Dstroy's first grow journal

4/27/17
uh oh...

Just got done picking about oh... 30 or so immature male flowers. The next six weeks are gonna be fun. It was either genetic hermie, or more likely it was light stress caused by me forgetting to close the vent on the tent a few times for a couple hours after lights out and leaving the light outside the tent on. None of them had opened yet, I dissected a couple and all of the stamen were green. It's not on all of the branches, it looks like it was just the branches closest to the vent. I found them by accident moving the plants around and a couple of them just fell off so I broke out the tweezers and went to town.

Man... what a bummer. None of the clones I cut grew any male flowers even though the clones have female flower parts which is why I'm thinking its because of light stress. Didn't see any brown or red pistils.

I busted out my gaffer tape and covered up any pinpricks of light that I could find on the tent, and set a reminder on my phone to close that dang vent.

I'm concerned that I might collapse my tent with negative air pressure with that vent closed though. I've got probably 60 or so pounds of fan and filter and lights hanging off the top of the tent. I could drop down the filter to the floor and have the intake come in through the top. I need an intake duct fan, a proper one, not what I redneck engineered up as a stopgap.

4/27/17

Just bought an 8" duct booster rated for 400cfm, my exhaust fan is 440cfm.

4/28/17
day 24 of flower. 2 intersex.
Didn't see any carpet beetles today

aero res:
made 5 gallons of premix

aero runoff:
ph 4.9
ppm 197
found about 15 more unopened pollen sacs between both plants. All of the easy ones are gone now and I've been going branch by branch picking up those little sugar leaves with tweezers looking for more. I'm hoping that I catch all of them and we only end up with a few seeds. Did some defoliation, but only the crispy leaves. Other than being intersex, flower development is coming along nicely, I can visibly see a difference each day.

cloner:
ph 6.14
ppm 316

adding 0.4ml ph down, I'll check ph again later
Added 0.6ml mammoth p

Day 4 clones are looking good. Roots are looking nice.

4/28/17
aero runoff:
ph 5.22
ppm 223

Didn't find any pollen sacs this evening, hopefully I don't see any in the morning either. Flowers are looking nice. Put my other 6" inline fan on the intake today, had to fiddle with the speed controller a while. Can't wait for the 8" intake.
Looks like pumping every 4 hours is working better. Hoping to be able to recycle nutrient solution next run, looking for as long a time in between res changes I can get.


cloner:
ph 5.85
ppm 330

Got a root shot, one in the front is taking off. If I remember right it had the least woody stem. Glad I got the chiller set up, it was hot outside today.

Other thoughts: Ordered some reg blueberry from cropkingseeds. Starting to think about what to do with mother plants. Probably bubble buckets cause I've got an air pump and stones not doing anything

4/29/17
day 25 of flower. 2 intersex.
no carpet beetles today

aero runoff:
ph 4.9
ppm 190
Found one pollen sac this morning. Hopefully I don't find any this evening. I haven't found any "nanners". Flowers are getting larger.

cloner:
ph 5.8
ppm 300

All of the clones are perking up, the one with the most developed roots had a bit of vertical growth. I'll be upping the nutrient concentration in the next couple of days.

4/30/17
day 26 of flower. 2 intersex
no carpet beetles today

aero res:
made 5 gallons of water. thinking about starting to recycle nutrients now that I have some data on what to expect.

aero runoff:
ph 4.9
ppm 193
flowers are bulking up, starting to smell really good. found a couple pollen sacs today. The plant on the right has really dense foliage so it's hard to get to all of the flowers to check them. The 8" duct fan got here today, but not the duct. That gets here tomorrow.

Once a plant gets stressed enough to herm do they ever revert if you fix what was stressing them out?

cloner:
ph 5.8
ppm 290
Clones are doing really well, roots are white and healthy. The ones on the left have large root systems already, about 6-8" with a lot of lateral roots. The ones on the right are lagging behind I think because the plant they came from seemed to be a little farther along in flower, so they rooted later.

other stuff: fixed my vacuum chamber today, it had a small leak around the drain that I sealed up with silicone. Did a bunch of editing to my controller's software today. Consolidated some things, and fixed a bunch of bugs.

