Agent86

Howdy Everybody.
First off, this journal is a little different than most.
Instead of posting throughout the grow, I kept a detailed journal on my computer so I could post a weeks worth of growing info in a single post. I also took plenty of pics to show how the plants develop throughout the grow as well as pics of alternating nodes, female pistils, male preflowers, bud development & anything else I thought might be of importance.
I've tried to list the day by day details that I feel are extremely important to keep an eye on throughout a grow. So this should be a fairly good day-by-day guide for peeps to use for their own grows.
Keep in mind that not all strains like the same nutrient & ph levels. So watch what your plants are doing & adjust your nute & ph levels accordingly.
You’ll find links in the Library to most everything mentioned in this grow.
A link to the Library is in my sig below.

I think the first thing that should be in every grow journal, are the complete details of your growing area, such as square footage, ventilation, lighting & most importantly, how you're growing. Soil or Hydro.
If your growing in soil, list your soil mix & all of the ferts & supplements you plan to use. And please be sure to list how much of everything you use & when you use it.
If your growing in hydro, let us know how you’re growing in hydro. NFT, Ebb & Flow, Drip, Bubbler, Aero, or any of the many methods there are to grow our favorite herb.
Also let us know if you’re going to Top, LST, SCROG, SOG, FIM or let them grow naturally.
The more details about your grow you give us, the more we can help if problems arise.

__________________
Posting Guidelines ~ Grow Guide ~ Day by Day, Bubbler Grow Guide ~ The Library
Trouble Shooting Guide ~ Educational Pictures ~ Guide to Successful Germination ~ Mite Tea
The only difference between a wise man & a fool, is in the magnitude of his mistakes.
While genius knows it has limits, idiocy is always unbounded.

Agent86

Cabinet:
My cabinet is made of white melomine. Great stuff. It doesn't warp, you can write on it with a dry erase marker & it wipes right off. Perfect for keeping notes. The cab measures 55" high x 29" wide x 22" deep. This gives me 4.4 square feet & 20.3 cubic feet.

Ventilation:
This is one of the most important things to control during a grow.
If the temp is to high, the plants can transpire so much, that the salts from the nutes can build up on the leaves & burn them. Keeping the humidity high can help, but then you'll still have to deal with the possibility of the plants stretching, another thing high temps can cause. During the vegetative portion of a grow, the plants do best with temps between 70f & 79f.
During flowering it's ok to let the temps go to as high as 90. This can actually cause the plants to produce more trichomes as a form of protection from the heat.
Ventilation also controls your humidity. During the veg & flowering stretch, the plants will do best with the humidity between 50% & 75%. Lower temps & higher humidity will help to keep the spacing between internodes close. Especially when the plants are first starting out.
During the flowering stage of the grow, the humidity needs to stay below 50% to avoid mold forming on the buds.
The lower humidity will also make your plants transpire more. More transpiration means more uptake of nutrients which will give you bigger colas. Be careful though. Low humidity & high temps during flowering can be a plus, but it can also burn the hell out of your plants from to many nutes if your not very careful.
If you start to see any burning of the leaves, lower the ppm of the nutes immediately. You might even have to flush the plants to remove the excess nutes.

I have 1, 4" exhaust hole with a 4" 104cfm axial fan pulling air out of the top of the cabinet & then blowing it into the ceiling rafters. I also have an ozone generator blowing ozone into the rafters for odor control. Works great.
I have 1, 4” passive exhaust hole in the floor of the cabinet with a 4" black pvc pipe going through a hole I drilled through the sub floor of my home. This allows me to bring cool air into the cabinet from the crawl space beneath my home.
I also have a 4" passive exhaust hole in the side of the cabinet, just above the floor that pulls warm air from inside my home.
The winters here get extremely cold. We already have 6 feet of snow on the ground & the temps have dropped to as low as -14f. So keeping my cabinet within the proper temp ranges is a little tricky when 12/12 starts. The problem is keeping the cold air being pulled in from under the house getting the cab to cold during lights out. If I don't keep the cold air out, the temp drops into the 40's & that’s to cold for MJ. In the summer, the temp under the house stays in the 60's so it's not a problem.
So here's how I fixed the winter problem:
For 24/0 lighting, I tape over the hole in the side of the cab & leave the hole in the floor of the cab open 24/0. This lets cold air in continuously & keeps the temp pretty constant.
For 12/12 lighting, I mount another 4" 104cfm axial fan over the exhaust hole in the floor. I attach a 4" dryer vent cap to the top of it & untape the hole in the side of the cab that was closed during 24/0.
The exhaust fan mounted to the floor of the cab is on the same timer as the lights. So when the lights are on, the fan turns on pushing the hinged flap on the vent cap open, allowing cool air into the cab during lights on.
When the lights turn off, the fan shuts off & the vent cap closes. With the vent cap closed, the air gets pulled in through the exhaust hole in the side of the cabinet. The air that gets pulled in through the side is from within my house & is usually between 65f & 72f. Kind of complicated, but it works to keep the temps steady.
On top of all that, I have a circulation fan blowing air 24/0 & an ultrasonic humidifier running 24/0. The humidifier has a 2-gallon res. & I have to fill it twice a day.
Because of the small size of my cab, I point the circ fan away from my plants while they’re young. This still gives plenty of air & plant movement. If I point the fan directly at the plants, the leaves the fan hits directly, get nute burned. What happens is the leaves transpire so quickly; the nutes build up within the leaves & on the surface of the leaves causing them to burn & dry out. It only takes a light breeze, not a full-blown gale for your plants to get fresh air & strong stems.

