Stinkyfish's Secret Hydro Grow Journal #1

[dc534]

I Thought I was going to get these pics up yesterday.

Update Week3/4 Flowering:

-I have been removing leaves to open these girls up. A lot of buds were being shaded by tons and tons of foliage. I believe I am good now and probably will not be removing many more leaves going forward.
-I began giving these girls hydroguard after recognizing the roots on one of my girls were not looking good and foliage was drooping and looking sickly
-I accidently broke off a bud when taking away some foliage, since I wont be removing anymore leaves.
-overall there are about 12-16 seperate branches which will hopefully form colas. Many are similar in size to the cola in the picture below.
-One of the girls is already starting to produce sticky trichromes and even saw a few orange hairs on her. She is nowhere near maturity yet but it was intersting to see that although she was the weaker girl at the beginning of these grow, she now is apearing to be the stronger of the 2.

 

[dc534]

Update: Recovery

-Girls are looking pretty good. While I still am seeing some leaves die and some new growth has stopped, that could be attributed to lack of nitrogen in these girls diet.
-The girl that was suffering from stage 1 root rot seems to be recovering. Fan leaves are not drooping and falling off just by touching them anymore and seem to have perked back up.
-While some roots still feel squishy and may not recover the focus now has to be on making sure the remaining roots get enough nutrients to the plant. I am going to maybe scale back her nutrient dose just in case the damaged roots mean she can no longer suck up as many nutrients.
-The girl with the root issues has not produced any trichomes yet and probably will need another 1-2 weeks longer than the other girl. The girl with no root issues has been producing trichomes for over a week now.

Overall I consider the administration of hydroguard a success. I am glad it was shipped so fast and got here so quickly. I hope to see continued improvement this week. I am excited to see if these flowers add some bulk as well. I feel the healthier girl is on the verge of exploding in growth. It's not to say the other girl could not, she still could recover and turn it around, but looking at the other girl already producing trichs it is getting exciting.

As always have a nice day! Look for another update at the end of the week.

 

[dc534]

Expect another update with pictures in the next 24 hrs!

Where we stand at the end of this week:

-We are transitioning from week 4 to week 5 of flowering. Right in the dead middle of flowering now. This is the critical moment for these girls. Not in growth, I do not expect much more of that happening, especially with how little nitrogen these girls are getting. It will be important to maintain environmental controls, especially with temperatures outside affecting the temperatures inside. It looks like I have lucked out with the weather with weather maintaining in the 50-60s for next upcoming week and then then starting to warm up into the mid 70s for the rest of the month. I would have preferred it to stay cooler but now that I am so close, if I have to start freezing water bottles in order to keep my water temps down, I will.
-Continued progress towards maintaining and recovering healthy roots. This was completely my fault. Not administering hydroguard from the start, not changing the water consistently, overestimating my air pumps ability to deliver oxygen to the roots, allowing for root conditions to worsen. Not to make excuses, but as a note for my next grow, 2 plants are very difficult to manage when you are in a space where you have to do everything on your hands and knees. It may be a better idea next grow to work with 1 plant and then work my way up to 2, 3, 4.
-WE HAVE TO MAKE THAT FINAL PUSH. There is a lot to do in preparation to finish off this grow. We have 3-4 weeks left.
-As far as bud formation they both look pretty similar, just one of the girls you can see she has developed a little quicker. Possibly based on her genetics.

The plan in the next 24 hrs:

-thoroughly clean/sanitize my DWC buckets to kill off any remaining causes of root rot or algae issues that could arise from warmer conditions. The weather has been in my favor around 65-70 in my grow tent the past couple weeks but it looks like after next week the weather starts climbing back into the mid 70s which means my grow room could be in the 80s with the lights running. (not good) Can't really rush anything but I need to take precautions such as freezing water bottles, cleaning/sterilizing buckets, making sure that should issues arise I can act decisively and thoughtfully.
-I am going to do 1-2 more weeks of nutrients, but I am going to start cutting back on how much with this next water change. After 1.5 weeks I will look to start flushing these girls, again I do not want to rush anything but time is becoming a factor. The stated flowering time based on genetics is 7-8 weeks on the NL and 8-9 weeks on the Blueberry. Going into week 5 that gives me at anywhere from 2-4 weeks left depending on many factors. I am going to watch these girls carefully the next 1.5 weeks and if they even look close to ready I am going to prepare them for the final stages of flowering and start flushing.

I am really starting to get excited. I am trying to temper that excitement by staying busy doing other things around the house and by staying focused on making sure my grow room conditions stay consistent in these final stages.

Anyways, look out for the pictures and another update in the next 24 hours. Any suggestions on the types of pictures I should start submitting would be greatly appreciated. Keep in mind because the space it is nearly impossible for me to get a full frame shot of both plants together at this point, they are filling the entire grow space and there is no way I can capture all of their beauty in 1 picture. I can do more closeups if that is what you all want to see more of. I can also shoot more of my setup in case anyone is interested in that as well?. As always. Have a nice day!

 

[dc534]

Update Week 5 Flower:

OK, I apologize for no pictures. I am waiting on a magnifier so I can begin uploads some closer up pictures.

