WOS - Chronic Haze and SS - Power Africa ( Ebb & Flow )

[hornedfrog2000]

Yeah, I think you would get enough clones. It's hard getting clones the size of Al Bs though. He has some really thick ass stems.

 

[firsttimeARE]

So do you find you need longer to veg your clones before flower than al b? He says he does 10 to 14 days and I guess the thicker stemmed ones root faster so his pictures prove. Dunno if u saw the side by side of 4mm thick stems vs the 5mm ones showing the roots at the bottom of the cube. The 5mm had a lot more root growth for everything else being equal.

 

[Someguy15]

So do you find you need longer to veg your clones before flower than al b? He says he does 10 to 14 days and I guess the thicker stemmed ones root faster so his pictures prove. Dunno if u saw the side by side of 4mm thick stems vs the 5mm ones showing the roots at the bottom of the cube. The 5mm had a lot more root growth for everything else being equal.

I have to veg my clones 5 weeks to get them where I need them. SOG I could probably get down to 14 or 21 days. He must not be including the rooting time? My thick clones usually take longer to root in my experiance? Once they do root they seem to grow faster than the low, weaker shoots on the mother ever would.

 

[firsttimeARE]

I have to veg my clones 5 weeks to get them where I need them. SOG I could probably get down to 14 or 21 days. He must not be including the rooting time? My thick clones usually take longer to root in my experiance? Once they do root they seem to grow faster than the low, weaker shoots on the mother ever would.

On the Al B. Faqt thread he says it takes around 10-14 days to set roots and put a picture up of the bottom of clones in RW that had the 4mm thick stems to the left and 5mm ones to right and the root growth you could see was much better with the 5mm ones.

Either way i'm sure I won't be as successful at first, i'm fresh into growing and have no growing experience. I have a mom box to build this weekend that will put me in the right direction. They'll be lit by a 4ft 6 tube t5 setup.

I cleaned my res and tray today with some dawn and water. Cleaned the pump, and airstones I let soak in a h2o2 and water solution and cleaned all tubing. Refilled and did 2.5ml per gal GH micro and 5ml GH bloom. The ph was perfect at 5.8, 550ppm, and .77 EC.

Cal'd my meter and it was on point, so I now know my meter can go 2 weeks without a cal. Next time im doing a month.

Right now i'm flooding half hour before lights on and every 3 hours after that. Last flood is an hour before lights off.

In a couple days once most of the chlorine in the water evaporates i'll be adding a 2ml per L 30% h2o2 and every 4 days after that.

The flood level is about a half inch under the RW and i've been side feeding the RW in the rocks for the past 3 days. Just trying to follow as much advice and threads on RIU.

 

[firsttimeARE]

Checked my tank just now and had the same ec and ppm but my ph rose to 6.1. Its back down to 5.8 now but is this normal?

So my RW I'm noticing is damp. Is this normal? I'm flooding a half inch below it so I don't know how it is wicking up that much. Its not like soaking wet but definitely damp. I did notice lots of root growth on the sides of the RW from when I was side feeding.

Everything else seems to be going well. Temps do get down to 62 at night but hopefully the mom light helps that a bit.

 

[Someguy15]

Checked my tank just now and had the same ec and ppm but my ph rose to 6.1. Its back down to 5.8 now but is this normal?

So my RW I'm noticing is damp. Is this normal? I'm flooding a half inch below it so I don't know how it is wicking up that much. Its not like soaking wet but definitely damp. I did notice lots of root growth on the sides of the RW from when I was side feeding.

Everything else seems to be going well. Temps do get down to 62 at night but hopefully the mom light helps that a bit.

Yeah it's pretty common. When I mix a new nute batch and set my ph to 5.8 it typically raises up to about 6.1 after a few hours (in the tank, no contact with plants). Once I ph it to 5.8 once again it tends to stay there. It's just the buffers in the nutes fighting the cal-mag in your tap water... If your using RO I've heard it can swing even more rapidly due to lack of buffers, but no personal experience here as I've never used RO.

If the cubes are damp but not soaked you should be fine. If they are soaked you can have problems with stem rot... the cubes kinda gave me a headache as a first timer so I move away from them. with the knowledge I've aquired now I could probably run them better, but for a beginner I think the large blocks of rw can be challenging. It's a balancing act with the ph, how often you can water, how far the water comes up the cube, ect ect. I have found it much easier to just use pots with hydroton&rw cubes. Then I can flood them 6 times a day no problem, flood height is largely irrelevenat and due to how often I can flood, root zone ec and Ph remain a lot more stable. Not trying to convince you to switch just justifying what made me.

And those temps are a lil low. Check your root zone, make sure it's not dropping below 65 or you could run into some nutrient problems (speaking from experience, sad).

 

[firsttimeARE]

The water is 65F and the hygrometer is setup at the base of my pots so that's prolly the rootzone temp. That's during lights off though. During lights on its 72 to 82. Depending how hot it is outside.

I will wait a few hours after and test it before I flood the table next res change. Thanks for that.

My tap water is only 115ppm and about 7.1 ph so I don't use RO. Heard it was only needed if you have high salinity.

And I am using the cubes the 40mm grodan ones and surrounding them with growstones instead of hydroton. Right now I'm flooding half hour beforelights on and every 2 hrs until the end of lights on it switches to every 3 hrs because my timeronly has 8 programs of off and on so I needed to make the last few floods every 3 hours till an hour before lights off is my last flood.

And yeah the RW is about as wet as it was when they were seedlings. When they were seedlings id weigh the cubes and put 4 times its weight in water into them. As they got bigger I did 5 to 6 times their weight. I really don't want to pull the cubes out and weigh them and risk damaging roots. I am flooding half inch below the bottom of the cubes so they're wet its from humidity between the pot covers and wicking up from the growstones below.

