Stinkyfish's Secret Hydro Grow Journal #1

[dc534]

Welcome and thanks for stopping by. This is my 1st real attempt at growing indoors in a hydroponic setup.

Strains: (1) Northern Lights; (1) Blueberry
Stage: Both plants are vegging on day 19 since being germinated

Setup:
Grow Room - 30" x 18" x 36" Grow Tent
Lighting - 300W LED
Hydro - 3.5 Gallon DWC Buckets (non-recirculating)
Nutrients - Dyna-Gro Series (Foliage, Bloom, Protekt, Mag-Pro, Cal-Mag)
- https://dyna-gro.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/DG_feedchart.pdf

Pictures coming soon...

 

[BSbuds]

Think I'll tag along I wanna try hydro sometime soon

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[dc534]

Goals for the day:

My main goal for today is to re-adjust my nutrient levels!!! Last night I changed out my water/nutes with new ph'd and balanced water (so I thought). Unfortunately I balanced my nutes to a re-circulating system feeding schedule and not a drain to waste type of system like what I am running. This means instead of balancing to around 800-900 ppm (my tap water is around 180 ppm), I am up near 1600 ppm with my nutes. I am really hoping 1 day of double the amount of nutes will not do too much harm to my girls.

Current PH and PPM:

Ph - approx. 6.0
PPM - 1646

 

[dc534]

Thanks @BSbuds. Ill do my best to keep up with updates.

 

[dc534]

Update:

Grow Space:

Lucille Day 19:

Lucille's Root System:

Penelope Day 19:

Penelope Root Structure:

 

[dc534]

Update #2 Day 19:

Last night I drained my water to re-adjust my ph and nutrient imbalance from my previous water change 1 day prior. I also contemplated doing the first FIM on Lucille. I held back however because I want to see how they respond to the stress of the water/nute imbalance first. Expect another update in 2-3 days.

Water PH: 6.0
Nutes: 740 ppm (probably a bit high for only being 2 1/2 weeks old I will be paying close attention to leaf color, too green = too much nitrogen potentially. I am expecting decent root growth the next week.
Water: 925 ppm (tap water is at 185)

 

[RadaRoast]

I'll be coming along for the journey. Ive been working with soil for years but have been interested in starting a couple hydro setups like this. Looking forward to seeing how it goes.

 

[dc534]

Current Statis (Day 23):

Plants are looking sickly. Lucille seems to still be healthy but her leaves are beginning to droop a little bit, there is no signs of further nutrient burn on her, and otherwise she seems to be healthy, her stem is thickening nicely and she may be ready for some type of FIM/Topping or LST depending on if I can get her past this rough patch. Lucille's roots are turning from white/yellow to yellow/orange/brown. Perhaps it was the lighting making them appear more orange. Either way I will have to monitor this situation closely.

My other plant Penelope is looking very sparse in new growth, perhaps it is her genetics not being as good quality as Lucille but she also had very severe bought of nutrient burn/lockout she has been combating. Many of her lower fan leaves are 30-50% bleached/brown from the nutrient burn/lockout causing some sort of deficiency, I have debated removing them but I am giving it 1-2 days before I start thinning her out. She still has a lot of newer growth that has been unaffected. Overall she is not growing as quickly as I think she can, and that is understandable since she is combating a host of problems right now. Penelope's roots are looking bad, they have gone from white/yellow to brown/orange. Again it could be the lighting of my grow room making it seem worse than it is but I am inclined to believe that both my girls are showing signs of early root rot, with Penelope showing much more severe signs. Water temperatures spiked when I went out of town for a few days. I came back home and water temps were hovering around 80 which may have promoted this. Combine that with I probably gave them too much water and my best guess is the roots were unable to breath properly.

