New.b's 400w DWC Blue Venom Grow

What's up, RIU?

This week I intend to start my Blue Venom grow from seed. I will be using T5 lighting for veg and a 400w HPS air cooled hood for flower in a 5-gallon DWC Scrog. I am excited to share this grow with you and hopefully we can both learn a little something from each other!

My supplies are as follows:

3'x3'x6.5' Grow Tent
2 Ft. 4 Bulb T5 for veg
400w HPS Air cooled hood for flower
5 Gallon DWC w/ 6 in. net pot
6" 400 CFM inline fan (speed controlled to lower CFM)
6" 240 CFM booster fan for intake
6" Clip-on fan
6" Carbon Filter
PVC Scrog
TDS Tester / pH control kit

The nutrients I will be using:

FloraSeries Performance Pack
-RapidStart, FloraBlend, FloraGro/Micro/Bloom, Liquid KoolBloom, Floralicious Plus, and FloraKleen
Cal/Mag
SuperThrive

I will be using nothing but Reverse Osmosis water throughout the grow.

Finally, I will be venting through a dryer output vent.

My goal is to yield 8 Oz. from one plant, or slightly over .5 grams per watt.

I have these in the vault. I can't wait to watch. Good vibes your way.

What's up guys, quick update here.

It turns out that my space is not quite big enough to house my 3x3 tent. I will have to cut about 6 inches off of both the length and width of the tent poles. No biggie. Just need to find the right tool...

This means I probably won't run the full 400 watts in flower, although even thinking about flower is getting ahead of myself. I'm just now germinating... but we'll get to that.

Q : Would it be better for my plant to run a 400w HPS at 75% power, or to run a 250w bulb and run that at 100%?

(I read that running a bulb at a lower setting may negatively affect the spectrum of the bulb. Luckily, I haven't purchased the bulb yet. I'm also not too worried about how this will affect my yield.)

Okay, back to germination. I will be dropping the seed in a glass of water after this post. I'm sure it will pop within the next few days. Hopefully my rockwool plugs arrive soon enough...

Last thing is- I will be installing my RO filter soon. I'm really looking forward to figuring that out.. /s. I'm just messing around, it shouldn't be a that big of a deal.

Well, it's a long story. I laid up last night trying to work out how exactly I was going to work this all out.

I just moved into an apartment near my university. I was really prepared for an Op that just is not going to be feasible. I assumed that I would have a bigger space, and, due to my lack of at first, "checking the place out," I ran into some immediate snags. There is a unit above me and I would have a hard time being convinced that my fans would not be somewhat suspicious. I have not lived in the place long enough to know maintenance schedules/etc.

Supplies sent back, legality renewed. Lol, that's how things are.

Maybe n the future I will have my perfect grow.

I wish it could be now, oh well. I promise that a lot of hours were spent on researching how to do this but in practice I would rather be safe than sorry. Hopefully after I graduate from here, I can migrate to Colorado. Why not, you know?

What's up RIU?

Great news! I've made some changes to the original plan, and the grow is now full steam ahead!

My grow tent is now just a wooden frame. The construction takes up the entire closet, but it can be fully removed over-night if it needed to be. Everything (fan, ventilation, carbon scrubber, air-cooled tube, etc..) is assembled and working. The temperature ranges from 70-81 and the humidity is definitely okay.

I still plan on using a 5-gallon DWC. Instead of one plant, I want to put two plants in the net-pot in an attempt to cut down on veg times. I will be running General Hydroponics GMB, Cal/Mag, and H2O2.

I germinated two strands- THC Bomb and Sour Diesel. I am hoping they will grow well together. The THC Bomb is a few days ahead in the seedling stage but I think the Sour D will catch up for veg.

For my water, I was finally able to get the RO filter installed! Instead of installing it, I simply bought a faucet adapter which is working great.

I am really excited to share this grow with you guys. Especially because I can't share it with anyone here IRL. I'll get some pictures up here soon enough. I'm pretty impressed with it, and I hope you guys really like it!!

Pics!

Hey guys, back with a quick update. The THC Bomb and Sour Diesel did not survive so now the grow is two Cinderella 99 plants. I germinated them about 5 days apart and grew them for a few weeks. Its hard to believe its been a month since my last post! The grow is going slowly, but it should pick up speed now that I transplanted both seedlings into the DWC bucket.

The ppm of my reservoir is about 400. I added more CalMag than I intended, about 170 ppm. Another 30 ppm or so is H202. Lastly I added 100 ppm Gro, 50 ppm Micro and 50 ppm Bloom.

Here is a pic of the transplanted seedlings. Oh yeah, one is indeed a mutant!

Just some more information for you guys today:

I noticed the ppm got a little higher (up to almost 450 ppm) so I replaced about a gallon of my rez water with some R/O water and got the ppm's down to around 320. Its really nice to have a ppm meter to be able to do this. I rely on the pH to be in the right range without testing it because with R/O water and basic nutes it should be about right anyway. I guess it wouldn't take too much effort to test and adjust the pH. If I do start to notice discrepancies with the pH I will eventually invest in a pH pen.

