Wonderland Grow

[AliceGG]

I highley recommend getting a ppm meter you can really fine tune and figure out how much nute each girl can handle safely and what each of them like I've managed to get mine honed in on around 1450ppm 2.1ec and she's looking happy this morning

Nice plant Slothman, looks like a strong sativa. Do you have a journal?

I don't want to go very cheap on critical factors for my first grow, but I'm looking for solutions to cut costs, I'm on a budget. Do you think a cheaper (25-30$) ppm meter would be fine to use? When I look at equipment like this, because there are more expensive units, and there are anothers that are even more expensive, I tend to think that the cheapest ones don't really worth the money. I know it's not universally true.
Anyways, there's a thread, where I already asked a few things about PPM (mainly about calcium and magnesium) before I started this grow. I requested info from my local water department, and they answered that PPM is between 510 and 550 in my tapwater. This much I know so far.

 

[Slothman]

I got mine for 18 dollars on Amazon and yes I have a journal atm, it's my first grow since I got clean I was on heroin and sold all my equipment and stuff got dark.. but I'm clean now and finally got back on track and decided to hop on here to help knock the cob webs off. My tap water is 168ppm so I use it instead of distilled but just look on Amazon and just make sure the reviews are for that ppm meter and you should find one for under 20, now pH meters I had to spend about 80 the cheap ones are un reliable and the 3 in one ppm and pH meters are junk too

 

[Slothman]

And as far as the strain I'm not sure I got it from some buds my buddy gave me that he got from someone else and so on but in my journal i have blueberry and purple Kush seedlings I just started

 

[Slothman]

Nice plant Slothman, looks like a strong sativa. Do you have a journal?

I don't want to go very cheap on critical factors for my first grow, but I'm looking for solutions to cut costs, I'm on a budget. Do you think a cheaper (25-30$) ppm meter would be fine to use? When I look at equipment like this, because there are more expensive units, and there are anothers that are even more expensive, I tend to think that the cheapest ones don't really worth the money. I know it's not universally true.
Anyways, there's a thread, where I already asked a few things about PPM (mainly about calcium and magnesium) before I started this grow. I requested info from my local water department, and they answered that PPM is between 510 and 550 in my tapwater. This much I know so far.

i was also thinking and with tap that high you should look up how to make a home charcoal water filter they're easy and you can filter larger quantities of water plus they're cheap to make at home. it'll save you from having to buy jugs. i didn't know my tap water was so good it's 168 ppm so i stopped buying jugs saved 6 bucks a week!

 

[AliceGG]

yes I have a journal atm, it's my first grow since I got clean I was on heroin and sold all my equipment and stuff got dark..

Finally, I found your journal!
Though I had to figure out the advanced search option...
For anyone interested, here's a link:
Unknown Strain, Blueberry & Purple Kush Grow 2019: Am New So Comments Welcome
If you put it in your siganture, it is easier for growers to check out your journal when they read your posts. It's just a tip.
Glad to hear that you overcame heroin, I myself never tried it (not even available here), but it must have been a tough battle with yourself.

20-30$ for a ppm meter is fine, I will get one for sure.
For ph, I'll be sticking to the ph stripes for a while, I bought a 80 stripe pack, it seems to be ok. Both the Plagron Lightmix and the BioBizz nuteline are said to be high quality, so I guess I don't have to worry much about fine-tuning my ph, the soil should take care of it with all these organic fertilizers. I found this on BioBizz' website yesterday, it's from their FAQ section:

Do you need to adjust the pH of Biobizz nutrients after you mix them up?

No. With Biobizz you are feeding the soil and specifically the microbes in the soil. So you can let those microbes and the roots of your plants adjust the pH in the root zone – you don’t need to change the pH of the nutrient solution before you water it in. If you must adjust the pH, don’t worry, it won’t necessarily help your garden, but it will not hurt your plants.

I do try to aim between 6.2 and 6.7 with the water, but I hope I don't have to worry much about it. There's a @Pennywise thread somewhere, I've read it a few days ago. It's about the necessity of adjusting the ph of the water, I may quote this in there if I find the thread again.

Well, as for filtering my tap water. I do worry a bit about it. I heard about salt build-up in soil. I don't know how severe it can get with autos, they don't veg for too long, but on the other hand, 500+ ppm seems very high compared to the values I read here and there about tap water.
I'm not sure about what jugs mean. Is it distilled water?

