TheDillestPickle's First Grow Journal

Man, I wish I had the room to run more lights and plants. When will you post more pixs?

4x6 does seem really big now, because I spent about a month brainstorming up ideas to put in a 1.5x3 closet. When I moved into the new apartment I realized my basement had the perfect little room in it. Its nice being able to actually step inside the room. But... I still find myself staring at the rest of the basement and having daydreams

I guess I could do an update soon as I have changed things around in the room quite a bit, perhaps I will give a more detailed rundown on all thats going into this grow, I was a bit vague in my first post, I was tired and just wanted to at least get this thread started. As far as the plants go there isnt much to update, They basically look exactly the same as before, they have just started to get some speed back in the growth after the shock of being topped slowing things down for a few days. Ill do a full rundown of the grow tommorrow with pics of the room and plants. Im experiencing the old "if you stare at a pot itll never boil" thing with the plants lol, just over anxious to see what they turn into

Hey Dillest.. love your name.. and your Place of Origin.

Subbed up..

ottawaliquid said:

Hey Dillest.. love your name.. and your Place of Origin.

Subbed up..

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Hey man thanks, I hope you enjoy it.

Sorry about the no update happening yet, but I'm sure I'll get around to it soon enough. Not too much happening right now
I did just order in another pack of seeds that Im going to do 12/12 from seed with(del55555 is an inspiration). They are Big Bomb by Bomb Seeds, mainly Big Bud genetics, but the spotlight is definately on the Kali Mist in this thread. Im also going to be growing a variety of other plants in the room up until the point where they are in the way. By other plants I mean Garlic, Beets, Chia, Lentils, Chick Peas. I really want to grow some strawberries, so going to try to get some strawberry seeds or even a small plant. Obviously if at any point the other plants are stealing the light they will be kicked out, but its fun to see what else I can do with my setup. mmmmmm hydroponically grown strawberries...

Can't wait to hear about the bomb seeds. My next grow will be thc bomb and veneno. Come on, give us some update pixs of your set up bro.

OldLuck said:

Can't wait to hear about the bomb seeds. My next grow will be thc bomb and veneno. Come on, give us some update pixs of your set up bro.

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I started following Del55555's thread on 12/12 from seed. He's a master of 12/12fs and has a few strains he recommends that work well for it. He has bred his own strain that does remarkably well with 12/12fs, I'm hoping he will make some of these seeds available to us RIUers someday. If you look at his plants it is mind boggling, he gets fatter colas than Ive seen on plants that are fully matured before flip, its a little bit crazy, I don't think he consistently hits 1gpw however because I believe he uses alot of light per square foot to get such huge colas. His strain is a cross between THC Bomb and Bubblegum, so if you wanted to take a shot at 12/12fs Oldluck, I think you have yourself the right strain to do it. Genetics seems to be the number one factor in whether 12/12fs will work or not.

Here's my update, I will admit that the room isn't the most cleanly looking room on RIU. Im not going to win any awards for best looking rooms or anything, but that doesnt concern me. I am a little worried about Spider Mites finding their way into the room, Ive taken a picture of the ceiling of the room to show you that there is a good chance that the mites will be able to get in through the cracks in the foundation and the bricks of the house. Its an older house and the basement has been very neglected over the years, I've done my best for the amount of time I had to whip this room together. I have heard there is a silicon spray on sealant used for roofing applications, that if I can get my hands on I may be able to seal up the crumbly parts of the ceiling that look like they could be a gateway for masses of pests. Right now its just fingers crossed because I have no line of defense if any pests arrive, It is winter now however so I'm hoping the bugs are hybernating, but it will be late april by the time I'm done flowering. I should probably get myself some pest sprays just in case they decide to come marching in.

Mold is another worry of mine, when I first moved in only a month and 5 days ago the basement had carpeting that was completely molded and the whole basement stunk. I ripped it all out and have been running a dehumidifier down there. For the Bugs I will hope luck prevails and I will also prepare myself with some kind of spray, I might try making a habenero concoction to spray on as this is organic and wont put poisons into my product, for mold Im going to try to keep my humidity low, right now im actually running a humidifier in the room to keep the RH above 45% so I'm hoping humidity wont be a problem during flower. Now that the carpet is gone hopefully it won't be an issue.

