Micro Adventures with Mr. Sparkle

[Mr. Sparkle]

4.5 days later from the previous photos

Bogan is doing well, the Think Different x Dark Devil in the back corner is starting to finish out, the others are too but are a little more behind, this definitely wont be high yielding due to the initial coco issues i had but whatever, ill start some new seeds once these plants are almost done.

Ashla is alright, have some new seedlings just opening up today, also the bacteria for the mix seems to be settling in should do a casting or compost tea just to kick things off a bit more, but i don't have access to good sources of either currently, only lesser bagged stuff if i wanted.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

3.5 days later

One to Two of the plants in Bogan will be coming down this weekend, as there pretty much done, wont be any high yield due to the early coco issue but bud is bud.

Ashla is picking up, looks like this organic mix has stabilized some what ass all the new growth looks good, i'll probably flip to 12/12 in a week regardless of how the new seedlings are doing, just so the others don't out grow the space.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Glad i left them a bit longer i can definitely see the bulk in the last couple days, the TDxDD will be coming down this week forsure and one of the ice cool's maybe both, Also a new seedling popped up, being one of the random seeds that were struggling to get going, i just threw all the slow stagnant ones into that pot figuring they wouldn't grow but one powered through so bonus.

What to do next, i might just let things run out, and then decided if i want to run some seeds, which could be some old seeds i just re found in one drawer tucked in the back which i forgot i had and thought i had used them all up, all photo periods of my own crosses or feminizations even a couple of photo period freebies i've never ran, well i guess there is one auto in there but its a lemon haze with a supposed grow time in the 110+day range, which is a lot.

This box is struggling but due to slight neglect and also because all those bacteria cultures are slowly taking hold, need to go get some good compost or castings and make a tea out of it to kick start things, but i fed a little with some maxigro yesterday just to perk things up while that bacteria gets better at doing its job.

 

[pANicModE]

ph or nutes seem a bit off_ you feeding maxigro which is Chem and yet your looking to make teas or talking about bacteria etc. doesnt the chem ferts kill all bacteria ? from my exp you should run all organic or all chem not both.. whats you take on this?

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

ph or nutes seem a bit off_ you feeding maxigro which is Chem and yet your looking to make teas or talking about bacteria etc. doesnt the chem ferts kill all bacteria ? from my exp you should run all organic or all chem not both.. whats you take on this?

Agreed should be either or, but you can run both, and the current organic nutes is mostly likely the cause or at least the break down of them, as for chemical vs organic they can both work together when desired, and it won't kill off the bacteria so long as your not using a sterilizing feed.

The issue though is if you only feed with chemical nutes or consistently you aren't actually supplying anything for the microbiome of your mix, and are just feeding the plant instead, so they die off because of lack of material to break down and thrive on.

So you can do both but you have to be aware of that.

My goal though is to try and have things pre-fertilized so all i need to supply is water, but haven't done straight organic in awhile and i want to keep things as simple as possible with as few things as well, as in no extra bottles, or containers of various fertilizers if i can help it.

 

[pANicModE]

id say make a dose of 5-6grams of maxigro an get the ph dialed and run it straight threw them pots till a ton of water runs out the bottom and they should bounce back in a few day

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Just checked the pH mind you only on one of the pots but i'll check a few more shortly, but input water was 7.0 output for the initial stuff was 6.5 so its within range, also changed the programming slightly to have things run a bit more dry as for this case it seem a little too wet.

Will do some ec measurements as well, really i just think the bacteria isn't established yet and is out of balance, as there are a few signs of that being the case. I'll report back.

But will probably give them a base flush for now with some maxigro in the mix


Edit: Yeah EC was fine as well if anything on the low side from around 0.8-1.0 on the bigger plants, and higher on the seedlings, but gave everything a good flushing and added a little bit of the same organic mix into some water, and followed up with some maxigrow at a low ec of around 1.0 just till things get more balanced, definitely not over feeding, so all i can assume currently is the bacteria is still equalizing and building up as this mix never had an compost or anything added so its just whatever was present in the organic fertilizer, the mix, or anything airborne as the plan was to re incorporate all this mix back into the next batch to bump start things, the other possibility is possibly things were being over watered as the readings i was getting off the freshly watered and saturated pots were not far off of my watering event, so i have a sneaking suspicion this may be the culprit or at least was a part of it.

