BeverlyRollins69
Well-Known Member
ANY AND ALL COMMENTS AND CORRECTIVE CRITICISMS ARE WELCOME AT ANY TIME 
This is my first grow of any kind. I live in the states and have very hot summers. I am under the guidance of How to Grow Great Marijuana, The Marijuana Grow Bible, and my knowledgeable local hydro guy that will be hereafter referred to as Steve. My goal is 2.5 lbs off some bushy plants growing under 1000W HID taking up a space of 2' x 5' in a large walk-in closet. I'm starting a bit late with this journal. I'm currently on day 52 since putting seeds in a wet paper towel. I currently use the Lucas Formula with GH Flora Micro and Bloom, in conjunction with Superthrive, Hygrozyme, and roots oreganum XL. So here's the overview, feel free to ask for any details I might have left out. Things that I did along the way that (now looking back) I consider significant mistakes will be in bold.
Overview – Seedling stage
100 bag seeds were germinated by municipal tap water on 5/14/08. Not your ordinary bag seed, the parents were Dutch seeds bred by a relative and are the result of breeding Hawaiian x Master Kush. Over the course of the next week, 55 seeds germinated and were planted in 1" rockwool starter cubes. Cubes were soaked in distilled water, not pH adjusted water, without nutes. I first gave my plants 1/8 strength nutes - 1 mL Micro, 2 mL Bloom, and 1 mL Superthrive in 1 gallon of distilled water. I did not have a TDS meter so ppm was unknown. 33 of the germinated seeds root, sprout, and grow true leaves. The seedling flat was housed in a large rubbermaid container for the seedling stage. The inside of the grow chamber lid houses two high output T5 bulbs (24W each I believe) each in their own reflector. There is a small squirrell cage fan fitted into the side to supply fresh air. Temperature in container was almost always above 90 degrees and seedlings were about 16" away from the lights - led to stunted growth and many deaths. Seedlings stretched so badly (3") that I actually had to bury all the stems back in the rockwool up to the cotyledons. On 6/1/08 I notice one plant with roots growing out of the cube has brown roots with what later I realized was root rot. Also on 6/1/08 I begin watering with 1/4 strength nutes instead of 1/8 (2 mL Micro, 4 mL Bloom, 1 mL Superthrive in 1 gallon distilled water for a ppm of about 500). On 6/5/08 there were 22 healthy plants, 12 of which had varying degrees of root growth and were selected to be transplanted into DWC bubblers. Seedlings transplanted into four, 12.5 gallon DWC bubblers (rubbermaids wrapped in black gorilla tape), three plants per bubbler. For each tub I have one Topfin Air Pump rated for 125 gal with two hose outlets. I connect the two outputs with a t-valve, and then run the hose to a 3-way valve, and run three hoses to three 5" round air stones. Each air stone sits under a 5" net cup. I transplanted the rockwool starter cubes in 5" net cups with a 3/4" layer of hydroton covering the bottom and then the hydroton filling the cups. In one of the tanks, 3 seedlings were planted that had root rot, the other 9 did not have it. Every time I change out the resevoir, I use municipal tap water (150 ppm). I have a severly hard time maintaining proper pH levels in the first 72 hours, the pH rises (becomes more basic) at a maximum rate of 1.0 rise in pH every 4 hours. I use one 1000W HPS light in a SunSystem Super Sun 2 Reflector cooled with a 6" vortex vented out of the room. It is initially 4 feet from tops of plants. On 6/10/08 I finally moved the 10 plants still in the grow chamber closer to the light, about 3" away and finally got the temperature under 85. In the meantime summer heat kicks in and average temperature in grow closet is 90 degrees. Also on 6/10/08 I get the math wrong and up the nutrient strength from 1/4 strength to like 80% strength. On 6/16/08, 8 of the 10 plants in the seedling chamber wilt and die on the same night, all from severe root rot. Since none of them had roots coming through the rockwool I pulled apart the rockwool to look at the roots inside only to find no white roots but brown slime instead. Also on 6/16/08 I realize my nutes are way too strong and cut back to 62% strength (5 mL/gal Micro, 10 mL/gal Bloom, 0.6 mL/gal SuperThrive, and begin using Hygrozyme at 11 mL/gal Hygrozyme, total nute ppm ~600. Why 62% you ask? Well since I use 9 gal of water in each bubbler it makes the numbers work out nice and even. I also decide that here out I will change out my nutes every 14 days. By now, only a couple of the plants actually have roots growing out of the bottom of the net cups. On 6/18/08 there are still 2 little plants left in the grow chamber. One doesn't seem to have recovered from root rot and it is thrown out. I take the last one and make it share a net pot with the other smallest plant currently in DWC. I now store my grow chamber as all 13 plants are under the big lights
Overview – Vegetative stage
On 6/24/08, one plant accidentally dries out in DWC, it wilts and dies. Until now I hadn't been checking water levels because I hadn't had to top off, well lo and behold one of the tanks (the one with the dead plant) had the water level underneath the net cups so I added a gallon of water to every rez. I split up the two little plants that were sharing the one net cup and now my setup is complete. The only 12 plants that have survived are now in the bubblers each in their own 5" net cup.
