First grow ever!! 5x5x7 tent, 1000watt, 9 clones, 7 STRAINS WA state medical patient

Hello everybody! I'm new to the forum but I'm not new to buds! I am from the beatiful PNW Seattle, Washington which means i can grow 15 plants legally. I'm sure i have minimal experience comparatively to some of these guys on here; since I only have experiences with helping friends with there operations that supplied to Seattle's dispensaries; but never truly tried myself)except for a failed DWC closet grow in my parents house when i was a little younger. I live near Seattle, WA which makes it easy access to unlimited dispensaries, farmers markets, and even a clone market north of Fremont; This is where I got the majority of these guys. Picked them up about 2 weeks ago and they were probably around 8 inches.

AS FOR THE GROW:

All in 4 gallon buckets

Soil Mix: 3/5th's happy frog, 2/5th's fox farm ocean spray. Soil PH is a little high, 6.5-7, but the nutes are around 6.02, and I make sure i PH my water to a little over 6. PPM is 1000-1150 with nutes.

If your looking at the first picture over looking the plants, The strains are as follows:

Top row from left to right: Sour Diesel(Sativa/Hybrid), Deep Purple(Indica)(Purple Urkle x Purple Kush), Deep Purple.

Second row from left to right: Grand Daddy Purps(I), Platinum Girl Scout Cookie(S/H), Platinum GSC.

Bottom row from left to right: Raspberry Kush(S/H), Lavender(I), Plushberry(H).
First day i brought the clones home and repotted them

View attachment 2938191

Beggining of week 2 vegging




I have a inline fan sucking out hot air from hood, Sun Systems 6" yield master hood, 1000 watt MH bulb, 1000 watt changeable ballast between MH/HPS, oscillating fan





ducting letting fresh air in, humidifier, temp/ humidity gauge, small floor fan, and for my enclosure I have a mylar 5x5x7 tent.

And personally i like to play Zen music for my girls while the lights are on



Nutrients Package called: Recipe For Success



And i obviously have the essential meters like the PPM for water and PH. Any others I should get?

I'm not sure why I'm posting this on the internet to be honest.. mainly looking for feedback. What do you guys think? Obviously I have some more room to fit more plants in there, but i wanted to start off with a more manageable number and experiment with different strains with plenty of room to grow. I know there are things that could make my garden better so please fire away at suggestions.

Some questions I want answered:

Are the lights to far from the canopies? (Currently 20inches away from the tallest plant)
Do I need more air circulation?
Do I really need Co2?
Any feedback on the nutrients? I know its probably not a very popular brand, but i got it for free!
Would another oscillating fan be good on the other side of the room?
Any ball park of when i should start flowering? (2 weeks since i picked up clones that were all about 8 inches tall)

- Here are my girls as of today. I gave them there first watering with full dosage of nutes a couple of days ago and they are loving it. Most of the deficiencies i could see in the leaves have gone away so it looks like they were really thirsty



- I've also been wondering about t5 uplighting or flourecent 4 foot tube lighting for under the canopy? Has anybody done this or know anything about it? Ive heard numbers like 30% yeild gains by doing it correctly?? That sounds exaggerated to me IMO..

- Also in the last week i detected spider mites on my GDP and one of my Deep Purples. Mostly eggs and a couple mature mites on the leaves. I spent a good half hour pulling all the affected leaves off the plants. I also went to the store and got one of those pest strips for spiders, mites, gnats, all those little guys, and put it infront of my floor fan in the tent. Do i need to take any more precautionary steps? I was thinking about spider mite bug spray from the grow store?

I cant speak on the bug problem, but sexy grow bro

Anybody out there??

So i went to the hydro store the other day and picked up a carbon filter, a hps bulb for when i flip to flower, and a water reservoir setup because I was getting tired of watering with a bunch of milk jugs!! I do have a couple questions though.

Is this how you correctly install a carbon filter? I have no experience with these..


It says its the best digital ballast bulb?? but I think I have a magnetic ballast that's kinda big and chunky.. Will this bulb work with my ballast?

Ok so i just turned off my mh light and set my timers for 12/12 and as soon as it cools I will be putting my hps light on!

