Damn, broke my tds3 meter. 2 week my ec/ph died. I’m not lucky this grow. 
Gotta have a ride for a new tds3 in the city. I was in the middle of my adjustments, dam.
Getting tired of the adjustments. The reason is the 1.5 EC is too much for them at this stage. I get high ppm and low ph every time from the run off (up to 1.8EC, 900ppm, 5.2ph). Going to handle 1.0 EC (500 ppm), 5.7 ph now.
I see some rolling leaves and some other things of slight nutes overdose. Dropped the solution to 1.0 EC / 500 ppm / 5.7 PH. Lets see tomorrow. I expect to see lower PPM / EC in the run-off. Then I could increase it a bit. Eventually, it should become stable and dont really jump up and down.
First mini buds appeared, so its almost the time to start counting flowering! 1-2 days I think and I’ll let it go 
Day 1 - Flowering (week 1)
Plants eventually switched to a flowering, it stretched to the lamps really close, some leaves have leaf burn spots, so I’m gonna pull them down tomorrow morning with some strings. Not sure how to do this, some plants are hardly accessable plus a lot of buckets. Also idk if its safe to stretch them because I was doing that every time on soil when its dry. But coco never dries, so any help here appreciated.
The ppm became somewhat stable and 600ppm, and whats more important - ph. Anyway, I feels like theres some salting and I’m gonna flush them before feeding with ph-balanced tap water next time. There are lot of acid needed to correct my water. Its coming like 6.7 or even 7 from the tap, and I have to lower it down to the 5.7. I spend a lot of GHE pH down powder and also water.
8x20L buckets, so… Really a lot of water needed, like 40L every day (at least). And its literally everywhere (because I spill it every time, but its impossible not to do that), with a lot of humidity coming out because of that. Especially when fed and lights is on. I open windows to get it away almost every time. Also trying to use mobile conditioner but its pretty loud and not sure it really work out in my case to reduce humidity.
Can’t raise your lights anymore?
I can, but I’m afraid to do that because it will be stretching till like week 3-4, and if I lower now, I will have less room for that later, and I’ll hit the ceiling. I think I should pull it down on first stages, and increase the height on the later stages.
I can, but I’m afraid to do that because it will be stretching till like week 3-4, and if I lower now, I will have less room for that later, and I’ll hit the ceiling. I think I should pull it down on first stages, and increase the height on the later stages.
Yup. Im nowhere near top shelf at this but agree fully with your thinking. Reading the plants not bottle directions. I like it. As you said keeping lights close as possible (without damage) would be idea technically. Limit that stretch then once they stop reaching back em up to more comfortable temp and little wider lightspread. I wouldnt be pressed to bump feeds up either low with good flow. If they aint taking it dont give it. Youll cause some kinda lock. So far looking solid to me nothing catches my eye.
Great thread, pulling up a chair.
Hope ya get your goal!!
They are a tall plant genetically, so you are going to be battling that, tying down the tops will focus the energy on the lower branches, or you could just flop the taller stems over by cracking it.
I just germinated 6 BB for outside grows this year. Last year a couple of friends grew them to 8ft tall and averaged 20 ounzes a plant.
Day 2 - Flushing & Stretching (week 1)
Damn, that was a hard day.
First of all, I stretched 'em. The thing is, that I couldn’t do that inside the tent, cuz there arent much space there for it, and I had to took em out in my second room, close the doors, and do everything there. First thing its physically hard, second thing - the smell. Even with closed doors I was on paranoia as fuck. I opened all the windows, but the smell still coming out. Don’t really want to bother again with it.
I really got tired of manual feeding. I think this is insane with my setup, and I have to do something with that really urgent. Because feeding like that is not making any sense. I cant really pour the nutes into rear buckets, because the front plants are blocking me and I hurt my plants every time. After feeding, I gotta pump out the run-off from the each bucket and its driving me fucking crazy. I lose a lot of time with it.
Not only the feeding is a problem in that. Because what comes from the runoff, is not really what is in my coco actually. Like, I thought that you should expect near the same indications between what I give and what I get from the runoff, but seems its not. Like, I flushed the coco with my tap water (ph 7). And when I pour the solution with ph 5.7, the runoff would be like 6.2 (it gets mixed inside). The same for the ppm or ec.