Keep in mind I still do not know the sex of any of the plants. Four plants have roots growing through the sides and/or the bottom of the net cups but the rest still do not have any visible roots. I decide to take a look at these 8 plants and take all of the cubes out from under the hydroton and out of the pots. All plants have varying degrees of white growth and for the first time in 23 days I no longer see any signs of root rot in any plant! In lieu of the recent death, and at the risk of overwatering, I decide to replant the 8 plants so they sit lower in the net cups and also raise the water levels. Now they sit in about 1/4" deep hydroton, and I keep the water 1.5" up from the bottom of the net pot. I wish I had done this so much sooner but I was worried that the saturated rockwool would suffocate the plant. In retrospect, this seems to be the BEST thing I could have possibly done because almost all (11 out of 12) plants really start to take off and root growth seems to increase almost exponentially. By 6/26/08, five of my twelve plants are at least 5" tall. On 6/27/08 I add a gallon of water to each rez. By 6/28/08 I am up to 6 plants with at least some degree of roots coming through the net pots. By 6/30/08 I'm up to 10. Also on 6/30/08 I change out my nute solution and seem to have found the right equilibrium at my 62.5% strength from last time. Sick and tired of the crazy pH changes that follow my rez changeouts, I decide to buy distilled water instead of using tap water. In each rez goes 5 mL/gal Micro, 10 mL/gal Bloom, 1 mL/gal SuperThrive, 8 mL/gal Hygrozyme, and my hydro guy Steve tells me to throw a pinch of the roots oreganum XL in there too. I add 6.5 mL pH up and with hardly any variance, every tank is right around 600 ppm and 5.6 pH. My hypothesis with the tap water being the cause of pH nightmares was correct, with distilled water pH seems to rise 0.5-1.0 per 24 hours (as opposed to every 6 hours with municipal tap water). 7 of my plants are tall enough that I took some string/twine and strips of gorilla tape and began to train them for the first time as described and depicted in How to Grow Great Marijuana. While I sleep the respond very well, by the morning of 7/1/08 they've all turned or started to turn back up. Also my one straggler (the one in the back of the pic below) that hasn't really grown in over a week finally opens a new set of leaves.
Late on 7/1/08 I move the strings and re-tie the 7 plants, and start training an 8th. That brings us to 7/2/08 and I realize OH SHIT I SHOULD HAVE TOPPED MOST OF MY PLANTS WEEKS AGO! Figuring that I'm still a couple of weeks away from flowering I decide to get to work. 8 plants are FIM topped on the main stem, and any fan leaves getting direct light (which are a ton now thanks to the training) have their tips either regularly topped or FIMmed. On 7/3/08 I FIM top the other 4 plants and re-tie the strings to train the plants one more time. I think after this tie down I should be good, at least the tall ones. To give you an idea, three of my plants are 12" long, but only 6-7" high.
This is day 51 from germination, and for the first time I begin to notice two plants with what appear to be the earliest stages of pre-flowers. It's still too early to tell, but if I had to guess I'd say one is a male and one is a female. The supposed male looks a little more "ball-like" and the supposed female looks like there are two pistils about to come out. All 12 plants now have some degree of roots coming through, some have as few as three and others just way too many to count.
Here's what it looks like with the mylar partition up.
Well that brings us to today, day 53 since germination, the 4th of July. I plan on leaving everyone alone for the next week or so to recover, and I'm thinking two weeks from today I should be able to start flowering. I just hope I have one good-looking definite female before then so I can take a few cuttings, if not I'll prolly take a few clones from the 3 best plants and keep track of the parents and throw out cuttings from male plants as pre-flowers start to show on the original plants.
