First Grow Journal

[Agentbuckwold3]

Hey all,
So I've been on the forum for the last month getting help with my grow from a lot of awesome people on here and I figure it's time to put together my first journal. I germinated 1 Nirvana Lemon OG Haze auto in a Rapid Rooter on July 1st. She popped in less than 12 hours. After a few days in a humidity dome I put her in her permanent home, a 1.5gal DWC under a 300 watt LED in a 18"w x 13"d x 48"t grow box. I'm using the GH flora trio with Calimagic and Hydroguard. I made the rookie mistakes at first with too much nutrients. Also, the grow box holds a lot of heat and the air pump that came with the box was a joke so she wasn't getting enough oxygen to the roots which caused her to droop terribly. I remedied both problems with a stronger air pump and a makeshift a/c system using a styrofoam cooler, fan, ice packs, and a 4" vinyl duct run straight to the intake fan. I also ordered a larger container than my res which I cut a whole in the lid of to fit the res snug, fill half way with water and ice packs every morning and drop the res in to keep the internal res temp cool. I've wrapped pretty much 95% of the res in reflective tape and made every effort to stop light leaks. It's coming up on a month since sprouting and I'm seeing the first white pistils so I'm very excited. I started my first day of LST today. She is so short and bushy so I need to get some light to the bud sights. Please feel free to give constructive criticism and pointers to anything I could do better. Thanks for looking!

[Weed Pharma]

What is the distance from the LED to the plant. I usually set the 300w LED @28" to the top of the container for auto's and let them grow into it.
Also, the fan should not be pointing directly on the plant.

Disclaimer-->>> I don't grow in DWC, clone/veg a bit yes- but I've never grown cannabis to harvest in a DWC setup.

[Agentbuckwold3]

The fan is now tilted back just putting a breeze right over top of the plant, sorry some of the pics aren't 100% what the setup looks like now. I've been changing little by little every week. The light is 26" at the moment.

[Agentbuckwold3]

I was rushing out of the door for work this morning so I didn't get a good pic of the LST. The plant is so short and bushy but hopefully I'll get enough light and air to the growth nodes for them to make something of themselves.

[Agentbuckwold3]

Happy 4 weeks to this girl. It's day 3 of LST and I feel like I'm doing it correctly (said with little confidence)? The more I train the more she grows and covers more of the growth tips.

[Agentbuckwold3]

Hey all,
I did some very light defoliating last night and she doesn't seem at all phased. I also did a res change and upped my nutes from 1/8 strength to 1/4 strength and she seems to be handling that pretty well. I continued LST this morning trying to slowly get those bud sights in position. I'm going to do another defoliation in a week.

[Agentbuckwold3]

Hey all,
Just wanted to get some more experienced feedback on my LST training. Personally, I think it's going great. What do you all think? Am I properly exposing bud sights while keeping an even canopy?

[Agentbuckwold3]

Day 36,
Really happy with my LST. I feel like I'm getting decent light exposure all around and she's staying nice and flat. Going to up the Bloom to 1/2 strength this week. Keeping Micro and Grow at 1/4 strength.

[Agentbuckwold3]

Day 40,
Really happy with the way things are going. I didn't see much of a stretch out of her. I've dropped the light down to 17". She's drinking quite a bit more water daily, I'm having to top off the res at least twice a day. I've got the shape I want so I think I'm just playing the waiting game from here on.

[D.A.A.S.69]

Looking good ABW3

[Agentbuckwold3]

Thank you!

[JohnC]

Agentbuckwold3 - I'm curious, what are your water temperatures like?

[Agentbuckwold3]

68F-72F. It was much higher when I first set everything up, but after the homemade a/c I got it under control.

[Agentbuckwold3]

Came home to this on some of my older fan leaves. PH dropped down to 4.7 so I've got it back up to 6.1. It's been dropping like that every day. Anyone want to weigh in? New growth seems to be doing fine.

[alltatup]

Picture's too pink to really see the plant, but too much water? Give us more info: what your're feeding, pH in and out?

[Agentbuckwold3]

For the last few days my PH has been fluctuating like crazy. I will wake up, take a reading (meter is calibrated correctly), and lately it's been too low like 4.9-5.1. So I will adjust it to around 6.0 and by the time I get home it's already back down to the low 5s or high 4s. Last night it was 4.7, I raised it to 6.1, and within 2 hours it was down to 5.1. So I went ahead and did a res change and put it at 5.8 and this morning it's at 6.4 so I think it's more under control now. I think where it dropped so low the roots couldn't get any P. I did have the nutes at:
Micro: 1/4tsp per gal
Grow: 1/4tsp per gal
Bloom: 1/2 tsp per gal
Calimagic: 1/2tsp per gal
Hydroguard: 2ml per gal

With this past res change I wanted to back off of the N because she's very sensitive to toxicity, so I used Micro at 1/8tsp per gal and kept everything else the same. I also backed the light off a few inches while she recovers.

[Agentbuckwold3]

[alltatup]

Agentb, Are you sure you're supposed to be feeding all 3 in Flower? I made that mistake with AN nutes, and cut out the G very quickly--nitrogen toxicity.

[Agentbuckwold3]

I was just following Nebulas DWC floratrio with Calimagic schedule, but at a lighter dose since she's so sensitive. Should I cut the Micro out with the next res change since it has the most N?

[alltatup]

Aw, thanks agentb, but I really want to study how plant nutrition really works, what photosynthesis is and how they work together. Totally ignorant about that stuff. Damn, I wish that someone who uses your nutes would respond; and I wonder why the hell your pH is fluctuating so much. Gonna have to look that up. You could always PM Nebula if you really want the expert's advice; I've done it and she's really good about answering.

[Agentbuckwold3]

Well the ph isn't dropping since the res change. It was still in range at 6.4 when I left for work so I'm hoping it is still around that when I get home. If it is out of range again I will probably PM her. Can't hurt right? I bought Marijuana Horticulture by Jorge Cervantes and it's a little bit dated, but there is still A LOT of great information and full color high res photos galore. If you come across anything worth reading shoot it my way if you get a chance.

[Agentbuckwold3]

I had one person in another forum tell me that hydroguard caused his ph to fluctuate so he started adding 3% peroxide daily instead of beneficial bacteria. I had another person tell me that my smaller res was the culprit. And another person who was kind of hard to understand told me that My nutes were too strong and that was causing it...so I've gotten an array of information from different sources. I think my best bet is to keep riding it out and stick with your recommendation of a flush.

[alltatup]

I just read this on Nebula's pH page:

• For example, let's say you watered your plants with nutrient water adjusted to a pH of 6.0, yet the runoff water is coming out with a pH of 4.0. This often happens because there is nutrient/salt buildup around the roots (usually from adding too many nutrients over a period of time). You need to remove the buildup. A common way to remove salt buildup is to flush the plant with about 3x as much plain, pH'ed water as normal. Then go back to your normal feeding schedule (make sure you check the runoff pH again afterwards, to make sure that your flush worked).

So I don't think it's a P deficiency, cuz you have been feeding your plants well. I think it's lockout.

YOu and I are both DWC, but the principle is the same, and this may be why your pH is fluctuating so wildly.

And you should be sure what you're doing if you stop using Micro, which I think may not be the right thing. I'd say use them according to the ratio guidelines, but LOWER THE AMOUNT OF ALL OF THEM. I haven't been feeding my plants at even 50% of what they recommend (after I had nute lockout on Grow 4), and they seem to like it.