A Priest's Journey.

[Highatollah]

Never written anything up like this so here we go. Grew personally for about 5 years (ebb & flow, tables, DWC) when medical became legal but haven't grown at all in the last 3 due to work schedule. Deciding now to legally do it again. Here is the first run in my new room. It is the actual Elite Genetics Sour Diesel clone only strain.
Room is 10' x 32' x 11.75'
UC 16XXL13. I used PVC for my return line instead of the included tubing.
14,000 watts of Philips DE bulbs in Gavita hoods.
Quest 105 pint dehumidifier (I hope I don't hate myself for not spending $200 more on the 155 when I know I should have)
5 ton AC.
CO2 burner on natural gas.
Ecoplus 1HP water chiller
6" inline on a carbon filter attached to a dryer vent that goes on at night to refresh the room
Oscillating fans and green light bulbs on the walls for night work.
Ordered a humidifier this weekend after learning about vapor pressure deficit last week.
Running RO water with Cultured Solutions nutes with their schedule as a template.

I started with CC tomato cages but I'm not liking them. I built a frame out of PVC today and attached a trellis net. My plants aren't bushed out as well as I'd like them for the trellis this time but next run I will plan on using a trellis from the start. The trellis is about 49" off the ground.

Today was the beginning of week 2 of flowering. They were only around 24" when I started flowering last week and now are approaching 48" already. Haven't been running CO2 because it's been so cold out the AC wouldn't run but another week and it should be warm enough out. Two weeks ago I had trimmed off all lower nodes and most of all the fan leaves. Tomorrow I will be removing lower nodes and some fan leaves again to get rid of the low light areas.

All questions, comments, criticisms, critiques, and insight are welcome. Thanks.

 

[HydroGuy]

Ducting on your pvc lines is genius! I may have to steal that idea to save some wear and tear on my water chiller.

 

[Highatollah]

Question for anyone listening. Why is it my EC always goes back down to 0.3 after I refill? I put it to 0.8 EC when I did a change out on the weekend and my reservoir is at 0.9-1.0 yet somehow my EC always goes back down to 0.3. It's been like that every res change out. But it never goes below 0.3 either.

Am I doing something wrong or is that just the UC?

 

[guymandude]

beautiful set up my friend.

i wish i had an answer for ya on the EC. i'm new to hydro

 

[Tonydizz]

Question for anyone listening. Why is it my EC always goes back down to 0.3 after I refill? I put it to 0.8 EC when I did a change out on the weekend and my reservoir is at 0.9-1.0 yet somehow my EC always goes back down to 0.3. It's been like that every res change out. But it never goes below 0.3 either.

Am I doing something wrong or is that just the UC?

It means they want more food. Increase to 1.1 EC and see how they respond. Do things in small increments in the UC until you find the sweet spot where the PH and EC stays stable.

 

[Highatollah]

It means they want more food. Increase to 1.1 EC and see how they respond. Do things in small increments in the UC until you find the sweet spot where the PH and EC stays stable.

My PH has remained stable but EC just always goes down to 0.3 and stops. Would it be ok to add more nutes back to the system or should I just increase the reservoir I have attached? I feel like putting my reservoir to 1.5 wouldn't even make the UC's EC rise.

 

[HydroGuy]

Have you calibrated your EC meter recently? Also placing your ec meter directly over an airstone can throw off numbers. I try to keep mine in corner of bucket where air bubbles are minimal. This just seems like to drastic of a swing. Even with my heaviest feeding strains i have never had more than a .3 drop in EC over a day. If none of these things are a problem raise your base nutrients till you get desired ph.

 

[HydroGuy]

Yes you can add base nutrients directly to system but start very lightly so you dont lock things out

 

[Highatollah]

Alright I'll try adding nutes to my UC to get the EC from 0.3 to 1.1-1.2. Any pointers on preventing lockout? Thanks HG.

 

[HydroGuy]

Alright I'll try adding nutes to my UC to get the EC from 0.3 to 1.1-1.2. Any pointers on preventing lockout? Thanks HG.