So yea it's kindof a ghetto setup, definately nothing too classy, but it will be fun to see what it can do! Ill just post the pictures in no particular order and explain as I go along

Heres a picture of everything I will be using on the plants. I will be using minimal amounts of the black chrystal and Liquid gold, and 1/2 strength dose of the prosilicate. My foliar spray is just Ph'd water with 1/2 recommended liquid gold, pH'd at 6.6. Right now my plants are at 1100ppm and no issues, but i will drop it down to 950 next feeding to stay on the safe side. Maybe its just inexperience but I swear my leaves should/could be greener than they are. I have drip clean to help prevent salt buildup and I ensure a very good amount of runoff during watering. Some good reading material. Gotta watchout for the typos and some of the information is just wrong. I think Jorge needs to do a good edit. I have 5 3.2 gallon airpots for 5 lucky females This is the water line in my basement, Ice cold water runs through it and Im having serious condensation as the warm humid exhaust from my room touches it, Im a little worried because the pipe runs above the ceiling and dripping water could cause some damage... any suggestions? I use this green cfl light during lights off if I need to go into the room, Does anyone know if this will be safe during flower? I recommend this timer because it was easy to program can handle 1850watts and has two outlets, most other timers are a pain in the ass Heres a shot of the ceiling as you can see its not the prettiest sight, and I imagine pests can make an easy entrance here. I do like having it unfinished as I can mount things to the joists. I also plan to place my cooltubes in betwen the joists which means I gain 1 vertical foot compared to a finished basement, definately a good thing for this strain. Here's a shot of my 1000 watts, The front bulb is a 600watt MH conversion bulb, it is a bit yellow for my liking, im a bit dissappointed. The light at the back is the 400MH bulb, it gives off alot of blue, it is in a cooltube fixture, which will eventrually be mounted between the floor joists as mentioned. Pretty happy with my temps/RH One of my beauties, I didnt take shots of all the plants because to be honest they pretty much all have the same traits, They kinda all look the same, must be stable genetics. There is one plant that is quite a bit taller than the others, I'm guessing he is a male looking good, these shots are today so thats 34 days from the moment I soaked the seeds. Maybe going a little bit slow, probably because of the topping stress Look at all those healthy plants! my little side project, I reuse the waste water for them Heres what I see when I open the door trial run at cloning, there are 2 or 3 in there that will make it, but the others are likely done for Coco medium, Im liking it so far Later today or tomorrow I'm moving the plants into 2gallon pots, I still dont know their sex's so its kinda shitty wasting coco/nutes/light. Hey maybe they are all females? The room at its cleanest moment, Just finished slapping a quick coat of flat white paint and fitting the insulation on the concrete floor. I wish it was bigger! My next shot at cloning will go a little better I hope. I have a heat pad now to help them out. Ummm hopefully I didnt crash your computer with all the pictures! All comments welcome

Thedillestpickle said:

my little side project, I reuse the waste water for themView attachment 1978004

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Are those mint & chard?
I skimmed your thread and this stood out to me. Utilizing "waste" water for better efficiency... keep it up!

tomat0 said:

Are those mint & chard?
I skimmed your thread and this stood out to me. Utilizing "waste" water for better efficiency... keep it up!

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I hear you, I've started some Arugula and Basil in my tent

Yea just dont go taking your outdoor herbs and starting them indoors or you might get pests, those were all started from seeds I had kickin around from 5 years ago. They are chia, and beets, I tried doing lemon balm and mint but the seeds were pretty old and nothing sprouted. I also have garlic, chick peas, and lentils in there and I really want to have strawberries! of course if it gets too cluttered Im going to have to take them out but its something fun to watch grow along side the others.

I just transplanted into 2 gallon pots today, I mixed my coco 50/50 for the new pots but the original 1 gallon pots were straight coco. I really hope this doesnt create an issue for me with the inner root ball staying wet all the time but the outer root ball getting dry faster. What do you guys think? I figure the coco/perlite will dry out faster but will wick the extra moisture away from the straight coco and even itself out, coco has a very strong wicking ability from what Ive been seeing.

This morning the plants were totally drooped over, I should have watered them last night but I like the idea of watering them in the morning only, I definately pushed it a bit too far because it looked pretty bad in there, hopefully no damage done and they perk back up.

