Dstroy's first grow journal

9/1/17
day 51 of flowering for the blueberry

aero res
ph 6.0
ppm 95-97

I changed the res today, new formula:
12.5ml mammoth p per 40 gallons
per 5 gallons
5ml protekt
4ml grow
1ml magpro
2.2ml ph down

which comes out to ph 6.0@68f ppm 95-97 with a starting water ppm of 9-11

Significantly less than my concentration was with tap water. Starting with 90ppm of tap using the same dose came out to 220ish ppm.

I made a spreadsheet to calculate the npk to get a ballpark idea of what my ratio is, I don't know if this is right but it seems to be.

I plug in the fertilizer numbers up top and then I can play around with different dose amounts, it adds it up and (everything in quotes is what I'm not sure about) "then averages what percentage by weight the npk ratio is".

9/2/17
day 52 of flowering for the blueberry

aero res
ph 6.04
ppm 93.3

Put an airstone and about a ml of bleach in the RO water reservoir. It should be gone by tomorrow, I just wanted to disinfect the water and container. I've got 44 gallons of RO water that I made yesterday which should last me the whole month of topping off.

9/4/17
day 54 of flowering for the blueberry

aero res
ph 5.88
ppm 92.7

I've been checking the water a couple times a day, in the morning and at night just to see what their uptake is.

Yesterday and today the ppms were mid 80's first thing in the morning after topping up the reservoir (it has been 1 gallon a day), so I added 1ml of grow and 0.25ml of magpro.

Still don't have a fuckin clue but I'll get there eventually. With much persistence...

9/6/17
day 56 of flowering for the blueberry

aero res
ph 5.73
ppm 85.4

so, from my newbie observations my plants are not doing good at a ph of 5.8-6.0.

I'm going to change my target to 5.5-5.8, this is what my ph always drifts down to and I think I end up adjusting too much which throws off the balance of my nutrient solution.

We'll see in about a week if it helps.

I have been topping up my reservoir, usually a little more than a gallon a day. and adding the complete formula except for the ph down at 1/4 strength which brings the ppm back up to 93-95.

I understand that adding too much ph up or down can kill beneficial bacteria, cause algae to grow and do all kinds of other shit so the less I fuck with the water the better.

Speaking of algae, I have two filters, one before (50 micron strainer) and one after (1 micron sediment filter). The housings on my 1 micron filters are clear, and algae was growing on the inside of both of them (not a lot, like an inch wide by four inches long along the bottom) because I was careless and didn't put the blackout curtain back over them.

I'm going to get a continuous temp/EC/ph monitor because I don't have enough free time for the foreseeable future to build my own.

Dj short?

Jhon77 said:

Dj short?

Click to expand...

Crop king, not sure where they source their seeds. Once I get growing good I'll get some interesting genetics.

Tried as best I could to get a shot of the trichomes, the only ones that aren't milky are under the leaves on the edges, got some amber but not a lot.

9/8/17
day 58 of flowering for the blueberry

aero res
ph 5.57
ppm 81

I added 1/2 strength dose after topping up because the ppms were in the low 70s.

I don't know if I need to start calibrating my ph meter more often than once a week, I checked ph before and after cal this morning and it was off by about .5

I've been looking at the bluelab guardian monitor, I guess I'm going to end up getting that this month because I am TIRED of getting inaccurate measurements.

I got some really long pipe cleaners to help with cleaning out all of the tubing that I use.

9/9/17
Day 59 of flowering for the blueberry

Just looking at trichomes this morning, not sure how long I should wait, there is new growth on all of the buds so I guess until that slows down some. Parts of some of the buds are ripe, but mostly they're not.

The pic came off the top of one of them, mostly milky.

Wait longer

9/10/17
day 60 of flowering for the blueberry

aero res
ph 5.67
ppm 85

added a gallon of RO and 1/2 strength nutrients to bring up the ppm and raise up the ph a bit.

I don't know if I should be adding mag pro every time, even though it only makes up about 10ppm of the nutrient solution.

9/1217
day 62 of flowering for the blueberry

aero res
ph 5.8
ppm 92

So, I got some help from someone who knows more about growing than me. They found what was wrong (they think), why shit went south real quick. I had a bad bottle of nutrients, something had precipitated out and I didn't know that wasn't normal. I followed the directions (mostly, get to that in a sec) and was shaking them up before using them so I thought that was ok. It's not. There's a little blurb on the back about mixing with water if something precipitates out, well that didn't work. So I got a brand new bottle of grow and we'll see how my plants respond (got plants in the veg tent) and they're starting to take off now after changing the res yesterday evening.

