Johnny's doing it again - Page 3

JohnnyPotSeed1969 · #21 12-10-2008, 09:18 PM

Thanks for the positive words man

JohnnyPotSeed1969 · #22 12-13-2008, 11:55 AM

Well, my order from Cheap Hydroponics got here yesterday surprisingly, considering I ordered on Tuesday. Anyways, I was low on nutrients so when I changed out my tank on Tuesday, I had to use less than I normally would have at this point. So today I check the reservoir before getting ready to drain, and Ph had drifted up to 6.2 and PPMs had drifted up about 60 PPMs in 4 days. Due to the shortage of nutrients last change, I now have a slight calcium deficiency on a few plants. I caught it early enough, so it should be right as rain in a couple of days.

I've been dealing with a brown substance forming in my tank and resting in the bottom. I bought some Flora Shield and applied it according to the directions. I'm waiting to put my nutrients in. According to the instructions, you have to wait for 2 hours before putting nutrients in after using the Flora Shield.

Anyways, while I was inspecting roots and plants, I noticed that I have 2 which are showing early. Number 2 and 3 are both showing pistils! Number 4 had a male pollen sack growing, but I just pinched it off; hopefully an anomaly, but I'll keep a close eye on it for the next couple of weeks. Pics are in the same order as always, with pics of number 2 and 3's pistils and finally the male pollen sack. I included the last three in case some newbs are reading this and they haven't seen clear evidence of sex showing early.

Okay, that's it for this update. If anything else develops, I'll update as soon as possible.

JohnnyPotSeed1969 · #23 12-15-2008, 05:31 AM

So today I decide to check and see how things have been doing since I changed my nutrients and started using Flora Shield. As you can see, there was a high degree of particulate matter and mixture seemed more brackish than usual. Incredibly, Ph and PPM's were well within tolerances at 5.57 and 807 respectively. PPM's have actually decreased by 70 since the change, suggesting that they're eating. I'm not sure if all the extra material is from the Flora Shield doing its job or not, but I'll just hang back and see how things go.

Anyways, I can still see what appears to be remnants of the micronutrient deficiency; notice the spotting on the leaves? I didn't see it when I was last in there, so I'm going to keep an eye on it for a couple of days.

In other news, the pump I have for circulation purposes in my tank seems to have quit working again. I'm not sure if it's clogged from all the stuff in the rez, or if it just finally died lol.

Well, that's it for now. Perhaps another update within the week if anything else turns up.

JohnnyPotSeed1969 · #24 12-16-2008, 08:33 AM

So today I check things again just to see how they were. Ph had dropped a little, but it was early in the day. PPM's also dropped by about 12 points which was surprising considering the state of my reservoir. Again it was extremely brackish and had an off smell to it. Therefore, I decided an entire system cleaning was needed. I disassembled everything and cleaned it, including the individual plant reservoirs, which needed it badly! I also cleaned the inside of the control bucket good too, just to be sure.

While I was waiting on my tank to drain, I dunked each of the plants in a mixture of Flora Kleen and water as per instructions for a few minutes a piece. Judging by the multiple deficiencies I found upon inspecting my plants today, I concluded that I need to increase the frequency of my flood and drain cycle; the plants are starving to death!

Now for the good news, I'm pretty sure I have 3 girls and 3 boys. That's 50% on the ones that germed; not too bad. I'm going to wait a couple more days before pulling the males just to make sure. Plants number 2, 3, and 6 are female, while 1, 4, and 5 appear to be male.

The first 6 pics are the plants in their usual order. The next three are the signs of nutrient deficiencies which I have caught. Here, there are spots of necrosis, and twisting leaves. There are also purple stems and leaf stems, but those could be due to the strain. The last pic looks like it could be a calcium deficiency, as it affects the new growth only. This seems to have gotten better over the past couple of days.

Hopefully by tomorrow, things will be looking better. I'm keeping the nute strength at half and just increasing the amount of flood cycles. They seemed to be pretty happy till I went to every 8 hours, so I'll bump it up a little to every 6 hours. Okay, that's it for now.

JohnnyPotSeed1969 · #25 12-17-2008, 01:33 AM

Last night there was a bit of an issue. The second fill and drain cycle went horribly awry as the fill pump switches failed to turn off, causing a flood in the grow tent. There was about an inch and a half of standing water in there. When it happened, the circuit breaker tripped, which is what alerted me to it in the first place. Not sure why the breaker tripped, because there was no bare wire exposed to water. I'll just count it as a blessing and learn from the mistake.

I have to be careful how I position the lid on my control bucket; the wire for my pump and the drain line pass through the lid, sometimes blocking free movement of the float valve switches. So now I'm just waiting for everything to dry out. I pretty much just bailed it out the old fashioned way and let towels get most of the rest of it. Anyways, be sure your equipment is in fine working order before walking away from it kids!!!!!

