Shrewdtrees
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Long story short, im new to the forum and the son of a Woodstock hippy who's been growin since the 60s. When I was a teen I would help grow, but never really likes the "old school" method. I come from a medical background with a love of chemistry, electronics and an obsession with aquariums and water chemistry, so my take on growing was definitely different then what I was taught growing up. This is my first time taking what I've learned, and incorporating everything I always wanted to do to improve on the old school method I was taught.
Honestly I live a pretty straight lace lifestyle and nobody around me even knows i grow, so its kinda a shame I don't get to show it off and ask for advice. Thought id get on here and show it off and answer any questions, take advice and look for any constructive criticism.
15' x 20' room with 2 5'x18' beds plumed into a drain in the floor. Walls are 2 Layers of 5/16 sheetrock with sound deadening blue in-between layers, and rockwool sound deadening insulation underneath. Roof is 5/16 sheetrock with 2" Rigid Foam Insulation all over. All outlets are outdoor GFCI outlets with water resistant outdoor covers. Panda Paper covers the walls from the ceiling to the floor, held in place by redwood 1x1 boards. Everything was painted with mold inhibiting paint (including the outsides of the beds and the floor) and beds are lined with asphalt emulsion for water proofing. 144 plants are in Active Aqua 9"x9"x10" pots staggered spaced around 12" - 18" apart in Fox Farm Ocean Forrest Soil. I'm using 8 Papillon 1000W Double Ended Lights with Phillips Mater GreenPower 1000w HPS bulbs, 8 Hydrofarm Active Air 16" fans, 4 on each side, exhausted by a CANFAN MAX 14" fan with 14" carbon filter and necked down to a 12" silencer and 12" exhaust duct, and inlets are 4 10" inlets with air diffusers drawing from under the house with HEPA filters on inlets. Controls are INKBIRD wifi Temp Controller and wifi humidity controller. Have several GOVEE bluetooth hygrometers around the room for data tracking. Back room has 2 50 gallon water barrels, one for water and one for nutes, all plumed up with autofill float valves. Main water plumed in with PEX to a 2 stage carbon/sediment filter and RODI water also available for testing purposes or if flushing/stripping is needed.
Pretty much gave up on run off tests as for some reason I always got readings that made NO sense and were WAY too high (like an EC of 5-7, but no sign of nute burn). So I stick to slurry testing, taking from 2-4 plants daily at random, digging down about 2-4 inches and taking 20ml of soil and mixing with 20ml of clean water. I test the soil almost daily for PH and EC.
Vegged for 3 weeks then flipped. Lights kept at 24" above plants at about a 40,000 - 50,000 lux reading. Temp kept at 75 - 80 ad RH kept at 65 - 75. Soil PH kept as close to 6.5 by watering with water adjusted 6 - 7 range accordingly with 85% Phosphoric Acid or Phosphoric Carbonate. Nutes were Great white, Myochum, Compost Tea (red worm casting, earth worm castings, bat guano and glacial rock salt) and Age Old Grow for first 3 weeks when in veg. Watering has been every other day (seems to be what soil is telling me it needs) and nutes in veg given at 1.5 EC when ever slurry test showed ec drop to below 0.75 EC (which seemed to be EVERY watering). In bloom I've given them a pretty steady diet of 50 gallons of water with 1000ml of Age old bloom, 500ml of Budswell and 250ml of Molasses which comes out to an EC of about 1.8 - 2.0. Again I only use nutes when slurry test reveals soil EC is below 0.75, which so far has been EVERY 2 days.
Plants are now trellised and also have additional string around the stakes holding branches up and back (probably should have done a second layer trellis net, didn't think they would DOUBLE in size after flipping to bloom). Plants have been stripped from bottom up to trellis net (lollipopped from soil to about 12" - 18" up) and plants are now ranging in size from 3.5' to 4.5'. Have had 0 pests (other than a few fungus nats from fox farm soil) and no mold or any signs of nute burn or deficiency of any kind. Ladies have been super healthy are growing at an alarming rate. Only complaint is that this strain is HUNGRY, they literally eat ANYTHING and EVERYTHING I throw at them, sometimes within a day.
