First Grow! - Aerogarden Ultra With Mars Reflector 48 Using CK Dwarf Low Flyer

[CMJJMC2000]

this is friggin awesome definitely going to be fun to watch.

Thanks, Frenchy! Please, enjoy!

 

[CMJJMC2000]

Day 32 update: Morning temp was at 71F with humidity at 40%, PH was at 5.9 and I left it as-is. Temp tonight is 77F with humidity at 44%. PH was at 6.1 so I dropped that down to 5.6. PPM count had dropped by 150 and was at 280ppm so I upped the nute level so PPM's were reading 820 at the time of dosing. About 2 hours later, it's at 780. I'm going to replace the whole reservoir on Friday and re-balance the nutes. The plants pulled in 1/2 gallon of nute water from the Aerovoir today and emptied it, so I've got that refilled with 300ppm water using only base nutes of sensi bloom A + B, PH'd to 5.5 to help slow down the upward drift.

The tallest plant (Plant #1 on the right) is 18" now and plant #2 is about an inch shorter, but bushier and with more flowers coming in. That plant was spared from most the phosphorous deficiency issues, so no surprise it's blooming out so much faster. The flowers are filling in nicely on all of the bud sites

I've noticed that the chiller is almost constantly on now. Part of this, I think, is that there's less water volume in the reservoir since the roots are taking up a good portion of the available space - at least 25% of the reservoir volume - which makes the reservoir more prone to temp swings. Man, I really wish this thing had a 2 gallon reservoir instead of a 1 gallon reservoir with a 1 gallon top auto top off jug (aerovoir). The other likely factor is that fact that I haven't run A/C the last 2 days so it's really just circulating warm room from the air all day. I am impressed the the temp inside of the tent is only about 2 degrees warmer than ambient room temp, the LED's are great with keeping heat minimal - and the fan sucks all of that right out since the intake filter is right above the main overhead LED panel.


And pics!

 

[ReckoningBomb]

Hi aerogarden 420 homie. I just wanted to tell you you should try out Botanicare Hydroguard Bacillus Root Inoculant / amazon
Super nice especially with the short life of them auto seeds it gave me x5 root growth so much i had to trim it by week 2 lol.
I use aerogarden led ultra 7 never auto yet *this is my 2nd grow* with TaoTronics® 80*3W 6 Bands Led Grow Light (cough i'm ordering that mars hydro cree 256 next week ..
For the 1st week i only use distilled water and 2 ml of Botanicare Hydroguard + Aerogarden light drop dead on the plant lol lowest settings (it's only 30-50 watts) you can never harm the plant the light is super weak. I do rise it as it grows 3 inches away for veg 5-6 for flower or i'll take the hood off for my own person led lights and use it as a side light.
2nd week super light feeding 150 or less ppm (you don't have to feed it for the first 2 weeks)
I'd increase it by 100 per week no more than 600 ppm for auto seed and 500-1200 ppm for normal seeds.
your humidity seems good..
What is your light off temp?.
Cover up the blue aero led light menu that light is kind bad at sleep time it helps some for me..
When the pistil start to show switch the Flower nutes.

 

[CMJJMC2000]

Hi aerogarden 420 homie. I just wanted to tell you you should try out Botanicare Hydroguard Bacillus Root Inoculant / amazon
Super nice especially with the short life of them auto seeds it gave me x5 root growth so much i had to trim it by week 2 lol.
I use aerogarden led ultra 7 never auto yet *this is my 2nd grow* with TaoTronics® 80*3W 6 Bands Led Grow Light (cough i'm ordering that mars hydro cree 256 next week ..
For the 1st week i only use distilled water and 2 ml of Botanicare Hydroguard + Aerogarden light drop dead on the plant lol lowest settings (it's only 30-50 watts) you can never harm the plant the light is super weak. I do rise it as it grows 3 inches away for veg 5-6 for flower or i'll take the hood off for my own person led lights and use it as a side light.
2nd week super light feeding 150 or less ppm (you don't have to feed it for the first 2 weeks)
I'd increase it by 100 per week no more than 600 ppm for auto seed and 500-1200 ppm for normal seeds.
your humidity seems good..
What is your light off temp?.
Cover up the blue aero led light menu that light is kind bad at sleep time it helps some for me..
When the pistil start to show switch the Flower nutes.

