My First Grow Journal...EVER! 600W MH/HPS Bubbleponics Cabinet Grow

[Jibblerjoe]

Very nice set up. Plants look great.

[ellz]

07/21/2017:

09:00PM: Had to add about 2 gallons of pH'ed water to each reservoir because the babies are drinking it up! It appears that one full dropper of pH down mixed with my water and some Hydroguard is the right combination to get my pH down to the low 6's from the 8's so perhaps one full dropper is good to reduce a 5 gallon container down 2 pH points. I will still test each time but if this turns out to be the case that is worth noting. All of the plants have now split their selves from the topping and have picked up where they left off. I am waiting until they get a little bigger before starting LST. Right now, everything is getting fairly equal light so no big deal. I have attached photos of each group below. Thanks for reading!

[ellz]

07/20/2017:

07:00PM: Wanted to check on things after topping all the babies yesterday and I am happy to say they are recovering nicely. My reservoir temperatures are down to around 74ºF with the cooling fans blowing on them so I am pleased with that for this grow. I will make changes before my next grow but low 70s is okay for my first one. I also plan on insulating the reservoirs this weekend with some bubble wrap insulation so that may help a lot too. The roots are going crazy down below. I will need to redo my tubing in the reservoirs after this grow to keep them out of the way of the roots but I think things will be okay for now. I have posted a photo of each group on day 17 from seed. Thanks for reading!

[sootandsweep]

thankyou for that

[ellz]

07/19/2017:

04:00PM: Wanted to test the ice bottle cooling ability again so I put two frozen 20oz bottles in each reservoir. The starting temps were 76.3ºF in each reservoir. Will check the temps in one hour.

05:00PM: Went to check on the ice bottles and both were about 95% thawed in each reservoir. However, the reservoir temps had dropped down to 64.6ºF in each one after the ice bottles had been in there an hour.

06:15PM: When the light came back on, I checked the reservoir temperatures again about 15 minutes after they had a chance to warm up. The reservoir temps were back up to about 71ºF so basically I would have to swap the ice every hour or every other hour to maintain lower reservoir temperatures. Honestly, this is not a viable option so it's scratched. I may look into other options but at this point, the grow is too far in to do any modifications on the reservoirs to install a cooler so I guess I will just have to hope for the best.

06:30PM: Topped all four plants. Each one had 4 nodes so I cut them back to having only 2 nodes each. They are all showing signs of stress from the topping (leaves are all curled a bit) but I will check on them later to see if they have recovered. I have posted photos of before and after the topping today below. Thanks for reading!

[ellz]

Here is a whole section about it. I hope it helps.

http://www.growweedeasy.com/cannabis-extract-hash-oil

[sootandsweep]

can someone please tell me how to get oil from my plants

[ellz]

07/18/2017:

08:30PM: Everything is still running smoothly. I spent most of the day kayaking but I checked on the babies when I got home this evening and they are looking good! My new fans have come in so I will install those tomorrow and see if they reduce the reservoir temps at all. They have been pretty much in the mid 70s with the low speed fans so hopefully that will go down more with fans that are 2x more powerful. Below are pictures of each group of plants on day 15 from seed. Thanks for reading!

[ellz]

Thanks. I lifted the top of the reservoir for each and snapped the pics. It took a couple of seconds total, so it shouldn't hurt the roots themselves. They saw less light than they would have during a nutrient change.

[oldjarhead100]

nice picture ellz how did you get pictures of the roots inside the res?

[ellz]

2nd week photo shoot pics...tops and bottoms exposed! Giggity!

[ellz]

Thanks!

[Sheesh]

They look great Ellz! Nice way to test for light too.

[ellz]

07/17/2017:

03:00PM: Emptied both reservoirs and filled them back up with some fresh nutrients. I used the week 2 feeding schedule off of the General Hydroponics feed chart I posted. The pH tester says my nutrient solution is right at 6.00 which is perfect! The water out of the tap has a pH of about 7.1 but when the nutrients are added, the pH drops down to where it needs to be without the need of the pH Up or pH Down. I checked both reservoirs and this was the case so that is great news! I will still check the pH each time I refresh my reservoirs just to make sure. I also wanted to test to see if there was any light entering the cabinet while the light was off during the day so I set my phone camera's timer, turned off the flash and placed the camera on top of the light facing upwards (where all but one hole is) in the cabinet and closed the doors. 10 seconds later, I opened the doors and then moved the phone down to the reservoirs still facing up and repeated the process. The top photo came back with one very tiny light spot but the photo taken from down by the reservoir was completely black so there is no light getting past the light itself and reaching the plants. That will be crucial during the flowering phase! I plan on checking this again each time I move the light up just to make sure this stays the case, and adjust whatever I need to if it changes.

06:00PM: Once the light came back on I took a couple of pics of the babies as they sit after two weeks from seed and I posted them below. It looks like there are 3 nodes on each plant and the faster of each plant is starting on their 4th nodes now. I should be able to start topping them and LST soon so that's cool. Been checking the roots and they look good. Once this grow is done, I plan on redoing my drip tubes to get rid of any excess slack and give the roots more free space in the reservoir. I will note that the roots are a bit brown, but only because that is the color of the nutrient solution. I got a bit nervous at first but after reading about root rot versus root stain, this is just root stain.

[ellz]

Get that baby going!