1st Grow [Closet, CoCo, Clones, CFL]

[ClosetCoco]

Day 00 (4/03/2011)

Hey guys. this is my first grow so im completely open to suggestions, ideas, critiques, etc. i am using coco as my medium, i am ususing cfl as my clone lights, i am using rapid rooter to house my clones. i plan on buying a hps light for my flowering station. open to suggestions on that. i think i am going to buy a grow tent so i can keep the smell of the flowering down. the area i am in is not good for finding clones. so im keeping my eye open. hopefully ill be able to start in the next couple of days. This grow will be used for medicine even though its not recognized in my state.

Ill be uploading pics to here: Album
These are the things i got today

1. Canna CoCo
2. Canna Coco A+B
3. Canna Rhizotonic
4. Planet Max T5 Bulb [6500k]
5. YoYo Hanging System
6. pH Testing Kit
7. Fiskar Pruners
8. Rapid Rooter
9. Cloning Gel

I Spent 420$






Day 0 (4/05/2011)

Today i went to a local hydro shop to get some more supplies. There i got

1. Carbon Filter
2. 6'' Fan
3. Ducting
4. Earth Juice
5. Germ/Clone Dome
6. Mylar

I spent $319

I then found this dude on Craigslist who had a bunch of Hydro stuff and dint know how much it was worth.

1. Lumatek 1000w Ballast [not switchable]
2. 1000w Super HPS Eye Hortilux and a Socket

I spent 150$

I then went to homedepot

1. 2 Door locks to keep my room secure
2. Timmer
3. Screws
4. Cardboard
5. Tape

I Spent $50




Total Spent $939

Day 1 (4/6/2011)

Today was awesome! I got 2 fem iced grapefruit seeds from a fellow RIU member.
I spent $20


I also went to the Hydro store

1. Reflector
2. Flange for the carbon filter
3. Clamp

I spent 40$



Total Spent $999

I put the seeds in a damp paper towel in a bag and placed it on my Amp, which should keep it warm without getting too hot.

 

[ClosetCoco]

Day 02 (4/8/2011)

i inherited some plants from a friend
this what they looked like
trying to save them!
i watered them and lightly nuted them as well


Day 03 (4/9/2011)
they recovered into this:
[video=youtube;MkBN9saucRw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkBN9saucRw[/video]

after i shot the video
i fixed the exhaust to the ceiling (into the very convenient attic exit)
misted the rapid rooter (which contains more bag seedreggie, and two fem iced grapefruit)

 

[dajosh42069]

Wow...someone had some money to spend....
Nice find on that 1000W Ballast.

Ok, the BEST advice I can give you is do research, research, research. Read, Read, Read.
You have a A LOT, of GOOD, and EXPENSIVE equipment. That 1000W of HPS is gonna pull a lot of juice from your sockets, and effect your power bill. But since you have it, I recommend growing something a little better then bag seed. If your gonna spend ALL THAT MONEY on power, nutes, exhaust, ect, ect. Make it worth while, here's what you should do.
1) Grow out your 2x fen ice grapefruit, veg them for say, 3-6 weeks, depending on how many plants you want to grow. Ditch the bagseeds, you don't need them, they aren't potent, and I spent a year growing some that disappointed 100 times over.

2) Research Cloning, IT'S VERY VERY EASY!!!! THE WORD CLONING MAKES IT SOUND SCIENTIFIC, IT ISN'T!! Take as many clones as you can from those 2 plants leaving a few leaves and growth if you want to keep them around to keep taking clones off of in the future.

3) Once the clones take (1.5-3.5 weeks). Plant them in whatever medium to intend to use (soil is easiest, but it's your choice)

Note: Because you have 1000W, you have a unique opportunity to "SOG" grow (Meaning 'Sea of Green') Which simply means your utilizing every inch of available room & light to grow with. You can fill the room with plants, and put your light high enough to shine on them all. If you grow Indica plants, they will be short and stalky enough to fill the bottom 4ft of the room.

4) Get yourself a 1000W MH (Metal Halide) conversion bulb. It allows you to run 1000W MH (which is PERFECT for veg) on a 1000W HPS Ballast. You can veg under that, and then when you want to switch your crop to flower, switch the bulb to the 1000W HPS bulb, and change the cycle to 12/12.

