BlueCollarBob- Bumbling Through My First Grow

[Zen_seeker]

Picked up some take out on the way home from work. My wife thinks it’s weird, but I like these salads with tuna salad and cottage cheese:

View attachment 106138

Sorry man, once again I like the items just not together.

 

[Zen_seeker]

It's seems like I've been getting a late start on everything I do, lately. That includes getting my garden in. I'm still chasing things I need to do out there, but at least the plants have been pretty forgiving. My tomatoes are behind those of the more timely gardeners around here, but these plants are trying really hard to catch up. I'm really digging these tomato hooks for trellising. Now that I'm getting a feel for it, I can envision some modifications this Fall when the tomatoes are done. I can see a use for this kind of system with cannabis. Maybe similar to what @Bandit420 does with his yoyos or even just to support a stray bud late in flower.

The cucumbers have gone through their own little growth explosion, but the deer are eating the leaves almost as soon as they develop. I've had some random deer damage in past years, but they're getting bolder. I think my dogs are getting lazy. So, I've got some work to do there. T-posts and an electric fence might be the easy button.

I made and installed two of the four cages I need around the weed. The cages are made out of 16ft. X 50in. cattle panels. I got two per panel. I grew the plants through regular tomato cages, first. I'm adding these for extra support. I took some damage from heavy storms during flower last year, due to not providing enough support and ended up trying to patch in some structure too late. I'm hoping to avoid as much of that as possible, this year.

Happy growing, everyone.


View attachment 107606View attachment 107607

Beautiful garden man.
Love the setup and vertical thinking.

 

[BlueCollarBob]

Beautiful garden man.
Love the setup and vertical thinking.

Thanks Zen. Truth is, I'm a late bloomer in gardening. I've always enjoyed a small vegetable garden, but I used to have it super easy. The place I used to live was river bottom. I couldn't find a rock, if I needed one. About a foot of rich loamy earth on top of clay that held the moisture in. It was too easy to grow in. Now I'm in a rock garden any just now putting some real effort into improving the soil. The plus is having a small creek that provides easy access to water without pumping from our well. I think i can turn out a decent little garden, once I work out a few things. I guess I should test the creek water. At least the pH. I'm hopeful that I won't find anything that scares me away from using it. I haven't noticed any negative effects from using it, so far.

I'm learning a lot from you guys. It's great being able to draw from the many different techniques people use on here. I'm sure I miss a lot, but I pick up on a lot, too. Things like your clever rabbit protection, and seed germination during cold weather catch my attention and influence how I approach things I run into all the time. If I end up having any notable success, it'll result from an amalgamation made up of many things I've picked up from a lot of different people on here. A Bud Builders slurry, lol.

On the cannabis, I'm starting to think my focus indoors might lean towards trying to learn quality and repeatability. Definitely starting with soil and probably living soil. It's taken a while to choose a medium, but I'm committing more and more to soil. Outdoors might evolve fun into more stuff like learning to grow big and maybe even work in some type of greenhouse or small high tunnel to extend the season and see if I can get some slow to develop plants across the finish line. Unless disaster strikes it's looking like I'll be able to meet my needs pretty easily and that opens the door to fun and different.

I tend to think big, and I have a ton of "must do" stuff around here. So, we'll see... I also ramble on too long, sometimes.

 

[Zen_seeker]

Honestly, I hate gardening. I can get satisfaction from it but it’s a job/chore I’d rather not be bothered with. I come from the time where children were slave labour. Even aunts and uncles would ask my mom if I could help them with chores, not that I had a choice. Pulling weeds and feeding plants was a big part of that.

I remember things from that time that helps but times have changed along with methods.

My wife tricked me into gardening. She wanted a vegetable garden but not in the ground. I had milk crates available so used them along with black shopping bags, like thin soft pots. The idea worked so we went with it. As time went by she’d get me to do more and more for her as she failed. Mostly over watering. After two years she confessed she really just wanted me to do it for her.

Then the following year her cousin, my buddy, gave me hundreds of seeds he’d gotten from a plant that went seed on him, outdoor grow. I found some okay grow lights for dirt cheap and took a chance. That was only about four years ago.

I learn a few things each year. Take a lot of advice. Use what I can or seems applicable to my situation. One of my favourite new tricks at clean up time is to use my PH down in a 5g bucket to remove salt stains. After agitating the water a while I let them sit a few days. No more stains. Then I use the old acidic water to clean the trays. Pipecarver got me on to this truck by saying he used citrus acid he no longer needed. My PH down had citric acid. One tbsp per gallon.