I've decided that I will top these plants again, they have two main shoots now and I will cut them above the first node on each shoot. This should garantee me 4 tops that are perfectly even and symetrical. I also will get 2 clones from each plant in the process. I apologize for what may become an agonizingly long veg time, topping them again means they will basically be starting over again, though they should grow pretty fast with the root system being already as large as it is. Harvest time will probably be around end of april going into may, so don't hold your breath, but do stay tuned for the updates.

I think I need to come up with res system for watering, something with a pump and wand and an airpump to airate the solution before watering would be ideal... might get into something like that in a couple more months. Its pretty crazy in there trying to water plants with a watering can and spilling solution everywhere ahhhhh... Ill figure something out

Ive brought my PPM down to 950, 1100ppm didnt seem to hurt them but I know it was close. I am going to try to aim for a runoff with a ppm no higher than 25% of the solution going in, and adjust my feeding solution accordingly. If the ppm coming out is really high I will drop the ppm going in on the next feeding. That 25% is just an arbitrary number I chose so hopefully its good.

Week 5 day 2 Vegg
ppm in 950
ppm out 1300
pH in 5.8
pH out 5.7

My timer didnt kick on today at the programmed time... gunna have to keep an eye on that.
Thanks for checking it out guys

Ouch took the clones off last night and thought I had my clone setup dialed in pretty good, just checked them an hour ago and the tempurature had shot up to 35degrees and all the cuttings had flopped onto their sides. cooked them pretty good I think, but there is still lots of life in the leaves by the looks of it, removed the dome and im going to mist from now on. Hopefully they root or I'll have to do a third round of cloning

Lol to get 4 colas what I did was top the plant and let those 2 main branches branch off, then topped those 2. I was told thats the way to go lol

Roflicer said:

Lol to get 4 colas what I did was top the plant and let those 2 main branches branch off, then topped those 2. I was told thats the way to go lol

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Actually if you check out my next update in a few days you will see that this is exactly what I have done! I have the two tops i just removed in my second attempt at cloning right now. I removed the scraggly smaller shoots underneath, except for 1 plant which will have 6 tops, just as an experiment.
It does have pros and cons, to do this technique you have to allow the plant to veg for quite a bit longer, which for some isnt something they like to do. But the good thing about it is you allow the plant that much extra time to form a solid root system which will pay off during flower. You also get a very even canopy as each shoot is starting off from the same height so growth is evenly distributed. Even canopy= even light = higher yeild

thanks for checking out the grow, Itll be a little slow for now as they are just vegging and also just topped again, but things should start to pick up soon

Next update on the 14th, also I am starting to see preflowers and I think I may have even spotted a pistil on my largest plant

If you dont mind check on my journal and provide me with some feedback ;D

Ok its been a good while, decided to wait a while so that my plants could grow back into something worth looking at after the second topping. ...this is going to be a big update just to give you a fair warning!

Good news everyone, Ive got 7 Females! All 7 have clearly visible preflowers with pistils. At first I thought I had 9 out of 10 but on a second inspection I found I was being a little too optimistic. Ive got the 3 males in a closet quaranteened and under 46 watts of CFL's just to keep them alive incase I sexed them wrong, they are also in 12/12 now to speed up that process. I will probably harvest some flowers from the best male, incase I decide to make my own strain at some point. I'll include a picture of one of the 3 males out of his pot so you can see the root system is getting quite large. There in 2 gallon pots, just like the other 7 females. I think it's time for a transplant very soon

Ill include pictures from my first attempt at cloning. It looks like I had beginners luck that first round because all 10 survived, so I now have 14 female plants! But as mentioned I forgot to label each clone so I dont know which is which just yet and I may just give them away to people(maybe I wont tell them they are a 12-14 week flowerer!).

I'd also like to show off my Custom made cool tube. Its actually a cool tube that I just bought... but it originally only held one light. I purchased an extra socket for 20$ and drilled some holes in the tube and can now burn 2 lights in one tube. Right now I'm burning my lights in the tube but it's not being vented as temperatures are still very low in my room even with 1000watts burning. I plan to buy/make a second one of these tubes, also purchase 3 more 600's and run a total of 2400watts during flower.... sooooo its gunna be fuckin crazy in this little room with more than double what most people use for lighting... I know its not efficient, but I should have plants worthy of a magazine centerfold thats 2400watts burning in a 4 x 6 room. Hopefully I can pull it off. I am waiting for the funds to roll in so I can get the lights/tube/venting/exhaust all setup. I'm going to need a much bigger fan to pull that off. I should also mention that in the next few weeks a CO2 system will be in place to maintain 1500ppm. All in all this is going to be one max'd out 4x6 room.

