Ansel Adams Hydro Adventures Journal

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AnselAdams

AnselAdams

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I am going to kick this off by reposting something I posted in answer to another question on The Farm regarding the inability to maintain PH stability.

. . .

I too have been having an issue with maintaining a stable PH. I did some research into buffering (remembering my saltwater reef days) I hope this helps. The short version is that if you are using RO water, a gram of baking soda per 5 gal/20 liter will set your alkalinity to about 60-70 ppm. I used a hanna freshwater tester to figure it out.

Hanna Checker on Amazon

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. . . "This one only applies to those of you who are using RO water and relates to
water alkalinity and its ability to buffer pH. For those of you who are using mains
water this material doesn’t apply due to mains water often possessing high
alkalinity (often far too high) values. Alkalinity is best expressed in this case (so
as not to confuse things) as the buffering capacity of water. That is, the
alkalinity of water is related to the pH, but it is actually a different parameter. It
is a measure of the capacity of the water to resist changes in pH. Don’t confuse
“Alkalinity” with “Alkaline” (which relates to an alkaline pH of above 7.0). The
higher the alkalinity, the more acid can be added without considerably changing
the pH. This is because the bicarbonates (HCO ) and carbonates (CO )
react with the hydrogen ions (H ) contributed by the acid, preventing them from
dropping the pH. Alkalinity is typically expressed as the equivalent concentration
of calcium carbonate (CaCO ). The ideal range for alkalinity as ppm CaCO is
expressed as 40-60 ppm, with 20-80 ppm being the outside range. Calcium
carbonate is 60% carbonate and 40% calcium at 100% purity. Thus to equate
60 ppm CaCO into how much carbonate this represents 60 (ppm) – 40%
(calcium) equals 60% Carbonate, so 60% of 60ppm = 36ppm carbonate. This
would equate to 1 gram per 10L of water using calcium carbonate or when
using potassium carbonate (K2CO3 is 43.4% carbonate @ 100% purity) 0.83
grams per 10L or when using baking soda (sodium bicarbonate or NaHCO3
which is 76.24% bicarbonate) would equate to 0.762 g/10L. As a
recommendation, I tend to suggest that baking soda is ideal for increasing
alkalinity in hydroponic systems where RO water is used. Firstly it is easy to
access at high chemical purity through supermarkets. Secondly, when used at
the suggested rate of 0.47grams per 10 litres it contributes approximately
13.5ppm of sodium (Na) to the nutrient solution which is well within tolerance
range for plants being grown in hydroponic systems (and less Na than is
typically found in mains water supplies). On the other hand, while some have
recommended the use of potassium carbonate and calcium carbonate for pH
buffering water, both of these components will add calcium or potassium to the
working solution at ppm which may contribute to nutrient imbalances."

original article:

Hope this helps someone 🍻 🥳 😎
 
Aqua Man

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I cant wait till next month to grab these. Really will help me see what the plants are eating. To bad that potassium one was more than triple the combined cost of the others. Im not in RDWC anymore and thats where they would absolutely shine but none the less I NEED these toys and could use em to test the runoff.

Thats my way of justifying it lol.
 
AnselAdams

AnselAdams

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I cant wait till next month to grab these. Really will help me see what the plants are eating. To bad that potassium one was more than triple the combined cost of the others. Im not in RDWC anymore and thats where they would absolutely shine but none the less I NEED these toys and could use em to test the runoff.

Thats my way of justifying it lol.

@Aqua Man Are these numbers from HydroBuddy close enough to use as optimum "target" figures?

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AnselAdams

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The Harvest for the Crystal Meth has happened.

The plants are BUTT UGLY!! but the produced some very nice buds and they do smell like a fresh Meth cook. Stinky as hell, just like a fresh packet 🥳
I will be doing another grow of four plants in individual net cups this time.

This was the first time for this strain, I had major PH swings, which of course threw off my nutes. I am not sure if all of the brown is from my abuse or if that is just the way the friggin plant grows. We shall see with the next grow. PH issues have been resolved and I am awaiting measuring devices for the rest of my nutes.

What you see here is actually three plants. None over 24 inches tall.

