My Journey Into a Volcano

  • Thread starter PpmOver9000
  • Start date
  • Tagged users None
PpmOver9000

PpmOver9000

317
63
Man i had several strains in there and some ate heavy and some didnt, so its hard to say. My cookies could have handled 1.5-1.6ec throughout the grow no problem, but that would give other strains issues. With hydro if the plants look good and ec in the block is stable youre probably good. If its too high you'll see the EC in the block spike overnight and see signs of overfeeding within a day or two. I think youre likely in the sweet spot if the ec doesnt drift much. But be aware you might need to dial it back slightly when you flip to 12/12. The reduced length of light caused mine to spike the ec after a few days, I had to shave a few points off for a week or so but it eventually ramped back up.

If i decide to go rockwool again next round which im leaning towards, im going to monocrop my best strain to keep things consistent.

Oh nice that's def good to hear. Thanks for the tip you're reminding me I used to do a flush right before flip for this reason. Definitely would've forgotten that if you didn't mention it. I hope you do another RW one for sure, definitely a fun one to follow. Yea I did monocrop for this one too just to minimize future headaches lol, not that skillful yet to go wild with a bunch of strains. Thanks for the peace of mind
 
Dirtbag

Dirtbag

Supporter
9,158
313
Everything looks fine but it's not taking off like I usually expect at this stage and I kept having such high ph levels inside the cube but also ec in the cube being 0.4 lower than my feed. So I figured I need to up my feed and that is actually what is messing my ph, because they are eating too much. I just always had some imaginary guidelines of what ec should be in veg but the cube numbers are telling me to go harder. So feed is now up to 1.6 ec and we shall see. Hopefully that's the right adjustment, feel free to chime in.

I semi confirmed this by syringe testing a plant that seems to be eating less than the others and the ph in that one was 2 points lower. Not very scientific but confirmation bias at its finest lol.

Are glues known to be heavy feeders?

Those look fantastic btw. I haven't read through the whole thread yet, is this your first rockwool grow? Because in those fat hugos the plants spend a lot more time growing roots with little top growth at first compared to say soiless or even coco, but once they fill that cube the growth goes wild. Like crazy crazy. And bud size will impress.
 
PpmOver9000

PpmOver9000

317
63
Those look fantastic btw. I haven't read through the whole thread yet, is this your first rockwool grow? Because in those fat hugos the plants spend a lot more time growing roots with little top growth at first compared to say soiless or even coco, but once they fill that cube the growth goes wild. Like crazy crazy. And bud size will impress.

I've only grown in RW but it's my first time running at it alone, so it's kind of my first time. I was at a larger team 3 years ago and always had people teaching me. So with the hiatus and no mentors, it's kind of like it's my first time again.

Cool, thanks for saying that about the growth. They seem to be growing slower than I remember at this stage, the roots are good looking on the bottom but def not a huge root mat yet. They also got topped recently and heard the gavita 1700 keeps plants short from @sshz 's observations. How far along are you in your current grow? Get the RW setup back I wanna follow! haha
 
Last edited:
PpmOver9000

PpmOver9000

317
63
Ran into an issue today while trying to do a heavier feeding. Each feeding is typically 7 seconds long a bunch of times a day, I am using a 710gph ecoplus pump going to 18 sites. Today I tried to do a flush and noticed after 20 seconds or so the pressure started to get lower and lower until around 1 minute it was just a slow pour out of the dripper rather than a steady stream shooting towards the base of the stem.

After giving the pump a break for a few minutes it was the normal pressure again but same thing happens after 20 seconds. I would like to have the ability to flush if I need to but this doesn't really allow me to. I just want to confirm if this is normal behavior for this type of pump? Is this a sign of clogging lines or maybe something up with my pump?

Maybe I can seek advice from you guys considering I pretty much built the same system haha @cemchris @Dirtbag
 
Last edited:
Dirtbag

Dirtbag

Supporter
9,158
313
Ran into an issue today while trying to do a heavier feeding. Each feeding is typically 7 seconds long a bunch of times a day, I am using a 710gph ecoplus pump going to 18 sites. Today I tried to do a flush and noticed after 20 seconds or so the pressure started to get lower and lower until around 1 minute it was just a slow pour out of the dripper rather than a steady stream shooting towards the base of the stem.

After giving the pump a break for a few minutes it was the normal pressure again but same thing happens after 20 seconds. I would like to have the ability to flush if I need to but this doesn't really allow me to. I just want to confirm if this is normal behavior for this type of pump? Is this a sign of clogging lines or maybe something up with my pump?

