B&K's First Grow-LED and T5 HO Floro 30 Plants-10 The Dope-20 Endless Sky

[bonnie'n'klyde]

We started this grow on February 3rd. Clyde and I had been thinking about growing for about a year and we finally got up the courage and the start-up capital to do so.

Our grow right now is mainly operated out of our 8x10' walk-in-closet.

I'm Bonnie by the way and what I am going to do now is try my best based on my diary entries so far, to catch all of you up on the start to present of our first grow.

To give you a little background, I am the nurturing, hash making, plant loving female and Klyde is kind of the mad scientist; reads 100 books a year, weirdo smart guy and together I think we make up a pretty great growing duo.

I'm going to catch you up on this first extremely long post, post as many pictures as I have thus far, and then Kylde will post all of his technical mumbo jumbo. Hopefully all of you will be able to decipher exactly what we have done and what we hope to accomplish.

Here goes nothing;

 

[bonnie'n'klyde]

February 3rd, 2010
7:06pm

Today Klyde and I received our seeds. It took about a month for them to get here from Canada. We ordered from Dr Greenthumb after a lot of research he seemed to be a good direction to go. Although he wasn't the most friendly guy, the woman who answers the phones made up for it. We got 22 feminized seeds and 11 Dope feminized seeds.

For a while now we have been learning and reading about how to set up a perfect indoor operation. Klyde did most of the reading of books while I did most of my research online. There is so much conflicting information out there that it was really about finding a balance and then just experimenting from there.

Our Goal when we set out was to do a SOG method but we ran into some problems and now we are moving....so when this grow is done we will start up in a new place and hopefully get our stuff going on a regular basis.

Now when we got the seeds we put them in 2 separate glasses of water to soak. They went in at around 5:45 pm. While they were hanging out we started to set up our new room with a green light, temp control, humidifier, and thermostat.

At 12:30am we moved the seeds to the dark. I set up a cheese grater with 2 moist paper towels laid on the grater then in each hole placed a seed. Then 2 more wet paper towels went on top and then a damp washcloth. I used a rubber band to hold the towels down at each end of the grater and set it on a plate. Because the grater was at an angle the seeds couldn't hold water which was good and bad. We had to constantly check them to make sure they stayed moist but the upside was that the seeds couldn't rot. We watered them with a 2% bleach water solution to keep fungus from growing.

Okay so we kept the room at
-80 degrees F
-35-50% Humidity
-Complete Darkness Until Germination

 

[bonnie'n'klyde]

February 4th
11:30pm

At around 10:00pm we noticed 5 seeds had split open and roots had begun to pop out. We have been keeping the towel moist but not drenched.

February 5th
2:00pm

We have planted all the seeds and labeled each one so that we can determine our strongest plants for cloning. Turned on our lights at 1:45pm and now they will stay on for 16 hours to 24 hours until they pop through the soil. We are using a self watering tray so that water is evenly distributed and we put a dome over the plants for humidity.

4:30pm

We had some problems with our timer for our lights so we are going to have to reschedule when they come on and off since it is now 4:30pm and they haven't been on since we left to run errands.

The lights we are running at this point and will be running until we trasplant is;
-3 Blue 13 Watt cfl's @ 6500 degrees Kelvin
-2 Yellow 62 Watt cfl's @ 2700 degrees Kelvin
-The Temp has remained around 78 degrees with 38% humidity.

 

[bonnie'n'klyde]

February 6th
7:22pm

Our first couple seeds have started to poke through the soil. Our lights are going on from 1:00pm to 7:00am. I sprayed them with a little water about a half an hour ago just to help the humidity.

February 7th
1:10pm

The lights just came on and it looks like E18 and H6 are doing the best so far. The E stands for Endless Sky and H stands for The Dope. They have a deep green color and a reddish purple stalk. They also have four leaves at this point. A couple of the plants were looking a little yellow so we moved the lights further away. The best seeds from the start look to be The Dope because all but one of its seed have come through and out of 22 endless sky seeds only ten have come through so far.

It turns out that we didn't let the roots grow long enough before planting them so we had to help a few of them out to the surface. Very gentle tedious work on my part. Klyde's hands shake too much to let him do it. We didn't know if that was a good or bad thing to do but what could it hurt at that point? Turns out it didn't harm the plants so I guess it was okay.

The PH level is around 6.8 and we need to pick up some nutes for them soon.

 

[bonnie'n'klyde]

Just to let you guys know once I catch you up Klyde is going give you the run down of every single piece of equipment we have ordered and are using so far. He is great at all that technical stuff me not so much.

 

[bonnie'n'klyde]

February 9th
1:10pm

The plants are looking amazing, all but 2 of them are up. One will not germinate and one looks like a late bloomer. So this means out of 33 seeds we have 32 plants...couldn't have asked for better odds.

