Growing again after a few years

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40oz2fr33dom

40oz2fr33dom

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So, I decided to give it a go at growing again. I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing but it’s worth a try. I’ve had maybe 4 or 5 successful grows under my belt and wanted to see what the growing world has to offer these days. I have a very wide variety of seeds in my little bank. Some very, very rare and others fairly common.
What I decided on trying my luck on was some Kandy Kush and Chemmy Jones.

These are both bag seeds dispensary weed, but I figured it was worth it if I managed to f#%! these up as they were technically free anyway. 50/50 chance of them being females. The Chemmy Jones was testing at 33% thc and the Kandy Kush at mid 24% thc.

So far I’m about 1 1/2 months along in veg. I started off with popping seeds via the paper towel and ziploc baggie method with success. Then I transferred to mini cardboard looking seedling pots with coco and used an old retro fitted blue ole cob box led that I had redid the cob and drivers. I basically rewired 2 100watt drivers to run 4 100 watt cob leds (3 @ 5000k & 1 @ 3000k) I had lying around from a different project. Running them at half the rate made them run extremely efficient and incredibly cool to the touch with no heat at all. I was also using Jacks Hydro 321 formula for the nutrients. Seemed to work out for the time I was using them until I could order different leds, a tent, in-line fan, buckets for dwc, air pumps, air stones, an and different nutrients. Basically a whole new set up.

The first month was REALLY rocky and slow growing when I transferred the seedlings to net pots with grow stones as the medium. I was struggling with the Jacks nutes in dwc. No matter what ratio I used the plants always showed signs of deficiencies or excess nutes.
For about 5 days I tried using some 3 or 4 year old cyco nutes I’ve had lying in storage but I think it made things worse lol.

I ordered a 2in1 grow tent that just so happened to fit the dimensions of the space I wanted to be growing in (4’x3’). Arrived March 14th. I did not use the “baffle” used to split the grow tent in two that wayI could leave the whole tent open. Worked great for me and my needs. I didn’t set up the grow tent until I received my led lights, though.
My led lights that I ordered on alibaba came in on March 17 and I installed them on the following day. I did not go with the lm301 boards as I didn’t want any “hot spots” of light beaming down. So I went with individual lm301 led strips, each with their own Meanwell drivers. They are about 39” long which spreads the length of the grow tent. I bought 3 of those led lights at a pretty reasonable price I believe. I’ll probably end up buying two more of them and I’ll probably buy some bloom booster “Emerson effect” leds, too. I’m only running two of these lights on in veg. With all 3 of them on it seemed too much for these little plants.

I also did top both of the plants at some point, but not at the same time. I also did some heavy lst on the Kandy Kush and very light lst with the Chemmy Jones. As you can tell, the Kandy Kush is the bigger plant of the two.
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40oz2fr33dom

40oz2fr33dom

93
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I’ve been using some Lotus nutrients that I bought off eBay, for about a week and a half now. The plants seem to absolutely love these nutrients. I’ve seen some explosive growth since using these nutes. And the plants do the whole praying and “reaching for the lights” thing these days. When I first started using these nutes, I didn’t buy the cal/mag product from lotus and was using 3year old botanicare cal/mag I had lying in storage. I figured I didn’t want to dump a whole lot of $ into this line of nutes if it wasn’t really worth it. But believe you me, these are really great nutes! And the simplicity of this line is the HUGE selling point for me. So I bought another starter pack and the small can of cal/mag straight from the Lotus nutes website. I should have just preserved from here in the first damn place. I literally paid 3x as much buying off eBay for the starter pack than I did directly from the Lotus website. Oh well, you live and learn 🤦‍♂️🤷‍♂️.

