400W MH Hortilux Conversion/430W Hortilux Super HPS, Botanicare Nutes in Soil

[dakin3d]

I've been waiting to post until finished... I was moving recently and figured it in my best interest. Now that I'm in between setups, I'll post a couple a day to show you how my first grow progressed.

So, as the story goes.... I've been interested in doing this for a while now, just never really had the means/space/location to support a decent grow. I bucked up last fall and picked up 'The Bible' (Jorge Cervantes). I needed general knowledge and I, like everyone else who starts at the beginning, had no idea what I was doing. I had planted a couple of seeds when I lived w/ my parents in high school. Bagseeds in old dirt, probably free of any nutrients at all -- I had no idea what I was doing. Two germed and they got about 4 inches tall. They looked very healthy, and I was very proud! Then, I got busted by my Dad. He was a hard ass, so I've waited some time to even attempt it (He makes quite the impression.)

And it really wasn't much of an attempt... I had a small palm full of old beans from past bags (find a seed or 2, every once in a while), progressively dating back 6-7 years ago, and threw them in a big planter that we had out on the deck. I usually smoke dank, so in theory the seeds should be able to produce decent quality bud (not necessarily true for the genetics, as they are most likely hermi's if you got just a couple of seeds from a quality bag). And large majority of them popped in a large plant that I had thrown them in outside (it was still pretty warm this past fall). I left them there, moving them out in the sun for about a week until I started to identify that a lot of them were pretty damn vigorous. I grabbed stuff from around the house and made a quick trip to the local department store. I had some time release MG in the garage (my first mistake, for an inexperienced grower anyway) and then grabbed:

-An old transparent(not ideal) plastic storage tub
-Packaging tape
-White plastic bags
-A power strip
-Light bulb adaptor/splitter
-x6 27-45W CFL's
-A cheap accuweather hygrometer/thermometer
-Couple Milk jugs
-Sprayer
-Watering Can
-Some styrofoam(i know, i know) beer cups
-70% (Rubbing) Alcohol
-Cleaned-up an old 8or10" fan

I then sat down and transplanted each and every one of the little seedlings that were growing in that pot.... and there were a lot of them. I poked holes into the bottom of each cup, transplanted and watered them, and put them underneath the x6 CFLs during the night. I moved them out during the daytime, knowing that my limiting factor at the time was light. What I didn't know was that actually, at the seedling and early veg stages, they were getting plenty of light. Over the next couple days I battled burn. I assumed it was the time released nutrients in the soil. I was also over watering, which was releasing even more nutrients.... They battled through after I let them dry out. I lost a couple but still had an army. I eventually realized that I had more than I needed, and I had wished I hadn't planted them all. I just didn't expect them to actually pull through.... but they did. And I was now thinking about buying some real soil and possibly a light

 

[dakin3d]

In the meantime, I was reading up on Cervantes, watching yoUtube and Urban Grower vids (represent Remo!), researching the blogs, and checking out equipment and nutrients. I went to my local hydro store and checked out the stock. They recommended botanicare nutrients because I didn't have a pH meter at the time. Who was I to argue? I had heard that FF soil was the way to go, but I was also strapped for cash. I compromised and went w/ a couple bags of Happy Frog, instead of OF, because you get a larger bag for the same price. I also picked up some bamboo sticks, some 3 gal pots, drip trays, and a quart of Bot Pro Grow base nutrient, and other small accessories.

I learned fast that I couldn't afford a big HID, so I would have to compromise... But the hydro store was too pricey, so I did some research on various web stores, as well as craigslist.

It was about a week and a half before I decided to transplant them from the MG soil. Partly because I wanted the root structure to grow a bit more, then I was lazy and they waited too long. All of the plants looked like the picture attached. I had been watering about once a day (still a little too often). It appears to be nutrient burn, but who knows. Being a new grower, I wasn't (still aren't) experienced enough to handle time release soil. Plus, it really isn't appropriate for seedlings.

 

[dakin3d]

Once the plants had started to recover a bit from over watering, I got my ass in gear one sunny afternoon, went outside and busted out the 3 gal pots. They only net about 2.5 gal, but good enough for a week or two. The Happy Frog seemed like nice soil. Moist, earthy, smelled 'clean'(as clean as soil can smell), etc. I gathered everything together and started transplanting one by one. Of the 24, I only kept 18. There were 7 that weren't quite ready for transplant, so they stayed in cups for the time being. So, 11 total transplanted at the time; they transplanted really well, too. Most of them were a little root bound, so it was past due.

