The stretch is definitely kicking in with this young lady. She was two inches closer to the light today(10") than she was yesterday(12"). I thought this was a good time to do a bit of defoliation, so I removed four large fan leaves and 3 smaller fan leaves that were blocking bud sites. She looks much better with the haircut and more branch tips are exposed to the light now. I took off a little more than I planned to initially, so I hope it doesn't stunt or shock her too badly. I also installed a tomato cage on the net pot and did a little more LST to level things out a bit and provide opportunity for more tops. I moved the light back up to 16" from the tops to encourage them to stretch a bit.
I also mixed up a new brew which I'll add to the reservoir tomorrow. Just giving it a chance to level out for a day or so.
To 3.5 gallons of water I added:
Armor Si - 6ml
CaliMagic - 12ml
Micro - 15ml
Grow - 15ml
Bloom - 15ml
RapidStart - 6ml
Floralicious Plus - 3ml
Diamond Nectar - 12ml
FloraBlend - 15ml
FloraNectar - 15ml
Hydroguard - 6ml
final PPMs minus base level in water = 730 PPMs
The GH schedule called for 7.5ml per gallon of macronutrients, so I'm not too far off at a little under 5ml per gallon. This new solution is a little less than 50% stronger than the current one. Given the explosion in growth and vigor the past several days, I feel like 5ml per gallon is not overdoing it. I suppose we'll see. This is also the first time I added FloraNectar to the brew. I'm hoping I didn't overdo it.
@Olde School Player , what do you think?
Defoliation, great!!! I did that today as well, concentrating on any inner fan leaves blocking nodes, leaving the outer ones to continue to do their thing. If I can't tuck it, I cut it.
About the nute mix, we're pretty close but I do have some differences. First, Cal-mag & Si. As the plant starts bloom, she's going to use more calcium. But I'm RO water & you have (I forget - 190ppm base water?) some calcium already in your water supply. To prepare for bloom, I use 4mL Cal-Mag and 2mL Si per gallon of RO, and that brings me to 400ppm of base water before any other nutrients are added. What I would recommend you experiment with, is how much Cal-Mag and Si do you need to add to your base water to get to between 350 to 400ppm. Keep a ratio of 2 units cal-mag to 1 unit Si & you should find your sweet spot. Make a note of that as your base water value for future reference. Your 6 Si and 12 CalMag is going to get you pretty close.
Next, Micro grow bloom - I'm running 4mL per gallon of each, which would be 14mL; but you can use the extra 1mL in DWC. Stay right where you are.
Rapid Start - you can discontinue that now. Once your plant shows stretch, she's telling you her roots are set & you don't need that anymore. Plus, that may be contributing to your pH fluctuations; bacteria, even beneficial - have a way of doing that. Now court is still out for me on myco's; I continue to use them but today is my last dose of those. More research on that over the winter, stay tuned.
FloraLicious Plus - I am religious about 1mL per gallon. I may reduce other nutes by half, but I never vary on that. But you're close; if you want to, add 10 more drops to get to 3.5mL total.
Diamond Nectar - I run 2.5mL per gallon at this stage and through early bloom, but I don't think the extra you added will hurt. You should be able to cut back on that after early bloom.
FloraBlend - I also run this at 2.5mL per gallon through early bloom, then discontinue. You're more like 4.25mL per gallon, more than you need. But this is a weak "Tea" solution that does more good in areas besides N-P-K, so I don't think it will hurt you (just not sure how much it will help, either).
FloraNectar - I run this at 1.25mL per gallon. But if there's one GH product, it's this one. Plants make carbs, but can they USE simple carbs directly? Not too sure about that. Now if we were dirt, absolutely, I'm a bug fan of molasses to encourage beneficials to grow in the root zone. But hydro? Hmmmm, just not sure. But I'm not so certain that I want to quit using it. I'm going to wait for @fettled6 to figure that one out before I quit using it.