Are you just looking to increase your post count? Not trying to be rude, but I don't think you've read through the journal or looked at the pics above.

I've been in flower for close to a week and switched over to flower nutes nearly a week ago.

I'm not sure how blacking out the aerogarden screen will help, there aren't many plants in the world that receive 100% total darkness. The moon provides substantially higher lumens than this LCD screen.

I've been over 600ppm on nutes for a few days now, no signs of burn at all and the plants sip down about 200PPM daily, sometimes more.

 

[CMJJMC2000]

Day 33 update: 33 days above ground and 8 days into flower. Temp this morning was 79F and humidity was 72% - I forgot to turn the fan back on last night after maintenance! PH was at 6.0 so I dropped it down to 5.7. Temp tonight was 75F with humidity at 42%. PH was at 5.8 and I left it as-is, the PPM on the nutes is at 500, so they pulled in 280 since last night, which is incredible. Plant #1 is now 20.5 inches tall, about 2" taller than yesterday. I can't believe the growth rate. The plants are bushing out immensely, I had to trim back more fan leaves that were either blocking light or were on the lowest branches. The fan leaves on those low branches were causing some weird angles down there that's not optimal for bearing weight. Hopefully the weight correction (remove on the lower side) will help them grow at a more acute angle to the main stem. Flowers are everywhere.

Chiller is back in its happy range today, made sure to leave the A/C on so the chiller isn't constantly on. I'll be adding some new nutes into the mix for week 2 of flower, which actually started yesterday.

 

[CMJJMC2000]

Added in a 6" fan this morning and clamped it to the top right corner of the tent ceiling. The tops of the plants weren't getting much air circulation from the intake flap that's opened on the tent. Anyone have opinions on trimming the popcorn bud sites on autoflowers? Is it worth doing or not?

 

[Renegade69]

Added in a 6" fan this morning and clamped it to the top right corner of the tent ceiling. The tops of the plants weren't getting much air circulation from the intake flap that's opened on the tent. Anyone have opinions on trimming the popcorn bud sites on autoflowers? Is it worth doing or not?

Most people cut the popcorns. Not enough light getting down there and you don't want them sucking up nutrients that the upper sites could benefit from.

I'd cut them...but that's me...LOL.

Plants look great. Think about cutting more of them fans to open up the middle....

 

[CMJJMC2000]

Most people cut the popcorns. Not enough light getting down there and you don't want them sucking up nutrients that the upper sites could benefit from.

I'd cut them...but that's me...LOL.

Plants look great. Think about cutting more of them fans to open up the middle....

That's exactly what I was looking for, thanks! I just trimmed off the lowest set on plant #2. The lowest ones on plant #1 are actually looking like main bud sites, the stem on one of them is just as thick as the main bud sites and almost at the top of the canopy. The one opposite to that though is tiny and will possibly get the axe - I just don't like having asymmetrical plants since it throws the balance/center of gravity off.

I really need to do some careful defoliation on the rear side of both plants in order to clean things up. Bud sites are blowing up today and flowers in the main stems are getting big and starting to connect with the node below it. I'm feeling more and more confident that harvest by or before 4/20 is going to happen. Looking back on my old notes, I really am starting to think that I'm actually closer to being in week 3 of flower. These plants are looking bigger and - fingers crossed - more bountiful than the ones in the youtube harvest video.