I haven't fully decided what sortof pots I will have my Kali Mist's in, currently I'm playing with the idea of putting 4 of them in 4 separate 65L totes, with a 50/50 mix of perlite and coco. With the 3 remaining plants placed in 5 gallon airpots(still need to aquire those but I have put the order in at my hydro store). This way we can all see how well these airpots really work, If the plants in the 5gallon airpots outperform the 65L totes then you know they work damn good, but we will see, my money is on the totes. It might be a bit unfair to the airpots as I plan to give the plants in the totes a bit more space under the lights than the 5 gallon plants. Right now the girls are in 2 gallon pots and are about 10 inches in height, I expect another 2 weeks of vegging to go before 12/12 begins

I should mention that I am doing my own variation on supercropping. I know that this is a stretchy strain so I have a fan on them at all times, but I am also periodically doing some supercropping to the tallest shoots. What I do is I grasp the main stem near the middle and by rolling my fingers back and forth I twist the stem around a few times. I work my way up the stem and continue spinning it right up to the top, by the time I am at the top of each stem I have spun the shoot around about 5 or 6 times and when I release it the stem falls limp for a few hours. I am hoping this will discourage the plants from stretching too much when I flip to 12/12 and should enable me to vegg longer and have more nodes at tighter intervals, I will stop doing this after 1 week into 12/12. I may get some hermies doing this but to be honest I would rather have 6 females than 7 so if I have to cull a hermied plant I wont feel bad. Hopefully I'm not overdoing it, I am being quite rough with them, but they don't seem to mind.

Alright that covers mostly everything, I am running my plants at 1100ppm again but only because I mixed my nutes a bit strong and was too lazy to dilute it... (I didnt have any more distilled water and I'm using tap water so I didn't want to add any chlorine to bring the ppm down). pH in is 5.8 and comes out 5.7 Next watering I plan to drop the ppm down to 900ppm, I think I'm really pushing it, getting some burn. I also mixed some epsom salt in the mix at 50ppm because I'm seeing some mag deficiency. Just picked up a bottle of Cal/Mag tonight so I'll use that instead next watering. Ive also got 10 Big Bomb regular seedlings started in beer cups. I have 10 regular Kish seeds heading my way to arrive in the next few days. I will give those plants a small corner of the room so that I can get some bud a little sooner as the Kali Mist are a very long flowering strain.

And here are some pics! All feedback welcome!
I healthy rootball, hopefully they all loook like this one


My healthiest clone... it looks healthier than my mother plants!

This is the aftermath of my stem spinning supercrop technique, I like to think its not too stressfull... maybe something similar to a decent wind storm(ok maybe a hurricane)
Heres the hole at the ceiling for passive exhaust... I am burning 1000watts all day and it never gets too warm with just this hole for exhaust. If you can see the little blue knob at the bottom that is the cold water line, it is getting lots of condensation and dripping everywhere... not good
two lights in one cool tube! i love it
the view from above just keeps getting better
almost too cold even
my CO2 burner... damn that thing wasnt cheap


This is one of the males, still keeping him alive, just pulled him out to show the roots
Here are the three stooges in their quaranteen, they get 12/12 and 46 watts of CFL. Nothing but dilute pH'd waste water for them from now on

This is happening to alot of the lowermost leaves, I think its magnesium deficiency
That stem is pretty big, for a 10 inch plant, just over 1cm wide
Big Bomb, not so big yet
Here's a good shot of one of my Kali Mist, 10 inches 46 days old, with 4 tops
10 seedlings started in beer cups . sorry its sideways
One of my first pistils all have shown sex
another example of what I am thinking is mag deg
another pistil. Sexy eh?
...not that big yet really
a healthy leaf. starting to look more like a sativa
brach structure after 2 toppings. Looking pretty solid
Heres the ghetto tinfoil/cardboard hood I made for the lights over the 3 males. Good enough for them, they are junk as soon as I get pollen
Im not sure whats causing this, calcium deficiency? magnesium def? burn?
same leaf
just for a fun... a beat in a shotglass lol
Heres how I supercrop. Sortof like an indian rug burn... if you know what that is

Comments everyone! Hope you enjoyed this update... took me forever to upload all these pictures... I think I just used all my data uploading for the month...

