Mephisto Genetics Deep Blue C in Promix BX

[Bekay]

Strain: Mephisto Genetics Deep Blue C
Soil: Promix BX straight from the bag
Pots: 5.5 Gal Oxy Pots (Airpot knockoff from HTG Supply)
Tent: 2.5' x 2' x 6'7" Gorilla Lite Line
Light: 400w MH & HPS in vented sealed reflector
Water: Filtered town tap water, 6.5 pH, 129 ppm (no chlorine taste or smell, Culligan FM-15A)
Nutrients: per the following schedule.
Tools: pH meter, TDS meter, Accurate 8 soil pH meter, soil moisture meter, Min-Max RH and Temp meter

Adapted from TaNg's "simple plan" and complicated by me personally to use various left overs and gifts. The idea was to not water-feed-water-feed but to feed lower dosages frequently at less than run-off causing amounts. My last grow in this medium I didn't feed enough and had stunted plants. By watering to run-off it took 5+ days to dry out in 5 gal fabric pots and alternating water and feeding I only fed them two times in the grow cycle after waiting 2 weeks. Starved my little girls.Can I plead ignorance?

Germinated seeds by soaking in distilled water for 6 hours and planting directly. I had posted this in another thread "150% Germination! Just started DBC seeds and 2 of the 4 seeds generated a second smaller stalk, ha!" in the Mephisto Genetics Customer Service/Feedback thread.

At this point one pot has twins and the other is dominated by a Big Sister so I have 5 plants in 4 pots. Here's what they look like on Day 18:

I pulled one plant out to get a daylight shot and notices several roots poking out the bottom.

I have been bothered by the light green color (as seen under MH bulb) but when I brought her into the daylight she doesn't look too bad. The spotted leaves are from my pitcher dripping nutes onto the front plant's leaves while feeding the rear plants.
Question: What should I do when this happens? Spray with water to rinse? Wipe with a tissue? I tried both but, meh, didn't work so much.
I have started to wipe off the pitcher before entering the tent but an old fart like me can still make it happen without really trying.

Environmental Data:
I heat with wood and the air is bone dry. By adding the soda bottle wicks I have kept RH to 38%-43% and venting the light's exhaust heat into the closed room the temps have remained 67 F to 82 F so far.
I started with the light 30" above the pots and since Day 8 I have lowered the light a bit at a time. Now at 20" above the tallest plant on Day 18.

Nutrients but No Water Only:
I had the RapidStart and gave the first watering with only 0.2 ml/gal concentration just give'em a bit of a taste of N on Day 3. The ppm was just 147 (18 pts. above the filtered water @ 129 ppm). I got some Voodoo Juice and Carboload and added that in the second week. As you can see in the feeding schedule all feedings so far have been very mild. I have not alternated water/feed and have shared 1 gal of solution among the four plants up until Day 12 when I was trying to respond to a yellowing of the first set of serrated leaves. I upped the solution to the >15 Days concentration and fed with 2 gal. among the four plants - 2 qt.'s each which produced just little bit of run-off.
They were last fed 3 days ago and it looks like they won't be dry enough to feed again for at least a couple more days.
Questions:
What do think of this approach to feeding and the proposed nutrient schedule?
Why hasn't the soil pH come down from the 6.8 that I got when I first watered the soil when planting the seeds?
I will next shoot for a 5.6 pH in the feeding solution and see if that helps get it down some next time but to what number should I be looking for in the soil pH?

Cheers from the Northwoods friends. Peace.

 

[Waximus]

Brother Bk

I'm pulling up a chair for this!

First, on the Promix holding at 6.8.. I think Promix BX has some lime, and other buffery, added. That might be part of it. Now, with that Concoction Crew you are nuting with, I couldn't say what will happen to pH. I confess... I'm an AN hoe just because it makes pH "correct".. I plead lazy/busy...

For soilless mixes, the acceptable range of pH is 5.5-6.0, ideally. pHing your nutes to 5.5 to see what effect it has on medium pH wouldn't hurt. If it were me.. I'd pH a 5.5 feeding, do a few soil readings (the A8 meter..What a classic, funtional masterpiece!) and see what your soil does. If it is stubborn, keep up the 5.5 and see if it lowers over time. If it swings Low, try keeping the nutes at 5.8. And, let the plants tell you.. Keep a close eye on them, and you'll start to see the slightest droop, the least color change On alark, I tested my coco from the just harvested Trainwreck with my A8.. 9 weeks of flower, that soil had gone.. And, the pH was 6.7!!! Those plants didn't have a problem with that at All! I think its a combo of the nute chemistry, myco in the medium, how wet/dry they get/stay, and the buffering...It's a stew full of god knows... A happy plant looks happy lolol

On the feeding schedule..
I think one of the things that makes TaNg's growing so effective, and clearly Full Throttle, is that he feeds 2X/Day. He doesn't go for runoff, in fact he doesn't expect it. His answer to a buildup of salts is the flush between veg/flower, and there is no denying his World-class results! So, I'd recommend mimicking that. Feed them a pint/pint and a half in the morning, and another at night. No Just Water feeds.. (Plants in the wild don't expect to get an RO rainshower, then a 2.3 EC rainshower... lolol What are we thinking?? lol) It's the handwatering equivalent of a 2x/day drip system, but with a Ganja Growing pump system

I hope we can cross paths again, this year Perhaps, a cookout/hangout in the Spring?

some love

 

[Bekay]

Thanks Waximus, that makes great sense. I will now think of myself as a 2x day drip system with legs and arms and keep using the low level of nutes. Your previous advice has helped me turn on the awareness of what the plants are saying as I tend them. BTW the Tyrone Special and Fantasmo turned out really well. Love the vape.
Cheers.