5) While ALL THIS is going on, you will have 7-10 weeks to READ, READ, READ, READ, READ, READ, READ and learn EVERYTHING you need to know to make it work. I know it sucks, you have all this stuff NOW and you wanna get goin. I completely understand....BUT the stuff you have is high grade equipment, and using without knowing some advanced techniques (no offense) would be wasteful and expensive for you, if your already droppin the money, why not do so on a crop that is WORTH IT!! I recommend you research Hydro Growing, SOG Techniques, SCRoG Techniques, and the Advanced Cultivation. forum, as well as other advanced cultivation on other sites as well. 7-12 WEEKS IS PLENTY OF TIME FOR THIS!!! JUST FOCUS ON IT .

6) Once you reach step 6, you should be able to tell ME what to do next.
(But just in case, plant the clones in soil (since you didn't do the research if your looking to this provision of the plan ) and look up "Basic Growing Techniques" Get properly pHed (matter of opinion what the proper pH is, if I tell you a number, it'll just turn into a argument over what the right number is, so look it up and decide on your own, but between 5.5-6.8 generally), Reverse Osmosis Water and keep em under the MH bulb for 6-8 weeks, then switch to the HPS bulb and put it on a timer for 12 hrs on 12 hrs off. During the dark cycle, NO LIGHT LEAKAGE, meanning 100% Darkness, and harvest when the nugs look ready.)

Seriously tho man.....If you do it right, you can use all that equipment to it's potential, and have A LOT of green when your done. You may need to buy a few more nutes, and that MH bulb, but it'll be worth it, trust me.
I can only imagine what I could do if I had that kind of equipment....Use it well my friend, use it well. And good luck, no matter what you decide to do.


And...sorry for the GIANT message...

btw, you should check out this thread, https://www.rollitup.org/newbie-central/412440-vocab-slang-terms-updated-missing.html and the forum, every 1st time grower should give it a once over.

 

[ClosetCoco]

Wow...someone had some money to spend....
Nice find on that 1000W Ballast.

Ok, the BEST advice I can give you is do research, research, research. Read, Read, Read.
You have a A LOT, of GOOD, and EXPENSIVE equipment. That 1000W of HPS is gonna pull a lot of juice from your sockets, and effect your power bill. But since you have it, I recommend growing something a little better then bag seed. If your gonna spend ALL THAT MONEY on power, nutes, exhaust, ect, ect. Make it worth while, here's what you should do.
1) Grow out your 2x fen ice grapefruit, veg them for say, 3-6 weeks, depending on how many plants you want to grow. Ditch the bagseeds, you don't need them, they aren't potent, and I spent a year growing some that disappointed 100 times over.

2) Research Cloning, IT'S VERY VERY EASY!!!! THE WORD CLONING MAKES IT SOUND SCIENTIFIC, IT ISN'T!! Take as many clones as you can from those 2 plants leaving a few leaves and growth if you want to keep them around to keep taking clones off of in the future.

3) Once the clones take (1.5-3.5 weeks). Plant them in whatever medium to intend to use (soil is easiest, but it's your choice)

Note: Because you have 1000W, you have a unique opportunity to "SOG" grow (Meaning 'Sea of Green') Which simply means your utilizing every inch of available room & light to grow with. You can fill the room with plants, and put your light high enough to shine on them all. If you grow Indica plants, they will be short and stalky enough to fill the bottom 4ft of the room.

4) Get yourself a 1000W MH (Metal Halide) conversion bulb. It allows you to run 1000W MH (which is PERFECT for veg) on a 1000W HPS Ballast. You can veg under that, and then when you want to switch your crop to flower, switch the bulb to the 1000W HPS bulb, and change the cycle to 12/12.

5) While ALL THIS is going on, you will have 7-10 weeks to READ, READ, READ, READ, READ, READ, READ and learn EVERYTHING you need to know to make it work. I know it sucks, you have all this stuff NOW and you wanna get goin. I completely understand....BUT the stuff you have is high grade equipment, and using without knowing some advanced techniques (no offense) would be wasteful and expensive for you, if your already droppin the money, why not do so on a crop that is WORTH IT!! I recommend you research Hydro Growing, SOG Techniques, SCRoG Techniques, and the Advanced Cultivation. forum, as well as other advanced cultivation on other sites as well. 7-12 WEEKS IS PLENTY OF TIME FOR THIS!!! JUST FOCUS ON IT .

6) Once you reach step 6, you should be able to tell ME what to do next.
(But just in case, plant the clones in soil (since you didn't do the research if your looking to this provision of the plan ) and look up "Basic Growing Techniques" Get properly pHed (matter of opinion what the proper pH is, if I tell you a number, it'll just turn into a argument over what the right number is, so look it up and decide on your own, but between 5.5-6.8 generally), Reverse Osmosis Water and keep em under the MH bulb for 6-8 weeks, then switch to the HPS bulb and put it on a timer for 12 hrs on 12 hrs off. During the dark cycle, NO LIGHT LEAKAGE, meanning 100% Darkness, and harvest when the nugs look ready.)

