My 1st indoor grow using hydroponics & Autoflowering strains

i was thinking that perhaps you should trash the under performers and focus all your efforts on your girls you have growing strong and flower. its got to be crushing to kill a female plant, but maybe theres a friend that can take it on? i know someone we all get caught up in the strain and the names and the branding, but really the proof is in the pudding. so lets hold judgement for the final smoke report.

no giving up now!


it looks like those bigger ones (shooting star?) are going to yield a nice amount. it helps to remove some of those bigger fan leafs to allow light to penetrate the under canopy and to the bud sites. more light on the buds, more buds, bigger buds. also it helps divert nutrients and water that would have been sent to support these big fan leafs, and rather sends them to other places, like the bud sites of the plant. which are always found between the main cola(s) and the leafs/branches that protrude from it. start by removing 20% of the big fan leafs in area that can allow more light into the plant. this will become more and more critical as the flowering continues. the magic is in the last weeks of flowering. the buds swell up, crystals show like powder, bud sites collect resin and produce fat glandes of thc. so as that time gets closer, you be pruning off big fan leafs to allow light to those developing bud sites. i dont think i would take off more that 60% of the fan leafs over the entire flowering time. maybe 75% at the most. just watch for any burn or drying out.

when you switched to flowering, did you give the girls a bloom feed at all. i think it might be best just to give it a solid kick of p and k when starting to flower. so just water, bloom booster (high P and K ratio, little to no N), and level off the ph. that will feed them til next feeding when you can go back to your regular bloom formula, whatever that might be.

just remember that more nutrients DO NOT make marijuana grow bigger or faster. they provide the food available to convert to energy. its up to the plant to process that food into energy. and yes too much can kill more than the other way around. imagine that you are at a table for dinner, the cook brings to one piece of bread, you eat it, youre still hungry. youre ready for more and your system is too.

now imagine the same table and the cook brings out a cake, a whole pot roast, and veggies, potatoes, salad (mmmm im getting hungry), etc ... so much food you cant hardly eat a 3rd of it. so while you have satisfied your "in the now" hunger, your system isnt ready for more, it must rest and digest and in time will be ready to eat again.

my point being, marijuana responds better when given food in lower doses. it keeps them begging for more while the ones with too much food just sit there and burp. lol

ive been told the ppm should be under 1000ppm. but if they are responding well and not getting burned, then keep it at the current rate. just make sure your girls are getting mostly P and K with alittle N. what nutrients are you using?


i do not know everything, im wrong sometimes, im not the last word. but i want you to go to this forum and put up your grow, under the title put the names of your strains plus NEED HELP. the people at this forum are so very helpful and are top notch. they help just for the sake of seeing a grow come out well. get on there today, start your journal and ask any questions you need to on your journal, some people i know on there will come and read your situation and try to help the best they can. they know their shit and have plenty of grows done to prove it. theyre super kinda and very good people. check it out please: http://www.dutchbreed.co.uk/public-forum/index.php

if you dont get responses within 24-36 hours, post your question on their journals, and that will get their attention. people like redryder, mclovin, and autumnfall are very keen people.

cheers bud!

btw: biggest brown i ever got was around 20 inches, but on the next cast out i got a 19 incher. it was a good day for a hobbyist. its a . wonderful place ill be getting back to as soon as i return from europe. but i know the browns up at paulina lake/newberry caldera are freakishly huge. google it online. newberry caldera. two volcanic lakes that are deep as ive ever seen in a lake. paulina lake and east lake, central oregon. nice kokanee there too