5/2/17
day 28 of flower 2 intersex
no carpet beetles (apparently they're common around here but dont usually come inside until the fall, not that they hurt MJ at all)

readings from 5/1/17:
aero runoff: (I think the ph is higher because the water isn't sitting in the buckets for as long as it was before (6h vs 12-13h))
ph 5.65
ppm 212
found just a couple of pollen sacs on the lower branches, nothing more up top

today:
aero runoff:
ph 5.6
ppm 200
I increased the magpro to 6.5ml/5gal (1.3ml/gal) which is about 20-30ppm more overall (230ppm nutrients, 80-90ppm water). If they don't need it I'll see a marked increase in EC of tomorrows runoff.
I've noticed that they "eat less" during the day, uptake of nutrients has been consistently higher at night by a small margin (180-200ppm nighttime runoff vs 200-230 daytime). Flowers are looking good. Didn't find any pollen sacs this morning.

cloner:
ph 5.9
ppm 290
day 8
cloner is getting a res change tonight, going to up the ppm to 350. I'm going to move these clones into the tent after the two plants in there get the chop and the tent gets wiped down. I should wait to do the blueberry seeds until the cloner is empty so they dont have to compete for space but I'm not going to because I've read that they can be difficult to germinate.

5/2/17

After having a discussion with my wife, we decided to move the clones that are farthest along into the flowering tent. We need to find out if they are going to herm as well. As soon as I receive the blueberry seeds in the mail they are getting popped and going into the cloner. That should give me enough time to finish off the other two plants and make some room in there for the blueberry.

Cloner:
transplanted 3 clones into the flowering tent. Going to hold off on the res change because the other 3 clones don't need extra nutes right now.

5/3/17
day 29 of flower. 2 intersex.

chiller res:
added 3ml of bleach to about 15 gallons of coolant (tap water). the coolant doesn't come into contact with nutrient solution at any time.

aero res:
I am going to recycle 5 gallons of night runoff. Not that I really have a choice, the system will spray about 6 gallons a day with 5 buckets being fed. It would be too expensive to not try to recycle from now on. With a lower plant count it didn't really use all that much water, and that gave me a chance to get the bloom nutrient solution ratios closer to what they need to be.

starting ppm of the reservoir yesterday was around 300ppm, after adding 5 gallons of the new adjusted formula:
per 5 gallon bucket
5ml protekt
6.5ml magpro
10ml bloom (could probably back this off to reduce tip burn)
3ml mammoth p (could also be reduced now that I am recycling, the bacteria are already present throughout the system)
I wish I had access to lab equipment so I could properly chart nutrient consumption and have a better idea of what will need to be added. Right now, like most users on here all I can do is make educated guesses as to what needs to be replenished.

aero runoff: (the numbers are different because of the different bucket cycle time; 2hrs instead of 6hrs, and the addition of 3 clones which don't eat nearly as much as the mature plants)
ph 5.7
ppm 270

cloner:
ph 6.0
ppm 280
The second set of clones are starting to take off

5/3/17

aero res:
ph 5.92 (pretty close to what I was shooting for 6.0, this is before adding the runoff or premix to it so that number will drop closer to 5.8 but it will creep up overnight)
ppm 277
Going to add 5 gallons of premix and recycle the runoff. That should make the res pretty much full. My reservoir is a rubberneck brute black 20 gallon trash can. The rest of the system can hold about 3-4 gallons of water, I don't have an exact figure. One of the drawbacks of my setup is not being able to know exactly how much water is in the system at any given time, which would let me know how much water I'm losing to transpiration and evaporation.

aero runoff: (again the numbers look high because the cycle times are different, this isn't an indication of a problem.)
ph 5.77
ppm 270

If you're actively mixing your water up how long do you let it do its thing before you add nutes to it? I wait until I can't smell any chlorine, not very scientific.

