First Grow In Over 20 Years! Northern Lights Under 600W LED

[Homer Simpson]

There's hundreds of opinions on topics, and more often than not you have to go on what you think makes sense based on your homework. Only you can see, feel, and smell what is going on. We just have pics and experience that could lead you in the right direction. Experience you will gain and pass on to others but you only learn that by making mistakes, if that's the correct term. You could see the difference the light made. You will also see the difference the water will make. Your humidity is in check and your plants are in a good medium.
Now you need to listen to your plants. Learn what they need by the signs...leaves pointing down are normally a sign of overwatering. Your leaves, when the plant is healthy will be reaching for the sky. They will just look happy. Tips starting to burn are a sure sign you overfed it. Light browning or yellowing along the sides of the leaves could be a lack of Ca which is common.
Keep it simple and let the plants grow. They do better when we don't interfere.
I agree about germ to final pot. I planted my last grow straight from tap root into 7gal pot and it produced wonders. I'm not too sure but I don't think Mother Nature provides pots for plants in the wild. Think of that little seed sitting in a little tiny spec of this planet. No need to size up accordingly IMHO.

With yours and everyone’s help my plants do seem very happy with their nice green leaves pointed upward enjoying the sunshine and the nice humid air. I will take your recommendation and go right into my 5 gallon fabric pots and water according to Emilya’s advice. Thanks for the link to that thread; it was really very informative.

I read in her thread that I should be adjusting the pH of my water to 6.5 ph so I am going to pick up some ph down with phosphoric acid. I have read that people are using everything from vinegar and lemon juice to vitamin C but it seems something with phosphoric acid is the best so I’m going to pick that up unless told otherwise?

 

[MrSauga]

I read in her thread that I should be adjusting the pH of my water to 6.5 ph so I am going to pick up some ph down with phosphoric acid. I have read that people are using everything from vinegar and lemon juice to vitamin C but it seems something with phosphoric acid is the best so I’m going to pick that up unless told otherwise?

I've never used phosphoric acid so I can't help you there, however most of your pH adjustments, if not all, will be to raise your levels. Naturally as you add nutes your pH drops. Some drop to the correct levels for soil less grows. The coco stuff you use with the castings kind of puts you in between, so 6.0 to 6.5 would be ideal.
So most likely you will need to buy pH up or something organic, which in most cases are slo acting. I use Potassium Hydroxide, or caustic potash as it may be more known, to bring my pH up. It has to be handled carefully, that's it's downfall, but for the money and convenience in flake form it's very stable in adjusting pH up.

So there's all kinds of things you can do. Some people use a combination of a pH pen and PPM meter..PPM measures the amount of stuff, like nutes, in your water and you balance both accordingly.
Hope that helps a bit.

 

[Homer Simpson]

I've never used phosphoric acid so I can't help you there, however most of your pH adjustments, if not all, will be to raise your levels. Naturally as you add nutes your pH drops. Some drop to the correct levels for soil less grows. The coco stuff you use with the castings kind of puts you in between, so 6.0 to 6.5 would be ideal.
So most likely you will need to buy pH up or something organic, which in most cases are slo acting. I use Potassium Hydroxide, or caustic potash as it may be more known, to bring my pH up. It has to be handled carefully, that's it's downfall, but for the money and convenience in flake form it's very stable in adjusting pH up.

So there's all kinds of things you can do. Some people use a combination of a pH pen and PPM meter..PPM measures the amount of stuff, like nutes, in your water and you balance both accordingly.
Hope that helps a bit.

Okay, I guess I won’t be buying any pH down. The spring water I have been using has a pH of about 7.8 so from what Emilya said I thought I should be watering at 6.5 pH which is why I was going to adjust it. There seems to be some contradiction about how meaningful runoff pH is but I tested mine and it was about 6.7 so maybe I am pretty safe right now. Do you determine your pH from your run off or do you test the soil somehow?

 

[MrSauga]

Soil is pretty balanced to start with so you normally don't have to adjust it, just maintain the pH level of the water correctly and your plant will do fine. 7.8 for spring water seems high to me but I guess it depends where it comes from. If that's the case then the only way you will know is mix up a small test batch of the nutes you will use and then measure the pH. If it's low or high you can plan accordingly.

 

[Homer Simpson]

Soil is pretty balanced to start with so you normally don't have to adjust it, just maintain the pH level of the water correctly and your plant will do fine. 7.8 for spring water seems high to me but I guess it depends where it comes from. If that's the case then the only way you will know is mix up a small test batch of the nutes you will use and then measure the pH. If it's low or high you can plan accordingly.

This is the bag of nutes I got at the hydroponic store and they suggest mixing it in with my soil when I go to a larger pot and then after a month just use it for top dressing so I’m not actually going to use it when watering. I could mix some I guess with some water but I don’t think it’s water-soluble so I don’t really know what that will tell me if I tested it. If I just keep testing my runoff will that tell me if I should adjust up or down?