Some questions i have are:
1. WTF am i doing wrong for run off tests? i put the plant over a 5 gallon bucket, and water until water runs out. I test the run off and the PH is CRAZY and the EC is always through the roof. like an EC of 5-8, which i KNOW cant be right. I've tried dozens of times and just gave up. I've relied on slurry testing so far and it seems to be working marvelously.
2. From my research I've found that I really shouldn't mix nutes above an EC of 2.0. So this is what I've stuck to, but my problem is the ladies seems to eat that up by the next day most times. I mean the bottle of Age Old Bloom states "give 700 - 1400ml of nutes to plants once a week" and ive been giving them like 1000ml every 2 days, and they are STILL hungry with no signs of nute burn EVER. should i use more? or is EC 2.0 really the limit and stick with what's working?
3. Who has played around with food grade 85% phosphoric acid for PH down? I was using general hydroponics PH down but that stuff is so diluted, and my PH out the tap is like 7.5 with high alkalinity so I was burning through like 300ml of it just to go from 7.5 ph to like 6.0 ph in 50 gallons.. And sometimes more because the nutes would add alkalinity and jump the PH up on me. I went through a GALLON of PH down in like 3 weeks. So I switched to 85% Phosphoric acid, and MAN is this stuff strong, like 40 - 50ml drops my ph to like 5.0ph. But what gets me is the PH swing with it, and what i mean is I ALWAYS mix up my 50 gallons of water and PH adjust it right after I feed, so that the new water has 48 hours to fully mix and stabilize. But for the life of me i cant seem to dial in how much to use. My tap PH swings from 7.2 - 7.5, and I've tried adding between 40ml - 50ml of Phosphoric acid. Some times it drops the PH to only like 6.2 and other times I've seen it plummet to like 3.5. Is this simply because the alkalinity of my tap water is fluctuating? Or is there some secret to this that I don't understand?
4. Does anyone see anything off about my calculations or regimen? PLEASE let me know, im here to learn.
Thanks everyone who took the time to read all that, like I said I'm glad to be here as i have NOBODY to talk to locally about this and am looking to pick the brains of some seasoned growers.
Here are some pics of the Blueberry Haze ladies first picture starting about 1 week and last one is from now, which is about 1 month and a few days. Sorry about the yellow light, don't have a filter. I know they look brown but i promise everything is dark green.
Honestly I live a pretty straight lace lifestyle and nobody around me even knows i grow, so its kinda a shame I don't get to show it off and ask for advice. Thought id get on here and show it off and answer any questions, take advice and look for any constructive criticism.
15' x 20' room with 2 5'x18' beds plumed into a drain in the floor. Walls are 2 Layers of 5/16 sheetrock with sound deadening blue in-between layers, and rockwool sound deadening insulation underneath. Roof is 5/16 sheetrock with 2" Rigid Foam Insulation all over. All outlets are outdoor GFCI outlets with water resistant outdoor covers. Panda Paper covers the walls from the ceiling to the floor, held in place by redwood 1x1 boards. Everything was painted with mold inhibiting paint (including the outsides of the beds and the floor) and beds are lined with asphalt emulsion for water proofing. 144 plants are in Active Aqua 9"x9"x10" pots staggered spaced around 12" - 18" apart in Fox Farm Ocean Forrest Soil. I'm using 8 Papillon 1000W Double Ended Lights with Phillips Mater GreenPower 1000w HPS bulbs, 8 Hydrofarm Active Air 16" fans, 4 on each side, exhausted by a CANFAN MAX 14" fan with 14" carbon filter and necked down to a 12" silencer and 12" exhaust duct, and inlets are 4 10" inlets with air diffusers drawing from under the house with HEPA filters on inlets. Controls are INKBIRD wifi Temp Controller and wifi humidity controller. Have several GOVEE bluetooth hygrometers around the room for data tracking. Back room has 2 50 gallon water barrels, one for water and one for nutes, all plumed up with autofill float valves. Main water plumed in with PEX to a 2 stage carbon/sediment filter and RODI water also available for testing purposes or if flushing/stripping is needed.
