Ph is rising, can't seem to stabilize

Ok...good to hear. :thumbsup: I would add RO water to dilute things down (stay under 450 for now....adjust ph after adding) and you can change the rez in 3-4 days and up things by a hundred (50/50 of each) etc etc...and simply watch them. If that's too fast just dilute things back for a bit.

Realize that even though the numbers seem "stagnant" to you we are no longer sure what those numbers are. The plants are drinking water and taking up what they need so all we are seeing here is what is left......and really.....that could be anything. (Remember your tap water at 400ppm? How much of our number would that crud be taking up? :eek:) We can only see the TOTAL number....not how much of what nute/mineral of each there is. This is where balance and ratios come in to play for me and frequent rez change are a good way to make sure those two things stay that way.....especially when you have young plants.

I would just add your nutes etc....then adjust ph very last. So many things will change your ph that you'd be readjusting it nine million times if you didn't.

PS....checking and adjusting ph twice a day is fairly standard practice in hydro so sounds like all is good there. ;) As the plants grow and you are using larger amounts of nutes your ph will remain more stable due to the buffers in the nute solutions. But when they are small.....everything has to be watched and checked more often.

Thanks for the reply Weedhound :)

I diluted the reservoir to 410 ppms and lowered the ph to 5.5. I am pretty sure I can see new growth forming on the top and sides of the plants so that has to be a good sign. I also peeked at the roots and they are now out the bottom of the net baskets by maybe a quarter of an inch :) When I first planted them in the net baskets I placed a layer of hydroton on the bottom, then the rockwool cubes; so the roots have grown over an inch downwards in the past day or so. Another good sign :)

I have attached a couple more pictures :)

Gotta love hydro! ;) They do look much better. Whats the plan for flowering those? How big are you going to let them get before you turn them? What kind of clones are they? I ask because I wonder if you will run into problems later with them crowding each other out...... BUT....i just don't know enough about clones to be able to tell you. If those were from seed I could see you having pretty big space problems about 1/2 way into flowering.

Weedhound,

I am going to start flowering as soon as possible. However, something bad happened yesterday :(

I got home around 9 pm to find my roommate fairly concerned. He is a very cool guy and knows that I have a recommendation for medical marijuana and such, but is still a bit cautious because of Federal law.

He said that the apartment manager called him and told him that the family below us had called the manager saying they had a leak in their small bedroom closet. Fuck!

What happened was my fill indicator tube that tells me how many gallons of water are in the reservoir had fallen over somehow and then the reservoir began to siphon itself out...onto my carpet...through the floor...down into the poor family's closet. All 15-16 gallons.

My roommate told the apartment manager that I had an aquarium in my closet (lol?) and that it had started to leak everywhere. Fortunately the manager wasn't mad but instead gave instructions on how best to dry out the carpet.

The manager is going to call sometime this morning to check up on things and I am going to say that everything is drying up real well (I've been trying to dry everything I can through most of the night.)

I am going to go and sincerely apologize to my neighbors tomorrow and tell them that I will pay for any damages that might have occurred. Maybe I should offer to wash their clothes that got wet.

My babies are in my tub right now and I have jerry rigged a 16 watt flouro and a 24 watt cloning flouro and set the time to the same as the HPS so hopefully their internal clocks aren't too fucked. The humidity outside the reservoir in my bathroom is at 70%, and I'm positive it's almost 100% humidity inside the reservoir.

I guess I did my res flush a couple days early, as soon as the water store down the street opens I'm going there and picking up another 15 gallons. I would have done this last night but I needed $5 in quarters for the 24 hour water machine but I didn't have more than a dollar or so.

I am hoping that my babies can survive for 13 hours without being sprayed with the nutrient solution. They are in RockWool that is still saturated as of now. Only about 4-5 more hours until my babies are fed again actively.

I can't believe what happened. Last night was definitely a rough night for both me and my girls. Hopefully it was harder on me than them, I feel so bad!

Fortunately my wonderful girlfriend has been extremely supportive about what happened and has said that if my girls die she will replace the crop with new clones, but I am not going to give up on them. If anything they are going to give up on me, I just hope they give me one more chance! (At least)

Remember how I said I have been working through most of the night? Well, last night when I got home I was super stoned, had 480mg of Dextromethorphan in my system (A dissociative), and had two shots of 80 proof hard alcohol (Last night was the first time I have ever had alcohol in my life, besides two glasses of wine at a birthday party a couple months back.)

I am curious to hear your reactions, impressions, SUGGESTIONS, and other comments because I definitely cannot go back to sleep until my babies are in a good situation again.

Thanks!