I like to individually pour nutrients into a half gallon jug with water so it is slightly diluted then pour some into epicenter, wait a few minutes to circulate and repeat. Only add a/b or whatever your base nutes are when raising ec. Extra booster nutrients shouldn't be added when raising ec only base.

 

[Highatollah]

Only add a/b or whatever your base nutes are when raising ec. Extra booster nutrients shouldn't be added when raising ec only base.

This is very helpful, thanks for pointing that out! I'm using all CS nutes along with GH CALiMAGic. I think Coco Cal finally came out so I might switch to that next grow.

I've just going by CC's feeding schedule. I know Sour D likes to feed a lot but I wanted to be precautious seeing as how CC preaches to keep nutes low. For some reason when going by CC's nute schedule, after mixing it's always 0.1 EC lower than their printed number.

 

[HydroGuy]

This is very helpful, thanks for pointing that out! I'm using all CS nutes along with GH CALiMAGic. I think Coco Cal finally came out so I might switch to that next grow.

I've just going by CC's feeding schedule. I know Sour D likes to feed a lot but I wanted to be precautious seeing as how CC preaches to keep nutes low. For some reason when going by CC's nute schedule, after mixing it's always 0.1 EC lower than their printed number.

No problem and thats a good thing to know about cs nutes! I have been running mostly H&G with a few products i dropped/substituted. Im planning on making the switch to CS after this run just hard because i have been working on my own recipe for awhile haha. I like that current solutions seems simple with a low EC. Let me know how you like that coco cal, running calimagic myself.

 

[Ignignokt]

EC is a rather blind approach to nutrient requirement. It has no discrimination for just what is missing. All that is evident are missing ions, of some sort. I think these plants are hungry for something not satisfied by the ratios in solution.

 

[Highatollah]

calimagic

Do you add CalMag to your top off reservoir?

 

[Highatollah]

Only add a/b or whatever your base nutes are when raising ec.

Filled top off reservoir with 1.2 EC yesterday and it raised my system to 0.4 EC overnight. Today I added 2.66 ml/gal of A+B and it only raised it to 0.7 when I really had expected it to go to 0.9 or 1.0 EC. I'm reluctant to add 3 ml/gal when that is what I filled the system with when I refilled last weekend. I feel like I'd have to be overloaded. But CS' feeding schedule says 0.9 EC on week 2 of flower.
Left it at 0.7 EC and I'll recheck it tonight to see if it lowers at all. Hopefully I didn't lock out, I've never really had problems growing in my life so I'm terrible at identifying them. UC is definitely a lot different than all my previous grows, they were much simpler.
Thanks for the tips.

 

[HydroGuy]

Do you add CalMag to your top off reservoir?

Yes i mix all nutrients in my top off.

 

[HydroGuy]

Are you topping off with plain ro water or a mixed nutrient solution?

 

[Highatollah]

Are you topping off with plain ro water or a mixed nutrient solution?

I top off with the next week's nutrient solution and increase it 10-25% towards the end of the week like CC says to.

Every change out my EC has slowly dropped to 0.3 EC while simultaneously draining off the reservoir and then just staying at 0.3. PH stays stable for about 14-15 days and then I change out when it moves out of range.

 

[Highatollah]

End of week 3. During week 3 I increased my nutrients quite a bit with no problems. I guess I was babying too much using the CS recipe.
Added an intermittent pump and UV filter to my RO.
Added an Ideal-Air 200 pt/day humidifier. My garage fan protruded too far out and was collecting condensation so I got a different fan. I think I'm going to put it up on a little box.
Picked up a 315W CMH Cycloptics Greenbeam for my 3'x3' table that I use for pre-veg before the UC. This run I had used T5s. I will probably cut the next cycle's clones this upcoming week.
Going to do some defoliating in the next few days to increase light to the lower buds.

Let me know what you guys think.

 

[Highatollah]

Opened by Current Solutions Bud Booster Mid at the beginning of the week and found floaties in it. I had remembered reading about a contaminated batch of nutrients on here so I e-mailed CS and they're mailing me a new jug. So I'm still feeding BB early till the new stuff arrives next week.
EC holding at 1.0 now while my top off is at 1.4 EC.