 

[CMJJMC2000]

Day 34 update: 34 days above ground and 9 days into flower. After going back and looking at notes, I'm really thinking that I'm more like 15 days into flower. That's when I first saw the calyx's start to send out pistils. However, it's been 9 days since the first flowers started to appear, so we'll go with that. Morning temp was 73F with humidity at 52%. PH was at 5.9 and I dropped to 5.7. Temp tonight is 79F with humidity at 53%. I did a full water change in the reservoir with final water and nute solution PH'd to 5.8 with a PPM of 1060. The aerovoir top off jug was empty - which is crazy, I just filled it 2 days or less ago. I filled that with 7ppm water PH'd to 5.4. I want to be able to better track nute intake at this high level so I did not add any nute solution to the auto top off jug. PPM was down to about 250 tonight, so another 250ppm pull since last night. Height on the plants seem to be the same, so the stretch may be over. The roots are insane. The taproot on plant #1 is about as thick as my index finger. Funky weather here has the temps higher than usual and ambient humidity is very high. I opened up the 2nd A/C vent in my office to allow some more cooler air to flow into the room while dealing with this weather issue.

I did take Renegade's advice and pulled the lowest set of popcorn bud branches from both plants. I also trimmed a few fan leaves but I know I need to defoliate more as this bud starts to fill in.

The nute solution in tonights water change included the following...........2/3 dose of Sensi Bloom A+B, 1/2 dose of Sensi Cal Mag Xtra, 1/2 dose of Big Bud, 1/2 dose of Bud Candy, 3/4 dose of voodoo juice, 3/4 dose of Bud Factor X, 3/4 dose of Bud Ignitor, 1/2 dose of Rhino Skin.

 

[CMJJMC2000]

Little bit of a mid-day update here. Plants have pulled in nearly 450ppm of the nute solution since last night. At this rate, I may end up having to do another flush and fill for the reservoir tomorrow night. I did a good bit of defoliating on the lower parts of the plant today and cleared the middle area on plant #1 really nicely, plant #2 is much more dense with vegetation though and will take me some time to be able to methodically clear. The number of bud sites/flowers is unreal. Really cool watching them grow and overtake the open areas along the tops of the stems. Can't wait to see these buds swell! Gotta keep pushing the nute limits so I can maximize my harvest in case I do need to chop early. But, with 3 weeks and a few days left, I am optimistic that the harvest will be right on time.

 

[CMJJMC2000]

Day 35 update: 35 days above ground today and 10 days since flowers started to show up. Morning temp was 73F with humidity at 51%. PH was 5.8. Temp tonight is 75F with humidity at 53%. PH was at 6.0 but it now at 5.8. PPM's are down to 550 PPM - the plants sucked in 510ppm since last night and 1/3 of a gallon of water. Chiller temp is hanging at 69F. I think that the early flower growth spurt has ended - definitely for plant #2. I did some good defoliation work in the lower areas of both plants - it's a bit easier to see with just the stock hood turned on, which is used as supplement lighting behind the plant.

The plants look great and the flowers/buds are expanding nicely. The main kola on plant #2 is fattening up along with the lower nodes on that same stem. The other bud sites are filling in nicely and - from what I can tell - putting all of these nutes to work nicely. The total number of bud sites, including the lower bud sites on the stems, is probably about 40. I know that a lot of these will end up being popcorn, but I'm interested to see just how much everything fills in.

I've found a lot of other journals/reviews that have finish time from seed being about 50 to 60 days. Hopefully mine will stay on the low side of the range. Looking at side by side pictures from mine and theirs the hydroponic system seems to be killing the soil grows. Also haven't seen any hydro/dwc grows using a chiller. Between the chiller and the full AN line of nutes I'm hoping these end up being some killer buds.

Have a great weekend, folks....

 

[Frenchy672]

looking awesome

 

[CMJJMC2000]

Day 36 update; 36 days above ground and 11 days since flowers arrived. I did some more defoliation this morning in the low and back areas of primarily plant #2 today. I also removed the very small bud sites towards the bottom 1/2 of the plant on the different bud site branches. Figure that it's best to direct that energy elsewhere in the plant - like the big bud sites actually getting the bulk of the light.

