Me: "Hey son, you wanna grow some weed together?" Him: "Are you serious?"

[B_the_s]

I tried to show you their best sides but it was all yellow tips and flies in the cabinet today.
Fed 'em anyway, 1/2 strength nutes + 2 ml Pro Cal then pH down to 5.8-6.0 in 2 x 0.5 gal water ea. But we're 2 days late feeding them. We gave them each a cup or less of water 2 nights ago to get them through while we were busy. The flies looked like fruit flies. I killed 2. But I guess they're probably fungus gnats. Anyway I went to the hardware store and got the yellow strips. We'll get neem oil from the grow shop when we go in town on the weekend.
Peace

 

[B_the_s]

I guess the yellow tips were nute burn. I didn't give them even half of the recommended but looking back, I got the whole plant life cycle screwed up and started feeding too early.

Just watch your nutes at that size, she can get burned easily. Take care, and i like your ingenuity! Take something old and make it new again!

Timeline:
May 11 put seeds into soaked pellets
May 15 sprouts!
May 19 sprouted peat pods into 4 gal buckets ProMix HP
May 22 2nd set true leaves, water to runoff
May 26 lower leaves browning, first nutrient feeding x <0.5 + 1 ml Pro Cal
June 4 yellow tips on upper leaves and flies, second feed x 0.5 + 2ml Cal
June 10 Today - the top layer of soil is dry, plants showing lots of different symptoms - brown leaves, purple stems, wrinkling, yellow tips, curling, sawtooth. Probably wait to water and feed tonight.

 

[crisnpropa]

Nice to see father and son bonding.
My Dad and I do the same.

 

[Skewbong]

I guess the yellow tips were nute burn. I didn't give them even half of the recommended but looking back, I got the whole plant life cycle screwed up and started feeding too early.

Timeline:
May 11 put seeds into soaked pellets
May 15 sprouts!
May 19 sprouted peat pods into 4 gal buckets ProMix HP
May 22 2nd set true leaves, water to runoff
May 26 lower leaves browning, first nutrient feeding x <0.5 + 1 ml Pro Cal
June 4 yellow tips on upper leaves and flies, second feed x 0.5 + 2ml Cal
June 10 Today - the top layer of soil is dry, plants showing lots of different symptoms - brown leaves, purple stems, wrinkling, yellow tips, curling, sawtooth. Probably wait to water and feed tonight.

Did you mean to say "flies," cause you may want to make sure thats not your problem too. I'm no pest expert, but if they're still hanging around. Get a picture if one and post it, maybe someone can identify it. leaf shape doesn't always mean something bad, when its stressed it does strange things sometimes. And purple stems don't always mean deficiency, I have a pheno that crushed the magnesium and keeps its purple striped stems, and leave stems. Everything else is green.

 

[Skewbong]

she doesn't look too sick, so to speak. I brought a big nute burn on my first grow back to life. I added nutes to prefertilized soil...oops. I freaking nuked her bad. I never use that anymore, just cheap plain top soil, and add perlite. Then don't give it a single nute until it gets to be a solid 6" and like 4, 5, 6 true leafs set pairs...then light nutes, feed her more as she gets bigger. She will do better with less than more. Its a freaking tough weed and doesn't need much to thrive.

 

[B_the_s]

she doesn't look too sick, so to speak. I brought a big nute burn on my first grow back to life. I added nutes to prefertilized soil...oops. I freaking nuked her bad. I never use that anymore, just cheap plain top soil, and add perlite. Then don't give it a single nute until it gets to be a solid 6" and like 4, 5, 6 true leafs set pairs...then light nutes, feed her more as she gets bigger. She will do better with less than more. Its a freaking tough weed and doesn't need much to thrive.

Thank you, we think they're ok too. Just imperfect. Like me.
Yeah, flies. A couple days ago I saw a couple "fruit flies" - see prev. posts for a pic
Yellow tacky tape got 3 or 4 tiny tiny bugs/flies within 24 hours and only 1 more in the last 2 or 3 days.
We're actually thinking about hardening one off to grow outdoors.

 

[B_the_s]

June 16 Day 6 of Flower. Deficiencies.

 

[B_the_s]

June 11 The tallest of the 3 plants began to flower and the next day the sisters had flowered too. We didn't want to start flower feed because we had just watered and lightly fed (1/3 recommended) and were waiting to see improvement.
Improvement never happened.
June 13 Water only.
June 16 Day 6 of Flower. Water only.
(See pic from prev post.)

 

[B_the_s]

June 18 Still no better.

 

[Nizza]

looks like a pH problem to me.
What are you doing to control your pH?
if it isn't pH , maybe its nitro or cal-mag

 

[B_the_s]

June 22 Water only

 

[B_the_s]

June 23

 

[B_the_s]

Fuck. Watered and fed 1/2 strength. Plus 3ml/gal Pro Cal. Gave each plant a full gallon of feed water ph to 6.0-6.1 (soiless) in 2 stages (3/4 gal then after 20 min and runoff began, another 1/4 gal which gave lots (30-40%) of runoff (Ph was 5.5-5.6))

@Nizza After adding nutes and pro-cal (mixing after each addition), We first ph with a sample and drops to get an idea what range the pen should be in (because i don't trust the $20 china pen, it likes to drift), then I use the pen. Then I calibrate the pen with 7.0 solution because it's almost always wrong even though we store in solution. Then I'll use the pen. I use distilled water to rinse my tester.