Yesterday we went to our local hydro shop (about an hour and a half away). This place was like a pot growers paradise that we didn't know existed. The shop is fairly small time but they look like they are expanding and anything we need they can order and have to us within 3 days. We spent $810.79. With that we were able to get was -An exhaust fan
-Flora Nova Grow and Bloom
-Ph up and Ph down
-Ph indicator
-Cloning gel
-Scalpels
-Sunfilm (which we took back and later bought diamond sunfilm)
-The Sun Blaze System w/ T5 High Output Florescent
-Plus 2 red T5 bulbs
-Charcoal Filter
-and most importantly a really great shop full of wonderful dudes that are super helpful.

We are still using tap water right now because we are still trying to get all of our parts for our RO system.

The tallest plant is 2" and the shortest is about 1".

 

[Mrcool360]

Hey man nice grow! Check out my Grow in my Sig!!

 

[mared juwan]

Right on Bonnie. Looks great. Depending on where you live the tap water might not be a problem. I use tap water and it works just fine. RO would technically be better but don't worry too much about not having it. Anyways best of luck and I'll be following.

 

[NickNasty]

Im subscribed, it's good to see people who put in the work and research before they ever start.
Keep up the great work!

 

[NickNasty]

Check http://www.purewaterclub.com/ for RO Systems and parts they have great deals.

 

[bonnie'n'klyde]

We actually have the RO system now, just got it set up about a week and a half ago. We started using distilled water at one point cuz the plants were showing a couple different weird def and tox and we couldn't figure out what was wrong. Using distilled water seemed to correct the problem until the RO system was together. But I'll get to more of that later!

 

[bonnie'n'klyde]

February 9th
6:10pm

Klyde and I got some hell from our landlord about the electricity usage. We know it can't be from our grow because its only been going for a week or so and we don't use hardly any power at this point. We figure it is from the space heaters we have been using in my office (which has no heat and it is February and snowing!). The toilet needs to be fixed, the roof leaks when it rains, and the electrical is piss poor.

We are debating on getting a steel building that is 2200-2300sqft. The place is just down the road. Our cover business is something that Klyde actually does and will be doing except there will be a wall put up in the back of the shop, business would look normal. The place is only $700 a month plus utilities. We would have to sell me car to do that but we were planning on selling it anyway. This way we don't have to move our house or grow in it and our landlord---who by the way has been poking around our place----can go suck a dick! I can't stand that awful woman. Okay just needed to vent a little.

We plan on putting up our new light tomorrow!

 

[bonnie'n'klyde]

February 13th
1:36pm

On February 10th we cleaned up and put an AC in the room. We didn't have enough money to get a new AC so we used my window AC from my office since I obviously am not using it at this point.

The temp jumped really high within about 20min because we didn't realize the window AC vetilated heat out the back lol! Soooo...we made a late night trip to Walmart and I scraped together all my change (yes I collect change and secretly take money from Klyde when he isn't paying attention...for reasons such as this, because we are terrible at money management). Anyway, we got a saw, clamps, bungees, and an airfilter for our air intake hole that we cut, yes cut, into the wall.

With these tools Klyde cut a while from the closet to the bathroom--thru the shower I might add so the AC could ventilate. He used a sledge hammer and a hand saw...fairly impressive I might add.

We got our CO2 tank yesterday and the plants immediately perked right up and started growing faster.

At this point I have watered them twice with 2 gallons of water. One with 1/4 teaspoon of nutrients Nova Grow.

PH is at 6.0.

Plans changed again though, we can't afford to move into the structure. To be honest I hate it here anyway. A little background...we almost always have good intentions but we almost always make bad decisions or wrong decisions. We tend to be runners, we get comfortable somewhere and then we are too comfortable so we have to move. It works for us.

 

[bonnie'n'klyde]

February 19th
7:12pm

Yesterday we transplanted the plants. We gave them Superthrive before and after they were transplanted. After they were in we watered with 1/4 strength fertilizer.

Our soil was (2) 12 Quart Ocean Fox Farm plus (1) 8 Quart bag of Vermiculite, and (1) 8 Quart bag of perlite.

In the bottom of each pot I placed about 1" of clay pellets, mixed a couple in the soil, the added pellets on top.

Our biggest plant, H7 started showing brown spots on his leaves today. I believe it is a phosphorus def. We fertilized with 1/2 teaspoon Nova Grow, Superthrive, anti fungal solution, and Diamond Nectar.

There is a slight green hue on top of the soil. We were a little worried since we know if it is algae then it can breed white flies, which would be a bitch to get rid of.

We started watering with a little hydrogen peroxide and the green completely went away.

We have slowly moved the lights closer to the plants in 3 stages so the plants aren't too weak, and we are also running the light 24 hours now.

We have 31 remaining plants at this point (had to cull one because it never really caught up to the others). The plants are around 3" tall now.

I know it is a lot of info but I get less annoying as I go I promise!