__________________
Posting Guidelines ~ Grow Guide ~ Day by Day, Bubbler Grow Guide ~ The Library
Trouble Shooting Guide ~ Educational Pictures ~ Guide to Successful Germination ~ Mite Tea
The only difference between a wise man & a fool, is in the magnitude of his mistakes.
While genius knows it has limits, idiocy is always unbounded.

Agent86

Lighting:
Lighting is another of the very important aspects of a grow.
Bottom line is, the more lumens you have, the bigger & tighter the colas are going to be.
Anything less than 2,500 lumen per square foot & you'll have very fluffy buds. Personally, I feel you should have at least 5,000 lumen per square foot to get decent density. The closer you can keep the lights to the top of the plants, without heat becoming a problem, the better off the plants will be.

I use 4, 95 watt Envirolights. I have 2 of the red spectrum & 2 of the full spectrum. I run my lights 24/0 during the veg cycle & 12/12 during the flowering cycle.
This will be the 6th grow with the same bulbs. I have the bulbs mounted in a reflector that was made for 2 bulbs. I modified it to fit all 4. I keep the bulbs within 12" & 2" of the top of the plants. The only reason I use Envirolights, they don't give off nearly as much heat as HID's do. The Envirolights put out 8950 lumen each. So that gives me a total of 35,800 lumen. Divide that by my square footage & you'll see I have 8,136 lumen per square foot. I know Envirolights don't have the penetration that HID's do, but I can keep the envirolights within 2" of the top of the plants without harming the plants. So they "can" get pretty decent penetration, especially if you keep your plants on the short side.

Growing Style:
Low Stress Training in Bubblers:
I am using 3 home made 5-gallon bubblers. I'm training the plants because of the height of the buckets & the lack of height in my cab. From the top of the buckets to 2" below the light at it's highest point, is only 35”.
The reason I chose to use individual buckets instead of a storage tote, is I'm growing from seed. Trying to separate the males from the females in a storage tote is next to impossible without seriously damaging the roots. Damaging the roots causes the plant to go into shock & can delay growth for up to two weeks. Not a good thing.
I used 5 gallon paint buckets & wrapped them in reflectix insulation & covered the lids with reflectix tape. The reflectix insulation keeps the nutes from getting warmed up by the lights. I have no problem keeping my nutes in the low 70's.
Here's a quick side note about nute temps.
The lower the temp, the more dissolved oxygen the solution can hold. Higher temps hold less oxygen. More oxygen is better.
Temps below 68f can slow the growth of the plants & temps above 80f can cause them to stretch.
I try to keep mine between 70f & 75f.
Okay, back to the buckets. Next I drilled a small hole for the air hose fitting, into the side of each bucket, about 1/2" from the bottom. Be sure to use a small amount of waterproof sealant on the inside of the bucket around the whole. Then push the fitting through from the inside. This way the pressure of the water on the flange of the fitting will help to keep it from leaking. I've never had a leak.
I taped my air pumps to the sides of the buckets with the outlets pointing to the top of the bucket. I mounted them high enough for the air hose to be above the water level. This will keep any water from getting into the air pumps. I also use check valves for added safety.
My air pumps are the dual outlet, 20 to 60 gallon pumps they sell at WalMart for $9.95. I use one for each bucket.
I use black 1/4" drip irrigation hose for my airlines. For each pump I cut two, 5" pieces of airline & attach them to each outlet on the pump. I then attach the 2 on each pump to a t fitting. Next, I cut a piece of air line long enough to reach from the single side of the t fitting to the fitting on the side of the bucket & attach both ends to the fittings. Doing this puts the air from both outlets into one hose.
For air stones, I found 3" air discs, mounted to a weighted base at my local fish store. These things put out a ton of bubbles & stay in place. To mount these, I simply cut a piece of air hose the right length to keep the disc centered in the bottom of the bucket & attach it to the air disc & then to the fitting on the inside of the bucket. Be sure to give the sealant enough time to dry before attaching the airlines.

__________________
Posting Guidelines ~ Grow Guide ~ Day by Day, Bubbler Grow Guide ~ The Library
Trouble Shooting Guide ~ Educational Pictures ~ Guide to Successful Germination ~ Mite Tea
The only difference between a wise man & a fool, is in the magnitude of his mistakes.
While genius knows it has limits, idiocy is always unbounded.

Agent86

Growing Medium:
3 1/2" net pots, hydroton & rockwool.
For the net pot, I simply drill a hole in the center of the lid with a hole saw. I also cut 1 1/2" x 2" hole in the lid to give me a place to check & adjust the nutes with out having to lift the lid. Once training starts, I won't be able to lift the lid. So this was a must. I covered the access hole with a thick black piece of plastic held down with 1" nuts to make sure no light leaks into the reservoir. Light leaks in your reservoir can cause all kinds of nasties to grow in your nutes. Many of which can kill your plants.
To get the hydroton ready to use, I place them in a collander & run water through them while shaking the hell out of the colander. This removes most of the dust & loose pieces from the hydroton. This is a very important process. Too much hydroton dust in your nutes can affect the ph & ppm levels. So don't skip this. This is my sixth grow using the same hydroton pellets, so I don't need to bother with this step anymore.

Nutrients, Supplements:
I'm using General Hydroponics Nutes.
Flora Micro (5-0-1), Flora Grow (2-1-6) & Flora Bloom (0-5-4)
I also use General Hydroponics ph up (0-0-9) & ph down (0-9-0).
The only supplements I use are silicone (0-0-3), (be careful with the silicone, it raises ph fairly substantially.) liquid kelp (0.1-0-1) & General Hydroponics Kool Bloom (2-45-28).

