Small Scale, Second Grow! From Seed, Multiple Strains

[f8youthmidman]

Hey all! Thanks for stopping by. Been lurking around here for a while, so decided to start a grow journal of my own!

So far there are 5 seedlings above ground in Roots Organic soil.
The strains are OG Kush, Kings Kush (x2), Jack Frost, and an unknown strain - all bagseeds.
I also just put a few more Kings Kush seeds in a paper towel to germinate.

The seeds are all 2-5 years old! Most of them took 3-7 days to show a taproot, and a couple have weird leaf abnormalities on the first set. 5 out of 11 that showed a taproot made it above ground. But nonetheless, as they take hold they're taking off. The OG Kush grew a solid inch in 24 hours yesterday. The leaves weren't even touching the edge of the cup yet and now they are well beyond it.

The grow space is 2.75ft. wide X 1.33ft. deep X 2.33ft. high ---- 3.66sq. ft and 8.5 cu. ft.
33 in. wide X 16 in. deep X 28 in. high

I bought a cabinet from a thrift store and modified it to work.
I put 2 coats of primer and one coat of flat white paint on the inside. Before painting, I sealed all the gaps with caulk. After the paint, I put weather stripping around all the gaps and magnets to hold the doors shut. I had to screw pieces of 1x1 and trim to make a surface for the weather stripping to seal with. I just used small wood screws and finishing nail. I took out the drawers, and disassembled them. I used the bottom of the drawers to "re-mount" the doors to. The hardest part was keeping everything square.

There is a 120mm computer fan running on 12v drawing out the hot air, and a passive intake. I will buy 2 Noctua computer fans and install them in the next couple weeks. There is also a fan circulating air inside the cabinet.

I will be building a homemade carbon filter to mount to the outtake fans.

I will be running CFL's for this grow.
So far have 6 23w 1600 Lumen bulbs -- 4 6500k and 2 2700k.
So a total of 9600 lumens and 138 watts for the 6 seedlings.

I will bump it up to 250-300w for flowering using 70% 6500k and 30%2700k. Might go buy some bigger ~40w bulbs too.

Will probably veg them 3 weeks or so. I will be topping, and then LST'ing them like a bitch.

The plan is to run SubCool's SuperSoil in smaller pots (3-5 gallon) and top dress if necessary. The soil is currently "cooking" in the pictured 19gal. sterilite tote. Has been in there since 5/10.

I will transplant from solo cups to ~1 gallon pots filled with more Roots Organic Soil, and then into the final 3-5gal pot with 30-50% SuperSoil.

Let me know what you guys think! Feel free to point out any improvements I need to make!

Do you think they will need any nutrients in the 1 gal containers with Roots? Or will they have enough to get them to the final transplant? Might brew some EWC tea for them or something. Plan on brewing a tea for the first transplant watering.

 

[f8youthmidman]

More Pictures! There seems to be some weird deformities, possibly from the seeds being years old?

 

[f8youthmidman]

Two more! Still have a bit of light sealing to do.

 

[BMWEATER]

Off to a soild start! Wouldnt worry too much about the leaves right now, this early on some seeds come out looking like that. Then 3 or 4 nodes later they start looking proper. Happy growing!

 

[GreenBean 420]

Get a good over those cfls. Lot of light is just going straight up and not down at the plants. Either make a cool one yourself or grab a couple metal hoods from Home Depot. Looking good

 

[f8youthmidman]

Great, thanks for the replies!

Here's an update - I'm actually a couple days behind on the updates. I'll post everything to get caught up.

Everything is coming along, except I still have a weird issue with some leaves going on.

I've seen a couple bugs - one skinny crawling white bug in the soil. One flying bug I think was an aphid. And one other flying bug I was able to snap a picture of. I'll post it below.

What do you guys think the issue is? Over watering? I believe I was overwatering the ladies.... which brought up a root aphid issue or something. I think the problem going on is bug related, but I don't know much about these types of issues.

