Johnny's doing it again

Thanks for the positive words man

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.

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.

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.

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!!!!!

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.

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.

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.

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.

looking good

johanrichards said:

looking good

Click to expand...

Thanks for the kind words sir!

Okay, so I checked the tank today. Again, Ph had risen almost a full point. This is entirely due to the root rot issue. The tank was still clear and did not smell funky at all. PPM's actually dropped a little, but I'm not sure if that's because the girls ate, or if it's because of the leak I had in the tent (my own fault of course).

Anyways, roots looked better today than they did yesterday, and temps seem lower inside the buckets. I'm going to check the tank again in the morning to see how things went. I purposely Ph'ed down to about 5.2 since I knew it was going to drift upwards. That's all I've got for now.

I haven't updated because I haven't had time due to constantly dealing with grow related issues. I went out of town for 6 days and left the op unattended. When I got back, my plants looked like shit and there had been no new growth. I checked the tank and buckets and everything was absolutely rancid.

As it turned out, my sloshing issue was never solved, so that resulted in a burned out relay in addition to two burned out float valve sensors from the voltage spike. I only have one extra sensor on hand, and it's going to be next week until I can get ahold of one.

Anyways, the roots had been covered in some white fuzz, and were all dried out except for that section which had been submerged in the water which hadn't been moving for the past several days. Those were pretty brown and nasty. I promptly changed and cleaned the entire system and ran Flora Shield for a good 3 days trying to mind the Ph which wanted to fluctuate excessively with that stuff by itself.

Now that the roots are looking decent, I have changed the solution again to include 1/2 strength nutes. The problem is my system is no longer automated. I have to manually operate my pumps since the sensors are blown.

I am beginning to wish I had just built an ebb n flow table from scratch rather than this particular method, as it seems prone to failures. I have experienced many leaks and problems with this setup. I have to at least make some return on my investment before I can justify spending yet more money in what has thus far been a vain attempt at growing my own dope. Hopefully the new year brings new luck.

Well I have seriously been slacking with this journal. Over the past week, I have been battling root rot from inadequate dissolved oxygen levels within my system. Due to the fact that I had a relay and two float valve switches blow, I had been forced to manually water. Consequently, the girls were not watered as regularly as they would have been had the control bucket not broke.

During this down time, I have been researching ways to better control my setup. I re-designed a couple of things, and have come across a comprehensive nutrient management profile. I have been reading about the Lucas Feeding Formula. It seems easy enough, and with spreadsheets to create a control track, I will be able to easier analyze trends within the reservoir. I also measured the inside of my reservoir and marked in 5 gallon increments so that I can accurately track water usage and create a reliable addback program that won't harm my plants.

My control box broke because of the sloshing created in the fill line. If you remember, I had to break a siphon in that line, so I installed a check valve at the highest point. It turned out to be a temporary solution. When air would get caught in the line during relay cycles, it would be forced through the line, creating a stop/start which would create waves in the bucket. The repetitive, fast motion burned out the relay which burned out both switches.

I fixed the control bucket today, and re-ran my fill line with a more flexible line. I had to remove everything from the grow room except the tent, and I taped the line in a steady decline which eliminates "troughs" in the line and thus the sloshing totally. I drilled a hole in a 90* PVC elbow joint which joints the hard line from the fill pump to the more flexible line I ran behind the tent. After that, I siliconed everything on that bad boy up and let her rip.

Okay, so for the boring stuff. I started with 45 gallons of water to which I added 400 ml of GH Flora Micro and 800ml GH Flora Bloom. I let it set, and water went from a ph of 8.91 to 5.53 and a TDS of 1136. After 4 hours, the ph rebounded to 5.83. I then ran a fill and drain cycle to get some water into the buckets, as the girls needed a drink. After the cycle, I needed about 6 gallons of water to top of the reservoir back to 45 gallons. I checked ph and TDS again after the addback, and they were 5.9 and 1013 respectively. I then needed to add some more nutes to get the ph down, and because I'm aiming for about 1300 TDS. Using some math, I determined I would need in the neighborhood of 102ml of Micro and 203ml of Bloom to bring the TDS up to that range, + or - 10% or so. Figuring that a batch of 0-8-16 for 5 gallons would be 120 ml, I decided to go with that. I am currently waiting for ph and TDS to stabilize so I can take my post addback adjustment readings.

In all of this, I have determined I have a lack of dissolved oxygen in my system. I have therefore cut my cycles to 15 minutes every 2 hours. I also replaced my 160gph pump with a beefier 240gph pump to help circulate things a bit more in the rez. I have read that a good rule of thumb for air pumps is 1 watt per gallon. My pumps are 3.5 watts apiece, so I am woefully underpowered. I'm feeling confident that once I finally get everything dialed in, this system will be great.

You are using HPS??

Yep, a 600 watt Eye Hortilux with a cooltube

I took clones today. 4 from each girl. That is way more than I need, but that will hopefully up my chances of success. I used Wilt Stop on 1/2 of the clones, while not using it on the other to further my chances of successfully rooting clones.

Today I noticed vigorous new root growth on all of the plants, and new growth seemed to be doing well. All three girls are showing heavy pre-flowers now and are practically begging me to switch to 12/12. I did a plain water add-back to allow ppm's to drift down a bit. Ph went down to around 5.5 after hovering around 5.8 every day since the last res change.

I will most likely switch to 12/12 within the next 48 hours. It appears that my yield is going to suffer from my inexperience, as all of my plants look pretty wrecked from dealing with the pump issue and the lack of dissolved oxygen in my system. All I can do now is cross my fingers and wait and hope the clones make it.

Yesterday, the other relay went out in my control bucket. I discovered this about 5 pm or so, so I was chained to the system every 2 hours yesterday draining after every fill cycle.

Picked up a new relay today. It was a 5 minute install, after which every thing looked good.

Clones are doing pretty good. I haven't had any death yet. I mist the inside of the dome and some hydroton I have inside the tray twice a day. That keeps humidity up pretty good with the heated mat. Tomorrow I'll start exposing them to air and try to get those roots going.

Well, I feel like I have been ignoring this thread. It has been a while since I posted any pics, but I'll fix that today. Things have thankfully been uneventful recently. The system has been running smooth and the girls have shown remarkable growth in vegetation, buds and roots. Since I have switched to running every 2 hours, everything has become more stable and thus the results. The first three pics are of each individual plant. The rest are beginning bud formations and pistil formations.

Cloning has not been going that well. Most of the clones have totally died off. A few look really bad. One looks pretty good, so I hope it makes it. I'll be thoroughly documenting the bud formation process. I may not include most of the results in here, but we'll see.

Man bro you've been having lots of trouble.I think you should just use flood and drain (ebb and flow)like you mentioned.It's easy to make your own tray and pretty affordable if you buy one (80 bucks 3x3 grow tray) a tote for your reservoir.With this system you can flood and drain or top feed even aerponic (if you make a lid with holes sprayers etc. )I've built all kind of setups I found out the hard way myself.Live and learn and learn to live hopefully things get better GOOD LUCK BRO!!

Thanks for the encouraging words. I would like to switch to an ebb n flow tray system, however I'm not allowed to make any more upgrades until I realize a return from the system I have now.

The multiflow system I built runs well when left alone. I was having a dissolved oxygen problem in my reservoir which was causing me to have to take apart the whole system weekly. I didn't design or build the system for that, (even though I should have) so when it is left alone, things work pretty good. After a harvest or two, my roommate/co-financier will be more willing to talk about upgrades lol.