HydroGuard - this is a good product but I don't use it. For one, it's beneficial bacteria, and it MAY be part of the culprit for your fluctuating pH. But here's the deal. I can maintain pretty close control of my reservoir temps in the high 60's / low 70's max. I DO treat my reservoir with beneficials whenever I start a plant, but once roots are established I stop its use. BUT FOR YOU --- (do as I say, not as I do???) you are DWC and maintaining temp control is harder. Crap, it's harder just to CHECK temp's in a DWC environment to see if you may even have a problem developing. So, unless you are damned certain you can maintain stable temps, then I would continue using it. If that means fighting pH, then fight away. You can keep pH in a healthy range, and worst case the pH up / down will affect your ppm's a bit. Easier to live with that than root rot.
Funny thing, I just checked the PPMs on the solution currently in my bucket and it stands at about 850 PPM after subtracting the water's base PPM. That's higher than the new stronger solution I just mixed up. This suggests to me that the plant isn't particularly hungry and is not uptaking nutrients at the same level as water. At least it's good to know she won't burn from the new solution. I'll keep a closer eye on the PPMs going forward. It's 72F and 55% RH at the top of the plant and the vapor pressure deficit is 11.9. This is right in the sweet spot for this stage of life. I would prefer a temp closer to 75-77F, but 72 is not bad.
I think I have learned what is partially responsible for my pH fluctuations. I had rinsed and soaked my hydroton pebbles in water pH'ed to 5.0. So, I think that as the pump in the reservoir pipes water up to the base of the plant, it's bringing down some of the low pH from the pebbles. When I let the solution sit in the measuring bucket, before adjusting the pH, it stays pretty stable. It's a dead giveaway that something in the setup is dropping the pH.
You can't pay a lot of attention to the ppm of your "old" solution at this point. Yes, track it, pay attention, but when it jumps during the early stages of growth, I don't worry. Your girl is going through puberty. What we will be doing over the next few weeks is figuring out how much nutes she really wants when her new body takes off. If you see a jump now and back off, you won't be able to ascertain her optimal nute strength later. Remember the light intensity topic above, more light - more nutes. Not what caused this spike you discovered, that was probably just evaporation.
And on the pH drop - could be some of it, hydroton DOES retain salts from past uses, or minerals from the water. Always treat to 6.0 before use to be safe.
And I suspect, when you find the sweet spot of Cal-mag and Si, this will help stabilize pH swings as well.
Just swapped in the new solution. It went in at about 6.8-7. I haven't adjusted pH on it at all. I'm going to check on it in a couple hours and see if the pH has dropped at all. If it appears like it's dropping, I'll let it continue to drop on its own(as long as it stays within acceptable range) to see where it bottoms out. If it's holding steady, then I'll adjust it to 6.3 or so and continue to check it regularly to keep it in range with as little interference as possible. It just seems like the pattern is that once I initially add pH Down to the solution to get it in range, I'm in a constant battle to bring it back up after that. It's almost like that little bit of pH Down has a drastic long term effects on the future pH of th solution.
I noticed that she grew another two inches taller since yesterday! I'm leaving the light at 14" for now. I plucked off several more leaves that were blocking bud sites as she clearly did not suffer any stress from the defoliation and LST session yesterday.
Good plan. Ever since I moved to RO I have noticed very small amounts of pH DOWN can have far reaching effects. I use a 12 gallon reservoir in my Flo-n-Gro system, and 4mL of Down took me from 6.5 to 6.0. Last grow, 6mL down took me from 6.8 to 6.1. Not so sensitive with pH up, I'm commonly using 10 - 12 mL to get effective changes in pH level. Now on your target pH level, I think you'll be happier if you concentrate on keeping it between 5.8 and 6.1 but you're not going to cause any serious problems unless you allow it to fluctuate outside 5.6 to 6.2.
But you're on the plan, first try to let the nutes or minerals or your water stabilize pH before adding more chemicals. But don't wait too long, overnight is all I want to wait before I recheck and adjust as needed. Whether it's more nutes, more cal-mag, or just plain water. But when that fails, use the chemicals. Like the Wise Man said, Reality is for those who can't handle their Drugs.
