Frustrated

[Italixxx]

Hey man just a little progress report, also had a few questions if you'd be so kind as to indulge me for just a moment. So these are the three sprouts that I was worried about a few weeks ago, these pictures are 4 weeks from seed. There's two girls in the pot on the right, and the one on the left was the one I was most worried about. It grew two sets of true leaves, the leaves grew really big really fast and then stopped, a few days after they showed no sign of vigor, two new shoots came out below the top set of true leaves essentially topping itself, this is my first grow so I didn't know what was going on, never seen that before, then again I've never seen any of this before lol. The two on the right have been pretty good right from day one. My only concern is the space they're competing for. Any way I gotta ask, is this growth size normal for being four weeks old? I keep hearing about people putting their girls into flower after four weeks, in hydro, for huge yields, and I gotta say after four weeks, these girls don't look like they're anywhere near ready to put out huge yields. Also just a quick question about the spots and weird looking tips on the serrations of them fan leaves, this is mild nute burn yea? I dosed them with about 150 ml of each GH flora series nute, at 3 weeks, so I don't know if I over dosed em, but it's a 50 gallon system approx, anyway the tips shrivelled a bit and growth appeared to stunt, but it never really stopped. It was around this time I switched from 24/0 to 18/6 and I noticed a dramatic increase in their root development, finally! was starting to worry. The plant on the left at the moment has a few roots dipping into the soup while the ones on the right have much more root growth coming down into the res already. I change my Rez every 2 weeks, it's a lot of work lugging 10 5 gallon bottles of purified water in the house down the stairs and into the mixing tote lol, but worth it if I can accomplish a decent yield. I also during the end of the 3rd week turned the light up to 1000w and the temps in the tent went up to 79 I turned on the fan and it brought it down to 75 but the leaves started to droop, I figured it was because of the rez's temp and its corresponding inability to maintain desirable dissolved oxygen levels, so I turned back to 750, and they recovered rather quickly. Anyway I just wanted to tell someone about the progress lol because that's what it is, I just was wondering if I'm on schedule or not. Also what do you think about the 24/0 vs 18/6 debate? Cheers and thanks for reading

 

[Italixxx]

My post was meant for you because you inspired me to push forward. Good on you.

 

[Faic]

First, you should break up your post into easier to read paragraphs.

You're also in the new grower yield syndrome. You should get those ideas properly wrangled and put into the background. Yield will follow proper growing. As far as how your plants are doing, this is only the veg stage, be patient. The plants look good, and one thing you mentioned in your post is that the roots had just hit the res. Growth will accellerate when the roots actually hit the nutes, so things will begin to happen a bit more predictably for the most part.

The tip turning could be pH or heat, but burning is usually discoleration vs a twisting, but you're in hydro. You can check all those numbers and make corrections as needed, much like how you're adjusting your lights. You should keep your lights as constant as you can (someone doing hps correct me here, since I'm on cfl) I think, and look at other variables first. You want the environment as consistant as possible.

And with the GH nutes, it's simple to know if you've overfed or not. Just follow the aggressive veg recomendation on the bottle, it's worked for me. This should be putting your res at around 1100-1200ppm depending on what other additives are in your nutes. Those spots on the leaves could just be friction damage caused by the fan moving the leaves across each other. But you want to verify your pH and check for pests visually so your sure what's going on.

And just off the cuff, the plants on the right could be male, and the one on the left looks female, this is just based on two plants I had that showed quite different rates of growth, the male outgrowing the female 2:1.

 

[Italixxx]

Hey thanks for the reply, sorry about the paragraph structure! Lol

Ok so wow to the 1100 ppm idea, right now I'm running calmag, silica blast, the GH trio, and hydro guard, and my ppms are sitting at 406 ish, it hasn't really moved since the nute change and that's with the water dropping, so doesn't that mean I've found some kind of sweet spot? Jesus you're making me think I'm under feeding now. But I haven't noticed any serious deficiencies, not that I'd know one to see one.

I've been trying to be diligent in my observations, I'm down there every day, every couple hours lol. I'm going to change the nutes again next Thursday, it's roughly a 30 dollar hit just for the water, so I'd hate to have to flush and redo. So far so good. How can my ppm be so much lower than your recommendations?

 

[Faic]

Check your meter and make sure it's reading 406 not 406 10+, my meter has a superscript 10+ so it reads 200 big, and little 10+ for 1200. As far as ppm goes, if you follow the bottle recommendations per gallon, you should be hitting the right ppm's, since that's what I do, and I'm runnning the exact same nutes and additives you are. I'd have to say check your math and make sure you're nuting for res capacity + bucket capacity, or you'll end up under feeding and have the corresponding slower growth.

Yeah, you could have plants that small by accidentaly underfeeding.

Another thing to research and plan for, is how you'll train the plant. Since training = yeild most of the time. But look into LST'ing, and don't neccessarily jump for scrogging or other advanced techniques yet. You still need to learn how to grow the plant. Then you can fiddle with yield tricks :3

 

[thebudking]

You are running 50 gallons of water for two plants? That is WAY over kill for hydro. Next run use 5 gallon buckets. It will be easier to manage and cost you alot less. Don't worry about yeild, learn sound practices. Everyday, drain a little out of your rez, check the ppms, ph, temp...write it down. When you do water change, write down your recipie, ph, ppms. Get the basics down, see how your plants use water everyday, the nutes they use. Once you have a couple runs under your belt it will be habit and it will be alot easier. Remember though, with 25 gallons of nutes per plant you probably won't see alot of change in ppms. In fact if you can, switch to 5 gallon buckets now and you will save alot of money on nutes, ph up and ph down.

 

[Italixxx]

Yeah man, honestly I think you're seriously right about the over kill ness of this set up, I just got so horny to put out a huge yield and I saw some guys tutorial on how he set his shit up, I wanted to make it happen!

Problem is I already invested a lot of money in the system I got, I also wanted to be able to set it and forget so to speak. Seeing as how I may have to be away for a couple weeks at a time for work.

But I mean, I get overwhelmed with all the product out there that's available for hydro, a guy starts to go a little mental trying to figure out what it's all good for or if I need it or to spot the unnecessary products for what they are. Again I'm such a newb I really have no experience to draw from.

How does a guy know judging by a drop in ppm exactly WHAT nute the plant needs more of? You know? Like I can throw a cocktail of nutes in there but like, if the number goes down its not like I know exactly what it needs more of. As for recipe I'm just following what's on the bottle now, got my ppms up to 650 now lol, thinking I still need to add a bit more to get it up to 1100 or whatever. I just kinda wanted this to be a one off, my set up isn't exactly permanent and I needed to make sure that I had enough to last me a while, as much as I love what I'm doing, I'm not exactly in a position to be doing it this way for much longer. And if I could offset the costs a little with some extra for family members then all the better.

it IS a shit ton of water to have to deal with tho. And all that comes with it

 

[thebudking]

You can't tell what it needs by the nute use. You have to read the plant, the leaves, health overall. If you are going to be gone 2 weeks at a time, hydro isn't for you. You need to be in the room at least every 2 or 3 days. If you have to be gone for that stretch of time, coco with an auto water set up, pump with drippers, bottom feed, wick or blumats would be much better. I know you have spent alot but you have to start small and find the right set up for you, that may take alot of changes to figure out.