Indoor Phineas DTOM’s Fabuous Skunky Adventure

[DTOM420]

K. I found out a friend of ours works at that department in our county. So, I’ll reach out to her.

 

[Natsu]

That is a nice lookin' quantum board set up you got there

 

[DTOM420]

Quick update that’s WAY overdue.

I’ve been struggling with my Blue Widow photo and Waira has been helping. Really hard to explain all the problems but most are due to crappy well water. I have an RO system now but the soil is all jacked from 3 months of the crappy water. We thought we had her on track and then she slipped backwards. So, I gave her 7 gallon smart pot a flush with 14 gallons of pH’d RO water, Sledgehammer and a little aloe. We’ll see how she does in a few days. She greened up after her last flush but after a couple feedings of MegaCrop she started looking deficient again. Lol! Crazy stuff. Very frustrating. @Waira has been a real trooper about helping me over the past month or more with her.

My Blue Headwreck has been suffering some of the same issues for the same reason but she’s never been as sensitive to it. She’s doing pretty well and flower is progressing pretty nicely. I may give her another flush too, though. She’s the plant on the right (the big girl on the left is the Blue Widow) and was really thirsty today.

I chopped the XXL Cheese Auto today and the Auto Ultimate is going down soon. My dwarfed Compassionate Lime CBD is flowering fairly nicely but I’ll be lucky to get 3/4 ounce off her. Still, it’ll give my wife enough to try; to see if it’s a good strain for her medical issues.

Waiting in the wings I have the CBD Crew OG Kush CBD under the T5 fixture and she’s looking great! High hopes for her.

Finally, I have a newly popped Auto Ultimate that I put in 5 gallons of Roots Organic soil. Actually, she’s starting in Light Warrior but will be reaching the Roots Organic soil in a few days. Going to keep trying this strain and as soon as my water-only mixture is ready to plant in, I’ll be trying a AU bean in there also. This is on Day 5.....

That’s all I’ve got for now.

 

[trickydicky]

Ive been struggling post 50-60 days as well with my citys bad tap water. 8.5 ph full of god knows what. Nice to see you are overcoming and getting it figured out!

 

[DTOM420]

Ive been struggling post 50-60 days as well with my citys bad tap water. 8.5 ph full of god knows what. Nice to see you are overcoming and getting it figured out!

I don’t know if I really have it “figured out” (I don’t feel like I do, anyway. Lol!) but I’m trying and I’ve got theories. It seems more like I’m stubbornly dragging them towards the finish line with @Waira cheering me along! Lol! I feel for ya! Have you tried an RO system? I’ve also been using Apple Cider Vinegar with the mother still in it as my pH down and I use it at almost the identical rate as I did with the GH PH Down product. 1.5ml takes me from 7.4 to 6.3. I switched to it because it’s a little cheaper BUT it won’t kill microbes and, in fact, has microbes living in it - “the mother” is the bacteria that’s used to make Vinegar. Home made Vinegar is regularly used in Korean Natural Farming practices.

I realized recently that the two photo plants went into a soil mixture that I made using FoxFarm CocoLoco as the base. I ran into a sale on it and grabbed a couple big bales for like $20 each, thinking it was a bargain. Haha! Not so much now. Now I’m thinking that the coco has been a big part of the problem with these two plants, exacerbating the terrible water situation. I’ve never grown in coco but I hear you have to flush it regularly because it ties up nutrients and contaminants and can become toxic if not flushed. I didn’t think about that when I included it. DUH! If I was going to grow in coco alone it’d be one thing but I’m NEVER including it into a soil mix again. Too much problem for NO benefit over peat moss, imo. Especially after researching the whole peat moss vs coco thing and finding out the REAL story behind that war and the fact that coco in North America has a much larger carbon footprint than peat moss AND that virtually all the peat moss harvested in North America IS sustainably harvested. Especially if you buy Canadian sphagnum peat moss (the good stuff!) harvested by Lambert! If you live in Asia, coco makes more sense than peat and even Europe has some sketchy deals with peat and coco MIGHT make sense from a sustainability standpoint - I haven’t looked into the harvest practices in Europe. But Europe has a very different situation with their peat than Notth America and there’s huge political issues revolving around peat (particularly in the British isles where much/most of it comes from) that has spilled over into our (North America) discussion. The issues over there have been exploited by the coco industry and lapped up like milk for a kitten by well-intentioned but gullible stoners who are, well, STONED! And we all know stoners love a “Let’s Save The Earth” cause to wrap their arms around. Lol! From a carbon footprint standpoint, think about how much carbon is expended in Asia (where there’s about zero environmental regulation that’s enforced) to harvest and process coco and, then, to ship it half way around the world, just to get it to the starting line to challenge peat moss. Peat moss has coco beat, in terms of environmental damage, before it even shows up at most of our continents for the race! Lol! Ok, rant over. I like sphagnum peat moss!

