Cinderella 99 Micro Grow 2017

[Jonnysact]

Back for a little update:

The ladies are now on day 21 of flower, although they look more like they've only been flowering for barely 2 weeks. I think the defoliation I gave them right around the time I flipped them stressed them out and delayed them slightly. But other than the slow flower, they are looking great. HOWEVER....

I needed to build a new tent for these C99 lol. I was prepared for a 2x stretch, but these babes are doing around 2.5x and still growing!!! So I build myself a tent with PVC and panda film. It's roughly 2x2x4 and has plenty of space for the babes.

So I don't know if I can still classify my grow as "micro" anymore, except for my vegging tub.

As I was building the tent

A little plucking on the weekend to give those lower budsites some well earned light.

And here they were this morning:

 

[Jonnysact]

My clones on the other hand...

This is my damaged love affair with ProMix. In Coco, I feel like a grow king. In Promix, I feel like a fool that should never touch anything green. For some reason, I simply cannot get healthy growth out of Promix, and I've been trying for years now.

So now, I'm going to try something at the risk of killing my clones for the sake of experimentation.

About a year and a half ago, when I was suffering extreme deficiencies with ProMix, users from ICMAG came to my rescue. One of the members (Chimera) offered a suggestion that saved my plants and got me through flowering.

Originally my growth was all yellow, lime green and all of the stems had gone hard and purple. Chimera had me flush my material until things were stable at around pH 6.7. That number got green growth to resume and things started looking good again.

But 6.7 ain't swinging it with these cuttings. They are looking all kinds of deficient and turning for the worse very quickly. So one of the cuttings I'll continue to water at 6.5-6.6 and the other one I'll water at 6.0-6.1 and see which of the two fair better. I just want green growth again and remember very well why I fell in love with coco... I just really, really want to get this and don't want to lose to Promix. I know that medium has been so successful for so many growers.

I'm running Promix BX with 25% added perlite. Feeding with Botanicaire CalMag Plus and GH FNB. Transplanted them yesterday and gave them a feed of 450 (150ppm water + 100ppm calmag + 200ppm FNB) pH'ed to 6.0 and 6.5. Let's see which one looks the best in a few days. C'mon babes...

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

my issue with promix when i was running years ago was that over time like your experiencing the ph would drift especially in a micro environment and i would run into all sorts of PH induced issues, also you always had to run it a bit on the wetter side cause once it dried out, it took awhile for water to get reabsorbed into the soil, and if you were doing that with nutrients the plants would suck up as much as possible as quick as possible and burn itself a bit unless you under fed it till the soil was at the proper hydration level.

I eventually was ph'ing every watering which made things stay on track for the most part, but was somewhat of a pain so i looked for a simpler option which is when i started adding 1-2tbsp dolomite lime per gallon of mix for its ph buffering capabilities and its added cal/mag content, i've never had an issue like that afterwards, i still add it to my coco now, and haven't check my ph in years.

Something you should take a look into though

 

[Jonnysact]

Definitely Mr Sparkle.

Let's look at your practice for a second. If you don't PH your water, what is the water's PH? You get good results simply adding feed to water and then watering? I wonder what the PH of that water and nutrient mix ended up being. Did you ever take those measurements?

I ask because different nutrients acidify or alkalize water differently. I throw XYZppm of flora nova bloom and it only drops my PH by X, where as my other forumla drops it by almost a half stop lower.

So although you don't PH, I would still very much like to know your numbers if they are available.

Cheers!

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Definitely Mr Sparkle.

Let's look at your practice for a second. If you don't PH your water, what is the water's PH? You get good results simply adding feed to water and then watering? I wonder what the PH of that water and nutrient mix ended up being. Did you ever take those measurements?

I ask because different nutrients acidify or alkalize water differently. I throw XYZppm of flora nova bloom and it only drops my PH by X, where as my other forumla drops it by almost a half stop lower.

So although you don't PH, I would still very much like to know your numbers if they are available.

Cheers!

Forsure even though i don't ph test day to day, i have done base lines, and i'm in no way dismissing that people definitely should do that.

My base water is 7.0ph and come in at around 12-18ppm not that we're talking about ppm, but it a very good source, but in my last location i was around 7.2-7.4 with a higher 350-450ppm concentration i ran a ro filter which brought my ph down to 7.0ish.

Now i use maxibloom, and maxigro, and one of them does drop the ph a little more than the other, but can't remember which one off hand, but after mixing usually my ph drops to around 5.8-6.2 which depends on the concentration of the final nutrient water.

