First Hydro grow!

Hi Everybody,

I wanted to start this journal because so many journals have helped me to get started. Currently I am almost 2 weeks since germinating. So far so good, but I am hoping some of you can confirm that I am on the right path here. Plus, I just want to share! Here are the deets...

Ebb & flow system
300W LED
Hydroton clay pellets
32X32X62 grow tent

Going to start at the beginning: buying the materials. If you have never grown hydro and want to do so, read this!! I made some mistakes early on that cost me, currently I've spent about $665.00 on everything (some of this will be used later and is not in the early pictures). Only about $60 of this was wasted. A couple things on pricing: I want to do this right or not at all (gotta get that daaank). I plan to reuse this rig so I am willing to splurge in order to get multiple super dank harvests (it's an investment).

Mistake 1: I ordered the wrong size tent and the return policy made it hard to justify swapping it out. I wanted 48X48X72. I figured I might want a tent for veg and a tent for flowering (or a tent for a mother plant) later on. I also decided that 32X32X62 was (just) enough room.

Mistake 2: I bought very flimsy/inappropriate containers for the reservoir and flood tray. I bought these plastic storage bins at Home Depot. When I tried to drill into the first flood tray it shattered. I bough a clear reservoir which I have heard you are not supposed to do since algae can grow in your nutrient solution when exposed to too much light. I thought to my genious self "that's fine, I'll just buy some black spray paint and badabing badabloom". THAT WAS DUMB. The storage bin was too flimsy as a reservoir and would bow towards the top when filled with water. Also, to completely black out the container I would have needed a lot more layers of paint. Also, the paint came off easily when wet.

Mistake 3: I bought the wrong sized drill bit not once but twice. The first time, I misread the box on the ebb and flow fittings kit and bought a bit that was actually the size of the hose required. I couldn't find anywhere on the box that said otherwise so when I went back, I bought a pack of three thinking, "of course one of these will be the right size." WRONG again. So finally I asked the internet and I bought the right size.

Mistake 4: The drain/pump should not be in the corner of the flood tray. My idea with this is I could tilt the tray slightly in that direction but most storage bins have a natural low spot in the middle. There was just too much standing water for my liking in the tray on the first go around. On the next try I was able to get pretty good drainage.

OK, so I am farther along than what the below picture shows but there has been more I would like to get into detail on since this picture was taken so I will leave that for post number 2!



This is the basic set-up! No plants yet...

looks good! scrog perhaps?

OK, so I'm back for post number 2 with all good news! I started the flooding cycle 5 days ago and the girls are loving it. I'll give you guys the full update on what's happened since post number 1. Before I get into it let me just answer JohnDro and say that yes, I am planning to use a scrog. I also plan to do some topping once they get big enough so I can really fill out the space. I am basing my plan on the method outlined by LBH here (http://www.growweedeasy.com/scrog-tutorial).

So, after I got the majority of my supplies prepared it was time to germinate the seeds. I used rock wool cubes. I had to soak them in a solution to get the pH good. I germinated 8 an figured (since I have plenty of seeds) I would pick the 4 best after a few days to graduate to the pots. The seeds are bag seeds but all the same strain and they have had a history of being all female (8 out of 8 previously grown came out female).

While germinating I decided to fill the bottom of the tray with clay pebbles to keep the cubes elevated.

Once I chose the elite four, I put them in the pots (i cut the pots to make them shorter). At this point, I decided to fill the bottom of the flood tray with clay pebbles for several reasons: less water required to fill the tray, slightly less shifting of the pots if ever the tray needed to be moved, and because I had a shit ton extra.

That is the current sitch. I will post some more up-to-date pics in a day or two. Enjoy these pics of day 3 of germinating and day 1 of flooding.

nice pics Phish...lookin forward to the rest of the grow

Day 7 and I think things are going well still. The tallest one is over 2 inches. I have some concerns so I am going to be extra vigilant over the next few days and hopefully everything stays good. If not, well then I think I can catch whatever it is early enough.

My main concern is with the smell of my reservoir. It's kinda like a wet towel smell or a 17 year old's bedroom. I feel like it's not too strong of a smell so I wasn't initially worried about it. Then I googled smelly reservoir hydroponics and things have got scarier. I guess now it could be root rot, gunk/algae build-up, or just the smell of my nutes aging. They are so young I can't imagine how it would be any root issue.

I have also noticed nutrient salts (i think) collecting on the top of my clay pellets. I am not sure what the deal is with that but I have decided to put faith in my ppm measurements (which are good).

I think the leaves might look a little weird too, it's so hard to tell in this blurple light. Any advice on taking photos under LED?

I've attached more pics. You can see the salt build up in pic 1. The leaves in pic 2 seem a bit yellow but I really think it's just the lighting. I will check on that one again tomorrow.

Clean setup, man. Good luck

Day 14!

It has been a few days so lets get right to the updates.

The Good:
I did a res change over the weekend and upped the nutes to the next level on the chart. The plants seem to be loving it as they have grown considerably over the last few days. I am seeing the 4th or 5th node growing in on all 4 plants. The tallest is now around 4 inches or so. I will plan on topping probably by the weekend.

The Bad:
I think we have a calcium deficiency...