 

[Bekay]

Day 22 Update
Three days ago I started feeding 2 times a day with the mild nutes. I started with 1.5 pint (24 oz. or 0.7 L) per plant per feeding and saw that I was building up a lot of wetness. There was no noticeable runoff but the soil was constantly wet at the first knuckle so I cut it back to 16 oz (0.5 L) each time. I used a soil moisture probe to verify that there was indeed a "water column" and not just a top wet; bottom dry thing going on. The Promix seems be distributing the solution well. There is a fairly steady "very moist" transitioning to a "wet" last inch. This much feeding is not however reaching/saturating to the edge of the container and no roots are visible in any of the openings in the side of the airpots. Every pot has several roots reaching through the bottom grid though.
Seems like the girls are putting good effort into the roots and are now starting to grow. I can sleep better now.

More and Faster
To try and recover from the light green leaves with darker green veins, interpreted as N def, I advance the time frame and stepped it up. After a day of 50% solution there was no sign of intolerance. Just lovely vivid green new growth which you can see in the pictures. Sleeping really well now.
Today I revised the schedule upping the Buddha Grow to 100% (5 ml per Gal) and 75% for everything else. Tomorrow I will inspect carefully for and toxicity signs. All recent feedings have been at 5.5 ph and 250-260 ppm so it's still a mild feed solution. But now they are getting it continuously and seem to like it. Light is keep at 20 inches above tallest plant.

Here are some pic.s

The Twisted Sister, so called because she sprouted two stalks even though only one is growing, that one self FIM'd and has a second branch reaching to the light. Maybe a double cola is in her future.

The Twins are shown here in LST mode. I find making a Shepard's hook on one end of a pipe cleaner makes a gentle contact and is instantly adjustable at the clip. I am trying to drag them each into their own half of the pot so they can play nice and share the light.

Neither of these double sprouters are growing as fast as the other two conventional plants. I pulled the #4 plant into daylight to show the true colors.

You can see there is not much difference. The daylight shows a bit darker green than under MH with flash. She is looking happy, hey? Fat indica looking 5 segment leaves soaking up light.
New growth is nicely green but will those lower leaves ever return to healthy color or will they continue as they were?

Observations and a Couple Questions:
1) I think the RapidStart and Voodoo juice might be helping with the root growth. I was surprised to see 1/2 inch roots at the bottom of a 12 inch high container when its just a 3 to 5 inch plant above the soil. This may be normal I don't know. My other two grows were in fabric pots so I couldn't see.
2) I would hate to see damage from over watering and root rot. I know the airpots and Promix should just about eliminate the possibility but just the same I don't want to stress them. I feel like I am keeping them wet and fear I am preventing oxygen from getting to the roots. When you DTW dripper-rig-users have your setup dialed in and are feeding several times a day is there any opportunity for the roots to get a breath of air? I am using out of the bag BX so there is some degree of water retention.
3) My soil pH has not budged from 6.8 even after 1.5 gal of 5.5 pH feedings over 3 days. What's up with that I wonder? I'll keep feeding at 5.5 pH and see if things change. I have to be away for a few days next week so I will have to feed-to-runoff on the day after tomorrow. Any cautions like reducing the concentration for that voluminous feeding?

Peace and thanks for stopping by.

 

[Bekay]

Day 38 Update
It has been a hard couple weeks for the girls. Seems to be issues with P and K if I am reading the pictures in the Deficiencies post correctly.
Vertical growth has stopped with tallest plants about 12 inches. The feedings have been 16 oz twice daily of these concentrations in a gallon of filtered tap water:
Buddha Grow (2-0.25-1.5) 15.0 ml
Voodoo Juice 5.0 ml
Roots Organic Trinity (0.1-0.5-0.25) 3.2 ml
Carboload 3.8 ml
Earth Juice MicroBlast 2.5 ml
Cal Mag (2-0-0) 2.0 ml
total ppm's between 258-502.

I am surprised to see what looks like deficiencies but maybe it's pH lockout. I got an Accurate 8 soil pH meter upon recommendation by @Waira and have been routinely feeding at pH 5.5-5.7 yet my soil reading has never changed from 6.8-6.9. Can't figure out why that is. Pots have never generated anything but miniscule runoff and have not been flushed or only watered. They have been on feeding continually.
Two days ago I watered with 1 tsp Epsom Salts per gal. twice and skipped the feeding. No apparent effect.
Yesterday I started the flowering phase nutrient schedule and swapped the light to HPS from MH.
Temps and humidity are at 67-83F and 30-45%. Light is 18 inches above tallest plant.
Bloom phase feeding schedule adds Buddha Bloom(0.5-2-1), Big Swell (2-5-3) and HP2 (0-4-0) in modest amounts and reduced amounts of Buddha Grow and Voodoo Juice. 485 ppm total after adj. pH with Botanicare UP (0-0-16; potassium hydroxide)
I don't know what else to do.

 

[OGWallyAZDesert]

Those plants look terrible. What's going on? How did the plants come out in the end? Did you pitch them?

 

[slowandeasy]

Those plants look terrible. What's going on? How did the plants come out in the end? Did you pitch them?

That thread is over 3 years old. But I can see multiple problems. First they were feeding 5.5 to 5.7 pH to Promix. Error, way too low! That alone can cause lockout. #2 I would fair to bet that they had pests. If you are using Promix the pH should be 6.5ish...not 5.5 ish. Peacez slowandeasy