Keep up the great work. Love your outdoor setup.

 

[BlueCollarBob]

Honestly, I hate gardening. I can get satisfaction from it but it’s a job/chore I’d rather not be bothered with. I come from the time where children were slave labour. Even aunts and uncles would ask my mom if I could help them with chores, not that I had a choice. Pulling weeds and feeding plants was a big part of that.

Work has been keeping me busy. I saw your reply, but only now taking a minute to comment.

Ha! I didn’t expect to see you write that. I just figured everyone here loves growing.

I’m familiar with the child labor. When I was a kid, until age 12, we lived in a trailer court. Well, they called it that, but it was really more like a small farm. The owner had a big old two story farmhouse and we were in one of three trailers on lots he rented out. The lots were large and bordered on a neatly mowed field where area kids would gather to play football, baseball, frisbee, fly kites, etc. We were surrounded by woods and a creek. If we weren’t in school or doing chores, we pretty much lived like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Kids running wild and unsupervised until it got dark. It was a wonderful time and I wouldn’t change it for anything.

The owner was a super nice man. His grandson is my best friend to this day. He had this little Sears tractor that he did a ton of work with. Including, tilling a massive vegetable garden. His family and the families in the trailers all worked the garden and shared the harvest. Us kids picked tons of rock and did most of the weeding. I think weeding will wear anyone down. And I absolutely hated snapping green beans to can. Paper grocery bag after paper grocery bag full of beans to snap. Felt more like 60 hours in a day to me when that shit was going on. Still, even as a kid, I got that sense of satisfaction you get from finishing whatever work, looking back and seeing something I’d accomplished. As much as snapping beans sucked, I sure did enjoy the fruits of my labor. You can’t buy beans that good in a grocery store.

My parents bought a house a little ways up the road when I was 12. As I grew into being able to do more man-sized work, things got a bit more interesting. I mowed yards and when I was 13 got work in a nearby butcher shop scraping fat off the floor and scrubbing and bleaching equipment, burning trash, and whatever odd job they had for me. This lead to buying my own car (absolutely horrid powder blue Pinto that I loved for the freedom it gave me) and I’ve always paid my own auto insurance. My parents had the means to pay, but I hated school and my grades showed it, even though I was capable of doing well. I’ve always hated authority figures and being told what to do. I just had a bad attitude and no teacher or principal was going to tell me what to do. My parents, rightly so, weren’t going to reward me for that.

When I wasn’t working for pay, dad made sure I knew what a blister was. I was very familiar with a brush axe and posthole diggers. None of this was special. Most of the kids I grew up with had similar experiences and we’d even help each other knock jobs out so we could go do something we wanted. Even with doing work when I wanted to be fishing or every teens’ favorite pastime of getting drunk and high, those were great years in my life. Learning how to work in general and learning basic plumbing, carpentry, electrical skills, etc., all made me self-reliant. It’s just nice being able to take care of your own stuff without having to hire someone.

I’ve had some dark patches as an adult and have gotten behind on things here and there. I’m still some catching up on some stuff. I prefer to relax and have fun. Most of the work I do at home has the end goal of setting up things so I have less work to do in the future. In my paying job, I take pride in my work. I still struggle with authority. Hell, in the Air Force I would cross the street to avoid saluting certain officers. I can respect someone having direction over me at work when they are good at their job. If you’re an idiot and giving bad direction, one of two things is going to happen: For a new guy coming in trying to rewrite the book with a bad idea many before you have tried and failed, I’m going to do exactly what you asked for and you will not like the results. For the second action, you have to be very good at your job. If someone is just a true asshole that didn’t learn anything at step one, everything is going to go to shit and nobody will be able to figure out why. I’ve had a few situations like this, but the old-timers I learned from (on a previous job) were the real masters. One story that cracks me up was when they were dealing with a manager they despised. There was a small pump that kept shutting down. It was critical and you had to shut the whole process down until you got it running again. They’d tear the pump apart and find a leather glove inside. The manager went to great lengths trying to find out who was putting the glove into the system. He finally hit on the idea of issuing everyone gloves with their name on it. He gave the order to call him the minute the pump shut down and not to open the pump up until he got there. He got the call waking him up in the middle of the night. He rushed to the pump and had them open it up. The glove they pulled out had his name on it, lol.