The leaves have started to droop slightly and one plant is showing some yellow and brownish spots on two leaves. Initially my fears were that it was something far worse (root rot) but I am starting to feel more confidant that it is a cal mag problem which should be an easy fix. I plan on doing a res change this weekend and adding a cal mag supplement to see if that solves the problem. I would do it sooner but I can't get to my hydro store until Saturday.

I will try and get some new pics posted soon. The ones attached are from 4 or 5 days ago.

Take a look at this thread where I tried to have the spots and droopiness of the leaves identified. There are newer pictures included in this post. I purchased some CalMag and also some preventative HydroGaurd. It should arrive on Saturday.
https://www.rollitup.org/t/help-diagnose-my-ladies.890878/#post-12092718

I apologize if I missed it, but did you tell us what pH and what/if anything is in the water?

Heat the drill bit up with a lighter before you start drilling plastic and barely push down on the drill at all, it will keep it from cracking.

I was told on another site that you should never let your humidity change more than 5% plus or minus in a 24 hour period because it could cause some proble cant remember what but I see your humidity and temp change drastically every day from your chart. Am I misinformed from this other site or are his humidity and temp range changes going to cause him problems @ anyone more experienced in vpd.

How often are you flooding? Under 300w of LED, I'd only be flooding once every 2 days, rockwool amd hydroton can hold a fair bit of moisture. If the plants aren't using up all the nutrients, it will build up in the roots. With the clear containers I'd also be flushing it every week. This is purely from my own experience, so take from it what you will
What nutrients are you using mate?

. Currently in my 2' table I'm doing six, six minute F&D's daily, every four hours. Three minutes to fill and three minutes to drain.

Mom's in 69F will just barely get by on one watering every two days in Rock.

I just came back from being away for a few days and I am pretty satisfied with the growth that occurred while I was gone. I was worried sick about them but it doesn't seem like any of the issues got too much worse over the few days I was away. Before leaving I set the Ph to 5.5 and when I got back 4 days later the Ph had gone up to 6.2. PPMs were at 815 and went up to 923. Check out the pics I think these came out pretty good. All the plants have now been topped once and we've started on some LST.

First thing I did was do a res change. I try to change and clean the res once every week. This is my second res change (week 3). I am using General Hydroponics 3 part flora nutrients. The CALiMAGic and the Hydroguard arrived so I added to these to the mix.

The measurements are based of the GH chart I have. They amounts listed are ml per gallon and listed grow/micro/bloom. The plants were about 5 days old when they went in the flood table.

Week 1: 2.5 / 2.5 / 2.5

Week 2: 10 / 7.5 / 5

Week 3 (started yesterday): 10 / 10 / 5 + 2.5 ml CALiMAGic and 2 ml Hydroguard

I’ve included an updated screen print of my grow log which shows Ph, PPMs, Temperature, and Humidity. Please take note that these measurements are taken before making adjustments. I almost always adjust the Ph to 5.8-6.0 after topping off the res with tap water daily. Current PPMs are about 1100.

The flooding schedule is now every 3 hours (so 5 times a day). Each flood is 15 minutes long. I used to schedule flooding every 4 hours and recently upped it. I guess the new schedule may seem like a lot to some of you based on comments but I am seeing some serious results. I don’t want to go mucking around with a system that works.

First of all, please accept my apologies as it has been a good deal of time since my last post. I hope you all can appreciate the progress my plants have made. I, for one, am ecstatic!

The pictures I have posted below are in chronological order so I’ll keep to that order here. The first two things that changed since the last post were that I added more hydroton to the grow tray and I got another light (300W LED). These two changes were made at the exact same time. Both of these have been huge factors although I didn’t move the lights up far enough when I added it and the plants took some damage. The first 2 photos show the worst of it. Fortunately I was able to catch this after only a few hours.

I switched to 12/12 after 29 days of Veg. Since then, life for the girls has been excellent! I think this is partly due to the roots having more space in the hydroton I added. I gave them an extra week on 16/8 and used nutrients accordingly. I do sort of regret that because the scrog is already super full!

Today I clipped some of the shitty fan leaves that were hanging in the water during floods or otherwise damaged. I also experimented with plucking the bud sites low down on a particular stem. I hear that gives you bigger nugs on the top colas.

I haven’t seen signs of gender on 3 of 4 plants but 1 (picture below) is definitely a lady!

Cheers and happy holidays!

Happy New Year! Here are some up to date pics. I was having some trouble keeping humidity down so I bought a couple more mini fans to put in my tent. I discovered these fans fit perfectly in the duct vent on the roof of the tent! That should help with airflow. I am already running a dehumidifier in the same room the tent is in (put right next to lower tent vent). I also clipped all the mini branches and fan leaves from the base of the plants. I think that should help with airflow as well.

Cheers!

Stats:

Just took some sweet pics that I thought I'd share with you. Needless to say, things are going well . So far this seems to be a raging success and I couldn't be happier about it. I'm starting to feel like it's OK to get my hopes up. Can't wait to harvest!

Damn a spreadsheet? You're not messing around huh? Plants looking real nice.

I have an identically sized tent doing two plants in their own 3.5g buckets with dwc.

I'll be curious to see how your plants fill your tent. Keep up the good work