This is my first grow of any kind. I live in the states and have very hot summers. I am under the guidance of How to Grow Great Marijuana, The Marijuana Grow Bible, and my knowledgeable local hydro guy that will be hereafter referred to as Steve. My goal is 2.5 lbs off some bushy plants growing under 1000W HID taking up a space of 2' x 5' in a large walk-in closet. I'm starting a bit late with this journal. I'm currently on day 52 since putting seeds in a wet paper towel. I currently use the Lucas Formula with GH Flora Micro and Bloom, in conjunction with Superthrive, Hygrozyme, and roots oreganum XL. So here's the overview, feel free to ask for any details I might have left out. Things that I did along the way that (now looking back) I consider significant mistakes will be in bold.
Overview – Seedling stage
100 bag seeds were germinated by municipal tap water on 5/14/08. Not your ordinary bag seed, the parents were Dutch seeds bred by a relative and are the result of breeding Hawaiian x Master Kush. Over the course of the next week, 55 seeds germinated and were planted in 1" rockwool starter cubes. Cubes were soaked in distilled water, not pH adjusted water, without nutes. I first gave my plants 1/8 strength nutes - 1 mL Micro, 2 mL Bloom, and 1 mL Superthrive in 1 gallon of distilled water. I did not have a TDS meter so ppm was unknown. 33 of the germinated seeds root, sprout, and grow true leaves. The seedling flat was housed in a large rubbermaid container for the seedling stage. The inside of the grow chamber lid houses two high output T5 bulbs (24W each I believe) each in their own reflector. There is a small squirrell cage fan fitted into the side to supply fresh air. Temperature in container was almost always above 90 degrees and seedlings were about 16" away from the lights - led to stunted growth and many deaths. Seedlings stretched so badly (3") that I actually had to bury all the stems back in the rockwool up to the cotyledons. On 6/1/08 I notice one plant with roots growing out of the cube has brown roots with what later I realized was root rot. Also on 6/1/08 I begin watering with 1/4 strength nutes instead of 1/8 (2 mL Micro, 4 mL Bloom, 1 mL Superthrive in 1 gallon distilled water for a ppm of about 500). On 6/5/08 there were 22 healthy plants, 12 of which had varying degrees of root growth and were selected to be transplanted into DWC bubblers. Seedlings transplanted into four, 12.5 gallon DWC bubblers (rubbermaids wrapped in black gorilla tape), three plants per bubbler. For each tub I have one Topfin Air Pump rated for 125 gal with two hose outlets. I connect the two outputs with a t-valve, and then run the hose to a 3-way valve, and run three hoses to three 5" round air stones. Each air stone sits under a 5" net cup. I transplanted the rockwool starter cubes in 5" net cups with a 3/4" layer of hydroton covering the bottom and then the hydroton filling the cups. In one of the tanks, 3 seedlings were planted that had root rot, the other 9 did not have it. Every time I change out the resevoir, I use municipal tap water (150 ppm). I have a severly hard time maintaining proper pH levels in the first 72 hours, the pH rises (becomes more basic) at a maximum rate of 1.0 rise in pH every 4 hours. I use one 1000W HPS light in a SunSystem Super Sun 2 Reflector cooled with a 6" vortex vented out of the room. It is initially 4 feet from tops of plants. On 6/10/08 I finally moved the 10 plants still in the grow chamber closer to the light, about 3" away and finally got the temperature under 85. In the meantime summer heat kicks in and average temperature in grow closet is 90 degrees. Also on 6/10/08 I get the math wrong and up the nutrient strength from 1/4 strength to like 80% strength. On 6/16/08, 8 of the 10 plants in the seedling chamber wilt and die on the same night, all from severe root rot. Since none of them had roots coming through the rockwool I pulled apart the rockwool to look at the roots inside only to find no white roots but brown slime instead. Also on 6/16/08 I realize my nutes are way too strong and cut back to 62% strength (5 mL/gal Micro, 10 mL/gal Bloom, 0.6 mL/gal SuperThrive, and begin using Hygrozyme at 11 mL/gal Hygrozyme, total nute ppm ~600. Why 62% you ask? Well since I use 9 gal of water in each bubbler it makes the numbers work out nice and even. I also decide that here out I will change out my nutes every 14 days. By now, only a couple of the plants actually have roots growing out of the bottom of the net cups. On 6/18/08 there are still 2 little plants left in the grow chamber. One doesn't seem to have recovered from root rot and it is thrown out. I take the last one and make it share a net pot with the other smallest plant currently in DWC. I now store my grow chamber as all 13 plants are under the big lights
Overview – Vegetative stage
On 6/24/08, one plant accidentally dries out in DWC, it wilts and dies. Until now I hadn't been checking water levels because I hadn't had to top off, well lo and behold one of the tanks (the one with the dead plant) had the water level underneath the net cups so I added a gallon of water to every rez. I split up the two little plants that were sharing the one net cup and now my setup is complete. The only 12 plants that have survived are now in the bubblers each in their own 5" net cup.
