Main Cabinet Evolution

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Week2 since the flip started today (Monday).
Roots:

Bucket got a 1-gal partial res-change, & I increased the PPMs by around 25%. Plant has been moving around 15-20fl oz a day over the past couple days, & starting to eat more. pH has been wanting to move down but not too quickly yet, & has required minimal to no adjustments. I’m expecting it to crash at any time though, since the plant is starting to eat more, & also because the bucket is getting old. It’ll be due for a full res-change in three days.

Photontek, engage! :

It’s been cooler & humid for the past couple days, & the Kind was having trouble getting heat back into the box yesterday at 50% power roughly 100w, with the RH fan running a lot.

Today with the Photontek at 50% power 150w.
Unplugged the RH exhaust fan to dial in the main temp exhaust fan, made one adjustment to the main exhaust fan target at around 4:20 to get it to dump at around 80f. After that, plugged the RH fan back in & it took over until about 6:30 when it got hot enough for the temp exhaust fan to start hitting again:

I’ve been fiddling with the RH target, I had raised it a point a couple days ago, then I lowered it a half point yesterday, today I put the half point back.

Hung a Thermpro in the center again to compare to the wall unit:
Center:

Wall: Slightly warmer & drier readout here.

I might roll down the main exhaust temp target a degree, but it’s ok where it is now.

Added some adhesive clips for the fan sensor wire:

Stuck my matte white reflective panel to the black velcro. Testing below it with my meter showed a 25 ppfd loss without the panel, so I figured I may as well stick it on there.

She does seem to be getting bigger: That one top in the center against the back wall could be placed better, but I’m hoping I can steer it & the others around a little where necessary once they get bigger.

Starting to stretch a little also. This will be the first week with any red & far red light beams shining down, hopefully she doesn’t start stretching like a mainac. I’ll probably want to raise the light tomorrow morning. Some of the tops were seeing around 660ppfd, not accounting for the far red which my meter doesn’t read, she’s probably going to stretch a little tonight, & the dli chart calls for around 650 ppfd for this week.

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10-day full res-change was this morning (Thursday).
Roots:

PPMs went in a little hotter than they had been, & I upped the CalMag & Si a little as well. This will be a short bucket because there’s a ratio change coming up at the beginning of week3, which will be Monday iirc.
Found an uncommon blockage in the air line on the circ pump that I cleared easily.

Top-down view through the light bars:

I’m pushing that back-center top away from the wall with some green wire.

Been raising the fixture to maintain ppfd as the plant stretches upwards.

Also been moving the Thermpros to stay near the top of the canopy & at the same height as each-other. I’d like to pull the center one out of there asap since it blocks light, but the two have been far enough apart in their readouts over the past couple days, that it’s probably more interesting to keep them in there for now. With that in mind I’ve been checking the leaf temps a few times today at strategic times to see what they are doing & to get an idea of where the Leaf VPD is.

Center Thermpro:

Wall:

Made a couple other tweaks by adding another half point to the RH target. Also took a minute of off-time away from the osci fans, which tightened up the response of the RH system.

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Tomorrow (Monday) will be the beginning of Week3 since the flip, & the res will also be getting a full change & new ratio.

I did a 1 gallon partial change yesterday (day 3 since the last full change), & bumped up the ppm by around 20%. pH has been pretty easy to manage, although it was riding the buffers by the end of day 2 after the full change. That one was my fault, it was around 6.0 at the beginning of the day & I knew it wanted to run down, so I figured I’d track it every couple of hours to see how long it would take, & forgot about it until basically the end of the day. A quick adjustment & regular maintainance & it’s been fine since.

The box has been running mainly off of the anti-rh exhaust fan lately. The other day when it was drier out, I had to add some slope to either side of the RH controller target to get it to stop ping-ponging so much between the humidifier & the anti-rh exhaust fan, mainly because it was exhausting often enough to cause the box to have trouble gaining heat. Today it was humid so the fan was running a lot again, & also causing the heat to be lower than I wanted. But I’ve just been monitoring my leaf temperatures & They are still staying within a productive range, so I’m not too concerned. She’s been eating & drinking more & more every day.

Thermpro, center:

It started drying out & gaining heat by the end of the day.

I defoliated many of the larger fan leaves across the bottom, & partially pruned the ones folded against the walls already.

DLI chart wants 700 ppfd for week3, so I checked & adjusted the light accordingly. It’s been taking daily adjustments to move with the stretch.

I’ve also been working on trimming & jarring up what’s been hanging up in the drying tent. After two nights I’m still only about half-way done. Most of the small stuff is done. Lots of trimming to get them clean but they smell really good so far, like sweet-tarts & ivory soap. Taste is starting to develop & seems good, but they need some jar time & daily burping for a while before they’ll be fully cured.