Seriously tho man.....If you do it right, you can use all that equipment to it's potential, and have A LOT of green when your done. You may need to buy a few more nutes, and that MH bulb, but it'll be worth it, trust me.
I can only imagine what I could do if I had that kind of equipment....Use it well my friend, use it well. And good luck, no matter what you decide to do.


And...sorry for the GIANT message...

btw, you should check out this thread, https://www.rollitup.org/newbie-central/412440-vocab-slang-terms-updated-missing.html and the forum, every 1st time grower should give it a once over.

Thanks so much for the advice,
Research is pretty much the only thing i do..lol .. I can't play with the seedling and I don't want to watch dirt so research it is! I figured we would need to buy more nutes but hopefully we will have more money by then... we definately blew our budget with all the equipment we got..... and we were deciding if we should take clones from the Iced Grapefruit but i think now that im reading your post that we might just do that.... also I think im going to practice with the reggie seeds I mean it can't hurt right? We don't yet have the 1000w MH bulb... but i think the T5 should do for now? We were going to top our plants... but you say SOG is better? I also just checked out the advanced cultivation.. theres some really good techniques in there I would love to use.


Thank you for all the advice... we definately couldn't have gotten this far without the rollitup community.

 

[ClosetCoco]

Wow...someone had some money to spend....
Nice find on that 1000W Ballast.

Ok, the BEST advice I can give you is do research, research, research. Read, Read, Read.
You have a A LOT, of GOOD, and EXPENSIVE equipment. That 1000W of HPS is gonna pull a lot of juice from your sockets, and effect your power bill. But since you have it, I recommend growing something a little better then bag seed. If your gonna spend ALL THAT MONEY on power, nutes, exhaust, ect, ect. Make it worth while, here's what you should do.
1) Grow out your 2x fen ice grapefruit, veg them for say, 3-6 weeks, depending on how many plants you want to grow. Ditch the bagseeds, you don't need them, they aren't potent, and I spent a year growing some that disappointed 100 times over.

2) Research Cloning, IT'S VERY VERY EASY!!!! THE WORD CLONING MAKES IT SOUND SCIENTIFIC, IT ISN'T!! Take as many clones as you can from those 2 plants leaving a few leaves and growth if you want to keep them around to keep taking clones off of in the future.

3) Once the clones take (1.5-3.5 weeks). Plant them in whatever medium to intend to use (soil is easiest, but it's your choice)

Note: Because you have 1000W, you have a unique opportunity to "SOG" grow (Meaning 'Sea of Green') Which simply means your utilizing every inch of available room & light to grow with. You can fill the room with plants, and put your light high enough to shine on them all. If you grow Indica plants, they will be short and stalky enough to fill the bottom 4ft of the room.

4) Get yourself a 1000W MH (Metal Halide) conversion bulb. It allows you to run 1000W MH (which is PERFECT for veg) on a 1000W HPS Ballast. You can veg under that, and then when you want to switch your crop to flower, switch the bulb to the 1000W HPS bulb, and change the cycle to 12/12.

5) While ALL THIS is going on, you will have 7-10 weeks to READ, READ, READ, READ, READ, READ, READ and learn EVERYTHING you need to know to make it work. I know it sucks, you have all this stuff NOW and you wanna get goin. I completely understand....BUT the stuff you have is high grade equipment, and using without knowing some advanced techniques (no offense) would be wasteful and expensive for you, if your already droppin the money, why not do so on a crop that is WORTH IT!! I recommend you research Hydro Growing, SOG Techniques, SCRoG Techniques, and the Advanced Cultivation. forum, as well as other advanced cultivation on other sites as well. 7-12 WEEKS IS PLENTY OF TIME FOR THIS!!! JUST FOCUS ON IT .

6) Once you reach step 6, you should be able to tell ME what to do next.
(But just in case, plant the clones in soil (since you didn't do the research if your looking to this provision of the plan ) and look up "Basic Growing Techniques" Get properly pHed (matter of opinion what the proper pH is, if I tell you a number, it'll just turn into a argument over what the right number is, so look it up and decide on your own, but between 5.5-6.8 generally), Reverse Osmosis Water and keep em under the MH bulb for 6-8 weeks, then switch to the HPS bulb and put it on a timer for 12 hrs on 12 hrs off. During the dark cycle, NO LIGHT LEAKAGE, meanning 100% Darkness, and harvest when the nugs look ready.)