 

[Pennywise]

Don’t worry too much about ppm, keep ppm in the low side. For you I’d aim for less than 1000 ppm

 

[Slothman]

Don’t worry too much about ppm, keep ppm in the low side. For you I’d aim for less than 1000 ppm

Yeah distilled. I had been only buy that. And my nute line cyco says to have the ppm and pH and ex kept at certain levels each week it's a lot to keep up with but I've had nothing but good results in the past. I was worried hitting 1450 but that's also 1450 on the 700ppm scale. On the 500 scale I'm sitting at 1050. Since your using soil it a ts as a buffer so your right on with the ph and thank I will definitely be signing my journals

 

[AliceGG]

Don’t worry too much about ppm, keep ppm in the low side. For you I’d aim for less than 1000 ppm

And, until I get a ppm meter, how could I calculate it? Is there a formula? For example, FishMix with NPK value 5-1-6. It's 5, 1 and 6 percent of different nutrients in the fertilizer but how does that translate to ppm?
If 500mg/l means 500ppm than that's basically half a gram of things, so 1000ppm would be 1 gram of nutrients per litre, if I'm right. Now, how do I know how many grams of actual nutrients are there in 1ml of fertilizer? It is quite an interesting topic. Does 5% nitrogen, for example, mean 5% of the weight of the liquid? Because then a 5-1-6 fertilizer would be 120 (50+10+60)mg of nutrients, if we assume that 1ml of the liquid equals to 1 gram (which I know is not true, there's the exact weight of the fertilizers on their bottles). So if this is how it works, then aiming for 1000ppm with ~500ppm tap water will allow me to put ~4ml of fertilizer into 1 litre of water. But then there's a ton of other micro nutrients in the fertilizer, which also have their own weight, so I'm a bit lost with this train of thought.

Yeah distilled. I had been only buy that. And my nute line cyco says to have the ppm and pH and ex kept at certain levels each week it's a lot to keep up with but I've had nothing but good results in the past. I was worried hitting 1450 but that's also 1450 on the 700ppm scale. On the 500 scale I'm sitting at 1050. Since your using soil it a ts as a buffer so your right on with the ph and thank I will definitely be signing my journals

Good job with your signature.
What do you mean by 1450 on a 700ppm scale and 1050 on the 500ppm scale?

 

[Pennywise]

I'd look at the directions on the container and go 1/4 or a little more until you get a ppm meter.

 

[Slothman]

there is 3 ppm scales of reference check out his chart What PPM Scale To Use | GYOstuff | Grow Your Own | Hydroponics, Organics & Indoor Gardens it explains things better. also ppm isn't too important as long as you keep your nutes low.. since cycos directions have me adding 23ml of just the bloom plus 8 other bottles i use a ppm meter to make sure i dont go over, and all companies should have info available on which scale they use the 500 or the 750 which is in that article

 

[Carcass]

Good Morning,Alice ! (morning here anyway)

Just got caught up on your grow,your little girls are coming along nicely!-I'll be following along
from here on in-
You're smart to only have 2 plants in there-I've got apx the same floorspace as you,but I've got 3 going,
due to getting more sprouts than I thought I would get,and 3 is going to get too tight real fast-fortunately,
my little auto should be done in 2 or 3 weeks and she'll be out of the way before I flip to a flowering schedule
for the photos.
Looks and sounds like you're doing things right-your plants will thank you for it !!

 

[CookieMonster420]

Nice journal you have so far. Very detailed, which is good if you need advise from other growers. Try not to over think everything, I used to do the same thing but growing is much more enjoyable when your not constantly worrying about your plants. Anyway good luck with your plants.

 

[Reave]

Nice journal you have so far. Very detailed, which is good if you need advise from other growers. Try not to over think everything, I used to do the same thing but growing is much more enjoyable when your not constantly worrying about your plants. Anyway good luck with your plants.

I agree but at first when you are new it is hard not to overthink things you don’t have practical knowledge of. Definitely more enjoyable now. My favorite part is training and trimming the plants. I find it so relaxing.

 

[Slothman]

I agree but at first when you are new it is hard not to overthink things you don’t have practical knowledge of. Definitely more enjoyable now. My favorite part is training and trimming the plants. I find it so relaxing.

I can spend hours deciding which leaves go and which stay which branch i want where i literally have a little stool i sit in my tents so much.

 

[AliceGG]

Hey there!
I wanted to have a little update with photos on Friday, but ran out of time, and I had to leave for the weekend. Now I'm back home, trying to catch up with things.
I'm so happy to see new people joining in the thread, thank you for all of your support!

I'd look at the directions on the container and go 1/4 or a little more until you get a ppm meter.