--- There is crazy leaf curling/hooking going on. I believe that was from over watering. The new growth looks good after letting it dry out.
--- I think the leaf spots and twisting is from a bug issue. But I am new to this. Any input is highly appreciated!!
--- The seeds are all 2-5 years old. So it just might be an issue with the old seeds. The bigger they get the better they seem to do.

So I did a foliar spray of neem oil with a drop of dawn dish soap added. Made sure to spray the undersides of the leaves nice and heavy, and also lightly wet the soil surface.

Should I jump to Azomax? I'm trying to avoid it if possible. Have a 3 week neem plan to spray every 3rd day with a plain water foliar spray 36 hours after the neem foliar spray.

On a separate note - the Jack Frost is a pure mutant!! lol the leaves are just coming out wherever they want to. One set of leaves here, one there, one there, it's weird! Going to see how it turns out.

I also brewed up a 1 gallon batch of AACT to feed the two bigger plants when I transplant them into 1 gallon pots in 2 days. Used kelp meal at 2/3 strength, EWC, and molasses in the tea. I put on the lid and shake the gallon jug at least a few times a day. Bought a cheap fish tank pump and air stone from the hydro store.

 

[f8youthmidman]

Off to a soild start! Wouldnt worry too much about the leaves right now, this early on some seeds come out looking like that. Then 3 or 4 nodes later they start looking proper. Happy growing!

The new growth seems to be better! Maybe that's all it was.

Get a good over those cfls. Lot of light is just going straight up and not down at the plants. Either make a cool one yourself or grab a couple metal hoods from Home Depot. Looking good

Good idea! They would definitely benefit from that. Thanks!

 

[f8youthmidman]

A couple days later -

Transplanted the two bigger ones into 1 gallons, and fed them tea upon transplant. Gave some tea to the seedlings that needed a watering and added some to my "cooking" supersoil batch.

I sprinkled some Mykos on the root mass and in the hole.

I also started using some mykos in the hole I drop freshly germinated seeds into. Works wonders! These old seeds sprout out of the ground noticeably quicker when using the mykos.

 

[f8youthmidman]

Here are the bugs I've seen. The only one I wasn't able to snap a picture of was some flying one lol
Any idea what these are? I also got some sticky traps. So far, just one little dude got caught

Sprayed all of the plants down with neem. Going to do a neem folar every 3 days with a plain water foliar in between.

 

[f8youthmidman]

More pictures from after the transplant. They seem to be doing very well!

 

[f8youthmidman]

FIM'ed the biggest two! They were loving the transplant so went ahead and FIM'ed the two biggest ones. They were both on the 5th node, despite their size differences.

They slowed down for 24-48 hours, but are coming back quick!!

 

[f8youthmidman]

^^^ on the previous post - do you see the little white dots on the bigger leaves? Are those just normal, or could they be pest related? I don't think I've seen enough bugs to cause that many eggs (if that's what they are..). Under a 40x scope they just look like amber trichomes.

 

[f8youthmidman]

They are loving the transplant and FIM'ing! They're taking off again.

Started to LST one of them. Will start LST'ing the other in a day or so.

The mutant Jack Frost still kickin' it! Lol it looks strange as hell

Some more pictures. Can't wait until all the new tops come in!!

 

[f8youthmidman]

Four more pictures!

 

[GreenBean 420]

Lot going on here lol. I don't have time to help me as of right now but to me I see some deficiency/ph problems maybe. And or over/underwatering. What are your temps and humidity at?
My suggestion is to get that bug issue under control... if you have the problem this early and don't completely take care of it your life will be hell. I see a lot of white dots and if you can spot the bugs all over I'd just start over with new seeds if you have more. Pull everything. Decontaminate the room and check the soil before replanting. They could already be in the soil you had cooking.
New growth looks to be ok so maybe they'll just outgrow or get use to the soil. Happens a lot. Saw maybe a cal-mag issue in the earlier pics but unless I compare stuff on charts I can't call anything else off hand.

