The little ones are all looking adorableš
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16 days since the first seeds germinated.
Last night I decided to check the PPMs on the water in my clonerā¦ I dipped the EC60 in to the reservoir and it showed 2.1pptā¦ I assumed my meter must be off, so I went and calibrated it, and it still showed 2.1pptā¦ drained it, filled it back up with a 300ppm solution, and it read 800ppm. Clearly I forgot to wash that thing out after itās last use.
In any case, I moved 9 of the seedlings that were in the cloner into the flood tray. There are only four of the 9 that I moved that I think are real candidates for parenthoodā¦ the rest weāll just hope are female - but Iāll have to make space for the next batch of seedlings, so some of them will be culled. I have some odd ball phenos that have showed up - I have two seedlings that look nearly identical with these weird offset nodes, and I have another pair that are growing only single node leaves, so far. Kind of cool to see such significant differences. Shows you how unstable first gen hybrids are, I guess.
I have the pump on the flood table set to flood for 20 minutes every three hours right nowā¦ weāll see how things go and adjust as needed. I do need to get another timer stacked on the pump so it doesnāt flood during lights off.
The reservoir for the flood table is filled with the following, per gallon:
- 2.5ml Armor Si
- 2.5ml Calimagic
- 2.5ml FloraMicro
- 5ml FloraBloom
- 2.5ml Hydroguard
I made up 20 gallons of that and it came out to around 650ppm. I put that in my reservoir, and then added an additional 10 gallons of tap water from my house. Final numbers came out to 575ppm, and the PH is set at 5.78.
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Well, Iāve been having struggles. All the plants in my flood table look like shit, and look like they are starving.
At first I thought maybe it was a stem problem, or potentially the rapid rooters staying drenched and causing issuesā¦ I have eliminated those as possibilities - everything from the roots to the stem looks in order.
I have played with my flood cycles to see if that would matter - they still just keep starving. During the past week or so, as the lower leaves have yellowed and the plants continued to droop, the root systems on each of the plants has grown tremendously. I have many, many healthy white roots sticking out of the bottom of every net pot on the table that has a plant in it.
Soā¦ I decided to increase the PPMs in my reservoir and increase the flood frequently. I figure if they look they need more foodā¦ I might as well give them more food. Weāll see what happens. Eventually I will have the flood cycle figured out, and the depth of the water in the tray figured out, etc.
But for now Iām struggling hard to get these plants to live and thriveā¦ but still at it. If I figure it out, Iāll post about how I figured it out. If they all die, Iāll post that they all died and I am working on a new round and course of action. 
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Good luck figuring it out right. A friend who got me started ONLY grew in rockwool blocks in a flood and drain system. Only ran it once each 3 days
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Yeah, rockwool holds water way better than hydroton. Especially new hydroton. Last grow I flooded three times per day and it worked out greatā¦ also used hydroton, but I had one gallon pots sitting directly in the table, as opposed to net pots hanging off a lid over the table - so they got a LOT more water around/in them.
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Sounds like logical course of action. I love this setup, hoping this will do it and get you on right path.
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As we learned on my last grow, when I get it dialed in, this system basically runs itself and is very low maintenanceā¦ Iāll figure it out. I have like 800 seeds to use to dial it in. Heh.
But I would like to get another harvest in a few monthsā¦ I might just have to specifically plant and grow something to smoke. 
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Nothing wrong with that lol, whatās on the list?
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Well, Iām thinking popping that Killer Queen seed might be a thought. I also believe I have two Double Tangie Banana seeds. On top of that I have a wide variety of ILGM seedsā¦ including a handful of SSH seeds still, and that makes my favorite extract. We will see how this week goes and ponder it in the mean time.
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Pretty sure those are both regs. If youāre looking for smoke specifically may be better choices in your stash. However, seems like killer queen is a winner too. If you run it, Iād have back up plan for potentially saving clone.
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Yeah they are regulars Iām pretty sure. But thatās okay. I can work with a KG or DTB male too.
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I do have that Jack Herer fem you sent meā¦ that would be a good once to flower out.
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Some pics to illustrate what I am dealing with.
Here is the whole table shot:
Here you can see an individual plant, and how it looks like itās starving to death up top:
And here are the roots from that same plant:
Last flood was two hours ago - lights just turned off. You can see in that last pic, the hydroton is still wet after two hours without a flood.
Here is what the plants still in the cloner look like. They are in the same tent (so same RH and temps):
Considering I havenāt even checked PH on the cloner in over a week, I figure they look pretty solid.
Here is another root shot from another plant in the table:
Soā¦ it looks like they are growing and trying to find food to meā¦
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Iād like to see them be Male lol. But if youāre growing a plant to have smoke while youāre adjusting flood table, not sure they are great idea is all.
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Yeah if/when I decided to plant one to harvest, I will likely just do it via DWC as usual in my other tent. When it gets big enough, then I would decide if I want to SCROG it in place or clone it for the flood tableā¦ depends on how everything plays out with what I have going on right now.
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To my inexperienced eyes things look much better this morning. I have new growth on most of the plants and it looks pretty healthy. All the plants grew more roots overnight as well. Two of the plants in the cloner need to be moved soon. Iāll likely put them on the table tonight.
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Great news!
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Day 26 since germination
I now have 12 of the 16 sites on the table filled upā¦ all plants seem to be in recovery mode now that I might have the flood cycle set where they want it. I ended up going to a 20 minute flood cycle every two hours during lights on. So far the plants have responded with a burst of new growth which looks much better than the old growth. I have really good root development on all of the plants at this point.
I will post some updated pics later - damn job is in the way of my updates.
In any case, it looks to me like in a week or so I could consider flipping them. I have two more seedlings in my cloner I would like to move before I do that, and Iād like to give them a week in the table to settle in before I flip.
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Okay, the table is now set. The last two seedlings have been moved from the cloner to the table. I will give them a week to settle in, and then in one week I will flip the lights to 12/12 and get this party started. Plants arenāt looking great, but oh well. Right now I have 30 minute floods going every two hours during lights onā¦ so the flood schedule is like this:
6pm-6:30pm - flood
6:30pm-8pm - no flood
8:00-8:30pm - flood
And so on until 10am the next day.
On the reservoir front, I have checked PH each day and itās stayed very stable, with a slight rise over time. Last night it was at 5.9. I will adjust down tonight, assuming it didnāt go back down for some weird reason.
Here is the table now that I have all the seedlings in it:
You can see the ones that have been in the table for a bit now have developed some nice roots:
New growth is looking better, but not perfectā¦ still have some leaf-curl going on. Humidity has been hard to keep up - Iāve been keeping it around 50% with lights on and around 70% with lights off. With this major cold spell I have had times when itās gotten down into the 30s. Not much I can do about it. In any case, I expect the plants that have been in the table for a few days already will take off this week and grow a lot.
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Does it actually flood the table? Like to where it top feeding? Or raise water level to put roots submerged? Those roots are white and healthy looking for sure.
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