New Grower SPZ's Mephisto Triple Automatic Redux

[SPZ]

So Sorry for your problems of nature. You will prevail.

Thanks for the consolation. It is just another lesson to learn, how to keep the gnats out of your plants. The plants are well established now so I'm sure they will keep growing, but the gnats will keep them from thriving. They have a saying in mountaineering that the mountain always wins. You always have to work with the mountain to achieve anything.

It sounds like the best way to keep from having a gnat problem is to keep them out of your plants in the first place, like @jelly0 said put a layer of pebbles over your media. I did this but I found that I don't have quite have enough pebbles to cover all four pots enough to keep the gnats totally off the coco. I read you can use cloth, too. I have a whole spool of landscaping fabric so I'll probably augment my pebbles with a crude fabric barrier. In my research I read that drawer liners (the kind with little holes in them) and pantyhose have also been used as effective gnat barriers.

 

[SPZ]

Very well thought out game plan here I sense a master grower in the making!

Thanks for the kind words! I'm imitating a wildly successful AFN grow, researching everything, and consulting with the local gurus too, so if I manage to grow some good weed it will be by standing on the shoulders of giants!

 

[Nosias]

Thanks for the kind words! I'm imitating a wildly successful AFN grow, researching everything, and consulting with the local gurus too, so if I manage to grow some good weed it will be by standing on the shoulders of giants!

Here here ! that is 100% correct. We live and learn for others.

 

[SPZ]

Hey guys! Here's a quick update. After top feeding 1L of dunk water to already fully watered pots, the plants looked a little a water logged. I figured I better wait until the coco dried out pretty good before I turned the autopots on just to be safe. It took three days but they finally looked thirsty so I turned the feed on again last night. I also did some leaf tucking last night. The girls really responded to this treatment, they looked great for a photo shoot this morning!

Day 29

NCH 1 This is my runt who sorta grew asymmetrically, but I still love her!

NCH 2 She's growing great now, so far the little dot of leaf damage on the lower leaf has not progressed any further

NCH 3, had to re-tuck those fan leaves as they popped back out

NCH 4, this girl is growing like a weed!

Group shot! You can see the yellow gnat traps and the fabric/pebbles I've put over the coco for gnat protection

 

[SPZ]

Here's a shot that lets you see the leaf tucking better. You just push the big fan leaves under so the smaller shoots start to come up. Those little shoots grew literally overnight!

 

[Nosias]

Here's a shot that lets you see the leaf tucking better. You just push the big fan leaves under so the smaller shoots start to come up. Those little shoots grew literally overnight!

View attachment 794721

Make 'em walk the plank, Captain. Well done.

 

[SPZ]

Make 'em walk the plank, Captain. Well done.

Yaaaaar!

 

[SPZ]

Day 30

Topped off the res with 15L of solution at 2ml/L base nutes plus silicate and cal/mag as indicated for day 30 in the posted feeding sched.

Did a little bit of chemistry this evening. I've heard that the pH can wander over time, so I decided to test the old solution in the res before I started adding stuff, and I'm glad I did! The pH of the solution was 7.1, over a point higher than when I mixed it eight days ago and outside hydro range! I've read that having a pump in the res can cause pH problems, so as an experiment I've put the pump on a timer so it only mixes up the nutes for a few minutes once per day. I've got the res all dialed in at 5.8 as of today, I will test the pH periodically and report what happens. Science!

My plants are drinking a fair bit slower than the Hans grow at this point so I'm just topping off as needed and keeping with his guidelines for solution strength. My girls are smaller than Hans', bless his green thumb, which is one reason for sure. But another I think is that the pebbles and whatnot I've put on top of the pots are acting as a mulch and retaining moisture. I've noticed that the drying time for the pots plus the draining of the reservoir seem to be precipitously slower since I made that change. That is probably a good thing in the long run but it may throw off my feed schedule a bit.

 

[KonopCh]

So until day 30, your solution was at pH 7?

 

[SPZ]

So until day 30, your solution was at pH 7?

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I started using the reservoir on day 22 and the pH was adjusted to 5.8 on that day, so it was only during the past week that the pH climbed up. Before that I was hand watering. I'm not sure why it climbs up, but I measured again this morning and the pH went from 5.8 to 6.1 overnight.

Now I'm curious so I'll keep taking measurements.