:stoned:

What a BUMMER!!!!!!! Wow, so sorry to hear about that. :(

I think your babies will be ok as long as you keep the roots damp with ph correct wter.....don't soak them or get the roots TOO wet...but as long as roots aren't damaged and you are have ph ok you should be good until you can get them back into their normal home.

As long as you have some sort of light on them....any light....you are good with that until you get them back under the hps so no real worries there.

Good luck....wow, I'm still bummed about your unhappy night.....

By soak them or roots too wet I mean SITTING in water (I had visions of them floating around in the tub. :D) but keeping the rockwool wet is ok until you get them back in their home. ;)

Weedhound,

Haha that would would be great to see someone use their tub as a cheap hydro setup where it automatically turned on the faucet and turned it off, then let it drain every so often. :D

I am feeling much better now that my plants are being fed. I have filled a spray bottle with RO water and then put 200 ppm of ProGrow and 200 ppm of calmag. It's funny; after the ppms hit 400 the ph moved down to 5.4 from 6.5 so I didn't even have to add any ph down! That's a first.

After carefully measuring out 5.4 ph 200 ppm calmag 200 ppm progrow I set the spray bottle to the finest mist possible and then sprayed the net pots until they dripped a little bit, mimicking a fogging system. Every 20 minutes I go back into my bathroom and feed my girls with about 2-4 sprays of water. I am also spraying the leaves, but from far away and fairly high up, getting as small droplets on the leaves as possible.

I have faith in my girls, I really believe they want to live as much as I want them to; It's just a matter of my dumbass not fucking things up every 4 days and I think I might have a homemade bud in a couple months.

I don't know about anyone else but I learn best by hands on experience. If this grow doesn't teach me the basics of growing there is no hope for me :D

Thanks for the help and encouraging words Weedhound! You da...woman! :):thumbsup:

Don't overdue.....they'll be fine until you can put them back. Missing a few meals won't hurt them....just dry or oversoaked roots.

I won't EVEN start on all the lovely stuff I have done to my plants....including overfert, underfert, abnormal ph, overspraying, (once I sprayed them with some sort of spray with a ph of 4...that was really good for them...:wtf:) practically fungus-sprayed them to death, overpruned, broken branches, rootbound, had to drill holes in the bucket and rootball etc etc etc.

I'm sure you get the idea....:D. But they always bounce back......especially in hydro.

Don't give up....:thumbsup:

Ya I figured watering every 20 minutes would be a bit much so I ended up spraying every 30-40 minutes 3 or 4 times and then I went to school. I just got back and sprayed them one last time before my "system" is up and running again.

I went to Home Depot to look for plastic trays to hold my res, because the local hydro shops are charging me $45 for a 2x3ft tray and I don't have money for that right now. I found a nice and big rubbermaid lid that they would only sell with the tub for $20. Well, they sure didn't sell me anything but I did get that lid :thumbsup:

I will post pics of my babies once they are back in their home. I also picked up a black shower curtain at another store and that should help out for the dark times (and helping me sleep :D)

Give up? Me? Hah, you should have seen the faces of the people who live below me as they watched me and my girlfriend haul up another 15 gallons of RO water into my apartment. lol.

Hey CM,

How are things going over there?

Well, my babies are back in their closet and I am fabricating my light proof setup so that I can be ready to start flowering them.

The ph is 5.7, up from 5.5 from last night so that is good. The ppms have stayed at 400 for about 18 hours now. The canopy temps are around 80-85. I am looking into getting some sort of ventilation system, whether it's a cooltube or something else I find at home depot / hydro store.

The leaves look a bit like nute burn and I am almost positive it was from when I was foliar feeding. I am not too concerned because I am no longer doing that, so a couple days should show great improvement. A couple pics, for you viewing pleasure :D

I am going to use twist ties to inhibit the vertical growth of the girls and start training them around the screen. Eventually, buds will grow through the holes and I will have a screen of green (hopefully).

They look none the worse for wear so that's good.;) Looks like you are ready for flowering there. :thumbsup: Pure Blend makes a Pro Bloom that you will want to use after a week or two into 12/12.....and of course your CalMag.

Foliar feeding scares me frankly....something about spraying all those fert salts into a leaf just doesn't seem right to me.......although I freely admit its very commonly done.

Yay! I am so glad that you agreed with me. I came to a conclusion regarding plants...and I was right for once! Haha, just for that I'm blazing before class. Oops, it starts in 8 minutes. Oh well :stoned:

I am going to Bed Bath and Beyond for some shower curtains and rods later today. It's going to be sweet lol.

