Wow Ill have to bookmark and read the rest later.
Welcome your plants look great 
Hey there! Quick update - back from vacation, sister kept them watered, they are looking good (to me). Flushed them both, did a light leak check on my little tent and ready to switch to flower.
I have a question for someone in the know. When switching from 18/6 to 12/12, should I do it gradually, say an hour less light per day or just switch it from 18 hours of light one day to 12 the next? That wonāt stress them out?
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Its completely ur call.
Some people do 48 hours of dark then resume 12-12
Some crank it down an hour a day.
Some (myself included) just set the clock to go off after 12 hours, cold turkey.
Plants will be fine any way you do it. Just pick one and stick with it.
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Awesome, thanks. Tomorrow starts 12/12 then. Iām impatient 
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Arent we all haha! Happy flowering bro
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Hello I have the same cheap meter it needs to be calibrated they do not come ready to use. Your pants look great
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Thanks @iDontKnowGrow - first real grow, tried a couple laughables back in high school. 
A little bit more info on this subject, I finally got around to calibrating the pricier tester I bought and compared it to the cheap one on a sample of my well water and they both tested the same for pH - within .02 of each other. But when comparing this pricier tester to another cheap tester for EC/PPM, the cheap one failed big time. The pricier tester showed 226, the cheap one showed 135. That might explain some of my burnt tips(?) 
Iām going to compare them again on the next nutrient mix.
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And hereās another question. (I am full of them). Yesterday (first 12/12 day), about an hour before lights out, we had 3 momentary power failures, each lasting a few seconds and spread about 5 - 10 minutes apart.
Iāve read a little along the way about how a light leak during the dark period could cause the plant to stress out and possibly revert back to Veg or hermie. My question is - does it work the other way around? Can a momentary āflash of darknessā effect the plants the same way?
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I donāt believe that will bother anythingš
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Iām not as experienced as others here, but I highly doubt that a few extra minutes of darkness will do anything harmful.
Plants look great in the last picture though! One thing I noticed is that you were changing your input Water pH to different values, sometimes as low as 6.0. For soil always pH your nutrient rich water to 6.5. When using soil, there are components in the soil that act as a pH buffer, meaning you donāt have to pH your input Water if you arenāt adding nutrients and the water is coming from a clean source. Anything less than 200ppm you also cannot get an accurate pH reading from since there literally isnāt enough ions for the probes to measure with.
I would get the Apera EC20 as well if I were you. Same as the PH20, but does EC. I just personally donāt trust chose cheap meters.
EC is Electrical Conductivity. You have heard of āTDSā or āPPMā, EC is basically the same thing, but presented differently.
TDS (measured in PPM) is Total Dissolved Solids, PPM is Parts Per Million. PPM is calculated from EC, and there are different conversion factors with going from EC to PPM. Some meters use the 500 factor scale, and some use other factors. In other words, two different TDS meters can give you wildly different PPM values. But EC will always be the same no matter what you use, provided the meter is calibrated correctly. So go with an EC meter for a more definitive value.
I recommend Jackās 321 for nutrients. A lot of growers here have switched to Jackās. It has literally everything needed. Insanely cost effective too! Also, you just feed every watering so you never have to worry about which water cycle youāre onā¦ No thinking about what week youāre in, just mix it and go. 3.6 grams Jackās Part A, which is the primary special sauce of Jackās and contains trace nutrients as well. 2.4 grams Jacks Part B (Calcium Nitrate), which is your main source of, you guessed it, Calcium and Nitrogen. 1.2 grams Epsom Salt (Magnesium Sulfate), for your Magnesium and a bit of Sulfur. Just add the ingredients, pH (6.5 for soil, 5.8 for hydro/coco), then youāre done!
Part A - 1000gram bag for $26.99 = roughly 277 gallons, $0.10 per gallon.
Part B - 1000gram bag for $23.99 = roughly 416 gallons, $0.06 per gallon.
Epsom Salt - Depends on brand. Bag I bought was 5lb (2267grams) for $13.99 = 1889 gallons, $0.0074 per gallon.
