it's been almost 1 week since they were soaked. They will mostly get watered around the outer edge this time to help get those roots spread out with a little at the base of the stem to keep it moist and producing root growth, not sure if it helps but it works for me.

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Skunk #1 - Day 19
Super happy that these gals have come back around, new growth that wasn't effected by that ph issue has been growing strong and not showing any problems. Leaves are getting more broad and they have stretched up a bit more, working on that 5th node. I feel like my growth rate takes a big heat during the winter months with the super low humidity, my plants thrive better in the summer. Bring on spring already!!

These plants will for sure be ready for a drink tomorrow, with all the new healthy growth the roots have been sucking back the moisture. Hopefully by next weekend they can be topped and start getting some nodal growth happening to be trained. They will also soon be ready for a transplant too, likely up to a 1 gallon when that happens and they will move under the MH lights to start some real growth. Fingers crossed!

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That's all for now folks, I best go roll up another supertron doobie and get on with this day. It's supposed to be 11c degrees here today and time to get outside and do something. Likely just yard work though haha. Have a great day all and keep it green out there!
 
Reave said:
Good looking start. New growth looks great!
Click to expand...
Thanks Reave, I'm glad they turned around like they did. No more tap water in this garden lol
 
I think I can, I think I can.. screw it, I know I can! Haha, I'm going to top these skunk ladies nice and early, normally I'd wait for a little more growth but these ones are being slow (or I'm impatient) and I want to get that slow nodal growth exploding. As mentioned before, bottom 2 nodes are being stripped and the 3rd and 4th will be kept to have 4 mains. I won't be topping these ones again, trying to make a quicker turnaround on this grow and get some of my older seed stock used up. It's also feeding day again, so I'll get all this done and be back with an update later. Hope everyone is doing well!

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Alrighty folks, I'm back with pictures and an update after feeding and lopping tops! I will do this as a 2 part update just to try and keep it clean. First off, we will take a look at the topping process and what went on there, then the 2nd post will be our update for the day. Let's get at it..

So today I decided it was time to get those tops snipped off and get the plants energy moving towards growing out those 4 nodal branches that will now be our mains. A lot of the time you will see me top and just take 2 mains out then top again, but it's not a big deal how you do it, you will still get 4 nice sized colas in the end.

First, I rounded up a few simple things to get us started.
-99% isopropyl alcohol - to clean and sterilize the scissors
-paper towels - to wipe down the scissors and work area
-something to put the alcohol in to soak the scissors
-the trimming scissors

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I soaked the scissors for a few minutes while I gathered up the plants to be topped and had them beside the table. Wiped the scissors down real good to make sure there wasn't something on them that could get into the cut wounds on the plants and infect it somehow. Also wiped down the table with a few drop of alcohol for good measure. That simple, now we're ready to start.

I bring a plant on to the table, count from the bottom up and identify exactly what parts I am going to cut off. All of these plants I'm doing today are at the same stages so that makes it easy. Here is where I plan to make the cuts on all these plants to keep the 3rd and 4th nodes.

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So I lightly brush back the leaves some if they are in the way and then I grab the top new growth from the underside and close my thumb and finger around it as if I was just going to pinch it off, but I just hold it there. I get my scissors ready and arm steady, then carefully place the scissors where I want to cut making absolutely sure that I am not going to cut any of the nodal growth shown in this next picture where I cut. Then I take off the bottom 2 nodes being sure to take the node growth away with it.

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And there we have it, a top lopped off, it's just that easy, even when the plants are small. I've topped when I only had 3 nodes as well and just grew out the 2 mains that way.

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It's not the most informative, but someone may come across it and be able to use it. I know there's lots of topping info out there so my way is not the only way, just how I prefer to do things. Thanks
 
Now onto the plants update.. Not that much else has changed from yesterday aside from what we just went over with the topping and getting a feed a today. We will dive into it and be done in no time now I'm sure.

All the plants got their feeding, including wetting the rockwool cubes on the babies destined for the dwc buckets.
Again they got enough nutrient mix to just get a little runoff, I wont be wasting much of these nutrients since then I am wasting money. Skunk's got about 250ml (1 cup) each while the SBC's got about 150-200ml since they still had a little moisture in the medium.
Nutrients mixed at 5ml per liter of RO water (mineralized)


Big Bang - Day 3
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Sundae Banana Cookies - Day 12
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Skunk #1 - Day 20
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I've noticed this last picture (right above) has a couple of twisted leaves, could be from the fan since I turned it up but I will look into the causes that could be possible as I can't remember right now what may cause this. I didn't notice if it was this way when I topped it or not either. I'm sure it will be just fine, they're looking good for just having their heads popped off and drowning the roots :goof::morenutes:

That's it for another day in the garden. Tomorrow will be another day after work when the rest of my supplies comes in. Then I can get the dwc buckets rinsed once more and ready to have plants put in them. Also set up the new air pump and stones in them. We will get more into that when the time comes. Have a great Sunday folks! Keep it green out there!
 
dick23rk said:
Alrighty folks, I'm back with pictures and an update after feeding and lopping tops! I will do this as a 2 part update just to try and keep it clean. First off, we will take a look at the topping process and what went on there, then the 2nd post will be our update for the day. Let's get at it..

