More lessons learned this morning. Lost a seedling
I just pulled the plug out before I took a picture but I have been over watering and hadn’t noticed because the sponge texture of the plugs. They hold on to an appreciable amount of water. Anyway I had a bad mold/damping off victim. Immediately removed it, misted peroxide on all the others and the inside of the tray. Shifted the lid about half an inch to get more air moving. Whoops
I picked up the 3" rockwool cubes, I think it’s getting to be time to pop them into those. Good chat with the guy at the hydro shop again this time about cloning. I’m as ready as I can be.
Wondering if I should chuck the plugs that haven’t sprouted and start some other beans…the real question would be what. I’ve been thinking about the Runtz x Sour Bubble freebie Tony Green mentioned in some random post somewhere. Or just proceed as is and take all my licks before I risk other beans to my learning curve.
I think it’s going to be a busy weekend. This is the order from GroIndoor.com Not a scam, but certainly unclear communication that this way going to be drop shipped from Hydrofarm. Coincidentally, the second unit I ordered from Amazon on Monday will show up tomorrow. Impatience got the best of me, now I’ll have two. I don’t know if I’ll return the second one unopened or just keep it around…
To be clear to anyone reading this: I did receive the order from Groindoor.com the timeline was not communicated well so my impression of ordering with a 1-day shipping time was really more like 2 weeks. There’s two holidays in between I’m not upset but wish the shipping time estimate was a bit more accurate. I may redact some of my earlier wording
Speaking of living and learning. RIP to two more seedlings. This time, due to thirst.
Since the mold issue of 2 days ago, I hadn’t watered the sprouts anymore. Water now refers to 1L distilled water + 2mL Sensi Cal Mag Xtra pHd to 5.6. Yesterday morning I pulled some plugs out, there was some moisture, I let them go. Today two are almost certainly deceased. Plug pull reveals totally bone dry this morning. I should be on America’s Most Wanted Criminals for the capital crime of serial plant abuse. I should have checked them last night but I didn’t. We’re down to 3 sprouts of 907xShiskaberry and 5 907xNL1. The gonners are still there, on a hope and a prayer.
The bit of hunger they show hopefully will be sated by a fresh dousing of cal-mag water. I’m learning about the new setup for sure, and these new sponge plug things. First of all, the seedlings sitting at a steady 85F hasn’t happened before. So they dry quick with a little airflow. Second of all, I think the ACI seedling tray has inadequate ventilation for this stage of growing, I’m taking it off. Third of all, it’s really hard for me to have any real clue how damp/dry these plugs are. I’m so used to seeing the distinct color/texture change of straight coco or peat, this is really throwing me for a loop.
In other news, the Runtz x Sour Bubble have all shot roots out and been planted. They are there on the left now.
Let’s see how this goes. Should I lower my light or is it fine? Photone on my Pixel 7 Pro is indicating 400 PPFD on the tray. I think the plants are responding fine (not leggy, short and stout) but half my plants are dead at this point so my “think” may not be so hot
My light cycle is 8pm to noon the next day. So actually only 16 hours. I must have brain-deaded the numbers there I intended for 18 which would be until 2pm. I blame the Panama x Malawi I’ve been smoking on the weekends. Anyway, I’ll check back on them throughout the day because it’s now the “weekend” for me.
Morning @FieldEffect
My last several grows have started, worrying Less about ppdf values and ensuring the actual Leaf Temp is close to but not Hotter than the room.
14 cm gap below and the leaves are at 74F. Thats the latest Start here in the Peoples Republic of Ontario
To choose a house, i test first the water quality ^^ I’m a bit maniac on this side, now a PH 5.5 is really too acid for coco and will give a hard time to the buffering of the medium. It’s not the fiber of rockwool or clay balls that can resist everything, but an organic coir that degrade past a certain point of acidity. But yes nothing unreasonable, it’s not 4PH with gas emissions or 12PH with some funky smells as far as i understood ^^
For the flushing, we are supposed to do it on a regular basis. I flush my house once a year and my circuit length maybe once per two years (start of the line so, it’s done in 20 minutes). When you see and smell the mud that come from it ^^ the first time … you’re glad to keep it clean.
I consider Rockwool as one of the most oxygenated medium yes, so to don’t use this advantage would be a waste for me. It’s not complicated, just the fact to use drippers with rockwool by example is enough to lead to the right way on the O² dpt. Coco is full of O² too, mastering dry cycles in this medium always produce crazy roots.
On drain, i’m quite extreme. I use closed loop generally only for veg and mothers, it’s very rare that i don’t flower with a DTW. I’m very picky with traces of nutes in the final product. You can even make a cool test without even spending cash in a lab.
You take the same weight of buds, one sample from a bud flowered in closed loop and one flowered in DTW with flush. You place the two buds in enough clean water to cover them, then you let infuse in changing the water each day in collecting the soup, until the water is clear. You can feed two weeks young clones or seedlings with the water coming from the closed loop buds ^^, and they starve in less than a week with the second soup.
What the veg side looks like overall. Not surprisingly the dark stuff that’s not wet is warmer than anything else. There’s an appreciable amount of thermal energy in the light itself. The lights themselves are the hottest things at 87F or so, followed by the tray and heatmats at 85. Dirt plugs, freshly watered at 70ish.
Sure. I was referring to preparing solution for rockwool, which seems to request a pH between 5.5 and 6.
