Not really hitting my stride yet, any suggestions how to improve?

[707OGBUSH970]

There was a lot of info here, so I didnt quite get to reading every single post to get a sense of what needed to be said.

The thing about growing is that, when it comes down to it, its really simple: Light, CO2 Water, Nutes, Temp and Humidity...Nailing those things is 98 percent of your problem. I have to say I think you are overthinking everything and focusing on all of these particulars when you haven't even actually nailed the basic--what we call climate-- requirements. I guarantee you would do better just getting bag of Pro mix and an all purpose fertilizer and just doing that. You are not seeing the benefits ( or enough of them to make it worth it) from all the fancy stuff you are using. Judging by what you have said, I can almost guarantee that you are overwatering as well. I dont have to look at you plants, but i would put my money on it.

I get it. You want them to have the best. However, you need to focus on the basics first. I have seen many people get bogged down in all these extraneous particulars before they even nailed the basics.

I wish you all the best.

 

[Microbeman]

I have used dolomite just combined with oyster shell and/or gypsum and rock/clay dust. I used it in much less volume than most recommend.

 

[Klompen]

Thanks. I haven't decided on my exact mix yet but I'll probably go with a coco/peat/perlite combo mix with organic nutrients. I have a while to decide still.

 

[bigbadbiddy]

I had the same base mix in my first run (coco, perlite, peat).


Can't say if it helped or not but in my second mix, I left out the coco and had better results (surely I did some other stuff different though).


I basically included the coco first time around because I had it lying around. No other reason really.
Later on found out the coco wasn't completely inert but actually included some salt based nutrients (so do consider that when choosing your coco).
Otherwise, by my limited experience, I would leave out the coco. Doesn't seem to add anything to the mix but could potentially be a drawback.


As an update on my situation:


I have sourced and ordered all the ingredients to mix a new batch of soil. Currently waiting for delivery.


I will use the krill meal after all. I found a couple of stores for organic soil in the uk that also listed krill meal as their nutrient source (some also sold buckwheat hulls as an aeration amendment ...).


So I figure I am good to go and give it a test.


My soil ingredients should arrive in a week or so and then I will get to mixing, letting it rest a few weeks and get to planting.


Currently cleaning everything out. Might also finally set up my pressurized Blumat system for the flowering chambers this time around. And also will start topping the plants much earlier this time, hoping this will drastically increase my yields as well.

 

[Klompen]

I used a reptile bedding brand called Eco Earth and what I really liked about coco was how hard it was to drown or over-water the plants. The other thing I used to do was put a couple inches of diatomaceous earth at the bottom of the grow bags to help ensure the base of the roots could breathe better. I only ended up scrapping that grow when I got invaded by root aphids that came in on some soil I made the mistake of purchasing from Home Depot...

I've heard about the Blumat systems. I really wonder how necessary they are. I suppose it could make watering a lot easier if you have a massive plant count I guess... Have you ever used them before?

 

[bigbadbiddy]

Have used them as emergency supplies during vacation before but not with canna.


What really convinced me was the pressurized system.


Basically you hook a pump and accumulator up to your res and hook the blumats to those.


End result is a constant water pressure on the entire blumat line from start to end. Once you dialed in your Blumats to drip only when needed, you basically have all the automation of hydro in an organic soil setup.


Basically the only thing left to do during flower is then watering with compost teas if you are so inclined, possibly top dress or whatever.


I planned on giving the flower girls a microbial tea after transplanting to flower, then let the blumats do their magic and maybe give them an ACT mid-flower or so. That should be it.

 

[Klompen]

Interesting. I wonder how that compares to OBBT(organic bubble bath tubs)

 

[bigbadbiddy]

There is a huge thread here on the board about blumat systems.


But it is mainly concerned with the pros and cons, finding the right dimensions, installation etc.


Haven't seen too many grow logs where people ran them, come to think of it ..

 

[GOT_BUD?]

There is a huge thread here on the board about blumat systems.


But it is mainly concerned with the pros and cons, finding the right dimensions, installation etc.


Haven't seen too many grow logs where people ran them, come to think of it ..

A few of the bigger outdoor guys out west use them and swear by them. Proper installation is key. They can sometimes be a bit finicky. But they are supposedly easy to diagnose and fix because they are such a simple system.

KIS organics has a great video on setting them up on their youtube channel.

I plan on going to them when funds allow for my indoor garden. And probably my outdoor veggie garden as well.

 

[bigbadbiddy]

Sourcing the blumats isn't all that easy.


The are all produced in Austria and they supply the whole world with them through various outlets.


To my dissatisfaction, the Blumat guys were not interested in bartering or making a deal for my setup when I contacted them directly. I think they start considering discounts when we are talking about a greenhouse or two, so basically big projects.




I ended up buying a full set, must be about 30 or so carrots in there.