Electronic Meters:
PPM Pen, Oakton
Ph & Temp Pen, Hanna .

Strain Being Grown:
Skunk #1 Freebies

Here are a few pics of my set-up.








That should give you a pretty good idea of what I've got.
So let’s get on with the growing.

__________________
Posting Guidelines ~ Grow Guide ~ Day by Day, Bubbler Grow Guide ~ The Library
Trouble Shooting Guide ~ Educational Pictures ~ Guide to Successful Germination ~ Mite Tea
The only difference between a wise man & a fool, is in the magnitude of his mistakes.
While genius knows it has limits, idiocy is always unbounded.

Agent86

1-12-04
I soaked the rockwool & hydroton in 1/2tsp. per gal. liquid kelp ph'd to 6.0. I let it soak for at least 24 hours.

1-13-04, Day #1 of Germination:
Today I got the net pots ready for the seeds & planted the seeds.
Here's what I do.
I put a 1" layer of hydroton in the bottom of a 3" net pot. Then I set the rockwool plug on top of the hydroton & fill in the empty space around the plug with more hydroton. Next, I prepare the rockwool for a seed by tearing small pieces loose from the top of the plug, then place the seed, point down, on top of the plug & place the pieces of rockwool I pulled loose lightly on top of the seeds. Once the seeds are planted, I put the net pots under a humidity dome with the humidity at 95% & the temp at 78f.
Placing the seeds point down is very important. The pointy end is where the root tip will come out. Sometimes it's difficult to tell which end is which. So I look at the seeds through a magnifying glass. One end of the seed will come to a point; the other end will have a depression in it & have a lighter coloring in the middle of the depression. This is the end that will act as a hinge when the sprout comes out. Getting the seeds planted correctly will greatly increase your chances of getting sprouts.

Here are a couple of pics of the first day & close ups of a seed pod showing which end is which.
You can see the top of the humidifier in this pic.
I keep the dome off center just enough for the mist to get inside the dome.


You can see the mist from the humidifier in this pic.


You can see how I covered the seeds with small pieces of rockwool in this pic.


Here are a couple of close-up of a seed pod so you can see what I was trying to describe.



1-14-04, Day #2 of Germination:
Temp Under Dome 78f, RH 95%
Everything’s looking good.

1-15-04, Day #3 of Germination:
Temp Under Dome 78f, RH 95%
I can see the small pieces of rockwool starting to lift up in 2 of the net pots.

1-16-04, Day #4 of Germination:
Temp Under Dome 78f, RH 95%
10:00am
Two of the plants are now poking their heads out of the rockwool.
9:00pm
Another one of the plants has poked its head through.

__________________
Posting Guidelines ~ Grow Guide ~ Day by Day, Bubbler Grow Guide ~ The Library
Trouble Shooting Guide ~ Educational Pictures ~ Guide to Successful Germination ~ Mite Tea
The only difference between a wise man & a fool, is in the magnitude of his mistakes.
While genius knows it has limits, idiocy is always unbounded.

Agent86

1-17-04, Day #1 of Veg:
Cab Temp 78f, RH 60%, Nute Temp 71f, PPM 400, Ph 5.6

I lifted the rockwool off the seed that hasn't shown & it never germinated.
So I guess this is going to be a three plant grow. Which is a good thing, with the fan & humidifier, I only have room for three five-gallon buckets in the cab.
I misted the plants with 1/2tsp. per gal liquid kelp ph'd to 5.7.
I mist the plants twice a day with this solution until the roots hit the nute solution.

Now that I know which 3 are going into the bubblers, I went ahead & started the bubblers up at 400ppm with a ph of 5.6.
Here's what I add to accomplish this.
1 ml per gal Micro
1 ml per gal Grow
1 ml per gal Bloom
1 ml per gal Silicone
2 ml per gal Ph Down
I check the ph at least once a day. Most days I check in the am & pm.
My tap water is 90ppm at 6.7ph. So I'm adding 310ppm of nutes & supplements.

Side Note: The amounts I add to get the desired ppm may be different than what you need to add. It all depends on what ppm your water starts at.
The only way to be sure you’ve got the ppm correct is with a meter.

Here's another tip for everybody.
If your using a garden hose to get water for any part of your grow, sterilizing it before each use is very important. The inside of your hose is a perfect breeding ground for all kinds of nasty things.
The way I sterilize mine is to attach a waterbed pump to my bathroom sink & attach the hose to it.
Next I fill the other bathroom sink with 1 cup bleach per. gal. very hot water.
Then I turn on the water to get the waterbed pump to work & suck the bleach water through the hose. When all the bleach water has been sucked through the hose I remove the waterbed pump, attach the hose directly to the faucet & run hot water back through the hose to rinse out all the bleach. I do this every time I use the hose. My hose is only used for my grow & never leaves the house.
Also, don't attach the male & female ends of the hose together when you store it. That's an almost surefire way to get nasties growing in your hose.

1-18-04, Day #2 of Veg:
Cab Temp 78f, RH 58%, Nute Temp 71f, PPM 400, Ph 5.6
Misted today & everything looks great.
Ph was up to 6.1.
I adjusted it back to 5.6 by adding 0.5 ml per gal ph down to each bubbler.

1-19-04, Day #3 of Veg:
Cab Temp 78f, RH 56%, Nute Temp 71f, PPM 400, Ph 5.6
Misted today & everything looks great.
There are roots starting to come out of the net pot on plant #3.
Ph rose to 6.0.
I adjusted it back to 5.6 by adding 0.5 ml per gal ph down.

