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

[Ferboldt]

Looking real good now.

Now it's time to think about clipping the very bottom leafs. Especially the ones that are shading the new growth. You want as much light hitting them as the tops. Not too much jus enough to give the lower shoots some light.

And it's def safe to cut those sick leaves...the bottom ones...

Which leafs do you mean? The ones that is marked with 2?

 

[CMJJMC2000]

Which leafs do you mean? The ones that is marked with 2?

Thank you so much, that's extremely helpful. I'm guessing I need to take it easy on plant #1 haha! The third set of leaves is looking bad, definitely dead on more than 50% of the leaves. But, I will leave the leaves intact and let them continue photosynthesis until the leaf fully toasts and then I'll pinch.
I'll get plant #2 trimmed up tonight, just finished my afternoon check and everything - parameter wise - is looking great. Plants have pulled in almost another 50ppm of nutes since last night. I'll add in a bit more base nutes tonight with a little bit of B52.

It's starting to smell *dank* when I open the door to the office. My tent arrives Monday (most likely) and my 4" fan, carbon filter and ducting arrives Tuesday. I'm going to set up the Aerogarden stock hood on the wall tonight for supplement lighting to get the lower growth tended to properly. Also going to have to do some serious rearranging next week in the closet in order to accommodate the grow tent, while still making room for myself to be able to go in and tend to the girls.

 

[Renegade69]

KEEP #2'S....LOL.

Clip #1's.....

If #3's aren't shading anything you can leave them be, unless you feel they are infected beyond being helpful.

It's unfortunate on plant number #1. Wait as long as you can before clipping those infected ones. Maybe when those #2's are at least as big as those infected #1's.

Hope that helps...

 

[Renegade69]

I think I just figured out your PH issues.

Stop adding nutrients every day or every other day.

I only added nutrients at res change out which is once a week. Sometimes 7-10 days. Just add PH adjusted "put back water". Which means level out your res.

Dam, sorry it took this long to figure it out.

Fresh batch of nutrients at change out.

Paying attention to your PPM drop is great. It tells you whether or not she's feeding but let the levels drop normally and naturally.

It will not hurt her to eat all her food and only be getting the PH balance fresh water.

This is my opinion of course but it worked for me.

 

[CMJJMC2000]

I think I just figured out your PH issues.

Stop adding nutrients every day or every other day.

I only added nutrients at res change out which is once a week. Sometimes 7-10 days. Just add PH adjusted "put back water". Which means level out your res.

Dam, sorry it took this long to figure it out.

Fresh batch of nutrients at change out.

Paying attention to your PPM drop is great. It tells you whether or not she's feeding but let the levels drop normally and naturally.

It will not hurt her to eat all her food and only be getting the PH balance fresh water.

This is my opinion of course but it worked for me.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll hold off until Saturday night for the drain and refill. My main reason for wanting to re-dose the reservoir was in case plant #1 had sucked all of the phosphorous from the tank. I'm pretty sure that I can diagnose the leaf issue as a phosphorous deficiency, from which there is no recovery for the affected areas. That third set of leaves (now the #1 set) on plant #1 will be fully dead by the time I do my updates tonight. I may end up pinching those before I do photos and metrics.

 

[CMJJMC2000]

Day 22 update: 22 days from seed and 20 days above ground. Morning temp was 73F with humidity at 65%, PH at 5.9. Temp tonight is 77F with 59% humidity. PH was at 6.0, I dropped it down to 5.8. PPM's are at 160, so that's a drop of 50 from last night. I did pinch one of the dead leaves from plant #1 and I pinch both of the lowest leaves (3 prong leaves) from plant #2.

I'm going to work on fully setting up my supplement lighting when the tent arrives, but for now I still have the 36w taotronics LED bulb pointing at the lower growth on plant #1. I figure it needs all the help it can get. I'll also work on lowering lights a few inches when the tent arrives. On schedule for tomorrow is a res flush and refill. I'll go with a very slightly higher concentration on this batch, maybe add in a tiny bit of rhino skin to strengthen the branches/stem. I guess that flowering will start by next weekend?? Very exciting stuff.


Plant #1 above ground and below.....

Plant #2 above ground and below

And for scale....