I got the smallest unit (250 and 500ml) of every BioBizz nutes (btw, tomorrow I'm getting my Acti Vera and Alg-A Mic), there's no direction on these small bottles. According to their website, I should add between 1 and 4ml per litre. When I added something I tried to add about 2ml/l, so I must be fine with that.

there is 3 ppm scales of reference check out his chart What PPM Scale To Use | GYOstuff | Grow Your Own | Hydroponics, Organics & Indoor Gardens it explains things better. also ppm isn't too important as long as you keep your nutes low.. since cycos directions have me adding 23ml of just the bloom plus 8 other bottles i use a ppm meter to make sure i dont go over, and all companies should have info available on which scale they use the 500 or the 750 which is in that article

I haven't heard about it before, great info, thanks. I'll order a ppm meter soon, preferably in the next two weeks.

Good Morning,Alice ! (morning here anyway)

Just got caught up on your grow,your little girls are coming along nicely!-I'll be following along
from here on in-
You're smart to only have 2 plants in there-I've got apx the same floorspace as you,but I've got 3 going,
due to getting more sprouts than I thought I would get,and 3 is going to get too tight real fast-fortunately,
my little auto should be done in 2 or 3 weeks and she'll be out of the way before I flip to a flowering schedule
for the photos.
Looks and sounds like you're doing things right-your plants will thank you for it !!

Welcome here.
Well, talking about photos, I think I would put only one plant in there, and possibly veg her longer to fill out the space. But since these two girls are both autos, I feel like I could have easily gone with 4 plants, since it doesn't seem like they will fill more than half of the tent. I'm really curious about how long they will stay in veg, according to the seedbank's site, the AK have an average flowering time of 5-7 weeks and an average whole lifespan of 9-10 weeks. She is 26 days old today (from popping out of the soil), so she doesn't really have more than 8-10 days before she starts flowering. But as others already pointed out, these info on flowering times might not be very accurate, so time will tell. I wouldn't mind if she vegs a bit longer, because with her current size, I don't think she could even yield an ounce. See photos below.

Nice journal you have so far. Very detailed, which is good if you need advise from other growers. Try not to over think everything, I used to do the same thing but growing is much more enjoyable when your not constantly worrying about your plants. Anyway good luck with your plants.

Hey there, CookieMonster.
Thanks for the kind words, I'm really trying to share as much detail as I can. Still, I have a lot of things in my mind, which I haven't written down yet. It's so hard to keep every small aspect in control. sometimes when I work, I gather a ton of thoughts in my head, but I don't write them down, and when I get home I forget half of them.
One of these thoughts that comes around my head for weeks now is about my led. As shown on this picture, only 24 of the 256 chips are blue, and 8 more UV. There are a few warm white and cold white too (16, if I see it right), but that leaves me with 208 red (or pink) chips. Due to this, I'm wondering if this is mostly a flowering light, and probably this is the reason I don't really see explosive growth. I really hope that the huge amount of reddish light will compensate me when it comes to flowering.

Let's see a few pictures.

These are from Tuesday evening, almost 5 days ago:

And these are from today:

The AK is forming her first set of true 5-tail leaves. Her second set of leaves (with 3-tails) overgrown her first set, is it normal?
Jack Herer is also shaping nicely, but as a 19-day-old plant, I feel like she could be bigger than that.

Here's one more of the AK:

The new growth is very crowded, I moved the light up a few inches on Friday before I left, it's possible the led was too close.

 

[Pennywise]

2ml sounds right for this stage of growth, raising the light a little is probably a good move.

 

[Carcass]

The nodes on my plants were stacked so tight that I could hardly top
them...in fact I accidentally fimmed one... (which is kinda what fim stands for)
It also occurred to me at that time that they might be a little too close to the light,so
I lowered them (the plants) about 6" and it fixed the problem-the node spacing went from 1/4"
to about 3/4" or more on the new growth.

 

[AliceGG]

When I drag my finger on the leaves of the AK and smell it, I can smell the typical odor of weed. Does it indicate that she started to flower? Or the odor can appear in veg too?

 

[Carcass]

As far as I know some stink in veg,at least my LoRyder did-it stunk before it
graduated from the solo cup-it only stunk for 3 or 4 days,then it stopped till
it started flowering pretty heavy.
My other 2 plants don't even stink yet,which is a good thing-the little
LoRyder is stinking enough for all three...

 

[VetSmoke85]

Looking good Alice. Mine are smelling now too. Interesting to read about the spacing. My internode spacing is really tight at the moment. Just moved my lights up an inch or two yesterday but now they're pretty much as high as they can go. Ha ha. Have to see what happens.