The AltarNational Garden

Ahhhh ok that's good to here haha! I didn't wanna be that guy suggesting some half ass shit haha.
Everything a very deep and happy green for me to bro! The way to showcase it in pics tho, its to take it out from under the bright lights and take the pic with the flash on, under regular lighting! I JUST figured that out bro! This is Seedsman White Widow that had 1 week of 18/6 then went to 12/12 in the soil mix:



It was once this root bound in the two pics above, as I left it in a solo for about a month and didn't lollipop.
This was the day I transplanted it from a solo to a 1gal grow bag of the new soil.
It ABSOLUTELY took off since that. Those ugly fan leaves I removed eventually, but since then I haven't removed a leaf!
And they are gonna LOVE and I mean LOVE the smart pots! I slept on them before I got them thinking it was hype haha but now I won't finish in anything bu smart pots!

And cheers boss! Cheers to growing #FINESMOKE!

Looks awesome mang... I will definitely take 'em out and flash 'em to get some better pics in the future... just haven't bothered trying to show 'em off much yet because there ain't much there to show off yet, haha.

Definitely looking forward to seeing my ladies in such a healthy state, heh.

Not having great luck with my cloner... ph keeps swinging back up to 7 even though I add ph down... it just keeps coming back up, and no sign of roots yet. Not sure I cut these clones big enough. I tend to err on the side of smaller cuttings, but I'm starting to wonder if I'm shooting myself in the foot... is there a rule of thumb as to how big a clone needs to be to survive? Does the stem need to be "woody" or will a softer/smaller stem still root? I am giving them a couple nodes each so that I can strip off the lower node for more potential root-exposure, but I'm not getting any roots and the clones are slowly eating themselves alive. Don't really know if it's because the ph keeps fluctuating or if I'm taking clones too young. Considering trying distilled water and/or waiting til the c99's get a bit bigger before I cut the clones from the lower nodes so that the clones are more bulky... either that or I'm ditching this fuckin' cloner and going back to cloning in a soilless medium. Sorta disappointing though, I thought this thing would make it easier and improve my success rate, but apparently I'm still a total clone noob.

It's absolutely imperative that you include an air stone in your cloner; is their one? Good and long lasting ph down are phosphoric and/or sulfuric acids....i'm on my phone but their is a product at home depot made by klean strip that is just phosphoric acid and water, heavily concentrated should last a lifetime......it's a paint prep product'

PSUAGRO. said:

It's absolutely imperative that you include an air stone in your cloner; is their one? Good and long lasting ph down are phosphoric and/or sulfuric acids....i'm on my phone but their is a product at home depot made by klean strip that is just phosphoric acid and water, heavily concentrated should last a lifetime......it's a paint prep product'

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No, there's no air stone as it's an aero setup, so the water level stays well below the roots and it uses spray nozzles to spray the roots above. I am using some hydro pH down that I had bought way back before I knew what I needed in general... it brings the ph down fine but it comes back up... I was assuming this is because the water has perhaps some ph-neutralizing sediment (lime/calcium) in it and that this is bringing the ph back up over time... are you sayin this ph down itself is just shit and doesn't last then? fyi, according to the bottle this general hydro ph down contains phosphoric acid, citric acid, and mono ammonium phosphate.

Ignore my recommendations then, didn't know you where using an aero cloner; it should have high success rates though. Your also probably correct that your water source may have a large sediment percentage if it rises that fast with phosphoric acid. The home depot product will also be ineffective if this is the case.........have you looked at a filter system yet/RO??

good luck grower

PSUAGRO. said:

Ignore my recommendations then, didn't know you where using an aero cloner; it should have high success rates though. Your also probably correct that your water source may have a large sediment percentage if it rises that fast with phosphoric acid. The home depot product will also be ineffective if this is the case.........have you looked at a filter system yet/RO??

good luck grower

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Nay, no filters purchased yet... according to my reader my ppm is like 40 so I don't see the point for soil applications unless I still run into problems with the living soil. At this point I'm assuming my water wasn't the problem last round, but still have it on the back burner as a possible solution if i still see problems with the new soil. It would be nice to have some RO water for this cloner though, I admit! Maybe I should just buy a couple gallons of distilled at the store?

Been hook-makin':



Gonna go in and get the C99's tamped down better.. seeing some really nice fast growth on the new shoots on the raspberry cough! Gonna have to decide very soon if I wanna let it go at 8 or go up to 16 colas.