I read yesterday, that if you dont have any drip system or automatic pouring, you cant guarantee whats up in yo bucket actually. The ecosystem will be independent in each one, and thats the case. I need some sort of drip system, to counter that. The system, that will mix everything automatically by circulating the nutes between common tank and my plant’s buckets. I will have to adjust 1 bucket instead then.
Don’t really have budget for that right now, but it seems its a must now. Gotta handle that.
I’d look into autopots, fill rez, check ph and ec and walk away, top up once a week, depending on how many plants and the size of your rez.
For budget…honestly they are pretty reasonabley priced, and VERY easy to use. Gravity fed too, so doesn’t consume power, and if the power goes out, your plants are still good, water/feed wise…
Buddy had same issue use long pvc pipe to reach back ones and pour water in that way little different for you thou. On pumping out.after that cycle he hooked up his drip system. Still little different since used living soil.
@HaRdRoC yeah that looks good, but its kinda hard to obtain it here. We have other branded hydroponics solutions, but I prefer doing custom setup. I’m a tech guy 
@Gonepostal interesting. definitely will look into this, thx for an advice.I have 10L watering can, I think they’ll work together smooth.
Day 5 (week 1)
Got very poor camera this grow. Still tryna get something interesting from it.
So, the crops now handles really better after stretching, they are not really rushing to the sky right now and I easily tie them down to the lower branches. One even looks like a ball. The air flow is good now between lamps and plants. So everything got better at this thing.
Still strugglin’ with feeding. Ran out of ph down yesterday, so I think I will feed without ph control for some time. Or maybe I should try orthophosphoric acid from the local radiomarket. Not sure. I’m afraid it will harm the plants (I’m using branded ph up and down solutions). I don’t like it changes your ppm too much when added.
So, everything is goin’ good. Even spotted few brown pistils on the cutted ones. The buds are forming, the leaves looking good and dark. Everything is by the plan for now.
Lemon juice or vinegar will ph down for you. If you try and feed without the right PH you may have problems very quickly.
Ok, I will try to feed like that today. I’ve heard organic things like that, are easily gets eaten up by the plants and dont hold ph for a long time. I will rush in a grow mag tomorrow morning for a new bottle of ph-
Day 7 - Flush & Adjust 1.0 EC (500ppm) / pH 5.7-5.8 (week 1)
DSC01232|666x500Acquired a ph down today. So flushed n filled all the buckets with fresh nutes. Adjusted to about 1.0 EC (500ppm) 5.7-5.8 PH.
Everything is going great, the buds are getting bigger and thicker. Trichomes began to build up around the bud leaves. No slowdown in growth, even tho I had ph unstable for a some time. Plants seems like already ready for flowering week two that is coming tomorrow ! 
Day 8 - Stretching & Feeding - 450ppm / ~1.0 EC / PH 5.7 (week 2)
Second week started. Still getting about 750 ppm from the drain after feeding, but pH is stable. Still not giving them more than 1.0 EC. I wait for the time when runoff’s ppm will be lesser than the feeding.
Its pretty low tho, ha? I thought it would require at least 1.5 EC for each. But seems like there 8 x 20L buckets (about half filled with coco), and theres not much light are reaching each, so it cant even spend all it all. Good that pH does not changes, I think that mean that they just drink a lot of water, and it cause higher ppm in the drain. So just need more frequent feeding.
Broke my pump today. Shit… Everything breaks on this scale. And the fucking water. It’s almost everywhere when I feed. Water is almost what I am now… 
I need to stop pulling the submersible pump out of washbowl by the wire 
. One of two wires came off in the pumps internal box, so I just soldered it and isolated with blue duck tape, so I could finish feeding. Very quick fix. It works now, but gotta have an extra one.
I can’t help but want to play hide and seek at your site everytime I come by your thread! I’ll tell you what the by next run in there your going be straight dialed in. Can’t wait ethier bc it’s already looking stellar in there!
Day 10 - Flowering (week 2)
Does that looks like we go all solar? 
Nothing to report but just photos. More bud size, more sugar. Soon I’ll be adding Powder Feedings Booster in the mix, I wait till the week 3.
Some buds are still very tiny I don’t know why is that and also those that are back up from the light appears to be denser and have more sugar crystals. Looks like plants are moving all the power getting from light to the side ones and those that are in the shadow and 'all that.
Anyway, nothing to worry, the leafs are excellent. Everything deep dark blue, no fire spots or anything bad on the leafs.
Looking good only week 2 lots of time for the buds to fatten up.