You can get a water test for around $100 but I opted to get the RO filter because the test was only going to reveal that I needed an RO filter; so why not just spend the money on the filter? Lol! I am curious what’s in there but I can’t change it and money is limited so why not fix the problem first? Check out the Hydro-Logic Stealth RO systems. They even sell them on Amazon and they’re pretty reasonable. Amazon has the 150gpd model for $155 and for most people it’ll do all the water you need for personal gardening. What are your PPM’s in yourvtap water?

 

[DTOM420]

Ive been struggling post 50-60 days as well with my citys bad tap water. 8.5 ph full of god knows what. Nice to see you are overcoming and getting it figured out!

Have you pH’d your soil?

Do you have coco in your soil?

Have you flushed with a clean water? You could go get some distilled or filtered water at the store for a flush.

 

[trickydicky]

My soil mix is about half coco half ffof with extra perlite and added kelp meal + worm castings etc. I do keep an eye on the soil PH but it tends to drift up quite a bit after a month or so (currently around 7.6-7.9 on my 70 day old plants). Started to notice some early n deficiency and did a light flush/swap to 5.5 ph water in an attempt to flush out some of the garbage building up in the soil and correct my soil ph a little. Seems to be working. I refuse to buy the RO system at this point as we are already in the $3500 range grow wise and I am tapped out. Anything more then that and it is not feasible medicine for the Mrs. I believe my new solution will be a flush somewhere around the 50-60 day mark to try and get some of the built up minerals out, whether they are from the city water or excess nutrients who knows. Zero leaf burn or curling this grow so no toxicity issues. I do bubble my tap water and have a reservoir in the grow room. Other then losing fans pre maturely all is well.

 

[trickydicky]

Im not sure how much I believe in the whole chemical nutes/ph down etc killing beneficial microbes. Maybe some species but companies like Recharge and Mammoth P would be out of business if they were only organic grow compatible. I listen to the dude grows podcast a lot and supposedly there microbes are selected for extreme environments (scotty real owns Recharge). Having said that it is very hard to see that supposed 15% gain in yield or flavor that all of these companies say is plausible. Just far to many variables in the grow.

 

[DTOM420]

I didn’t mean that the chemical pH adjusters kill ALL microbial life but there is lots of microscopy that’s been done and they DO damage microbial populations. Just like salt based nutrients do; although the nutes are usually even harder on them. This actually works to the favor of companies like Recharge and Mammoth because you’re constantly having to reboost your microbial populations; which means you have to keep using and buying them. I love Scotty and I love his product but if you look at the microbes that are included, they’re all widely used and widely available species. The key thing with Recharge is that he picked heartier microbes and left out those other species’ that are very susceptible to salt, so you’re not wasting your money if you use bottled nutes; and the particular combination that still manages to facilitate enough benefit to your plants to make you feel it’s worthwhile. Scotty is a great businessman and a great salesman and, in the end, he’s about “selling” and making a living. No fault there; but ya still gotta take some stuff with a grain of salt.


Mammoth P is a different story. The 2 founders are actually young scientists that got a $1,000,000 federal grant while they were in school to research and find a microbe that specifically makes phosphorous available; and the microbe they discovered is unique and only produced by them. Same deal though... it needs to be replenished in grow mediums that get salt based nutes because they kill or seriously degrade the microbe population.

It’s not that these products only work in organic soil, but I’m pretty confident that they work BEST in organic soil. Just because they can flourish and grow their populations because they’re in their natural environment with loads of food. I switched to organic pH adjusters mainly because they do the same thing CHEAPER and I ought to get an even better result from the microbes if I’m not exposing them to a harsh environment. So, I could only find an up side and I don’t think I’ll ever go back to the bottled stuff. Why would I? I’m pretty sure Scotty and Guru would confirm all of this.

 

[DTOM420]

Update:

The CBD Crew OG Kush has been under the flower light (600w true at 3000k) for 7 days and is looking pretty good. I have been getting a little bit of yellowing on all the new growth. This started before I moved her to 12/12 and while she was still under the T5. I sprayed her with MicroBlast and Optic Foliar Transport a couple days ago and she’s looking better - the slight yellowing seems to be dissipating. She’s sprouting tons of bud sites and I’m hoping for a good yield off her in another 6 weeks or so. I probably should have flipped her a couple weeks as her timing is really interfering with MY plans. But hey, I should have used more forthought in my planning. She’s about 2-2.5 feet tall above the top of the soil and right at 3’ round; with I pretty even canopy.

My wife is in love with the bud we got off the DP Compassio ate Lime CBD Auto! It’s doing wonders for her pain. Unfortunately I had TONS of issues with her and she stunted badly. So we got very little off the 11” tall dwarf. We should get plenty of the CBD crew plant to tie her over until I can run another Compassionate Lime, though.

Here are some pix...

Here is one of the tops where you can see the bud sites popping. I’ve got about 18 of these big ones that are 8”-10” tall....each!

Here you can see some of the top yellowing that seems to be clearing up

@Weed Warrior might be interested to see some of these.