This morning:

This morning I carefully made sure to ph new fresh water for my plants. I will need to come up with a solution to combat the water temps. Right now all I can do is open up more vents in my tent to assure good airflow, and to promote lower temperatures in the tent. I am also going to begin to add H202 to my water to see if that helps out with the root problems going on. I think it would be my best bet going forward since I have no way to cool the water down at the moment. I have read a little Hydrogen Peroxide will help combat bacterial growth as well as root rot. I will need to begin to research alternatives to my setup and find a more permanent solution to the higher water temps, especially with it getting warmer outside, it will only continue to be a problem going forward. I am thinking that I will eventually need to upgrade to a recirculating system with a reservoir, right now my budget, both time and money, will not afford me this. Overall this has been a rough week. I was hoping that this would be the week I saw explosive growth and would be able to do some sort of FIMMING/Topping or LST to my girls to promote more yield. Instead I am combating all these problems.


Pictures coming soon...

 

[dc534]

As Promised here are the pictures of what's going on.

Lucille: She is looking ok, a little droopy but overall she has a good color to her and I would like to FIM her to make her even bushier than she seems to be getting.

Lucille Side view: I may have to open her up with a little LST so her inner branches are exposed to more light.

Lucille Roots: Here is where the problem lies, her roots are not exactly bright white, they seem to be browning or yellowing. I believe this to be that my water temps keep running high. As mentioned previously I have started to add a little H202 every couple days to combat any micro-organisms that may be trying to survive in the warm environment. Overall I think her roots are coming along pretty good, I actually think I had my water levels to high and not enough oxygen was getting to the roots. I lowered the water level to hopefully promote more roots to drop down into the water. Nothing to drastic maybe 1/2 inch to 1 inch less water. Before I had my water 1/2 inch up the bottom of the net pot, now I have it slightly below the bottom of the net pot.

Penelope Canopy View: As you can see I did some damage to this girl. She is all kinds of burnt up. I still have not identified the problem but I believe it was too high of nutes causing a lockout and then wild ph swings as she began releasing nutes from the lockout. I tested water each day since I accidently fed her nearly triple the amount she is supposed to get. I started at around ppm 700 (in retrospect I should have flushed her with just PH'd water), the next day it was over 1000 and then yesterday it was nearing 1400. I can only assume it was too much nutes and the roots were releasing excess. Anyways this threw of the PH and it went from around 6.0-6.1 to up near 7.0-7.2.

Side View of Penelope: Again not very robust in growth as compared to Lucille but I still feel if she can recover from this I will probably have to do a little LST to pen up her canopy to more light to the inside leafs, she may need it even more than Lucille because she has less leafs to absorb light now.

Penelope's Roots: There was little growth in her roots and I noticed a couple of roots actually broke off and were in the bottom of the bucket. I cannot assume root rot but I cannot rule it out. Water temps have been running abnormally high and although I seem to have gotten the PH under control the last couple days I still think she is starving for oxygen, even with my aerator pump at max throwing out a decent amount of bubbles. I have taken precautions by adding a little H202 to the water, about 1 tsp per gallon of water. The roots do not feel slimy but I am noticing that browning, I am wondering if some of the brown however is from the clay hydroballs, I washed the first half with PH'd water and let them soak for a good 2 hours in the water, but then I added another layer of Hydroballs and did not wash them properly, I did notice a lot of sediment in the bottom of my buckets and I assume it was from the Clay balls.

 

[dc534]

I probably will do another update in 1-2 days to fill you guys in on how my girls are responding to the addition of a little H202. Let's get this grow back on track!!! I have another 31 days until I go to flower (tentatively). I know I did not discuss timeframe but my goal is to have this entire process done before I leave for Canada at the end of June.

My time table:

Germination/Seedling:

Feb 11-25 (14 days)

Vegetative:

Feb 26-Apr 8 (42 days)

I may have to go less time on veg, 1) My buckets are only 3.5 gal so they are not going to support a very large plant anyways. 2) Time constraints, I am leaving out of country June 24th and will need to have this entire crop processed, dried, cured by the time I leave. With 8-9 week flowering time on these girls that will put me very close and not leave much room for drying and curing.