Keep in mind I still do not know the sex of any of the plants. Four plants have roots growing through the sides and/or the bottom of the net cups but the rest still do not have any visible roots. I decide to take a look at these 8 plants and take all of the cubes out from under the hydroton and out of the pots. All plants have varying degrees of white growth and for the first time in 23 days I no longer see any signs of root rot in any plant! In lieu of the recent death, and at the risk of overwatering, I decide to replant the 8 plants so they sit lower in the net cups and also raise the water levels. Now they sit in about 1/4" deep hydroton, and I keep the water 1.5" up from the bottom of the net pot. I wish I had done this so much sooner but I was worried that the saturated rockwool would suffocate the plant. In retrospect, this seems to be the BEST thing I could have possibly done because almost all (11 out of 12) plants really start to take off and root growth seems to increase almost exponentially. By 6/26/08, five of my twelve plants are at least 5" tall. On 6/27/08 I add a gallon of water to each rez. By 6/28/08 I am up to 6 plants with at least some degree of roots coming through the net pots. By 6/30/08 I'm up to 10. Also on 6/30/08 I change out my nute solution and seem to have found the right equilibrium at my 62.5% strength from last time. Sick and tired of the crazy pH changes that follow my rez changeouts, I decide to buy distilled water instead of using tap water. In each rez goes 5 mL/gal Micro, 10 mL/gal Bloom, 1 mL/gal SuperThrive, 8 mL/gal Hygrozyme, and my hydro guy Steve tells me to throw a pinch of the roots oreganum XL in there too. I add 6.5 mL pH up and with hardly any variance, every tank is right around 600 ppm and 5.6 pH. My hypothesis with the tap water being the cause of pH nightmares was correct, with distilled water pH seems to rise 0.5-1.0 per 24 hours (as opposed to every 6 hours with municipal tap water). 7 of my plants are tall enough that I took some string/twine and strips of gorilla tape and began to train them for the first time as described and depicted in How to Grow Great Marijuana. While I sleep the respond very well, by the morning of 7/1/08 they've all turned or started to turn back up. Also my one straggler (the one in the back of the pic below) that hasn't really grown in over a week finally opens a new set of leaves.
Late on 7/1/08 I move the strings and re-tie the 7 plants, and start training an 8th. That brings us to 7/2/08 and I realize OH SHIT I SHOULD HAVE TOPPED MOST OF MY PLANTS WEEKS AGO! Figuring that I'm still a couple of weeks away from flowering I decide to get to work. 8 plants are FIM topped on the main stem, and any fan leaves getting direct light (which are a ton now thanks to the training) have their tips either regularly topped or FIMmed. On 7/3/08 I FIM top the other 4 plants and re-tie the strings to train the plants one more time. I think after this tie down I should be good, at least the tall ones. To give you an idea, three of my plants are 12" long, but only 6-7" high.
This is day 51 from germination, and for the first time I begin to notice two plants with what appear to be the earliest stages of pre-flowers. It's still too early to tell, but if I had to guess I'd say one is a male and one is a female. The supposed male looks a little more "ball-like" and the supposed female looks like there are two pistils about to come out. All 12 plants now have some degree of roots coming through, some have as few as three and others just way too many to count.
Here's what it looks like with the mylar partition up.
Well that brings us to today, day 53 since germination, the 4th of July. I plan on leaving everyone alone for the next week or so to recover, and I'm thinking two weeks from today I should be able to start flowering. I just hope I have one good-looking definite female before then so I can take a few cuttings, if not I'll prolly take a few clones from the 3 best plants and keep track of the parents and throw out cuttings from male plants as pre-flowers start to show on the original plants.
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