Moving on, about 4 days ago now, I was repositioning the training wires on the Kandy Kush and broke off a stem 😫. I was so mad at myself. I tried taping it back to the main stem, but it was too far gone 😭. You can see the aftermath of a missing branch in like the 4th pic from the bottom. Now I believe I should add some sort of silica to the mix to make the plants a little more hardy.
So yesterday I mixed up a fresh batch of nutes as follows: 6.25 tsp of Lotus grow, 2.5 tsp Lotus cal/mag, 15 ml of the 3yo cyco lineup silica (until my new order of silica arrives), and 10 drops of superthrive. I adjusted with fresh RO deionized water until I hit 1.9 ec for the Chemmy Jones and 2.3 ec for the Kandy Kush.
Thinking about it now, I probably added way too much silica. I should have done about half that silica dose, but I want to see how it goes for now.

Sadly, I found out yesterday that my ph/ec/temp pen was way out of calibration for the ph. What I thought was 6.0 ph on the pen turned out to be WAY lower. I had bought one of those GH ph testers (the one with the small vial and color indicating ph drops) just to do some cross referencing, and 6.0 ph with the drops was indicating that it was 6.41 on my ph meter 🤦‍♂️. So basically I’ve been f#€%ing up this grow the whole time constantly adding ph down every couple days until I would read 6.0 and sometimes 5.8 on my digital 3in1 pen. That would explain the twisting tips on new growth I’ve been having. Amateur hour here.
I’ve always done just the ph drops in all my previous grows but I figured I would upgrade this time around. Looks like I’ll be ordering some calibration buffers too.

My old air pumps are not worth a damn and I’m not going back to Walmart to buy another air pump so I ordered a new 338 gph vivosun air pump yesterday that will come next week. I also forgot to mention that I’ve been making my own air stone rings out of some porous soaker tubing. Cheaper than buying those same type of rings on eBay or amazon.

Here’s some pics from this morning
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40oz2fr33dom

40oz2fr33dom

93
18
I’ll be installing the new air pump today once I receive it. I should also be getting my new silica nutes as well. I ended up purchasing 2 100g Mykos Packets to help out the roots before I switch them to flower in 3 weeks. So once I receive the mykos I’ll be mixing up a new batch of res solution.
Thinking back on all my previous grows I would run 10 days of nutrients solution in the reservoir and then I would run 3 days of just cal/mag with the occasional silica added. I hope I’m not messing up the plants with the constant feeding regimen. I guess time will tell unless someone happens to be reading this and wants to chime in.

On to the plants

April 12th:
The first 2 pictures are from Easter Sunday. Looking pretty healthy, but I did notice some overcrowding going on from the fan leaves

April 13th:
Pictures 3-7. I decided to give the plants a trim to open up the canopy and jump start some fresh growth in preparation for light flip in 3 weeks. To most this would be considered some pretty heavy defoliation, but this is nothing compared to what I’m going to do on the 1st day of flower and then again on the 21st day of flower. It’s a VERY controversial thing that I found out worked incredibly well for me on my last grow a few years back. I only do this on photo period plants with well established roots though and wouldn’t do it to autoflowers.

Today April14th:
Last 2 pictures. I took a quick picture of how the plants are responding to yesterday’s trim before I headed off to work. Doing well.
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40oz2fr33dom

40oz2fr33dom

93
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Thank you @Madbud! This is by far my favorite hobby. Feels good getting back to it.

I installed the new air pump when I got home from work. The pump kicks ass and is very quiet. I’m very seriously considering buying another. I was a little disappointed that the metal bracket that holds the rubber feet was bent on one corner. It was also scratched on top pretty good. Not sure if it was from the package handlers or if it was shipped like that leaving from the seller. Not a biggie though, as I bent it back into place with a pair of pliers and the the scratches are only superficial which doesn’t affect how the pump works at all.
After I installed the pump, I laid the pimp hand down on the plants with a bunch of training wires. We’ll see how they respond to this last bit of training.
Next on the list is to install a water level indicator. It’s mostly so I can drain these buckets without having to take the lids off because I want to either make or buy a trellis to do a SCreen Of Green. I still haven’t decided, but I do know that I want 2 levels of trellis to support whatever buds I get as the last time I had to tie up all the buds with string and that was not fun. A SCROG system would have been much easier.
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40oz2fr33dom