1-20-04, Day #4 of Veg:
Cab Temp 79f, RH 55%, Nute Temp 71f, PPM 400, Ph 5.7
Misted again & the plants are coming along nicely.
One thing I've noticed about Skunk #1 is the leaves are a lighter green than anything I've grown before.
Ph rose to 5.7. So no adjustments needed.

Here are a couple of pics after 4 days of veg.
Here's a group pic:


Plant #1:


Plant #2:


Plant #3:


1-21-04, Day #5 of Veg:
Cab Temp 79f, RH 55%, Nute Temp 71f, PPM 400, Ph 5.7
There are very pale yellow spots on the leaves that I think are from the light being magnified by the water droplets. It could just be my lousy eyesight too. But just to be on the safe side, I only misted them once today.

Here's a close-up of one of the leaves. See if you can spot what I'm talking about.


1-22-04, Day #6 of Veg:
Cab Temp 79f, RH 55%, Nute Temp 71f, PPM 400, Ph 5.8
If you've been paying attention, you probably noticed my temp & humidity have been changing.
That's because it's been getting colder outside & the humidity has been dropping. It's at 21% today.
As long as the humidity in the cab stays above 50% & the temp stay below 80f, I'll be a happy camper.
1:00pm:
I misted the plants & checked the ph to find it had dropped to 5.3 on all 3 buckets. Since this was a fairly dramatic overnight drop & there aren't enough roots yet to affect the ppm or ph of the nutes, I recalibrated my ph pen thinking it just gave me a bad reading.
After recalibrating the pen I rechecked the ph of the nutes & they still read 5.3. Not sure why they dropped like that.
I raised the ph to 5.8 by adding 1ml per gal. of silicone to each bucket. I’ll check it again later tonight.
10:00pm:
I checked the ph & it's still at 5.8. Still not sure what made it drop, but it seems fine now.
I also noticed a small amount of either heat burn or nute burn on one of the new leaflets. I think it might have hit the light while I was holding up the lid to take a pic of the inside of the bubbler. But just to be on the safe side, I'm going to stop misting them for a couple of days. If I don't see any more burning, I'll resume misting them.

Here's a pic of the burnt leaflet & a few pics of how the growth is coming along.


Plant #1:


Plant #2:


Plant#3:


Plant #1, Side View:


1-23-04, Day #7 of Veg:
Cab Temp 78f, RH 55%, Nute Temp 71f, PPM 400, Ph 5.9
Ph rose to 5.9. I left it there.
During the veg cycle & the flowering stretch, the ph needs to stay between 5.5 & 5.9.
The plants need more nitrogen (N) during these growth periods & they're able to uptake more when your nutes are at a lower ph value.
When the flowering stretch is over & you see the buds starting to form, it's cool to let it slide up to 6.1.
The plants need a lot of potassium (K) to grow flowers (buds) & they're able to uptake more when your nutes are at a higher ph value. A good range to keep the ph during the budding cycle is 5.7 to 6.1.
This doesn't mean you should keep the ph at the extreme of either of these. The plants uptake different nutes at different ph levels, so in my opinion, it's best to let it drift up & or down, between the ph ranges.

Here's a ph/nutrient uptake chart (Thanks to St0ney) that shows what nutrients are taken up at the different ph levels.

__________________
Posting Guidelines ~ Grow Guide ~ Day by Day, Bubbler Grow Guide ~ The Library
Trouble Shooting Guide ~ Educational Pictures ~ Guide to Successful Germination ~ Mite Tea
The only difference between a wise man & a fool, is in the magnitude of his mistakes.
While genius knows it has limits, idiocy is always unbounded.

Agent86

1-24-04, Day #8 of Veg:
Cab Temp 78f, RH 55%, Nute Temp 71f, PPM 400, Ph 5.7.
I misted the plants again today & checked the ph. The ph rose to 6.0 so I added 0.3 ml per gal ph down to each bucket. Now the ph is at 5.7.
Now that the roots have reached the nute solution, I'm going to discontinue misting the plants. The magnifying effect of the water droplets is leaving burn marks on the leaves & they really don't need the extra nutes anyway.

Here's a pic of the burn from the lights I was talking about & a few pics of the plants after 1 week of growth.
The white residue on & around the burn is nutrient that transpired out of the leaf & burned it. This is a perfect example of what water droplets on your plants can do & what the first signs of this type of burn are. You'll also notice the burn is almost perfectly round. Another sign that the light being magnified by a water droplet caused it.


Plant #1:


Plant #2:


Plant #3:


Plant #3, Side View:


1-25-04, Day #9 of Veg:
Cab Temp 76f, RH 55%, Nute Temp 71f, PPM 400, Ph 5.5.
Temp in the cabinet dropped to 76f because it's cold & snowing again.
Ph was back up to 6.0 again today. Since the ph seems to go up most days, I lowered it to 5.5 with 0.5 ml per gal ph down. I'll let it drift up to 5.9. Then drop it back to 5.5. This way the plants can uptake all the nutes they need.

1-26-04, Day #10 of Veg:
Cab Temp 76f, RH 55%, Nute Temp 71f, PPM 400, Ph 5.6.
Ph rose to 5.6 & the plants look great.
I'm going out of town until tomorrow night so my son is going to refill the humidifier res. for me this evening, but he won't be able to do it tomorrow morning.
This poses a little problem to keep the humidity above 50% it has to run on high & needs to be filled twice a day.
Here's my solution.
My son is going to move the lights to the top of the cab & turn the humidifier to it's lowest setting.
I'm hoping the humidity won't drop below 35% & that the heat will stay below 85f.
I'm also hoping this won't make them stretch. It'll be like this for less than 24 hours so I'm pretty confident everything should be okay when I get back tomorrow.