 

[BlueCollarBob]

I’m struggling with high humidity in my tent here recently. I’m getting it down some and still have some tweaks to do that will help more, but I’m wondering if going to a larger exhaust fan might make sense. I vegged under a NH bulb and the first full day of 12/12 under an HPS bulb was July 5. That’s when the humidity started spiking. About the best I was doing during lights on was 65 RH and it got worse at lights out. The tent is in a basement with two humidifiers running hard. RH outside the tent has been reading 49-51. The plants are drinking heavy.

I’m in a 2X4 Gorilla and have an 4” AC Infinity exhaust fan. This is my first indoor effort. During veg I noticed some cat hair getting sucked up to the little vents at the bottom of the tent. That got me worrying about bad stuff getting into the tent. I bought another carbon filter and connected a length of hose to a port at the bottom of the tent with the filter attached outside the tent. I then closed the Velcro flap over the mesh vents. This worked fine during veg and I felt better about keeping unwanted stuff out of the tent.

I have a few more adjustments to make and think I can get it close to 50RH with lights on, but back up in the 60s or higher when the light is off. This is with the fan running wide open.

Would it make sense to buy a 6” fan to turn over more air?

I’ve also thought about running duct from multiple ports at the bottom for intake. Use sections long enough to keep light out (basement is usually dark anyway). Maybe clamp paint strainers over the ends to keep stuff out.

Any recommendations?

 

[BlueCollarBob]

 

[steamroller]

If you can draw in the lower RH air from basement it only makes sense.
A larger fan or running it more/higher should help as long as the basement stays where you want and does not increase from the tent.
It would seem drawing air from outside would be the worst idea.
I run an air conditioner in my room and it really controls temp and RH for me.

 

[BlueCollarBob]

If you can draw in the lower RH air from basement it only makes sense.
A larger fan or running it more/higher should help as long as the basement stays where you want and does not increase from the tent.
It would seem drawing air from outside would be the worst idea.
I run an air conditioner in my room and it really controls temp and RH for me.

Thanks @steamroller.

I’ve thought about an air conditioner. It still might be the answer, but a couple things have me unsure:

1. The basement isn’t partitioned… yet. This leaves me having to control the whole space rather than an appropriately sized lung room.
2. The basement temps are always cool, already.
3. The basement windows are too small for a window unit.

I could get one of those floor models. It just seems inefficient to run ac in an already cool space. If that is the answer, so be it, though.

I can vent the tent exhaust outside fairly easily. No experience, so this is just my gut: It feels like the muggy weather is the bigger contributor to my humidity troubles. I may go ahead and exhaust outside and see if that helps or at least scratch it off the list.

I’ll run down and take a photo, but I’m seeing some discoloration on the leaves that has me worried. Could be the light is too close, but the par reading looked okay to me. Everything was healthy looking and unblemished before the flip.

 

[doublej]

Are you running humidifier or dehumidifiers in the room?

 

[steamroller]

Hard to justify an air conditioner for 4x2.
I have seen the portable units though and it may be worth it.
Do you have a controller for ACI fan?

 

[BlueCollarBob]

Are you running humidifier or dehumidifiers in the room?

There are two dehumidifiers. One at each end of the basement. I have a small AC Infinity Humidifier in the tent, but it isn't running as humidity is higher than the set point.

 

[BlueCollarBob]

Hard to justify an air conditioner for 4x2.
I have seen the portable units though and it may be worth it.
Do you have a controller for ACI fan?

Yes. During veg I had the max speed on the fan set at 8. I saw a video or something somewhere about not having it run wide open unless you need it. I don't even remember the reasoning or whether there was any real need for that, but it kept up with 8 being the upper limit. Now it's constantly wide open at max setting of 10.

 

[steamroller]

I would try a larger fan vented to outdoors.
I will bet that will get you by.
Pics of plants?

 

[BlueCollarBob]

When I went down to take these photos and video, the tent was 51RH and outside the tent was 61RH.

Also, I just have one 6" orbital AC Infinity fan. I thought it looked like plenty of air movement, but more would be better, I'm sure.

Not all are like this. None were like this pre-flip.




Not as much brown here, bot it has some mottling.


I'm pretty sure the tips are from the light being too close. I caught that day one of flip and haven't seen any more since raising the light a bit.