5/4/17
day 30 of flower. 2 intersex
day 2 of flower for the 3 clones, no observable new sex organs (there are still pistils coming out the top node)
found one pollen sac this morning that was about to open, missed it on an earlier run. I've been marking the stems where I've checked before.

aero res: day 2
ph 6.0
ppm 295
added 5 gallons of the runoff back into the reservoir

aero runoff: (found a bug in my code, caused the vacuum pump to not work last night)
ph 5.7
ppm 260
Flowers are looking good. I accidentally sucked up one of the clones into my shopvac lol. Damaged a few fanleaves, it'll probably be fine.

cloner:
ph 6.35
ppm 280
added 0.4ml ph down. Res needs a change today

I'll take some pics in a while.

You can see where the leaves got sucked up into the shop vac lol. Won't do that again hopefully.

I've been removing leaves, but only when they get crispy.

Still waiting on those blueberry seeds.

Flowers are looking nice, there's some good development on the right plants lower branches. All of the flowers are bulking up. Found a pollen sac on the big plant this evening, sprayed it with some water and took it down.

The plant on the left is light burned a little, i repositioned it and tied off the top of the plant.

In the outdoor garden area at my local Home Depot they have this Velcro for plants, it seems to be working great for my needs.

5/5/2017
day 31 of flower. 2 intersex.
day 3 of flower for the clones

aero res: day 3
ph 5.85
ppm 285

aero runoff:
ph 5.77
ppm 253

Cloner: day 2 10ml/gal clonex
Ph 5.8
Ppm 300

5/6/17
day 32 of flower. 2 intersex
day 4 of flower for the clones

aero res: day 4
ph 5.76
ppm 276
added 1ml ph up to 5 gallons of runoff and returned runoff to the reservoir. Going to add 1ml more ph and check again.

I think they might need some more N as well, they responded nicely to the extra calmag, so I think what I am going to do is:
Per 5 gallon bucket:
5ml protekt
6.5ml magpro
1ml grow
8ml bloom
3ml mammoth p

Excited to see how well the clones do. Even the one that got shop vacced. Lol

aero runoff:
ph 5.6
ppm 253
Raised lights up a few inches, seeing some light burn on some fan leaves. At least I know now how close I can get my light, right around 9-10" (no lenses or reflectors, right around 50w each)

5/6/17
I'm adding this to the res, there's enough space.

The latest nutrient formula is:
Per 5 gallon bucket:
5ml protekt
6.5ml magpro
1ml grow
8ml bloom
3ml mammoth p

ends up being:
ph 5.91
ppm 307

5/7/17
day 33 of flower. 2 intersex
day 5 of flower for the clones

aero res: day 5
ph 5.87
ppm 277

aero runoff:
ph 5.79
ppm 243

The two plants halfway through flower are doing well, it's a shame that I let the taller one grow into the light but I knew that I needed to know how close they could get anyway. The clones are responding so well to the nutrient formula change.

I still don't know what ppm range I should keep my nutrient solution in, it's going to take a while to get a feel for how low I can let it drop with no adverse effects. I think keeping it above 200 for now is most likely ok since the plants were eating down to 180ppm. But since I don't have any equipment to test the levels of the nutrients in the water I can't be sure, I've read a hydro study for commercial lettuce production that was interesting. The conclusions were that there wasn't an appreciable difference in final weight with regular res changes, no res changes, or nutrient replenishment (on a 30 day cycle), I'll still be sticking to 10 day changes probably. I'm figuring out how much it costs me to make water right now.

nutrient cost per ml

mammoth p 250ml $70.99 on amazon (416.666 doses @ recommended 0.6ml/gal)
28.4c/ml (17.04c/0.6ml)
protekt 1gal (3785.41178ml) $34.99 on amazon
0.924c/ml
grow 1qt (32oz) (946.352945ml) $17.64 on amazon
1.86c/ml
bloom 1qt (32oz) (946.352945ml) $17.64 on amazon
1.86c/ml
magpro 1qt (32oz) (946.352945ml) $18.68 on amazon
1.97c/ml