Haha you been hookin' you whore!

Welp, declared the clones in the cloner a lost cause, they were definitely past. But I trimmed up the C99's and took six new clones... except I didn't get to the store for distilled yet and I wanted to do the trim ups so this time I put them in the base mix in half-cut solo cups and they're under the humidity dome. We'll see how that goes instead.

The C99's didn't take to the mainlining nearly as well as the raspberry coughs... once the two main heads were trained out/down it started putting all it's efforts into the side shoots that were gonna be clones, haha. So what I did was I cut each of those side shoots above the first node instead, so it'll all be coming off 2 neighboring nodes instead of 1 like a "proper" mainline would have. (and how the raspberry coughs are) The only downside to this is technically there's a little priority difference between some half the colas and the other half, but it will be minimal if noticeable at all I think... and the upside is that this steps up the speed on the C99's development... instead of having to wait for the topped heads to come off each branch and re-top for 8, I already have 8 now, four on each node, and they're all pretty much at the same point of development. So now I just have to wait for those new baby heads to take off.

Javadog said:

Here's an odd one....do we ever add gypsum to buffer pH?

I ask because gypsum is a very popular supplement for mushroom substrates.

We will use lime to raise pH and add gypsum to make this pH more stable.

...just a thought.

JD

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just came across a read suggesting the use of gypsum to lower the pH.
It suggested using it with caution given the fact that its easy to overuse.
Nice post bro..I know this is late but still lol.

And at this point in my career lol. I think that adding compost is the safest way to stabilize the pH!

cheers bro

And I came across this bit about water

Very interesting... is that in regards to organics, using the vinegar? As long as the dilution is right so the pH is correct, obviously...? using vinegar to correct the water ph is safe for the soil food web?

yep..look at the pH range they're trying to get the water to(6.3-6.5). That's wayyy to high for dro

Sincerely420 said:

yep..look at the pH range they're trying to get the water to(6.3-6.5). That's wayyy to high for dro

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Good point! I've also seen reports of successfully lowering ph just by running it through a brita so I might try some filtering with what I have on hand (there is a filter on my shower head, I'll try that first so i don't have to lug 5 gals of water up from the kitchen) and see what happens there...

Edit: just tried the shower head filter now, that didn't do jack... and I'm reading 7.6-8 now, dang. I wouldn't be surprised if my ph was varying all along and that was what jacked me up... that page you posted describes pretty closely what i think i was experiencing, lol. Well, I guess I will throw a little apple cider vinegar in whenever I'm watering without brewing a tea... either that or I gotta get a serious filter..

AltarNation said:

Good point!

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Haha I know right?! But I don't have any experience with it, just read about it.
To be safe, I'd do a few google searches lad

Sincerely420 said:

Haha I know right?! But I don't have any experience with it, just read about it.
To be safe, I'd do a few google searches lad

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I am trying but not finding much on it that specifically addresses the safety of the food web in regards to it.. one post I read said that the method by which vinegar kills bacteria is by extreme ph, so by diluting it to a comfortable ph you are taking away it's destructive power... this made sense to me...

I'm sticking to my orignal suggestion for ya bro. I'm banking on you being safe without adding anything to the water

Haha... okay, maybe i'll just see what happens if I let it go... 8 seemed a little high for comfort tho... just worried it'll start to swing the soil over time...

Give a top dress of EWCs bro! Thats an idea! Adding more compost to the soil
And if you have to deal with the pH, you should prob just buy some of the pH down stuff right??

Sincerely420 said:

Give a top dress of EWCs bro! Thats an idea! Adding more compost to the soil
And if you have to deal with the pH, you should prob just buy some of the pH down stuff right??

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well, I could get some organic ph down from earth juice, but the rest is bad mojo for the soil from what I've heard? I dunno. How would top dressing help with water ph? Or are you saying it will help buffer to prevent swing? There's so much EWC in my mix already, i don't think it needs top dressing right now, haha.

I am tempted to try lemon juice to drop it... not sure if my meter's still reading accurately but I'm getting up to 8.5 readings from the tap now so I'm hesitant to just keep adding that anyway... should probably buy some calibration solution for the pen to make sure it's not losing accuracy too.. eh.

I'll probably just leave everything alone for now and keep using the water as-is unless I start to see signs of lock out I guess.