I finished making my grow area light proof and am going to send it into 12/12 timing tomorrow. Should I up the ppms from 400 at all or should I wait until I start adding in the ProBloom to up the ppms?

I took the three best cuttings and dipped them in cloning gel and they are now in rapid rooter plugs inside of my humidity dome. The cuttings are kind of pathetic. I think that the lack of vertical growth during my grow can be attributed to all the shit they've been through, plus they're under a 400w hps so they don't have much need to grow tall. All the better for making my screen of green :D

I took a couple pics of the cuttings. I'm not really expecting anything to come from them except gaining some experience. Is it true Weedhound that I now have more experience in cloning than you do?! lol let me know if you have any questions ;)

I don't recommend foliar feeding... how often does that happen in nature? I suspect practically never. Reserve foliar for treating nute or pest problems, and pray you never have them!

Ya I won't ever foliar feed again. The leaves are a little burned from it. I was spraying the roots and that was enough, but I wanted to be sure while my girls weren't being constantly sprayed.

I am eager to start flowering my girls, I think I will start them at sunset tomorrow on the 12/12 cycle. Then in a week or so I will change my nutes over to the ProBloom and raise them to a total of 500 or so, 250 of calmag and 250 of probloom.

I am concerned about my temperatures during the day; they are a steady 85. I can open up the curtains and get the temps down to 80 if needed. Should I?

I DO have a list of cloning q's I will post for you...:D

I would raise your ppms every few days....or once a week. If every 3-4 days I'd raise things by 100ppm (50 of each) and if once a week I'd raise things by 200ppms (100 of each...CalMag....Pro Grow). For your kids I would keep them on the Grow formula for the first two weeks of flowering....raising things every few days or once week. In two weeks you should be at 800....then switch over the the bloom... Before I give you ppms for the bloom I'd like to see how they are doing at that point. :)

When raising your ppms you want to watch carefully for nute burn. The first thing you will see is a curling down of the serrated leaf edges and tips. If you do see this....dilute your solution down by adding ph'd RO water.....wait a few days and then try again. Very scientific I know but that's how its done...:D

If you can get your room temps down to 80 that is best and here's why. When the surface of the leaf gets to 80 degrees F (this is the leaf itself...the top of it) then photosynthesis slows down GREATLY....which obviously slows the growth of your plants down as well. If you really want to get into it you can buy a cheap little handheld temp
gun and measure your leaves to see how close to 80 they are. I did this when I bought some new lighting and wanted to see how close I could get the light without overheating the leaves.

You will find alot of folks who swear their plants grow GREAT in hotter environments. That's wonderful for them......but I do often wonder what would happen if they were able to actually have the IDEAL temperature in their room.....and I bet their plants would grow alot faster and have better yields as well. ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Weedhound

If you really want to get into it you can buy a cheap little handheld temp gun and measure your leaves to see how close to 80 they are. I did this when I bought some new lighting and wanted to see how close I could get the light without overheating the leaves.

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WH, where did you get the little temp gun thingie? I wanna ask Santa to bring me one this season...

Amazon.com: PE1 INFRARED THERMOMETER TEMP GUN: Toys & Games

I bought mine at my hydro store but you can get them pretty commonly these days MVP :)

Kinda funny they are in the Toys and Games section... So is that the same model you use? And is somewhere around $30-$40 is a fair price? All these gizmos are gonna drive me crazy!

Lol.....I KNEW you'd pick up on that MVP....I just picked out the cheapie one to draw you in...:D

Amazon.com: PE-2 Laser Temp Gun: Automotive

Here is the very same one I use....bought for about $48 at my hydro store. :)

I called the 2 best hydro stores in the area and one told me they stopped carrying them since they didn't sell well, and the other said it was ~ $70 for anyone worth a crap... $45 + shipping off Amazon doesn't seem too bad but I'm broke...

Santa - if you are out there - I have been very, very good this year... especially to the girls! :jointsmile:

Your clones should be in a humidity dome.

PC :smokin:

I took the dome off to take pictures and I am spraying the dome 3 to 4 times a day. :)

So the girls had their first day of 12 hours and first night of 12 hours and call me crazy but I think they have already grown at least a half inch in the past 24 hours. I have increased the ppms to 500 and I think they love it :) I have attached a couple pics, what do you guys think?

:thumbsup:

Looks like they are starting to take off to me. :thumbsup: You may want to start thinking about some supplements for them like Liquid Karma and Sweet. These aren't necessarily but most likely WILL help your plants grow bigger. :D

Weedhound, I'm down for anything that will beef up my babies :D

If I get both Liquid Karma and Sweet, what ppms should they be at?

Thanks!

Start slow with them, only a couple of ml/gal. WH will give you the lowdown...