5ml protekt 4.62c
6.5ml magpro 12.805c
8ml bloom 14.88c
1ml grow 1.86c
3ml mammoth p 85.2c (WOW!)

nutrient cost for current formulation = $1.19365 per 5 gallons (about 20 gallons total in the entire system = $4.7746)

I don't really know anyone who works at a hydro store, I've only told essential people that we're growing (for security reasons). I'm sure I could bring the dyna grow costs down some more but I haven't been able to find mammoth p cheaper anywhere. But if someone has a hookup (or a coupon) on some dyna gro they want to share pm me I'd really appreciate it.

I'm still working on the schematic, slowly but I am. I'm still working on the code for the control box, when I have time or when it's an emergency (like when I break the code).

5/8/17
day 34 of flower. 2 intersex
day 6 of flower for the clones

aero res: day 6
ph 5.86
ppm 275
Recycled runoff this morning, added 0.3ml ph up to approx 4 gallons.

aero runoff:
ph 5.74
ppm 247
Flowers are putting on weight, I can see calyces swelling everywhere. Other than some leaf maintenance plants are looking ok for what I have put them through. The 6 day old plants are looking great, no deficiencies to note and they are growing like crazy.

cloner: 3/3 fully rooted clones 4/24/17 (14 days old)
ph 5.96
ppm 306
clones are looking good

5/9/17
day 35 of flower. 2 intersex
day 6 of flower for the clones, 3 female.

Cleaning and calibrating my ph meter today (including cap and sponge)

aero res: day 7
ph 5.8
ppm 256

aero runoff:
ph 5.65
ppm 240
added 2ml ph up and put it in the reservoir
Flowers are starting to turn purple, the tip of the calyces on all visible flowers have a purple tint to them from the top of the plants to the bottom. The purple tint is spreading down the calyx towards the stem, it looks nice.
The clones are doing extremely well. The only visible flowers on clones even upon close inspection with a magnifying glass are female. Not seeing any tip burn.

cloner: 3/3 fully rooted clones 4/24/17 (15 days old)
ph 5.6
ppm 300
added 0.3ml ph up
Everything is looking good here

5/10/17
day 36 of flower. 2 intersex
day 7 of flower for the clones, 3 female

aero res: day 8 (morning)
ph 5.51
ppm 253

Plants are looking ok, the clones are getting a little tip burn so when I change the res out and purge the system I'm going to mix up the new nutrient solution with 7ml bloom per bucket instead of 8ml.

I forgot to check the runoff this morning before I put it into the reservoir. Not feeling so hot.

The reservoir was full, so it took 6ml of ph up to correct it up to ph5.9.

aero runoff: (afternoon)
ph 5.22
ppm 229
I take this (the low ph) as meaning the plants are looking for nutrients. I'm not going to be recycling from this point on. I could probably get away with a nute top up but like I said before I don't know what they need exactly. I should be able to make through day 9 of the res with how much water is in there right now. There's definitely some biofilm accumulating on the inside of the reservoir but nothing serious, the water still smells pleasant. Any large particles are still being filtered out by the strainer (50micron) and filter (1 micron). I'll be cleaning out the vacuum recovery chamber the same time as the reservoir.

Cleaning out my reservoir is really easy, I just let the water in the res get super low and then put the pump pickup into a bucket of pre mixed nutrients.

cloner: 3/3 fully rooted clones 4/24/17 (16 days old)
clones are doing well, waiting for space in the tent

No seeds from crop king yet, it shipped on 4/29.

5/11/17
day 36 of flower 2 intersex
day 8 of flower for the clones, 3 female

aero res: day 9
res change today
per 5 gallon bucket:
5ml protekt
6.5ml magpro
2ml grow
6ml bloom
3ml mammoth p (add later)

They need some N, and a little less ferts so I'm going to reduce the concentration by a bit more and put some more grow (N) in.

Pics later.