Barney's Farm Pineapple Chunk with Helios 6 & CO2

[ledbud]

your girl will get better bro,
reducing feed and + cal/mag, lets see how they go.

[teetee]

Day 25

EC 0.3 water temp 18 degrees, ambient temp 23.0 - 33.0 degrees (with daytime 28-33 degrees), CO2 1200ppm, ph 5.7 moved to 6.2, has moved like this 3 times since last res change on day 20, each time I corrected it, but pH swings back again. EC has stayed the same, and water level hasn't dropped much. Leaf tips are slightly curling down on 1,3 and 4. I noticed very slight tip browning on the newest emerging leaves on no 1 and no 4 only under LED. Lower leaf patchiness seems to have slowed down on all but no 4.

No 2 is now the healthiest at the moment, and overtaking no 1 in height. The leaves look different on these 2 plants. No 1 looks like a different phenotype? No 3, initially the runt of the pack is also looking healthy, and appears to be the same pheno as no 2 and 4.

I'm gonna drain and replenish the res with the same nutrient ratios, aiming to increase slowly in a few days time? Hopefully this afternoon, so if anyone has any feedback please shout out!

no 1

no 2

no3

no 4

Thanks for following,

Teetee

[LEDDWCRigger]

Don't worry for now, everything is still progressing just fine.

Splotching like that is usually a micronutrient deficiency sign. That should be fixed with your next change. Any damage done on older leaves will remain until they fall off.

You're doing okay! Time will tell regarding the strain.

[ledbud]

looking nice mate.
all new leaves looking healthy.

[teetee]

Day 26

After a couple of weeks mucking around with the nutes, I decided to rethink my feeding schedule. The H&G osmosis stabiliser was not making the pH stable, it fluctuated from 5.7 to 6.2, three times in a week, needing adjustment with pH- each time, but they drank around 10L water in the week. Making up the last two feeds was difficult as the EC kept going too high, resulting in heavy dilution. By adding more 'stabilised pH' RO water to already diluted nutes, all I was doing was adding more crap to push up the EC each time. There was almost NO Cal/Mag, which was causing the mottling in the leaves.

I decided to ditch the Osmosis stabiliser (on the advice of AB), and use Cal/Mag as a buffer instead. The brand I found was confusingly called 'Bloom', but it's for all stages of growth.

Here's my mix:

to 60 L RO (EC 0) water....
15ml Cal Mag to bring up to EC 0.2 as a buffer.
then 10ml H&G Aqua Flakes A + B. EC 0.3 pH 6.3
added pH- to pH 5
then added 4ml Silicon and 2ml Osmosis stabiliser (as a pH+) to pH 5.8

I then added the H&G additives as follows:

Drip clean 5ml
Roots Excelurator 5ml
Amino Treatment 5ml
Multizen 20ml
Algen Extract 3ml

This gave me a final EC of 0.4 and I fine tuned the pH before replenishing my reservoir. No need for dilution, the girls should get a proper feed now.

Heights as follows:

No 1, 150mm
no 2, 170mm
no 3, 110mm
no 4, 60mm

I also took the opportunity to remove the non return valves from the air-stone set up, as they weren't really needed. The air pumps are 6 feet above the reservoir, and the ceramic stones do not get water sucked in via back-pressure anyway, all they were doing was increasing the noise of the air pumps.

I have dropped CO2 for the moment. Temps are therefore lower, in the 23 degree region and water is at 19 degrees. Humidity 35%.

I managed to get a different Hydro shop to buy back my Ecotechnics controllers, and I got a Harvest Master pro instead. This won't arrive till Monday so the fan is on pretty much constantly when lights are on. The Harvest Master will give me more control over the set up as it can set night time temps, plus it has other optional features such an 18 hour clock to speed up cycles. For now though, I'm on basic. I have also decided to improve my extraction system, so I have ordered a T piece of ducting and a 2nd Carbon filter, this hopefully should increase the air removed from the cabinet, keeping temps lower, and reduce the load on the fan. Hopefully will also arrive Monday so I can do some cabinet improvement and maintenance.

This morning, I checked them all, looking good, so I decided to prune the tops of no 1 and no 2, both have 6 solid internode sets, and were getting quite tall and bushy. I also removed a few mottled lower leaves to allow more light to get through to the new leaves at the internodes. No 3 will need topping in 3-4 days.

Tonight, at lights off (they're on 18 hrs, off 6 hrs), I will spray 1/4 strength Cal Mag to the undersides of the leaves to aid recovery, and will do so everyday for a little while.

Thanks to Autoberry for his very detailed and well explained advice, plus good input from Ledbud and reassurance and encouragement from LEDDWCRigger. I will put up more pics in a few days once they've recovered from todays butchery!

Thanks for dropping in!

[teetee]

Day 27

Here's some photos after yesterday's efforts. Last night at lights out, I sprayed (drenched really) them all with a mixture of H&G Magic Green with 0.5mg/L Cal Mag, especially the undersides, in an attempt to aid recovery from the previous few weeks crappy feeding. I will alternate every other night with the Magic Green this week, but will spray Cal Mag every night for a bit.

No 1. I trimmed a few bad leaves off, and topped it, the new shoots are growing really quickly. She's looking more like a Ruderalis?

new shoots on no 1

no 2 nice and bushy, also been trimmed and topped.

new shoots on no 2

No 3 coming along nicely. I will probably top her this week.