 

[MrSauga]

Well if it's a top dressing or mixed in with the soil then chances are it's mixed correctly and you should have nothing to worry about. I use MegaCrop which is organic but water soluble. I would still make sure then you pH your water accordingly, so you may need the pH down as you first suggested.

 

[Homer Simpson]

Well if it's a top dressing or mixed in with the soil then chances are it's mixed correctly and you should have nothing to worry about. I use MegaCrop which is organic but water soluble. I would still make sure then you pH your water accordingly, so you may need the pH down as you first suggested.

That is very good news and I bet it is mixed correctly because these guys have been around forever and really seem to know their stuff. Maybe I will keep checking my run off for a while before I start lowering my pH if once I start adding my nutes it will probably go down anyways. Also maybe I will get some distilled water to see of my meter is accurate because it actually put my tap water at about 7.8 also so maybe it is reading high.

 

[Homer Simpson]

Actually I had some distilled water here and my meter says about 7 ph for it and my bottled spring water is still around 8 ph so i guess it is high and i will get something to lower it tomorrow.

 

[Jazz Cabbage]

White coating on the walls is more efficient than aluminum foil as far as I know. No hot spots and more durable. More reflection. Aluminum foil is a real pain in the ass man. I used to use aluminum foil but I switched to white spray paint as coating in my DIY grow cabinets. You build it once and never look back. You can clean and wipe it after you finish growing. Pretty easy to maintain.

Peace

Yeah I'll go with that a durable matt or semi matt. But a very highly textured metallic is also good but the difference between the best textured metallic and matt white is not worth the hassle for maybe a few percent extra.

 

[Jazz Cabbage]

Actually I had some distilled water here and my meter says about 7 ph for it and my bottled spring water is still around 8 ph so i guess it is high and i will get something to lower it tomorrow.

Distilled water will ruin your pH meter. You need to get some proper pH 7 buffer solution, or you can get the pH 6.86 and pH 4.01 powders which are excellent and accurate use distilled water to mix the powdered buffer solution. You should store you meter in the used buffer solution to keep it in good order.

I have a $8 yellow pH meter from ebay, I calibrated it to a pH 7 buffer and it read the 6.86 powder as 6.9 so it was spot on, I was astounded that it read the pH 4 correctly even though it's 1000 times more acidic.

 

[Elvin]

If I were you, I would heavily lean on the advice of your local Hydro shop guys. They've helped others grow successfully and they want to add you to their long list of successes.
This site will provide help as well but our advice here is worth exactly what you are paying for it and some of it isn't even worth that.

 

[Homer Simpson]

If I were you, I would heavily lean on the advice of your local Hydro shop guys. They've helped others grow successfully and they want to add you to their long list of successes.
This site will provide help as well but our advice here is worth exactly what you are paying for it and some of it isn't even worth that.

Thank you Elvin. That is good advice because my local Hydro shop has been around forever and they certainly gave me good advice when it comes to my growing medium and nutes. But also I find the vast majority of people on here have been very helpful and given me good advice with of course one obvious exception, LOL. It’s just a matter of digging through the crap to find the golden nuggets.

 

[Gazoo]

 

[Gazoo]

 

[Purpsmagurps]

here is that vpd chart. for ya, shows ideal rh to temps..
more humid in veg is okay, you really want 75 and 45-50 at week 3 of flower through finish.

 

[Gazoo]

my range is
VEG 55 - 65 RH = 60 RH Target
FLOWER 45 - 55 RH = 50 RH Target
Since the numbers will fluctuate and scared of Mold small tent

 

[Purpsmagurps]

I got my dehumidi halfway through flower when i started to smell mildew. LOL. only got rot on 2% of my under larf.

 

[Homer Simpson]

here is that vpd chart. for ya, shows ideal rh to temps..
more humid in veg is okay, you really want 75 and 45-50 at week 3 of flower through finish.

Hey Purpsmagurps...

I think it just boils down to who you want to believe because I went online and Googled the best humidity for cannabis plants and looked at five different sites and the recommendations in vegetative were 40 to 60%, 40 to 70%, 45 to 55%, 40 to 60% and finally 50 to 80%. The average of all these is 54% if that means anything.

Here are the sites;

Indoor Humidity Control for Cannabis Plants | Grow Weed Easy

Indoor Cannabis Growing: Relative Humidity and Temperatures - Royal Queen Seeds - RQS Blog

Best temperature and humidity levels to grow weed - Happy Pot Farmer

Ideal Humidity Level for Cannabis - Zativo

And I looked up that website, Just 4 Growers and that is just a generic site not specifically for cannabis so I don’t know how relevant that chart is? I think I will stick at 60% maximum to avoid mold and the paint from peeling off the walls in my spare room, LOL.

 

[HereToLearn]

Based on pure gut feeling (I have a lot of that and no experience really, haha) I feel it's better to keep humidity at the lower end.

 

[Purpsmagurps]

yeah but if you understand how the stomata operate you know that it isnt a static percentage because it is relative to what temperature you are at.