1-27-04, Day #11 of Veg:
Cab Temp 74f, RH 58%, Nute Temp 79f, PPM 400, Ph 5.7.
I got home about 7:00pm & immediately went to check on my babies.
The ph was at 5.7. So everything was fine there. But there were some problems.
Bad News First
My son accidently partially closed the vent where the mist comes out of the humidifier & an air bubble had formed across the opening. The res. was still full so there wasn't any humidity being added to the cab for approx. 23 hours.
The humidity was at 22% & the temp was up to 86f.
The other thing that happened was the nute temps went up to 81f.
Moving the lights to the top of the cab changed the airflow in the cab. This caused warm air to be circulated around the lower part of the buckets.
Everything's back to normal now & the nute temp is slowly coming down.
Now for the Good News
The plants look great & more than doubled in size. They seemed to have enjoyed their little heat spell.

I'm premixing 15 gallons of nutes in an 18-gallon storage tote to be used for a res. change tomorrow night.
I'm hoping that mixing them 24 hours ahead of time will give me a chance to get the ph stabilized before I do the res. change. The ph always seems to go up for 2 to 3 days after I do a res. change. I think it was HydroSan that told me the phosphoric acid (ph down) gassing off is what causes this.
I'm going to bump the ppm of the new nutes up to 600 with a ph of 5.5.
Here's what I add to accomplish this.
1.5 ml per gal Micro
3.0 ml per gal Grow
1.0 ml per gal Bloom
1.0 ml per gal Silicone
1.5 ml per gal PH Down
I added a little to much Micro & the ppm ended up at 660.
I don't think this will be a problem though.
I should have added 1.0 ml. per. gal. instead of 1.5.
The other thing I should have done was wait until after I mixed the nutes to smoke that bowl of Kali Mist. Fuggin Stoners.
I'll probably have to readjust the ph again before I do the res. change tomorrow.

Here are a few pics from Day #11 of Veg.
Group Pic:


Plant #1:


Plant #2:


Plant #3:


Plant #1, Side View:


1-28-04, Day #12 of Veg:
Cab Temp 74f, RH 58%, Nute Temp 72f, PPM 660, Ph 5.5.
10:00am
I checked the ph & ppm of the nutes I mixed for the res. change today & as expected the ph rose to 5.8. So I added 0.5 ml per gal ph down to get it back to 5.5.
For the next couple of days I'll keep a close watch on the plants for any signs that the ppm is too high. If I see anything out of the ordinary I let you all know.
To drain the old nutes, I attach my waterbed pump to the bathroom sink, attach the garden hose, put the other end of the hose in the res., turn on the water at the sink & let it suck the solution from the bubbler.
To add the new nutes, I have a submersible pump that I place in the bottom of the storage tote I have the new solution in. I have a 10' clear hose attached to the pump that I put in the access hole in the lid of the bubbler. Then I simply turn on the pump & let the bubbler fill.
Now that the roots are in the solution, I keep the level of the nutes approximately 1/4" below the nets pots.
1:00pm
Ph was up to 5.8 so I added 0.4 ml per gal ph down to each 5 gal bubbler. This brought it back to 5.5.
9:00pm
Ph rose to 5.6. Close enough for me, so I'm leaving it there.

Here's a pic of the roots after 12 days of vegetative growth.


1-29-04, Day #13 of Veg:
Cab Temp 74f, RH 60%, Nute Temp 72f, PPM 650, Ph 5.6.
Ph was still at 5.6. The ppm dropped 10 parts though. That means the plants are taking in the nutes.
The secondary growth is really starting to take off as well.
I'll have to start training them soon or they'll get to tall for my cabinet.

1-30-04, Day # 14 of Veg:
Cab Temp 73f, RH 61%, Nute Temp 72f, PPM 610, Ph 5.6.
The ph is still at 5.6.
The ppm dropped to 610.
The plants are really starting to take off now.
The spacing between the nodes is less than 1/2 inch & the stem is getting very thick.
It's going to be slow going getting the tops to bend without breaking them.
I kind of wished they'd have stretched a little more. It would've made training them a lot easier.

Here are a few pics of how the plants are progressing.
Group Pic:


Plant #1:


Plant #2:


Plant #3:


Plant #1 Top View:


Plant #1, Side View:


Plant #1, Secondary Growth:

__________________
Posting Guidelines ~ Grow Guide ~ Day by Day, Bubbler Grow Guide ~ The Library
Trouble Shooting Guide ~ Educational Pictures ~ Guide to Successful Germination ~ Mite Tea
The only difference between a wise man & a fool, is in the magnitude of his mistakes.
While genius knows it has limits, idiocy is always unbounded.

Agent86

1-31-04, Day #15 of Veg:
Cab Temp 73f, RH 64%, Nute Temp 72f, PPM 600, Ph 5.8.
The ppm dropped to 600 & the ph dropped to 5.3.
I added 2.5 mil of silicone to each bucket. This brought the ph to 5.8.
You might be wondering why I use silicone to raise the ph instead of ph up.
Silicone raises the ph just fine & the plants are more resistant to stress when you use silicone
The recommended dose of silicone is 2.5 to 5.0 ml per gallon of water. When I do my res. change I only add 1 ml per gallon.
Since I start with substantially less silicone than the recommended dose, I'm able to add it, instead of ph up.
The reason I raised the ph to 5.8 is, I noticed a little leaf curl going on. This could be the first sign of Magnesium deficiency. The plants at ph levels above 5.8 take up Mg & my ph has been below that for a while now. Keeping the ph above 5.8 for a few days will let the plants uptake the mg in the nutes & should get rid of the leaf curl.

