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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?Bennies out of control eating nutes and their waste raises pH?
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.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.
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.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?
From Teaming With MicrobesI 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.
Fantastic, regardless if this is the issue or not, nice to learn. It makes a lot of sense though since all the basic stuff it usually is doesn't seem to be the problem. Well time to dive into a rabbithole, i appreciate it haha.From Teaming With MicrobesView attachment 1081241View attachment 1081242
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