I didn't measure before raising the light. This is what Photone says after raising it:

 

[BlueCollarBob]

I would try a larger fan vented to outdoors.
I will bet that will get you by.
Pics of plants?

Thanks @steamroller

I got to tinkering and moving stuff around. Made me slow with the pics.

 

[steamroller]

Looks like Calcium deficiency to me.
Have you been installing any?
Many say they only need it in flower but my plants get it through the whole grow or I see issues.
Some think LEDs have some effect on the amount of cal/mag needed.
If you are just starting with cal then use mag also.
I use a fox farm pre mix that works pretty well for me.
Not every deficiency looks the same so here are other examples of Ca. def.

cannabis calcium deficiency - Bing

Intelligent search from Bing makes it easier to quickly find what you’re looking for and rewards you.

www.bing.com

 

[BlueCollarBob]

Looks like Calcium deficiency to me.
Have you been installing any?
Many say they only need it in flower but my plants get it through the whole grow or I see issues.
Some think LEDs have some effect on the amount of cal/mag needed.
If you are just starting with cal then use mag also.
I use a fox farm pre mix that works pretty well for me.
Not every deficiency looks the same so here are other examples of Ca. def.

cannabis calcium deficiency - Bing

Intelligent search from Bing makes it easier to quickly find what you’re looking for and rewards you.

www.bing.com

The FoxFarm cal mag is what I have. I have added to water here and there, just because I had it. 1tsp per gallon. Not on any schedule.

They get some calcium from fish bone meal. I’ll check, but I think build-a-soil 3.0 has oyster shell flour in the soil recipe. I haven’t loaded up on calcium. I can’t imagine it would hurt to add a little next water.

Thanks again.

 

[BlueCollarBob]

Every day it seems I’m on the run doing something other than chipping away at garden/grow stuff on my to do list, but I have squeezed in a few things. I did a little pruning and pest control outside, yesterday. Sprayed everything with Dead Bug and hunted squash bugs. Only found one adult squash bug and one adult squash beetle. Both were on squash. None on the Widows or LSD . Oh, the smallest white widow has started to flower.



Today was earmarked to help buddy add to his solar array. It’s been a bigger job than expected and we’ll finish up in the morning. I did a quick check on the squash and found another beetle, some pupae and I told this bug that I hoped she was worth it, before ending them:





When discussing the high humidity in my grow tent, @steamroller mentioned the plants might be low on calcium. Yesterday morning I mixed 1tsp of FF BushDoctor in a gallon of water and spilt it between the two plants in the tent. I didn’t get home before lights out tonight. So, will see how they look in the morning.

Went to Lowe’s to pick up some stuff for my buddies project today and I grabbed another dehumidifier for the basement. I just now set it up and ran the drain hose. So, we’ll see if that helps. In my head, I’m thinking that lowering the humidity in the basement is the answer. I picked up a vent to run the tent exhaust outside, but will see what another dehumidifier does, I moved the exhaust fan outside the tent and have the exhaust as high as I can get it in the tent. That has helped some, but not enough.


Hope everyone is doing great and on your best grow ever.

 

[GrumpAzz]

I agree with Steam on the Calcium deficiency. The timing with your flip makes sense. Their Calcium uptake is highest in the first weeks of flower.

I'm surprised you're running into humidity issues with the lights off. My RH plummets when the lights go out and the plants slow their respiration. It showed 40% before bed last night and runs mid-50s with the lights on. What helps me is a big defoliation after stretch. That late veg/early flower stage has them plants pumping a ton of water into the air.

Exhausting your tent outside will help as much or more than another dehuey. Not saying another dehuey won't help, but by exhausting into your basement, you're fighting yourself.

Also a little side note.. those leaves showing the deficiency won't improve so the only way to really know if the extra calcium helps will be by watching unaffected leaves. Hopefully it's gonna get you squared away though.

 

[BlueCollarBob]

I agree with Steam on the Calcium deficiency. The timing with your flip makes sense. Their Calcium uptake is highest in the first weeks of flower.

I'm surprised you're running into humidity issues with the lights off. My RH plummets when the lights go out and the plants slow their respiration. It showed 40% before bed last night and runs mid-50s with the lights on. What helps me is a big defoliation after stretch. That late veg/early flower stage has them plants pumping a ton of water into the air.

