My first plant(2)

[Hushpuppy]

Yeah, there are several. In my opinion the most reliable and easiest is the bubble-ponics cloner. However, for you being in soil, I would say to get one of the rapid rooter plug kits. Here is a link to Advanced Nutrients' rooting plugs that they sell. I bought 1 of these and cut it down to several smaller container batches so that I could use only 6 at a time. hxxp://www.advancednutrients.com/hydroponics/products/root_shooters/root_shooters_product_information.php

I put them in a plastic tote with about 2" of hydroton under them for good drainage. They worked very well 100% for me for cuttings. I am going to use them from now on for germing seeds as I now use the bubble cloner for cuttings. There are a couple different brands of these that are sold by different places but they are basically the same things. Just don't get the jiffy plugs as they are tricky to use.

 

[The Silver Bullet Special]

How do you store your RRs the ones I bought molded... also when I calibrate my meter the label tells me to put it in ph7 water and wait for a steady reading then hold calibrate, after that I drop it in the ph4 stuff and do the same thing... how long does it typically take to give you a steady readout. My meter when I press and hold CAL it just says ER on it.

I'm off work tomorrow so I'll throw up some pics of how the flowering is coming along when the lights click on.

 

[Hushpuppy]

That sucks that the rooters molded. I just leave mine under the light until they dry out completely then I just stick them in a tote with a lid on it.

What I do is get the 2 cups that came with my kit and put the PH cal fluiuds in each one. then I take out my pen and rinse it in fresh water(which I do before and after every use) then stick it in the PH7 and swish it around a bit before turning it on(as I have found that helps it settle faster), then I press and hold the calibrate button for a few seconds until it switches over to calibrate mode. When it does its thing I take it out of the solution and shake it off then stick it in the PH4 solution and do the same thing again. When its done I turn it off and rinse it off then put it back in its cap.

If yours fails to calibrate then you will need to contact the place you got it from and tell them as that means that the probe has failed. If it sat dry in a store for a long period before you bought it, that will kill the probe.

 

[The Silver Bullet Special]

Gotcha, I dont think I was holding the button long enough but I got it to work.

Here's just some pics I took real quick for updates.

Any ideas on why the leaves are kinda spotty? The PH of my run off is 6.5.

 

[Hushpuppy]

those plants look nice but the spots are not so good. Have you been foliar spraying? if not, what is the PH of the water going in? That could be a PH issue of a toxicity issue.

 

[The Silver Bullet Special]

The only time I foliar fed was once a few weeks back, the water ph going in has been about mid 6's.

 

[Hushpuppy]

I meant to say OR a toxicity issue, but I'm not too convinced that is toxicity. The PH sounds solid. When is the last time you added anything for calcium and magnesium. Calcium def sort of looks like that, and the leaves are showing what could be the beginning of magnesium def. A lot of the nute brands don't offer a lot of cal/mag (I suspect it doesn't mix well with the other nutes) which is why a lot of growers including myself keep calmag solution or ammend the soil with dolomite lime.

 

[The Silver Bullet Special]

I totally forgot all about cal/mag.... it may need some? Also is there a ph buffer time for calmag?

When I go to water should I keep the ph the same as run off? Now that i have the testing stuff I can get more accurate

 

[williamraed]

That's very nice plants, I have also shared my first plant, which is so beautiful and impressive. Here's just some pics I took real quick for updates. I have to say that This plant has seemed to have been flowering since mid September.

 

[The Silver Bullet Special]

That's very nice plants, I have also shared my first plant, which is so beautiful and impressive. Here's just some pics I took real quick for updates. I have to say that This plant has seemed to have been flowering since mid September.

Hmmm..... uhh what? I think you're on the wrong forum... definitely the wrong thread.

 

[sasnak]

I think this guy is just jerkin our chain...

 

[Hushpuppy]

Yeah, I don't know what the deal is with that guy, I thought maybe a spam alert was in order at first but now I am concerned he may be drying and smoking those flowers that he pictured :confused2:

Anyway, Sorry SB for not getting back to you yesterday. To my knowledge and experience, there is no buffer time for the cal/mag, and if you haven't been giving any then some is definitely in order.

For PH testing, always set up ypur nute solution to be around 6.5 to 6.8 for general operation. You can check runoff to see where the soil is, but you have to remember that there is a ballancing act that goes on there if you check it after watering with nuted water. The reason is because of the chemical exchange that occurs in the soil. Some of the chems in the water are held within the soil while others are exchanged with other chems. Honestly, I don't know if the runoff would accurately tell the true PH of the soil or not. I just make sure that what goes in is correct.

 

[The Silver Bullet Special]

Yeah not too sure about him lol... I kinda Laughed at the post for possibly being sarcastic; but then I remember that maybe he was being serious haha.

Cool thanks Hush, I mixed up a cal/mag solution and just watered with it last night because it was watering day.... I've noticed I have to go from every 4 days now to roughly 2-3 days in a 5 gal bucket to water. Drier air has moved over the tropics right now.