My yield will be better on the next grow. If i get half a pound dried i will consider it a gift from the "Green Corn" god 😎🍻
 
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MHippie

MHippie

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Hello Everyone, I apologize for my extended absence but it could not be avoided.
Short version is that my family like 225K other American families had a tragic run-in with flu. Now that that ugliness is over with I have come back to the Farm and my two grows.

The Candy Cane came in but it was not a great harvest but the smoke is awesome and i have two more already almost 3 weeks old.

As for the Crystal Meth... welllllllll that is another story.... it is just about finished but I think I stunted the shit out of them with bad PH husbandry and combined with the fact that i have never done a sative plant. They will get cut next week. They are butt ugly with brown leaves but the colas that are there are huge. The entire plant is right around two foot tall. I dropped four new beans on the 6th so we shall see if the plants are at fault or me (i'm pretty sure i know the answer to that one). ☹
Welcome back :)
 
AnselAdams

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I'll bet. Sorry it touched you. That bud you just chopped was fire :) Finally broke down and went LED inside because of what you and a couple others do with them. So thanks for that.


I am glad that my fleggling(sp) efforts have inspired someone, anyone. I just keep trying to do better with each grow until i feel i have gotten it right then i move on to something new. I have grown Auto Trainwreck for over a year now and these two new strains don't behave anything like the ATW.

What light did you end up buying?

😎
 
MHippie

MHippie

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I am glad that my fleggling(sp) efforts have inspired someone, anyone. I just keep trying to do better with each grow until i feel i have gotten it right then i move on to something new. I have grown Auto Trainwreck for over a year now and these two new strains don't behave anything like the ATW.

What light did you end up buying?

😎
Uh well.. you are going to throw up in your mouth a little probably.... but... I went from one 4x2 Sunblaze T5HO to 2 Viparspectra P2000's in a 2 x 6 area. I was using it for flowering small plants. Like trying to do a 6 cola bonsai in a traditional bonsai pot is tough. Most of the strains I'm messing with expressed significant Cal/Mag deficiencies specifically, even though they were getting not only normal nutes but an Earth Juice Cal/Mag supplement at full strength too. When I up potted those plants into 5 gal grow bags, that cal/mag def went away within a week as soon as the roots got under the plant.

The byproduct of that mess? I've been growing a lot of HSC's Purple Mountain Majesty and it's a frustrating strain. It comes up with like no tight spacing on bud sites. It looks like freaking Charlie Brown's sad ass Christmas tree. And the damned thing grows TALL if you let it. 5 gal bag outside on a normal veg cycle? 4.5 - 6 ft tall plant. But once it goes into flower? The thing takes right off and packs it on. The little sparse nug sites become huge tight nugs with a tight well formed cola.

Well... I took 4 clones of that strain and dropped them into bonsai pots that are only 3 inches deep. And then vegged them for 2 weeks on 186 to let their roots spread out. And then hit them with 12/12 under the LEDs. They stretched and stopped at well under 3ft. I'll put a tape measure on them and take more updated pics outside of them so the lights don't bleach out the pics tomorrow. But if you compare the cola formation, the dense flower growth, and the size of the nugs on these three plants to the outdoor stuff I did with this strain this season? You can barely tell they are the same strain at this age.

I've got two more test plants in that LED indoor run. They are old school :) Lemon Skunk #2 and GSC. And again, the difference in these two plants and the ones that are finishing outside are insane. My wife calls 1 piece cola plants "baseball bats". The same height limiting "technique" was used on those two. Both came from clones just their their outside counterparts. But the outside ones are spaced out heavily and the yield is going to be shit. And the inside ones are short but will be just single cola plants WAY more densely budded than the outside stuff.

I didn't change anything else in my set up. Nutes, supplements, ph, soil, methods, all the same. The difference is the lights. They have blown the tits off of my grow and I'm incredibly happy with what's going on for sure. If these cheap lights are pushing this type of output, I'm almost afraid to work with a high quality line like Gravitas or whatever.

And today I ordered 2 more that should be here in the next few days. I went with the P2500s. I'm going to use the smaller space for veg and keep the P2000's in there. These new lights will be for my larger flowering area. We'll just have to see what happens.

Sorry for the novel. Just wanted to give a complete pic.
 
AnselAdams

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Candy Cane Update Week 5:

The two plants are growing well with the new line of nutes. This is the second grow of this strain. The first was good quality but low yield. It was the first time growing it so I am hoping i learned something and will impore my yield on this grow. I plan to use a scrog net this time and see what I get.

