First time grower, AlphaKronik Gobstopper , soil

PSA for noobs like me. Get glasses before you start growing. the led light.... you might be tempted to believe wont hurt you , you are probably right unless looking directly into them (the cheap ones for lettuce for germ) . If you have really good eyes like i do you can tell just from being in the same room as it indirectly for a week or two that in dark rooms your night vision is getting bleached dark. I encourage wearing eye protection even in indirect exposure. Getting into the habit of not wearing them while using the cheaper germination lights is a really bad idea. So even though the cheaper leds or incandescents might not be particularly dangerous, looking at them will still screw you up due to the way light intensity falls off at square of distance and you will be staring at them up close the first time trust me. Wear the glasses always , so when you fire up the portable sun (cmh315) after the little incandescent your stoner brain is already trained to reach for glasses before looking at it. 5 seconds looking at the wash coming out the air intake and I have a big box in my field of vision. Another thing to think about is the ir you cant see but can cook the retina. Protect your sight you will need it to inspect nuggets later, hopefully.

As mentor says Rule number one to growing is leave it alone and let it grow. Rule number two is if you cant figure out whats broke follow your water schedule and dont fix it. They give ya time to fix most things so you can wait till you know what is going on. Or you make it much worse rapidly. Trust me when i say rule number one is the hard one. Proper pot, proper water schedule. Then leave it alone. Solo cup as soon as it cracks , 1 gal smart pot at 7 leaves / 6 inches , and finish in a 10gal . Its huge , happy roots happy stoner at the end its worth it . It both allows you to mediate nute lock problems by 20% runoff each time and watering every 2-3 days as needed.

1 inch square pot i used under a fan needed watering 3 or 4 times a day 2-4ml depending on seedling state.
Stupid jiffy pot that stunted her, took about 1 solid watering a day might hit it at night to make sure it didnt dry out.
Solo cup , its kinda perfect once you put 4 or 5 holes in the bottom, Its deep enough to match a 1 gal smart pot almost exactly. Roots just explode outwards if you time it right. Watering anywhere from once per 3 days to spot watering in a ring around sprout till she drinks to ramp up to once per 3 days.

The first two pots did nothing but make me tend to the plants WAY more than ideal. Rule number 1.

Also , the nute mix. I mixed the bloom and micro to give me 5-5-5. If you follow exactly what i did , we might have a bit of a leafy result. When we caught this I got a lesson in results of nutes early on. You can make short plants tall plants little nugs everywhere , you can make them really leafy or the goal of probably everyone you can make them make enormous buds. Get one thing thru your head early on mr overthinker..... you do NOT want natural pot plants. They are straight corn stalk looking things quit overthinking and follow your mentors directions. Even if you screw up and misunderstand the nute mix for a week its gonna be way better than what you would do.

Im waiting on the call for the delivery guy and wanted to share something more than pictures. Hope someone finds it useful

Ridiculously bright, Keep yer lil ones away from this even. Crappy picture , its the intake to the tent. Indirect light from cmh315 @ 4 feet .

Oh set that height more or less by the temperature you have at the foilage . 77 is my current target. Humidity according to books should be 65, it is what it is though its growing so dont fix it. You could buy the fancy light meter but the bottom line is you care about the temperature. . . alot. So you give it as much light as you can give it while maintaining those nice 72-77 temps with indirect fan indirectly moving air. . Simple. Come back in an hour and make sure its not stretching (if it is move light closer adjust fans to lower temps to target) if its burning move it off. Once you get that, then all you need to mind is the ambient temperature of the tent room. I find 66 on the thermostat , results in a workable enviroment for me and the plant. Its gonna have to be lower than your target obviously. If your tent warms slowly , duct the exhaust away towards the tent room door. Simply pointing it at the door was the feather that tipped the temp battle scales for me.

Will type on pc in reply

Ok.

My mentor is a literal genius. I keep a live feed of my plants going and he kept yelling at me that my shit was way too dry. Like I just watered it and it was cracking away from the rockwool cube . At first i tried to argue like no i just watered it. then I got smart. I said ok this plant is only alive because of him, he is right.... something is wrong. My watering is not working right. And in doing what i was told ,transplanting #1 to 1 gal I did find roots choochin at the cup so it was ready. But this didn't explain the watering issue. I was hitting it at least 1 a day and it was dry.

In the tp i noticed i had to put more water than expected and it wasnt wetting. Soil is hydrophobic and mentor knew it from 2k miles away.

Soooo. Now i know soil can become not only dry but water repellent. There are treatments, dunking and chemicals , and well, im a cheap bastard so I put the 1 gal smart pot on a plate and am letting it wic its run off till i see the color of the soil normalize if it does. If it does not i will pursue dunking , after consulting with mentor. This is starting to make sense now why it stunted,


How to spot it , faster than i did.

1. when you pour water on the fresh poured pot of soil after tp, it floats and looks like quick sand /liquefaction
2. Needs watering WAY more than it should.
3. After a day, the soil top looks like dry sponge and has same consistency.
4. Water , then dig down an inch or so on the side (after fresh tp) dirt will be more or less dry.
5. does not clump , at all. out of package.