I underestimated the size of these girls when I bought the Mars Hydro Reflector 48. I wish I had gotten the 96 now with 200 true watts and a longer length. I also didn't anticipate getting a tant and fan/filter, either. So, learn along the way, I guess. The light output of this light is great, and it has created 2 awesome plants. It draws 100 true watts and is sitting between 2 inches above the highest bud site and about 6" above the main canopy height. The Aerogarden stock LED hood, with 30 watts, got raised about 4 inches today in order to provide light to the higher middle areas of the plant. With the bottom being nearly 100% defoliated, no need for the light there anymore. The 2 x 36w taotronic bulbs are hitting the left and right sides right towards the upper middle area, as well. The supplemental lighting ought to keep outer bud sites happy.

Morning temp was 73F with humidity at 53%. PH was 5.8 and I left it as-is. Temp tonight is 77F with humidity at 55%. Plants drank 1 gallon of the RO water since Friday night and emptied the auto top off jug. I filled it back up with RO water, 7PPM at 5.4PH. PPM's on the main reservoir are at 350, so the plants ate 160 since yesterday. I'm thinking that the base nutes get gobbled up quickly and the specialty nutes are more of a snack instead of the main meal. I wish there was a way to analyze the nutrient composition of the remaining water in the reservoir to find out what the consumption rates are for each of these nute cocktails.

Buds are filling in nicely and looking great. Plant #1 is offically 2 feet tall. This is as high as the dwarf low flyers are supposed to get, so I hope they're done growing. I can't raise this main light too much more! Plant #2 is 20" and much bushier, many more bud sites that look to be a lot fuller than plant #1. The main stem on plant #2 is significantly larger, too. That phosphorous deficiency really kicked plant #1's butt. I've been reading further, and phosphorous seems to be an important flowering nutrient. This all happened around week 2 and 3, and was probably a sign that the plant needed flowering nutes, as intake needs had changed. Just a theory.

 

[Frenchy672]

if you get individual chem tests [like N P K] to test individual levels rather then the whole EC of just any solution....same tests you can use for soil I'm pretty sure too.

 

[CMJJMC2000]

if you get individual chem tests [like N P K] to test individual levels rather then the whole EC of just any solution....same tests you can use for soil I'm pretty sure too.

Good call, I find some sort of an electronic tester but can't see any reviews listed for it. Will need to research this further, but sounds like it could be exactly what I'm looking for.

 

[Frenchy672]

I found a meter at an old hardware store for like 46 bucks...the price tag sticker was almost dark brown from sitting on the rack so long.....I thought it wouldn't be worth it, having to prolly buy a replacement needle pretty much right away...the replacement probes for them are close to 75% of the cost of the utensil itself...manual testing is and obviously will be cheaper, but not as precise.

 

[CMJJMC2000]

Day 37 update: Morning temp was 73F with humidity at 53%. PH was 5.4 so I bumped it back up to 5.8. This may have confirmed my theory that there are some nutes left in the water that the plant didn't want to consume. When I got home tonight, temp was at 77F with humidity at 49%. PH was 5.2 and PPM was down to 200 - they drank about a half gallon of water today while I was at work. I went ahead and emptied and re-filled the main reservoir with RO water PH'd to 5.8 with 930PPM. Used the same formula as last time, but there was a little bit of water left in the reservoir that brought it down to that 930 level instead of 1060.

I did some serious overhauling tonight. I moved the aerogarden a few inches back and then installed the trellis system so that I can keep all of the bud sites tight and inside of the main light. I left a few scraggler branches outside of the trellis system so that I wouldn't be "cramming" the branches inside of the trellis. It seems to have worked, I now have MANY more flowers inside of the main lights area than I did before. No parts of the plant are leaning against the rear wall or front wall of the tent now. I'm going to keep them in the trellis for 3-5 days and see if they can retain that compact shape when I remove it.