Then they have 25lb bags too! 
If you see a magnesium deficiency, just add more Magnesium Sulfateā¦ Nitrogen deficiency? Just add more Calcium Nitrate.
Best to water till about 20% runoff, this helps reduce the chances of the soil becoming trapped with unused nutrients, making a flush not as consistently necessary.
For fungus gnats and other pest prevention, get some Mosquito Bits, yellow sticky traps, Neem Oil, and Captain Jacks Dead Bug. Pest prevention is about exactly that, prevention. Mosquito Bits go on top of the soil, then when you water, the bits get wet and secrete whatever the active ingredient is into the water, which then makes it into the soil, killing larvae.
From discoverneem dot com
"Neem oil has many complex active ingredients. Rather than being simple poisons, those ingredients are similar to the hormones that insects produce. Insects take up the neem oil ingredients just like natural hormones.
Neem enters the system and blocks the real hormones from working properly. Insects āforgetā to eat, to mate, or they stop laying eggs. Some forget that they can fly. If eggs are produced they donāt hatch, or the larvae donāt moult.
Obviously insects that are too confused to eat or breed will not survive. The population eventually plummets, and they disappear. The cycle is broken.
How precisely it works is difficult for scientists to find out. There are too many different active substances in neem oil and every insect species reacts differently to neem insecticide.
Neem oil does not hurt beneficial insects. Only chewing and sucking insects are affected. It is certainly fascinating."
Captain Jacks is a spinosad bacteria that when eaten, kills pests.
Different products for different pests. I would at least buy these products and have them on hand when/if you need them. The quicker you respond to pests, the less damage they do.
I would consider switching to Coco, as you can simply water it every day after the plant has been established, so no guessing on if it needs water. Coco is also very hard to overwater, and a fellow here named Hellraiser did a test between Fox Farms Happy Frog against Coco, and he didnāt even make it to flower before declaring Coco the winner as far as growth goes. The brick of Coco also takes up less space than a bag of soil, and is lighter, which is great for me with limited space to work with, but a non-issue for most growers 
A lot of folks here say FFOF is too hot for seedlings btw, so if you stay with soil you might need to get FFHF and FFOFā¦ Start in HF.
You can even make a large batch of nutrients to feed with so you donāt need to mix every feed. This is especially helpful with Coco since you water every day.
Here is my nutrient reservoir, a 5 gallon bucket with lid, and a WaveMaker to keep the solution mixed and moving.
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Somebody is feeling their oats this morningšŖ you sold me on getting away from ppm.
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Lmao thanks man! Yeah Iām feeling this way today
Honestly donāt even understand why PPM is even a thingā¦ Whatās the point if it tests the exact same thing???
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WOW, you may wanna see a doc about thatš
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Thanks @StonedCold13, @Dankloud . Great info. I had forgotten about the different factor scales used between different TDS testers, good point. Iāve been using and recording both but Iāll stick with EC too going forward.
I picked up the APERA INSTRUMENTS AI316 Premium Series PC60 tester, It reads the pH and Conductivity so I wonāt need separate testers. It also mentions about the pH not being accurately readable if there werenāt enough ions in the sample. (this stuffs great - so much to learn about!!) I will increase my nutrient water pH to 6.5 then - I did notice the improvement in them when I went from around 6.0. to 6.2.
I am thinking about changing the medium for my next grow but havenāt decided yet. And I am starting to get used to the nutrients Iāve been using but Jackās 321 sounds much easier and less costly. I hate tossing $$ down the drain but it may be years before I run out of what I have 
Iām also thinking about going to ā¦ what is it called ā¦ hot soil? Iāll have to do more research into that. (Iāve just been thinking lately that todayās herb is more chemically tasting than it was way back when, it could just be my imagination - but Iād like to grow some that tastes like I remember.)
So I thought the nutrient mix could possibly grow bacteria when left over days to be used again at next feeding. That doesnāt happen as long as you keep it moving - agitated? That would certainly reduce the amount of time Iāve been spending mixing every time theyāre hungry. 
