OG Kush, 1st time grow

[ProGroWannabe]

Great update FF!! So did your electrician look at you funny?

 

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Great update FF!! So did your electrician look at you funny?

He did seem a bit perplexed as to why I need 5kw in the garden! I told him it's for 3 computers and photo gear...each computer being 600w power supply, an aircon unit, a bar heater for the winter and then a load of other smaller crap. I'm only planning on using a 400w MH and a 600w HPS at any one time, so with ventilation gear etc I should be in under 4kw. Gonna cost a bomb, but it has to be done...my mrs is giving birth in December and I'm being kicked out of here into the garden so this room can become a nursery....and I live in a small place but thankfully we've got a garden, so I'm moving all this out there - and getting more room for a dedicated 1.2m flower tent \o/.

Got some Coco and nutes today too, also grabbed a packet of chilli seeds...which am germing right now! Figured it might be handy to have a cover of sorts, just in case. Bought a 15 quid plastic greenhouse thing from B&Q, and going to load it with chilli plants that can be brought in in an emergency (and swapped for plants).

And also put some more seeds in to soak before germing. Not saying just in case I kill them ;)

Going to flush my plants tomorrow with RO water because they're not looking a hell of a lot better. I think I have nute lockout and my pH is still rising a lot (5.8 to 6.3 over 8 hours, and this isn't a fresh tank). Going to flush for 12 or 24 hours and then go for it with full strength nutes but no enzymes or anything to mess with pH (rhizo or hygro) - just 3 part GH and some superthrive. If the pH stabilises over the next day or two then I may try adding in the enzymes, otherwise I just want to hold a stable pH so that the plants can be healthy.

 

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p.s. How frequently should I be flooding my hydro setup? It has been going for 5 mins every 4 hours but I just upped it to 10 minutes every 3 hours. Plants are about 2-3 weeks old and have been on 1/4 strength solution (2.5ml/10l as per GH schedule for weeks 1 and 2). They're root riot cubes in hydroton in 13cm pots.

 

[ProGroWannabe]

I wish I could help ya there, but I haven't done Ebb&Flow yet. Someone will be along to give ya some insight though, I'm sure.

 

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Daily update:

Things are going from bad to worse. The pH from the corrected RO water went from 5.8 to 7.6 overnight, and there's only RO and nitric acid in there. The plants are looking worse, getting more yellow, splitting and generally looking worse for wear.

So, today I have added nutes back in because I think they need nutes and a stable pH more than they need flushing/are locked out. Swapped to Canna Hydro Vega in the hope it handles my pH better, just to rule out the nutes. It was quite acidic (ph 4ish) when I added the nutes in, so I added rhizo to bring the pH to 5.8 (no pH up). Added a few drops of superthrive. Added a bit of Piranha powder too.

Now I'm leaving them until tonight and will check pH again. If it's still rampantly going up I'm stuffed. Have noted the water level on the reservoir to see if it's evaporative loss from the a/c over the tank that is causing trouble.

Other than that I'm about to pull what's left of my hair out, and then germ a shedload of seeds and fuck hydro and go coco :)

EDIT: p.s. - sent this to Canna just now...am desperate:

My pH is fluctuating wildly over an 8 hour period and I am at a total loss why. Temperatures of nutrient and environment are stable...but when I set the tank to pH5.8 (40 litres) it will be at pH7.6 only 8 hours later. I use Canna pH down (veg, diluted) to bring it back down again but it carries on over several days, not just after a fresh tank. The plants are 3 weeks old and relatively young but are yellowing from the pH swings and I do not know how to stabilise my pH. I am using RO water with a pH of 7.6, EC of 0. Many thanks in advance.

 

[logic]

Should of done a soil or coco from the start...hydro is just hassel imho :D

 

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Should of done a soil or coco from the start...hydro is just hassel imho :D

This padawan is only just learning that....The Green Man made it look so easy...I've got some Lowryders on the go in coco already, and some WW transplanted into soil, so I'm covering all bases to make sure I get a result. I'm deffo gonna going to break open the good stuff and start germing my DNA seeds for more insurance. I need to have this sussed before I get hold of those sexy auction beans....

 

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Got a nice reply from Canna:

"Mix your Ro water with tap water till EC is 0.2 that should give your water some pH buffering!

If you are in a circulating system e.g reusing your run-off water we could recommend the CANNA Aqua Vega which has some pH stabilisation properties.
Do read the InfoPaper in Aqua before use. Especially the part on setting the pH.

Hope this will work for you!"

Sounds like good advice...I've read of others cutting their tapwater with RO....will give it a spin if this tank doesn't hold pH....

 

[ProGroWannabe]

Keep after it FF. I've had similar issues with plants. I once fought a drooping issue for over a month before I finally got it figured out.

The only good that comes from fighting a growing-type issue, is once you get it figured out, you'll have learned a ton.

Good luck man, we're pullin for ya!

 

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Thanks PGW - if anything else I just wanted to find out wtf was going on with my pH. I was starting to believe the pH fairy was coming in at night with a bottle of pH up just to fuck with me - and winning...

One last thing on the pH issue...from Canadian Xpress page (and remember my tapwater is ph8.0!)

"We do need to mention growers in hard water areas. Your problem is that the buffering capacity of the water is so high that you need to use huge amounts of pH Down to control the pH. In this situation, even though the pH may not be over 8, the chemical composition of the water is such that it takes a lot of acid to get it down. In this case, you would be better off putting the water through a reverse osmosis machine first. Your crop will be substantially better off using reverse osmosis than trying to use chemical control. The problem is that your solution gets too out of balance and the plants can’t get the nutrients they need."

