New Grower New, first grow

[Frenjamin Banklin]

PPM is holding beautifully at 240, but water temps are up to 73 so I put the frozen water bottle in the res. Guess I'll be looking into the aquarium chiller after all, wh/ kinda sucks given the small res, but knowing that bein a small res has its own problems/challenges/vulnerabilities. Oh, and 3 Bears Ernestine absolutely loves the lowered light--soaring again like a bird riding thermals. Of course Sally couldn't care less. She's growing/thriving no matter what.

Well in the 20 minutes it took to thaw the ice bottle, the temp dropped 2 degrees. So it'll require 2 or 3 in succession, to get to 69 hopefully, and then how long until it needs to be done again? (The res. is insulated but...) Since the water pump is coming out in a week maybe I'll just do this, at least for the 1st grow to see how we get on.

Just for reference my reservoirs have been at 82 degrees Fahrenheit for my entire grow. 12 weeks never changed running Southern Ag fungicide for its beneficial bacteria. Molasses’s and all sorts of crap in there but no problems with growth or root rot. Not suggesting anything but just mentioning that temps aren’t always something to get super worried about.

FB

 

[LaoWhoo]

Holy cow. That's amazing. I just put the bottle back in the freezer. Well thx Frenjamin, a lot. Yeah, I was terrified at 73. Just so much different stuff out there. Well I reckon I'm still gettin sum benefit f/ Hydroguard, but I suppose I could forego it or just use it once for early root development.

I thought molasses was only for soil. You can use it in the res? Seems like amazing stuff.

 

[Frenjamin Banklin]

Hydrogaurd is a necessity !!
I just use a different product but same reason.

Molasses in DWC works well but go light at first. I’ve overdone it. Your bacteria colony will take off. I’ve actually choked the roots with to much good bacteria. But a dash of bleach had me back on track and knocked down the good. I don’t suggest following anything I say as advice intended to steer your grow. Just trying to offer insights from my own experience that you just be aware of when deciding.

 

[LaoWhoo]

Yeah but the "soil only" thing stopped me even looking into it, so now I can. Cheers. Oh, and good--I got the HG not knowing so will keep usin it. In fact, I put it in yesterday morning, then at 6 I added cal-mag, and at 9 I experienced a miracle. So good, cuz I dunno what did what.

Wait, so do you do complete water/nute changes?

Hmm...Humboldts has this

Amazon product

 

[LaoWhoo]

Well numbers held all day at 475/71/6.0 so not much to interfere with. (That's 175 PPM of 60 water w/ 115 cal-mag.../ and 300 PPM nutes. The HG didn't add much if any.) Think I liked it better when I knew they ate and I got to feed but equilibrium is good.

 

[LaoWhoo]

Girls like to sag a little during dark hours wh/ always has me wonderin. But numbers are good w/ 460 PPM (from 475) and PH spot on. Wonderin for example whether it's time to take the drip out...wanted to wait til end of 2 weeks above ground to encourage some wide-reaching roots. Standard 1" b/t water res and baskets. Temps decently low for good oxygenation (73). Not gonna move light again--18" must be ok enuf and moved them quite a bit recently.

2 hours into today's light cycle and they've perked up considerably. Beautiful. This is awesome, but the waits are a killer. Ohhmmm...

 

[420Forever]

but the waits are a killer. Ohhmmm...

ppp

 

[LaoWhoo]

Re: available light:

"For most plants, photosynthesis becomes saturated at flux densities well below the maximum they occasionally experience, largely due to problems of CO2 supply..."

So I needn't stress, or even worse possibly jeopardize the girls, over maximizing light. If anything, the limited CO2 they have access to says to err on the conservative side. Right now and at this stage they're responding well to 18" and it'll stay there a while.

BUT, OTOH etoliation/stretch didn't happen when the lights were 30" away for a week. Both rose to a short height and commenced vegetating, even tho I've seen lotsa YT time-lapsed grows in wh/ seedlings were typically 3x taller b4 vegging. Wonder whether this is characteristic of autos. Assuming these are bare ground plants, esp'ly the ruderalis?

 

[LaoWhoo]

Thought I saw saturation on one of the Rapid Rooters that wasn't supposed to be there, so I checked to see whether Ernestine's 3 Bears roots were long enuf and they were. But then I saw some root rot on Sally/CDLC. And if you look at the pic of her root that I took, at the time that I never shoulda taken her out (needs 3 weeks to develop its biofilm), you can see where the main root was matted with others. That's where it is. Fortunately I put Hydroguard in that complete res change.

I think the culprit was the holes in my pots--I didn't cover these at the top of the pots and no doubt I had light getting in there. Also, I learned that the article I relied upon didn't distinguish 1 pump and 2 stones for 5 gallons instead of 10, but at the root rot page that's what they said they did, so I'm not oxygenating enuf. The only evidence above ground was the slight drooping wh/ I attributed to no light cuz they perked up w/ light in short order, so I think I caught it in time. Since it's new water, and was treated w/ HG 2 days ago w/ the change, I just added another dose of HG, ordered another pump and stones, and plugged the light leaks.

 

[LaoWhoo]

Numbers at 475 and 68. Having the pump out makes a huge difference so I'll be usin the smaller res that I discarded for germinating w/ the pump. The rot has spread despite the extra HG on Sally, even though she's not really showing signs above. It's about 3 inches below the first spot. I could start over but Ernestine looks unaffected so far, even tho she has the obvious drooping overnight from dark. Think I'm gonna do the H2O2 despite the usual reservations--3ml/gal for 24 hours, clean water for 24 hours, then new nute solut. I'm considerin this b/c it's only the 1 root aggregate showing it and it's early. Also wanna know whether I can fight this shit.