adudecalledjay
Well-Known Member
Intro
I’ve lurked around here for a few years and have followed along with quite a few grow journals. I thought I’d give a simple journal a shot myself. Maybe I can learn a bit, and others can learn something from my mistakes (and hopefully successes). I would consider myself somewhere between a beginner and intermediate grower.
Full transparency here... I tried posting my lights, etc, and my thread got deleted due to spam attempts by various light vendors who haven’t sponsored the site. So I won’t be able to say much specifically about my setup. I’m assuming I can speak about nutrients since I’m not really using anything special/new (MaxiGrow and MaxiBloom and my own concoction of CalMag).
There’s a few obstacles I know I’m going to face down the road:
1) I have 3 other cannabis plants further along in veg all in a Dutch Bucket setup. I’ll be adding this plant to those, once it’s ready to tolerate the higher EC/pH. From past experience I’ve had challenges with different plants sharing the same nutrients. On the plus side maintenance is super simple... I just drain and replenish nutrients in the full system every 2 weeks (1 week would be better -- I might do this if res temps get too high).
2) Heat. My setup is in the garage where I have a furnace but no AC. Moving into July/August I’ll be facing some pretty hot days and don’t have a lot in place to manage the heat beyond a 6” inline exhaust fan where I can evacuate heat into the attic. Because of this, I’m using some pretty low wattage/low heat LEDs for the hot months, then once I get past August I should be good to fire up my 2 x 1000W hps lights @ 60%.
3) Vacation. I have a 3 week vacation for the last week of July and first 2 weeks of August, so plants will not be monitored at this time.
Plant&Setup
Name: Bubba Kush
Genetics: Bubble Gum x Original Kush
Indica/Sativa: Indica
Flowering Time: 9 weeks
Seed Drop: June 2, 2019
Veg Lights: 15W (actual) full spectrum LED for VEG
Flower Lights: 1000W HPS at 60%, so 600W
Grow Medium: Hydro DWC to start, then dutch buckets later
Nutrients: MaxiGrow / MaxiBloom and some homemade CalMag (Generic Epsom Salt and Calcium Carbonate)
Water: Tapwater
Tent: 4’x8’
June 2
Seed drop in RockWool -- water only (.4 EC phD to 5.5)
June 14 - Day 1 VEG
Changed out rez (5 gallon home depot bucket)
pH: 5.5
pH direction: very slight drop
EC: .8 (.3 EC Tap Water, .1EC HomeMade CalMag, .4 EC MaxiGrow)
EC direction: stabilized
Water level direction: dropping
Light Intensity: 240 μmol/s/m² @11 inches dead center
Tent Temperature: 20C/68F
Tent Humidity: 60%
I’m going to call this “Day 1” of Veg. It seems like there are varying opinions on when to start “Day 1”.
June 20 DAY 6 VEG
pH: 5.5
pH direction: very slight drop
EC: .8
EC direction: stabilized
Water level direction: dropping
Light Intensity: 240 μmol/s/m² @11 inches
Tent Temperature: 20C/68F
Tent Humidity: 60%
As shown above, my pH keeps dropping down to 5.4 every few days and so I continue to top off with fresh tapwater until I hit 5.5-5.6. The recommended remediation in this case is to change res and increase EC. Since the drop is so slight, I’m going to just play it by ear for now.
I'll check in in a few days. Ideally I'd like to update this weekly.
I’ve lurked around here for a few years and have followed along with quite a few grow journals. I thought I’d give a simple journal a shot myself. Maybe I can learn a bit, and others can learn something from my mistakes (and hopefully successes). I would consider myself somewhere between a beginner and intermediate grower.
Full transparency here... I tried posting my lights, etc, and my thread got deleted due to spam attempts by various light vendors who haven’t sponsored the site. So I won’t be able to say much specifically about my setup. I’m assuming I can speak about nutrients since I’m not really using anything special/new (MaxiGrow and MaxiBloom and my own concoction of CalMag).
There’s a few obstacles I know I’m going to face down the road:
1) I have 3 other cannabis plants further along in veg all in a Dutch Bucket setup. I’ll be adding this plant to those, once it’s ready to tolerate the higher EC/pH. From past experience I’ve had challenges with different plants sharing the same nutrients. On the plus side maintenance is super simple... I just drain and replenish nutrients in the full system every 2 weeks (1 week would be better -- I might do this if res temps get too high).
2) Heat. My setup is in the garage where I have a furnace but no AC. Moving into July/August I’ll be facing some pretty hot days and don’t have a lot in place to manage the heat beyond a 6” inline exhaust fan where I can evacuate heat into the attic. Because of this, I’m using some pretty low wattage/low heat LEDs for the hot months, then once I get past August I should be good to fire up my 2 x 1000W hps lights @ 60%.
3) Vacation. I have a 3 week vacation for the last week of July and first 2 weeks of August, so plants will not be monitored at this time.
Plant&Setup
Name: Bubba Kush
Genetics: Bubble Gum x Original Kush
Indica/Sativa: Indica
Flowering Time: 9 weeks
Seed Drop: June 2, 2019
Veg Lights: 15W (actual) full spectrum LED for VEG
Flower Lights: 1000W HPS at 60%, so 600W
Grow Medium: Hydro DWC to start, then dutch buckets later
Nutrients: MaxiGrow / MaxiBloom and some homemade CalMag (Generic Epsom Salt and Calcium Carbonate)
Water: Tapwater
Tent: 4’x8’
June 2
Seed drop in RockWool -- water only (.4 EC phD to 5.5)
June 14 - Day 1 VEG
Changed out rez (5 gallon home depot bucket)
pH: 5.5
pH direction: very slight drop
EC: .8 (.3 EC Tap Water, .1EC HomeMade CalMag, .4 EC MaxiGrow)
EC direction: stabilized
Water level direction: dropping
Light Intensity: 240 μmol/s/m² @11 inches dead center
Tent Temperature: 20C/68F
Tent Humidity: 60%
I’m going to call this “Day 1” of Veg. It seems like there are varying opinions on when to start “Day 1”.
June 20 DAY 6 VEG
pH: 5.5
pH direction: very slight drop
EC: .8
EC direction: stabilized
Water level direction: dropping
Light Intensity: 240 μmol/s/m² @11 inches
Tent Temperature: 20C/68F
Tent Humidity: 60%
As shown above, my pH keeps dropping down to 5.4 every few days and so I continue to top off with fresh tapwater until I hit 5.5-5.6. The recommended remediation in this case is to change res and increase EC. Since the drop is so slight, I’m going to just play it by ear for now.
I'll check in in a few days. Ideally I'd like to update this weekly.