If you can't tell, I hate to ask questions. There is soooo much grow information already out there, I feel like all the answers are out there and I'm lazy if I don't just go find it myself.

We'll buy something to test ppm/ec next because well Aaargh! Growing weed is easy? I don't agree. Found out yesterday our water is very hard. And we're still growing under a 50w costco led and 4 23w cfls

 

[Nizza]

Fuck. Watered and fed 1/2 strength. Plus 3ml/gal Pro Cal. Gave each plant a full gallon of feed water ph to 6.0-6.1 (soiless) in 2 stages (3/4 gal then after 20 min and runoff began, another 1/4 gal which gave lots (30-40%) of runoff (Ph was 5.5-5.6))

@Nizza After adding nutes and pro-cal (mixing after each addition), We first ph with a sample and drops to get an idea what range the pen should be in (because i don't trust the $20 china pen, it likes to drift), then I use the pen. Then I calibrate the pen with 7.0 solution because it's almost always wrong even though we store in solution. Then I'll use the pen. I use distilled water to rinse my tester.

If you can't tell, I hate to ask questions. There is soooo much grow information already out there, I feel like all the answers are out there and I'm lazy if I don't just go find it myself.

We'll buy something to test ppm/ec next because well Aaargh! Growing weed is easy? I don't agree. Found out yesterday our water is very hard. And we're still growing under a 50w costco led and 4 23w cfls

I want to help out here, but have little experience with hard water. I use a RO filter for my stuff.
As for hard water, I would start to research and read some articles/grows what other growers using hard water do in your situation. That is most likely the underlying cause for this and the best spot to start at in my opinion.
I wish i could help more but I don't wanna misinform you. The plants do look great but to me the pH may be too low in the media.

and hey not asking questions is good. Just growing the plant teaches you alot the first few times indoors! It will help you figure out what you need to learn lol

I like that you are aware of everything that is going on. Treating a grow like a science experiment is the best way to learn and get better

 

[B_the_s]

@Nizza. Thanks for the compliment. In hindsight, there are definitely things we would do differently (everyone says that lol).

When I bought the seeds and my son said we weren't ready yet, I said, "If you want to learn to swim, you can't learn by reading swimming forums and watching fish on tv. You gotta get in the effing water!"

Cheers to all the people who didn't give up!

 

[B_the_s]

48 hours after last feed and pots are dry >2" down and quite light. And theres no one to monitor them for the next 40 hours or so. We've got a 40 hour trip early morning so watered/fed a little early.
1 gal ea. (1/2 gal wait 20 then 2nd half), 1/2 strength wk 2 flower nutes + 0.33ml vitathrive + 1ml procal ph 5.9-6 (no up/dn needed)
50% Runoff 6.1, 6.2 & 6.2 We wanted another big-ish flush/feed.
Ambient temp 26.2 canopy height.
Leaf. 26.4 highest bud
24.2 lowest leaf
Rh 53%
Topped up buckets w 1-2" dry media
Removed some fan leaves (mostly dead / bleached)

 

[Cinco]

They’ll be fine on your trip. Looks good.

I grow lots of things with relatively hard tap water, 0.3EC or 150ppm@0.5. I use both promix hp and coco, although my cannabis is in coco only. I haven’t had any issues with it.

I hate those cheap PH meters. I post a lot about it, but I really like my Bluelab Combo meter. It saved a lot of stupid guessing and double checking meters.

 

[B_the_s]

.. I really like my Bluelab Combo meter. ..

I'll get a bluelab combo as soon as I can afford it. They appear to be one of the best for home growers. In the meantime I picked up an HM unit and it turns out my water is only 100 ppms CaCO3. I double checked with my pool tester. So it just goes to show that you can't trust what you hear.

I'll be checking the feed water and runoff tonight.

And ALSO....

 

[B_the_s]

We got a lighting upgrade!

A new SF1000 with dimmer box and daisy-chain-ability! When lit, I can see warm and cool white diodes and 2 different reds (deep and far?).

We took out the snakes nest that we had and got her hanging 18" above canopy running at 60% and visually, its already way brighter than the old 4x123W CFLs and 50W Innova LED with Veg and Bloom switches. I think we should increase the power by 10% every 12 hours.

 

[B_the_s]

@Brushy_Creek That'd be deadly. TBH We're proud that theyre even still alive! lol

Yesterday, they were all showing signs of heat stress - sawtooth edges curling up. 26.5 C and 51% RH
We brought temps down to 24 by opening the cabinet and using a fan to vent out the storage closet its in. No AC here. But removing the 4 cfls and swapping LED panels may make the improvement we need.

We argued about feeding last night and didn't because there is still a lot of water weight in the littlest girl. And even the mid-size plant is kinda heavy.

But upon waking up this morning, I think we need to water/feed each plant individually now instead of keeping them on the same schedule (feed/water only the plant that needs it) and maybe we should have been doing that from the beginning. So this morning we'll feed the big girl and the other two wait until they drink up.