Exhausting your tent outside will help as much or more than another dehuey. Not saying another dehuey won't help, but by exhausting into your basement, you're fighting yourself.

Also a little side note.. those leaves showing the deficiency won't improve so the only way to really know if the extra calcium helps will be by watching unaffected leaves. Hopefully it's gonna get you squared away though.

Thanks, @GrumpAzz. Do you know the humidity in your lung room? I’m targeting 50RH in the tent with mid 40s being the lowest I could get it in the basement, before adding another dehumidifier. I assumed I needed to reduce humidity in the basement, if I hoped to lower the humidity in the tent.

This was before opening the tent this morning, the basement humidity was at 38RH and the exhaust fans is now ramping and holding the targeted 50RH.



Yes. My humidity spikes as soon ass the lights go out. I have been assuming it’s tied to heat from the old school light.

I’ll try moving the tent closer to a window to exhaust out of, before I go through the cinder clock and add a vent. This all seems to be heading towards a grow room and I’d rather only do that once. I’m not settled on placement, yet.

I just have a hard time understanding how two plants could drive the basement humidity this much. It feels like outdoor conditions have to be the biggest driver. That’s sorta been my take by watching the Govee hygrometer in the basement related to outdoor conditions. I should have more time to work on this during lights on tomorrow.

Plants this morning. This is only the second time I’ve taken a photo under the HPS bulb. That bulb seems to really change mess with the camera. Colors aren’t an accurate representation. They got water and I watered in some Uprising from Root Organics.

 

[GrumpAzz]

Thanks, @GrumpAzz. Do you know the humidity in your lung room? I’m targeting 50RH in the tent with mid 40s being the lowest I could get it in the basement, before adding another dehumidifier. I assumed I needed to reduce humidity in the basement, if I hoped to lower the humidity in the tent.

I have a dehuey running nonstop in the basement. No lung room yet. It's all open with my tent stuck in corner. Pretty sure it's around 30-40%, quite a bit higher outside. I think the screen on the dehuey shows 35-42 most of the times I've looked at it (I rarely do).

I'm convinced that you'll fight it less by exhausting your tent outside. I'm damn near positive. All that humidity in the tent is just being recycled. Your dehuey would only have to combat the humidity of the basement if you sent the exhaust out, versus having to take out the water you're adding to the space. Just makes sense in my head.

I'm in the same boat as you with the grow room, though. I plan to go perpetual eventually so that's when my room will get built, when I have the funds to build a second system. The rooms themselves won't cost much more than another tent/setup. Just some lumber and some sheetrock. The second setup is where it gets costly; adding another fan, humidifier, heater and the RDWC. Luckily I still have a cheaper SF light that will work just fine for vegging.

 

[BlueCollarBob]

I have a dehuey running nonstop in the basement. No lung room yet. It's all open with my tent stuck in corner. Pretty sure it's around 30-40%, quite a bit higher outside. I think the screen on the dehuey shows 35-42 most of the times I've looked at it (I rarely do).

I'm convinced that you'll fight it less by exhausting your tent outside. I'm damn near positive. All that humidity in the tent is just being recycled. Your dehuey would only have to combat the humidity of the basement if you sent the exhaust out, versus having to take out the water you're adding to the space. Just makes sense in my head.

I'm in the same boat as you with the grow room, though. I plan to go perpetual eventually so that's when my room will get built, when I have the funds to build a second system. The rooms themselves won't cost much more than another tent/setup. Just some lumber and some sheetrock. The second setup is where it gets costly; adding another fan, humidifier, heater and the RDWC. Luckily I still have a cheaper SF light that will work just fine for vegging.

I agree. I didn’t mean to imply that I don’t believe exhausting outside will help. I’m just struggling to accept that two plants in a 2X4 are making the humidity unmanageable. I went from having to run a humidifier in the tent to being the humidity up to not being able to get the humidity low enough. I will try moving things around and exhausting out a window soon. For now, I’m a little more relaxed from getting the targeted email.

I hope it doesn’t look like I’m asking for advice and then ignoring it. That isn’t the case at all. I’m just trying to wrap my head around things and gain some experience.

 

[BlueCollarBob]

Pretty sure I know the answer, but, being a noob, confirmation is great. This is from a White Widow growing outdoors. Thinking it’s a herm. Are these pollen sacks? Hard to get a decent photo.

