First serious grow! LEC 315 in a 4x4 tent (Philips elite agro CMH)

[borbor]

Everything seems normal, with the one exception that the 707 truthband doesn't seem to be doing much. Looks almost the same as when it sprouted a couple of days ago, hope she's okay. Everything else is doing ok so I don't really think it's anything I did, hoping she's just slow.

 

[GroErr]

This part of the cycle is a bit slow, that's why I do off-set perpetual, always flowering something during the hurry up and wait seedling/clone part

 

[borbor]

yeah, I'm definitely gonna try to get a veg tent set up some time while these ladies are flowering, Ideally when this tent is empty I'd have two or three plants a few weeks into veg, I saw a really small tent on amazon, it was like 18"x24"x48", I'm sure the quality is shit but if it's just a veg tent I don't see a big issue with that, as long as it stays dark inside with the lights off, it'd be cool to be able to fit a veg tent on a shelf, table, or desk. In the back of my mind this whole time I've been kinda planning on that with a 2 or 4 bulb t5 fixture. Then I could put two seeds/clones in at a time, for four weeks at a time, so every four weeks two plants would go into flower and two plants would get chopped. Think a 4" booster fan would be enough for a tent that size with some T5s?

AW SHIT
I was typing that, and setting up that herb iq software, and watching a show, somehow within three hours midnight kush #2 just fell down, limp! Shittttty, its stem didn't even get up to 90 degrees
The soil in its pot was all dry, and all the other pots were still moist. I think I know why, today I brought a metal cube into the tent and put it in the corner and clipped the circulation fan to it since I couldn't angle it towards the plants when it was clipped to the actual tent, I pointed it right at the midnight kush#2 pot, even though it's about a foot and a half away, I think the increased airflow over the soil made it dry out faster. I'm a little bummed, in my mind I just gotta keep saying "rookie mistake." I watered it, so hopefully she bounces back, I won't take the pot out yet

I know when I was germinating them I was really just trying to get maybe 5-6 survivors, but this week every day I've been loving em and checking on them more times per day than the average high school student checks facebook, I grew attached At least it happened to be the strain I popped 2 of, and I still have 3 more seeds for it

 

[GroErr]

Shit happens, do what you can with the remaining and pop some more seeds 4" booster would be fine for that size tent, I use one in a 2x4x5' and works fine for vegging, no carbon filter. They don't pull enough to have a filter on them but for clones/seedlings/veg they're fine. I use LED's for veg so no heat worries, use the fans more to control humidity and have constant air exchange.

 

[borbor]

Thanks groerr!
Got some new growth on querkle, starbud, MK #1, and brazil amazonia, glad to see that

 

[DurbanP]

I'm late to the party but I'll be watching. I was actually thinking of adding this light to pair with my onxy.

Keep posting pics and good luck

The ph of your water will swing. The way I do my water is in a 5 gallon water cooler bottle. I use some right away and the rest goes into 1gallon plastic milk jugs filled so there is no space. Those go in the fridge to chill out. I'm not sure if this is scientific or not, but for me if there is air in the container my water swings from a ph of 5.9 to a 6.2-6.3. Without space it tends to stay the same or hit 6.

 

[dbkick]

I'm late to the party but I'll be watching. I was actually thinking of adding this light to pair with my onxy.

Keep posting pics and good luck

Done did that myself .
I think I'm gonna buy another LEC for the 4by4 tent and put the 4 onyx blooms in the room with the 2 lec on a rail.Possibly leave two onyx stationary .

 

[DurbanP]

Done did that myself .
I think I'm gonna buy another LEC for the 4by4 tent and put the 4 onyx blooms in the room with the 2 lec on a rail.Possibly leave two onyx stationary .

Wow. That's a thing of beauty. Wish you could daisy chain the Onxy. Thats my only knock on them.

 

[borbor]

Here's the six survivors-
Midnight kush-

Starbud-

Querkle-

Brazil Amazonia-

Top Tao Auto-

Blue Kush Auto-


Been thinking, since I'm only gonna have four plants in flowering, and two of those could be boys, should I pop a couple more beans now, or just hope for girls?

