Thought I better do something other than post pics since this is supposed to be a log too.
It's now the start of week 10 or day 64 from seed if you prefer, I'm easy either way
The Chemistry Bit - Reservoir, Nutes, Water.
I've been checking ph 3 times a day and it's nice and steady, mostly using cider vinegar now instead of ph down.
Res temps have been a bit more difficult to keep steady, I'm putting two small frozen mineral water plastic bottles in the tank every 3 hours, got a freezer full of them! Temps fluctuate between 19c and 22c, maybe 23c on occasion but not for long
I've had her as high as 2.0 EC and I've been slowly bringing it down to the current 1.4.
I've been building up the Buddha's Tree PK9/18 to it's max dose of 0.5ml per litre and PlantMagic+ MagneCal+ is at 2ml per litre, she'll stay on those doses until flush.
I'm dropping the EC by lowering the dose of the Vitalink Max A&B Bloom nutes.
The current hot weather has meant she's way more thirsty than she is hungry so I've been giving her at least 4 litres of ph'd, cooled tap water a day to drink.
The Physics Bit - Tent, Support, Cooling, Lighting.
I'm now running a 400w Vipar COB (200w actual), a Vipar V300 (200w actual) and a red/white 17w spotlamp on the popcorn bud.
For the last 2 weeks I've been running her for 23/1, mainly because the lights screw with my eyes so instead of turning them off randomly I've given myself an hour each morning to play with bits of string and all the other tent maintenance/cleaning stuff.
Temps are steady between 25c and 28c depending on whether I turn the V300 on or not. Generally I've been flicking the V300 off once it gets to 28c in the tent.
The COB I love, it feels good but I've just begun the observe, measure, analyze bit so I can stop saying unscientific shit like it feels good and say why it's good.
So far I've observed a few things about the cob;
a. it has excellent light distribution, covers the whole tent and has a very definite edge to it's coverage.
b. the reflector mirrors appear to "mix" the light coverage of the different spectrums from each bulb so a more even bandwidth distribution.
c. the panel itself is slightly hotter in the four places the cobs are, obvious really since the bulbs are more concentrated but the heatsinks/fans are doing the job well and the panel case is an even temperature to the touch within a couple of centimetres of the hotspots.
The Biology Bit - The Plant.
Not my strong suit, no green fingers here so I actually rely more on taking pictures and analyzing them instead of examining the plant up close.
I've held back on defoliating too often, I know autos are a bit more sensitive to cropping/trimming but the "change your environment, not the plant" just wasn't a feasible rule to follow, I ran out of environment to change!
I've had to lose a few days growing time to avoid screwing up the airflow and leaving the tangled mess of twisted mushy new growth I found hiding in the middle of the bush. Taking away the shading leaves later on was my choice and seems to have at least caused no harm in the long term and I felt happier having the roots/lower half well aired and the light getting all the way through too.
Other than that I'm only on my 3rd grow but I'm very, very slowly getting a bit more confident, enough to be able to tell the wife that I haven't killed it yet and it seems to be doing ok.
Better than my "f**k knows" answer whenever she asked me how the plants looked on the first grow!
Anyway, that's enough for now, if I've missed anything or you've read this far and have a question/opinion feel free to ask or advise!