Here's a pic of the leaf curl I was referring to.


2-1-04, Day #16 of Veg:
Cab Temp 71f, RH 64%, Nute Temp 71f, PPM 580, Ph 5.9.
The ppm dropped to 580 & the ph rose to 5.9. So no adjustments needed.
I started training the plants today LST style.
For more information about Low Stress Training, go here.

Here's a group pic of the plants after training & close ups of the training.






2-2-04, Day #17 of Veg:
Cab Temp 71f, RH 65%, Nute Temp 71f, PPM 580, Ph 6.0.
The ppm dropped to 550 & the ph dropped to 5.7.
The plants have finally drunk enough of the solution that I need to add more.
I mixed 2 gallons of water with,
1.5 ml per gal Micro
3.0 ml per gal Grow
1.5 ml per gal Bloom
4.0 ml per gal Silicone
This brought the ppm to 700 & the ph to 7.0.
Each bubbler took 1/2 gal. to get the solution back to just below the bottom of the net pots.
After an hour of letting the new solution mix with the old, I checked the ppm & ph. The ppm was 580 & the ph was 6.0.
The ph is a tad high; it will probably drop to 5.9 by tomorrow morning so I'm not going to mess with it.
I was hoping the ppm would be closer to 650, 580 is fine though.

I retied the tops of the plants today to bend them a bit further downwards.
For the growth hormones to switch to the secondary growth, I need to get the main tops below the tops of the new branches.
Because of the thickness of the stems, I'm bending the tops over a little at a time.
This should keep them from snapping off.

2-3-04, Day #18 of Veg:
Cab Temp 71f, RH 60%, Nute Temp 71f, PPM 550, Ph 5.9.
The ph dropped to 5.9 as expected.
The ppm dropped 30 points too. It looks like the plants are going to start seriously sucking up the nutes.
Next time I add top up solution I'll bring the total ppm of the nutes up to 800.
I didn't retie any of the training wires today. I'll let the branches grow another day before I pull them back down.
The secondary growth is already starting to grow past the tied top & will need to be tied down within the next couple of days.
Raising the ph has stopped the leaf curl. Having the ph to low was locking the mg out.
That's why it's important to let the ph drift.

2-4-04, Day #19 of Veg:
Cab Temp 71f, RH 60%, Nute Temp 69f, PPM 500, Ph 5.9.
Good News. The plants have alternating nodes on several of the secondary growths branches & it looks like the main stem on two of the plants are starting to alternate as well. This is the first time I've ever had plants do this after only 19 days of veg. I'm going to keep them in veg for at least another week to get more potential bud sites.
The ppm dropped 50 points overnight. So like I said before, the plants are really starting to suck up the nutes.
The ph stayed at 5.9, which kind of surprised me. I expected it to drop a little.
When I top up the res. tomorrow I'm going to bring the ppm up to 800 & drop the ph to 5.7.
I did some more training this morning.
I retied the main stem to keep it below the rest of the growth & tied down a couple of the tallest new branches as well.
The plants are doing awesome & getting very bushy.

Here are a few pics.
The nute burn you see is from me not being careful. Every once in a while, (actually, quite often) I accidentally drip nutes on them when I check the ph & ppm.
I'm not worried though, as these leaves will end up getting trimmed after the flowering stretch stops.
I'll get more into trimming when the time comes.
Anyway, here are the pics.
Group Pic:


Plant #1:


Plant #2:


Plant #3:


Plant #1 Side View:


Plant #3, Alternating Nodes:


Plant #3, Alternating Nodes:



Plant #1's Trunk:


2-5-04, Day #20 of Veg:
Cab Temp 76f, RH 60%, Nute Temp 72f, PPM 900, Ph 5.7.
The ph was still at 5.9 but the ppm had dropped to 450 & the res. temp was down to 67f.
I added 1/2 gallon of top up solution to each bubbler, with a ppm of 1600 ph'd to 5.0.
Here's what I added to two gallons of water to make the top up solution.
4.5 ml per gal Micro
9.0 ml per gal Grow
4.5 ml per gal Bloom
2.5 ml per gal Ph Down
To raise the res. temp, I used 90f water to make the top up solution.
After adding this to the res., the ph went down to 5.8, the ppm only went up to 580 & the res. temp is at 72f.
Well, the res. temp is the only thing that ended up where I wanted it.
Now I'm going to add nutes directly to the res. to try & get the ppm of the solution up.
Here's what I added directly to each bubbler to bring the ppm up to 800.
Each bubbler holds approximately 4.5 gallons of solution.
5 ml per bubbler Micro
10 ml per bubbler Grow
5 ml per bubbler Bloom
After adding this to the bubblers, the ppm was 900 & the ph was 5.7.
That's exactly where I wanted the ph but the ppm ended up a little higher than expected.
I don’t think it will be a problem, but I’ll be watching the plants very closely for any sign of nutrient toxicity.
I moved the circ fan to on top of the humidifier the first of February to see how it would affect the temp & humidity. If you go back & look at the daily stats you’ll see the temp has been 71f since then.
To bring the temps back up, I taped the exhaust hole in the floor of my cab closed & opened the one in the side of the cab.
I’m hoping that closing the hole that has been letting cold air in & opening the hole that lets room temp air in will keep the res. temps from getting so low.
The intake air seems to circulate around the bubblers before it gets sucked out at the top of the cab & I think that’s why the res. temps have been dropping.
If the cab temp stays below 80f I’ll be a happy camper as this will eliminate having to add the extra fan during flowering.
It’s really amazing how moving things around in the cab can make such a difference in the environment.