JohnnyPotSeed1969 · #26 12-18-2008, 08:18 AM

Well, the flood didn't cause any damage. I lost only around 5 gallons or so. So now I've got almost all of the standing water out. This morning I check the tank to discover that Ph had shot up to around 6.7, while PPM's had dropped suggesting they were eating. Nutrient solution still looked good and clean. Since I did a full system change out the last time, I added a little extra than I normally would to account for the 1 1/2'' of water in the bottom of my buckets. Anyways, the tank was a little low (due to the flood) so I decided to top off using the same ratios as last time. I added only 10 gallons to top everything off, and of course Ph adjusted the tank to 5.74, with PPM's at 801. A little later I'll check to see if Ph has drifted up again and correct it. That's all I've got for now.

JohnnyPotSeed1969 · #27 12-19-2008, 05:35 AM

Well, the Ph drifted up to a lofty 6.40 and PPM's actually rose over night. I adjusted the Ph back down to 5.7 which brought total PPM's to 820 after the correction. So since the Ph has risen substantially for two days in a row, and PPM's are now increasing, I'm going to drain flush my system with Flora Kleen for a few hours to fix the problem since it appears I'm having a nutrient lockout. I'll be posting pics later on tonight, as the lights have just gone out for the day.

JohnnyPotSeed1969 · #28 12-19-2008, 02:25 PM

Okay, so I let things run a bit to see where they would go during lights out. Ph rose again, and so did PPM's. When lights came on I peeked at the roots and sure enough I've started to develop root rot. I had feared this would happen, as my bucket temps seem higher than they should be. Keep in mind I have something like 2 to 3 inches of standing water in my bucket bottoms to keep the roots from drying out. I may have to go back to 30 minutes every 4 hours to keep things from getting stagnant. They seemed much happier when I was running them every 4 hours.

Currently I'm running Flora Kleen through my system in case my plants are experiencing lockout from the root rot. I'm gonna run it through for a couple of hours, then clean the whole system out again and start with a fresh tank with Flora Shield again. That should help to solve the problem. I'm also going to cover the buckets and lids with foil tape to help alleviate the temps in the buckets themselves.

I'm experiencing an annoying issue with my top fill float valves. The rushing of the water coming in from the fill pump is creating substantial waves in the control bucket which is causing the switches to lose their stasis from all of the bobbing. This is not good for pumps, and it's annoying. Tomorrow I'm gonna get a new fitting for the fill line into the bucket, that should help to correct the issue. I'm not sure how I had everything lined up the last time, because I've never had this problem before. To top it off, my exhaust line leaving my inline fan came off and falling on one of the plants. No serious damage, but this past couple of days has been frustrating.

Okay, so I've included pics. First we have the plants in their normal order, followed by a root shot of each plant. As you can see, some are worse than others. The last three are all of the symptoms my plants have been exhibiting over the past week or so. We have necrosis, twisting, and finally, spidery new growth which suffers from chlorosis. No doubt these symptoms are a manifestation of the root rot, caused by nute deficiencies because of the roots' inability to effectively take in nutrients.

Perhaps the switching of the flood and drain cycles from every 4 hours to 8 hours and then to 6 allowed for the water to become more stagnant than it had been on the old cycle. Either way, it just goes to show that conditions for roots are just as important as conditions for the plant, if not more so. For now, I have to mind the fill pump until I can get that problem sorted out. Updates to follow soon.

JohnnyPotSeed1969 · #29 12-21-2008, 07:57 AM

I finished with the flushing and cleaning of the system. Yesterday was a very busy day for me & the girls. I had to disassemble the entire system again, so while I had all the buckets out, I decided to use aluminum tape on them so they would stop absorbing so much infrared heat. With the reflective surface, I'm hoping this really cuts down on temps inside the buckets.

I also came up with what appears to be a working solution for the issue with my pump sloshing the switches in the control bucket. I just bought a 90* PVC elbow, connected the fill line to one end, and put an extra piece of tubing I had laying around into the other. The extra piece of tubing is several inches long, so it is submerged when bucket is near full. This reduces the sloshing greatly. I might need to tweak it a bit, but it has worked so far.

I switched the fill and drain cycle back to 30 minutes every 4 hours. Visual inspection of the individual buckets suggested that things were getting too stagnant. I did not have this problem before I diverged from that feeding plan. I'm hoping that the combination of more water movement via increased feeding schedule, the buckets' far reduced ability to absorb infrared heat and a fresh tank with Flora Shield should reverse the pythium issue.

I also deep cleaned my 6'' air stones. They had become very funky. Normally, they are a dark blue, but they had become almost black. I let them soak in pharmaceutical grade hydrogen peroxide for most of the day. By the time I needed them again, they were looking almost brand new.

Oh, and I ripped all the males out. I'm going out of town for a few days, and wanted the girls to not have to fight for resources with a bunch of dudes. 3 girls, 3 boys. Not too bad I guess. I felt bad when I was cutting off their roots with scissors, but only for a second. All told, I spent damn near all day gardening and/or doing garden related stuff. I was so beat, I slept damn near 12 hours straight last nite lol.

Anyways, that's it for now.