 

[420forsure]

For sure gonna have some branches I think. And before to long you should start to see your first pistils.

 

[420forsure]

Here. I had to neglect her for a week and a half. And this is cks northern light auto. Not trying to hijack ur thread. But I'm trying to show you how strong the plant can be. Hardly any leaves left on her.

 

[Heraldo]

They're looking good, very good! Are you planning on doing some LST before they flower?

 

[CMJJMC2000]

Thanks, folks! I appreciate the support

420 that's a huge cola! Well done!

Christmas came a few days early. Tent arrived and it's all set up. Now just waiting for the fan and carbon filter.

I also did my drain/top off a few minutes ago - aerovoir was empty, too, so it's getting a refill of RO water, PH'd to 5.7. I increased base nutes to about a 1/3 dose and did a 1/3 dose of B52. Decided to not add in rhino skin at this point. Plants are hungry, I don't want to deprive them of food since I'm on a tight timeframe.

 

[Heraldo]

Ooooohhh! Looks like a very nice fit for your setup. Merry Xmas indeed!

 

[CMJJMC2000]

Day 23 Update: 23 days from seed and 21 days above ground. Morning temp was 73F with humidity at 65%, PH at 6.0 and I left it there since I was going to flush this afternoon anyway. PPM's were down 50 from last night. I did drain the reservoir and refill with 5.8 PH'd water, PPM's at 370. Temp tonight is 75F with humidity at 55%. PPM's are down to 340 and PH had crept up to 6.0 so I dropped it back to 5.8. Aerovoir is empty, currently. It provided a gallon of top off water to the reservoir since Monday. I'll fill that back up tomorrow with 5.5PH water. I've found this week that having the low PH top off water coming in to replace spent water is helping to keep my daily upward fluctuations (due to nute intake) in check. I feel like I'm getting back into a good groove on the maintenance side of things.
The sick leaf on plant #1 very slowly getting worse. Might get a pinch tomorrow night depending on how much the necrosis advances. The growth from the nodes of the branches that got pinched is really blowing up on plant #1 and also plant #2. Stems are getting fat and the daily growth upwards is very noticeable. Make sure to check out the fat taproot on plant #1 in the pic section. It's above water reaching down into the res now and it is FAT.

The grow tent is from Apollo and is 24x48x60. It could easily fit another aerogarden in here. The plants really seem to be loving the extra light they're taking in now from the mylar bouncing the light around. I've noticed that the color (aesthetically) of the light is much better now. Maybe it's the mylar? Anyhow, the visible color of the light is less annoying to me now as compared to before. I'm very excited to get the fan and filter in there when they arrive.
It's starting to stink up here even though the plant isn't flowering. Is that normal?



Plant #1 above ground and below

Plant #2 above ground and below

And for scale.......

 

[arteekay]

Completely normal for them to smell even in veg. Surprised me too.

 

[CMJJMC2000]

Day 24 update; 24 days from seed and 22 days above ground. Morning temp was 71F with humidity at 64%, PH was 5.9 and I left it alone. PPM's were at 275. Temp tonight is 75% with humidity at 61%, PH at 6.2 and PPM at 240. I did drop PH down to 5.6 since the plant is gobbling up nutes at a very high rate, I'm sure it will be back to 5.9 in the morning. The plants pulled in 130PPM of solution in 24 hours - more than 1/3 of the total in the reservoir. They must really be liking the tent. I dropped the lights down about 3" so they're now 15.5" above the highest part of the plants. They grew at least an inch in height since yesterday. I *will* be pinching off the last of the really bad leaves on plant #1.

The bad news is, the spotting is now showing up on the next biggest set above on plant #1 - very lightly. I'm thinking maybe this specific plant is having issues with phosphorous uptake. The new growth looks great, and all of the non-main leaves/branches are in fine health with no signs of spotting. Weird phenotype or mutant plant?

If the plants keep eating at this rate, I'm going to have to re-dose the reservoir by tomorrow night. This is what I've been waiting for, getting to put all of these Advanced Nutrition products to use! I'm going to order the connoisseur bloom tomorrow so I can get ready to swap over to my flowering nute schedule. If growth keeps on track, I ought to be starting the flowering phase next weekend.