The only thing I dont have is a hygrometer.. but since I'll be ordering my fan and light possibly today (one or the other) I'll add a few of those in the order too.

As far as a plant update goes I'm noticing the calyxes(sp) starting to swell up a bit. I'm suprised on how that light is actually doing since it's not the right bulb color and its a T5. I cant wait to get the HPS up and going on some Satori here in a few weeks. Once this finishes.

 

[Hushpuppy]

You say your using the wrong spectrum, If it is the 6500K or the 3000K then its ok. For flowering the 3000K is better as it tends to feed the budding better but The vegging spectrum certainly won't hurt it. The only bad spectrum is the 4000-5500K range as those have a lot more of the unusable light in the green range. But there have been plenty of peeps here that have flowered with the veg spectrum and did fine.

 

[The Silver Bullet Special]

Okay i gave her 1teaspoon of calmag in a gallon the spots havent changed much so maybe ph issue? Theres slight yellowing(like an N def) on the leaves mid height in the plant. Ill get pics up tomorrow afternoon.

 

[The Silver Bullet Special]

When I said wrong spectrum I guess I should have said "I'm not using the optimal spectrum". The plant only has the spotting on half of it... Do you think that it may be burn spots from a foliar feed a while ago?

The leaves are starting to yellow rapidly, I'm not sure if it's just the normal part of flowering or I need to add N to my nutes. It appears my PH meter didnt calibrate right.

When I tested my nute solution it came out to 7.9 but whne I tested with my liquid drops in the vial it read something like 5.2... Should I get 7.0 calibration solution to calibrate too?

 

[Hushpuppy]

The spots on the leaves in the earlier pics look to me like foliar feed burn. As far as the yellowing in the middle leaves, If the PH is off then it could be locking out any one or more of the nutrients. However, adding more nitrogen wouldn't help if that is the case, and it could hurt them more. As far as the spots go, I have the same looking thing on a few of my plants that I sprayed with a PM preventative. It didn't seem like it should have burned them but for some reason it did. that may be what happened with yours.

The necrotic spots will not heal once they are past a certain point but if the plant remains healthy then the leaf will most likely survive for a better part of the plant's life, or until the plant doesn't want or need that particular leaf. Many of the leaves on my plants that were burned have become buried by new and higher growth and are now beginning to yellow off because some of them aren't getting light anymore.

If you don't have both calibrating fluids then you need to get them both so that your meter can be calibrated to both high and low range. Doing just one isn't good enough for it to be accurate. I would also try again to recalibrate it. but first take a plain water sample that has no nutes or other chems in it and check it with both the drops and with the meter and see how close they are. If the meter is far off from what you think it should be then try recalibrating. then testing the plain water again.

This may be redundant to what you know but for calibrating my pen; I pour enough of the calibrate solution into a small cup for the pen to be submerged to just above where the cap stops. Then I rinse off the bulb with fresh water(with it turned off), then stick it in the calibrate solution and swish it around for a moment to get any bubbles out from under it. Then I turn it on and continue to gently swish it around until the numbers stop moving and the read display light goes off.

This usually takes about 20seconds, then I press and hold the "cal" button until "cal" lights up on the display, then I release the button and hold it still in the solution until the "cal" turns off and just the number is showing. At that point it is done. I turn it off, take it out and rinse it off in fresh water and sling off any remaining water on it.

DON'T EVER touch the bulb with your fingerrs as any chemicals on your fingers could have a bad effect on the bulb. At this point you should be able to test the plain water again. If it is on the high PH end (at or above 7) then the pen probably won't be as accurate as on lower PH readings.

Try that and see what you get.

 

[The Silver Bullet Special]

Okay thanks for the pointer Hush, I got the 7ph solution on order. I didnt know I needed 7ph fluid until I got the meter lol.

Anyways heres some pics the trics are packin on more and more every day, some are starting to be cloudy now.

Not sure if she is lookin normal or not.. I gave her an watering with only 1tbs of grow and .5tbs of bloom. (I added calmag the watering before this one)


Lemme know what you guys think! Right now I'm just guessing what the PH is from using those drops

 

[Hushpuppy]

Did you mis-type or did you mean to use those levels of nutes. I think if you are doing that, that may be a problem for you. I can't remember the kind of nutrients you are using but in my nutrients you shouldn't give any or very little grow to the solution during the flowering period, and then have a medium amout of micro and a higher amount of bloom.

(I measure in ml and during bloom phase I use 40ml-micro, 10ml-grow, 50ml-bloom). If your nutes work the same as mine then you are giving them way too much nitrogen and too little Phospherous and potassium, and that is causing them to flower much slower and smaller.

 

[The Silver Bullet Special]

I'm used a teaspoon just for the N I completely forgot that micro had some N in it... I Need to get metric liquid measuring cups right now I'm doin it by a teaspoon measuring thing I have.

I have been doing 1tsp micro, 1tsp, grow, 2 tsp bloom. I'll go to using 2tsp of micro and bloom?? I'm using GH flora 3 part.