The luck I had was that that set was still in original packaging but it had been sitting on the shops shelves for so long that the packaging was considerably worn and faded. The blumats inside and the other components looked in great condition though.
I managed to get that set plus a buuuunch of connectors and hoses and stuff (basically bought the rest of the stuff the shop had for blumat) for about 80 bucks. Was a very good deal.


Normally these things are just a tad bit expensive but if one can find a deal like I did, I really see no drawback.


Together with the pump and accumulator though, we are close to 300 bucks. Considering it is a fully automated watering system for organic soil at that point, I think that is a good investment.

 

[PaulieWaulie]

$80 is crazy for 30 sensor/drips !

Im looking at 400 CAD for 48 sensor/drip kit. Plus I also need 3X 4'by4' trays incase of flooding overflow. so thats another $400 CAD, so Im gonna wait abit.

My watering game in the last 2 years since starting has gone from

A) a bucket and a cup
B) a 15 Garbage bin res and a jug
C) several 15G garbage bin res & watering cans
C) 55G rain barrel raised 3 feet, with 50 foot hose watering wand attached for passive gravity watering!

I have just started doing C, so Im gonna stick with this step as its a big improvment, but the final step would be the blumats connected to several massive res's!

 

[bigbadbiddy]

Watering wands I feel are pretty much the ol' faithful of this.


I have been using a small res with a submersible pump and a watering wand as well with good success. Pretty much all you need.


The submersible pumps aren't that pricey as well if you look for a deal and you don't need a very powerful pump as well.


My problem vis a vis the res was PHing it.


I used PH down for swimming pools for a while, not noticing the tiny "anti bacterial" tag in the bottom left corner for almost a year... Was surprised I had that decent results with that.


Then I switched to other PH down alternatives and during one unfortunate day put in apple cider vinegar. That pretty much ruined my res. Haven't gotten rid of the "mother of vinegar" stuff inside my res since. Have cleaned it out 3 times with bleach, still get that buildup.


I was using citric acid afterwards but even after 2 cleanups, still mother of vinegar buildup.


Now I might not PH my res again going forward. Before I was thinking the water PH was a major factor in my trouble but since I am now convinced it was all tied to the buckwheat hulls, I might try another run without PHing my res. Otherwise I just hope my res has been cleaned often enough now and the citric acid does the trick. If all things fail, I will have to get a new res and never let it be touched by vinegar ...


Come to think of it, I definitely have to do a run without the blumats to make sure my res is no longer contaminated or I will ruin the blumats real quick I'm afraid.

 

[PaulieWaulie]

I think it is not always necessary to ph your water, It depends on your water source. My water is PH 7.4 to 7.8. It has a ppm of 200-240 (harder in winter) and 180ppm out of that 200 is calcium carbonate. The issue is not the ph of the water itself, but the hardness will have an effect on the media ph, in the long run, bringing it up. Basically - PH and alkalinity of water are 2 different things. So by using ph down you remove the alkalinity buffer, keeping the media ph stable in the long run. So it all depends on your water, I also am not too worried about adding 20 ppm of phosphoric acid as my ph down, as far as killing my soil microbes. Like your experience shows, some things like the vinegar or lemon juice can cause problems, esp when mixing a res that sits for 3-4 weeks!

 

[bigbadbiddy]

Yep,


I would not have started PHing my water if I hadn't begun seeing deficiencies in the plants.


My water is unfortunately quite hard. up to 700 ppm on bad days, around 300ppm on average. PH is also in the 7.1-7.4 range.


Far from ideal but should be workable.


I used to PH it down to 6.2 or in that range and imagined it having positive effects.
But everything was just skewed and distorted by the buckwheat hulls, I believe.


Will know soon. The soil stuff should arrive in the coming days and then I get to mixing. I think in a month or two I will have the first indications to how much of a negative factor the buckwheat hulls really were.

 

[PaulieWaulie]

700ppm is pretty hard, I would look into that maybe, do a side by side where you do just one plant with 0 ppm rainwater, Im even curious to try that and my water is only 200ppm.

 

[bigbadbiddy]

My first run in the current setup was done using well-water which was close to 0ppm.
I carried that shit every week for my plants


Was all fine but the second run I did, I didn't have time to carry the well-water every week anymore so I went with the tab.


Came out better than the first run.


Probably had more to do with other changes I made from first to second soil batch but the overarching issues remained due to continued use of buckwheat hulls.


I might do a side-by-side with the well-water again but for the first run in the new batch, sans buckwheat, will be with tab.


700ppm is not the average but the peak I have measured. Unfortunately I couldn't really figure out when these peaks happen. So now I just read the PH of the water before filling my res and if it is around 200-300ppm I go ahead. If it is higher, I wait half a day or a day and it usually comes back down.

 

[GOT_BUD?]

I'll be honest with you, I'd love your water.

I have access to both city water and well water.