Pretty much gave up on run off tests as for some reason I always got readings that made NO sense and were WAY too high (like an EC of 5-7, but no sign of nute burn). So I stick to slurry testing, taking from 2-4 plants daily at random, digging down about 2-4 inches and taking 20ml of soil and mixing with 20ml of clean water. I test the soil almost daily for PH and EC.
Vegged for 3 weeks then flipped. Lights kept at 24" above plants at about a 40,000 - 50,000 lux reading. Temp kept at 75 - 80 ad RH kept at 65 - 75. Soil PH kept as close to 6.5 by watering with water adjusted 6 - 7 range accordingly with 85% Phosphoric Acid or Phosphoric Carbonate. Nutes were Great white, Myochum, Compost Tea (red worm casting, earth worm castings, bat guano and glacial rock salt) and Age Old Grow for first 3 weeks when in veg. Watering has been every other day (seems to be what soil is telling me it needs) and nutes in veg given at 1.5 EC when ever slurry test showed ec drop to below 0.75 EC (which seemed to be EVERY watering). In bloom I've given them a pretty steady diet of 50 gallons of water with 1000ml of Age old bloom, 500ml of Budswell and 250ml of Molasses which comes out to an EC of about 1.8 - 2.0. Again I only use nutes when slurry test reveals soil EC is below 0.75, which so far has been EVERY 2 days.
Plants are now trellised and also have additional string around the stakes holding branches up and back (probably should have done a second layer trellis net, didn't think they would DOUBLE in size after flipping to bloom). Plants have been stripped from bottom up to trellis net (lollipopped from soil to about 12" - 18" up) and plants are now ranging in size from 3.5' to 4.5'. Have had 0 pests (other than a few fungus nats from fox farm soil) and no mold or any signs of nute burn or deficiency of any kind. Ladies have been super healthy are growing at an alarming rate. Only complaint is that this strain is HUNGRY, they literally eat ANYTHING and EVERYTHING I throw at them, sometimes within a day.
Some questions i have are:
1. WTF am i doing wrong for run off tests? i put the plant over a 5 gallon bucket, and water until water runs out. I test the run off and the PH is CRAZY and the EC is always through the roof. like an EC of 5-8, which i KNOW cant be right. I've tried dozens of times and just gave up. I've relied on slurry testing so far and it seems to be working marvelously.
2. From my research I've found that I really shouldn't mix nutes above an EC of 2.0. So this is what I've stuck to, but my problem is the ladies seems to eat that up by the next day most times. I mean the bottle of Age Old Bloom states "give 700 - 1400ml of nutes to plants once a week" and ive been giving them like 1000ml every 2 days, and they are STILL hungry with no signs of nute burn EVER. should i use more? or is EC 2.0 really the limit and stick with what's working?
3. Who has played around with food grade 85% phosphoric acid for PH down? I was using general hydroponics PH down but that stuff is so diluted, and my PH out the tap is like 7.5 with high alkalinity so I was burning through like 300ml of it just to go from 7.5 ph to like 6.0 ph in 50 gallons.. And sometimes more because the nutes would add alkalinity and jump the PH up on me. I went through a GALLON of PH down in like 3 weeks. So I switched to 85% Phosphoric acid, and MAN is this stuff strong, like 40 - 50ml drops my ph to like 5.0ph. But what gets me is the PH swing with it, and what i mean is I ALWAYS mix up my 50 gallons of water and PH adjust it right after I feed, so that the new water has 48 hours to fully mix and stabilize. But for the life of me i cant seem to dial in how much to use. My tap PH swings from 7.2 - 7.5, and I've tried adding between 40ml - 50ml of Phosphoric acid. Some times it drops the PH to only like 6.2 and other times I've seen it plummet to like 3.5. Is this simply because the alkalinity of my tap water is fluctuating? Or is there some secret to this that I don't understand?
4. Does anyone see anything off about my calculations or regimen? PLEASE let me know, im here to learn.
Thanks everyone who took the time to read all that, like I said I'm glad to be here as i have NOBODY to talk to locally about this and am looking to pick the brains of some seasoned growers.
Here are some pics of the Blueberry Haze ladies first picture starting about 1 week and last one is from now, which is about 1 month and a few days. Sorry about the yellow light, don't have a filter. I know they look brown but i promise everything is dark green.