Looks very professional bro!! Will try your technique next time around.

OldLuck said:

Looks very professional bro!! Will try your technique next time around.

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It's experimental, I'm sure I'm not the first person to do it but I haven't read anything about doing it this way. I Hope it works better, gunna need some kinda miracle to keep these plants from hitting the ceiling. I have a mark on the wall to indicate when to flip to 12/12, Soon as the first stem reaches 22 inches I'm gunna make the switch.

Very nice update man.. Looking good.. my bottom leaves did that too.. Wish I was more experienced and could tell you what I think but I'd be completely guessing.

My top leaves have started doing that and I have been neglecting the CaMg additions.. I gave them a healthy does and hopefully this helps out.

Thanks for the comments guys. Going to try to include as many details as possible in my updates for the sake of keeping track of things. It's seems a good way to keep notes on things for future reference.

I stumbled upon some very very important information regarding ppm readings. I posted the post from another thread into my "journals". I don't actually type anything into the blog "journals" instead I use it to save posts I find around RIU that I deem important for my grow. Anyways what I learned is that my PPM meter reads out a ppm conversion of 500x EC and my House and Garden feed chart uses a 700x EC ratio for the recommended PPM's. Hard to explain but look into it if your doing hydro... Basically I learned that I have been feeding my plants at 1600ppm!!! Holy SHIT eh?! so... somehow they are still alive
Going to drop my PPM's down a bunch for the next week and let some of the salts wash out... I think I'm very lucky my plants are alive haha
Its really amazing because the runoff ppm's have been coming out around 2000ppm(after the proper conversion)
which means that before dilution the ppm's sitting in the soil must have been even higher. How my plants are alive I don't know

Also I learned from some more reading that it is recommended to water coco more frequently than what is normally recommended for soil. All along I have thought I was smart to let my coco dry out almost completely before watering again. I was getting the coco so dry that when I lift my plants it felt like the pots were full of styrofoam, almost no weight to them at all. The reason this is'nt good is because as the water in the feed gets sucked up alot of the nutes are left behind and as the coco becomes dry the PPM's will climb exponentially to rediculous levels... especially if your over feeding such as I have been doing. Really I'm very lucky to still have these plants alive. Hopefully no long term harm done.

My CO2 controller has been delayed, I ordered one online a few weeks ago and was starting to wonder why it hasnt arrived, I emailed them and they told me the controller they had in stock was broken so are waiting for a new shipment. Not too worried about it, its not as important just yet but I would like to have that boost during flower.

12/12 flip is still another 2 or 3 weeks away by my guestimate... really gotta get these plants in something bigger soon so they arent rootbound, I'll hold off on the roots excel until after transplant.

Total guess here. I had a similar looking situation as you with the leaves. My tips starting to yellow and then it spread in between the veins. Unfortunately I thought it was heat stress and adjusted my temps and let it go. From what I could find, my best diagnosis was that the plants were Mg Deficient. I water with some CaMg and foliar fed with it as well. It seems to be helping it.

Because it looks similar I would go with Mg+

ottawaliquid said:

Total guess here. I had a similar looking situation as you with the leaves. My tips starting to yellow and then it spread in between the veins. Unfortunately I thought it was heat stress and adjusted my temps and let it go. From what I could find, my best diagnosis was that the plants were Mg Deficient. I water with some CaMg and foliar fed with it as well. It seems to be helping it.

Because it looks similar I would go with Mg+

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Already on it, I added 50ppm of epsom salts to the last two waterings
I just used some masking tape and skewers to space out the 4 tops of the plants. Now all of the lower branches are getting lots of light and should develope a little better, they have been growing very thin stems and obviously not getting any light, I need at least a few to develope further so I can use them for taking clones. I will leave the skewers on for the next couple weeks to train the tops to grow apart from each other, maybe even leave them on for the rest of the grow. unfortunately I had to space out the plants quite a bit more and raise the lights a few inches so the light intensity is a little diminished. I'll give them all a few days to grow out in their new shape and post some pics so you guys can see what I'm talking about.