My well water is 1800 ppm and comes out bright red from iron and clay.

My city water is 1100 ppm right out of the pipe, and 1200 ppm after softening.

Thank whomever invented the RO filter.

 

[Buddyy]

Hey bigbadbiddy,

Pictures= 1000words.

You mention that you defoliate. Do you trim fan leaves to give bud sites more light?

 

[HBF]

That's a real high ppm to grow pot, it's' the level of total salts you put in water for a lot of hydroponic growing.

If you're ever really gonna be feeling like you're not ramming and kicking a stone wall, you're gonna have to punt from $25 + a couple of other parts to hook an RO to a well water hose,

or really you should get the darn $70, $85 dollar ones that have two pre-filters.

I know what a hassle breaking into learning about filtration can be but in defense of suggesting you go take a couple of antacids and buy yet another technology - it really is, one line in,

and only two lines out,

when it's all said and done.

You have a sand filter of course, to catch sand, wrenches, rocks, old lawn furniture and whatever else comes through the water hose - that much is kinda like.. "Yeah, I get it,"

and then, there's another pre filter people have had to use for years. You gotta get a darn carbon filter if there's any chlorine, because the original films, they make these filters out of, are degraded somehow by the chlorine, I knew what the deal was but now I can't remember, and today they have another kind that are some sort of like.. I wanna say cellulose acetate - and allegedly the chlorine or chloramine, doesn't damage those but still and all, the other kind are new, and also - a lotta times, in the overall world, you've gotta have all the chloramine out for medical things, like dialysis.

So almost all of em sell you this giant contraption looking deal that is three tubes, in a row: the sand filter, the carbon filter you often see as ''A/C'' - it's "Activated Charcoal." Then the Reverse osmosis filter is last of course and it looks like somebody molded a plastic tube, to stick an empty paper towel cardboard roll in, when it's inside the plastic torpedo tube housing.

All you ever see is on one end of it there's a little line in,


then out at the other end of this contraption there's two lines out.

Well - if you open the the RO shell and look inside, it becomes very plain what goes on inside.

You stick the filter itself inside there, into some sockets that have O rings and your input water comes in one end of it - from the other filters, is how that goes - then out the other end, there's two little lines there, too:

one of them, the line-out that's dead center - is - go figure, the water that seeps from outside the filter, to- the other side of it, purified.

And then there's another little line out and this one has a little hand valve on it you set yourself, and it lets the brine, the highly mineralized water, get OUT and this is called the waste line.

It's got all the minerals of the input water but it's also got all the minerals the filter, took out of that water drizzling out of your center line out for pure water there.

And what you have to do to run it is adjust this little 79cent valve, so you set how much waste you have, vs how much R.O. you have.

The less waste water, the more minerals are pushed against the wall of the filter and the sooner it clogs up, ultimately.

The MORE waste water, then- ultimately, the less minerals are IN that waste water and that means, sorta by extension that there are less concentrated minerals, pressing against the filter, so it clogs later.

And you kinda figure this all out, and you learn about how you can f*** it up, and how ya won't f*** it up, and they run, really, sorta automatically if you set it up right.

What you have to learn to do is control flow by turning the input water on and off, and when this happens, don't let the waste line drain completely. Like - up under peoples' sinks, when they put these in for drinking and coffee, etc?

The waste line, is run in a little loop configuration that just like an under sink regular drain, is designed to keep some water in the line, not so gases won't back up per SE
but so gases don't CLIMB up the empty drain line,
and evaporate the turned off water,
off the outside of the filter,
causing build up on the outside of it.

Something else for you to start doing is catching rain water.
However possible that is for you, you would know, not I, so that'll be something you need to figure out.

What growers do is set one up to run into a barrel or something for awhile, and then they turn them off manually because really that's a lot easier than a lot of other stuff you gotta do to turn them off automatically.

I don't know what your situation is but it's really kinda hard to get around using a water filter that's just all there is to it. Hard water is hell on growing pot.

Because you're not just trying to keep it alive through zombie apocalypse, you're trying to get predictable stuff goin' on. You're thinking to yourself, high quality very healthy weed,
when what you've really got is some very tough water a plant can survive in, sure. But high fidelity free-flyin mind blowing weed in respectable quantities might not be part of that.. combination of circumstances.