Seriously tho man.....If you do it right, you can use all that equipment to it's potential, and have A LOT of green when your done. You may need to buy a few more nutes, and that MH bulb, but it'll be worth it, trust me.
I can only imagine what I could do if I had that kind of equipment....Use it well my friend, use it well. And good luck, no matter what you decide to do.


And...sorry for the GIANT message...

btw, you should check out this thread, https://www.rollitup.org/newbie-central/412440-vocab-slang-terms-updated-missing.html and the forum, every 1st time grower should give it a once over.

DUDE! thankks so much for the long post. i really appreciate it. the more i learn the better.

haha yeah. growing bud is somthing i have had my eye for about 5-6 years. the only thing was i didnt have a place to grow. so i just saved my money till i got my place.


i have had many 5am nights reading all the posts on RIU, and some other forums.


1) would it be worth it for the bho i could get from the bagseed? bho where live runs about 60 a g. which is WAAY out of my spending budget for bud. if its not worth it then ill just toss em as soon as my ice grapefruits sprout.


2) i bought cloning hormone. and i looked around locally for clones but the only one i could find was selling them for 120$ each. which is wayy too much for me. so ill be sure to get clones from my grapefruit.ii have a lot of rapidrooters for my clones. i just need a mother plant lol.


i put the SOG in my to read section! i have seen lst, scrog and topping but i didnt know which would be best for my set up.

4)is my one t5 light not going to be enough? i was planning on the 1000 watt MH after my harvest, when i have some money saved.

i bought a jewlers loupe so i can see the trics really easy and ill be able to tell when i harvest. i was told i need to buy a ph tester and my ph solution wont do. what do you think about this?



thanks man for all the help!

 

[dajosh42069]

You absolutely need a pH tester for your water. The drops usually work best, but they have to have a full range so you can see where it's at, pool pH meters won't work.

And as far as the bagseeds go, I suppose keeping them around in veg for experimenting is a good idea, I actually advocate that, so yes, keep them vegging with the other sproutlings. No nutes on the sproutlings (good ones) for at least 2.5-3 weeks. I didn't give nutes to my clones in soil for 4 weeks, and they're great, but I was also using Fox Farms Ocean Forest, which is basically the standard in soil growing.
Keep the in veg and experiment, try LSTing (Low Stress Training) Topping, Fimming, cloning if you like, it would be a good way to experiment. I also recommend you CLEARLY LABEL ALL PLANTS, CLONES, AND SEEDLINGS!!!!! If I plant a seed, the first I call S1, and the second would be S2, when you clone them, you name them accordingly, S1-1, S1-2, S2-1, S2-2, ect, ect, ya know? If the bagseed is just mids, don't bother, it's truly not worth it. You could be growing SO much better in that same space with that same light and nutes. Experiment on them in veg, But I wouldn't flower them. Of course, it's your choice, feel free to do so if you really want to.

The T5, is good, but they sell Metal Halide CONVERSION bulbs, that allow you to run a MH bulb in an HPS ballast, if it's switchable, then it'll have a switch for MH, if not, a conversion bulb shouldn't be overly expensive and worth it to veg under if you have 1000W available. The T5 is a great cloning light, you keep all the clones under that until they're good and rooted, then move them to the room under the CMH (Conversion Metal Halide) 1000W. You'll see some AMAZINGLY fast growth. And will prob only need about 1 to 1.5 months of veg.

120 BUCKS A CLONE??!?!?! WOW, They're only 10-20 bux each here, many dispensaries carry them, but i've never used them. Many many growers here, we all get strains and trade or sell them to each other. 10 is standard for any strain, I got my 4x Master Kush clones that i'm growing in the journal in my sig, for 40 bux. And once i'm done, i'll EASILY pull 5-6 oz's.


And just like you, i've been doing that for a long time now as well, reading RIU and other forums, other sites, other grow journals, just anything I can get my hands on. Focusing mainly on what i'm doing, or what I could be doing.

And feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

 

[legallyflying]

I would also suggest to get some fresh genetics. If your going to spend the time, and it takes allot of time to grow good buds, might as well grow good stuff. Or grow out the bag seed while your starting mothers from new seed

I just got some headband from attitude.... Whoa dude! Northern lights is also a classic strain that is very very forgiving of née growers/abuse

$120 for a clone? That's fucking bullshit right there.

Subbing up to watch/ help and make fun

 

[dajosh42069]

Well, they say they've got 2 seeds from a good strain sproutling , I suggested to clone and grow a whole crop of em. But fresh genetics aren't a bad idea either. It's really up to you tho, you can absolutely grow and amazing crop with the genetics you have. and especially for a FIRST GROW, it's best to only grow 1 strain, since each strain has special needs and requirements, it makes it all more complicated when your trying to deal with multiple strains and multiple requirements.