40oz2fr33dom

93
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YesterdayApril 16th:
Sadly, I ripped off one of the main tops of the big Kandy Kush plant 😭. I was in somewhat of a rush in mixing up new reservoir nutes that I didn’t recognize that one of the training wires was still attached to the bucket as I was lifting up the lid. Poor plant has been through all kinds of stress throughout it’s life lol. I hope it doesn’t herm on me if it’s a female plant. I even forgot to mix in my drops of superthrive 😑.
The left over nutes in the bucket were WAY higher than what is was when I made the batch fresh, even when I did a quick check when I switched over to the new air pump. I was getting 3.2 EC on the Kandy Kush reservoir; batched @ 2.4 EC when fresh. The Chemmy Jones reservoir was left at 2.8 EC; originally batched fresh @1.9 EC. Obviously the plants are thirsty as hell since I’m now pumping double or even triple more O2 to the root zone from what I previously was with those POS Walmart air pumps.

Fresh batches of nutes were made @ 2.0 EC for the Kandy Kush & @ 1.7 EC for the Chemmy Jones. I threw in 2 grams of the mykos that I had purchased. It’s in no way water soluble so I’m curious as to how it will do in DWC.

I did save a little bit of nutes from the old batch and suspended that top that got ripped off inside of the nutes solution. Plan is to do some 12hr cycle lighting (or similar) to find out what the sex is.
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bonepowa

bonepowa

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gotta be patient when training plants so as not to break them. especially as aggressively as you have been training them.
 
40oz2fr33dom

40oz2fr33dom

93
18
gotta be patient when training plants so as not to break them. especially as aggressively as you have been training them.

well it really was an honest mistake. I am usually very patient and very thorough, as I grow mushrooms as well if that’s any indication. This one just happened b/c it was the 1st time I medicated in half a year lol.
I didn’t get the job I was really, really hoping for so I was kinda bummed about that which is why I decided to medicate. I’m officially back on the “fuck the system” mode again. Apparently it’s not what what you know or your experience; it’s who you know, who you blow, and who you’re connected to. It’s a fucked up world that keeps getting worse 😶
 
cannabi

cannabi

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3
welcome back to growing, reading through this a bit that blows man. I know how that can be with jobs at times.
 
40oz2fr33dom

40oz2fr33dom

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Thank you for the warm welcome @cannabi. I always feel welcome around these types of circles.

Yeah, the job thing is a bummer, but I’m over it for the most part. I didn’t get a different job I was hoping to get last year either. Oh well. It’s not like a have a a crappy job right now anyway and I should be happy I’m still working in these quarantine days. It just sucks doing everything right the past 2 years, almost makes it seem like it’s not worth it, you know what I mean?
Besides, what in the actual hell is so bad about medicating with cannabis?
Sorry, just ranting on here.
At any rate, looks like I’ll be medicating on the daily again. Time to buy some more powdered urine and another urinator lol 😁
 
Edinburgh

Edinburgh

2,692
263
Here is a pic of crystal candy by sweet, and candy cane by ck. Cotton candy, crystal candy, & candy cane are all really good strains, the smoke tends to b very relaxing, good job.
 
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40oz2fr33dom

40oz2fr33dom

93
18
Those flowers look delicious @Edinburgh 🤤.
The original bud that I got the Kandy Kush bag seed from was a very crystal laden and smooth smoke that was, as you described, very relaxing. I hope mine get as frosty as your 2nd pic.

