Fear and Loathing in the Mini Tents
So the Sweet Zkittlez are toast… I threw the last plant away a couple days ago and then cleaned the tent with bleach and soaked all the equipment in bleach/water.
I went through more details in another thread, but basically got stem rot that managed to topple over plants that were a foot tall. After being propped up they wilted heavily and wouldn’t raise their leaves.
I’m really burned out on rockwool right now.
I went to great lengths to follow manufacturer instructions for the 6 inch cubes including measuring how many mililters come out of each dripper per minute, and weighing each cube on a scale before watering but they were definitely overwatered for a few days.
So anyways… Both tents are pretty empty. I’ve got some seeds started and running some tests.
For the past week or so I’ve been running an airstone in 2 gallons of solution and measuring pH, thinking about running the tents as DWC.
One thing that I don’t like about recirculating systems is managing the pH, so I’m trying trying to make sure the nutes I’ll be using are as stable as possible. this isn’t a perfect test without roots in the water, but it should tell me if the products are NOT ph stable.
A grower on another forum journaled for 6 years the same recirculating system using just base nutes + calmag and pK, changing the base nutes every so often.
When I asked him which base nutes he liked best he said Cyco hands down.
I’ve been testing Cyco’s base nutrients in the bucket and they are impressively stable.
For my first test I used just their base nutes and a little Clorox.
In the first 12 hours the pH rose .2 and then remained exactly the same for 5 days…
The next test was the same, except I added a very measly amount of silica at 1ml per gal (5ml per gal is recommended). Silica is notoriously high pH but I do believe it makes plants much more hearty so I wanted to try it…
The pH rose .4 in the first 12 hours an then stabilized and has been the same for 3 days straight. It did take more than double the pH down to get the nutrients to the same pH as the first test. I don’t know if I’ll use the silica. It did stabilize but still took a ton of pH down and definitely raises the pH initially.
Next 2 tests will be UC roots and Hydrogaurd.
I might run one DWC tent sterile with UC roots and the other with Hydrogaurd and see how they compare as far as maintenance and preventing root issues.
Still not sure how this will play out. I have 2 Sweet Seeds Black Jack, and 6 Cannaventure Fruity Pebbles OG ready to go when I figure it out.
Originally these were going to be in an 8 plant SOG in rockwool croutons in my other tent, but my rockwool equipment is in storage for the time being, due to annoying me.