I wish that I had a picture of how much stuff was at the bottom of the bottle but I didn't think to take one before getting it recycled.

TL;DR got help, looks like a bad bottle of grow.

9/13/17

Got the reservoir monitor hooked up

9/15/17
Day 65 of flowering for the blueberry

Aero res
ph 5.6
ppm 90

Having the monitor in the reservoir is so nice, I'm having to spend a lot less time messing with water.

Its going to be a few weeks or more until the clones are ready to flower, but hopefully I don't fuck up the next cycle so I can get the perpetual going.

That bottle of grow (and my ineptitude) really fucked up my tomato plants

9/17/17
Day 67 of flowering for the blueberry, new growth has slowed down, all trichomes are milky on the tops.

aero res
ph 5.6
ppm 80

Been really easy taking care of the grow room since putting that monitor in. Just dosing with grow (one ml) when the ppms drop to 80, and using protekt to ph up.

Going to top two of my clones that are growing.

one of my clones hasn't started revegging yet, been growing tons of roots though

the last clone looks like a basil plant or something, like an alien. but the new growth looks normal so I'll clear out all the funky stuff when it gets bigger

I also turned down my oscillating fans, I think that might have been stressing the plants out as well.

Got some bud pics with the lights off. one without flash and one with.

Cut one plant down on Monday, and the other one yesterday.

The roots looked really good on both plants, dense and no dead spots.

I had a lot of palm size flowers, I didn't think I was going to get as much as I did because they looked like death before getting chopped.

Trimming them was super fuckin easy. I got a nifty new trimming bin, smoked all the sift that was in the bottom.

Scissor hash was super tasty.

Next round I hope to do better, I keep track of everything to help me not repeat mistakes. The plants that are vegging look good and they are going to get trained today.

I got two new filters for my vacuum pump, both #5 filter housings. Both 1 micron blown pvc, for the in and out on the pump. I've been using vegetable oil in it, and it's still working great.

Soaking the flower side plumbing in bleach water to clean it while the tent isn't being used.

Turned the lights down to 30% in the veg tent, topped the clones.

Couple of clones in the cloner are revegging.

Put hygrozyme in my reservoir, now ph is creeping up slightly.

Raised up the lights a bit in the veg tent and increased the intensity to 35%. Got wind burn, so I angled the fan up and now it points at the walls, still moves the air around. They look pretty good, a third one is revegging now.

Ph in the reservoir has been trending upward ever since I added hygrozyme. Other than that, no changes. Just add a ml or so of grow per day and adjust the ph. Getting pretty close to res change.

Blueberry harvest is done drying, got a little more than 7 ounces of flower and a couple ounces of trim. We'll see how much I get per plant this next time and hopefully it's a shitload more than 3.5 ounces.

9/30/17

Not a lot to update, defoliated the 3 blueberry plants I have vegging right now. They're all monster crop clones so I removed the weird fuckin leaves they throw out when they start vegging, and big fan leaves on the inside of the plants that were blocking the lower branches that are trying to catch up.

They're looking ok, the new growth isn't clawed so I think it was just the fan pointing at them too much. I've been waiting to add magpro until the new growth looks light green, which is about once every 3-5 days depending on how warm it is in the room.

Increased the light intensity to 40% (of 560w)

I might end up with only 3 plants in the flower tent and not 4, because one of the clones still hasn't started revegging yet.

The flower tent's plumbing is still pressurized with bleach water, but very low concentration bleach to stop anything from growing while the tent is empty.

I topped the two tallest blueberry plants on wednesday 9/27

aero res
ph 5.5
ppm 80
temp 68

ambient has been 75 day, 65-67 night, a little cold

10/1/17

Changed and cleaned the res today, only filled it up with 20 gallons though

Only using protekt, ph down, and grow. Nothing else. 5ml of protekt and grow, 2ml of ph down per 5 gallons. Few drops of bleach in the res to kill anything.

aero res
ph 5.8
ppm 110
temp 68

If I start to see N tox in my veg tent I'll lower ph to 5.6

Temps have been 65f at night, 73-75 during the day. Lights are at 40% (of 560w)

If my plants ever stop looking like shit I'll put up pics of them, someday I'll get this figured out.