First Grow Ever: HSO Blue Dream in DWC

foster parent? never been one.

the golden one

Grew this strain for a while. Loved to be topped, huge colas. The taste never did it for me as it always smelled promising but never had a pungent or pronounced flavor. Your grow looks awesome and I'm sure it was my pheno more then anything. I ran it organically and synthetically with no luck.


Keep up the good work man. Subd

blackstoneinstitute said:

I'm jealous of those clones. I've got to get my technique down. How long for them to get to that stage?

The fruit smell is gone in mine too. Left in week 3-4. I guess it's normal.

Nutrient uptake is not equal at all. in veg you need more N. By mid-late flowering N is much less important. I wish there was a meter that could tell you exactly what your n-p-k as well as mg,cal,mn etc levels were. That way we could know exactly what the plant was eating and thus just feed what was optimally needed. As it stands we don't have access to such equipment. I think that is one reason the nutrient manufactures recommend such heavy feeding schedules. That way the plant will have an abundance of nutes just in case the plant needs it. Since we do not know which of the big 3 (NPK) the plant is using more or less of, the thinking is give more of everything and let the plant sort it out.
You say your starting ppm's are about 1200? What are they before you need to top off? Ideally you want the number to stay the same even as the water level goes down. That means she is drinking and eating at the same rate. If the ppm's go up, to say 1500, she is drinking more than eating and you might just want to top off with plain ph-ed water. Ppm's go lower, say to 900, then she's being a hog and wants more to eat. You might want to do a top off to bring the ppm a little higher than the starting point. Once you find that sweet spot just keep topping off at that ppm level. Sorry if I am telling you something you already know but others might find this useful.

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All I did with these clones was keep the rockwool moist but not soaking wet with 1/4 strength flora nutes from General Hydroponics...

Humidity dome was closed for the first 4 days, but I opened the vents a bit after that.

Each night while tending to the big girls in the flower tent, I took the dome off, misted with plain water and let them get some air for 10-15 minutes.

24/0 cycle of 23w 6500k CFL... No heat mat. A tad bit of moisture in the tray to keep humidity up.

I actually got 6 of 8 to root using this method... I wish I had a secret to share... I'd share it for sure.

goldencarp said:

foster parent? never been one.

the golden one

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The stork comes tomorrow

Just a quick update tonight...

The big girls are maturing nicely... Not much new to report there... I did figure out what the pale green/yellowish tint on the leaves was... Since it's only happening directly under the light I figured it might be light stress... A quick google image search confirmed it for me... I had the yellow tiger striping fan leaves, but only on the tops directly under the light...



The picture isn't the best, but it shows the discoloration I've been talking about the past few days. I had my 600w about 10" from the canopy. I raised the light a bit to see if things improve.



The clones are no longer "clones"... Since I put them in 4" soil pots, I'm calling them plants. I have #1 and #2 in the tent... So these young ladies are m1a, m1b, m1c, m2a, m2b, m2c... I should just give them girls names and be done, but eh... The best of each three will stay with the "foster parents". The other four I'm going to have fun with... Maybe one I hit with colloidal silver and make some beans... One I put straight into 12/12... The other two get transferred to bigger soil pots... I'm not sure yet...

I forgot to take pics of the new plants tonight, so nothing to show there... I'll try for the the next update...

Ok, I'm out.

20 days into flowering (12/12 that is) and it's a glass half full/glass half empty sort of update here... It feels like the yellowing isn't going away. If anything, it's spreading a bit. I thought I might move the light up 4-6 inches and see if that alleviated the problem. It did not. Here's what I'm seeing



The girls are missing something... I need to get on in pretty quick. In addition to asking for your help here, I'm going to post in the plant problems section too... My first suspicion was light stress, but like I said, 48 hours later, it seems that's not it. My second notion was maybe a ph imbalance causing nute lockout, but I can rule that out because the girls are drinking and the ppm level goes down a hair each time I check it... So if the nutes were locked out, I would guess that the ppm would go up, since they're drinking but not eating, correct?

So I'm asking the pros... Could it be a magnesium deficiency? Nitrogen? Help!

So that's the bad news... The good news is that the buds are looking amazing... The odor is still a lot lower than I expected... I'm told though it'll kick into high gear again soon. Just makes me giddy thinking about it...

I should have titled this post "Trichomes" because I found some of them for the first time today



Here's some more pics for ya...




I can also see the two different phenos growing... Both showed their indica traits early and added the sativa traits later, but one is definitely more sativa than the other... I'll have some fun testing them out

The clones? Again I forgot to take pics... But here are the two who are now being cared for by the GoldenCarp:



They're in good hands...

Bottom pics look like too much N.

whats your NPK in flower?

Bleedmaize said:

Bottom pics look like too much N.

whats your NPK in flower?

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I'm using the GH Flora-series nutrients for this grow. I'm following the label which is the following



FloraGrow = 2-1-6 @ 1 tsp/gal
FloraMicro = 5-0-1 @ 2 tsp/gal
FloraBloom = 0-5-4 @ 3 tsp/gal

So if my math is right:

N = 7
P = 12
K = 33

It's hard to tell much from the pics under the HPS. I need to get better at taking pics without it... I'm not an expert, but that doesn't look too high to me?

Thanks.