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Finally got all of this done:

6.1 oz, but it’s carefully trimmed & basically no main stems. Also I smoked probably about a half ounce already, & I did lose one top cola to some cobwebs starting to form from within. I broke that one up & discarded the worst of it, soaked the rest in H2O2, then bagged it & froze it. I’ll run it last by itself when I make some bubble hash, & decarb it in the oven, make some cannabutter, then some hash brownies & I’m sure it will be fine. I have a few full sandwich bags of trim to run also. But I’m calling it 7oz. I still feel that’s low for the setup, but with the stretch issues (probably my fault by giving it too much red too early), & the fact that I never ran the light over 150w, It’s fine for now. If I had been on the ball with my damprid bag for the first couple days after the chop, I think I would have avoided the moldy cola top. I’ll have my eye on the jar holding the rest of the bud lower on that stem, & really everything else, looking for any more issues as I give them a daily burp for the next couple weeks.

P88 starting to show some signs of flowering:

Pic of roots during the res-change the other day: There’s some stuff on the central support/diffuser. Sometimes I clean it, sometimes I forget. I think it’s root-matter that gets plastered to the plastic from the water jet. I generally don’t have issues with root matter, but there’s always one or two little pieces that break off or whatever, every time you do something.

She’s been eating & drinking well, & pH has been manageable. I think she moved a half gallon today, & the add-back was a hotter mix in order to move the ppms back up. Res will be due for a 1-gal partial change tomorrow (Thursday).

Stretch slowed down a little over the past day, but only in week3 since the flip so I’m expecting her to keep going for now.

Thermpro, Center: Pretty much all exhaust has been anti-RH fan for the past couple days, but I checked & adjusted the main temp exhaust fan & it should kick on at around 80f with where the light & sensor are now. I added a little more spread & moved the RH target up a point to try & minimize the ping-ponging between the humidifier & the anti-rh fan. I might turn the lower osci fans from low to high soon, the plant is probably big enough. They have impact on how the box cycles rh-wise, so that might also help to reduce the ping-ponging. It’s not that big of a deal, butit can make it harder to build heat in the box when the anti-RH fan is turning on so often. I could add more spread to the RH controller if needed, but I’ll probably turn the osci fans up & see how it reacts to that first. It’s humid today ambient-wise, but should dry out again soon (& start to get colder).

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Made some bubble-hash: Top row is my fresh trim, 160, 73, 25 mesh size left to right for both rows.
(I might have the top two on the right out of order in the pic.)

Bottom row is second run of fresh trim, plus a small bag of nugs from the moldy cola, plus an old bag of sugar-leaf trim picked off of bud I’ve been smoking over the past few months. I dumped some h202 into the water of the second run after the first strain through the 220 bag.

After pressing out most of the water & letting them stand overnight, I put them on some ZigZag hemp joint papers for decarbing in the oven to catch excess oils which I have noticed are hard to get off of the glass. After the decarb, the four papes on the right might be interesting to roll joints with.

After baking, the pucks weigh .5, 1.2, 1, .8, .8, 1.7g going left to right, top to bottom.

Planning to make butter & then brownies out of the two 160s plus the other two from the old/mold run, so that’s around 3.8g total, & I’ll keep the other two fresh pucks to smoke or make more brownies later.

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Still cooling:

These should be pretty good. They don’t smell hashy, but the finer two pucks were chewy with trichomes when I made them into cannabutter. They other two, the 160s, were a little pithy. But they’re in there too.

I also smoked the least-hash-soaked joint & am pretty ripped from it. More powerful than the plain one I smoked earlier. This stuff seems pretty good though, & the flavor is decent now, but should improve over the next couple weeks.

Main Cab bucket got a 1-gallon partial res change today, & I bumped up the ppm by around 10%, but I might need to dial that back a little depending on how it eats & drinks tomorrow. It will be due for another partial change on Monday.

Pic from last night:

I removed a number of the biggest main lower fan leaves today.

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Today (Monday) begins Week4 since flip.
Roots! :

Bucket was due for a 1gal partial res-change (day7 since the last full res change), & will be due for a full res change on Thursday. I’ve been gently pushing the nutes up over the past few days, & pH has been easily manageable. Plant has been drinking 1/2 gallon+ a day recently.

Underneath: I’ve been removing big lower fan leaves, & waiting for it to stop stretching before I decide on how much of the lower bud sites I might want to remove. I’ve used some insulation to push some of the side branches off of the walls.

DLI chart is calling for around 775 ppfd, I’m seeing that around the rear center, & less elsewhere. I’ve been pretty good about trying not to overcook it with photons as it stretches.

Thermpro, center, past week: It has been getting colder & colder in there, both lights-on & lights-off.

I might add a point to the heater during lights-out. I have it set to not really run during lights-on, but I might change that if it gets too cold in there. I’ve mainly been checking leaf temps to watch for that. I might turn the light to 75%, but not really sure if I can do that. Soon I’ll be running the heat in the house more frequently, so that will help a little. I skipped the winter grow last year so forget what I did a couple seasons ago. I might have ended up running the heater plates during lights-on, I forget exactly.

