@Autotron hey man, sorry for abandoning you, I'm getting ready for a trip to the west coast next week. Big Sur Highway is open once again so I'm going to take a drive up & down them visit some friends in the high desert. And hit all the dispensaries along the way!!! Plus I've been devoting all my spare time to researching a backpacking trip on the North Country Trail. One thing about being "up here" is you got to enjoy the summer while it's here, it doesn't last nearly long enough.
No worries bro, good to hear from you! She's just been cruising along on the same transition mix and still stretching a bit. Some nodes are showing several calyxes each, so maybe the transition is over soon? Or maybe she's still filling up the bucket with roots before she starts to bloom? I'll get some pics up later today or tomorrow and you can see what I'm talking about. That sounds like an awesome trip! I'm on the east coast and have traveled quite a bit, but never to California, oddly enough. I've always wanted to, as it seems to be pretty much the most beautiful state in the country with so many diverse outdoors options. I've got a sister in North Cali, so I'll hopefully get out there sooner rather than later.
Ennyways, thoughts on where you are now.... I'm still a bit concerned about your pH fluctuations but last post it seems to have equalized? I wonder, have you cleaned and calibrated your pH meter recently? I do mine once a month and find it does drift off sometimes. And what is your DWC nute temps holding at? Check it just before or right after lights-out; that should be the hottest part of you "day". And, I lost track of your nute formula, last time I looked we were discussing the GH Late Growth formula. Did you ever move to a transition formula? I don't always use this, sometime I skip straight from late grow to early bloom, but there are times when I think it helps.
My pH settled just fine after about 5-7 days. That seemed to be the trend with each res fill. She's been riding along at about 6.1 the past few days and the PPMS seem to be holding. Water temp could not be better, they're always at about 69F. I've seen it as low as 67 and as warm as 70F. I had a little mini aquarium heater in there at the beginning to bring the temp up while she was young, so as not to shock the seedling with cold water. I took that out a long time ago though. Four air stones in the bucket with a nice big air pump that was meant for four buckets. Cleaning and calibrating my pH pen has been on my mind lately, this is the extra push I needed to do it. I'll do that tonight or tomorrow too. I did indeed move to a transition formula. The whole recipe is a few posts back, but basically it's 5ml per gallon each of GMB. I've had this same solution in there for about the past ten days. I noticed that the PPM was rising towards 1,000, so I have been adding back plain bubbled water to the reservoir as the water level drops. It seems to have settled at about 750 PPMs and has been holding steady for the past few days. This seems to be that sweet spot you are talking about further down in your post.
Transition can do several things for you. The extra Grow and Bloom amounts will encourage stretch, help the roots finish development, and prep the plant for full bloom mode.
If your plant still has not shown bloom other than the single-pistil pre-flowers, maybe you should shorten your day to 18 hours for a bit. You can bump it back to 20 hours once she's in full bloom. But here's one of those not-so-obvious uses for the transition formulation. I don't use GH's vegetative growth formulas, I find them too strong, especially for autoflowers. I use 2.5mL / gal. each of Grow, Micro & Bloom for early veg, then 5mL / gal. each for late veg. But this, along with additives, is not strong enough to really push the plant into bloom AND establish the "right" (read that as the max. healthy amount) ppm for the plant going forward. From Transition onward, I follow GH's recommended formulas much more closely, but with one major adjustment that I feel; is very important - huge in fact.
This is some good advice, I just have the light on 24 hours a day at the moment. If I don't see it start flowering soon enough, I'll shorten the light cycle to 18 or even 12 if she doesn't respond. As far as nutes, she seems tolerant to a wide range of PPM, but is perhaps a light drinker.
So starting a transition formula with 7.5mL each of Grow, Micro & Bloom, plus additives, allows me to bump up the ppm of my nutes. Here I watch closely - if ppm's climb as the plant drinks, dilute 25 - 33% at a time. For example, for your 3.5gal. DWC container, reduce the volume to 2.5gal. & add one gal. ph"ed water. Or not pH'ed if you're needing to raise your pH level. Continue monitoring ppm's closely, and while you're at it pH too. But what you're searching for is the right ppm level where ppm's stay stable as the plant drinks. My experience has shown that once you find this during the actively growing transitional phase of the plant, then this level is going to hold pretty true throughout early and mid bloom. During late bloom through ripening, this ppm level will probably need to be reduced once again (percentage, NOT formulas). But for early / mid bloom, this will give you about as close to optimal level of nutes as possible.
I think I may have found this sweet spot or close to it. See my reply a few farther up.
So back to the very important -
"huge in fact" comment. When you get this level established, you plant is going to stretch about as much as it's capable of, and be encouraged to bloom. Then, when you get ready to change from transition to early bloom, you want to replicate this ppm level with the early bloom formula. My experience has shown that GH's early bloom formula, adjusted to around 75% strength, will fairly closely replicate the ppm's you found during transition. Maybe it will need to be adjusted to 66%; sometimes 80%. Whatever it takes to match transitional ppm's is where you want to strive to be.
You can get hung up with a lot of fine math if you want, but I take a simple approach. For 75% strength, I mix base nutes and additives (more on additives below) for a three gallon formula but add to four gallons of water. For 66%, mix for two gallons but add to three gallons. 80% - mix to four gallon formula added to five gallons. You get the picture - whatever the numbers, mix, test & adjust to where you need to be.
From that point forward, continue monitoring ppm's. Dilute if they go up, increase strength if they go down.
I think, and experience agrees with my thoughts, that the RATIO's of GH's bloom formulas are pretty spot-on for the main base nutes, Grow-Micro & Bloom. And their KoolBloom formula is good. But their additive formulas, once again, I feel are a bit high. So in case I don't get back in time to see your grow all-the-way, here's what I run for additives:
ArmorSi - 2mL / gal. from transition thru two weeks into mid-bloom; 1mL / gal. last week of mid-bloom & late bloom; discontinue for Ripen.
Diamond Nectar - 5mL / gal. through early bloom, 2.5mL thru mid bloom, discontinue for late bloom on
FloraBlend - 2.5mL / gal. through early bloom, discontinue from mid bloom on
FloraNectar - 2.5mL / gal. from early thru mid bloom, 5mL / gal. for late bloom & ripen
CalMag - we've talked about that already, it's whatever it takes to bring your water up to around 350ppm with Si added. They say 5mL; THAT'S TOO MUCH. I run 4 WITH RO.
These formulations usually result in a 6-8 oz. yield from one plant; and it's not at all rare to see 11-12oz yields from this. Cross your fingers.
OK my friend, hope this will help you get through this grow. I'll be around till next week, then hit & miss the rest of the month, checking in as I can. Keep those pic's coming & I'll chime in as time and mental clarity conditions permit. I DO intend to damage a few brain cells next week, but it's really only the weak ones that are affected anyway.
This is super helpful and I really appreciate you taking the time to put it here for me! I'm looking to do a res change in the next couple days, so maybe you can tell me if I should stick with transition formula or pump up the P a bit, after I post some pics for you to take a look at.
