1st grow journal, 1st grow, comments welcomed

Since we are legal now I started my first grow, i bought a bunch of stuff(probably lots of stuff that wasn't needed) and i'm on my way. i ordered some seeds from seedsman on black friday. I got 25 seeds/9 different strains for $65. Besides taking forever due to the holidays alot of the seeds seemed small to me. I hope it doesn't mean anything. So i used the paper towel method and had 5 of 6 pop within 18-24 hours, and 1 GSC popped after 36 hours. I went with 2 Gorilla Glue #4 from lineage genetics 2 DoSiDo from Pyramid Seeds and 2 Girl Scout Cookies from Blimburn seeds.

After they all showed good taproots I put them in some FoxFarm Light warrior Seed starter Mix. I am going to run Canna coco and dr earth 4.4.4. all purpose amendments, but I wanted to use a seed starter mix bc it had some stuff in in vs just going straight coco and having nothing. I did contemplate just using the coco with the 4.4.4. at quarter strength with some mycorrhizae and worm castings but I found a bad of the light warrior and decided to go with that until I transfered to their 5 gallon pots.

So that leaves me to where I am now. Im at about 36 hours in the soil and nothing has popped yet. Im not going to lie, waiting for these little plants to break the soil has be excruciating. I know 36 hours isn't that long but still the wait is killing me., im worried i buried them too deep, or watered them too much around the seed. I have a heat mat down, temps at the mat are about 90F, bottom of the cup about 85F and the top of the soil 78F. the environment is at 74F. I have a "humidity dome" on and I just recently turned on the light hoping maybe the plants will sense that there light and and come out for some rays lol Oh the light is a 105 watt 6500K CFL for veg and I have a HLG550 alibaba clone and a 4x4 tent ready to do as soon as these babies grow up a little.

So that's about it, come on for the ride. I will post everyday and comments are welcome.

Looks good so far.
Might want to swap out those domes for some clear plastic bottles cut in half...like water bottles or pop bottles.
I'm not sure the ones your using will keep humidity in the cups properly...need to 'seal' off outside air from the inside the dome air.
I'm no pro by any means, but I'm sure someone will chime in soon with better answers.
Good luck and happy growing

So I woke up today to see that 5 of 6 have popped thru the soil. I was getting worried after not seeing anything for 2.5 days but alas I was worried for nothing. I'm not that comcerned about the last one that hasn't popped yet. She was the late starter, about 12 hours behind the rest, so hopefully in another 12 hours she will come out and play

You’re off to a great start! I would propose up-potting. Keep them in the solos for about two weeks, then up-pot to a one gallon. The plant will love the infusion of fresh soil. Then after 2-3 weeks, up-pot to your final container. I’ve found that using good soil, I ALMOST need zero nutes until I flip to flower. It’s much better for watering too.

twalte said:

You’re off to a great start! I would propose up-potting. Keep them in the solos for about two weeks, then up-pot to a one gallon. The plant will love the infusion of fresh soil. Then after 2-3 weeks, up-pot to your final container. I’ve found that using good soil, I ALMOST need zero nutes until I flip to flower. It’s much better for watering too.

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That sounds like a good plan. I might just go from solos to 5 gallon though bc I don't have 1 gallon pots. Thanks for the comment, I hope you stick around bc I plan on posting everyday

Anonymousey said:

That sounds like a good plan. I might just go from solos to 5 gallon though bc I don't have 1 gallon pots. Thanks for the comment, I hope you stick around bc I plan on posting everyday

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I look forward to following your grow!

so I got rid of the dumb lamp base and installed some hooks on the top of my seedling hut and used some nylon to hang the light. I still want to get it closer but for now I was just happy to get it up and to have gotten rid of the lamp base. The girls were also thirsty so I watered till I seen 10% runoff. I wanted to use my new bluelab pH meter but the instructions said to wait 24 hours while soaking the probe in the solution. So that's what I did, seems to me alot of the times when people say these meters don't give an accurate reading I'm guessing it's due more to human error, so I'm trying to follow the Instructioms for a change.i also got this light timer and I thought I set it up right but it never turned off when I wanted to so for the time being it's Manuel lights on lights off. I'm going to give it another go tomorrow.

Im so glad im keeping this journal, one of the helpful reasons is I was going to ask you guys if you thought my growth was too slow, but then I glanced at my journal and realized the just broke soil yesterday at noon so I guess its just me being impatient. So I got the light orientated the best I could. I think its close enough now, maybe it could be closer but for now im happy with it. I was debating getting another of of these CFL's there only like 30 bucks but maybe I would be better searved getting a cheap blurple just for veg. let me know what you guys think.



this is my strongest/biggest guy so far. gg4 f2



So my humidity was pretty low, 25% or so, so I threw in a humidifier. it got as high as 68% I was reading that you want 60-80% for seedlings, is that true? I couldn't imagine 80% considering 68% looked like a dense fog I put the humidifier on the floor of my cabinet and it shoots up the gap between the door and the base the plants are on. so its working really good. i dont think i need the humidity dome when i have it this froggy.