So, I got RO water from a local place and no shit it's going to be as crappy as mine, just purer crap (ph7.6)...but did it solve it? Noper. It has to be a mix - I've found that a 70/30 mix of RO/my tapwater gives me the EC0.2 that Canna said I should go for. You can't have it to clean and you can't have it too dirty. Fucking typical!!

 

[British_Hempire]

I think the fluctuating ph is the cause of your problems, might be easier to start over with coco as it's much easier than hydro, much more forgiving of mistakes.

If you can keep your ph around 6 you won't have these problems.

I'm lucky my tap water is ph 6.2, ec 0, when I mix my canna nutes it drops the ph down to about 5.8, adding Pk takes it back up to 6, I sometimes need just a drop of PH down.

 

[ConceptOfSleep]

Im sorry to hear about your problems FF...Though everything looks healthy in the last pics you posted of the babies!

Ive never gone the hydro route, but in soil I had many similar problems with Ph stability and over/underfeeding... Since switching to Coco, things have just been going stellar.... Any problems I have encountered in terms of nutrient issues and Ph problems have been very easy to solve and massively easier to fix.

Hoping that everything goes good for you! im sure it will!

BTW, I like your setup...Its too bad you have to relocate to the great outdoors, but also congrats on the lil one on the way!!!

Ill be taggin this one if you dont mind
:happy:

 

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Thanks for the good words guys....trouble is, this morning the pH was 6.7. I've added in a whole bunch of goodies to help the plants:

seaweed (algamic, rhizo)
fulvic (golden nectar)
enzymes (hygrozyme)

and then some pH down. Set it a bit lower at 5.2 to handle the rise, but I suspect that it's going to hurt them. Will readjust later on this evening if necessary. If it's really far out I'll change the tank (again).

All the non-hydro stuff is coming along....the lowryders in coco are rooting quicktime and I can already see taproots out of the bottom of 3"/7cm pots. They had curled up leaves (rams horns??) so I moved the lights away a bit. Also gave them some Piranha around the stem and watered through.

Am doing a germ test in coco - DNA Pure Afghan, one in a small coir pot with coco and the seed planted, the other is in a 3" pot with just coco, and planted.

Today 3 of the 5 Martian Mean Green x G13 (DNA) popped their heads up above the rr cubes. Two of these were pre-soaked in distilled water before putting into damp tissue. Wanted to see if pre-soaking had an effect, and the two pre-soakers were the first to germ.

Will post photos in a bit...just awake and I need to go find the pH fairy and dropkick that beeee-atch ;)

EDIT: I just checked my e-mail....there's 5 e-bay auctions that I went mad on last night in a very stoney haze before I crashed out....I bought sunflower and some other weird and exotic seeds (oh, and some coriander). This growing lark is taking me places I never expected!! :) I've already got some chilli seeds in the prop...but they're WAY harder to germ than weed beans...

 

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Ok..this is INSANE. I've been out for a few hours, come back and the pH is now 6.7 from 5.2 in only a few hours. Do I adjust it down? Is it all the bicrobial/enzyme stuff I added?

Total insanity on the pH front.

 

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6.12pm pH @ 6.6, brought down to 6.2 with 40ml diluted canna pH down (grow, nitrate based)

7.48 pH @ 6.4 brought down to 6.1 with 20ml pH down

Trying to edge it down to 5.8 gently but quickly and then will keep throwing in pH down until it stabilises. If I get lockout again I'm screwed and the plants will be transplanted into coco. I had rising pH with just RO water during the flush, so I'm totally 100% stumped as to what it is.

 

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9.30pm pH @ 6.6

This is nuts. I can't keep fighting it with pH down - I'll throw the nute balance out. I'm changing the tank out with tapwater....no time to wait for it to stand.

 

[ProGroWannabe]

Alright FF.....your pH fluctuations ARE getting insane. Can I ask you a rather elementary question? What are you using to measure your pH? If it's a meter, how confident are you that it is reading correctly?

I know a faulty pH reading is probably not the culprit here, but you seem to have counter-measured all the normal stuff already, so I thought I'd throw ya somethin else.....?

 

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Alright FF.....your pH fluctuations ARE getting insane. Can I ask you a rather elementary question? What are you using to measure your pH? If it's a meter, how confident are you that it is reading correctly?

I know a faulty pH reading is probably not the culprit here, but you seem to have counter-measured all the normal stuff already, so I thought I'd throw ya somethin else.....?

It's a brand new pH meter - 40 quid - calibrated with pH 7 fluid (new bottle)

I'm going to Emergency Plan B for them. The WW I don't care about but the Violator girls must live on....going to repot them all in 100% coco right now. Going to be tricky with their roots in the hydroton, but not much else I can do. I think my tapwater and the local RO tapwater is just too high and full of bicarb to be any good to growers. An RO machine won't help me either and I can't/won't afford distilled. Time to change to coco....as we say around here 'fuck this for a game of soldiers' :)

 

[julsbagell]

take out the rhizo and your ph will stop going up.

 

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take out the rhizo and your ph will stop going up.

Thanks, but I already tried that when flushing and the pH still kept on going up. I'm convinced it has something to do with my very basic/alkaline water and the dissolved content (bicarb or something). Rhizo is also a v. popular additive - if it was so detrimental to pH there would be loads of issues with it?

Anyhow, it's too late...hydro has gone and I'm a coco man...