Since I was transplanted, I was also due for some kind of HID. I had decided that I was going to do something, I just didn't know what. I looked at CFLs, LEDs, HIDs, T5 fixtures, Sulfur Plasma lighting, etc. I wanted to go 600W or even 1000W, but didn't really have the money to spend up front or in the long term on electricity at the time. So, I decided that a 400W is what a would shoot for, unless I found a kick ass deal on a 600W lamp. I looked everywhere online, local stores, craigslist, newspaper, etc. I found a couple of prospective items on CL and decided to drop some messages. Ultimately, I ended up w/ a 400W Hortilux Ace MH conversion, a 430W Horti- Super HPS, a brand new hydrofarm hood and magnetic ballast, and some accessories. Dude selling it initially wanted $500, but I ended up w/ everything for $275. I thought it was a steal for what I ended up with. The seller was a grad student moving back home to Cali. He wanted to keep it, but didn't have the room in his car. I almost felt bad, b/c I knew how much it was retail and the equip had never been used before, but I too was short on funds.

Stoked that I had a new light, I headed home w/ my new gear. I had every intention of hooking my shit up ASAP, but when I got home I realized something. I was growing in a room in my basement that was unfinished. THe entire surroundings were concrete, so I had to think of a way to hang this light w/o building an A-frame... I decided to make a trip to Home Depot to see what I could come up with. I searched the entire store and found some adjustable closet hanging rods, similar to a shower curtain rod, but longer. I threw that thing near the top of the ceiling and voila, a means to hang my lamp. I grabbed an old 6'x3' table to raise everything off of the ground. They grew fast over the next couple of weeks under the Ace MH. They loved the new light and had recovered, while growing significantly everyday. They were all a nice green color, growing about an inch daily. Then I thought they were large enough to start handling some of the ProGrow Bot nutes that I had got a couple weeks ago. Lesson: Why add nutrients if your plants are a beautiful, rich green color and appear to be healthy in every way?... There is no good answer. They were doing fine, and I had to go and F*@% everything up by adding nutrients that obviously weren't needed. This was the outcome of my ignorance:

 

[dakin3d]

Over the next couple of days, I flushed w/ a very low concentration nutrient feeding. When flushing, I've learned that it is much more effective to use a mild nutrient solution rather than plain water. This is due to a simple rule of chemistry: Like Dissolves Like. This is something that I had to relearn, rather than the idea just 'pop' into my head. The other problem was the size of the containers.... The larger size meant more time in between waterings, so it took a little longer to flush than I would've like, but I didn't want to drown them for days straight. After 3 flush/mild feedings over a course of a week, the plants seemed to recover. The copper discoloration seemed to disappear and a nice rich, green color covered the entire canopy.

I attached some pics of the 400W MH Hortilux Ace Conversion (ie, using an HPS ballast) hard at work. I love this bulb. It's attached to a Hydrofarm cordset and 'Radiant' Hood that is non-air cooled. I was using a space in the basement so heat was actually welcomed. I had to buy a Danby Dehumidifier to kill the humidity that was building up over the night, as the house would cool. The RH was around 65-95% at times! I was still in veg, but I knew I needed the dehumidifier for flowering so I went ahead and got one. I figured it would be a good investment for the future, plus the basement could use it from time to time.

I was still feeding Bot Pro Grow, but knew I was going to have to switch it up before/when I initiated 12/12, so I was also looking to add a couple supplements to the mix. I had heard good things about their Liquid Karma and CalMag. The Liq Karma is a proprietary blend of a bunch of predictable, but good organic materials, including seaweed/kelp. These ingredients are a good source of primary and micronutrients b/c they're already chelated, making them ready to uptake. The CalMag is a secondary/micronutrient supplement that is used by many people even when they are loyal to another company. It obviously contains Ca and Mg, but also a good source of Fe, S, and Zn. All of which are essential in obtaining a healthy plant metabolism.

 

[cloudyharvest]

nice grow i will look on ur journal to follow along ....good luck

 

[dakin3d]

nice grow i will look on ur journal to follow along ....good luck

Cloud,

Whats up, bro (i assume?)? Thanks for stopping by to check it out. I wish I could've had time to show this in real-time, but I had a lot going on while I was rollin'. Anyway, welcome; sit down, pull up a chair, roll one up b/c this is the reason you don't diss bag seeds for a first grow (if you know where they came from, that is).