If I was trying to start more seeds in rockwool in a humidity dome, would the six hours of lights off with some lower temps be a problem?

 

[GroErr]

Here's the six survivors-

Been thinking, since I'm only gonna have four plants in flowering, and two of those could be boys, should I pop a couple more beans now, or just hope for girls?

If I was trying to start more seeds in rockwool in a humidity dome, would the six hours of lights off with some lower temps be a problem?

You could but no matter what they'll be behind these seedlings. You're probably better to leave it as-is, when you get your keepers then extend or reduce your veg time depending on how many plants. I tend to lean towards less but more robust and larger plants. Have tried pretty well every combo and the one that always seems to produce the most is less/larger plants. Remember that extending veg only extends that, your flowering time is constant and determined by the strain, say average 8-9 weeks. That time never changes, so if you veg an extra 2 weeks your overall period goes from say 6 + 8 weeks to 8 + 8 weeks, 16 instead of 14. Yet with that extra 2 weeks, at that stage in the plants life you can go from a 2 - 2.5 oz plant to 3 - 3.5 oz. plant depending on the strain, well worth the extra couple of weeks veg imo.

6 hrs. of dark won't hurt your seedlings at all, you can go straight into 12/12 with seeds, as long as the temps don't get too low, like say below 60'sh.

 

[borbor]

word, good to hear that, I was about to pop a few freebies just to distract myself from these seedlings, thinking that by the time these popped up the 6 alive now might be far along enough for me to have a little more fun watching.
I'm paying for the electricity in advance, so right now I'm all paid up on 18/6 until March 10th, then I've already paid for eleven weeks of flowering. I've been planning on buying another two or three weeks of 18/6. Hopefully I'll have enough left over from my taxes to get an area 51 rw-75 or a hans panel, or something along those lines. If so (and I do think so) then I'll buy that extra time at the same time I pay for the extra power usage from the led.

Definitely gonna keep what you said in mind about fewer, larger plants producing more. I might pop a few beans and get 'em going in case the querkle or brazil amazonia I have going turn out to be boys. Looking through my stash of seeds, there's not really anything I would want badly enough to make me wanna start a grow on those alone. In other words-between this current grow and my next grow I'm definitely going to get more seeds. Might as well get a head start, if I get a bunch of girls and my tent is too full, I know a couple of guys that I'm sure wouldn't mind a free teenage plant or two

 

[borbor]

just finished up putting some more in rockwool
1 710 Genetics Fool's Gold fem
2 WOS afghan kush reg
2 TH Seeds burmese kush (supposedly fem, but not sure. I think the promo on attitude said it was fem, but I got it out of the breeder pack with the worst handwritten label I've ever seen on anything)

I don't really care if I keep 'em, just making sure I can flower at least 4 plants

Tax return looks great, puts my LED budget at at least 400, maybe more depending on how much I spend taking captain cuddles to the vet!

 

[borbor]

Not much new to tell, just slowly chuggin' along. the midnight kush is the fastest, The 2nd and 3rd fingers on the first node's leaves are visible, and the second set of leaves is starting to grow. The brazil amazonia and starbud are kinda neck and neck, each has its first set of three fingered leaves starting to spread out. Querkle, as described on the internet, is the slowest.
The two autos are going as slow as querkle.
all the plants are staying near soil level though, wondering how close together the nodes will be later on.
Midnight Kush-

Starbud-

Brazil Amazonia-

Querkle-

Top Tao Auto-

Blue Kush Auto-


Midnight Kush from the side- so low to the soil!


also...wtf blue kush?

 

[borbor]

 

[borbor]

of those 5 seeds I sprouted, the fool's gold, both of the burmese kush, and one of the afghan kush have popped up. The fool's gold was first, and it actually already has a little root coming out of the bottom of the rockwool. I'm going tomorrow to get more soil and pots before they wake up, should I just transplant it then, or with the root coming out into the water in the tray is it better just to find a solo cup or something? it'll be about a 16 hour difference in when she's transplanted

 

[GroErr]

of those 5 seeds I sprouted, the fool's gold, both of the burmese kush, and one of the afghan kush have popped up. The fool's gold was first, and it actually already has a little root coming out of the bottom of the rockwool. I'm going tomorrow to get more soil and pots before they wake up, should I just transplant it then, or with the root coming out into the water in the tray is it better just to find a solo cup or something? it'll be about a 16 hour difference in when she's transplanted

They don't always grow at the same rate when you're growing multiple strains so you can just plant them as they're ready but waiting a day's not going to make much difference either way. I try and do them in batches but it doesn't always work that way.