Here’s a pic of the roots for those of you that were wondering what they should look like at this point in the grow.


2-6-04, Day #21 of Veg:
Cab Temp 75f, RH 60%, Nute Temp 72f, PPM 870, Ph 5.7
With the cold air intake closed, the temp rose to 82f & the humidity went up to 75%.
So I opened back up the cold air intake & left the warm air intake open as well.
Now the temp is staying at 75f & the humidity is down to 60%. Much better.
It looks like I’m going to have to do the dryer vent & extra fan bit for flowering after all. Bummer, it’s a pain in the ass redoing all the electrical wiring.
I tied down several more branches today. The training is coming along kind of slowly because of the thickness of the stems. If I pull the tops down to much, they’ll snap right off.
Just another case of slow & steady wins the race.

__________________
Posting Guidelines ~ Grow Guide ~ Day by Day, Bubbler Grow Guide ~ The Library
Trouble Shooting Guide ~ Educational Pictures ~ Guide to Successful Germination ~ Mite Tea
The only difference between a wise man & a fool, is in the magnitude of his mistakes.
While genius knows it has limits, idiocy is always unbounded.

Agent86

2-7-04, Day #22 of Veg:
Cab Temp 73f, RH 60%, Nute Temp 70f, PPM 840, Ph 5.6
Not much to do to day. The cab temp dropped a little & so did the res. temp.
I noticed symptoms of nitrogen deficiency starting to show on a few of the leaves while I was retying the branches today. I’m fairly certain this was caused from having the ppm of the nutes to low. I’ll keep an eye out to see if it gets any worse, but I doubt that it will since I raised the ppm of the solution.
The plants are growing like crazy now. They really like the higher ppm.
There are alternating nodes everywhere. Even on the main stem.
Even though I could start flowering anytime, I’m going to keep training them for another week to create more bud sites.

Here are a few pics of the plants at the start of their 3rd week in veg.
There’s also a close up of what the beginning symptoms of nitrogen deficiency look like.
Here's a pic of the flowering area, the staples you see are for training.


Here's a group pic:


Plant #1:


Plant #2:


Plant #3:


This pic shows what the first signs of Nitrogen deficiency look like.


2-8-04, Day #23 of Veg:
Cab Temp 72f, RH 58%, Nute Temp 68f, PPM 800, Ph 5.3
Everything’s going as planned. The plants are drinking up the nutes & growing like crazy.
I had to retie all the branches again today to keep them low & even.
The ph dropped fairly dramatically last night. I know my meter is calibrated, so I think the plants are telling me it’s time for a solution change. They’ve only drunken 1 gallon of solution since the last res. change, but the last res. change was 11 days ago. So tomorrow they get brand new nutes.
The reason they’re not drinking a lot of the solution, is I’ve been keeping the humidity above 60% & the temps below 75f. This keeps the leaves from transpiring very much.
When the temp gets above 80f & the humidity drops below 50%, the leaves start transpiring a lot more, making the roots suck up more of the solution.
If you have temp & humidity levels like this, the roots can uptake more nutes than the plants can use. So you need to lower the ppm of your solution or your plants may suffer nute burn.

2-9-04. Day #24 of Veg:
Cab Temp 75f, RH 60%, Nute Temp 78f, PPM 1050, Ph 5.7.
1:00pm
I changed the solution today.
The new solution is at 1050ppm ph’d to 5.5.
Since the res. temp has been dropping on a regular basis, I adjusted the new solution to 78f. This should keep it from dropping below 68f, if not I’ll use warm water when I top it up.
This is what I added to the water to get the ppm & ph of the new solution where I wanted it.
2.5 ml per gal Micro
5 ml per gal Grow
1.5 ml per gal Bloom
1 ml per gal Silicone
3.5 ml per gal Ph Down
3:00pm
After being in the bubbler for 2 hours, the ph has risen to 5.9.
I added another 1 mil per gal ph down to bring it back down to 5.5.
I’ll check it again in a few hours & readjust if needed.
7:00pm
Ph is at 5.7 & the ppm has already dropped to 1000.
I’ll check the ph again before I go to bed. If it goes above 5.7 I’ll lower it again.
12:00am
Ph was up to 5.9 so I added .5 ml per gal. Ph down.
The ph is now 5.6.

Here are a few pics showing how the training is coming along.
One of the goals with training is to keep the canopy even. So far I think I’m doing pretty good.
Keeping the canopy nice & even:


Plant #1, Side View:


Plant #1 from below:


Plant #1's Trunk:


2-10-04, Day #25 of Veg:
Cab Temp 70f, RH 60%, Nute Temp 68f, PPM 970, Ph 5.7.
Lots of things happened overnight.
First, the cab temp dropped to 70f making the res. temp drop to 68f.
So I closed the cold air intake, now the cab temp is at 77f. Hopefully this will bring the res. temp up as well.
Second, the ph dropped to 5.3.
So I added .5 ml per gal silicone. Now the ph is at 5.7.
Third, the ppm has dropped 80 parts since the nute change yesterday & each plant has drunk about ¼ gal of the solution.
So no adjustment needed for this. I’ll get the ppm back up when I top up the res.
I’ve decided to stop the training as of today. The plants are 8½” tall, nice & bushy, with lots of potential bud sites.
I’ll still tie them to keep the branches at an even height & an even distance from each other, but I won’t be pulling the tops over any more.
Once the flowering stretch is over, the branches should stay where they’ve been trained to, without any ties.
I’m figuring they’ll be about 10” tall by Saturday, (The Start of 12/12) & if they stretch to 3 times their starting height, they should end up about 30” tall at the end of flowering. If they get taller than 36” they’ll be in the lights.