Thanks for all the input on my grow Gamja.gomer. I did clean my whole system last night, belive it or not I did put the PPM's at 1000 or very close because I never really got a good answer and I have a buddy, whether he knows what's up or not had told me to drop to 800 PPM. I thought that was a bit rash, so I did bring them down a bit after cleaning out algae and water. This is totally different than outside grows I've done, hell those we just get ground ready at end of deer season go back in the spring clean it up and plant come back in late July take the males out and not come back until Sept or early October. I have had to take some fan leaves thru this grow. Mainly off the two on the right side of cab so the AK47 in middle of tank could get some light. That plant is doing good the other AK is doing okay, but that LSD plant has struggled from the start. I'll see if my neighbor will take it, as you can see I'm out of room. On that large plant I'm afraid the main cola will hit the top of cab and I do not know how it will work sitting against the cool tube? I looked at the growth at the bottom of these plants, while it's healthy if they do not get more light they'll end up being crapy on the bottom. So you say start taking as many fan leafs as possible fro here on?

As to the fishing, I've been a professional fishing guide since 1994 on the White River in north central AR. I worked for Gastons on the White, Stetson's and still help a little with my request trips other than that I guess I'm done fishing for money. Never been to the Northwest. I'll google those lakes and check them out along with posting in the forum you mentioned. I just hope they're not a bunch of smart asses over there. Anyway enjoy your trip and stay intouch. Thanks for help.

Here are two new photo's of my plants starting to flower. Just cleaned the tank of all algae and made sure all air stones were working. For some reason the top drip is screwed up, I think the hose where it connects to pump is screwed up. Nothing a little silicone glue will not fix. Anyway here they are:

no smartasses there, just stand up people that are trying to help

there are a few on there that are very helpful which know alot about hydro and automatics. im sure along with whatever help i can give they can help as well. the people here are more transient. they just come and go. on that forum there are some passionate growers with knowledge without the attitude. in fact the forum is known for is laid back , helpful approach and assholes are removed rather swiftly. just be ready to take their advice when you ask for it. cheers mate

I'm real good at that, never met a real guide who wasn't. I'll climb right up there a$$. I just registered and waiting on the conformation email. Thanks!

I never got the conformation email. I guess tonight I'll try another emaill addy and user name and go fro there, they have no way of contacting webmaster. Took off alot of fan leafs, light can get there now. See ya later.

check your spam box in your email, it may have went there, if not, try the "forgot my password" option at the log-in screen. i know yahoo email and gmail both sent my confirmation emails to the spam folder.

i was wondering when i was gonna see ya on there!

can you give me an update on the age of everyone you have, perhaps pictures to go along with them? im curious about those shooting star strains.

i cant find one bit of info on this HeavyWieght Shooting Star Autoflowering. you say herbies is where you got them? were they feminized? how many to a pack? what was the breeders name... HeavyWieght?

maybe i can track down its genetics, what is it crossed with?

i think those larger plants are going to take over the cabinet by time they are done flowering. its ok for the plants to touch the cool tube, but the problem with that is the obvious. if they reach the cool tube they will block the light from the lower nodes and bud sites. so great buds ontop, no so great below. im not exactly sure at this point how to cut down on their hieght, they are flowering so the stretch is in full effect .

you gotta get on that other site so we can problem solve this, they are some smart cookies on there.

gimmie a few new pics of the whole set up. i wanna try to think this one out

HeaveyWieght was the breeder there were ten to a pack I bought, you could get five. It stated 18% to 20% THC 45 days of flowering. They have taken them off there web site until after 1st of year and they'll be comming out with two new strains. There was a post on this forum when I Googled that strain with same problem but worse, his plants were to the top of cab and still no budding. Atleast I panicked soon enough to keep mine from doing that I hope. These were started germinating on 09/10/2010 or maybe the 11th. The AK47's and LSD were about two weeks behind them. Ofcourse everything is flowering bigtime now, which sucks for the last ones I started, there will not be much to them. I took your advice and cut alot of fan leafs so the bottom of plants could get some light. I'll post some new photo's later. Worked all day and have nothing to eat since 5:00am. I did get registered over there, username same less the a in front of 2612596, however I've not done anything yet. I will over weekend. Going to eat and I'll post when I get back. Hell I'll put them up now.

