Jaygrow's - Soil - Grape Ape - LED - Toilet Grow

[JayGrow21]

What strain is it?
Grape Ape
Indica ~100% as far as I know
Flower
Week 6
Indoor
Soil
60% Fox Farms Ocean Forest 40% Perlite
3 gallon containers
150 w HPS weeks 1-4; Platinum LED P300 weeks 5-6
Temp of Room
75-80 degrees stable 40% humidity
Any Pests ?
Had Thrips week 2 of flower
How often are you watering?
Twice a week
Type and strength of ferts used?
Fox Farms trio plus Microbe Brew and Cha Ching

Ok so I got these plants as clones and vegged them for 3 weeks before flipping using a 150 w HPS for a month. Then I saw everyone's platinum LED grows and couldn't resist buying one.

The light arrived in week 4 of flower. I immediately hung it above the plants and started imagining my massive harvest!

The very next morning I checked on the plants and saw the top leaves brown like the ones in the photos. Not crispy but brown and seemingly fried. I chalked it up to light burn and have been steadily raising the light but as I have the burned leaves have continued farther down the plants.

The plants also seemed to stop growing and haven't done much in the last two weeks since they've been under the new light.

So I'm wondering if maybe the issue is something else and just popped up at the exact time I changed lights. I am hoping I can limp these ones to the finish line and get something decent off them. They smell amazingly grapey and are very sticky but I know they aren't well. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[JayGrow21]

Also the plants are both around 30" tall right now for perspective, and yes they are growing in the toilet chamber haha, I should have a tent in the next few weeks to begin my first proper grow.

I apologize for the sideways pictures, I intend to correct that when taking pictures of these ladies fully recovered after I get some help hopefully!

I will be growing two Med Gom 1.0 Auto feminised high CBD plants from CBD crew, and a Northern Lights x Big Bud photo period plant that I will be LST'ing until the two 60 day autos are done before flipping.

I am hoping I can learn what I need to learn about these final few weeks of flower because I have had problems at this stage in two straight grows now.

 

[Dutty Panty]

I'm on my phone I'll look closer once inside. They look locked out. May be some other factors. I'll take a closer look. Currently I'd start with flushing straight ph balanced h20 at 6.8 ph.

With ocean forest I'd recommend leaving as is next time no added perlite.


Also go bigger pot next go round I'd recommend a 7 but 5 would do. I'll take a look and chime back in.

 

[JayGrow21]

Alright, thank you for the help, I will get on flushing them and go from there. I plan on using a 5 gallon for the next journal, thanks for the tip.

 

[Dutty Panty]

What's the dimensions of room?

What's your ventilation setup?

Do you have a oscillating fan or any in there? Almost done in my vegetable garden and I'll give you as many tips as I can.

 

[Dutty Panty]

Also when taking pics with phone hold sideways.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Are you pH'ing the water after adding the Microbe Brew? That stuff makes it very acidic--I think it's some kind of acidic bacteria like LABS. All I know is when I add it to stuff that's 7.0 it drops it to 4.0... I'm not really sure if it's supposed to be like that or not so I just pH it back up.

Sorry that's the only thing I can think of.

 

[JayGrow21]

Ok the dimensions of the room are 4 x 3 x 10' sitting on a toilet seat. The bathroom vent fan is the ventilation system. I do have a small oscillating fan pointed at the plants.

I haven't been ph'ing my water at all because my last grow it was always dead on. Now my tap water is coming out at 8.0 so I shoukd have been adjusting it, apparently especially after using the microbe brew. Thanks for the tip TheFertilizer and Dutty thanks again.

I just flushed both with ph adjusted water. I'm sure my lack of Ph'ing was the issue. Unfortunate that I put up the new light the night before the issue surfaced and let it lead me astray.

 

[BlackPolo23]

Never stress when I see this issue in my garden but I think locked out is our most likely conclusion.
Nice trees brotha take care of them

 

[Kalimaki420]

After the flush I would add some cal-mag many plants need more under LED.

Ph adjust should always be done after nutes.

Ph up or down depends much on the water ppm,
If you have hard water it need much more than soft or RO water.

 

[JayGrow21]

Hey thanks BlackPolo, I tried LST'ing on my first unsuccessful grow, so I decided to let these ones grow how they wanted just to see what would happen.

I flipped when they were 12" tall and despite the 150 w HPS being close to them they still stretched like crazy. I wonder if it could all be related to the PH problem? Oh well you live and learn.

It has bugged me this entire grow that the plants have never looked "good" like even my first plants did that were 100% intersex. Hell, those things had huge hermie buds. At least they were healthy, but these things have looked sick from the start. Can't assume things are the same from one day to the next.

I have my P300 24" from the plants still post flush, and I am wondering if maybe I should drop it back down to 18" since light burn was not the issue?