Dolomite lime acts as a ph buffer with a stabilization of around 7.0ph when in high enough concentrations, and i have noticed that when running the same mix side by side one with and one without DL, that the one without initially can handle the lower ph of the nutrient water but then the mix eventually acidifies after 3-5 weeks and causes ph lockout issues to occur, i also reuse my mix, and have tested with re amending and not re amending with dolomite lime, if amended initially i can get 2 cycles fine out of it with a third starting to show issue near the midpoint to end of flower, whereas when re amended at a lower 1tbsp/gal or less every cycle, the issues don't occur.

Now saying all that is a ph of say 7.0 in a hydro/coco type environment ideal, by the research and what we know that is a no, but by me not overdoing it on the dolomite lime the ph buffering capabilities is more or less split or leaning to the under 7.0 side which for me balances out my nutrient water, making a ph that is in the decent range for the plants in that type environment, but as for soil a ph of 7 is pretty good.

It just plain out helps if wanting to keep things as simple as possible, or at least has for me, but again people should read more into dolomite lime and if they are interested should do some of their own tests to see how it works for them.

Now can you apply too much definitely, but that's where some reading and background knowledge come in handy.

Its worth the look.

 

[jonhova]

make sure it's POWDERED dolomite lime not pellets.

 

[Jonnysact]

Awesome info guys, thank you so, so much!!

 

[Jonnysact]

The clones have completely bounced back, getting a little feed, praying and new growth is looking nice and green.

Really excited to see how she's going to fill out. Looking at her from above, it's very easy to see just how far on the Sativa side of things she is. Her leaves almost look like fat blades of grass.

And I know that Sativa's generally don't harvest as much, or create buds as big as hybrids of Indicas, but these budsites are about 1.5" apart and I'm very excited to see how she turns out in the end. Wondering if this strain will create a few long colas or if it will be smaller buds more spaced out.

What do you guys think? Will those budsites connect in the end?

 

[blueschato]

Amazing pictures Jonnysact,i just love the colors,wish you have a great harvest from this c99.
Hola

 

[bsgospel]

Continued from Buy Vs. Build- How does your light hang in your tent? Any reinforcements up there? How does the film enclosure handle temperatures?

*Subscribed

 

[starke]

Looking great! Keep it up. Love the living art photo with the plucked fan leaves.

 

[Jonnysact]

Continued from Buy Vs. Build- How does your light hang in your tent? Any reinforcements up there? How does the film enclosure handle temperatures?

*Subscribed

I'll show you with a photo

The "S" hook is being suspended by two zip-ties. The light weighs very, very little. I check on it every few days to see if the plastic gives, but so far in two weeks, nothing... I Would come up with another solution if my light was heavier.

Temperature wise, I only really know the canopy, which hovers at 75 during the day and around 67-68 at night. I imagine the top of the tent where the light has it's exhaust, near my exhaust, is probably closer to 80. This film is VERY, VERY durable. Difficult to tear and quite thick. I imagine it can stand quite the abuse as far as temperatures go before anything begins to happen.

 

[Jonnysact]

Decided to upgrade my light from the 270W ufo led to a 600W mars hydro (really closer to 275W but still double what my ufo was giving).

The babes have stopped stretching completely and are starting to bud up!

Took this pic when the light arrived on the 16th.

And this little closeup was taken today.

 

[n_d_ledz]

Looks like it covers the space much better than the last.

Nice budshot, it may need to come with a warning!

 

[#1cheesebuds]

like the new light. Here's to some good luck on those ladies growing super great buds.

 

[Sativamane]

Awesome Jonny. I am micro growing female seeds c99 too, but only a few weeks into flowering. I am excited to see your progress. Happy growing mane.

 

[Jonnysact]

Thanks guys! Your grow is looking really good Sativamane! Excited to see how they turn out. My clone cuttings are having a little trouble in the promix, but I'm sure they will pull through.

Some bud shots:

 

[trich0me$]

Great pics!

 

[#1cheesebuds]

Dam! dude those flowers r looking great to me. What's wrong with them?

 

[Jonnysact]

Hey Cheese,

These flowers and plants are fine. They are both in Coco and it's been an absolute breeze.

My problems are with the clone cuttings in Promix BX with added perlite. It seems I can never get things quite dialed in.... green stems go purple, then green again. Slow growth, sometimes get burned... I just haven't quite figured it out yet, that's all. Others make it look so easy I love how simple it is to grow in coco but I can't continue to have a medium that requires daily waterings.