This is what the light leaks look like. I bought some weather stripping so hopefully it will help seal the door better, keep the Humidity up and the light out when i want it out. I also finally figured out the stupid timer, so hopefully I dont have to turn on/off the light manually from now on.





so thats where Im at. I think i'm doing everything I should(except for just leaving it alone more lol) If anyone sees something i'm doing wrong or something I could improve please say something. I've read and read and read and done my research but I will be the first to admit i'm a noob and i really don't know what im doing lol anyways I hope everyone is having a good night, talk to you tomorrow

I’m looking forward to an update! I’m about to start my first grow, too. Your success stories and failures will be very useful to learn from!

Fart Vapor said:

I’m looking forward to an update! I’m about to start my first grow, too. Your success stories and failures will be very useful to learn from!

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Fart vapor your update. so not alot on the plant side. the girls are just growing, not alot of change, i am definitely learning patience, something I severely lack. most of my update is maintenance stuff, sealing up the cabinet for light leaks and dialing in the humidifier. i did add a 6 inch fan to help strengthen up my stems and for air movement to prevent mold and such. i had to move the light around because my broke ass only had one extension cord and when i plugged in the fan with the light the other way there wasnt enough room so i switched the light around.


so since I got my bluelab now and have it calibrated I decided to PH my water. Ive been using walmarts brand water which I found too low 5.8, especially when i switch to Coco when i should have a 6.5-6.8Ph It took me some trial and error with the ph up(i found out just a couple drops per 1 gallon is enough to change the ph pretty drastically) and i settled on a Ph of 6.3 for the medium i am in that is ideal from what I have read at least.


there's water droplets on the girls because I just watered them. so that's about it. I think Im going to switch to an upload schedule of every 2-3 days so theres actually something happening(but i will respond to questions). maybe some growth to show or etc. right now its just the waiting game, keeping my RH up, temps around 78F and a steady 18/6 light schedule. hopefully once a good rootzone is established i will start seeing some increased growth. oh well time will only tell. thanks everyone for following along

Looks cool I'm excited to see how your genetics turn out. I just finished veg and flipped to 12/12 on my first grow. In my opinion the most important things about seedling through veg are keeping your humidity at 65% and your temp in the high 70's. Allowing your soil to fully dry before watering will prevent fungus and gnats later. I had a little bit of burn from using calmag with added nitrogen in it so try to get one without the extra or + if you go bottled nutes. Pretty obvious things but I noticed my grow really took off once I got those situations under control.

Looks like you've off to a great start.

Small suggestion, without a reflector you will get better results hanging your bulb vertically. Right now you are losing 1/2 your light "up ^" where vertically your light will all go "out < >".

Best of luck to you!
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.Smoke said:

Looks like you've off to a great start.

Small suggestion, without a reflector you will get better results hanging your bulb vertically. Right now you are losing 1/2 your light "up ^" where vertically your light will all go "out < >".

Best of luck to you!
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Ya I think that string tied to the bulb might be a fire hazard as well, best to just hang it vertical

But nice little setup, I’ll follow along! Good choice on the Dosido! I really want to get my hands on one of her variants!

Hust17 said:

Ya I think that string tied to the bulb might be a fire hazard as well, best to just hang it vertical

But nice little setup, I’ll follow along! Good choice on the Dosido! I really want to get my hands on one of her variants!

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.Smoke said:

Looks like you've off to a great start.

Small suggestion, without a reflector you will get better results hanging your bulb vertically. Right now you are losing 1/2 your light "up ^" where vertically your light will all go "out < >".

Best of luck to you!
Subbed.

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how would i position the plants around a hanging bulb? i have thought about getting a qb288 240w 4000K led light from ali baba i already have a hgl550 clone but i think one for veg would definitely help out vs what i have now

Anonymousey said:

how would i position the plants around a hanging bulb? i have thought about getting a qb288 240w 4000K led light from ali baba i already have a hgl550 clone but i think one for veg would definitely help out vs what i have now

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Hang bulb in center where bottom is almost level with top of cups, or a bit above depending on how strong it is. Then place cups in circle around it
Could even line a box with aluminum foil to put around/over them for reflection.

So today marks these seedlings 1 week birthday from popping through the soil. everything is going nicely except for one of my dosidos. its the one in the picture in the front middle. the only thing I can think of is over watering. maybe I didnt cut enough drainage holes on this cup and maybe thats the problem. this cup did feel heavier then the others. I ended up cutting some bigger holes on the bottom to hopefully get some oxygen to those roots. I did have a slight problem with windburn as soon as the seedlings grew above the top of the cop. the fan blew them too much and i got some clawing. i fixed this by moving the fan to blow on the wall and have secondary ricochet. So any ideas what the drooping leaves could be from, im all ears. they all get the same water and im not using nutes. so all i can think of is over watering.

Yeah most likely over watering.
Gently squeeze the leaf between 2 fingers, if she's squishy =too much water. If she crunches =too dry.
Looks great

Definitely over water on the droopy ones.

Do u have drainage holes in those cups?

Looking solid mate!

Humidity is quite low though, can you raise it?