I am running my fan at full power now because the carbon filter at the other end of the cool tube really slows down the CFM of the fan. I am debating on removing the carbon filter for now although it's not broken, so why fix it? I did also add a small fan at the bottom of my grow space.

The plants are looking healthy. They have been a little droopy since the transplant but they definitely are surviving and even beginning to grow through the stress. Both seedlings are beginning to develop their fourth nodes, so I anticipate the first topping in about a week here.

The last thing is I am running the light at 200w's of power for 21.5 on 2.5 off.

I want to do so much for the grow. I know that I would probably be just as well off not checking the growth for a week or so and therefor seeing a big difference as opposed to checking it everyday, but I am just too impatient and too much in love with the operation!

Hey guys, I've been checking the plants everyday to keep everything in check.

Some of the things I've done are:

- Check the pH. It was a little high so I lowered it. It definitely blows to use the test kit. It isn't really accurate. I aimed to get it near 6 from the lower end.

- Monitor the ppm. Also, this was way too high. Eventually I replaced about half the reservoir with fresh water. Got the ppms down near 250 and it's stuck there for two days now. It went down slightly this last check but I plan to replace the whole bucket tomorrow anyway.

- Watch the roots grow. They C99 plant that has a two leafs per node (the younger plant) is developing a solid root system. This plant is looking really healthy. The other one, a triploid, has not developed these same roots. This plant is droopy in the lower nodes but not bad; the roots should pop out the net pot soon enough.

- Install a fan.

I'll post some pics soon.

I just replaced the rez with R/O water and a little Cal/Mag. Going to do a little 12 hour flush and then reintroduce the nutes.

The roots are looking great; I'm anticipating a lot of growth this week!

Fed the girls. Thinking it's about time for the first top.

Plants have been topped, root growth and plant growth are both looking great. I've been cooling the rez temps with ice packs, which has been working well for me.

Plants are really beginning to put on some growth! I will post pictures on 10/19 so you can see the progress a week has made.

I will also be making some adjustments to my room. I'm going to hang the fan off the ceiling with bungees to get the weight off the wooden frame. Right now I feel that I'm just waiting for it to all fall down on to my plants, literally. Hopefully I can eliminate some noise as well. If I can get everything in the right place and not need the frame anymore, I'll get rid of it. Everything should look a lot cleaner and safer when I finish.

I took out the wood and hung everything from the ceiling. It's awesome - and much quieter too!

And I still have a few more things on my to-do list

Ok guys, for those who saw this thread back when I was posting in October: I've learned a lot since. After my last post the plants that I had died. Well, to be more clear, they were flushed down the toilet because I thought they were dead. The problem started when I mixed in nutrients with an egg beater. I ended up tearing up all the glorious roots, LOL!! Any way, due to my experience with my current grow (I'm getting to that), I realize that the plants were probably not dead and just very much damaged. OH WELL

I decided that if I were to continue I would have to do it right, so I started from the bottom. My grow area is now what I would consider nearly ideal for growing with a 400w light. I could probably upgrade to a 600w light no problem! Also, I made sure that my grow area is safe; no more sketchy support beams or ugly wire hanging in bad places. I also invested in a pH pen which I believe was a very solid purchase and I would now definitely consider it a necessary tool for the grow room.

I read that soil is the way to go for the best results (in terms of potency <--- no pun intended ) so I decided to do another round with soil this time. I am a beginner and this is another reason I felt soil was the way to go. So I went to the friendly folks at Attitude and ordered my beans. I went with White Widow and G-13's Blue OG, which I like because OG strains are apparently very good for oil production. I germinated the seeds and vegetated them in FFHF for 30 days. I had a buddy give me an ounce of Jilly Bean from another grower from Colorado and used a bag seed from this to give me another plant. Somehow, and I've since forgotten how, I ended up losing one of the White Widow plants. This put my plant count to four: Blue OG 1 & 2, White Widow, and Jilly Bean.

tldr -- terminated first grow, fixed grow room, got a pH pen, now I have 4 plants in flower

The plants are now completing day 50 of 12/12 and the plants are looking good in their 3 gallon smart pots and FFOF soil. Enjoy some pics why don't you? AND PLEASE, ask me questions and give me your input if you would like. There is definitely more I'd like to share.

Grow area -- View attachment 2972485


Blue OG 1 (Day 80/50F) --

Blue OG 2 (Day 80/50F) --

White Widow (Day 80/50F) --

Jilly Bean (Day 71-ish/50F) --

Here are some shots under my new pocket microscope I got for cheap on Amazon (FTW!) I used sugar trim leaves from the middle colas.

All Day 55 flower

White Widow -

Blue OG -

Blue OG 2 -

Jilly Bean -

The White Widow appeared to have some amber trichs already. I'll look more closely at more sugar leaves but the hairs are still mostly white so it couldn't be done, could it?