2nd Grow - Mega Jackpot under DS XML 650 using DWC

This will be my second grow, after numerous failures I finally managed to get a plant into flower that's happy and healthy even though it had less than ideal condition. On the coat tails of this success I have started my second grow

I wanted to go LED over HID for a number of reasons I won't detail, but mainly I'm an early adopter and I think LED are the future and HID are outdated. It took a while of searching and reading reviews to find an LED light that didn't seem to be all hype or only had enough penetration for clones/veg however finally I found the AdvancedLED XML series of lights. I want the best bugs I can grow so I bought the brightest one, the 650.

To go with the light I purchased a 40x40x80 tent from Apollo Horticulture which comes in at 110 cubic feet so I paired it with a 160CFM exhaust fan. I'm running four 5 gallon DWC buckets with a 1096GPH air pump feeding 4 inch air discs.

For nutrients I decided on the Advanced Nutrients line mostly for the PH Perfect and having read a number of posts from other growers using this line.


The plants are all Mega Jackpot Feminized from Amsterdam Marijuana Seeds growing in hydroton. They're currently 3 weeks from germination but the first 2.5 weeks were under very poor lighting due to a lack of room for them...

Since they were transplant into the new tent they're doing pretty good. I had some issues with heat from the light that I think caused a little yellowing on the edges of the leafs but I've gotten that resolved now. It turns out that light is a bit big for my tent as it pushed the temps inside the tent over 90 degrees in an air conditioned house in no time.


The new setup:


The light was putting out a ton of heat and even though I have central air set to 68 the inside of the tent was hitting 90+ *ouch!* To fix this I hooked up my old window A/C unit and pointed the intake duct directly in the cold airs path. This has dropped the tent temp significantly! So much so I'm going to have to turn the a/c down I think.


I wrapped the plants in some insulation to keep the water temps down, and also moved the air pump in front of the cold air intake so that it's pumping cold air into the water


This is the big girl, she's growing quite a bit faster than the rest. I hope everyone else catches up! Oddly this is the only plant showing rot on it's roots.


Here's the runt of the liter, she's quite a bit smaller than the biggest so hopefully she catches up here soon. She was also the one with the worst yellowing early last week from the temp/ph/air problems but she's growing healthy now.


I'm excited to see how this turns out and of course feel free to post any comments you have, I've love the feedback

Haven't had any updates lately because in my battle with root rot I raised the water level too high and nearly killed the plants.

Here they were on Veg week 2 day 3, looking sickly and sad



Luckily they are finally recovering! They took a big hit, a couple lost the first two nodes, the other two just needed some trimming but overall they are growing quickly again. I also FIMed two of the plants, the other two I'll FIM in a day or two when they're ready.

Here they are on Week 3 Day 1

Another week goes by and man are these girls growing fast! I got a humidifier this week and have been keeping the humidity between 45-60% RH which is pretty much where I wanted it. I also seem have have nipped the rot rot on 3 out of 4 of the plants. The 4th is still showing some root issues but I think she's starting to bounce back finally. I FIMed all four plants as well, two of them it looks like I cut too high as they continued to grow normally only with deformed leafs so I FIMed them again.

Pics from veg week 3

Group shot, they have at least doubled in size this week.



She is the biggest of the bunch and has been the whole time. The others are catching up to her but she's still looking the best.



I messed up the FIM on this one and so now she looks like she's got a weird hair cut lol



Another one that I fucked up on, this one has even more deformed leafs so I FIMed her again.



This is the runt, she's always been the runt and is currently the only plant still having issues with her roots. She also seems to have started dropping today, hopefully she perks up and the roots recover, she's got some catching up to do.



Here's a root shot of one of the 3 that has been recovering from the rot. I didn't take any pics before but the roots were covered in a dark brown substance, especially in the dense root ball. They are now white and healthy and growing like crazy!

How did this turn out?

Man I can't believe how fast these girls are growing, they have easily tripled in size this week! They really love this light, so far I highly recommend it, can't wait to see how it works for flower.



The two plants in the front are clearly growing much better than the two in the back, I'm not sure why but the back two have been having more root issues, the one on the left just finally started to recover late in week 4. They water temps have also been about 1-2 degrees warmer in the back two buckets, most likely because they are further from the cool air intake. I think all of the root issues are resolved now, as long as my latest reservoir change didn't introduce more rot.



Veg Week 4 - Day 7



Took a quick picture before I pruned the ladies


Another picture after I finished pruning the 3 larger ones, I'll do the runt when it get's a little bigger.


Veg Week 5 - Day 1

24 hours after the last picture and look how much they've gown!!


Couple close ups of one of the bigger plants, I can't believe how fast these girls are growing.



Finally here's some pics of the roots from the front two plants, looking great!



Stay tuned and let me know you're thoughts, I love to hear them

Man, it looks like 3 days later, lol. I might have to do dwc. I have a c.a.p. ebb and grow control bucket and 2 1200gph pumps, but I have no idea on hydro. Looks like Imma have to learn tho, haha.

Looking awesome that's why i love DWC the growth rate is the fastest nothing comes close love seeing that you are learning a long the way and recovered i would highly recommend flipping them girls soon or you are going to take over that tent if you don't flip and want to veg longer maybe do some super cropping to spread the girls out a little more top job subbed can't wait to see the girls in flower

I was thinking 1 or 2 more weeks of veg, I want them to get to around 15 inches before I flip them and they are at 11 inches today, although at the rate they're growing I'll probably only need a week.

Well after 5 weeks of veg and a total 55 days since seed I have switched the ladies over to flower!

Here's a couple quick group shots




And one more with the light on since I don't think I've shown what that looks like.


