First Grow - LED White Widow/Gorilla Glue #4

[iPerculate]

Hello all,

The first one got messed up and ended up changing a lot so i'll start fresh. This is my first grow and I will have lots of questions so feel free to post and help me out here. Starting with clones, i'll be doing 4 plants. 2 White Widow, 2 Gorilla Glue #4.

Tent
4'x4'x80" Using 4" fan and carbon filter.

Soil
Fox Farm Ocean Forest/Perlite -70/30 Mix. 7gal fabric smart pots.

Lights
2 - Viparspectra 450W LED (200W actual each)

Nutrients
GH Micro/Gro/Bloom series. Supplemented with CalMag. Have some FloraBloom and FloraKleen as well, not sure how much ill use. Would like to go light on the nutes for the first grow. Also used Mykos on the roots. pH to 6.7ish

Training
I will be topping these plants 1-2 times as well as the SCROG technique. Will most likely use 2 layer of trellis netting.

I plan on running 6-8 weeks veg 8-10 flower. The WW seems to be a little farther along than the GG4. The root systems looked very healthy during transplant.

Plants are now halfway through week 3. I topped the plants 4 days ago so they slowed down a bit but are recovering well. I have both lights on "veg" only 30" away from plants for now. Staying around 74-79F and 55-65% humidity for now.

 

[iPerculate]

Plants are growing like crazy, each of them has 2 strong shoots coming out the top with tons of new growth. I have both veg and bloom switch lights on now at 26 inches or so. The WW still seems pretty far ahead of the GG4, I hope it doesnt become a problem. With lights on full strength i'm now closer to 80-82F during the day 55-60% RH. I think I fed them their first nute too soon after transplanting into the 7 gal pots and a couple of the leaf tips turned yellow. The last 2 feedings I have just given them straight 6.8pH water with 1ml/gal CalMag. The new growth has no issues, I think the next feeding I will try 1/2 strength nutes.

The 2 pics are the WW in the front, GG4 behind.

 

[iPerculate]

Was having some slight issues controlling humidity with my current humidifier setup. It's just a regular analog humidifier with a single adjustment. I had it at a good set point where it would achieve 55-65% RH all day, but when the lights went out it would continue to run and hit 75%+ RH. The highest I seen was 82% and realized I had to change my setup as I do not want to deal with large humidity fluctuations during flower.

Based off another member's advice, I picked up this humidity controller on Amazon for $35. It is basically just a set of contacts that opens/closes at set RH levels. You can use it with humidifier or dehumidifier, took 5 minutes to setup and program. I have it turn on at 60% and run until 65%. I thought I was going to have to buy a new humidifier with more control but this is working great. I think it may work even better than a unit like that because it has a remote sensor for RH so it can be placed far away from the humidifier.

Can't leave without pics... The white wire dangling from the middle is for temperature, the black one for humidity. I figured it would be best to measure nearest to the plants. I've made a few changes to the tent and think I just about got it down. I might post it in the other thread but I've heard mixed answers on when to put up the trellis net for SCROG and still have not decided when/how high ill put the net. Advice/tips are appreciated...

 

[iPerculate]

I had the day off today and decided it was a good time to build my scrog frame. I decided to go 12 inches above the soil for the first net. I left corner pieces on the frame to allow a 2nd layer to be added later. 3 of the plants are nearing the 12 inch mark, with the 1 gorilla glue in the front just bushing out. I'm trying to keep the plants short so I will switch to flower when 50-75% of the 1st net is filled, possibly within the next week or 2.

Used 1/2" PVC and mason line. Total cost was less than $50.

The one in the middle is a Nirvana AK48 seed. I'll be keeping her in the same tent for awhile before making her a mother in my other tent.

 

[Grow Harder]

Looking good!

 

[iPerculate]

All 4 of the plants have hit the net. I put up a 3rd 450W Viparspectra LED today. They are all pretty close at 20-22" from the top of the net. Lots of new growth especially from the WW. I have some issues with the GG4 plant in the back left corner. She's been slacking all along and now showing signs of a deficiency/toxicity. I have another thread going about this so I will not post to many details here.

I am beginning to wonder if these LED lights alone will satisfy my needs so I have a 1000w MH/HPS coming... I have been reading into combination or "hybrid" grows of LED/HPS so I will probably put up the HPS in the middle and 1 LED on each side slightly angled in.

I have been really anxious to flip these to flower, I think I will be changing to 12/12 in 6-9 days.

 

[iPerculate]

Last night I gave the plants a full 12 hours dark, and put up the flower lighting. I will consider this day 1 of flower. I was going to put 1 LED on each side of a 1000w HPS but I think it is a little too much and a lot of heat to handle, so I decided instead to just use 1 LED. That makes 1 - 450w and 1 - 1000w HPS (on at 50% power) around 24-25 inches from the top of the net. I will slowly increase the HPS power the next few weeks but don't want to shock them too much.

Keping temps under 80F now and humidity 50-55%. Will also be dropping humidity the next couple weeks down to around 45 or so.

I think I had a little wind burn going on so I brought the fan up a little bit more. Leaves on the top are still a little droopy but are looking better. Also the struggling plant is starting to look better, though she wont be able to catch up to the others now.

 

[Og grumble]

Looking good

 

[iPerculate]

Heading into week 2 of flower, still having some problems but learning a lot.