The last strain I grew was Kryptonite. That one was a very heady and racy smoke. Made my heart race. It’s b/c I should have let her go longer before cutting her down. I plan on letting both these plants I got growing now get fully ripened with about a 70% cloudy/30% amber before harvest. Here’s a pic of the old Kryptonite I grew. It was 90%cloudy/10% clear on harvest. I wanted a heady smoke that time around but that was way more than what I was expecting. Lasted only about an hour or a little longer and sent me crashing and burning on the come down.
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noahcola

noahcola

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Those flowers look delicious @Edinburgh 🤤.
The original bud that I got the Kandy Kush bag seed from was a very crystal laden and smooth smoke that was, as you described, very relaxing. I hope mine get as frosty as your 2nd pic.

The last strain I grew was Kryptonite. That one was a very heady and racy smoke. Made my heart race. It’s b/c I should have let her go longer before cutting her down. I plan on letting both these plants I got growing now get fully ripened with about a 70% cloudy/30% amber before harvest. Here’s a pic of the old Kryptonite I grew. It was 90%cloudy/10% clear on harvest. I wanted a heady smoke that time around but that was way more than what I was expecting. Lasted only about an hour or a little longer and sent me crashing and burning on the come down.View attachment 962899View attachment 962900
sometimes i enjoy that racy high! that harvest looks like it came out well there.
 
40oz2fr33dom

40oz2fr33dom

93
18
4/20/2020:
Plants are coming along pretty good. Getting a little overcrowded again, not much light penetration through the canopy. Deciding on whether or not to defoliate and let them breathe a little.

Yesterday 4/21/2020:
I came home from work yesterday to check on the reservoir level. The Kandy Kush plant is a really thirsty one. Went through about 3.5 gallons in 5 days. Almost running dry. I tested some of the reservoir nutes and was back up to 3.4 EC again. Ph was stable at 5.8 the entire 5 days.
The Chemmy Jones didn’t drink a lot from the reservoir. Maybe 2 gallons at the very most. The EC didn’t rise much, I tested the reservoir at 2.0 EC, but the ph jumped up to 6.6.
So I lowered the EC for the Kandy Kush at 1.9 EC with a complete reservoir change and just added a small amount of nutes at 1.7ish EC to the Chemmy Jones reservoir just to top it off and brought the ph down to about a 6.0.
I should have taken pix of the Chemmy Jones roots. I’m getting nice healthy white roots on it.

After I did the reservoir changes I decided I was going to defoliate to get some growth back into those tops. I went pretty heavy on defoliation, more than last time. Got rid of some of the lower plant growth, but not a complete lollipopping

Today 4/22/2020:
Last 2 pix were taken before heading off to work
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40oz2fr33dom

40oz2fr33dom

93
18
I also forgot to mention that I flipped all 3 lights on in the tent now. Gets a little warmer than what it usually is. Now it’s pretty constant at 77 F. It usually was about 72 F with just two lights on. I’ll probably open up the floor vent a little in that room in late flower and put the air intake hose directly over it so that it pulls in the central cooling air conditioning to lower the temps slightly and hopefully give the plants a nice color change/fade.

I’ve also been seriously thinking about purchasing a couple 7 gallon buckets to extend the amount of days before having to mix up new batches of nutes. I was thinking about converting what I have now into a rdwc system but with round buckets the chance of getting a leak is significantly more than square buckets with flat sides. I’m still not sure as the cost goes up either way I choose.

Anyone have suggestions?
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40oz2fr33dom

40oz2fr33dom

93
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Pix of Chemmy Jones roots. I’d say that the Mykos is doing the job just fine.

I had a thought at work today and I think I’m going to use my little ninja blender to really break down the granules of Mykos before adding them to the reservoir.
I was even thinking about doing it for the Lotus nutrients, too. That’s because I usually mix up the Lotus nutes and there’s always undissolved particles in the bottom of the mixing bucket. So then I let them sit for 30 mins or an hour to get fully saturated and try to really mix it up again as best I can. Always insoluble particles no matter how long I mix. And that goes the same with the Mykos. I just figure if there is going to be insoluble particles in the bucket, might as well be of the smallest size I can make them so I can increase the surface area of said particles to maybe get them floating around rather than laying on the bottom of the reservoir.
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