 

[GrumpAzz]

You're good man.. I won't claim to have all the answers. I also wouldn't assume you're ignoring advice and wouldn't care if you didn't take it. Not my plants

-------

I believe, in the first picture, that's called a calyx. In the second, I'd call that a bract. Might be wrong.

Either way. If it's a lone calyx in early flower, I'm plucking it. Fuck 'em all. I've had so many plant's herm that it's not funny anymore. My last few herms actually had several calyx throw hairs to then turn around and bust out some nanners.
See below:



I used to leave 'em until I knew for sure, but I found several opened up and dried out on this current run. I'm pretty sure my plants will have seeds for the first time since I started growing. Pistils turned color super early. Plus side is this harvest is my best smelling harvest yet, so I'll keep the seeds I find for future projects. Maybe send them out to anyone interested.

I will forever pluck those suckers with a fiery vengeance. I don't care what people say. I have the evidence and it's not worth the risk. It's not like I save them to smoke after harvest anyway and I hate blasting a seed in my grinder.

 

[BlueCollarBob]

I sometimes worry that I’m coming of different than I intend in writing. If I was closer to a window, I’d already have it vented outside. It will require a little more work to move things around. I don’t have any living space in the basement and have collected a bunch of stuff down there that needs to go. Something’s in the way, chuck it in the basement is the easy fix around here, lol.

There were a lot of those on the plant.l. I have another white widow out there. The two are nothing alike. This one was short with real tight nodes and instead of fans there were a lot of single leaves under there. Looks super healthy, but weird. The other is lengthy and nothing like that growing on it and no single leaves.

Right, or more likely wrong, I stripped the plant in question down to just the strongest bud sites and rolled all of those I could find off of there. Honestly, if there’s any question, at all, I’d rather chop it and get it out of there.

 

[BlueCollarBob]

Just went down and checked plants. Frickin’t AC Infinity UIS plug was blinking red/green and light wasn’t on. Was supposed to come on 9 hours ago. I don’t know if it was damaged during power outages or what, but I jerked it out and plugged in a mechanical timer. Worked great throughout beg, but a real POS, now. And my bad for not checking earlier.

 

[Stoneyluv]

Just went down and checked plants. Frickin’t AC Infinity UIS plug was blinking red/green and light wasn’t on. Was supposed to come on 9 hours ago. I don’t know if it was damaged during power outages or what, but I jerked it out and plugged in a mechanical timer. Worked great throughout beg, but a real POS, now. And my bad for not checking earlier.

mine has fucked up like four or five times now, i will only use it for something thats not all that important. i forget the sequence i use to fix it, i think it's unplug the power then unplug the usb, then plug in the power first and then the usb last.. i think, i can't remember but the next time it happens i'll take note and let ya know!!

i'm not sue what causes it.. sometimes my controller becomes unresponsive too.. it still functions correct to the settings i have saved but won't let me change anything and just errors out. it forces me to unplug each usb connector one by one and then plug them back in.. it's such a pita!!

 

[Observer]

mine has fucked up like four or five times now, i will only use it for something thats not all that important. i forget the sequence i use to fix it, i think it's unplug the power then unplug the usb, then plug in the power first and then the usb last.. i think, i can't remember but the next time it happens i'll take note and let ya know!!

i'm not sue what causes it.. sometimes my controller becomes unresponsive too.. it still functions correct to the settings i have saved but won't let me change anything and just errors out. it forces me to unplug each usb connector one by one and then plug them back in.. it's such a pita!!

That's a PITA

Tech is supposed to make our life's "easier" not harder.

 

[BlueCollarBob]

mine has fucked up like four or five times now, i will only use it for something thats not all that important. i forget the sequence i use to fix it, i think it's unplug the power then unplug the usb, then plug in the power first and then the usb last.. i think, i can't remember but the next time it happens i'll take note and let ya know!!

i'm not sue what causes it.. sometimes my controller becomes unresponsive too.. it still functions correct to the settings i have saved but won't let me change anything and just errors out. it forces me to unplug each usb connector one by one and then plug them back in.. it's such a pita!!

It was fine all through veg and a couple weeks of flower. Started acting up after a power outage. Maybe something ganked it up, then. To get it working I had to delete the automation and restart it, but you may have a sequence that makes a difference. Honestly, I doubt I'll use it again. I almost tossed it, but thought I might figure it out and use it for something non-crucial (like you use yours).