-I left a lot of leaf on these girls after getting mixed answers about should I or should I not prune during flowering. Looking at the results I am seeing, I think it would have been better to have pruned 2-3 weeks ago as now there are way too many fan leaves.
My thinking was that I do not want to remove all this veg because it is food the plant will need during flowering.

-My buds are going to be small for the most part. I have seen enough pics to know this. I am not disappointed however, I am actually encouraged. That means there is just that much more room for refinement.

-There are about 12 colas on one plant and 8 colas on the other. They are all similar in size with a 2-3 being a bit larger, brobably big enough to produce buds in the 3-7 inch range, I definetly believe it is because they are seeing the most light. So, while I did do a good job with LST and FIM to get a great number of flowering sites on my girls, I do think I got a little overzealous for the amount of space I was working with. My girls are literally withing 5 inches of my lamps. And you can tell with the tips of the leaves beginning to look like they are burnt.
*Note for next grow, less is more strategy, 1 plant with a little more LST so it says shorter but wider, or I need to veg earlier and control how many colas I end up with. Also prune earlier. The first 2-3 weeks of flower are like Veg growth but on steroids so you do not need to have so many fan leaves going into flowering.

-I have let the root rot go on too long and I believe this to be a contributing factor in the smaller flowers. Because this is a someone concealed grow, I have not been checking these girls daily. By that I mean PH, EC, and overall maintainence of this setup. There was way too much buildup of salts, dead roots, and squishy roots. I think I let it get away from me and damaged quite a lot of the healthy roots I worked hard at maintaining during Veg, my lax mainainence during the beginning stages of flowering have led to a lot of the plants energy to be directed into repair rather than into building up big beautiful flowers.

-I did go ahead and clean these buckets out, there was a ton of salt build up as well as quite a bit of dead root material in the bottom of each of the containers. The roots are not as healthy as I want them but I predict they should be well enough to get me through this grow. Especially with the liberal application of hydroguard.

-It is hard to see but orange hairs are starting to develop and the leaves near the buds are beginning to sugar over with trichomes on both plants now.

-Smelling these girls neither are very pungent smelling , but that has a lot to do with genetics, thank god for that, but both have a beautiful good quality weed smell to them. By this I mean both smell exactly what good weed smells like, it has a pungent smell hit you in the face smell but not the kind of wee you need to triple bag and put into a mason jar kind of smell. And that is good for me being a concealed grow.

-While I was shooting for that fire bud, I realize now how difficult it is to keep things concealed, maintain more than 1 plant at a time. I am predicting now that if I keep everything under control from here on out I should end up with some very good mids. Again I am far from discouraged. If anything it just means there is a lot of room for refinement and improvement here.

-Also I realize my pictures are crap. I read other journals too and they know how to take beautiful pictures with lighting. I am going to be working on this.

-My overall assessment of my situation, if I had to grade myself, I would probably get a C+, B-. I think I will end up with some pretty decent mid grade. While I likely am not going to see these buds explode in size all the sudden I do expect them to fill out quite a bit more. And based on where I am at I should see quite a few 2-3 inch nugs combined with a lot of smaller popcorn buds. I mean 20+ small colas of similar size should produce around 20 2-3 inch nugs by the way it is looking. Combine that with all the popcorn buds towards the middle, and the 2-3 larger buds in the 5-7 inch range and I quite honestly see this as quite a success. While I cannot claim it to be amazing I will claim it to be a success.

-Anyways. Per my last update I went ahead and cleaned up everything, I removed a couple of very lower flowering branches that were only about 7 inches tall, they were far from the light that had no chance but to but to be anything more than popcorn buds, I removed them in hopes the energy will be directed upwards on those colas and produce bigger buds near the tops. I also cleaned the buckets out, I was careful to not be to rough while moving things around.

-Some things I noticed is how stiff the branches become during flowering, that is not good because I allowed these ladies to get too tall. There is no way I am going to be bending these girls now in this stage of flowering to make room my best chance if I do not want them to get heat stress or sunburn is to possibly rotate these girls every other day. I possibly can do a little LST but overall it does not look good.

-My last note is that I think these girls have 3-4 weeks left. I have a Jewelers Loupe coming via amazon and will be getting a better look at when to harvest. With that, once I get the magnifier to take a closer look at the trichomes I will get a better idea of when I should start flushing. Based on genetics I should begin flushing next week Tuesday. I am seeing orange hairs but to me it still looks a little early. Perhaps 1 week will change my mind. Afterall 3 days ago my one girl was not even producing trichomes. Now she has as much as my other girl who has been producing trichromes for now going on a week.

As you can see the tips are burning a little. I suspect it is because of the light being so close as well as the ph an nutrient imbalance going on. As I said I went ahead and fixed the ph and nutrient imbalance. I also turned the plants so these particular buds are a bit further from the light.

 

[dc534]

Just wanted to do a quick update so my journal does not move to abandoned.

Things are going great. 1 Plant has finished and I is nearly done drying. The other girl is about to be flushed.

 

[Amadeus Forzin]

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