2-11-04, Day #26 of Veg:
Cab Temp 77f, RH 60%, Nute Temp 72f, PPM 930, Ph 5.6.
Nutrients, temps & humidity are looking good today. No adjustments necessary.
The res. temps are back in the 70s & the cab temp is staying at 77f.
I noticed the tips of the newest growth on the main colas are turning yellow & pointing down.
I think this is from to high a ppm when I changed the solution the last time.


2-12-04, Day #27 of Veg:
Cab Temp 77f, RH 60%, Nute Temp 72f, PPM 750, Ph 5.9.
I added 1 gallon of plain 6.8 ph’d water to each res. today.
This brought the ppm down from 900 to 750 & raised the ph from 5.6 to 5.9.
This should stop the leaf tips from getting any more nute burn.
The plants are now 10” tall. So I’m going to start flowering tonight instead of Saturday.
I turned the lights off at 11:00pm. Let the stretch begin.

Here are a few pics I took just before I turned off the lights.
Group Pic:


Plant #1:


Plant #2:


Plant #3:

__________________
Posting Guidelines ~ Grow Guide ~ Day by Day, Bubbler Grow Guide ~ The Library
Trouble Shooting Guide ~ Educational Pictures ~ Guide to Successful Germination ~ Mite Tea
The only difference between a wise man & a fool, is in the magnitude of his mistakes.
While genius knows it has limits, idiocy is always unbounded.

Agent86

2-13-04, Day #1 of Flowering:
Cab Temp 77f, RH 60%, Nute Temp 72f, PPM 720, Ph 5.9.
Not much to report, other than the plants grew about 1 ½”.
I’m not going to post my lights off temp everyday, as it is always between 66f & 68F.

2-14-04, Day #2 of Flowering:
Cab Temp 77f, RH 60%, Nute Temp 72f, PPM 720, Ph 5.9.
Everything stayed the same since yesterday other than the plants grew another 2”.

2-15-04, Day #3 of Flowering:
Cab Temp 77f, RH 60%, Nute Temp 72f, PPM 950, Ph 5.8.
The plants grew another 1 ½. That makes them 15” tall now.
A few preflowers are starting to show but not enough to tell the sex yet.
I topped up the bubblers this evening.
This is what I added to 2 gallons of water.
7.5 ml per gal Micro
7.5 ml per gal Grow
15 ml per gal Bloom
5 ml per gal Ph Down
After adding approximately 2/3-gallon of this to each bubbler, the ppm was 950 & the ph was 5.8.
I was hoping this would bring the ph down to 5.6. To get it down to 5.6, I added 2 ml ph down directly to each bubbler.
I also tied back a few of the branches to let more light & fresh air get to the middle of the plants.
When I put the plants back in the cab, I rearranged where they were.
I tried to get the parts of the plants with the slowest growth directly under the light. Hopefully this will help get this slower growth to speed up.

Here are several pics of the plants out of the cab & 1 pic of them in their new positions.
The last pic shows the mist from the humidifier being blown into the lights.
It doesn’t seem to hurt the bulbs & I’ve been able to keep the cab temp below 80 with the cold air intake closed.
This works so well at keeping the lights cool, I can put my hand on the top of the reflector & it’s cool to the touch.
Plant #1:



Plant #2: The Runt:



Plant #3:



I included this pic just because I thought it look .


Back in the cab with a nice even canopy.


Here's the pic showing the mist going into the lights.


2-16-04, Day #4 of Flowering:
Cab Temp 77f, RH 60%, Nute Temp 72f, PPM 960, Ph 5.6.
I was out of town & left the plants unattended today.

2-17-04, Day #5 of Flowering:
Cab Temp 75f, RH 63%, Nute Temp 72f, PPM 970, Ph 5.5.
No major changes, just lots of stretching going on.
There’s no sign of sex yet, hopefully there will be at least one female.

2-18-04, Day #6 of Flowering:
Cab Temp 75f, RH 63%, Nute Temp 72f, PPM 1350, Ph 5.4.
I topped up the bubblers today.
Here’s what I added to the top up water.
7.5 ml per gal Micro
7.5 ml per gal Grow
15 ml per gal Bloom
2 ml per gal Ph Down
After adding 1 gal of solution to each bubbler the ppm was 1350 with a ph of 5.3.
The plants are stretching like crazy & are now 19” tall.
While I had the plants out of the cab I did a search for any signs of what sex they might be & to my surprise, the 2 tallest plants are both female.
I still can’t tell what sex the smallest plant is, but it should show in the next day or two.

Here are a few pics of what female pistils look like.




2-19-04, Day #7 of Flowering:
Cab Temp 77f, RH 55%, Nute Temp 71f, PPM 1320, Ph 5.4.
Not much to report today, everything’s going as planned & the plants seem to like the higher ppm levels.

Here’s a pic of the entire cabinet. As you can see, the plants don’t have a whole lot of room to grow.
And here’s a pic of the canopy. I had to raise the shortest plant to keep it even with the other two.

__________________
Posting Guidelines ~ Grow Guide ~ Day by Day, Bubbler Grow Guide ~ The Library
Trouble Shooting Guide ~ Educational Pictures ~ Guide to Successful Germination ~ Mite Tea
The only difference between a wise man & a fool, is in the magnitude of his mistakes.
While genius knows it has limits, idiocy is always unbounded.