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Decided to try running the light at 75% to gain some heat. This could backfire if it stretches a lot & I can’t adjust upwards accordingly. Then I’ll just turn it back down & run the heaters I guess.

I didn’t get into the box until about 4pm. the spike in temp earlier is probably the house heat kicking on. After I opened the box, I did my usual, adjusted the light, & closed it up to see how much it would gain. It got up to 78f with the anti-RH fan cycling regularly. Happy with that I went back in & cleaned things up, & unplugged the anti-RH fan so I could check & adjust the main temperature exhaust fan. After closing it up I had to go back in once to adjust the temp fan setpoint, & after that it cycled at around 80-81f, reading off of the central thermpro. Happy with that, I plugged the anti-RH fan back in. It’s been running regularly, & the temp has been heading upwards slowly instead of struggling & falling. Once/ if it hits 80-81f, the main exhaust fan should dump.

Hanging Thermpro, today:

Zoomed in, second half of day:

Plant is getting around 780 ppfd at the brightest spot at the top of the canopy, which is around the center of the back wall.

I also added a point to the heater controller target temp during lights-off.

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10-day full res change was yesterday (Thursday).

Had a little issue last night where I couldn’t get to the bucket until this afternoon, & pH ended up around 5.5 riding the buffers, with slightly lower water level & slightly higher ppm than usual, but the plant seemed ok when I cared for her today.

Pics from last morning after the res-change, it looked about the same this morning:

Thermpro, center, early today:
Getting better heat with the light at 75%, & I took about a half point away from the main temp exhaust fan target so it should dump closer to 79 or 80f vs 80 or 81f. I’ll probaby also add a point to the lights-out heater target. After that I might adjust the RH controller for a little more humidity during lights-on.

I ordered a 0-10v dimmer “medic grow” with finer control than my stock unit, I figure it will make life easier when trying to make adjustments. I also needed to get a conversion cable from Photontek & an rj-12 straight-through coupler. I looked around for a 90deg weatherproof rj-12 connector that I could attach directly to the dimmer & maybe gain a little clearance along the wall there, couldn’t find one, but all-in for under $30 shipped to my door I won’t care that much about the extra connector & extra 6’ of cable if it all works well. It should all be compatable & I’ll have everything within a week to test it with my kill-o-watt.

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Yesterday (Monday) begins Week5 since flipping. Res got a 1-gal partial change on Sunday & will get another on Thursday, then it will go a day long to reach the beginning of next week & a nute ratio change with a fresh bucket.
Roots!:

The plant has been moving probably around .75 gallon a day recently. I’ve been letting the PPMs rise gently over the past few days until yesterday & today where I’m going to hold them steady for now, running between 775 & 800, maybe a little more if it bounces over by the end of the day with a lower res. pH has been easy to manage with minimal adjustments, provided I don’t miss doing an addback & adjustment like the other day.

Top: I moved the central Thermpro back to the screen level to check things there & to get it out of the way of the light. I also installed another small white panel over the black velcro strip in the back corner. Also started to partially prune some of the larger fan leaves up top. Some of the tops are a bit close to the walls, but I’m using insulation sticks underneath to push the couple worst ones away.

The main tops seem to have stopped stretching for the most part. I’ve been pruning some of the larger lower & middle fan leaves as they get in the way. There’s a lot of stuff growing in the middle there, & I’ve been letting some of it go for now to avoid doing more harm than good.

Some of the lowest bud sites will probably get trimmed off, but I’ll probably leave most of them just to see what the light can do with them. Some of the lower leaves don’t look 100% happy with some downward-curling leaf edges, but going to let it ride for the most part. I did add a point to the heater target temp at night, & I lowered the RH target by a point (all times). I was thinking of raising it, but lowered it instead to try & reduce peak RH #'s during lights-out.

Thermpro, screen, past 24h: LIghts-out is on the left side. It will be warmer under there than the top of the canopy during lights-out because of the plate heaters. The big spike in the middle of lights-on is (I think) the house heat turning on.

Thermpro, wall, past 24h: I can estimate what’s going on in the center for now, based on past comparisons with this unit. If I want to stick one back in the center, it’s easy enough to do so. The big RH spike at around 2:30pm is me checking the high temp exhaust fan setting with the RH fan unplugged, after doing a light height adjustment. In addition to leaf temp checks to check efficiency & Leaf VPD, I’m also starting to scan the bud temps to keep them from overcooking.

DLI charts wants 825 ppfd. I lowered the light four clicks to get the top in the back right corner to see a little more than that, & the rest are either seeing around 825 or less.

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New dimmer parts acquired & installed:

Works great & has a good tactile feel from the on/off click detent through the ‘infinite’ sweep. The graduated demarcations (besides ‘MAX’) aren’t quite accurate if you go by percentages & current, but that’s easy enough to check & note, which I have already done for the most part. Right now it’s pulling the same current as before, 75% of ‘MAX’.