The biggest girl is 17 inches tall


The runt of the group is catching up but still only 12 inches tall


And here's a quick shot of the roots for the biggest plant, looking good still!


The light has done amazing through veg, I can't wait to see what this baby does during flower!

Eric Farley said:

Another week goes by and man are these girls growing fast! I got a humidifier this week and have been keeping the humidity between 45-60% RH which is pretty much where I wanted it. I also seem have have nipped the rot rot on 3 out of 4 of the plants. The 4th is still showing some root issues but I think she's starting to bounce back finally. I FIMed all four plants as well, two of them it looks like I cut too high as they continued to grow normally only with deformed leafs so I FIMed them again.

Pics from veg week 3

Group shot, they have at least doubled in size this week.

She is the biggest of the bunch and has been the whole time. The others are catching up to her but she's still looking the best.

I messed up the FIM on this one and so now she looks like she's got a weird hair cut lol

Another one that I fucked up on, this one has even more deformed leafs so I FIMed her again.

This is the runt, she's always been the runt and is currently the only plant still having issues with her roots. She also seems to have started dropping today, hopefully she perks up and the roots recover, she's got some catching up to do.

Here's a root shot of one of the 3 that has been recovering from the rot. I didn't take any pics before but the roots were covered in a dark brown substance, especially in the dense root ball. They are now white and healthy and growing like crazy!

Click to expand...

That light looks to be very bright...kudo's.
Regarding your heat, you definitely have that under control now but the easiest adjustment you could make is to get a much more powerful exhaust fan. You indicated your tent is 110 cubic feet and the fan is rated at 160. Personally I would go with like a 400 CFM exhaust and get a cheap $15 fan controller. Going way over what you think you need on the fan is a luxury.

Not a whole lot to update this week, growth is continuing at the rate it has been, there hasn't been any crazy increase. We're at 24 inches for the tallest plant and 18 inches on the shortest, so next week should finish the stretch on 2 or 3 of them (based on the seed bank info).

Couple group shots, they're looking like a jungle. The tent is completely full at this point so I'm considering doing some pruning to try and get light penetration on the lower portions.





The tops are looking beautiful, I've got nice pistols forming and I think i see the start of some buds already.



Based on how my first grow under a tiny under powered 180w UFO LED is going these buds are going to be gorgeous. Here's that grow on week 8 day 2 of flower.

Looking good mate. They looking healthy and very bushy! I'd def prune them down a bit.

Another update for the week since I just finished pruning the ladies. One thing I noticed was the smell of the fresh cuttings. They smelled so good, like candy. I'm not sure if that's representative of how the buds will smell but if it is they will be delicious.

First here's a side by side, pruned on the left, before pruning on the right.



Here's the tent after I was done with the pruning. You'll notice I was more aggressive with the plants on the left vs. the right. I think the way I pruned the left plants is correct, but I wanted to be sure I wasn't taking too much off, so I did a little less on the right.



Man it makes me nervous taking this much plant material away...



Holy roots Batman!! Both front plants look like this, the back two have quite a bit less root growth.

Week two is done and it's time for an update. It's been a great week, I started focusing on getting my PPM adjusted to where the plant wanted it instead where I thought that plant wanted it. It took a little fine turning but I've gotten my PPM to stay steady on all of the plants and since I did that the PH swings I have been dealing with (0.2, to 1.0 every 24 hours) have stopped. As a result I've decided to stop dumping and cleaning my reservoirs out every 7-14 days and will just be topping off water and nutes daily since I'm now getting the same PPM, PH and temp every day and the plants are showing how happy they are! We're up to 30 inches on the tallest tops which is interesting because the seed bank and leafly both list this plant as having a 27.5 inch height. I'm a bit worried as these are getting very close to my light, more on this later.



It's only been two weeks and they already have visible buds developing! Considering I only topped these plants once each I'm amazed at the number of tops I've ended up with. I guess my pruning has been successful!



I'm blown away, I'm currently in week 9 of another grow using the same strain but in a crap environment and under only 180w UFO. That plant didn't have buds this size until week 5 of flower!



I am a bit worried though, despite how healthy the plants look the buds have less noticeable pistols than my other grow and they are really pale or white in color. I'm thinking my light is bleaching my buds!! What do you guys think, are the being bleached or is it just they're young and growing fast so they're a little pale still. I'm thinking I'll give it another 3 or 4 days and see if they fill in green or not. The light is less than a foot from the highest tops and I can't raise it any higher so I'd have to turn the lights down if it's bleaching which I'd rather not do. Let me know if I should be worried if you've seen this before.





As you might have noticed from the above pictures I discovered today how amazing the zoom on my phone is, so expect some awesome close ups of these buds as they grow!

Looking beautiful! Hope you get that height situation figured out. Just don't use that bushmaster lol

I really didn't like how close the plants were getting to my light. They are up to 32 inches today! So I decided I was going to re hang the light now instead of after the grow.

It was fun, The S hooks I got were too small to fit over the supports in the tent so I got to practice my blacksmithing skills



I needed to raise my exhust out of the way of the higher light so I had to shorten the straps I had, so I also got to practice my tailoring skills as well



The light is so much higher! Here it is at maximum height, I lowered it about 5 inches below this point since it was 20-23 inches from the plants at full height.

WOW.....Your plants are doing great For this that they almost died!

Looking good bro! Those ladies are growing big!

djweed420 said:

Looking good bro! Those ladies are growing big!

Click to expand...

Yeah I never expected them to get this big, they are 4 inches taller than their supposed "maximum height", oh well more buds I'm hoping for a pound, which seems very ambitious for my first real grow, but without ambition what do we ever really achieve.

Awsome way to make a come back