 

[bonnie'n'klyde]

February 21st
3:45am

Not gonna lie...Klyde and I got into quite a few arguments in the beginning when we were trying to find the right way to fertilize and I would say it should be one way and he believed totally different. Turns out these plants are either extremely resilient, great beginners plants, or we lucked out.

Klyde usually won out in arguments about what was best because he felt that books were/are more accurate than the internet since they have been published and someone took a lot of time to work on them(which makes sense). However, I feel the internet provides real time experience with real people going through the same thing that we are.

One of these days I will be more knowledgeable than Klyde at something! He has crazy memory, he reads it once and remembers it for the rest of his life....I can't remember details like that. Although, I can remember where my belongings AND his are.

So at this point are nutes are as follow:
-Nova Grow- 1 teas
-Superthrive- 1/2 teas
-Diamond Nectar-1 teas
-1 gallon water
PH up was added to make it 6.0

The soil at one point got high (we tested run off since we had no real way of testing soil yet)...When I wanted the to PH to drop down I used all nutes listed above and PH down. The soil was at 7.0 and I wanted it around 6.0 so I watered with 5.0 and it evened it out to a median range. I wouldn't use this as a rule of thumb because I was just guessing, but it did work.

 

[mared juwan]

February 19th
7:12pm

Yesterday we transplanted the plants. We gave them Superthrive before and after they were transplanted. After they were in we watered with 1/4 strength fertilizer.

Our soil was (2) 12 Quart Ocean Fox Farm plus (1) 8 Quart bag of Vermiculite, and (1) 8 Quart bag of perlite.

In the bottom of each pot I placed about 1" of clay pellets, mixed a couple in the soil, the added pellets on top.

Our biggest plant, H7 started showing brown spots on his leaves today. I believe it is a phosphorus def. We fertilized with 1/2 teaspoon Nova Grow, Superthrive, anti fungal solution, and Diamond Nectar.

There is a slight green hue on top of the soil. We were a little worried since we know if it is algae then it can breed white flies, which would be a bitch to get rid of.

We started watering with a little hydrogen peroxide and the green completely went away.

We have slowly moved the lights closer to the plants in 3 stages so the plants aren't too weak, and we are also running the light 24 hours now.

We have 31 remaining plants at this point (had to cull one because it never really caught up to the others). The plants are around 3" tall now.

I know it is a lot of info but I get less annoying as I go I promise!

Yea the plant in pic 3 needs more food. Don't go crazy though trying to get rid of the yellow (N def) because it won't happen. Just a little bump up in feed and the yellow and brownish spots will stop spreading. Nothing wrong with pic 2 though if klyde doesn't mind me saying

 

[seed2bud]

Plants are looking good. Ill be watching this journal. Keep the pics coming

 

[bonnie'n'klyde]

February 22nd
1:30amish (too lazy to check)

Today or rather yesterday morning the feed schedule was as follows:
-1 teas Nova Grow
-1/3 teas Bloom
-1 teas Diamond Nectar
-PH @ 6.5
-1 gallon of water

The plants must be getting more thirsty because they had about half as much run off as they normally do. They are showing a lot more inter-nodal growth and are sitting around 2-4".....ummm..

Damn lost my train of thought cuz Klyde farted in his hand and put it in my face...he is banished to the other room now....still thinking...okay got it

We started watering them twice a day at this point.

Run off water was PH 6.5, and there wasn't much of it even after the second watering.

We are going to begin flowering in two weeks. The books say we should in about a week but that doesn't seem right to us.

Anywho, the plan is to be out of her by the 2nd week of May. (Don't think that is gonna happen).

 

[bonnie'n'klyde]

So at this point we are starting to get paranoid. My legs look like Chubaca, my hair looks like shit, I have had a large pimple for 2 weeks, and we both have to drink NyQuil every night just to go to bed because every little noise we hear we think the police are coming for us. I know we aren't worth anyone's time but that doesn't mean that we aren't paranoid as all hell.

This job isn't for people who can't handle stress...and it is a job, we are not being lazy in fact we work more now than we every have at a normal job. People need to realize this is far from taking the easy way out!

 

[Ironlungz82]

That's never a good thing. She probably already has suspicions of something going on. They can easily get into your place if they wanted too since she has the key.

February 9th
6:10pm

Klyde and I got some hell from our landlord about the electricity usage. We know it can't be from our grow because its only been going for a week or so and we don't use hardly any power at this point. We figure it is from the space heaters we have been using in my office (which has no heat and it is February and snowing!). The toilet needs to be fixed, the roof leaks when it rains, and the electrical is piss poor.

We are debating on getting a steel building that is 2200-2300sqft. The place is just down the road. Our cover business is something that Klyde actually does and will be doing except there will be a wall put up in the back of the shop, business would look normal. The place is only $700 a month plus utilities. We would have to sell me car to do that but we were planning on selling it anyway. This way we don't have to move our house or grow in it and our landlord---who by the way has been poking around our place----can go suck a dick! I can't stand that awful woman. Okay just needed to vent a little.

We plan on putting up our new light tomorrow!