Maybe I can seek advice from you guys considering I pretty much built the same system haha @cemchris @Dirtbag

Is there a filter in the pump or inline On the manifold somewhere? Sounds like something is building up causing pressure to drop, and those pumps dont have a lot of pressure to begin with. That shouldnt really happen honestly if you are using clean nutrients.
Are you using emitters or naked ends?
Id start at the pump, disconnect the irrigation manifold and screw a hose into it then flow water into a bucket and see if the flow slows down after 20 seconds, if so its the pump. If not, youve got a blockage somewhere. Do you have an inline Y filter?
 
PpmOver9000

PpmOver9000

317
63
Is there a filter in the pump or inline On the manifold somewhere? Sounds like something is building up causing pressure to drop, and those pumps dont have a lot of pressure to begin with. That shouldnt really happen honestly if you are using clean nutrients.
Are you using emitters or naked ends?
Id start at the pump, disconnect the irrigation manifold and screw a hose into it then flow water into a bucket and see if the flow slows down after 20 seconds, if so its the pump. If not, youve got a blockage somewhere. Do you have an inline Y filter?

I am using vegbloom which I understand has a clay carrier. Also using their beneficial bacteria product called Life. I do have a Y-filter inline from the pump which then flows to the manifolds. They are not pressure regulated and the lines are naked, just 1/4 tubing. I would think the y filter would help with this. Not sure if I need a stronger pump or something else.

I'll test to see if it's the pump. Thank you for the suggestion. Will update when I am done.

I am also wondering if its the clay carrier and some left over stuff from the bennies I notice at res changes. I don't think these pumps are made for anything other than pure water. Is there even a pump that is meant for this or do I need to maybe remove the bennies from my mix and feed it separately. I also have these mesh bags that the pumps came with, didn't think they'd be useful so I set them aside. Would those possibly help?
 
Dirtbag

Dirtbag

Supporter
9,158
313
Id check your Y filter, its likely plugging up, I clean mine every few days usually. And yeah stop using anything with a carrier, that will plug up the Y filter. I used bennies in my system but i top fed them manually and kept them out of my res. With an irrigation manifold you really want to stick to very clean salt based nuterients and nothing else in the res. Any organic inputs can cause blooms that will clog filters and potentially grow nasties in the pipes etc. And it does not take much to plug a Y filter.

Those pumps are ok, I use an eco pump 1000, but it has almost no static pressure so you reqlly need to keep everything super clean to get the flowrates you need.
 
PpmOver9000

PpmOver9000

317
63
Id check your Y filter, its likely plugging up, I clean mine every few days usually. And yeah stop using anything with a carrier, that will plug up the Y filter. I used bennies in my system but i top fed them manually and kept them out of my res. With an irrigation manifold you really want to stick to very clean salt based nuterients and nothing else in the res. Any organic inputs can cause blooms that will clog filters and potentially grow nasties in the pipes etc. And it does not take much to plug a Y filter.

Those pumps are ok, I use an eco pump 1000, but it has almost no static pressure so you reqlly need to keep everything super clean to get the flowrates you need.

OK thanks for your input sir. Back to the drawing board. I was probably being too optimistic trying to run the bennies lol. Just cleaned out the Y-filter and put the pumps in that little mesh bag it came with. Seems to have helped for the time being. It was the pump by the way, flow disrupted again when I did the test you suggested. Thanks again DB!
 
PpmOver9000

PpmOver9000

317
63
Id check your Y filter, its likely plugging up, I clean mine every few days usually. And yeah stop using anything with a carrier, that will plug up the Y filter. I used bennies in my system but i top fed them manually and kept them out of my res. With an irrigation manifold you really want to stick to very clean salt based nuterients and nothing else in the res. Any organic inputs can cause blooms that will clog filters and potentially grow nasties in the pipes etc. And it does not take much to plug a Y filter.

Those pumps are ok, I use an eco pump 1000, but it has almost no static pressure so you reqlly need to keep everything super clean to get the flowrates you need.

Took out the bennies in my most recent rez change and ironically found a reason to do a heavy feeding. Good news is that no more loss of pressure once I took the bennies out but the reason I needed to do a heavy feeding is because for the life of me I don't know why the cubes keep creeping up to 6.7ph+. This has been a consistent issue for all of my veg so far, about 3 weeks.

Went a bit crazy cuz of my frustration and fed at 1.2ec/4.8ph until the runoff was showing 5.5. Tested a block an hour later and it was sitting at 5.8ph, thought I was all good so I put them on a more frequent irrigation schedule, every hour for 100mL shots at 5.5ph hoping it would stabilize. But slowly over the rest of the day it constantly creeps up to 6.7+ again, and similar ec. This has been ongoing for all of veg so far.

Now I am at a loss, I tried increasing irrigation cycles but I would have almost no dryback, and I think I am irrigating too often as it is. With a reasonable 50% dryback the ph would swing past 7.0 sometimes, I then thought they were eating too much but increasing EC saw some burnt tips. They seem stalled for the past 4-5 days because I been going a bit too crazy trying to stabilize the ph which makes sense considering how i been blasting them (not my first attempt at a heavy watering to correct ph). The newer growth isn't really spreading and kind of coming out bunched up and twisty which I assume is cuz of the constant ph fluctuations.

