I'm out here in CO too. I've lived all over and to me this is one of the safest places with the most freedoms, at least outside of metro areas, although a nice Caribbean island does not sound too bad either. Right now I'm just running GH 3 part, but will cut out the grow and just use micro and bloom after they are done stretching. I just get bored and want to try new things, but GH is cheap and easy imo.
Because you're there, you might as well stop by Hydro-gardens.com, aka chem-gro. It's getting to be quite the well known source for inexpensive, yet high quality nutrient salts for agriculture.
Interesting. What are you running for EC?
Edit to my original: PH def rises, but it's 'stable', no real crazy swings. @firsttimeARE The rez is ro water, so yep that brings down the ec too. The new growth is pretty light green/yellow, and I'm just attributing this to new growth vs a N def. They are drinking about 5-6 gal a day now. When I did the rez change last week, the ec was about 1.7 then went up to 1.8 for a couple days before it started to drop again. Sign of too high ec when I changed the nutes? If the ec is too high, will they just drink water?
If I run them pretty close during the stretch do you think it will reduce the stretch? I need to get them another 12" higher
Run them close soooooo they grow more!
Blackforest <--------- Facepalm... Sometimes the obvious just kicks my ass. I often think waaaayyyyy too deep on simple issues.
I have another 600w light sitting idle. You think I should throw it in there? I think it can handle the heat!
Hell yeah. Watch your heat carefully and have a plan to add some more cooling or air movement to help if needed.
Right now I have a snorkel going out the window well into a tub that acts as an intake. It has some inconspicuous slats cut out up top and a lid so it looks normal. The exhaust goes into the well, so it's pretty warm air, but the intake is as cold as it is outside right now. Right now it's just passive and I point it up or down depending on the room temp, but I did just get in the mail a backdraft damper and I'm going to order this slick $20 temp controller and hook it up to one of my small inline fans so it will kick on/off by itself. It might get too cold this winter for a constant passive intake and the lights go off at 4am so I don't want it drop too low. It's working well though.
Over pruning will do what you're describing. You really want to remove 20% or less of the plant's total mass in order for it to keep growing vigorously. The way to handle big jobs is over time, with several pruning sessions so the plant can adapt on the fly.
Yeah, I figured as much. I didn't really think I took off that much, but hindsight is 20/20, lesson learned. They are starting to drink a little more now, so maybe they are starting to adjust. I'll keep a close eye on them. Thanks for the clarification.
Can you increase light intensity? Not that it's been a few days, I'll bet they'd really respond.