Both reservoirs balanced to 5.8 ph precisely, both reservoirs at 1.0 ec/500ppm (500ppm scale) is ec/ppm too low for this size? 18/6 light cycle. reservoir water temps 70-74 degree. interior tent temps range 72 “night” to 82 max “day” 6" exhaust fan system kicks in at 82 degrees automatically. 45% humidity up to 60% humidity depending on weather. 6 inch exhaust fan kicks in at 60% automatically to reduce humidity. 400 watt light from AC infinity at max height but set to 60 % so i don’t have to keep faffing about raising/lowering it in a 4×4×6 tent. 10" fan blowing against the wall 24/7 to keep air circulation around the plant in an attempt to not be overly aggressive with wind burn. Fertilizer used, master blend. 2.40 grams master blend, 1.2 grams Epsom salt, 2.40 grams calcium nitrate per 1 gallon (4.55 l) of water. (up to 1.0 ec) 2 air stones per reservoir for redundancy. if you need any more info, just ask. i can’t find a solution on google anywhere.
Hey @Raytheon. Everything looks good and right in the ballpark. I would run a little higher humidity for seedlings. They don’t have to root system yet for that low humidity.
Dial the humidity to 70% - 60% at this stage given your daytime temp of 82F the vapor pressure deficit, VPD, is to high causing leaves to dry out. Your root system cannot supply enough H2O to keep up at this point. Think of VPD as the humidity or H2O in the air pressing down on your leaves. If you have fully developed root system they would be able to keep up with this transpiration rate.
I would also dial back ppm to 300 but I don’t think 500 is excessive. Depends on ppm of your source water. What is your water source? What is ppm before adding nutrients? I used carbon filtered rain water that starts around 25ppm to start then 300ppm for the first two weeks in the reservoir.
Water temp for hydroponics should be below 70F. I prep my water by floating a frozen 2 liter frozen water battle for 12 hours to chill to around 65F. All the while I’m using a fish tank triple carbon water filtration system to prep; chill, clean and aerate, my water before adding nutrients, etc.,… and introducing to plants.
Use a product like Hydroguard combat any bad microbes that can colonize your roots around 72F.
These are clones but I treat seedlings the same.
After a ~2 weeks with RapidStart and Hydroguard
Are you using any Beneficial Microbes? For hydroponic system a product like Hydroguard is a must.
Check you VPD levels for the stage of growth your in.
GH RapidStart
Botanicare Hydroguard
tyvm for the in depth reply. i just changed my AC infinity climate control settings to turn on at 70% instead. i also added a 5 gallon (22.73 l) bucket of water into the tent, and soaked a towel from said bucket and hung it from a support beam. I ordered some hydroguard on Amazon. should be here before i go to bed. i also ordered some cal-mag for safe measure. how much do i need to worry about reservoir temps? i can’t afford something as fancy as that for a few pay days. this setup already costs me a small fortune getting a full, and complete AC infinity setup. i can use frozen water bottles, but IDK if they’d last while I’m at work.
edit: source water is tap that i let sit for 48 hours to let chlorine evaporate. normally 8.1 ph but balanced to appropriate levels.
sorry for the second reply. i can’t edit again. i tried checking the ppm, but my bluelab truncheon v2 is not even registering its in the tap water. works fine in water with nutes though.
Water without nutes still has a ph and tds, (except distilled has no tds) if its not reading just water your calabration could be off making its nute readings incorrect.
Get a gallon of distilled water and add the same amount of nutrients as you would add a gallon of source water. Compare the difference. Distilled should be zero so the deference between the two should a sample source to reference going forward.
Pre-chill your water with frozen bottles. Change out water when lights flip on should help with growth. Once you get your Hydroguard it will help put an end to any bad microbes.
Once you go to larger buckets the chill should last longer. Chilling once per day is all I have been doing. Get a couple stages of 2 liter bottles to use and chill each day.
Once your past seedling stage get back to the higher VPD respiration levels. Your roots and leaves will be pumping lots of H2O into your tent. I keep my exhaust constantly once they get going.
Plants really need fresh O2 at night.
If you have a spare air pump and stone hook it to your controls to kick on when you need to raise humidity. I have a humidifier that I use for just the seedling period.
OK, so i have received my orders. i have spent the last couple of hours replacing, water, nutrients, and adding hydroguard, balancing PH (6.0 exactly not a single point above, or below). I have also rebalanced the ppm of my cannabis to 300 PPM as you suggested. I have also rebalanced the chemicals to every single one of my pepper/super hots, tomatoes, along with my cannabis reservoirs.(i suspect your improvements will assist my ENTIRE indoor garden, not just my cannabis.) I went out and purchased x4 2 litre mountain dews just for the bottles to use as ice in the reservoirs (water not the mountain dew, lol). I changed the max temp in the climate control to 75f (23.8c) and the max humidity before climate control kick on to 70% as stated earlier. I’ve also removed damaged leaves on all of my pepper plants, and sprayed them ALL with cal-mag. If you don’t mind, i will comment here, or make a new thread in a week or 2 to let you know the results. I genuinely mean it when i say thank you for all the help.
edit: deleted previous post because i didn’t tag you.
Nice work @Raytheon it will pay off with some diamonds. Keep your eye on the numbers and you’ll see some explosive growth the next few weeks. Keep posting updates on your progress. Will be watching for some nice colas from you soon.