Farm Plus and my super hot pepper attempt

Uh Oh another hot pepper fan on board!
Hot peppers & herbs are growing by leaps and bounds!

Day 27 Update

Things are going quite well after the nute adjustments.  drbanks I was already aware of the chart on the website but was wondering if anyone tried different ratios with any success.  From lack of finding any one specific ratio perfect for peppers I elected to go with the chart values to a certain extent.  I used 2/3 the recommended dosage for early growth + the CaliMagic at also 2/3 dosage and the plants responded with significant growth!  I believe the CaliMagic also took care of the yellowing thank goodness.

My exact mixture...
5mL/Gal - Micro
6.6mL/Gal - Gro
1.65mLGal - Bloom
2mL/Gal - CaliMagic

I distill my own tap water as it comes out to a whopping 390ppm TDS out of the tap, my home distiller from Amazon reduces this to 5ppm. My pH comes out to 6.0 with a ppm of ~ 750 once mixed (in the correct order).  I've read peppers are relatively light feeders and do well with 700-800ppm TDS.



mike I am fully prepared to begin separating the plants once they crowd each other, I plan on 2 plants per side in the Farm Plus.  I've been working on dialing in the grow tent in the back room for 6 transplants, but apparently my test plants have been having a hard time coping with the stronger purplish grow lights.  I'm raising the lights higher in fear it's just too much for plants used to the weaker, more white spectrum light the Aerogarden produces.  Not to mention the shock of going from aeroponics to soil.  On a side note another farm plus is on it's way and all the parts to duplicate my setup exactly, and the addiction continues... lol





I'll probably split my plants between the two farms until I get the tent situation figured out, it seems to be stunting the growth of the small pepper plants I have in there now.

Thank you all for the comments and suggestions, I really appreciate the help!  This forum is more helpful than endless google searches that inevitably always end up on illegal growing sites that are geared toward something I can't get into legally lol.

Day 40 update



The habanero's are doing well and I'm focusing on the upward cupping of my new leaves, I suspect pH being the culprit.  It seems to sway up as the tank solution ages.  I will add pH supplement's as needed but this furthers the hassle on the whole operation.  Maybe mike has the right idea in going to the simple 1 part MiracleGro nutes, does the pH swing to unsafe levels with stock nutes?



The ghost peppers are doing even better with no problems at all, the same pH swings are happening but do not seem to affect the plants as much as the Hab's.  These are some healthy bastards!









The four Hab's I transplanted are doing well but it's still too early to tell if shock has set in, for the most part I have fixed the problems in the grow tent.  It seems my light was simply too low to the tops of the plants and was doing more harm than good.  I am now just using the suggested nutrient levels on the General Hydroponics ratio chart and paying EXTRA close attention to the pH which is working well so far. 

I will sent updates as soon as I see notable differences in my current situation. 

True that!

It is already driving me crazy... I’ve noticed it goes up in the tank over time, but I had one tank that went down with the same conditions. This shit is so random. I have the most controlled environment, but this is so unpredictable. I’m an electrical engineer and I understand dynamic situations, but this is so unpredictable it’s just ridiculous. I see the trend of through time the solution goes up in pH and the TDS goes down as the plants consume it and the Aerovoir’s refill it. But it is not an exact science. There has to be a happy medium.

I don’t test.

Sorry for no updates recently, but home life and work have been crazy to say the least.  This will be a brief post with several pics, not much time these days...

Day 61 from seeds



All of my transplants are finished from the Aerogardens to soil, and I'm happy to report a 100% success rate! The trick to go from hydro to soil is to let the reservoir get low but not empty for about a week. This forces the upper roots to become acclimated to air as opposed to complete submersion. I experienced little to no transplant shock and my babies are thriving!







I have installed a Blumat gravity powered hydrospike watering system in the grow tent and it is fabulous!



Basically when the soil around the spikes dry's up it changes the pressure inside the water filled spike and opens the valve to the drippers surrounding the stem. No power is required for this, only a few feet of elevation is needed to pressurize the system.



The habanero's calcium problem was fixed by changing up my solution a little. I used the General Hydroponics formula for late growth @ 75% strength. I used the CaliMagic at the full strength in the same formula. I only use distilled water that I make my self in a boiler I got on Amazon, this reduces the TDS in my tap water from 400ppm to 3ppm.
I use the methods I learned on YouTube (Khang Starr) for my pruning and topping and the results are far beyond my expectations! I am down to my final 14 plants (4 in each Aerogarden Farm & 6 in the grow tent) and I gave the rest to friends and family.



My Ghost Peppers are growing completely out of control, It's hard to believe this is a picture of just 4 plants! I'm getting lots of flowers already, but as recommended by Kang Starr I pluck all of them and even top the stems to force heavy vegetative growth. I am keeping my light's set to 16.5 hours a day and my nutrient solution formula mixed for growth. When I am happy with the size of my plants I will change the lights to 12 hour days with a blooming/flowering specific solution and force them into production. In the Aerogarden farms I'm aiming for the maximum height before I induce flowering, I'm about half way there but these plants are bigger each and every day, I'm quite impressed by the progress of these hydro farms as well as the grow tent...

I will show more later when I get some free time, take care everyone!

You have a great looking set up there.

Update: Day 93

This is turning into quite a bit of work!  I'm still working with my 14 "chosen ones" and all of these plants are going absolutely insane.  I am having pretty good results with the nutrient ratios posted on the General Hydroponic website @ 75%.  But I use the full dose of CaliMagic as withered leaves have been the only problem I've encountered.  Up to this point I have continued to pluck every bud and flower to promote vegetative growth, but I believe I have reached the point where it's time to induce flowering!





These ghost peppers have been my champions and far surpass the habanero's progress, these things have completely filled the area I hoped they would and then some!  It's to the point that picking the flowers off takes over an hour for just these four plants...  I'm done.  I have started giving the flowering nutrients and reduced the lights to 12 hour days.  I have noticed several leaves a day dropping as well as lots of flowers and buds, but I have read that is normal because the plant just can't handle the hundreds of flowers it is producing.  I shake the plants vigorously each day in hopes this will get the pollination done, it would take hours hand pollinating each flower with a Q-tip or an electric toothbrush.



The habanero's are not struggling at all but just can't keep up with the ghosts.  I am still keeping the lights @ 16 hours and giving late growth nutrients while picking the majority of the buds and flowers produced.  I am doing a little experiment here, on the left I have gone back to the Aerogarden stock nutes but continue to use the General Hydroponic FloraGro on the right side.  No differences have been noticed as of the last 3 weeks, so it seems the Miracle Gro nutes are indeed pretty well suited for peppers after all...   But only time will tell.







The Mylar tent in the back room is doing way better than I could have imagined!  These plants seem to LOVE this purplish grow light and I have to keep raising it as the ghosts just keep getting taller and taller each and every day.  The front 3 plants are the ghosts and the left two are over three feet tall now.  The BluMats watering system has become a dream come true and does a fabulous job with little to no maintenance.  Who knew growing in soil could be almost as effective if not better in some ways than the hydro setups.  These plants are all taller than the hydros but do not produce nearly as many flowers as the hydros.  I decided to induce flowering here today as I'm just tired of picking the flowers.  I am using a mixture of the Miracle Gro Shake N Feed in my soil and it works exceptionally well, I guess when it wears off I will just have to put the dry ferts on the top soil and water them in and hope for the best.  I am really hoping that simply shaking the hell out of all of these plants does the trick on the pollination otherwise it will take quite a few hours hand pollinating hundreds of flowers... Ugh  #firstworldproblems lol

Happy growing everybody!