Some updates: I put together my own reservoir on the cheap!
red 25 gal bucket and lid from fred myers - 6$
50ft hose from lowes - 9$
1/5hp submersible pump from grow store - 69$
sprayer/soaker wand - 15$


Week 5 veg. Pictures taken tonight before the lights were changed.


I noticed some sort of white dots on the top inside part of this one leaf near the top of one of my Platinum Girl Scout Cookies. It's not mold is it? It wiped right off when I touched it.

I have some questions about my flowering nutes.. In the recipe for success starter kit they give me B.C. Boost, bc Bloom, sugar daddy, awesome blossoms, magical, and thrive alive b1.


Im interested in some of the additives like big bud and bud candy from Advanced Nutrients. Can i add these to the nute schedule i already have? Or would I have to substitute one of the nutes i plan on using? Im thinking about trying out the advanced nutrients brand on all my nutes next grow i think.. Any feedback would be nice.. It feels like im talking to a brick wall

it might be okay to add a little bit bud candy with the other nutrients you just got to be careful not to over do it with nutrients . nice plants by the way

There is a lot of stretching going on! Just had to raise my light again in the last 48 hours! They mustve stretched a good 4-6 inches this week and i didnt even give them bloom nutes till 3rd or 4th day of flower.


Pictures taken: Jan 2 2014



Plushberry


Lavender

WOW! That is a good amount of stretching for 5 days! How far is the light away from the top of the canopy ????

When i checked this morning the top of the tallest plant was about 14-15 inches from the hood. I raised it back to a little over 20 inches.

The GDP and the Girl Scout Cookies seem to be stretching the most.

Lookin good my fellow Washintonian, keep it up!

I didn't see anyone address your spider mite problem - you should definitely look into neem oil and possibly some other stuff (forgot the name. Azatrol?) because if you saw a few mites then it is almost guaranteed there are more. You want to get them handled ASAP because they can fuck up your whole harvest if left untreated. I didn't look too close but those white spots might be where mites have already munched on your leafs. I wouldn't go too crazy pruning fan leaves unless they're already messed up and cutting fan leafs won't give you more tops, it is just removing your plants "energy factories". I think you're confusing this with "topping" or "FIM'ing" which you should probably avoid since you have already flipped to flower and topping now can unnecessarily stress your plants and you wanna keep them as stress free as possible during flower. Otherwise, lookin good and you have some awesome strains (i would LOVE a lavender clone, thats one of my favorite strains but i've never been able to find it)

anyways good luck man and i'm subbing now to follow along!

I use Azamax and Neem oil routinely with some Activonate every now and again. Gotta love growng ine the PNW lol

Yeah, OP you should do like branbran and look into neem and azamax before you get too far into flowering

Ive heard neem oil isnt good in flower? I bought a bottle of SM-90 which is supposed to kill mites aphids and eggs a couple days ago my buddy recommended it. I sprayed with recommended dose of 1/5 part sm90 4/5 part water to the under side of the leaves and the tops like 10 minutes before lights off the day i got it. Ill probably spray again in a couple days. Ill look into azamax though thanks!

branbran - good to know there's other guys on this site up here in WA! Thanks for the help, what's Activonate?

meloncholy - I had a growing buddy come in and do a little topping early on in veg because I didn't know what the fuck i was doing. He actually was the one who first spotted my spider mite problem hah. Anyways if your interested in lavender come to wa! I just bought a dub of lavender from a dispensary the other day its everywhere.

Haha yeah I wish! I don't think I could justify that trip for a few clones haha I'm sure I'll get my hands on a lavender clone sooner or later. Yeah neem isnt the best in flower bc it can make buds taste funky but if you're in really early flower I don't think it would be a problem. Seems like you have a handle on it though with the anti-mite stuff you got and glad you got the topping issue sorted out lol

Activonate is for PM or root diseases but it never hurts to stay ahead of the game.. http://nlggrow.com/mold-mildew-indoor-gardening/4332-actinovate-fungicide.html

I herd that Neem was inert after a couple hours after being sprayed. The taste isn't the best with neem but neither is PM or mites lol

Very nice grow they should fill in that tent real nice with those big old pots.
looks super good I'm surprised it's you first grow.