Still using Primordial Solutions products only (along with CaliMag)

I had a calmag issue, but i think i have resolved that issue. New growth is looking nice and green.
 
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AnselAdams

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Crystal Meth Grow #2

The first grow was horrible but i think i learned a bit more about my new strain. The final yield from the three plants was only about three ounces after it was dried. Now awaiting the cure.

So i thought i would try again and see if i could do better. Had a rough start with the calmag. Still figuring out how to make sure I am using enough without going overboard. This time i started four beans and one has already died. It never really got started.

Here are the three survivors just two days short of 4 weeks:
 
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AnselAdams

AnselAdams

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Candy Cane Update End of Week 5:

The recovery is doing quite well now. Still some calmag damage still showing but new growth seems to be very green. We'll see. Height and width are doing well too. Lots of buds on one plant and none yet on the other; however the growth rate seems to be the same. SCROG is already in place so i don't have to wrestle with it later.
 
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AnselAdams

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UPDATE Candy Cane:

This grow continues to confuse the shit out of me!! 😏

In this post and the next I will show two Candy Cane plants from same source, ordered and received as one order.
They were dropped and raised side-by-side in the same nutes. One I have started to train because it is nice and green, flexible as all get out and easy to LST. The other; continues to act like there is no cal-mag at all. Of course i can't keep increasing or I will toast the healthy plant. However the broke-dick plant is already starting to flower heavily, and grow new leaves. so how broke is it? shit if I know. I am certainly open to opinions & suggestions; although I don't know how i can fix one without trashing the other. Damn!!
 
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AnselAdams

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UPDATE: Candy Cane Week 7
Recovery??

Today was cleanup on plant #2, the ugly one! It was a true shearing but i think it was for the best. It will probably slow down a bit but it is just at the beginning of stretch so it may be positive, we'll see. However i figured i couldn't make it much worse. The field of brown & gold was not adding anything to the game and i wouldn't be able to tell if corrective efforts were working or not (if any).

On the whole, it was haircut day as well. The bottoms had begun to get kind of thick so i decided to go ahead and open it up and put a fan in the bottom to blow upwards while the other two pair blow down. After my last brush with the dreaded bud rot; i am making sure i keep plenty of air flow going.

To Recovery & Progress 🥂🍻
 
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AnselAdams

AnselAdams

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While I was away;

Well while I have been off "takin care of business" and not been posting much it does not mean that i was sitting around doing nothing (other than checking on my plants) to advance my growing environment.

My last couple of grows have started with great germinations and growth the first two or three weeks. After that the roots begin to slime up and i have to transfer to the big rez of they croak, no matter how much hydroguard i use. I finally gave in and purchased a used 1/10 hp chiller and plumbed it into my germination box. So far so good PH is at 6.0 and ppm's are at 500 after adding calmag and sea-green hydro. & water temp of 63F. That should keep things nice and clean. If this works out, I will use it to try and root some cuttings off the healthy grower.

This rez like the rest, is being monitored by a BlueLab TDA-PH-Temp monitor (the two probes to the right of the pump). I still need to customize two silicone drain covers to cover the two holes on the far left. One is unusable because of the spout and the other is a sight hole with a single layer of rocks in the bottom to help gauge the water depth (may end up installing a sight tube).
 
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Bean_Boy

Bean_Boy

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Do you think it would be worth trying a foliar feeding on the deficient one? I have never done it, but some people swear by it. Looking great!
 
AnselAdams

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Do you think it would be worth trying a foliar feeding on the deficient one? I have never done it, but some people swear by it. Looking great!

At this stage i don't spray anything on them at all. I do put 10-20 mil of the same root starter contained in the rapid rooter cubes. I hand feed until i get roots coming out in all directions.

1605869571121


once they have roots coming out the bottom. their next home is the youth tank it uses 3" net pots, so i cut two more rooter cubes in half and use them to pack the 3" net pot. Then i put in the small rez that i run exactly like the 40 gal. (see previous post). Each day i pour 2 oz of rez water from the top until roots touch the water below.

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Then i make the next move to the larger net pot by just placing the smaller net pot inside the larger and let the roots grow through.
After that it is off to the races.

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Happy Growing 😎 🍻
 
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