 

[firsttimeARE]

Checked on them today the lights weren't working again, 2nd time now, and the ballast was flashing which means lamp fault for my ballast. I think the room is under powered and not having enough juice to fire the bulb or my equipment is faulty. The 20amp installation will trump all room additions and will be done tomorrow.

So one of my plants RW was really dry, the kinda dry where new water being added just fills like a tiny pond before it sinks in. All the other cubes were moist. The plant that was in the dry cube had the ends of its leaves shiny like and really dry and brittle. I'm thinking dehydrated? I noticed the leaves on it were tilted down last night, another plants leaves were also tilted down but only one had the dryness on its leaves. I top fed it in the RW, gonna see if the RW is dry again tomorrow and then i'll lower the cube so it wicks more water.

Everything else looks good.

 

[hornedfrog2000]

what ballast do you have?

 

[firsttimeARE]

Phantom...Just reading the lights flashing I guess is stand by. I guess if they're both solid lights and the lamp isn't working I guess thats lamp fault. Because run is when they're both solid also. My ballast was on standby. So I unplugged the ballast and waited a half hour and then plugged it back in and it works. If I try right after, which im reading is bad, the light just flicks some power and turns back off. I guess my ballast has some hot-restrike programming into it. That it'd try and restart when ready or some shit. Confused me haha.

This has only happened once I got the dehumidifier. So i'm thinking not enough juice. That room is on a shared 15amp with another room.

Imma try to get pictures today of that sickly plant.

 

[firsttimeARE]

Added a 20amp to the room today. So now i'm rocking about 30amps. Put in a vent from another room and sealed up the door so its light proof now and the intake air is screened to prevent bugs. Bought wood for the mom box.

Didn't get to take pics. Tomorrow night i'll have updated pics of the room and of that plant that's leaf ends are crispy.

 

[firsttimeARE]

How ironic, the one that wouldn't grow just spurted a bunch and now has the biggest leaf. The rest look great.

I'm looking really close at where the nodes are on a plant thats not even 4 weeks and it looks like preflowers?? Two hairs coming out.

Perhaps because on yesterday morning the lights went off at 9am and didn't go back on until like 10pm when I could get into the room and found that my light didn't come on? Would one instance of 18 on then 12 off then 11 on and back to normal cause the plant to start showing sex?

The one with dry ends the ends are all brittle now and some have flaked off. Should I remove these leaves entirely or leave half alive leaves up?

 

[hornedfrog2000]

got any new pics man? I'll post some of mine if you post some of yours haha.

 

[firsttimeARE]

hahaha...i'll get some up tonight man. been busy with additions in the grow room and working. haven't been getting to the spot until around 8-10pm. Tonight i'm going to take some for sure.

I was reading your journal and you said you use Mag pro. I'm using 1/2 strength lucas formula, how would I know I need mag/cal?

 

[hornedfrog2000]

hahaha...i'll get some up tonight man. been busy with additions in the grow room and working. haven't been getting to the spot until around 8-10pm. Tonight i'm going to take some for sure.

I was reading your journal and you said you use Mag pro. I'm using 1/2 strength lucas formula, how would I know I need mag/cal?

You want it with RO water, or if you start seeing brown spots/yelow a lot of the time its calcium, or magnesium related. I'm not to keen on the lucas formula, but just check if it has a good amount of cal/mag in it.

 

[firsttimeARE]

#1 Banana - Known for its yellowish tinted leaves. It's getting some flesh eating bacteria on its ends of the first set of leaves just like the other. I have since moved this lady and her #4 friend to the row with #2 and #3. The table isn't level yet and i'm suspecting(given how dry those RW are in comparison that its not getting enough water?



#2 Nemo - Also known as the gimper. Known for it's lopsided growth, it was once known as the plant that wouldn't grow with a grey heart. But now it boasts the biggest leaf in the garden. If only the rest of it would grow. This one has weird growth as you can tell, one leaf is twisted and just looks weirder than the others. What's that white stuff, nute salt? Or mold? I keep humidity down real low, lowest past 2 days was 34% and highest 48%



#3 The Chosen One - The only one who looks 100% healthy compared to the rest. It has endured the horrors of my inexperience and has flourished.



#4 Crunchy - What once was a beautiful being, its former leaves have given way to dehydration and flesh eating bacteria. It's first set of real leaves are now grim reminders of the dangers my children face everyday.



New room stuff

 

[hornedfrog2000]

how often do you flood?

 

[firsttimeARE]

I flood at 2:30pm right before lights on at 3pm, then again at 5pm, then 7pm, then 9pm, then 11pm, then 2am,5am,8am last flood before lights out at 9am.

So about every 2 hours except the last 3 floods are every 3 hours because my timer only has 8 on/off options.

 

[hornedfrog2000]

That seems like a whole lot of flooding man. I only flood 3 times a day with my lights on 24 hours. You should see if you can go say 4 hours between floods, but only do it when you are home. First signs of wilting I would flood, but I have a feeling you don't need to do it as often as you are. They look over watered imo. I don't really know how wet your medium stays though. I use hydroton.

If you can do 4 hours then try 6 hours.

 

[Someguy15]

High number of waterings shouldn't be an issue with lava rock. I think your running into some issues because the majority of the roots are still in the rw. Once they grow larger and establish more roots outside of the RW, I think your issues will cease. They do look a tad over watered, but remember, over water is really just lack of o2 in the root zone. If you can keep the o2 levels to the roots up, watering constantly is possible. That's how dwc & aero work. Unfortunately, rw isn't known for aeration properties (it gets soggggy).