First Grow, ak-48 SCROG in my closet

Welcome all, this is my first grow journal ever, for my first grow ever. We're ten days in total already, as of 10/18. It's had a bump or two, but for the most part she's treating me nice.

The Venue:

3x3x6.5 (approx) grow tent
Water Farm
400w MH in a switchable sun system 2 with glass to contain heat for venting)
Cocotek Brick grow medium
inline duct fan from Home Depot with DIY carbon filter

The Date:

Distilled water only
FloraNova Bloom nutes beginning to end
water PH'd to 5.5-6.0
18/6 light cycle veg
Screen of Green

The Girl

Femized ak-48 from nirvanashop, germinated in the coco directly to avoid transplanting trauma. I don't want this girl growing up with too many daddy issues.

Timeline:
Seed in the dirt on plain water 10/8/2011
Broke surface 10/11 - began 18/6 light
Began 1/2 tsp nutes per gallon 10/14

The Story So Far: Some of my stuff has been late to arrive, so the glass for the light just went in. All that heat getting dumped into the tent brought the temps up to about 100F. They are now under control at about 80. Also, my PH meter and PPM meters aren't here yet, so I can't give precision measurements. I'm PH'ing off the ph test bottle color chart, far from ideal, and going light on nutes to be safe. Once those get here (10/20) I'll lock things down much tighter and really kick it off.



Any comments or advice are more than welcome! I have done most of my research here and must give thanks to scottyballs especially, who's thread provided a lot of the groundwork for this grow.

Wow, nice setup!!! Looks like you've got everything you need to run a smooth and successful grow. I'm following this grow

Xcon said:

Wow, nice setup!!! Looks like you've got everything you need to run a smooth and successful grow. I'm following this grow

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appreciated, and good to hear everything looks up to spec!

Got in my ph meter and ppm meter. Ph one is fucked up, but it also does soil moisture level, which works. Its waterfarm brand, if anybody knows anything about them... I'll post a link to it when I'm home again. Upped nutes to 200ppm, was at like 50-60ppm, and added a little fan blowing at the leaves to toughen up the stem a bit. Pics in the AM.

Whoops, mixed up my brand names. The PH meter: (cheap, i know. broke these days, man) http://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-MGMP1-Active-2-Way-Moisture/dp/B002JPB30U/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1319201634&sr=8-6

So we're another few days in, the ppm has barely changed, and it's ph hasn't budged. With it being as young as it is, I don't think it's drinking a whole lot at the moment, so I attribute my water drop to mostly evaporation right now. Another reason why I finally got around to putting down my tinfoil blanket for the coco. It's a pain to top up now though. Eh, I'll get used to that now, and it won't bug me come screen install time.

Pics!

Did the hydrofarm come with a ppm tester? That ph tester won't last very long. I went through 2 of them before getting this... http://tinyurl.com/5vmwnjb and eventually this.... http://tinyurl.com/6kqzbn7

The Milwaukee for $20 is a good meter, but needs to be calibrated each time I use it. The Hanna is fantastic, I haven't had to calibrate it in about a month, but it does have an EC/TDS function that you might not need.

Looking good so far!!!

The ppm tester I have is a blue HM digital tds EZ. I think I was looking at the Hanna meter you posted a while ago but it wasn't in the budget. I think the Milwaukee will end up being the one for me. Thanks for the links!

She's really springing to life! It's actually exciting to come home and count leaves! Just in the off chance that anybody is reading this and thinking of starting their first grow, DO IT. Rewarding before you even get to the smoke. Also, I started a discussion page for this journal (not sure why there is supposed to be a separate thread dedicated to talking about this thread, but hey, I'm stoned, it doesn't have to make sense right now).

Looks good, AK48 is supposed to be bomb so you shouild be pretty stoked when it comes time to blaze

Uh oh, plant problem. I believe this is nitrogen deficiency, because of the yellowing leaves and purple tint on the stems. I am not sure why the tip of that one leaf is looking so rough though. A few little places also look a little brown and i really am not sure why. I haven't been 100% sure how often to change out my water, as the ppm hasn't been moving much. I am concerned that my iffy PH setup has led to a bit of lockout. Payday is tonight though, a quality ph meter will be ordered ASAP. I swapped the water with 180ppm today, last time was probably four days ago. Is that too far between water changes?