 

[f8youthmidman]

Lot going on here lol. I don't have time to help me as of right now but to me I see some deficiency/ph problems maybe. And or over/underwatering. What are your temps and humidity at?
My suggestion is to get that bug issue under control... if you have the problem this early and don't completely take care of it your life will be hell. I see a lot of white dots and if you can spot the bugs all over I'd just start over with new seeds if you have more. Pull everything. Decontaminate the room and check the soil before replanting. They could already be in the soil you had cooking.
New growth looks to be ok so maybe they'll just outgrow or get use to the soil. Happens a lot. Saw maybe a cal-mag issue in the earlier pics but unless I compare stuff on charts I can't call anything else off hand.

lol my bad, crammed a bunch of updates in there. I'll go back soon and condense it all.

You are right - I believe the problems are coming from a cal/mag deficiency! Including the white spots on the leaves! They're 23 days old and have been fed nothing but plain water and a light AACT (EWC and Molasses, and kelp at about 1/2 strength). Found a couple pictures of plants with WAY worse white spots and larger spots, but the exact same as mine look, which apparently came from a cal/mag def. The bottom sets of serrated leaves are showing some definite cal/mag deficiency signs. And the cotyledons are yellowed.

I was planning on getting them through veg before the supersoil with Botanicare's Pure Blend Pro, Liquid Karma, and now some Cal/Mag. They're just in Roots Organic soil now. Guess i could start feeding them earlier next time.

The temps are 75-80, and humidity is a low for veg at 28-32% RH.

As far as bugs go - those are the ONLY 3 or 4 bugs i've seen the entire grow. The plants have been in solo cups as seeds since 6/15. Do you think that it's worth starting over for that? I definitely over-watered at the beginning, which probably let the pests show up in the first place. I don't even know which kind of bugs they are except for maybe a springtail. Haven't seen any bugs in a while again. I can't see anything living or moving with a 40x scope.!And I put sticky traps up, nothing on those except for a springtail the first day 3-4 days ago

The Roots Soil would have been the one with the bugs in it. The SuperSoil i made is still cooking in the tote. Going to transplant into a 50/50 supersoil mix in the final 2-3gal pots and top dress with more supersoil when they need it.

 

[f8youthmidman]

Update time!

The ladies are kickin' it! Yesterday they were given some AACT with EWC, Molasses, Liquid Karma, Kelp, and a little bit of Roots Organic soil to get more diverse microbe action. Then I gave them a foliar of cal/mag today.

Hopefully the combination of the tea and cal/mag will be what they need.

The last watering - i had a 50% strength mix of Pure Blend Pro, Liquid Karma, Silica Blast, Sweet Raw, and Cal/Mag. BUT i was a damn idiot and mixed up the nutes to full strenth. I meant to mix up a half gallon, but followed the directions for a full gallon. I flushed them with plain distilled some water immediately after realizing what I had done.. which was right after i finished watering. They seemed to be okay... maybe a tiny little bit of nute burn here or there?

Started LST'ing both of the larger ladies.

Transplanted the third youngest into its final pot as an experiment. I went ahead and filled the pot half way up with SuperSoil. Let's see how I like going straight from a solo cup to final container.
The rest of the ladies are in just Roots soil.

I was finally able to get the humidity to be steady over 40%! Added an open container of water in the grow room, and a humidifier blowing at the active intake.

 

[f8youthmidman]

Some pics from the last few days to go along with the update.

Oh man do they love those teas!

 

[visajoe1]

looks like your ph is off and you're overwatering

 

[f8youthmidman]

looks like your ph is off and you're overwatering

Thanks for the input!

I've been pondering pH issues. Do I need a pH meter if I only feed organic nutes and distilled/RO water? I only use some stuff from Botanicare, and AACT and foliars. EWC, guanos, kelp meal, fish hydroslate, cal/mag, silica, molasses, ect.

What about the new growth? Looks healthy, no? I FIM'd them, so the main top does look deformed from that still.