 

[JimmyIndica]

I got a fools gold gonna wait for summer , so I be checkin your fools gold out

 

[borbor]

Hey riu, everything's going basically according to plan, here's a little update;
replaced the little 6 inch 15 watt clip-on fan with an oscillating 12 inch 40 watt 3-speed fan with a stand. It was a hot day and temperatures were actually rising in the tent, once I put this thing in on the lowest setting everything cooled right down
potted all of the seeds I had in rockwool in one gallon smart pots, except one of the burmese kush, there was a 2 gallon pot mixed with the 1 gallon pots at the hydro store, so I wound up with that by accident, haha. takes up pretty much the same footprint, so not a big deal at all. I seem to have overwatered a little for the initial watering, oops. They definitely like their new homes though, they're perking up more and more.

I know early on I posted a photo of the whole foxfarm line. I still haven't opened any of those bottles, decided to try the canna/biocanna line instead. I might use the foxfarm line next time, or just for a couple of plants sometime as a comparison, or in the backyard non-cannabis garden, or since the bottles are still sealed, craigslist. So far I've been using between a quarter and a half dose of canna start on all the seedlings with most waterings. Today I picked up some of biocanna's bio vega and biorhizotonic. I'm gonna call the original six seedlings officially in "veg," they're two weeks old today. in a few hours they'll get a watering with veg nutes and we'll see how they respond. The new seedlings, once their soil dries out, are gonna stay on just canna start.

while I'm going over my nutrients and watering, I think I've mentioned this before but I've been filling containers with tap water and leaving them out to evaporate the chlorine, but sometimes I forget, and in the beginning a few times I underestimated how much water I would need, so I'd go to the store and get distilled water. in those cases, I add small doses of General Organics CaMg+, only a few ml.

basically just mentioning all that so that if I sound wrong about anything someone can let me know, and if it works great, I might look back through this thread in the future, and others might as well, and find something useful.

The Ladies-
Midnight Kush

Querkle-

Starbud-

Brazil Amazonia-

Blue Kush Auto-

Micron Auto Tao-

Fool's Gold-

Burmese Kush (for reference, this is the one in the two gallon pot)

Burmese Kush-

Afghan Kush (this one was just barely poking above ground when I transplanted, so I know she at least didn't hate it)-

 

[borbor]

because I could only put 10 pics on the last post, here's the last afghan kush, and a group shot. the autos are in the big pots


edit-oh yeah, thought I'd add a photo of particularly high quality concentrate I've been enjoying today. headband on the left, La confidential x bruce banner on the right

 

[borbor]

I'm sure I'll be bored later tonight and post another round of pics, but I just got a quick question

I've got two thermometers right next to each other, one is the little $10 acurite hygrometer from amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0013BKDO8/ref=pe_385040_127541860_TE_dp_1
the other was a little more expensive, from sunleaves, it has a remote probe
http://www.amazon.com/Sunleaves-Digital-Min-Max-Hygro-Thermometer/dp/B004DKL62Y

So I keep the acurite thermometer and the probe for the sunleaves thermometer within inches of each other, usually with the acurite thermometer facing either forward or up (I figure the light may heat the black casing on the back). At this moment the sunleaves thermometer reads 78 degrees, the acurite thermometer reads 84 degrees, and I've seen it vary a lot more than that. Sometimes I'm going off the median, sometimes i'm going off the acurite to be on the safe side, and when I'm looking at low temperatures (how cool it gets during lights off) I go off of the sunleaves.

Which one should I trust? am I doing something wrong with the probe? I'm just letting it dangle off the light. Even when I turn the fans off there's a discrepancy