My advice, stick with what you have, it will be easier since you still have to get acquainted with all your beautiful new equipment. But that's just me, i'm subbed as well, good luck with your grow, and again, feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

 

[ClosetCoco]

ill be sure to get a ph meter in the near future.

ill tag the iced grapefruit. all the unlabled ones will be the reggie.


HOLY CRAP?! 1 month? i am going to keep my eye on those on craigslist. wow. that is amazing and i had no idea.

wow, i wished i lived near a dispensary. sadly the state i live in doesnt recognize marjuana for medical use. [purpose of this grow]

the growers around hear can price gouge since its illegal :/

thanks man! ill be sure to pm if you if i have any questions.

i was planning on buying from attitude as soon as i get a bit more cash. i have my eyes on some good fem seeds.

one of my friends has a dealer, who grows and sells to dispensaries. he sent me a bag of 100 custom strains that he made

i am hoping i can grow those into some beautiful ladies





what the best method for mass germination? i am going to have more than 100 seeds and i want to germinate 40 of them really quickly


my goal is to get there where i can harvest every week

 

[dajosh42069]

Perpetual grow is ambitious...Learn first grasshopper And craigslist?

 

[ClosetCoco]

Perpetual grow is ambitious...Learn first grasshopper And craigslist?

hahaha yeah sometimes i tent to get ahead of my self


craigslist is a website where people sell their stuff locally and its free to list.
they have a subdomain for ever city (pretty much)

i got my entire home theatre system on craigslist for about 500$ less than retail and the lights were also a steal

craigslist.org


Day 6 (4/11/2011)

Sprouts!!!
one of my two fem iced grapfruit finally sprouted.
so i cut a cup and put the rapid rooter in the cup and added some coco and water the coco and made sure the rapid rooter was moist
i put it under the t5






current setup


i dont have any way of measuring the temperature so i used my candy thermometer and stuck in the soil to get a reading



current status of the bagseed reggie

 

[dajosh42069]

No, I know what craigslist is!! I'm simply wondering why you were mentioning it at that time...
And the seeds are looking a little yellowish, it maybe cause they just sprouted, the soil may be too strong, what soil are you using?

 

[ClosetCoco]

We are using Canna Coco... With Canna A+B, Rhizotonic, and Earthjuice..... They do look strange right? I thought it might of just been me... When should I re pot the sprout?

 

[dajosh42069]

I personally sprout in a cup, and move after about 2 weeks. Once they start to outgrow the cups. Maybe sooner then that.Some like to go up 1 pot size every so often, believing that roots that are becoming bound in the bottom will spread out more, and encourage growth once moved to a larger space. Me? I personally plant direct in whatever final pot (or bag as it may be) that i'm using.

 

[dajosh42069]

But I meant the soil your sprouting in...or is that what you meant? I thought Coco was a hydro growing medium....?

 

[legallyflying]

coco isn't really a hydro growing medium. I guess it could be with maybe one flood per day. You can transfer your coco starts to hydroton without a problem.

Anywho, I would advise against feeding your seedlings anything at all until they get their first set of true leaves. The seeds have all the nutrients they need till the leaves start to grow. Seedlings are VERY sensitive and you can easily kill them.

 

[legallyflying]

oh yeah, get over the idea of the perpetual grow at this point. It is a perpetual pain in the ass. You really want to be harvesting, trimming and drying every week? No, you don't.

Mass starting seeds is easy, get a seed tray with a humidity dome and a bunch of peat plugs or coco as medium. done. Trust me on the perpetual thing.

 

[dajosh42069]

Yeah, NO FERTILIZER YET!
They are very delicate in this stage.based on what I see them sprouting in, i's transplant them as soon as the roots take hold. You MAY even want to wait til you see the roots coming out of the sides of the sponge.

And stick to the plan. Improvise as needed. But one of the BEST pieces of growing advice ever given to me, and that I've ever given was. Don't over complicate things. Try to keep it simple. 9/10, Simple always works best.

There's plenty of us around if you need any help, and as always....feel free to PM.

 

[legallyflying]

in the future, just leave it in the plug till the roots start sprouting out of the side of it....

Its fine. like the above said, its not rocket science.

 

[Bird Gymnastics]

Thanks for stopping by in my grow. Your setup is exactly what I want here in a couple months. Anyways I'm sub'd. Can't really help you with too much since I'm a newbie but I'm here along for the ride. Looking forward to see what your setup can produce.