Flowering:

Apr 8 - June 10 (63 days)

Again this is tentative as it leaves me with only a 12 day window to dry and cure the crop. I may have to lose a week of vegetative growth and go to flowering earlier. I really want do not want to leave and have the crop be cured to fast. I will probably continue the curing process when I get back but I do not want to rush the process.

 

[dc534]

Day 26:

Alright I decided to put up some pictures: Lucille on the left is filling out nicely. Penolope is in recovery, she may not look so good but I fully expect her to recover, I already see signs of new growth as well as continued growth. I am still debating if I should take off some of her damaged leaves. I think I might wait till her new growth continues, perhaps another week or so and I will trim off some of the damaged leaves, not all at once but a couple here and there until I switch her to 12/12 at the end of the month.

Right now both girls are in 6.1 ph'd water and feeding on about 800 ppm of nutrients. I have not noticed any ph changes nor a tremendous drop in ppm in the water. The roots no longer seem to be yellowing and are in fact showing signs of rapid growth. I should also mention that after opening up more airflow my water is no longer at/approaching 80 anymore. Its down in the normal ranges. I am still rigging up something to deflect the light off my buckets, as stated they are black and absorb too much of the lamps heat, which may have caused the water to be a little higher than it should be.


Below are some pictures to check out on the current status of these girls.

Lucille on the right with Penelope on the left. The damage to Penelope has stunted her growth and she now is playing catch up with Lucille.

Here are some Pics of Lucille showing her growth is not slowing down. Her rootball continues to grow thicker, her canopy is getting thick. If you have not noticed in the pictute I went ahead and topped her about 2 days ago.

Penolope is in recover but I see that she is starting to take water and nutes again. I went ahead and topped her off as well, more or less to open her canopy up so more light can hit the inner growth to accelerate that growth since she had all that extensive damage to her leaves. She may not look pretty but I am not giving up on her so easy.

Finally here is the girls under the LED in which I have went ahead and did a little LST to them to open up to the inside a little. It is a little difficult to see especially with these girls being kinda shorter but they both have pretty nice growth on the inside just dying to get some light.

I will probably check back soon. I do have some questions. Thanks for stopping by, have a nice day!

 

[dc534]

Day 31:

Not much to update this time. Water is holding at 6.0 ph, 1014 ppm (tap water is 180 ppm). Last night I gave the girls a bit more water to bring it back to the levels it was at 5 days ago. I would have thought they would have taken up more water but they are not there just yet. Temperatures outside have fallen and so have temperatures in the grow room. I really hope the temperature swings will not affect growth too much. New growth appears to be doing well, I see what appears to be 4 new tops from a FIM cut I did on Penelope, the burnt up girl, which is pretty exciting. She is a skeleton compared to Lucille. The LST and FIM I did on Lucille worked out pretty good, opening her up to light really led to some nice growth on her inner nodes. The FIM I did on her was not as good as the one I did on Penelope but I will not complain. Overall both plants look and seem happy. Both of the plants stems are getting thick, Lucille's stem has to be a 1/4 - 1/2 inch thick now. Penolope is not far behind that. That is about it with this update.

 

[NorCalHomeGro]

Hello, subbed to follow along...what are your water temps?


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[dc534]

I really do not have control over at the moment. They range from 60-80. Right now they are around 65, but that is because it is cold up in the attic where these girls are. It's a cool 68 in my grow tent because outside temps right now are in the 20s. The attic is closer to 50 but with the grow light on 18 hrs a day during the night my grow tent stays near 65-70. We had a couple of warmer days about a week ago where it was in the 60s outside and the water temps were pushing 80, the thing is the tent was only around 75.

I already got ideas for tweaking this setup for my next grow.