First try to fix before mentor tells me his hoodoo , I put the pot on a plate and am slowly wetting soil, letting is absorb what it can , and then sit in the drainage , but i keep it as low as i can. Just basically enough for a little puddle around the pot. I keep checking the color of the soil is very slowly coming to form. Little pot is ok. I will consult about dunking and or the secret ingredient in the hydrator sprays , i suspect is dish detergent. The kind that is good on grease. but we shall see.

OK warm water - bust
Soaking in water - bust
buy addatives on a schedule - not interested

Put a drop of dish soap in a bucket and let the pot sit in 3 inches or so of nute juice with that drop. . . Joy.

I had an emergency and got called away and was in the middle of doing tests . The result was less than an hour of no ventilation I believe I saw 87 or 89 before resolving it. The oversized fan i was experimenting on replacing was still running so it wasnt as bad as it could have been , the fan blows on the light housing .

The result was the big one has folding the little one does too , its true leaves look like they have outlines around them now , like they are wearing eyeliner. I was told its the watering and i know the temp mishap had a part.

Soo what was i experimenting on ? Well the blizzard fan is too much. Its too much for direct foliage and enough to swing the light violently if not mitigated. Probably perfect for the top of the tent in flower , but its really bad by the plants / light.
I believe what is happening , is my oversized exhaust, coupled with my overpowered circulation fan are preventing humidity from reaching more than 42 with a puddle in the pan (leave water in drip pan , or put in some to raise humidity vacuum that shit out to control it during flower. ). I suspect this is perfect for flower, but for now its over powered and slowing growth. i think.


Im told just let it grow now. We seem to have mitigated 1 gal hydrofobia , the small cup im hoping is ok too. On a normal watering schedule 2 days min delay 3 ideal , regardless of effect on plant. It 'feels' like this will kill it to my noob brain but with faith in the mentor now that we think we found the problem She isnt getting watered this morning.

Some things to note. I oversized my exhaust by a bunch. Honestly I was hoping to rapidly find success and decide to dedicate more space to it. go from 3x3 to 4x2 (sideways move) or even bigger. This was dumb. My setup is 96db running as purchased at the exhaust which is where to measure it cause if you are a concealed grow, this is the dingus end pointing out the window at the people next door. At full power its as loud if you look at the science as a motorcycle. F that.
I shoulda gone smaller and got perfect stuff for this size tent. Lets think about this from a business standpoint. You want easy. Having the right size stuff makes it easy. Better to have one really bulletproof setup that is undersized but works easily and if you upgrade get perfect stuff for that tent. For my 'medical' use I wasnt sure what i needed my goals are modest self supply but Im not going to complain if everything my mentor teaches me anticipates mixing 55 gal drums at some point. But that said, make your setup work easily. PArt of that is getting the right size equipment. Not oversized. I literally returned two fans cause they felt cheap and sickly and now im re-ordering them .

So I am running tests, seeing what i can do with the humidity and using a cheap 3 way power dimmer type deal for the fan. Fan is 4.4 times too powerful but level 1 works without problems. Now Im not sucking my humidity out with a jet engine . Next im moving the blizzard holmes fan to the top of the tent to move the air around violently where it wont hurt anything. And got a vivosun fan to try for foliage dancing . Move less air, remove less humidity, put water in the drip pan,

Just putting the fan on low and water in the pan gave me 39%. That fan is probably stopping it from going up. Dont try to be too smart planning for bigger and better setups , just design the one you make to do it easiest . Giant fan sounds like a jet engine. Giant fans implode the tent , giant fans prevent humidity from gathering and its desirable at times!

Dont amazon dirt its pretty obviously outdoor stowed pallet stock that was in the sun. Be careful to remind yourself , shit grows naturally. Its easy to get caught up trying to 'grow' weed. You gotta LET it grow , after providing the right nutejuice. Rule number one. If you are doing stuff all the time something is wrong. Figure out what, fix it , and let IT grow.

Oh one more sign , i think , of hydrophobic soil is I still have yet to see a nice dense weave of tiny white roots. The root is ginormous taproot i think and thats about all that is in there. When I tpd it I noticed this and suspect it is the underlying cause of my stunted growth, and caused by bad watering.

still super moist on the top, damp 1 cm down , wow it holds water now. Prolly make it atleast 3 days.

little one recovered no more eyeliner

Big one started growing. Up

Lots of new foliage on biggie and little one is starting too

cmh 315 26 inches from top of biggie .
Please advise if you see burn or advise intentional stretch for cropping

after posting this , I thought about my heat mishap. The big one got kinda fucked up , the little one not so much. 2 inches left the seemingly more delicate one intact.

Raised light 2 inches. Mentor said stretch isnt bad. (some) ps its a shadow on the lower leaf of the big one.

Worth noting at night I have the ventilation system turn on for 3 mins every hour on the 30 s and the scrubber on for ten min at the oo.
replaced hurricane with pole fan .