Sorry for the ramble but could you maybe shed light on how you went about it, I remember you had similar symptoms in your RW thread but didn't go into super detail on how you fixed it.

In case there's something contributing to this from my nutrients:
RO Water
Protekt @4ml/gal
ph down to 6.0
Stackswell (calmag) @1g/gal - 0.3ec
Veg Bloom 1 Part @4g/gal
Hygrozyme @8ml/gal
5.5ph/1.4ec
 
Dirtbag

Dirtbag

Supporter
9,158
313
I wish i had more to offer but im kind of at a loss... only thing i could recommend is dont get too hung up on the block numbers and just focus on what is going in. Keep input consistent around 1.4ec and 5.5 ph and increase frequency of irrigations, as in dry back less, like 30%. You cant really overwater them at this point. Youre probably doing more harm than good trying to chase that ph around.

Does the ph only drift upwards in the blocks or does it drift up in the res too?
 
PpmOver9000

PpmOver9000

317
63
I wish i had more to offer but im kind of at a loss... only thing i could recommend is dont get too hung up on the block numbers and just focus on what is going in. Keep input consistent around 1.4ec and 5.5 ph and increase frequency of irrigations, as in dry back less, like 30%. You cant really overwater them at this point. Youre probably doing more harm than good trying to chase that ph around.

Does the ph only drift upwards in the blocks or does it drift up in the res too?

Yea I came to my senses and told myself to stop overadjusting, so I am letting them dry back for the night. The ph in the res does drift up over 3 days or so, maybe a point or two. Also out of curiosity what did your watering schedule look like? I am currently at 7 feedings a day totaling 700mL and I am seeing drainage from the cubes starting from the second feed of the day. What did you find was an ideal time to see the first runoff in veg? And flower for that matter.
 
Dirtbag

Dirtbag

Supporter
9,158
313
Yea I came to my senses and told myself to stop overadjusting, so I am letting them dry back for the night. The ph in the res does drift up over 3 days or so, maybe a point or two. Also out of curiosity what did your watering schedule look like? I am currently at 7 feedings a day totaling 700mL and I am seeing drainage from the cubes starting from the second feed of the day. What did you find was an ideal time to see the first runoff in veg? And flower for that matter.

I was feeding about 5 times a day by mid flower iirc... but vould have been 3 times a day? I dont recall. I flipped them after 2 or 3 weeks veg so they werent huge.
 
PpmOver9000

PpmOver9000

317
63
Bennies out of control eating nutes and their waste raises pH?
hmm hadn't thought of this. How does one confirm this? I am adding hygrozyme and recently took bennies out of my mix and planning on feeding it separately. If hygrozyme is doing its job would this raise ph? Also didn't know bennies themselves raised ph, maybe i dosed it too high?
 
PpmOver9000

PpmOver9000

317
63
I was feeding about 5 times a day by mid flower iirc... but vould have been 3 times a day? I dont recall. I flipped them after 2 or 3 weeks veg so they werent huge.
How much volume were each of those shots roughly? I am just trying to figure a baseline of how much volume you're supposed to feed in 1 day and/or when you're supposed to see the first runoff of the day. Im seeing runoff at every feeding except for the first one, just felt like too much but wasn't sure.
 
Milson

Milson

Milsonian
Supporter
3,376
263
hmm hadn't thought of this. How does one confirm this? I am adding hygrozyme and recently took bennies out of my mix and planning on feeding it separately. If hygrozyme is doing its job would this raise ph? Also didn't know bennies themselves raised ph, maybe i dosed it too high?
I am not knowledgeable enough to teach others about this, but i know that different bennies will excrete waste that does different things to pH and that this is a factor with which plants like it in what soil because of the resulting nitrogen mix and availability.

In other words, it is a shot in the dark based on incomplete knowledge from me.
 
Milson

Milson

Milsonian
Supporter
3,376
263
I am not knowledgeable enough to teach others about this, but i know that different bennies will excrete waste that does different things to pH and that this is a factor with which plants like it in what soil because of the resulting nitrogen mix and availability.

In other words, it is a shot in the dark based on incomplete knowledge from me.
From Teaming With Microbes
Screenshot 20210119 214608
Screenshot 20210119 214636
 
Grapefruitroop

Grapefruitroop

473
93
Another point to consider is......You took out the bennies from your reservoir but....they will still exist in your blocks.
Bacterias are very resistant..
Is there any organic element in your nutrients? Even a pinch of humic acid could feed some bacteria that u previously introduced...
Im a totally new to rockwool, but if you think that those swings are caused by uncontrolled microbial activity, maybe goin sterile adding some bleach could stabilize the situation?
💚 👊💚
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom