Round 2: Organic Soil, CMH, Multi Strain

The beginnings of my second grow are in the makings. Here's my plan:
SOG style, Vegging and the beginning of flower will be done under a 400W Ceramic Metal Halide (CMH). Part way through I plan on switching to a 600W HPS. I haven't decided when the switch will be done, and I would like some input from you all on this.

I will be using roots organics soil, a mix of some new and some re-used stuff in 2 Gallon Geo Pots- you know, the fabric ones.

Right now I'm planning on 12 plants total: Blue Dream, Chem Dawg 4, Violator Kush, Ken's Grand Daddy Purple, Purple Cadillac and Purple Cindy. I am planning on running 2 of each strain, and eventually going perpetual, replacing each plant as they ripen.

What I have right now for nutes is:
Silica- Dutch Master Gold Range 0-0-2
Cal/Mag- Botanicare 2-0-0
Roots Organics Oregonism XL
Veg- Pure Blend Organic Compost Solution (Botanicare) 1-0.5-1
Flower- Roots Organics HPK 0-5-4

The space is about 5'3" w and 4'6" d and the highest point of the ceiling is about 8'. I only have access at the door once all the plants are in so on the floor is a 4' Lazy Susan. Someday soon I plan on putting the thing on legs so I don't have to get on my hands and knees to work.

This picture is from about 10 days ago:


These are from yesterday and are of my current rooting clones:


These are also from yesterday. The strains in the picture below are as follows: The 3 plants farthest to the left are Chem Dawg 4. Next over, in the same tray are 3 Blue Dream. In the next tray, all the way at the top is Purple Cindy, below her is Ken's Grand Daddy Purple, and at the bottom is a Purple Cadillac. Then finally on the bottom, all the way to the right is Violator Kush. In the Future I will abbreviate these as CD, BD, Cindy, GDP, Caddy, and VK.


Here's some close-ups of a couple potential mothers: (Left= BD Right= CD)



HF

Questions, comments and suggestions are WELCOME!
This is only my second time around, so be gentle though...

Finally got the rest of the things I needed to build my table. It was killing my back to have to crouch or bend over to water, or do anything for that matter.

Its about 30" tall, and like the last one spins in a full 360 either direction.
I also re-hung the light because it was centered incorrectly the other direction.

Still haven't nailed down a plan. Now I'm thinking of doing more of a perpetual, starting 4 plants at a time. I like the 3 week schedule because it would allow me to keep all 6 strains I have now because half of them are sativas. Right now with my 4 plant rotation im planning on doing 2 strains per.

How does that sound to you all?

So, having only one grow under my belt I still havent gotten this totally down yet. But here's an update on how things are going.

One MAJOR problem. My pH was totally fu*ked for a few days until I realized the problem. I'm not 100% on the reason, but I think it was one of 2 things, but probably both. First off, I changed to a different water supply. I was using home RO water, and have started getting it from those dispensers at Safeway. My home unit couldnt handle my H2O needs. The second thing was my using Silica incorrectly. I think I read somewhere that to keep the silica in solution it is kept at a very high alkalinity. I should have followed the directions more closely.

So I bought some pH solutions and busted out my pH pen. I put 2ml/G Silica in my water and tested it to see what it was. Imagine my surprise when the screen says its over 8! No wonder my plants arent growing!
Being the curious guy I am, I got some more pure water and added my veg nutes to it and tested it. It was somewhere in the 5 range. Fuck.
I watered with straight water, and my runoff came out to about 5. Its time to flush this shit.

So here we are a couple days later, after having poured at least 4 gallons of pH'd water through my 2 gal Geo Pots. My runoff is now at an acceptable level of 6.4.
I hate to admit that I made such a noob mistake, but hopefully someone will read this and it will prevent them from making the same one.

Mothers-
Blue Dream-
Chem Dawg 4-
Purple Cindy-
Purple Cadillac-


Clones-


Veg- Another few days, maybe a week at the most and these babies will get the 12/12 treatment.
Blue Dream 1- Let me see if I can explain how this plant happened. A while back I took a clone from my very first plant. When I took this clone I didnt cut it off at the mothers stem. I left a bit of branch about 1.5" long on the mother plant. About a week later, after the nodes got a little growth I cut and cloned it as well. It must have been the way the auxins got redistributed or something that stunted its growth. For nearly 2 weeks this plant didn't grow vertically. It just tarted packing on nodes, with almost no distance between them. It finally caught a vertical growth spurt and I started LST'ing it so that all those little nodes would sprout. This plant was originally an extra to be given away, but Now I have to see what it looks like when flowered.
Blue Dream 2- She is still recovering from the pH issue a bit, but is on her way to recovery.
Violator Kush- Also still recovering a bit...
Ken's GDP- I LST'd this one too because she was growin so fast.

Thats it for now boys and girls. I'll check back in with you in a few days.

HF

You're doing really good man. Props on spotting that pH issue early on. I've fucked some shit up with pH problems myself. Required MAJOR flushing an eventually I had to transplant to new dirt just because I couldn't flush fast enough. Saved em though. Glad to see someone using a CMH, I'm considering one myself and maybe using an HPS for the fattening up stage ad leaving the CMH in for harvest and growth stages. I'd like a 250 watt CMH and a 400 watt enhanced red HPS but I don't have a vent for my carbon filter then :/ GOTTA have that filter when growing skunk