So today I decided it was time to get those tops snipped off and get the plants energy moving towards growing out those 4 nodal branches that will now be our mains. A lot of the time you will see me top and just take 2 mains out then top again, but it's not a big deal how you do it, you will still get 4 nice sized colas in the end.

First, I rounded up a few simple things to get us started.
-99% isopropyl alcohol - to clean and sterilize the scissors
-paper towels - to wipe down the scissors and work area
-something to put the alcohol in to soak the scissors
-the trimming scissors

20210314_122427.jpg

20210314_122427.jpg


I soaked the scissors for a few minutes while I gathered up the plants to be topped and had them beside the table. Wiped the scissors down real good to make sure there wasn't something on them that could get into the cut wounds on the plants and infect it somehow. Also wiped down the table with a few drop of alcohol for good measure. That simple, now we're ready to start.

I bring a plant on to the table, count from the bottom up and identify exactly what parts I am going to cut off. All of these plants I'm doing today are at the same stages so that makes it easy. Here is where I plan to make the cuts on all these plants to keep the 3rd and 4th nodes.

20210314_113602.jpg

20210314_113602.jpg


So I lightly brush back the leaves some if they are in the way and then I grab the top new growth from the underside and close my thumb and finger around it as if I was just going to pinch it off, but I just hold it there. I get my scissors ready and arm steady, then carefully place the scissors where I want to cut making absolutely sure that I am not going to cut any of the nodal growth shown in this next picture where I cut. Then I take off the bottom 2 nodes being sure to take the node growth away with it.

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And there we have it, a top lopped off, it's just that easy, even when the plants are small. I've topped when I only had 3 nodes as well and just grew out the 2 mains that way.

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It's not the most informative, but someone may come across it and be able to use it. I know there's lots of topping info out there so my way is not the only way, just how I prefer to do things. Thanks
Click to expand...
That is very informative.. superb.
 
Ladies seem to just be loving life after that feed today and the topping hasn't stopped the response from these skunks, they seem so happy.

After the topping and watering the skunks didn't even droop, they seemed thankful. A little droop from the young sbc's but they are right back at it.

Have a look at the differences in the skunks from this afternoon to tonight.

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Yep, they're a happy bunch.

Way to go, @dick23rk!
 
Oh the day has come and my goodies have arrived in the mail. So happy to have a working ph pen again along with a tds meter, and it all seems to be accurate. The air pump is working great with only 1 stone in there, I don't think there's a need for 2 of them that big in buckets. And I got the ratchet ropes up so I can adjust the ducting for the air cooled hoods when the lights need moved up or down. It's all still a work in progress, I was at it for a couple hours tonight to get this far.

I'm only on my phone doing this quick update instead of the laptop so we will keep it just that, quick... almost time for bed here.

I cleaned out the buckets and rinsed the clay balls once more with the RO water that was in them bubbling and wiped them out. Drilled a new hole for the air line to go in the side of the bucket, then got my air line, stones and pump set out. I set up the stones with a 90 degree fitting so there's no chances of bending.

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Once that was all ready I proceeded to mix up the reservoirs nutrient mix. Again at 5ml per liter with mantis nutrients. Once I calculated that out I was thinking oh crap, that's a 19L jug, that's 95ml of nutrients.. So I mixed it up and this is what I got, pictures are after nutes ph and tds, RO water was 6.7 I believe before nutes.

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So the ppms are only supposed to be around 500 with these nutes, the ph was in range. There was likely less than 19L of water in the jug, so I added around a litre or more to each bucket and got the ppm down just under 500 and ph was the same, means the ph buffers are working, was hoping for a little lower like 5.8.

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Soaked the stones for a bit, went for a smoke break. Came back and decided to see how they bubble and I'm very impressed. I like how when they sit on the bottom there is space between the stone and the bucket, so it will keep the nutes stirred up good.

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I got some round pieces of poly cut to go over the tops, this will help keep light out from around the edges and keep some moisture built up around the rockwool so it doesn't dry it. I will need to hand water a couple times a day I'm sure until roots reach the water.
I pulled out about half the clay balls and got the babies situated deep enough so they were just poking up out of the top. Layer clay balls back in around them for support and to fill the basket.
Got the light lowered down to 4 feet above at the moment, I'd like them to stretch just a little, then I will lower to about 3 feet.

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Thats it for tonight folks I gotta get to bed. Any questions please feel free to ask, or if there's something I should do then suggest it! We are in this together :passitleft:

Take care all, good night! I'll be back tomorrow after work.
 

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