 

[TheFertilizer]

Hey thanks BlackPolo, I tried LST'ing on my first unsuccessful grow, so I decided to let these ones grow how they wanted just to see what would happen.

I flipped when they were 12" tall and despite the 150 w HPS being close to them they still stretched like crazy. I wonder if it could all be related to the PH problem? Oh well you live and learn.

It has bugged me this entire grow that the plants have never looked "good" like even my first plants did that were 100% intersex. Hell, those things had huge hermie buds. At least they were healthy, but these things have looked sick from the start. Can't assume things are the same from one day to the next.

I have my P300 24" from the plants still post flush, and I am wondering if maybe I should drop it back down to 18" since light burn was not the issue?

Male plants are usually more resilient and grow faster and bigger, so I'm sure some of the trait would be present in the inter-sex plants as well. If you have 100% females now it could explain why they're more "delicate".

I'm still really curious about what pH level the solution should be at with the microbe brew present myself. The whole idea with those microbes is that they break down the nutrients and make it more readily available, but if they're also lowering the pH to it seems that it can contribute to lockout too.

The more interesting thing I noticed? If you pH some water with the microbe brew in it and get it to 6.8, and then turn around and do something else for a moment or two and pH it again it will continue to drop for a little bit. I just pH it again and feed it right away but I don't know if the microbes are supposed to stabilize the pH level themselves or what. I think what I found was simply adding too much of the microbes made it too acidic, and if I went with slightly less than the recommended dose on the bottle then I would get a stable pH the first time. But then I'm not really sure if they're available in the mix at a high enough concentration to even do anything at that point. Honestly I just stopped even messing with the probiotics until I have a few grows under my belt.

 

[Kalimaki420]

I keep my P600 and P450 at 10" - 17"

It is most about the plant, some can get very close others don't like it and start some bleaching on the leaf or hairs.

There are tops that are more near and don't show anything so it seems the UV LED cause this.

 

[JayGrow21]

Male plants are usually more resilient and grow faster and bigger, so I'm sure some of the trait would be present in the inter-sex plants as well. If you have 100% females now it could explain why they're more "delicate".

I'm still really curious about what pH level the solution should be at with the microbe brew present myself. The whole idea with those microbes is that they break down the nutrients and make it more readily available, but if they're also lowering the pH to it seems that it can contribute to lockout too.

The more interesting thing I noticed? If you pH some water with the microbe brew in it and get it to 6.8, and then turn around and do something else for a moment or two and pH it again it will continue to drop for a little bit. I just pH it again and feed it right away but I don't know if the microbes are supposed to stabilize the pH level themselves or what. I think what I found was simply adding too much of the microbes made it too acidic, and if I went with slightly less than the recommended dose on the bottle then I would get a stable pH the first time. But then I'm not really sure if they're available in the mix at a high enough concentration to even do anything at that point. Honestly I just stopped even messing with the probiotics until I have a few grows under my belt.

I guess I'll cut the brew out for the last three weeks too. No point in getting complicated when on life support. I'd just like to see the buds swell a little under this sweet light. I know it's no P450 or above but I was under the impression that a P300 could still produce well just with a smaller footprint.

 

[hockeybry2]

It does look like a ph induced lock out. It may have not even been anything you did...I've had some bad batches of fox farm soil being that they are very acidic and gave me similar issues regardless of my nutrient ph

....they say the are buffered but often time require additional lime to be added. I gave roots original a shot and the girls have never been happier.

 

[JayGrow21]

Yep that was pretty much it dead on. Should have created an account and journal two weeks ago...

But it's gonna be cool seeing how they recover and if they put on weight.

 

[hockeybry2]

Yeah once that soil ph is off its an uphill battle! At least you'll be able to pull some tasty Nuggies off her...

 

[Dutty Panty]

Ok sorry about lack of reply.

Eventually you will need to get a Lil more airflow in there. But that will come as you expand which will happen. As for stretching hps really encourages stretching especially in veg!

As for ocean forest being acidic or alkaline I never experienced that with fox farm soils I used ocean forest for years. However jedi kush seedlings hate it too hot at times. Also it can have gnats cause at fox farms facilities in California the ocean forest is right next to there compost pile. So there is some larvae in ocean forest at times.

Once there dry about 1" deep hit them again with 1.5 gallons of ph'd water.

 

[Dutty Panty]

That's per 3 gallon.

 

[JayGrow21]

Ok got it thanks. I always hear to follow up flushing with a weak feeding, but I didn't this time. I'll give them another 1.5 of ph'd water each once they dry to 1".

About stretching plants, if I were to flower my plants under the P300 veg lights only for the first couple weeks, would it limit the amount of stretching? I could see it working in theory, but flowering under the wrong spectrum even for a short time could delay flower too I suppose. Just a thought I had. If anyone has tried it let me know what kind of results you got.

Thank you all again for the help.