 

[CMJJMC2000]

Day 38 update: 38 days above ground and plants - and buds - are looking awesome. The topmost sites are fattening up nicely, and quite noticeably as each day ticks off of the calendar. Morning temp was 74F with humidity at 49%. PH was at 6.1 and the aerovoir was bone dry so I topped it off with 5.5PH 7ppm water. I dropped the PH in the main reservoir to 5.8 and went off to work. Temp tonight is 75F with humidity at 45%. I may end up putting a dehumidifier into the room as I get into the later stages of flowering. PH tonight was 5.8 - so great when I don't need to fiddle with anything - and the PPM's are at 490. So, they pulled in 440 PPM since last night. They're definitely hungry! Pl

ant #1 is still stretching but only on the main stem. It's about 26" tall now, I can't properly measure so that's going to be + or - an inch. It's about 2" from the main light. If it starts touching the main light, that's a big problem for me. Is it too late to bend it?

Flowers on plant #2 are so much more mature than those on plant #1. I wouldn't be surprised if the harvest from #2 is double that of #1. Really glad I went with 2 plants, now! There is no way that the reservoir can handle any more than 2 of these dwarfs. It is so filled with roots right now, it's unbelievable. Once this grow is complete, I'll be making a few modifications to the reservoir in order to keep roots from touching the iceprobe chiller and also - possible - the addition of a second pump in order to keep the water in the reservoir more circulated. I know the airstones move some of the water around, but I really want to provide adequate water movement all around the reservoir in order to keep PH and PPM consistent throughout this tiny reservoir.

With all of the discounts I've seen on Aerogardens lately (ultra LED model now 169!) I'm thinking they probably have a new line coming out. Hopefully one with a bigger reservoir!

 

[Heraldo]

Crazy the amount of growth you're getting in just a few days. Looking very promising.
I see 2 possible solutions for your stretched stem, but neither are entirely great so It'd be wise to wait for a 2nd opinion.
1. Easy way out: chop the stretched stem at about the same height as the other branches and try to keep an eye out for any stretchy branches so you can tie 'em down before you have to resort to chopping again. A terrible option, but still an option.
2. Branch tetris: try bending the stem. Be gentle. If it doesn't want to bend you can still make the plant kind of lean over and then bend the newer growth. You'll probably have to move and tie some other branches so they all get some light. It can be a pain in the ass with such bushy plants, but it's the best solution I can come up with.

 

[CMJJMC2000]

Day 39 update; 39 days above ground and I believe I'm starting my 3rd week of flower today. Morning temp was 72F with humidity at 49%. PH was at 5.8 and I left it as-is. Temp tonight was 75F with humidity at 44%. PH was 5.6 and the PPM's were down to 180. It seems like once the PPM level hits 200, it doesn't go down any further. I'd really like to know what nutes the plant ISN'T gobbling up - my guess is the rhino skin and some of the nitrogen from the sensical mag xtra (high N content). Anyhow, I could tell they needed nutes because I can see some small orange spots on the top growth - looks just like the phosphorous deficiency that hit me early on. Also, the aerovoir was bone dry when I got home and the reservoir was down 1 liter below the fill line. They're thirsty AND hungry in a big way. That's about 3/4 of a gallon pulled in since last night. I re-dosed with Sensi Bloom A+B, Big Bud, Bud Factor X and Bud Ignitor (this is my last dose of Bud Ignitor per my nute schedule). PPM's are up to 930 now. Next full flush + fill that I do, I'll get PPM's past 1200.


The bud growth is so crazy to see day over day. I can see how the stems are going to fill in entirely with the buds and am getting pretty damn excited imagining what the end result is going to look like. There are 20 canopy level bud sites that are filling in (total for both plants).