Dude, I have read for months and hours on end about aeroponics, LEDs, Rick Simpson oil, sog, scrog, cloning, seedlings, etc., more than you assume. I started this process to obtain knowledge back in June. I only started my first grow around Thanksgiving and am persuing the see more buds approach. Now, I'm trying to actualize and am in process. I am NOT posting that I can fix everything, I am posting what I am doing to try to unravel the mysteries. Many people have been helpful and I appreciate their help. You, quite frankly, have not been helpful at all. There is nothing for you to see here. Just move on if you can't be helpful. If it's not in your nature to be constructive, move on, no worries, no judgement.
First Grow with 300W Advanced Platinum LED Grow Light
- Thread starter Edge7
- Start date
daveroller
Well-Known Member
I think that Scotch was recommending running ONLY tap water for 4 days. I'm not too familiar with the subject, except I usually flush with pure water at every weekly water change, for a period of a few hours to a whole day, just before feeding with fresh nutes. But anyway, even though your plants are getting greener and growing, you might need to do a pure tap water flush once to really clear the salt buildup out of your roots. I'd trust Scotch's advice on this more than mine, though.
Yeah, I understand. I just wanted to try as more moderate cutback as I am a week or 2 from flipping. This situation is not as acute as before when I think I had a temporary lock out. I had not trimmed the older discolored and curled leaves which may have made the situation look more perilous. The newer growth is greener and more even. I finally got around to trimming the unsightly leave tonight and the plants look much better. I was initially trying to grow a sea of green using more seedlings. Now with less plants, I think a scrog is a more apt approach for this grow. I think fimming the tops last week was necessary to keep the height at a manageable level.
daveroller
Well-Known Member
Cleaning up the older, discolored and curled leaves:
I see it's grown a lot... but that poor plant! I'm sure this experience will make you VERY careful with your nute & pH levels next time, which is one of the most important things that we all learn eventually. My first attempt failed completely, so don't feel too bad. You seem to be a quick leaner once you decide to take advice from people. I guess the hard part is figuring out who has the best advice when you get conflicting recommendations.
Dave, it's a great and enjoyable learning experience and you all have been very helpful. I'm very new to this endeavor so I encourage everyone's input. Yes, there is conflicting advice and I have to use my own judgement to decide which I way I want to go. The important thing that I have learned is to listen to my plants. Make your adjustments and listen and watch your plants and see how they respond to the changes. I also learned that chemical pH adjustments should be moderate to avoid the swings! As much as I inadvertently torment my plants, they keep on trucking and grow back vigorously. Must be the combination of the aeroponic sprayers, the nutes and the Advanced Platinum LED light. I beginning to think that in an aeroponic sytem, nute levels should be lower than other grow systems.
daveroller
Well-Known Member
You know, I've wondered about that myself! Up until my previous grow I used an ultrasonic fogger to feed my roots above the water level. And in every grow if I raised the nute level above 400-500 ppm the leaves started to show damage. Same nutes I use now. But with my current system I've been able to raise that a lot higher. You might be onto something, Edge. I also had much dimmer fluorescent lights until now, so I've wondered whether that limited the level of nutrient that my plants could take in.
Edit: This is all speculation on my part, but if I had to guess which one was correct (and they both could be wrong), I'd go with the idea that maybe aeroponics requires a lower nute level. Maybe you could ask someone else who's more of an expert at aeroponics. I never surpassed the novice level in my own opinion.
The ladies are poking through the scrog. I will tuck them in soon. I have not added nutes but it is drifting up in the last 3 days from 420 ppm to 505 ppm. However I have added some pH down and I have concluded that the pH down has been increasing the tds ppm. I read that pH down adds nitrogen to the reservoir.
daveroller
Well-Known Member
That's a lot of little clones. I hope they all thrive in there. Are they under a humidity dome? I don't clone, but I know that's important for seedlings.
Just thinking about those nute levels some more... When I used an ultrasonic fogger I got decent results even though I had to keep nute concentrations generally under 500 ppm for the entire grow. I used to get 1.5 - 2.5 oz from each plant and it was very potent, in spite of using fluorescent lights. So my point is that maybe when you do aeroponics, you don't need to use as much nutrient as you normally would. Have you found any info about this?