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Very good on purchasing the PC60! I actually bought a PH20, then an EC20, returned the EC20, and bought a PC60 lol. So I use the PC60 as my main meter and the PH20 as a backup. āTwo is one and one is none.ā
Here is the chart I use on pH
And yes as long as the mix is moving it will last a few days. I donāt go over 5 days per batch.
If youāre interested in that, just get a 5 gallon bucket and one of these to keep the solution moving. Theyāre magnetic and have no problem attaching to the side of a round bucket.
YCTECH Aquarium Fish Tank Circulation Pump Wave Maker Power Head with Magnet Suction Base (6W 8W) Amazon.com
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No your right itās fine to go dark itās the other way thatās bad
So Frick & Frack (as my wife named them) are have been uptaking water at different rates. Frick gets thristy approx. every 6th day and Frack every 3rd or 4th day. No problem working the FF feeding schedule with Frack with nutrients one feeding (once a week per FF schedule) and water the next. But with Frick, if I followed the nutrients - water - nutrients - water method, it will have only received half as much nutrients through the flower stage (all itās life for that matter).
Iām concerned itāll become nutrient deficient if i follow that method, for Frick anyway. Iām going to feed her nutrients every watering and just pay close attention to the run-off EC. I welcome any thoughts on this or opinions, criticism or even I can take it.
Iām having an issue with run-off EC the first watering after flushing Iām wondering if anyone else has experienced. Iāve flushed them twice using Sledghammer both times. First time, I used 4 gal. of water/sledgehammer (did not let it set) followed by 4 gal. of water followed by 1 gal of somewhat light nutrients. The final run-off EC was fairly low. But when I fed them the first time after flush with the normal amount of nutrients (lighter than half the FF scheduleās amount), the run-off EC was through the roof. It was an OMG moment. I quickly pHād some water and diluted the soil a bit until the run-off was better.
Iāve done some reading since then and found I should have only used about twice the amount of water/Sledgehammer mix than I normally use to water them and I should have let it set in the soil for 30 mins to an hour to let it breakdown the salt build-up.
So thatās what I did this time around. Twice the watering amount of mix and let it set for 30 minutes followed by 8 gals of water followed by one gal of nutrients, even lighter than last time. The final run-off measured 737 EC (523 PPM). And now, 6 days later - I feed Frack with 1554 EC in (1110 PPM) and get 2510 EC out (1790 PPM). It wasnāt the OMG moment I had last time around (although I was ready with pHād water, as I have been every time I feed them now). and I didnāt panic and decided not to dilute the soil this time. Iām not totally comfortable with the run-off numbers and Iām hoping my decision not to dilute a little wonāt bite me in the butt! I do observe that the EC in today added to the EC out at the end of flush (remaining in the soil), it equals about what the run-off today is measuring. Is this normal?
I thought by not letting the Sledgehammer set and work on the salts that the soil was still holding on to some build-up still and I guess that could still be true. The first time around, I didnāt let the sledgehammer set and although the nutrients were light, they were still stronger than the second go around.
Ok, Iām rambling again. I just thought I would throw this out there, see if anyone had some input. Later! 
I just change it when I decide they have vegged out big enough. I change it that day after the timer goes off for the night.
Yeah, thatās what I did, just rolled it around into extra darkness - thx!
I have another observation and question for someone out there @Dankloud @PurpNGold74 @kellydans or anyone - been doing a lot of reading but havenāt read about this (I know I have a lot more reading to do
Entering week 5 since flipping to flower and buds are starting to take form, just beginning to stack (I think) - nice pretty pistils. I thought I might run some support to them in prep for possible weight coming on and ran some of that green cushioned wire. Well, I clumsily wound up mashing some of the nice main top buds with my hands, squishing some of the pistils down where they stuck and stayed. Now, 24 hrs. later, it looks like the pistils I mashed down and stuck have turned brown. I donāt think itās my imagination. Have you ever heard of this? Is it normal? Is it just coincidence and those pistils were ready to mature (certainly not!) AND the most important question, did I mess up? - is it going to have any adverse effects of the harvest?
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