No 4 looking good as well... still a baby holding the others back.

Group shot

So, I hope you'll agree, they're getting back on track, but will need careful monitoring. I will be looking to increase the base nutrient soon (as we're on about 1/4 recommended dose), but want to see more from no 4 first.

[ledbud]

looking good bro.
I will take some big fan leafs out. to let light get in to bottom leafs and shoots.
LST ( Low Stress Training) you girls bro.
LST allows you to train your girls to grow short and bushy.
This gives you the power to grow a short , the idea is to train your plants to grow in the exact shape you want.
To do this, you must actually 'bend' or otherwise gently manipulate the plant to control growth so it grows in the desired shape.


look it up on youtube bro.

[teetee]

Day 39

I'm not completely happy, but I have been learning loads about hydro... as Autoberry said..."Soil for show, hydro for Pro". I have jumped right in at the deep end, and there's a huge learning curve. I would have thought by day 39, I would have some serious foliage by now. Not quite, as you will see.....

You start off looking at feed charts, and think, "right, week 3, I have to put so and so in the mix", and then you're told feed charts are usually maximum values, and are advised to go for 1/2 recommended doses etc.... I'm learning to read my plants now, EC is at 0.4 and I'm not gonna think about increasing my nutes until I see the EC drop. I learned that the hard way, upping my nutes (hoping to get more growth) but only burning my leaves and stunting growth. Recently I saw all the leaves curl down, (over feeding from what I understand, so I went back to last weeks dosages, after a quick flush with plain RO water).

For a 60 Litre res of RO water, I used 1/2 ml/L (15ml) Cal Mag as a buffer to get 0.2 EC. Added AquaFlakes (10ml) to reach 0.4 EC. Over adjusted pH with pH down then used Silicon as pH up to bring it back to 5.8.

I also added tiny amounts of Roots Excelurator (5ml), drip clean (5ml) and Algen Extract (3ml).

I have also been busy topping and Low Stress Training the girls. I topped no 1 and 2, and fimmed no 3 and no 4, with the intention of getting more than 2 new growth sites and getting these plants to catch up a bit. It worked nicely on no 3, but as no 4 is a week younger, she needs more time to catch up.

One good thing about the DWC tank is that the unused pipework serves nicely as LST anchorage points. Next time though, I'm using individual pots.

I made a few changes to the cabinet set up, mainly by putting another carbon filter in, plus I exchanged the Ecotechnics controller kit for a Harvest Master Pro, and I also added a humidifier, so now I am maintaining temps of 27 degrees and RH 50%. I can achieve minimal fan use, for added CO2, but unfortunately I have a defective sensor that will get replaced soon. Res temp is 19-20 degrees.
I think my environment is a bit more stable and favourable now.
I was playing with the light height, but its at max for the moment as they recover.

no 1 is a strange one - she's different from the rest, she got badly burned, but there's hope for her.

no 1

no 1 to show LST

Nos 2 and 3 are looking great

no 2

no 2 showing LST

no 3

There's some amazing growth in no 3 after fimming. Some very strange shaped leaves coming through!!

no 3 showing LST

As for no 4, we'll she was very poorly at one point, all leaves drooped. I fimmed her, and hopefully she'll get better.

no 4

Comments and suggestions, as always welcome!

Thanks for following my grow, peace !

[ledbud]

woow they coming nice.
happy girls, well done bro.

[teetee]

Cheers Ledbud, man!!

I just get a bit worried when I see all you lot with lovely big juicy lush green leaves, while I have tiny crispy mottled greeny brown leaves that curl down and look a bit sparce.
The LED makes them look even more frighteningly unhealthy, but they look better under T5s (which I only use now for photography or when I'm doing some work in the cab).

On the other hand, looking at how much sideways growth has occurred due to LST and topping , I should be reasonably happy, they would be much taller if straightened out. I''m sure that once I top or fim the new side branches as well, I will get loads of budding sites, and fill out my grow area width, before climbing up for flowering. My thoughts are to keep the lights up for a while longer to stretch and fill out while I continue training, then gradually drop it down during flowering to get a little more upward growth and nice tight nugs.

I think I have to go into flowering by the time they reach 1/3 of the available growing height. Still some way to go, maybe 2-3 weeks I think?

I still think they are being over fed... but its only 0.4 EC??? pH is stable at 5.8 and the water level is going down. That means they're drinking and feeding, is that correct? Looking at no 1 and 4 though, I know someone out there's gonna say 'reduce the feed'. I'm just so reluctant to drop down any further than 0.4 for fear of stunting no 2 and 3. Autoberry... you're told me this was why I should have gone with individual buckets, but by then I had shelled out for everything so I had to at least have a go. Next time, eh!

Any idea how 12/12 flowering schedule differs from 6 or 8/12 day/night flowering schedule. 6 to 8 hours light with 12 hours dark apparently shortens the flowering time by reducing the length of each day. On a 6 on 12 off schedule, the whole day is 18 hours long so saving 6 hours a day, or 42 hours a week.... almost 2 days. Over an 8 week suggested flowering period that's 14 days, making it 6 weeks in real time.

All fine and dandy if you're growing tomatoes, but how does this light schedule affect yield and THC percentage of our beloved herb?

Answers on a postcard to the usual address. Prizewinners will be drawn at random, etc etc

Its 2am, and I should be skinning up. Good night and Jah bless