Just thinking about those nute levels some more... When I used an ultrasonic fogger I got decent results even though I had to keep nute concentrations generally under 500 ppm for the entire grow. I used to get 1.5 - 2.5 oz from each plant and it was very potent, in spite of using fluorescent lights. So my point is that maybe when you do aeroponics, you don't need to use as much nutrient as you normally would. Have you found any info about this?
This is the 8th day for the clones. Some were showing root bumps as soon as 6 days. No, I do not use a humidity dome nor any nutes. When I initially tried to clone using Rapid Rooter plugs, I got 0% success. This time I'm just inserting them into the neoprene collars with a 1 -45 sec on, 5 - 45 secs off watering cycle and I am getting 100% success. I also noticed that when I razor cut off the branch node of the clone with the node under the collar being water sprayed, it will root faster at that node. I surmise that the plant irrigation channels are already established at the node. They first start to leaf at the node and then the plant realizes it needs roots so it proceeds to take moisture from the leaves and starts rooting at the node. I think cloning will save 3-4 weeks to get to the flowering stage.
Some aeroponic growers have started that cannabis plants cannot use anymore than 700 ppm of nutes while others say less nutes are required in general. As you know, opinions are everywhere. From the Wikipediia page, "NASA research has shown that aeroponically grown plants have an 80% increase in dry weight biomass (essential minerals) compared to hydroponically grown plants. Aeroponics used 65% less water than hydroponics. NASA also concluded that aeroponically grown plants requires ¼ the nutrient input compared to hydroponics."
I increased my nutes from 480 ppm to 570 ppm last night after 4 days when the plants started to consume nutes again. I will keep it at this level until the ppm start to pull back showing that the plants are consuming nutes. I think I am a week or so from flipping.
Scotch089
Well-Known Member
I dont have links for my references, but I can say that it all has to do with the nutrient availability and solubility, and DO levels. Aero makes nutes much more avail., so why would you increase your nute regime? It gives a greater risk to toxicities..
Availability is not Capacity
They will only take what they need, and expel the rest.
I agree PH anything adjusts ppm, no matter what- but noticed D more than U. Id rather add nutes for Down, but in your case no... anyways, Even with your PH Down tempering with the readings, I think they were still discarding all the nutes they are not using.
You should try monitoring the flux every 12hrs. with NO top offs. NO adjustments... If your PH drops and ppms rise, they are still flushing. (RULE OF THUMB btw)
I have x4 Sativa Dom.'s a week into flower feeding @420ppm (on a .7 conversion factor, and a shit ton of DO)
Considering all the jargon I have spent hours sifting through... <500ppm in Aero sounds pretty much IT.
daveroller
Well-Known Member
I never understood WHY I had problems raising the tds above 500 ppm back when I used aeroponics, or that it was even related to aeroponics at all. Now I guess there's at least some evidence that it probably was related, based on what you and Scotch found out. Glad that this is resolved. I hope your grow goes much better now!
I think I was just predispose to shooting for a 1200-1500 ppm level as advocated in most of the hydroponic grow threads that I had been reading. As a newbie I was impatient in getting the nute levels up. Now after reading Wikipedia on aeroponics and your experience and Scotch's input, I can accept the 500 ppm level as a workable target. I won't be adding any nutes unless the plants takes the tds level down significantly. Thanks, guys.
Crazedspeed
New Member
Nice! I am running the exact same 32 plant setup. Except my lid is flipped the other way lol and I am doing sog. This is also by first run at this and I started with clones in Dec. I am also using a LED light to be exact the solarstorm 400w from California light works. I just switched them over to flower a couple days ago and trimmed them up a bit, and swapped out the Nutrients. Currently I am 700ppm and going to push up each week from here on out until about 1200ppm. So far the only burn I received was from having my LED a bit to close as you can see from one of the plants in the picture below.
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Crazedspeed
New Member
I am using botanicare's line however I am now supplementing with some Foxfarm additives for bloom. The strain is Purple urkle.