*First* Grow Journal: 5xTangerine Dream

Hi Folks,

As I'm sure you gathered from the title, this is my first journal ever. Second grow ever, well sort of... I grew 15 males with a bunch of free bag seeds. My first successful all fem grow was SLH; 12oz from 5 plants (4 good ones and a stunted one). And it is the shit!

Anyhow, here's my setup (I'll post pics later when my girls go in):

4x4x6 tent
400w mh / lps
DWC / top drip tub hydro
10g air pump
60gpm h2o pump (waaay too strong, but it was $10)
4"Fan / carbon filter combo
Standing oscillating 16" fan

Grow Medium:
Starting off in 1.5" rockwool cubes, then transferring (cubes included) to hydroton in 5" net pots

Planned Times:
24hr veg
12 / 12 flower after avg. plant height of 16".
Drip System; 1/2 hour on 1 1/2 hours off until the roots are established in the water. 4x 1.2hr on / 12 hour day thereafter.
Fans on full time.

Nutes:
GH Flora Duo (first time here too, used advanced nutes lucas formula on the SLH)
-I will start out using gh's recommended doses and adjust it as needed. Probably 1/4 strength at first and I'll adjust it every few days to max. I am also using bud blood 1st week of flower, then big bud until 2weeks prior to flush, overdrive for the last 2weeks before flush. Then I flush for 2 weeks and cut.

Again, I have no xp with this strain, this is my first journal and my grow xp is limited in the first place. So, any constructive criticism is welcome.

Pics will start when my girls go in the tent and will follow once a week on rez change day.


Here goes nothin'!

Oh and I forgot to mention that of my 5 beans, one didn't pop (talking with single seed centre now on that one) and one isn't putting out any true leaves. So... not a gr8 start. I'm using distilled water in a clone dome with a warming pad. 5.8ph 100% humidity.

My plan is to veg my 4 left (I'm hoping that last one isn't too stunted) a little longer and LST to fill in any voids in grow space before switching to flower. With this setup, I can't really scrog and still be able to change nutes easily... thought about that really hard already. You'll see why after the pics.

Alright, sorry about the intermission. Here are the pics of my setup and a few from my slh grow snuck in there too...

Here's Week 2 in the tent. A decent improvement over last week I'd say. I just changed nutes up to 100% ( 0ml / 5ml / 10ml per gallon a.k.a. Lucas Formula) and backed the light off one foot. I changed back to Advanced Nutes after two days of trying GH Duo. GH's Duo formula was hard to PH. No PH adjust needed yet with AN. Could be my water, but w/e, AN works for me. I'll check it in a few hours and give an update. Oh, and the two in the back are probably going to be yanked in a couple of weeks. I just want to see what they do. One of them is a mutant for sure. The other is just severely stunted... not sure why. I'll blame strain.

One note about the white stuff on my hydroton. Salt deposits from nutes. It builds up pretty heavy on the bottom of the cups too. I have a longer tube for my pump that I use to flush salts right before I change nutes. Seems to do the trick.

The plan for now is to LST the healthy ladies over to the back corners, then top the shoots after a node. Hopefully I can get 'em right and end up with 15 or so healthy tops. I might even try to root the trunks in the back corners... not sure yet.

Here's week 3.

Just changed nutes. Still 0/5/10ml (lucas formula) Advanced Nutrients Micro / Bloom. No PH adjustment needed this week either. The net in the back is handmade because I live in BFE. I'll be using it to scrog(ish) my two girls so that I can produce a bit more.

Here's week 4.

OK, I got some splaining to do... the plant on the left wilted. The nozzle cloged up (didn't wash the hydroton well enough) last night and I didn't notice it until lunchtime today. Lefty's roots still aren't in solution, so drips are pretty important.

Anyhow, right side roots are in solution. I will get a pic next week. Changed the rez. Still 0/5/10 ml (lucas formula) Advanced Nutes. No PH adjustment needed. Topped twice this week. Once on Thurs and again Sun. Now there are 6 tops to play with on the right and 4 on the left.

Here's week 5.

Roots are finally growing down to the water on the left side. There is a big difference between the two plants. I'm going to have to work some magic with my net.

Changed rez, Still 0/5/10 (lucas form.) Advanced Nutrients 100%. Also, I trimmed the bottom growth nodes off this week to encourage vertical growth. Looking ok though. Really wish my seeds would've all popped!

Here's the pics:

Here comes week 6.

Decided to ditch the net. It's just not going to work the way I want it to. I won't be able to keep the rez clean enough. Instead, I'll supercrop (and have already started) to keep the healthier one's height down closer to her little sister. The little one is still struggling to grow a decent root mat. Shouldn't be long before growth spurt #1 hits though... I hope. Right side is 12" tall right now after the supercropping and I need to swap to 12 / 12 at 16" to avoid height issues. I may have to resort to LST if lefty doesn't hurry the fuck up!

Here is week 7.

Switched to 12/12 and changed rez. Lefty is still behind, but if I don't start flower now, I'll run out of vertical space and it'll turn into a LST nightmare! Still 5mL micro & 10mL Bloom Advanced Nutes, but added 2tsp Bud Blood to the mix for this week. Also, had to add 2tsp PH up to get to around 5.8(ish). I will be very slowly adding a bit more of the bloom nutes over the next couple of weeks until I figure out what my girls like. Here is a pic of the overview and I also snapped a couple pics of the root development so far in the tub.

Changed rez yesterday and forgot to post!

Here's Week 8 (week2 flower)

Changed rez, added 5mL micro & 10mL bloom per gal + 1 1/2 tsp Big Bud. Roots look good, lower leaves are a little yellow, which I'm not too worried about. If it keeps going, then I'll add some extra N next week. I have a feeling it was because of the PH imbalance that the Bud Blood caused. I was a bad gardener and didn't check the PH every day last week.

Anyway, here's some pics:

Here's Week 12

I apologize for lack of weekly progress reports, but it's been busy around here lately. Cancun for two weeks and then xmas when we get back means no extra time for jooky. All work and no play makes jooky a dull boy.

Anyhow, here's week 12, or week 7 of flower if you're keeping track. Harvest should be in 3-4 weeks, so I've added overdrive to the mix this week. 45mL for 6 gallons as well as the normal 5mL micro & 10mL bloom / gal. Haven't ph'd it yet (waiting for chloro to dissipate), but if I had to guess, I would say it will need 2-3 tsp ph down.

Here's the pics:

Here's Week 18... (not sure how I lost count, but it's week 18 in the tent - wtf?)

Decided the trich's are a little too premature to start flush. So, I changed rez. Same micro / bloom mix + 45mL Overdrive in 6 gal. + 5mL Superthrive. This will be the final week of nutes for sure.


Here's the pics:

Been a couple of weeks...

All done trimming up and almost done drying. The buds didn't do much during flush, so I decided no pics necessary. I'll snap some shots of the dryer and the buds when I'm jaring for cure tomorrow.

Not sure what's up, but I can't post pics... Doesn't really matter though. I'm curing for a week in jars. Burped for a day, then once more in the dryer overnight. Right now I'm probably on an every other day pop to keep the curing process going. It smokes pretty good, but I wouldn't say it should win any awards. The SLH was better. Later all!