The k seems crazy high. But that's not your problem I don't think. Running full suggested strength?

Looking again, I would def check you ph. - 7 on the N scale should def be keeping them green in flower , plus the twisted growth. Something tells me ph is low. Locking out some nitrogen and causing the plants to grow in the manner they are. Seems it's new to newish growth that is doing it.

only way to know is to check the soils ph.

do you ph before you water?

Bleedmaize said:

Looking again, I would def check you ph. - 7 on the N scale should def be keeping them green in flower , plus the twisted growth. Something tells me ph is low. Locking out some nitrogen and causing the plants to grow in the manner they are. Seems it's new to newish growth that is doing it.

only way to know is to check the soils ph.

do you ph before you water?

Click to expand...

I'm growing my girls in 14 gallon totes DWC. When I have them "full" I have them at about 6 to 6.5 gallons of solution. No soil here, sir!. I keep the ph right at 5.8 which is supposed to be ideal for hydro. If it's a ph problem, it's because my ph meter isn't properly calibrated. I bought calibration fluid tonight... If that's the problem, I'll remedy it right away. I also picked up the Botanicare Cal Mag Plus in the event that my 2 month old meter is off...

Bleedmaize said:

The k seems crazy high. But that's not your problem I don't think. Running full suggested strength?

Click to expand...

Yea, I'm following the label's recommended dosages.

Ok... I turned off the HPS tonight for a spell and turned on the T5 veg lights to get a truer color tone. The yellowing is not as bad as I thought, but to be sure, I supplemented each plant with a shot of cal mag plus... The recommended dosage is 3-5 ml/gal. I went on the low side with 3ml/gal. I was noticing some purple stems in addition to the yellowing... so I'm pretty sure it's a magnesium deficiency... I hope it works out!

Here's a few pics:



The buds are growing nicely... Nice and firm so far... Lots of sites. Spicy odor... but with hints of the fruity I'm used to... Maybe the resin will be nice and fruity!

Clones? I'm not waiting on these bitches... I'm training them from the beginning...




The plant in the upper right corner buckled while I was trying to train it... Based on what I know, it'll be fine. How's this? The roots have already found their way out of the drain holes in the 4" pots... These plants are really really vigorous... I don't know that I could kill them now if I tried, lol...

Deficiency or not there beautiful just beautiful absolutely fucking beautiful. Blue dreams definitely one of my favorite strains and seeing how hso bd os growing I will add this to the list of must have seeds

great grow all the way so far! and def or not they're beautiful. Must be the strain because I think mine need Cal/mag also but besides that no complaint BD grows fast and smells just like a sweet blueberry

I'm a little concerned about the look of some of your leaves. In a few of the pics it looks like the leaves are curling down or slightly clawing. In some it appears they might be canoeing. In particular pics 3,4,5&9. Am I seeing that correctly? Maybe it's the angle but some of those leaves look very thin and frail. If so you have other issues besides the cal/mag.

Speaking of cal/mg are you using tap or RO water? I thought you were using tap but recently I think you said RO. Either way these plants use a lot of the mg in particular. If using RO then you will need the cal/mag. I'm running the same strain in 175 ppm tap and still need to supplement.

@Blackstone - I wouldn't be concerned for the following reasons:

1. The plant those particular photos are from is showing a much stronger sativa dominance than is the other, which looks to be about 50/50 sativa-indica blend. This gives the leaves the longer/stringier look.

2. The leaves in those pictures are right next to the circulation fan... They are always under a bit more stress than the rest of the canopy. The bud in the middle of that node looks perfect...

The only thing I'm still concerned with is the color of the leaves directly under the lamp... I added the cal mag plus, but nothing changed... Nothing worsened either... Buds look fine, so I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing and try to not repeat whatever is happening next time around.

I am not using RO water. The very first fill of the DWC buckets was distilled water... but I did that as much to get the water jugs as I did the quality of the H2O Since then I'm using plain old tap water which comes out of the tap at about 210-220 ppm and ph 8.0... Like I said, I've been kind of lucky during flowering as the nutes + my tap water gives me:

1440 ppm (220 ppm from tap, so roughly 1220 ppm from nutes)
5.8 ph without any adjustment.

The cal mag plus will get added at ever rez change from here out... I noticed no adverse affects using it the first time and it'll help keep other things like iron and zinc in check too.

Ok... Not much to report except for growing buds and the clones which are already looking fantastic... I'll post pics of the clones tomorrow night... I'm training the shit out of them...



I look around the garden and I see some things which aren't perfect... But there are some really nice looking buds... Trichomes are coming in all over the place... Color is typically good, and the smell is nice and spicy... I couldn't have asked for a better first grow.

Never try to worry to much thats when bigger mistakes are made and from the looks of it your doing fine anyways. Cant wait to see the conclusion of these monstrous blue dream plants.

@The Average White Grower
Just tunning in and nice looking ladies! Great looking even canopy.

I kind of skimmed thru...bare with me. Did u say ur switching from hps to T5s?

If I might add I saw your deficiency up there and the cause could be low Nitrogen levels this earily in Flowering.
Also ive seen plants that look like that from too high or low PPM.

GREAT LOOKING GROW. ANY QUESTIONS HMU. ILL BE WATCHING THIS GROW!