Still need to make a good tea though to kick off the bacteria and add in some good fresh stuff, ill hunt for some castings or good compost on the weekend, my veggie garden needs it as well anyways.

 

[ReikoX]

It looks like over wattering to me too. Particularly the drooping, that's a classic symptom. I bet they bounce back with the programming adjustments.

 

[Sarcclash]

Still need to make a good tea though to kick off the bacteria and add in some good fresh stuff, ill hunt for some castings or good compost on the weekend, my veggie garden needs it as well anyways.

From my experience it is tough to go 100% organic indoors, especially with fabric pots. Maybe its my basement environment but those pots would be having all sorts of nasties growing on them now that the furnace is off.

I am testing out a self watering homemade system (sorry no pics or post yet) and can definitely say organic water soluble ferts are not the way to go. Or did I say farts? Man did the res stink!
Anyway this was a winter, indoor start, no chance to get the real deal from my own compost. A 10 min h2o2 soak, 1TBSP / gallon, and four shot rinse got me back to breathability.
Next attempt; our big box stores carry brand name granular organic ferts with bacterial cultures present. A little goes a long way especially if you micro garden. I put maybe 10 granules, at least one of each color into each 1 ltr pot. I supplement the res with a weak 5gram/gal masterblend hydroponic fert, mosquito bits as a fungus gnat deterent and a quarter size piece of charcoal. Homemade calmag got the coco coir / perlite medium straightened out. Since only the root zone is in the water, roots pushed all the medium out of way, the medium stays only moist at best. I'm hoping the microbes have a chance to withstand the minerals and salts this way. So far so good! 4th week of flower.
Supposedly plants can't tell the difference between mineral based nutes or organic. I sure can. To me, organic is the way to go and I'd sure like to find a way to bring the goodness from my outdoor veg garden to my micro indoor one. One experiment at a time.
Anyway, end of rant, stoned, Friday.


I'll be following this thread, great stuff Mr. Sparkle!

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Sarcclash thanks for stopping by, and yeah having an organic res i knew those type of issues would arise, thus is why i want to go straight water with pre-fertilized mix, its just getting everything going, and in the right concentrations which takes time to figure out.

But here an update for the thread

I was wrong thought two plants would be done this weekend but they are still going, could harvest now if i wanted to but not really a point in doing so.

As for Ashla, just leaving it to do its own thing for now, things look a bit better, but the arduino is locking up again, but at specific times and then my temp and humidity reading default to 0, so somethings is a miss, gonna suspect a dodgy Chineseium arduino, so i might just order some parts redo everything, with a bit better wiring/soldering. Or just say F* it and retire this case as one i prefer Bogan, as its a bit smaller, and is pretty solid as far as reliability goes, and plants seem to stretch more than they need to in this case, and two i dont really need 3 grow boxes, also would gives me an excuse to make another space bucket.

 

[Tbonegrower]

Good luck with the cheap Ardi!

Have you looked at rainbow mix? Not the total solution for a just water it type of setup, but it is a pretty decent place to start.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

no i haven't looked into rainbow mix, i use to run a modified LC #2 soil-less mix in the past and it worked pretty well, i just haven't thrown the effort into this new mix yet, but again goal being as simple as possible, and as few things i need to put into it and have on hand so leaves me with pre mixed fertilizers, and water only is my ultimate goal.


But anyways said screw it and chopped three of the plants, here's pics of two of them, yielded 133g wet so will be between 27-33 grams dried, which is pretty decent for the coco issues had at the start


Think Different x Dark Devil

Ice Cool

 

[seeded]

You take really good pics. That last one is very nice indeed and congrats on the harvest

 

[Tbonegrower]

Looks great!

Still loving the pics!