The list I have going is:

-RDWC - looks promising, I would rather have 1 reservoir to take care of than 2 separate environments. RDWC looks really promising and I did not think it was necessary because I was originally only going to grow 1 plant, but both my beans sprouted and I ended up with 2. I think its worth looking into at least from what I have been seeing it does not take much more than what I already have going on. Advantages: seem to be better control over PH, Nutrient Balance, Water Temps. Disadvantages: I am sure they will come up, perhaps cost. I already went over budget but if it helps me grow a better crop than it is worth looking into.

-Auto's - I think I would go with AutoFlowers next time for the simple fact that these are smaller buckets which I intend to stick with. Not to say Auto's are smaller because I have seen some of the Journals and some people have gotten tremendous growth from them. I feel it would make my life easier knowing exactly how long the process should take.

-Controls - I need tighter controls. I need to start documenting and having a set time to document my progress to see what is working and what is not. I nearly became a chemist, dropped out after my Junior year of college and then went back for a business degree. All those years of Lab work and you would think I would have it down to a science. I need to get my grow room/lab in order. Know what chemicals I need, what environmental controls I need. Anything important I need to document so I can learn from and improve on the process next time.



That is my list right now. The controls thing I can work on right now. The other two things I can improve upon next grow.

Anyways thanks for listening and checking in. Have a nice day!

 

[NorCalHomeGro]

Do you use something like Hydroguard?

Botanicare Hydroguard Bacillus Root Inoculant, 1-Quart

Was thinking of using that for my roots. I use a chiller and keep it about 65.

My first grow and journal:

First Grow - RDWC - Big Buddha Blue Cheese - FEM - Winter/Spring 2017

 

[dc534]

What chiller are you using? And thanks for the suggestion of Hydroguard, I probably will pick some up for this grow but I would like to look for a more permanent solution because it is only going to get warmer during the summer months. Right now its hard to justify spending the money on a chiller but eventually it is the route I will probably take, especially as I become a better grower. Perhaps if/when I switch to a RDWC type of system I would look to spend the money on a chiller but if you have some suggestions on some good ones I would be open to them.

 

[NorCalHomeGro]

What chiller are you using? And thanks for the suggestion of Hydroguard, I probably will pick some up for this grow but I would like to look for a more permanent solution because it is only going to get warmer during the summer months. Right now its hard to justify spending the money on a chiller but eventually it is the route I will probably take, especially as I become a better grower. Perhaps if/when I switch to a RDWC type of system I would look to spend the money on a chiller but if you have some suggestions on some good ones I would be open to them.

Active Aqua Chiller, 1/10 HP


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[dc534]

Quick Update:

Last night my plan was to change out my water but I I decided to wait until the weekend. Both plants are looking good.

Lucille is really starting to branch out. She is getting really bushy in the middle. She grew about 2-3 inches taller in 2 days. The added height put her a little too close to the LED and she is at the very initial beginning of sun bleaching on 1-2 leaf tips. I did not have time to LST her last night but hopefully tonight I will get the opportunity to both LST her and raise my lights up another 3-5 inches.

Penelope, she is a fighter, she fought back that initial burn/deficiency she went through and is starting to grow some strong branches. The branches and canopy are not nearly as thick as Lucille's but she is doing fine. Now that she has all this newer growth I plan on trimming her up a bit. I think I will cut off the majority of the lower leafs that have been burned and did not recover. They are being shaded by the top growth now anyways. The only other note on her is her roots are catching up to Lucille's which was nice to see.

My weekend goals are to:

-Change, PH and nute new water
-LST Lucille, possibly Penelope
-Trim up some of Penelope's destroyed growth

 

[NorCalHomeGro]

Active Aqua Chiller, 1/10 HP


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Also, I think using something like hydroguard will allow you to maintain higher temps in the water. In fact, I might need to turn down the chiller a bit to give it the best performance. Adding it in tomorrow with my scheduled water change. Been changing the water every week, hoping this allows me to go every two weeks or less.


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[NorCalHomeGro]

Oh, and if you haven't already checked it out, I highly recommend checking out "TheFrizz is Back!..." grow journal. MUCH to learn from her...some awesome info!


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