If you smoke DANK, then there is a really good chance that a bean you find here and there WILL grow some good nougs. THe reason why bagseeds are 'looked down upon' is due to the fact that you really don't know if the genetics are stable or not... Even though the bean will grow dank, it doesn't mean that it's not a hermie. In fact, if you found only a seed or 3 in your dank sack, it is either a hermaphrodite, a male was left in the room slightly too long, or some other catastrophe regarding loose male maryjim pollen flying near the flowering room where that bag originated. Some hermaphrodites won't illustrated male flowering traits until late in the cycle... This type of hermi will produce sinsemilla (in the large majority) b/c the majority of the pistils, or 'red hairs', have turned red, or have died. This is the primary means of fertilization, so no good pistil, no chance at fertilization. For the hairs that are still viable (ie, white or some variation), even if pollen does attach, hopefully it is so entirely late in the flowering cycle that the fertilized product doesn't have time to fully develop.

Anyway, Q's, comments, criticisms are more than welcome.

Cheers, dak

 

[Kriegs]

Hey, dak.. looks like things are going well. The plants look great. You can def tell there's more than one strain in there, not that there's anything wrong with that.

My first grow last year was with some bagseed I got off a rare bag of seeded weed -- not heavily, but not hermi-style either. The original weed had a great spicy Thai flavor and buzz.. they were great plants, heavy heavy producers, and the original quality really came thru. I've still got a bunch of those seeds.

I've been hearing a lot of great reports about these hortilux bulbs. I'm due for a new one; I'll be interested to see how it does for you.

Just one little thing -- you said something about "switching things up" nute wise at 12/12? Not sure what you meant by that so I'll just say be sure to keep your N levels up to support the stretch. .

 

[dakin3d]

Hey, dak.. looks like things are going well. The plants look great. You can def tell there's more than one strain in there, not that there's anything wrong with that.

My first grow last year was with some bagseed I got off a rare bag of seeded weed -- not heavily, but not hermi-style either. The original weed had a great spicy Thai flavor and buzz.. they were great plants, heavy heavy producers, and the original quality really came thru. I've still got a bunch of those seeds.

I've been hearing a lot of great reports about these hortilux bulbs. I'm due for a new one; I'll be interested to see how it does for you.

Just one little thing -- you said something about "switching things up" nute wise at 12/12? Not sure what you meant by that so I'll just say be sure to keep your N levels up to support the stretch. .

Thanks bro, I appreciate it. Just so you're aware, I'm actually done w/ this grow, I'm just now posting it for a variety of reasons.

The Horti bulbs are the real deal: lumens and spectrum. I don't really have experience w/ anything else, but I'm not sure that I ever will. You'll be interested to see what the combination of bulbs produced

As the title reads.... At the time, I was ignorant of the fact that many of the nutrient companies decreased their N content too much in their 'proprietary' products. This was a key component in the learning experience of a first grow. All I can say is that even though I now know that the N ratio is too low in the Botanicare ProBloom formula during the flowering cycle, and even though I am well aware that Peters, Jacks, and Dyna are probably better nutrients for MMJ, the Botanicare lineup that I used was still pretty impressive.... for a first grow

Oh btw, when you see how these girls stretched, I was glad that I was using a low N feed (for the two week period anyway). It was during this time that I found out they were definitely sativa dominant. Talk about rediculous... Way too much plant for my 430W HPS.

 

[dakin3d]

The plants were going strong. I constantly obsessed over their genetics One downfall of bagseed (even if it is good), is that you might never know the strain you were growing. At this stage it was obviously too early to tell. I knew that the majority of them were sativa dominant, except for one. There was one that was w/o a doubt a true indica or even a kush. I wish I had pics of it. It was a short stalky deep green/purpleish bush that was the blacksheep of the group.

It was about 3 weeks into veg from seed at this point in time. I was reading up on sexing/preflowers and flowering nutrients. I still hadn't purchased the nutrients that I needed.... I was broke, so I was putting it off as long as possible. I did decide to add some Clearex to the list of stuff I was going to order (just keep adding to a list I have no $$ for). I figured it would make it easier to prevent buildup during flowering. I was also thinking about adding some 'Sweet' to the lineup. This stuff is a carbohydrate supplement plus other components that feeds the beneficials that reside in the soil. There is a common argument that these types of products actually do 'nothing' to improve the plants health, production, or taste!