When you turn them to flower you can start the Liquid Karma and then Sweet (like MVP said....go slow ;)) I would do you regular nutes to your regular ppms....then add LK at about 2-3 mls per gallon. If they do well with that you can add two mls of Sweet per gallon....then start working them up. It takes me several weeks to work them up to my top number for the supplements which is 7ml/gallon through about week 5 to week 8-9.

It's harder to nuteburn your plants with supplements than with regular nutes but it certainly can happen so do watch your numbers carefully.

Weedhound, thanks for the advice! :thumbsup: I actually turned them yesterday and I don't want to get things too complicated on this grow so I will definitely follow that advice my next grow :D

The girls are doing great and the ppms have dropped by only 10 in almost a day and a half! Tomorrow I am going to add a gallon of RO water with 250 calmag 250 progrow and then if the ppms are not up to 500 again I will top off as needed. In about a week and a half I will change the res completely and switch from about 400 progrow to 400 probloom and 400 calmag totaling 800 ppms. How does that sound?

Thanks for all your help, I wouldn't be this far without you :)

That's fine and not a bad idea at all to take things slowly.....more grows....more fun later... ;)

If your numbers are dropping you can raise the ppms....they are eating the stuff down and could use more. I would go to 600ppms for next time......then 800 the week after that. And do watch that number....if it continues to go down you can keep raising things a bit at a time. :thumbsup:

Sounds good :thumbsup:

I will raise the ppms tomorrow by adding in 600 ppm gallon of ro water.

I just vaped for the first time in a couple months tonight...great medicine. Can't wait until I don't have to pay 15/gram!

I bet they'll take another jump if you do. ;)

I may have passed on some tips but your plants are doing well because you were and are willing to do the work involved in order to keep them happy and healthy. You do for them and down the line they will DEFINITELY do for you. :thumbsup: :jointsmile:

cmasfca, I have some unsolicited advice that will help if you are not doing it already...

It took me a little while but I have this little friend call Mr. Clipboard that I recommend beginner and intermediate growers keep handy at all times. I was growing for some time without him, but encountered issues and have learned the errors of my prior ways.

I track each nute change by PPM, PH, ml/gal of each nute solution component, etc. and it is a great tool to learn the art of growing. I also jot down the daily PPM and PH levels (well, almost every day ... I promise I'll get it to daily) so I can see trends and such. I have a little excel document that I put together and am refining so I record the same parameters each time.

Hmmm, now that I mentioned it I should finish the form and perhaps, oh maybe, post it up to CannCom for others to use?

MPV, good advice! I haven't actually started one yet but I was planning on it. I guess I should make one now seeing as I can still remember all of my readings and nutes but that probably won't last :stoned:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cmasfca

MPV, good advice! I haven't actually started one yet but I was planning on it. I guess I should make one now seeing as I can still remember all of my readings and nutes but that probably won't last :stoned:

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I thought the same thing for a while, but after starting a veg room and cloning area the information just flat faded away and is now lost forever. It will be an invaluable help to you later when you THINK you remember something but cannot quite put a finger on it..... I'll post my form for you to look at sometime later today.

Just in case someone/anyone out there might find it helpful, here is one of the tracking forms I use to keep track of WTF I am doing at any given time in my grow area.... there is so much happening some times it is easy to forget.

I put the form together in excel but couldn't upload it so here is a PDF... if anyone wants a copy in excel try me thru My Homepage.

:pimp:

Here is the other one that I use for checking and logging daily PH and PPM.

Small update!

Yesterday I added three gallons of RO water, then upped the ppms to 610(Oops!). The ph was 5.4 so I upped it to 5.6 and today it is down to 5.5. The ppms have gone down to 600. I am planning on raising the ppms again by 100 on the 12th of December. I just got back from being out of town for 24 hours and I got home 10 minutes after the lights went out so I will snap some pictures tomorrow. I can tell you one thing though, my roommate has suggested it is time for scented candles...and I agree! I have 6 clones of Arctic Sun (F1 cross of white widow and skunk #1) and 2 clones of Atomic Haze (F1 cross of Atomic NL and Haze) and the girls are definitely starting to smell :) That has to be a good sign :D

Yeah, that's the BEST sign.....whenever something starts going funny with my plants the VERY FIRST thing they lose is their scent. It's always a clue to me. ;)

You can try scented candles but....depending on the strain.......may not be enough. I grew some catpiss once and the smell just BLEW AWAY the entire house with this horrible male cat pee smell. That stuff reeked when it grew, it reeked when it was drying, and it reeked when you smoked it. I'm not trying the strain called dogshit for that very reason......:D