Overall, plants look great. The new growth and fattening up of existing stems/branches is so fucking cool to watch.


Plants #1 above ground and below....

Plant #2 above ground and below

And for scale.........

 

[Ferboldt]

You can tell, they are growing every day

 

[CMJJMC2000]

Day 25 update; 25 days from seed and 23 days above ground. Morning temp was 73F with 68% humidity, PH was at 5.8 and I left it as-is. Temp tonight is 77F with humidity at 55%. PH was at 6.1 so I dropped it back down to 5.6. PPM's are at 170 - so they took in 70ppm today. I did order my bloom base nutes and a controller for the fan. I got everything set up and boy is it big and loud (compared to before, where there was very little noise. I'll probably dial it to a little less than half speed, as I don't need that much turnover in a tent this small.

I pinched the last very sick leaf on plant #1. The next set up is starting to get the same spots. All new growth and branches that grew from the nodes on plant #1 look very lush and healthy. New growth is coming in nicely and it's about 3/4 of an inch behind plant #2, understandable given the struggles this plant has had.
On plant #2 I pinched the 2nd to bottom set of fan leaves as they were totally blocking the growth and light intake of the set beneath it (newer growth). The stem on plant #2 is getting fat, quickly.

Roots on both plants are growing rapidly, reservoir is looking like a bowl of spaghetti - I like it!


Plant #1 above ground and below

Plant #2 above ground and below

And for scale......

 

[Foto]

Heya mate,

I wonder if the spotting is due to the led lights and not supplementing with cal/mag?

Recently I grew with an led and had the same problems as you are having. My grow was organic in soil and never did I adjust the ph of the soil. The ph of the soil when tested at the end was around 6.

Same spotting and leaf tips yellowing eventually.

I have done a few over the last 20 years in various hydro set-ups and this was my first under led and the first time I have had this.

 

[CMJJMC2000]

Heya mate,

I wonder if the spotting is due to the led lights and not supplementing with cal/mag?

Recently I grew with an led and had the same problems as you are having. My grow was organic in soil and never did I adjust the ph of the soil. The ph of the soil when tested at the end was around 6.

Same spotting and leaf tips yellowing eventually.

I have done a few over the last 20 years in various hydro set-ups and this was my first under led and the first time I have had this.

I thought the same thing early on, but I was adding a 1/4 dose of cal-mag from the get go when they first got above ground. From all of the charts I've seen, it looks like a phosphorous deficiency due to me keeping the PH too low for Phosphorous to be absorbed. My base nutes have calcium but I'm not sure about the magnesium. I do plan on adding the cal-mag (or sensi-cal, since my plants are eating up the N) this week as they move into flower mode.

I have read about the LED's causing the plants to absorb more of certain nutrients, but I had forgotten which ones. Thank you for brining this back up. I'll be sure to report back how things go once I add in the 1/4 dose. If it fixes things up then I'll bump it up a bit - thanks for the advice!

 

[Stinky Snid]

I concur with the phosphorus def., they'll be OK with cal/mag for another few weeks. LEDs do tend to increase the need for them.

KiG cheers

 

[CMJJMC2000]

Got a bit baked and almost forgot to do this tonight. So, here we go..........

Day 26 update: 26 days from seed and 24 days above ground. Morning temp was 73F with humidity at 72%, PH was at 5.8 and PPM's were at 140. I left everything as is this morning, because I knew I'd be back home in a few hours after running an errand. I came home a few hours later and added in an extra 2ml of A+B into my the reservoir along with 2ml of sensical mag xtra - so a fractional dose, just bring my PPM's back into a good feeding range. This brought my PPM up to 370. I'm currently sitting at 340 PPM tonight, so total intake since yesterday is 60ppm. PH tonight was 6.0 so I dropped back down to 5.7 and will let it drift back up. Plant #1 got another set of fan leaves pinched, as they were totally blocking 3 lower branches from growth. They had some spots getting larger on them anyway, so better now than later.
Plant #2 is getting very crowded and I think I need to trim back some fan leaves on that plant to keep the lower growth moving higher up. Any suggestions on which leaves to trim?



Plant #1 above ground and below

Plant #2 above ground and below

And for scale.....and hopefully some trimming suggestions for plant #2 (the one on the left)