I’m sure. I flushed my hot water heater out when I was renovating the utility room/pantry last week. I’m looking forward
I see. This is one of the reasons I like the idea of rockwool. It’s also appealing in its convenience indoors, the blocks easily stack, it’s tidy and clean to store.
I’m quite curious about everything I hear about residual nutrients. This is an intriguing test. I switched to organics to see if I could perceive a difference outdoors. Indoors obviously is a whole new ballgame and am doing hydro because of the plant density and cleanliness. I am convinced there is one but it is really difficult to determine without an A/B test. Maybe I’ll do that this year. Run the same cut organic and synthetic in the same conditions and evaluate the result.
You get to turn the Power consumption Down, while you Increase Intensity, with Proximity
ps, You r Correct, i have the $20 temp Gun. Perfect tool @FieldEffect
I’d recommend a small scale to weigh them. In my experience these things usually can hold one or two teaspoons at most before they start to go pathogenic; it’s worth figuring out where the sweet spot is so you can take them out and bottom-water once a day without them going too wet or too dry. Usually mine shed 4-5ml of water a day. I start them out at 12g, dry enough that you have to squeeze them out after soaking them, and the next morning at 7-8g they’re usually starting to dry out but with a core of moisture at the center keeping the seedling going. They’re 4 grams bone-dry though, so two days is enough to dry them out - it definitely requires some maintenance.
This house water flush is something I need to check out…. Sounds like a no-brainer. We have these old pipes though… don’t want to give my house a stroke
Little starter cubes like this and rw are so hard to overwater, just don’t leave them sitting in it. Don’t treat them like little jiffy starters. At this stage I’d probably be dumping water in the tray every day or every other, let them soak until full capacity and dump excess.
Edit: @Cormoran gave a much more detailed explanation
400ppfd for seeds is in the “pushing” it realm, 200 works well for sprouting and rooting in my experience.
Lowered the light to maybe 12" and turned the intensity down to 300ppfd. Humidity dome has been off for 24 hours. I watered well yesterday and again today. My dryback victim seedlings are indeed fully dead. The leaf temperature went down a couple degrees to about 75F.
The plugs are really difficult to remove from the tray to weigh individually, but this is great knowledge @Cormoran and @NoCal. I need to get a more accurate method of dispensing water to them, a 1L water bottle just splashes all over. I’ve got a scale. I’m wondering if perhaps the accuracy only matters if I’ve got the dome closed, and the drying is fast enough with it off that there really isn’t a mold danger zone anymore. In any case, it’ll matter for clones. It’s good to get a feel for this stuff now.
I am seeing better results without the dome. I know they needed water this morning, and the seedlings look OK. The Runtz x Sour Bubble is starting to pop out, several of the seeds are crowning.
@Nitt I think the 16/8 cycle is actually fine. I did 14/10 cracking seeds the last two years because that was the exterior photoperiod when they went outside early May. I didn’t want anything to get shocked into flower early.
I now have two complete MegaGarden setups. That got an eyeroll from the household governor to see on the porch. Still debating on keeping the second unit. Getting the first unit setup today. Also finalizing and flushing the RO system today. My anal-retentive nature (especially plumbing and electrical) leads to things taking much longer than most sane folks.
I’m going to build a platform for the MegaGarden to ease draining into a pan for flushing and rinsing the reservoir. I think 4-8" is the ideal range.
It fits beautifully. Here it is tossed together for a fit-check:
It’s been a lot of flushing and re-flushing. Only got doused in water twice during installation and debug, mostly thanks to my 2 year old eagerly “helping.” I’d count it as a success.
I’m glad I got a model with a 3 gallon storage tank. The refrigerator dispenser functions identically, but tastes much better. I’d be happy with this even if I didn’t garden.
It’s about 15 “ppm” TDS versus about 300 “ppm” from the tap. We’ll see how it does. I haven’t worked much with that 1/4" plumbing I love the slide fittings and how easy it is to work with.
@noknees that’s probably exactly what is going to happen
@MissinBissin I love the support! We’ll see how many tools get added
I was wondering what you were using to get these par readings. As someone who’s always mentioned Photone to people, I’d get it checked/calibrated if you can. Photone has quick short instructions on their yt channel, or their website, on how to calibrate it. If you have an android phone, I’d definitely try an calibrate it. Whether it’s against a par meter (maybe a local grow store would let you do that at their store, or maybe you know someone who has a par meter you could use. It only takes a few minutes), or against someone else who has an iphone. The app can be (is, generally) much more accurate on an iphone because there is less hardware and software variance than android and it’s hardware. You also can use a quality lux meter to calibrate the app, but I’d prefer a par meter to compare against.
Yeah I had read about the variance on Android hardware. I am not particularly interested in paying $500 for an Apogee, but $150 for a Photobio is perfectly within my comfort zone, and the route I’d take. If this was something that I needed all the time, I’d buy the best instrument. But for dialing in some homebrew lights, eh, I don’t think I’m going to get much value from an Apogee. I don’t know anyone with a good one locally to calibrate against. The threads I can find on here indicate the Photobio is used by several of the guys I have a lot of respect for, and they find it a perfectly serviceable instrument within about 10%.
Honestly, the first time I heard talk about Apogee my first thought was there’s more to the calibration than the filtered photodetector and diffuser. It’d be fun to build one. But I don’t have access to the optics labs I used to. I did electro-optics for years and changed paths pretty recently. And it’s doable certainly. But not anymore. Certainly not on a budget
Perhaps I can convince my wife to install it on her iPhone. We do have an iPad, will that work?
