First Journal: Bubba Kush, DWC/Dutch Bucket

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”.

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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.


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I'll check in in a few days. Ideally I'd like to update this weekly.
 
June 28 - Day 14 VEG
pH: 5.5
pH direction: very slight drop
EC: 1.0
EC direction: stabilized
Water level direction: dropping
Light Intensity: 240 μmol/s/m² @11 inches
Tent Temperature: 21C/70F
Tent Humidity: 62%

I checked pH today and it had dropped to 5.3 with EC stable at .8. Since we're continuing to drop pH I changed out the nutrients and upped the EC to 1.0

Tap Water: .4 EC
1/2 tsp Calcium Chloride / 5 gal: .2 EC (raised EC more than I wanted)
2.5 tsp MaxiGrow / 5 gal: .4 EC
Total EC 1.0

It's funny, in person the veins aren't so dark. But from the picture it looks like a mag deficiency. If it continues I'll up the pH a bit and supplement with a bit of epsom salt. For now we'll see if coming up from 5.3 to 5.5 takes care of it.

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Looks very healthy dude!! Cute lil youngin’s in the bottom as well! :thumb:

Thanks :) I lost a few plants in the outdoor garden. Hopefully I can get the little ones a head start in hydro... have a super short growing season here (Alberta, Canada)!
 
I’ve got a link under neath my posts on how to make your self a signature, you should make your self a nice signature to let others know about your journal as well! :thumb: While your there you can also give your self a display picture :high-five:
Perfect, thanks again... I'll do that! :Namaste:
 
I was going to put one of my dark Angel youngins outside to see how it would do, but again, our season is so short and I should have had it out a long time ago. We also moved into a new place and are a lil unsure about who all our neighbors are around me. So I comprised, and probably trying a plant outside hahaha

Next year I want to try an auto outside and see how it reacts to our short summers rather then a photo.
 
I was going to put one of my dark Angel youngins outside to see how it would do, but again, our season is so short and I should have had it out a long time ago. We also moved into a new place and are a lil unsure about who all our neighbors are around me. So I comprised, and probably trying a plant outside hahaha

Next year I want to try an auto outside and see how it reacts to our short summers rather then a photo.
:laughtwo: I like the compromise! Great idea on the auto outside, I hadn't thought of that. With our short season that would be the perfect way to get it to flip before the days hit 12/12.
 
July 4 - Day 21 VEG
pH: 5.6
pH direction: very slight drop
EC: 1.2
EC direction: stabilized
Water level direction: dropping
Light Intensity: 240 μmol/s/m² @11 inches (15 W bulb)
Tent Temperature: 22.7C/73F
Tent Humidity: 57%
Res Temperature: 21C/70F

I increased EC by .2 with calmag and raised ph to 6.2 for better magnesium uptake (it eventually settled back down to 5.6 over a week) as the previous picture looked like perhaps a tiny bit of a magnesium deficiency. I also raised the light by a few inches in case it was LED burn. The plant has grown back into the light again after raising it, so it's continuing to get 240 μmol/s/m² @11 inches dead center (only 100 μmol/s/m² @11 inches on the outermost part of the leaves).

There is just the slightest upturn to the edge of the leaves. After some reading up on Bubba Kush I think it's related to the genetics of this particular strain as opposed to other environmental issues.

In the next week I'll be moving her into her own bucket. Or I may let her join the others in the RDWC she seems to be handling the 1.2EC just fine (in fact water level and ph drops quite quickly, so she may be happy with the added nutes).

I wasn't planning on topping her due to timing issues. The other plants in this tent are a lot older and ready for the switch. But I'm not fully decided yet. The bottom growth is getting super shaded so I'll have to address that with either more light, LST, a topping, or just some pruning of the shade-causing leaves on top.

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Well, I'll be away this weekend, so I'll update this today.

July 7, 2019 - Day 24 Veg)

Moved the plant to my RDWC setup. This is a bit of a bold move as it has an EC of 1.5 and ph of 6.0. PH is fine, but 1.5 seems a bit high to me for its size.

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July 9, 2019 - Day 26 VEG

pH: 6.0
pH direction: stable
EC: 1.5
EC direction: stable
Water level direction: dropping
Light Intensity: 240 μmol/s/m² @11 inches (15 W bulb)
Tent Temperature: 25C/77F
Tent Humidity: 56%
Res Temperature: 22C/72F

After 2 days she seems to be doing fine out of the DWC and into RDWC. The roots are just sitting on moist clay pebbles -- it always surprises me that going from direct water contact to the pebbles doesn't seem to cause problems beyond a few days of stunted growth.

New growth is super dark almost blue, with a bit of nute burn on the tips. I'm definitely pushing this girl a bit hard.

Now that she's had 2 full days to settle in to her new home I'm pushing her a bit harder by topping (pic below). My other 3 plants are ready for the Scrog net, so on that will go as well.

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Well that's enough stress for her for this week. I'm sure she's going to get stunted a bit... hopefully not too much.

Good thing I'm posting these pictures... I completely forgot to put the fan back :)
 

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Lookin good man! :high-five:

Your net is going to fill in nicely!! :yahoo:

Thanks Backlipslide!!! Not quite sure how it'll all work out with the BBK being so far behind, but we'll see!
 
Thanks Backlipslide!!! Not quite sure how it'll all work out with the BBK being so far behind, but we'll see!

Damn I didn’t even notice the size difference from the one in the back! Lol I’m sure they will be fine, it’ll prob take an extra week or so before it starts reaching above the net but it’ll all work out :thumb:
 
July 19, 2019 - Day 36 VEG

Well another week gone by and another update!

pH: 6.0
pH direction: stable
EC: 1.9!!! (changed to 1.3 today)
EC direction: rising quickly
Water level direction: dropping
Light Intensity: 240 μmol/s/m² @11 inches (15 W bulb)
Tent Temperature: 26C/80F
Tent Humidity: 56%
Res Temperature: 25C/77F

Mrs. Bubba Kush is looking happy today. The tent has been a bit warmer this week as I have 600W lights turned on for the other half of the tent. With the EC rising and ph staying stable it looks like I have too many nutes, so I've backed down to 1.3 EC from 1.9 EC

New EC Total: 1.3:
  • .3 from water
  • .1 from calmag
  • .8 from MaxiGrow
  • .1 from ph down
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