Crimea Blue 1000W flood & drain grow - Comments/advice/expierence welcome..

Hi all, Ive been on and off here in the past with different usernames for help and advice from some of the threads, Ive got some great PH & EC info from some of the sticky's and thought it was about time i posted about my grow. Ive done 5 grows in soil in the past, this is my first go at hydro growing.

Setup:
8" inline fan and filter on a manual speed controller
1 x 1000W HPS over the hydro tray
1 x 400W over 4 soil pots
Nuticulture EF 120 res/tray
50w Nute tank heater
80W greenhouse heater in the room
1200W oil filled rad outside the room by the air intake
1 x tower fan for air circulation
Cheap and cheerful electronic TDM and PH meters from china. (my only complaint was the shipping time)
Rockwool Blocks and Clay pebbles
Full canna aqua range for the hydro

The Hydro Grow:
The hydro tray held 5 feminized Crimea Blue (Barneys ) plants from seed, 1 weakling has since been pulled out although i think i may have contributed to her demise. I've grown Crimea blue twice in the past and love her, shes a fast, resilient and rewarding plant to grow. The taste and smell is very unique and hard to describe but anyone who's smoked it will remember this strain.

The style i was going for was SOG-ish, close together plants aiming for a nice canopy of heads but Ive opted not to tip or FIM the plants, Ive done a bit of supper-cropping to help the bottom stems clear the canopy. As it was my first time with hydro I'm sticking with what i know and kept every thing that looks healthy, apart from the bottom of branches, I've trimmed a considerable amount from under the canopy. So far shes grown into a bush with a nice canopy but somewhat uneven, couldn't wait for clones so i knew it would ever be perfect.

The first issue i had was within a few days of going into the tray, one plant became yellow, the over fertilization nearly killed her and by the time she came round the was already dwarfed by the other plants so then i did kill her.

Since then Ive been war for a with over fertilization, toxicity/deficiency and excessive PH fluctuation. All the plants had dark green, shiny leaves with deformed (bent) blades that pointed down, when this happened i flushed out with a 20% strength solution and replaced the tank with 75% strength. After a few days 2 of the plants had improved but this point i was completely guessing EC, and using a color tester for PH, i did notice it was changing colors every few days but it was still a guessing game. When the testers arrived i changed the tank and went for a 60% strength solution and noticed the PPM was around 1500, which struck me as high for 60% strength. I went ahead and the plants didn't get much worse but the over fert signs went going away wither. I only added water for top up and let the PPM fall, Also i noticed the PH had went from 5.4 when i changed to 6.3 about 14 hours later so when i was topping up i was making drastic PH adjustments.

I knew there was something going drastically wrong with what i was doing and at the next tank change i went over everything, watched the manufacturer video and checked the capacity of the res and the fill line. I decided instead of running the water into the tank from the tap and ASSUME that i was using 45L (the "res volume" provided on the tech specs) it might be a good idea to measure it, and sure enough i discovered that it only took 20L when filled to fill line. I literally kicked myself, what a pathetic and completely avoidable mistake, every nutrient dosage from day one had been DOUBLE what i intended... no fucking wonder i blew my budget when I was buying the nutes. I was finally relieved though because at least i'd finally found what was causing all my concerns. (at that point the plants looked healthy, a bit dark green, 1 plant in particular was very dark and shiny, but the others wern't looking 2 bad, 2 of the plants had however developed some rust spots which i read to be possible Mg or M problems as a result of a high EC).

The grand discovery of actual water volume was about a week ago, i already had the PPM at around 900 and kept letting it fall till the end of my shift pattern at work, so just last night she got a fresh 20L of water, 4 ml h2o2, 15% strength solution at 5.8 PH, its been flooding for 45 mins every 6 hours and getting a final 2 hour flush before i change the tank again tonight with 75% solution ... Hoping the spotting will cease and things will start going a bit smoother now Ive stopped doubling the dosage. Even with that being said the 4 survivers are nice looking plants, plenty of foliage, plenty of heads, trichrome production started faster than I've ever seen before!

The soil grow:
Beside the tray sits 4 pots under a 400W HPS, all clones. 3 are Dna Gentics C13 Haze (clone) and one Barney's Pineapple chunk (clone). Ive been using them as a practice pad, they are heavily super-cropped, all but one completely topped. The idea is to build a bit of experience before going full hydro SOG. I'm ashamed to say however they have been neglected nutrient wise. They were fine with just whatever was in the john innes i used mixed with potting soil, perlite and vermiculite, but soon after going into a flowering yellowing started, i tried to fight it off with a bit of canna cure foliar feed but around 10 days ago i finally bought some bio bloom that I've mixed with cannazyme and some boost, c13s have greened up abit but the pineapple chunk is still very very yellow, not sure if she will come back I've never had a plant go THAT yellow.

Ive not been taking pictures of the soil plants out of pure shame, its my third attempted at c13 and will be my final, its a very touchy plant hard to keep it healthy not for amature growers like me. Its my first crack at pineapple chunk and she was very eazy to keep and healthy.... until i went into flowering without nutrients.

Feel free to comment, advice welcome (unless your gonna tell me to trim off a beautiful, lush, green fan leaf)..

Not really sure what to expect now, the one plant that's always been dark and shiny is the most affected with the brown spots... i dont think the brown spots will go away but they should stop forming ? and the glossy-ness... that should go away now right ? lol

They are on day 18 of flowering now

Gonna try attach some pics in chronological order:

Time for a little update, currently on day 25 of flowering,

Since spotting the over fert issue ive notices alot of the foliage has lightened up and although some tips still point down most are looking alot better. Ive had to trim out some foliage from under the canopy and some new growth from the bottom of the stems, changed her tank last night and hopefully next time tank gets changed we should be adding the PK 1314.
One of the hydro plants still has very dark and shiny leaves however the texture has improved dosnt feel as brittle, this plant is also the plant closest to the inlet/outlet hole.

When i was flushing before changing tank i noticed the flood time has drastically increased and the drain was a very very slow drip, this must have started happening during the holidays when i wasn't at home. When i had a look up the inlet with a torch you could see white roots, when i pushed aside the pebbles and looked from the top it was evident that there was a considerable clump of roots now inside the pipe that brings the water and drains it out (the roots wernt so long that they could bee seen coming out the outlet). I took a very deep breath and used a sharp flat headed screw driver to clear the inlet pipe of almost all the roots, when i flushed again the drain was back to a steady gush not a drip. I have already prayed to the weed gods for minimal plant stress, if i hadn't have cleared it however i would say within a week the water would be unable to penetrate and i would have blown the pump.

On the soil side... the 3 c13 haze plants continue to hold some green color and when they had there first taste of nutes ever last week it did green out a bit. The Pinapple chunk continues to grow its buds but is almost entirely yellow and not responding to the feed, possibly too little to late but the buds wont be going to waste reguardless

Some pics beow are day 19 but most are day 25 of flowering

That was a good read. It sounds like you had a stressful veg. Your hard work should pay off in the end though.

few more pics