Nice looking 1st go @dopemine
Gonna pull up a seat in the chair.
new to growing myself and always looking to learn and hopefully one day help out others new to this awsome hobby 
Good luck gowin dem beans growchacho 
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Thanks for the recommendation! But alas, I don’t live in the states so the things I can acquire are quite limited. Its the reason why I used Masterblend instead of Jacks. However, the interesting thing about using Rice hulls is that its organic matter so in theory bacteria should be able to thrive in it. But who knows? Hence the experiment 
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Good tip, @pharmerfil . Was wondering about the silly range of prices I’ve seen for hydroguard. Will definitely be going Southern AG when this gallon runs out. Do you dilute it, have a ratio you prefer, or go by what it says on the tin and litfa?
Thanks in advance.
Stay up!
Coffin_Dodger
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Ahh but what kind of bacteria?
Are you doing water changes or just topping off?
Great looking grow so far, I haven’t seen anyone use rice hauls before.
Just a thought but if you want to get more bang for your buck with your beneficial bacteria brew them for 2 days in some warm 70ish f dechlorinated water with a tablespoon of honey, molasses etc. I do mine in 5 gallon buckets and it only takes drops to half scoop of starting bacteria. Another bonus is the bacteria is activated and thriving when you put it in the system.
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I’ve heard of using rice hulls in dwc systems but I was always worried about it clogging pumps and such. I would think it would work well if you can keep it contained because it drains very well and doesn’t provide a good home for bacteria in my experience. I use it for aeration and mulch in coco coir so I’m interested to see what you find.
@Coffin_Dodger I usually dilute it about 100:1 making it about 3x the strength of hydroguard. Then I just squirt a few ml in the reservoir every time I add nutrients. The directions on the bottle I think call for using it as a foliar spray which I’ve never done.
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Thanks for tip! Thinking of changing out the water once it hits around 1/5 to minimize potential issues with pH. So far the plant’s looking good and the water is about half way through.
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Yeah I probably wouldn’t be using rice hulls in dwc with pumps. There are some that gets through the net pot and goes around in the reservoir. It only works here because its just a simple hydro.
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Haha yes, this was actually where I got the idea from Originally, I was debating between rice hull/sand, kratky and hydro for my grow. It was then I was struck with an epiphany that I could just attempt all of them at once 
Ultimately, I didn’t add sand because it would just slip through the net pot and its a bit redundant as its main purpose is for water retention.
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Week 7
EC@1.45 pH@5.6
Notes:
Those of you with a keen eye may notice some burnt/yellowing leaves from the top view. I’m not too worried about it since that’s probably because I accidentally snapped some stems a couple weeks back and they seem to have healed back now.
During this week anxiety got the best of me and I did some heavy defoliating because it was just becoming a monster of a bush, so much that I had some difficulty doing some LST on it. I was expecting to have it recover in a couple of days but in just mere hours it covered the canopy again… amazing. In hindsight, I really should’ve taken some before and after pictures. Not entirely sure if I did the right thing by defoliating in the first place.
Besides that, its stems and branches are starting to grow thick and strong. pH seems to be rock stable as well. Wish I could check the roots but because the gardening twine is attached to the bucket itself I can’t lift the lid off so I’m just gonna take a leap of faith and pray that everything is going A-OK down there.
In other news, just got informed that my girlfriend’s family is coming to visit on Christmas which is a bummer. That means I have to finish the grow a lot sooner than I expected, so as much I’d like to veg so it can fill out the tent, I’d have to start flowering now. It is what it is 
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They look healthy to me I would suggest raising your light a bit in future if growing this type of strain pheno type, that way they will stretch a little more and the leaf nodes will not be as tight together, saving you doing the defoliation. I would have defoliated them a bit as well, so I think you did the ritht thing, even now they are not going to get much airflow through those leaves, but if your going to flip them shortly they will stretch out more anyway so you should be ok.
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If it’s not the light, it could be the low amount of P in your feed as to why your internode spacing is really short and the plant isn’t getting very tall. That feed mix looks to be a 5-1-5 NPK mix. I usually run closer to 2-1-3 in veg. 1-2-3 to 1-3-4 in flower… Regardless, she’s lookin pretty over there 
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Yep, the low phosphorous was a theory I’ve been thinking of but I’ve seen pictures of deficient plants and their node intervals were longer. Though its very possible its a combination of both the lack of the nutrient and genetics at play here.
Using hydrobuddy, the calculated feed ratio for the mix is actually 1:0.48(P2O5):1.3(K2O). When I was designing the mix, I wanted to get as close to 2-1-2 as possible. Mainly because I believe that you don’t really need as much P, even in flowering. Another plus is that I can use pH down without worry since they’re usually phosphorus acid.
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Week 8
Look how tight those nodes are
Notes:
I messed up during the beginning of this week. I was supposed to change out the water but I noticed my pre-made nutrient A/B concentrate were contaminated. Admittedly I mixed those ghetto style without any instruments so I ordered some stuff online to properly mix a new batch. In the meantime I thought it would be ok to just add more water, some left over solution and pH it.
Well, lo and behold, I ran into nutrient problems. Judging from the symptoms it was probably a combination of magnesium deficiency and nutrient burn. Decided to pH correct and wait a couple more days but the problem kept getting worse until finally I decided to just make the mix again and swap out the reservoir @1.6 EC. Since then it seems to have rectified all my previous issues and I’m happy to say the plant seems to be recovering.
Throughout the week I did some light defoliating, removing small leaves at the lower branches that I knew would never see the light of day. I’m starting to understand how the branches grow and which parts to cut.
What’s interesting to me is that I only started having problems once I started messing with the reservoir. In hindsight, adding that extra spare solution I had was probably the issue since it increased EC when I shouldn’t have. Lesson learned.
I’m debating whether to flip to flower now or not. Or should I wait another week?
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Week 9
Notes:
Plant is going strong. I did some heavy defoliation a few days back to make way for more bud sites, still amazes me how fast it bounces back. It has started drinking a lot more water and I think I may be refilling the reservoir every week or so now. At this point I don’t even check for pH anymore except for when I do a reservoir change.
This week is when I finally switch to flowering and putting in full strength nutes. Hoping for the best that this will flower without herming.
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That plant is kicking ass, any updates?
It is with great grief that I have some bad news. In short, the plant died.
I went out on a business trip and the plan was that I was going to be away only for a couple of days. Unfortunately I came down with a fever and couldn’t travel again for a while. As this was a stealth grow, I had no one I could trust to watch over the plant while I was away
By the time I came back, the reservoir had run dry and the plant shriveled up. It was at the point of no return
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t super frustrated since everything was going so well for my first grow. But after a bout of depression I realized at least I learned a lot during this grow and I’m somewhat excited to try again.
For the next grow I’ll be doing a more robust bucket design and I’ll be adding timelapse videos so look forward to the next one!
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That sucks to hear, but can’t say I haven’t been there before. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for your next grow. 
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You didn’t mess up at all if you learned during the experience…and by the looks of your journal you did great and I’m sure learned along the way for your next run
You got this …now you have some experience…so you will ROCK the next one!
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