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ChemDawg easy 400w SCROG

E

Elcap

Update. My pH meter seems screwey...or my res is too acidic. Reading was 4-something. Plants aren't showing signs yet of bad pH, so I assume the meter..probably need a new probe. Especially since there's no reason for a downward pH drift of that magnitude when my addback has been much higher than that, probably averaging 6.5 to attempt an upward drift from about 5.5.

I'll do a complete res swap when I switch to flowering, which looks like will happen in the 30 to 35 day range. I was aiming for 30, but it may take a bit longer. Being without a reliable meter is a big handicap, but I know how to get to a workable level based on past mixes...I hope.

Anyway...pics:
DAY 26
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hazy

hazy

Active member
Veteran
Can't wait to see that screen fill up. Should go fast in that tub. I like the simple setup, thanks for all the detail on the build.
 
L

lorddankinstien

my plant looks much different than yours, but then again I have trimmed most of the fan leaves off. I love seeing your plants grow since we are going the same strain... question did you get yours from GAM? :joint:
 
E

Elcap

Thanks for droppin' by Hazy. Me and you both can't wait to see that screen fill up.

@ Dankinstien,

This one is a little surprising to me as far as growth pattern. In the past I've always topped my plants. On this one, I didn't top at all, just bent (without "crunching" the stem) it over until the tip-top was below the stem. I'd read somewhere that doing that encourages branching Seems to have worked...or this is just an extra bushy girl by nature, even for a pure indica. I got the clone from a dispensary here in SoCal, I don't know who GAM is.
 
L

lorddankinstien

GAM is Green Angel of Malibu coop, It seems we started our clones on the same day lol 4/4/09 I was thinking you might have got yours at the same shop. :joint:
 
E

Elcap

UPDATE w/ Pics.

Well, it's Day 30. I had planned to flip to 12/12 on day 31. But she needs about 3 more day of veg, I reckon. I think she'd pretty much fill the screen after the stretch if I flipped now. But I think my bud canopy will be more uniform and even in size and height if I give her a few more days .

Pics below, but first I want to talk about NUTE STRENGTH.
I use the generic Lucas formula, which gets overanalyzed IMO. The takeaway from lucas, IMO should be that a 2:1 of micro:grow in GH 3 part will give you a proper balance of nutes (as would the single bottle of floranova). The rest varies according to strain, humidity, and other environmental factors.

People love to specify a certain "recipe" for lucas, such as 5ml/10ml per gal in veg and 8/16 in flowering. But this ignores a couple of things...

1. Some strains want more nutes than others
and

2. Heat and humidity levels, and other environmental factors (wind) will affect the transpiration rate of your plants, independently of their need for nutrients. THIS IS IMPORTANT!

In my current grow, the ambient air's humidty that I am drawing into my box is really low. I live in a desert basically, and my plants here use more water as a result. Therefore, they will need a WEAKER nute mix overall since they will use relatively more water compared to nutes than if they were growing in a more humid and cooler scenario. What they lack in strength of the nute mix, they make up for in volume of uptake.

I'm only running a 600ppm right now at the end of veg cycle, and the background water before mixing is 190ish. So that's a weak mix and much lower than your std lucas "recipe" would give you.

Basically, get the RATIO of nutes correct via whatever specific chemicals you prefer (I personally use the micro and bloom of the GH 3 part) and monitor whether your nute mix is getting richer (plants using more water than nutes) or vice-versa and adjust accordingly.

DAY 30
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Comparison Day 20
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DAY 30
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You can tell from that last pic that there is so much reflected light off the walls below the screen (because the light is so low), that the lower fan leaves just turned down/sideways to face the walls. It's almost like a cube of green surface. Can't wait to flip. Gotta mix up a big batch of nutes since I'll be gone one week during the flowering and will have the mrs. doing substitute gardener duty...which needs to amount to: open the lid and add back from this jug until it's at the line. Should be ok.
 
keke.nz

keke.nz

Member
hey bro looking good, plants looking pretty healthy there nice work.

just a quick question, how much would you expect to yield?

cheers keke :joint:
 
E

Elcap

Hey Keke and Natagonna, thanks for stopping by.

Res temp is staying right about 70, air at top of plants is around 82 during midday. pH yesterday was 5.3 and I added back some tap water (7.8ish pH) to continue my upward drift to 6, then I'll gradually drift it back down.

Expected Yield? Well, I've never done Chemdawg before. But, last time I ran a grow with this same style cabinet setup with the same equiment, running NL#5 dry yield was 0.85g/watt...or about 12oz total. Plus I made a some various hash products from the trimmings. So I hope to achieve .75g/watt and a total over 10oz, anything above that is pure gravy since I've not done a hydro run in over 3 years, and never done ChemD before.

1g/watt seems to be a good, achievable benchmark that many people aim for, and I think I could get there easily without CO2 using a single plant with about a 35 day veg from clone. (well, I know I can because I've done it in the past).
 
E

Elcap

My upward pH drift(intentional, achieved by adding back plain tap water at 7.8) continues. Went to 5.4 yesterday, 5.5 today, and look to continue the drift to and through the flip. Will flip within the next few days.
 
E

Elcap

She's looking a little heat stressed. Temps have been getting to 88-92 at top of plant, so I moved the light up. Looks like the low pH swing I had around day 24 might also be contributing since mg is probably locked out for a while, need to drift it up to pH 6 for a bit I think.

Today is last day of veg, I switch the timers during lights off tonight and set her up to run the flowering cycle during the evening/night to help with temps. She'll get 26 hrs darkness before the first 12/12 to facilitate the switch from my 18/6 lights-on of 1am to 7pm to a 12/12 of 9pm to 9am. Also doing a res swap today. I want her to see 700ppm at pH 6 for a bit and see if that helps with the slight N and mg deficiency.

DAY 34
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E

Elcap

Only a few days into 12/12 but the stretch is ON. Did the first full res swap yesterday (after taking a reading and getting pH at 5.0). Roots look great, foliage is clearly suffering from the extended period of low pH. I'm going to try to keep her right at pH 6 for a week or more and see if that makes her happier.

Seems like my pH likes to drift downward pretty regularly in this run, probably due to dry climate and the plants using lots of water relative to nutes (which makes the res more rich over time, thus decreasing pH). So I mixed up a batch of lucas to get 700ppm a couple days ago, let it buffer for a day, added some pH down, mixed and let sit another day. It's at 6.6, and I mixed it about 3:1 with some existing nute-mix that was at 5.0. Hopefully that will put me in the 5.9-6.1 range tonight.

A bigger res would make it much easier to control pH.

Pics tonight.
 
E

Elcap

Boo yah. Got my pH at 6.0, which is exactly where I want it now, hopefully I can maintain that for the next couple weeks to let her soak up all the Mg and N she wants.

If I run this same setup in the future, I'm going to up-size my res. The pH swings are just too quick and too much since my res is only holding about 5gal or a little less. If you do a lot of res swaps, the smaller vol isn't too big of a deal. But I only do one or two full res swapouts per grow...basically as few as possible, one at the switch to 12/12 and one about halfway through flower...so about once a month.

Another mod I will make for the next run: A hole in the lid to fit a turkey baster so I can extract my daily sample from the res for testing pH/ppm etc without having to open the lid every time.
 
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