Ganja.gomer, this is from last night I think. The little thing that looks like it just started is the LSD and the next smallest are AK47. You know the rest.










This last photo shows the two AK47

wow those shooting stars do look great though. perhaps they meant 45 days of flowering... plus whatever veggie cycle you had. How long did those beasts veg before you switched them to flowering. youre still on the 12/12 cycle right?

that LSD is a total loss i think. but the AK47 will be ok. Are they autos? whose was the breeder? you might have to do alot of trimming as the shooting star plants grow while in flowering. but no big deal. it looks like youre going to get multiple ounces per shooting star plant. thats not to bad for a first time hydro! but the trick with growing indoors as i have found out is to focus only on the present, not such a good idea to count the chickens before they hatch. But each one of those tops of the shooting star will become buds, those will be your main spear sites.

those shooting stars may take longer but youll probably get twice the yield.

keep track of when you started to flower, at around 45 days of flowering, inspect the bud sites, use a magnify glass to view to crystals. if they are 50% amber in color or milky white, its time to harvest. sorry if i tell you anything you already know. i dont mean to repeat information.

what exactly is that shooting star a cross of? what are the strains that make up its genetics, if you can find out who its parents were you can better understand how these girls will finish.

Here is what I found on google by pot+Heaveywieght Shooting star. http://www.uk420.com/boards/lofiversion/index.php/t228922.html

There is more info I found but I think it was as the post suggested Lowryderx Northernlights. I belive I started doing the 12/12 thing 7 or 8 days ago. This was germinating, starting 09/10/2010 and if you start reading none of those autoflowered.
Do that search and you'll see for yourself all had problem and you will not find it on Herbies site anymore. I will not have any problem remembering the date because the date they delivered cab was on invoice and I started germinating two days after the delivery and you told last weekend to goto 12/12 if I remember correctly. The AK47's are by Lowlife and everything in cab was auto's and fem.

ok if the shooting star is a cross of lowryder #1 and northern lights:

lowryder #1 is a cross of ruderelis and northern lights

so it appears this strain was double crossed with northern lights genes which may be why they didnt autoflower, the lowryder #1 was somewhat known for not always autoflowering, thus the advent of lowryder #2.

you should feel good, northern lights is an old school potent strain! mmm yummy!

how was the fishing??

did you post up on that other forum yet?

northern lights is a classic heavy yielding strain from alaskan genetics. at this point you might want to treat it as if it was a northern lights 12/12 strain.

just found out some more info.. it seems that this lowryder #2 is a cross of lowryder #1 then recrossed with northern lights, then bred again with that off spring to produce lowryder #2.

this shooting star strain is heavy on the northern lights genetics, but maybe needed to be crossed with the lowryder#1 one more generation to keep the autoflowering traits.

either way it is what it is. youre gonna have some very dope buds!

Well atleast I know it was not due to anything I did which makes me feel better. I've learned not to over foliate and not to play with root simulant when I have a grow in progress in same tank. I put my 1st post up in my journal over there, however all I have is this iPhone and putting up thumbnail size photo's will not work there either. I put up one photo and a couple of direct links to my photobucket account and anyone can look at complete album. If you know how to do the photo's as thumbnail size, pm me and I'll give you the login info if you're willing so I do not waste so much bandwidth. If not I'll do it this way. I love Northern Lights along with G13. Sounds like I need to figure this out because they'll be large even with Lowryder gene.

As for fishing, the last two days was a blast, I had an 82, 84 and a 59 year old bunch of laddies. In two days they caught around 170 fish. Get this, the younger one got a 5 by 4 Elk the day before they got here. I hope I get around like them if I make it to that age. Lol!

me too i agree i hope im kickin like that too!

As you know, I' ve been doing LST through out this grow. What I've done to slove my problem is use some fishing line to start pulling the main coloa down, I'll be using some sort of 1" netting to hang above the cool tube. As the buds reach that, I'll use the netting to help keep buds from Cool Tube and help spread them out. Thanks to Mclovin.