Factorxfiles said:

Uh oh, plant problem. I believe this is nitrogen deficiency, because of the yellowing leaves and purple tint on the stems. I am not sure why the tip of that one leaf is looking so rough though. A few little places also look a little brown and i really am not sure why. I haven't been 100% sure how often to change out my water, as the ppm hasn't been moving much. I am concerned that my iffy PH setup has led to a bit of lockout. Payday is tonight though, a quality ph meter will be ordered ASAP. I swapped the water with 180ppm today, last time was probably four days ago. Is that too far between water changes?

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First of all SUBBED! Looks promising, interested too see how the WF handles different mediums. 180ppm is way to little for a plant that size mate. She should be about a week now right? Bump her up to 250-300ppm with a smidgen of Micro to increase nitrogen levels. The Nova Bloom has relatively little nitrogen for what she needs early on. I am also doing a WF grow myself but with the hydroton and I do a reservoir change every week (or less depending on how she's "eating"), i'm not too sure how often you would change it with your medium, should be somewhat the same I suppose so 4 days isn't bad at all just keep a close watch on the ppm and feed her accordingly. Don't worry too much about the PH right now, since your using distilled water she should be ok for now or until you get your pH meter. Good luck mate!

Today's mix was bloom + five drops of the micro nitrogen, ended up at 295ppm. By far the biggest breakfast she's had.

Also, I did a bit of research on foliar feeding, the idea being to get nitrogen back to the leaves immediately by putting it on them directly. So, I mixed up a 1-liter spray bottle with a bit of the micro nitrogen, it came to like 50ppm, so pretty weak (this is a test spray, after all). Sprayed it down and up about halfway through it's light cycle yesterday, then again when it began it's cycle today, which was a few hours ago. Just sprayed it again. It's devouring the mix, so I'm going to stick with the spray feeding for a while. The leaves are noticably better looking to my eye, though the burnt tips are still burnt, of course.

Factorxfiles said:

Today's mix was bloom + five drops of the micro nitrogen, ended up at 295ppm. By far the biggest breakfast she's had.

Also, I did a bit of research on foliar feeding, the idea being to get nitrogen back to the leaves immediately by putting it on them directly. So, I mixed up a 1-liter spray bottle with a bit of the micro nitrogen, it came to like 50ppm, so pretty weak (this is a test spray, after all). Sprayed it down and up about halfway through it's light cycle yesterday, then again when it began it's cycle today, which was a few hours ago. Just sprayed it again. It's devouring the mix, so I'm going to stick with the spray feeding for a while. The leaves are noticably better looking to my eye, though the burnt tips are still burnt, of course.

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There you go! Good going man. They are looking way healthier than your previous pic, more green and more "sturdiness" if you will. Your right on point with those nutes. Check every day your ppm levels;

-If your water level goes down and your ppm stay the same: your nutrient ppm are right on point.
-If your water level goes down and your ppm lower: your nutrient ppm are low (you can add more in your next reservoir change)
-If your water level goes down and your ppm raises: your nutrient ppm are high and you should top with pH'ed water only (no nutrients)

Hope it helps man.

It's weird though. It clearly wants the nutes, but my ppm wasn't budging over several days. That's what made me think lockout. Or the coco is putting off junk still.

Nice set-up man, can't wait to see more green.

Some pics for now, I figure I'm about to the last point I can safely separate the buckets (I hear roots don't like light) to really clean the bottom one, so that's going to go along with a straight distilled water flush for a while before putting it on about 600ppm bloom + nitrogen combo.

PH meter arrived, it's very nice to use compared to the drops! Calibrated, tested a few times, and holy crap were the drops ever off!

She looks awesome bro, keep it up. Glad to hear you got that digital meter, even more control now. Good going keep it up and keep us posted!.

BTW; What day are you in veg now and how long do you plan to go for?

m keeps creeping up on me. I had it at 600 and it jumped to 800 overnight. I'm foliar feeding it just water to let it force out some if it needs to. Anyways, the meter does indeed need calibration every day or so. Its cool though. I can't seem to get it just right, my lower leaves are progressively getting worse, but crazy new growth continues, so...

Hey, sorry it's been a while since I've updated. Between a computer going down and some other shit, i've been too lazy to update. The screen is in place, and I have just pruned the largest of the fan leaves off.

BTW, I estimate this is day 27 of veg, if the first week counts as "seedling"

We're on about 900ppm, I'm still in love with the Milwaukee meter also. Foliar spray of about 200ppm nitrogen right now. I figure I'll keep it in veg until the screen is mostly full of nice bud sites, then switch and let the stretch fill the last bit and then cut the rest of the fan leaves below to prevent the rest of the stretch. One bummer, the main sten didn't take very well to being bent sideways, but I think it'll be just fine in a few days.