HAving problems with random spikes in temp, Not sure what is causing it yet. The big one thats closest to the light is looking worst so im backing the light off hoping to see this reduce as i do.

The little one , it feels like its ready for watering. Tomorrow morning will be 3 days so tomorrow I water. I may wait atleast another day for the big one. It will be a week tues and mentor said it should be good for about a week in the cup. Im guessing my watering means its moving slow and needs another 3 day watering period.

Not sure if this is something to worry about or not. waiting to talk to mentor when i water.

You notice how the lower right growth tip , is twice the size of the other normal ones nw, sw,

So what i think happened here is during the transplant i might have abused that growth tip. Then the heat issue finished her off. So the se growth tip seems to have accepted the bonus nutes and doubled in size.

mentor says dont worry about it and laughed at me for overthinking again. What a champ putting up with me doing all this stupid shit to his foster plant.

So this morning i woke up and watered. We decided to water with plain water because i wasnt supposed to soak the plant in the nute juice it was supposed to be normal water. So between evaporation while it was soaking and actually soaking up water now into the dirt it was starting to get a bit too much nutes. So a quick water with just water and about 50% run off,

Oh crap i never ph'd the clear water i have on standby , so that was dechlorinated tap water 7.2 ph i just poured on them. Im dumb. This may be a bad plan to care for plants before coffee. which is a perfect segue to the next observation.

Mentor told me to have off time during the day , and i didnt think it would work cause of my experimenting to make my controller , dude is smart , so the problem isnt much the heat with lights on in winter, its cooling too much at night and then waking up and pouring 2 quarts of non phd water on your bebes. Listen to your mentor, i dont care how easily you can do engineering, this aint that. I suck at this and the only reason its still alive are the time i listened with out argument. Apparently the best way to do this time change is leave em on till the new off time.

I think letting nute water sit in the pan to raise humidity is bad idea. I think my leaves might be like this due to it not being humid enough, and it perspiring nutes and leaving salts on the leaves.

removing pan of nute water,
Putting in fesh water in it .
getting small humidifier. Hoping this resolves.

potential mites, or pests. Hopefully not.

PS I think I hermed the big one. but i think im just scared to , cause i dont think you can herm it before it shows sex.

I attribute placebo effects but the leafs look better already

so I thought I might have some sorta pest problem , mentor said he saw powdery mildew but that it was mostly gone earlier. The humidity seems to be working . .99 vpd both have new growth .
1 has a rather tiny main stem. I’m hoping the deformed bits stop now .

with the humidity the temp hardly goes over 76 .... with just the pole fan on

Any ideas ?

Im just finishing phing my soil in the problem pot. 6.8 little high, phing to 5.8 for a bit.

So im thinking I definitely did this by burning the shit out of it when the fan was off. The odd thing is why the little one isnthurt.
But seedlings like it humid and 85 or so. I think that is why the little guy didnt mutate. One thing to support this is the leaf that died was the nearest to the light when it happened.


In another observation, humidifying the tent, resulted in my houses RH to go from 38 to 55% in a day. All that humidity getting sucked out has to go somewhere. Might need to vent this outside. Another observation when the humidifier runs out of water the temp runaways. So stay on top of it . Dont let it go out.

#2 tp nice big set of roots

in defense of garden store guy the happy frog is only full of bark if you are a tool and don’t mix it .
Derp

So Im starting to think my issue is vpd. My leaf temp is from 66-73 or so , ambient target is 77 but its all over the place with adding humidity and trying to play with ratios to achieve lower than my calculated lowest of 1.01

I definitely have too much exhaust. Even with a switch on the fan on lowest thing is a beast. Exactly how i specced it. (does tim the tool man taylor grunt ) unfortunately , that was dumb and too much airflow is bad.

Vented lighthood is very appealing now it would make the venting much easier to control .

The good news is despite my abuses she continues to thrive. Gave the little one a new home and opted to use happy frog . After mixing a bit its nice, about 1/4 the pearlite though compared to ocean fresh. The bonus is the stuff from the hydro shop is not hydrophobic. It looks like its growing out of the problem with a little added humidity and more fumbling with vpd. playing with vpd is like tuning PID in a quad.... when you have no idea whats what. I cant quite figure out what to do , add humidity temp and 3 other things change lol. 1.08 vpd currently


Leaf temp is about 69.
Humidity is about 47 48. Any more my entire building gets humid.
Room temp 74.8 and falling. Im actually chilly with the humidity on.

I see purpling but its my funny eyes. Its not visible on camera yet. I noticed i can see things before my mentor. The camera wont show it as more than slightly darker green but my eyes see purple veins. Coincides with me being chilly.


PS dont put humidity blowing on leafs. Especially at night. Leave light leaf fan on 247 for pest control and powdery mildew remediation. If leafs are wet during lights out pm is result. Fan keeps pests away , and keeps leafs dry.

Put humidifier in room outside. It just humidifies the house anyways, get it away from the plant.

haha i got all excited no balls !! but im told its too early.