I'm sorry it's gonna cost you some money, dude, if you're on well water you can get by without the 85 bucks or whatever, I think if you REALLY low ball you can get a whole set for 70 bucks three filters all this - but the main thing if you're on well water

is just an R.O. and a sand filter and if you're not a true paranoid and you're out somewhere and it IS like zombie apocalypse, you can run the RO on a well, without even a special sand filter for that R.O. for a while. You need one but if you've gotta get stuff and you're just broke as h** you can get a 50 gal per day RO filter (that's either average or max, you adjust to account for filter life anyway, you'll see how it is) and a shell for it, the torpedo looking outside with the one input, and two outputs - filtered and mineralized waste,

for 25 bucks cash American on Ebay. https://is.gd/PQ0t7Q

My wife and I have been moving between three residences, two of which we own, one of which my son is buying so I thought I needed one for the house we just bought, and got one like that. You have to take it into Home Depot with you and get a guy to help you sort out how to go from - nominally for a kinda guerrilla or low footprint deal, a water hose - (you buy a cap for one and a barb, drill the water hose cap out, push in the barb, then push your little 1/4'' feed line on is what you do) to pure water out the other end.

It turned out that my wife and son had loaded up our household one, from where we were living, so I never had to hook mine up this past summer, I used the one with the sand, carbon and RO, so now I have that one I bought laying in a drawer. It's smaller than the ones you get for a house in gallons per day because when you buy the whole thing, you can often get a really good deal and buy like a 100 gallon per day rating filter, rather than the little 50 I showed you.

That's my story in general if somebody gives you a better idea, obviously, take it. Catching rainwater is a big one. Can you catch rainwater? Catching rainwater is actually a lot of fun, believe it or not because you buy those barrels from swap meets, and figure out how to filter your gutter water through some scrubber pads, and sometimes, you'll get creative and have a big sponge, filtering the water as it falls into this barrel, and every time it rains you get just hundreds, upon hundreds of free, crystal clear, damned near perfectly pure, water.

Good luck man you're gonna have a far easier life on better water. Just guaranteed,

If you don't get a sand filter or you just already HAVE one, and you're on well, you're 25 bucks plus a couple of parts from Home Depot from finding out about the pristine water growing world, and I give you my EVERY assurance, you WILL be happier.

Peace

Yep,


I would not have started PHing my water if I hadn't begun seeing deficiencies in the plants.


My water is unfortunately quite hard. up to 700 ppm on bad days, around 300ppm on average. PH is also in the 7.1-7.4 range.


Far from ideal but should be workable.


I used to PH it down to 6.2 or in that range and imagined it having positive effects.
But everything was just skewed and distorted by the buckwheat hulls, I believe.


Will know soon. The soil stuff should arrive in the coming days and then I get to mixing. I think in a month or two I will have the first indications to how much of a negative factor the buckwheat hulls really were.

 

[bigbadbiddy]

Nice man, I will come back to this in the near future!


Yes, an RO filter has been an item of interest for me for a while now.


I just started to tackle the setup in other places first and now ultimately landed at the buckwheat hulls as the main culprit.


Pending my next round (I just mixed the fresh soil batch, waiting for it to cook now and for the worms to do their work) and how that shakes out, the water is definitely the next item on my list.


As I mentioned before, I also have a pressurized Blumat system waiting to be hooked up and installed and I am currently debating if I use the current downtime to install it for the next run.


Might do one more run of handwatering and then during the run decide if I go for an RO filter or not.


My issue with the RO filter system is that I don't have a dedicated faucet for my grow room. I would have to use the faucet in the adjacent room, install the RO filter there, drill a hole in the wall, lay some pipe over to the grow room and connect it to the res.
All possible and not too big of a project but...
The faucet I would tap is in use so it has to remain usable. Also possible as, afaik, it is possible to get a Y connector to the faucet which allows you to use it as regular while still allowing the RO system to tap into it.


So if that all works, the last remaining obstacle is the size of the RO system.


I did a little (basic) research on RO systems and ended up eyeing a "direct-flow RO system" which would allow me to filter the water the same time I draw it from the faucet, basically real-time.
These systems are quite pricey however and would run me a few hundred.


Maybe if you or someone else could help me match the size/type of RO system, I could get away with a cheaper one that just continuously, slowly filters and drips into my res.


As it stands I was thinking if I install an RO system, I might as well shell out a few hundred to go with a direct flow system because then I can also use RO water for other stuff around the house, as well as my veg chamber (which I would continue to water by hand through a submersible pump in the res).


Basically the RO system (if not direct flow) would have to filter/produce enough RO water to cover the watering needs of my veg chamber and the 2 flowering chambers on Blumats. Not sure what size RO filter I would need for that.


Another drawback of the "regular" (i.e. not direct flow) RO systems to me, seemed the question of "when/how do I shut it off?". Meaning how do I make sure that it doesn't produce too much RO water and my res overflows?


My research informed me that there are workarounds using magnet couplings and the like but it seemed to me that with a direct flow RO system, this whole shabang also gets solved much easier. Basically you can run it on a timer and that's it.




Another reason I didn't pull the trigger on an RO filter yet is that my result with well-water was actually worse than my result with the hard tap water. That might have other reasons though.





Anyway:
RO is definitely next on the list for adjustments, provided that the soil mix works out. I went with the krill meal after all and cross my fingers now that it will do the trick fine.