One thing that I had noticed about my room was how much light was wasted by not having some kind of 'wall' or 'barrier' close to the plants that would reflect the light back onto the plants. I had been reading through the lighting chapter in 'The Bible'. It is incredibly comprehensive, and it gives great information regarding lighting 'blueprint', calculations for various applicable lighting situations, and the general outline of physical equipment. It's just a lot of useful info to help aid in 'dialing' your room in for optimum efficiency, and my room was entirely inefficient!. There was a lot of light escaping from the sides of the canopy, in turn this was illuminating the rest of the room. IOW, I was wasting light that could've been reflected back onto the sides and under canopy of the plants. If you notice, I also failed to paint the walls white. This is the least that I could've done at the time, but I thought once I had started that it was more trouble than it was worth. Plus, I didn't know how long it would take to dry due to the humidity (at that time, I didn't have my dehumidifier yet!).

Here are some more pics right before they starting to show some preflowers. Just 3-4 days after the previous pics. They were doing well. I was watering every 2-3 days depending on the particular pot. At this point, I was finally starting to catch onto appropriate watering procedures.

The 'Lift pot' method is by far the best way to tell if your girl needs H2O. When you first transplant (before watering in), pack down the soil on the top and add more, repeat (dont pack too hard, but after watering, the soil will 'contract' in response to the added moisture. Then you'll need to add more soil anyway. That way, you can avoid this. After packing, lift the pot a couple times w/ 1 or 2 hands (just be consistent...), set it down and repeat a couple times. Then water the transplant in well, after letting it sit to drain for 10-15 min, come back and do the same lifting exercise. From that point on, you should be able to tell when your plants need water. Add a similar amount of soil to each pot and try for all pots being alike. If the pot is light, similar to before watering in, then it probably needs water. If some other variation, doesn't need water. Basic stuff, but essential. Cheers, dak

 

[Kriegs]

Thanks bro, I appreciate it. Just so you're aware, I'm actually done w/ this grow, I'm just now posting it for a variety of reasons.

Hah..! I was stoned. I didn't get that at all.

 

[dakin3d]

Hah..! I was stoned. I didn't get that at all.

I was under the impression that you didn't but no worries, bro. Glad you have meds

 

[dakin3d]

Btw, you can tell on the previous post that I had switched up my bulb and flipped to 12/12. They were already too big when I flipped, but I was tentative. The attached pics illustrate the classic type of stretch that will occur w/ a sativa dominant strain when you veg the plants a little too long. Almost 5x its size from vegetation. These plants were much too tall for a 400W lamp, but I was too late to act on utilization of LST. At the time, I was ignorant of my options...lesson learned.

In transition, I fed w/ 50% Grow; 50% Bloom. I had acquired some Liquid Karma (10mL/gal) and CalMag (3mL/gal) for supplement. I used the supplements almost everytime that I fed, but not every watering. I also had added a full size oscillating fan, and a CAP regulator on a 50 lb. bottle of CO2 to the room. My friend works for a place that distributes gas, so the CO2 was easily obtained. I attached the 1/4" Vinyl tubing coming off of the regulator and attached it the to the back of the oscillating fan for 'even' distribution. I tried to maintain my PPM at an estimated 1500ppm, but I didn't have a monitor at the time, nor the money to spend on one. I guessed based on the various calculators that are available on the net that estimate a standardized flow rate based on the cubic feet of the room. The entire grow room is only approximately 550 cubic feet, so the recommended usage was easily obtained.

(sorry, I wish I had pics of the equipment, but I tore everything down before taking pics; i'll be more constructive on the next round) Cheers, dak

 

[dakin3d]

Just some specific info on the base nutrients for anyone that is interested:

Pure Blend Pro is a premium, one-part, natural and organic-based plant food. Both Grow and Bloom formulas provide increased nutritional value, promoting vigorous, lush, green vegetation and superior fruits, flowers and vegetables with the use of organic and natural sources. Pure Blend Pro is a healthy environment-friendly alternative to commercial chemical fertilizers. Use Grow during the vegetative growth stage.

There are attachments of both Grow and Bloom label.

*Also note: There is another liquid formula version of bloom made for hydro. This differs from the 'soil' version in that the hydroponic version has more Nitrogen.