I still have the HPS/LED combo going on. The HPS still turned down quite a bit because of temps. It looks like a beautiful sunset coming out of the tent with the heavy yellow from the HPS and strong white/purples from the LED Right now around 74-78F at the top of the canopy during lights on, gets down to 63-65 at night. Dropping RH today to 47-52% range.

I have a bunch of seeds from Nirvana waiting to be planted so I'm anxious for these to finish. I have 1 clone from each of these plants in 3 gal pots in my 2nd tent, they are around the same size, maybe a little bigger, as the clones in my first post. I am thinking about flipping them to 12/12 in a week or 2 just so I can get the Nirvana seeds going.

Either way, the first GG4 that was the smallest one in the beginning is now the largest and is pushing the others out of its way with a bunch of flowers forming. The other GG4 has gave me problems all along and still has thin leaves cupping up but it's looking better than it was. At least I got 1 really healthy plant. The 2 White Widows are confusing me. Sometimes look healthy but are pretty droopy. I think they are nitrogen tox because they are dark green, a little shiny, crunchy/wilted looking, and slowed down growth substantially. I gave them straight ph'd water yesterday and will feed them only water next time as well. It's hard to plan feedings when I have a healthy plant, a plant that cups up, and 2 that droop down. I'm beginning to wonder if the 2 GG4's are actually the same strain. It's hard to imagine the same plant reacting so differently to the same environment/feedings. They are just Craigslist clones so really i'm just going by what some random guy said they were. It's really hard to diagnose when I don't have reliable genetics.

As you can see in the pics, they are all forming flowers, even the ugly GG4 in the back. Sorry about the HPS lighting, i'll turn them off for pics when there's more to see.

 

[iPerculate]

Flowers are really starting to form now

 

[Grow Harder]

Nice even canopy. Plush green leaves.. keep up the good work!

 

[iPerculate]

Thanks, i'm really happy with the results so far, my goal from the start is to get more than 8oz total from them. They are starting to smell a little, getting really excited to harvest.

The clones are getting pretty big too, starting to fill out the 3 gal pots. I'll switch these to flower as soon as the other 4 are done and then start some wonder woman and ak48 seeds. I don't think that I'll scrog the next 4 plants, I would like to try to put the HPS vertical and hang the LED above them somehow. The scrog just makes it really hard and time consuming to water the plants, you can't really see all of the plant with the canopy so thick. It sucks not being able to move them around at all or take them out.

 

[iPerculate]

I took the SCROG net out yesterday, got sick of the restriction that it caused with watering and pruning. I feel like it did it's job as the plants have reacted well to the LST so I want to let them spread out more and let the flowers go. Also attached pics of a leftover clone that i'm going to finish flowering in a solo cup.

 

[iPerculate]

As I mentioned before, with the combination of HPS/LED it makes it really hard to see with all of the difference spectrum. However, today I noticed on one of the WW plants a couple of the fan leaves are turning completely purple. No yellowing, just purple. I shielded the bud from the HPS in the pic so the rest of the background is still yellow from the HPS.

Temps don't get lower than 64 at night so I don't think this is caused by cold temps. I have been giving 2-3ml per gallon of florabloom with every other feeding so i'm not sure if its a Phosphorus deficiency or just genetics. Also the FFOF has plenty of worm castings and such. The poor looking GG4 had some purple fan leaves but they were also yellow and unhealthy. These look fine just going purple. I will continue feeding as I have been and monitor the problem.

 

[Grow Harder]

I'm no expert but in my opinion ot looks like genetics.. I only say that based on what i see and even with purpling leaves it looks very healthy.. seems to be on track and frosty to i might add!

 

[iPerculate]

The flowers are really forming now. The bottom buds are catching up to higher ones creating 1 big bud on the top of most of the shoots. I turned of the humidifier and its staying between 35-45 RH so I'll leave it off for the remainder of the grow. I don't want to rush the harvest. It looks to me like 4-6 more weeks, but we will see.

I moved all of the plants around so none of them are in the original location for the pics.

Last week I pruned and topped the clones that I took Jan 31st, I gave them a week to recover, and today I flipped them to flower. There are 4 of them total, the other one that's not in the pic I flipped a week ago today and did not top it.

Also I bought one of those CVault containers with 6.2 RH pack for easy curing. I can't wait to use it.

 

[Grow Harder]

Looking really nice .. what light are u using again?

 

[iPerculate]

450W Viparspectra LED + 1000W HPS on at 50% power.

I can't turn it up over 50% without getting above 80 degrees at canopy level.

I have another Viparspectra that I could use. I wasn't sure if the LED's had enough power to get a good yield so I put the HPS in there.

I just switched my other tent into flower. 3-4 plants in there in 3 gallon smart pots. I'll be flowering all of them under 1 450W Viparspectra only. Interested to see the yield.

 

[Grow Harder]

Yea i hear that.. the LEDs are great for keeping temps low but the hps is easier to gauge as far as watts and stuff . I hate that the LED "equivalent" is never as strong as an ACTUAL 300 or 600 watt bulb. Then again that heat is a killer and can be hard to manage so i guess its a give and take kind of situation

 

[Grow Harder]

I hear good things about supplementing leds with "white" light for denser buds tho.. so id say expect denser buds with the hps but im just speculating lol