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Thanks guys

here's an update was gonna post it yesterday but didn't get around to uploading some pictures, so took some new ones this morning.

Bogan is puttering along and im just waiting for the Cream Mandarin to finish up, and we have those other two randoms starting, also a couple of sad tomato seedlings for the garden that weren't getting much light tucked behind some pepper plants i have in the window, had some healthy previous ones but put them out to early so they are struggling, so decided to start up some new plants as they grow quick.

Might hold off starting some seeds and migrate some of the plants over in the other case to this one, as i need to replace that arduino and rewire some things.

Ashla all the plants are doing better now after some earthworm casting were fed to them, so things are getting better for this organic trial and tune run, so we will see if this kicks off some good bacteria and how long we can go before intervening again.

But my Arduino on this is definitely acting up so i'm gonna have to replace and rewire some things shortly probably will do it this weekend or by the weekend.

 

[Budpirate]

Wow man love your setup! Neat little growboxes for sure! And your plants look dank AF x)

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Update, nothing happening much in Bogan other than neglect, two plants haven't really been fed as i was just feed straight water to the plants that were finishing up in it, oh and a couple tomato seedlings which ill probably not need i might move some plants over to this case though.

Ashla's doing alright the castings have helped still far from ideal but the roots are healthy some of the plants are a bit under watered and ill increase the starting feed amount for the mix on the next batch which i may just toss out a bunch of these plants to do, or move them over to the other case, also soldered in a new arduino but it has locked up twice with it in so i suspect the RTC as it was also suspect but i have to order some new ones before i can change it, the wiring is better now though so bonus for that.

And a harvest shot of a Sweet Seeds - Cream Mandarin that had a rough start but finished well

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Lol so I guess you could say i've done some changes over the last couple days, so here's my plan.

I chopped all the plants down in both cases with exception of the 4 photo period plants which got a massive trim back along with their roots.
What i was noticing was the current organic amended coco wasn't working and the nutrients were running out quick.

So im starting up a new test to get this dialed a lot quicker so i can see what i can do with it.

First i'm gonna mix up multiple new batches of coco, with the difference being the amount of fertilizer used.
Im using some Gaia Green - All Purpose Fertilizer which is a "4-4-4" and pretty easy to find around my area, the objective being to see how well it does as is with me eventually adding in a bloom fertilizer later on to balance things out, but will use maxibloom at the end of these if i let them go that long. I'll also be adding in some earthworm castings for mainly bacterial content, and a bit of previously used coco coir for the same reason.

As for seeds i'll be running some Dark Devil F1's of the less favorite selection that i made, just as i don't plant on keeping the plants and some will probably be deficient and some will be over fertilized and burnt, but thats how i will find the center point.

So i'll be most likely making up 4-5 different batches of mix using the same base of straight coco coir, earth worm castings and a bit of used coco from the stuff i just removed, and will vary the concentration of the fertilizer.

And this will all happen in Ashla, which is now waiting on a new RTC and is completely empty.


But here is Bogan with the chopped down photoperiods which were re-potted with some re-amended coco.

 

[ReikoX]

That's the way to fast track dailing in a new organic mix.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Bogan their coming around this case will be used for over flow from the other and once these plants get big enough i'll either take clones or flower them.

Ashla is all ready apart from that arduino parts i need but will run fine as is, all the pots are setup and i will be running 8 pots with concentrations ranging from 0.5 to 4 times the base level of organic fertilizer and all are labeled as such and the far ends will act as a mock "litmus test" per say as it will be easier to tell when the pots will start running out with an under fed pot, and whether at 4 times the base we can fry the plant, oh almost forgot the base level is 15ml or "1 Tbsp" per liter of mix with a cup or two of some Earthworm castings mixed in before i started adding the Gaia Green 4-4-4 fertilizer, so everything is equal apart from the fertilizer concentration, and started 13 seeds the other day with the intention of just taking the one that sprouted quick and ditching the slower ones, but 12 of the 13 have popped just need another half to full day in paper towel before ill plant them, so the left overs ill probably throw into the other case.