My First Grow: DWC in Grow Box w/ 250 HID Bulb (Open Thread)

[neversummer28]

Updates have been coming every other day lately. Otherwise, you would keep reading "i can't believe how big they're getting" over and over again.

Since the reservoir change on Monday, the three have already drank a gallon of water. I also retied down the tops of JG and LL so they can take advantage of some of the little open space left in the grow box.

So question for everyone... are you supposed to eventually do some trimming of the leaves below the canopy? Or just leave everything be?

 

[jigfresh]

are you supposed to eventually do some trimming of the leaves below the canopy? Or just leave everything be?

From what I understand the less the plant has to part with the better. If things are obvously dying and wilting, I would pull it off. Otherwise I would leave it.

I was thinking with my screen I would pull every-everything I could... I think that was a bit of a mistake. I wish I would have waited for stuff to start dying off and picking that, instead of picking what 'I thought" would be shaded. I figure the more leaves the more growth, it's not like they are taking resources, they are providing them.

But yeah, stuff that's obviously dying get rid of.

Nice plants too. Aren't they just completely unrecognizable.... it's so wild how fast and nicely they grow in hydro under nice lights indoors. Keep it up.

 

[neversummer28]

From what I understand the less the plant has to part with the better. If things are obvously dying and wilting, I would pull it off. Otherwise I would leave it.

I was thinking with my screen I would pull every-everything I could... I think that was a bit of a mistake. I wish I would have waited for stuff to start dying off and picking that, instead of picking what 'I thought" would be shaded. I figure the more leaves the more growth, it's not like they are taking resources, they are providing them.

But yeah, stuff that's obviously dying get rid of.

Nice plants too. Aren't they just completely unrecognizable.... it's so wild how fast and nicely they grow in hydro under nice lights indoors. Keep it up.

yeah, i figured i would only pick out the dead leaves. thanks for the reassurance.

it's ridiculous how massive they are, and how they're unrecognizable. i've been taking pics every day and it's crazy seeing the progress.

 

[neversummer28]

Added another gallon of water to the reservoir today. 7 days into 12/12 lighting and the girls are starting to show some pre-flower (see pic). I'll be changing the reservoir on Sunday and plan on using the "transition" ratio again for one more week.

 

[Crump]

Nice! Sooooooo Nice!

 

[neversummer28]

Nice! Sooooooo Nice!

Thanks Crump.

And thanks to everyone for the rep.

 

[neversummer28]

Been a few days since an update... I'm now 50 days into my grow, 11 days into 12/12 lighting. And SURPRISE! THEY'RE ALL GIRLS! Okay, so I knew that all along since I used feminized seeds.

Here's an update of everything I've done these last few days:

Reservoir
I never did change my reservoir over the weekend and ended up topping it off instead. The girls are drinking about a gallon of water a day. I will be changing the reservoir tomorrow night. I had originally planned on using the transition nutes mixture for one more week, but I'm thinking about switching to a "light" flowering mixture instead.

Lighting
The three girls are huge... forming one big massive... massive (respect if you know what movie that's from). I had to raise the lights and now, they're as high as they will go. I really hope the girls don't grow too much taller or I'm going to have a really big problem.

Dead Leaves
With the thickness of the growth, some of the leaves on the bottom started dying. I've been doing my best to keep it clean and remove any dying leaves.


Alright, so that basically covers everything. Check out the pics.

 

[neversummer28]

I'm now two weeks into 12/12 lighting. I changed the reservoir on Wednesday, going with the "bloom" nutes mixture recommended by GH. The girls seemed to love this, you could see a visible difference between Wednesday and Thursday.

I also did a lot of maintainance, cleaning away a significant number of dead and dying leaves from the bottom. There were also a number of leaves starting to yellow, so I'll be cleaning the girls up on a regular basis -- just making sure they have a good environment.

Up until this point, I've been able to pull the girls out of the grow box to change the reservoir. This will probably be the last time I can do this since the girls are getting to the point where I can't easily take them out of the box.

I have a very big problem coming up and in need some of help. In a week and a half, I will be going on vacation for 5 days. My girls right now are drinking about a gallon of water of day. The container I have holds 27 quarts (about 7 gallons). I've only been keeping it at 4 gallons of water, which basically keeps the water a little higher than the bottom of the netpots. So when I leave on vacation, if I topped it off to 4 gallons, I would probably come home to an empty reservoir. Should I just fill the reservoir up extremely high (maybe about 6 gallons) and hope that there is still a little water left by the time I get back? Any other ideas?

Pics:
1. Different perspective
2. Filling the reservoir... with a kerosene pump
3. Last night

 

[jigfresh]

What happened to the little plants you used to have... it's like they have been eaten by giant pot monsters.

About the trip... You could try and rig some sort of water drain thing... sorry I am at loss for words. Don't know if you've seen the commercial for the auto waterer things (little glass bulb things you fill with water and stick in soil). Not like you need that, but you could rig a bottle with a hose that is sitting at the right level so when the water level goes down the bottle would release some more into the tank.

I guess the other tank thing would need to be light proof, or at least shielded from your light.

There's my idea.

Nice damn plants bro.... Can't wait to see the buds get going.

 

[neversummer28]

What happened to the little plants you used to have... it's like they have been eaten by giant pot monsters.

About the trip... You could try and rig some sort of water drain thing... sorry I am at loss for words. Don't know if you've seen the commercial for the auto waterer things (little glass bulb things you fill with water and stick in soil). Not like you need that, but you could rig a bottle with a hose that is sitting at the right level so when the water level goes down the bottle would release some more into the tank.

I guess the other tank thing would need to be light proof, or at least shielded from your light.

There's my idea.

Nice damn plants bro.... Can't wait to see the buds get going.

seriously jigfresh, what happened to my little babies? they grow up so fast...

as for your solution, that's not a bad idea, i may try testing it out and see how ghettofabulous it will turn out.

as for the buds... take a look at the pics below...

 

[neversummer28]

16 days into 12/12 lighting. It's unbelievable how massively massive they are now. How much more will they grow? Some of the plants are getting awfully close to the HID bulb and I don't want any of the buds getting burned.

Added two gallons of water to the reservoir, cleaned out some more dead leaves. Check out the pics... they're coming alive!!! A little bit of an artistic element to these pics

Pics:
1. Looking a little bit like a mini SOG
2. Bud on Lois Lane (with flash)
3. Bud on LL (without flash)
4. Bud on Jean Grey (with flash)
5. Bud on JG (without flash)

 

[jigfresh]

Beautiful man. Wonderful sight. Nice problem having to strap them down to stay out of the light.... they grow too well.

 

[neversummer28]

Beautiful man. Wonderful sight. Nice problem having to strap them down to stay out of the light.... they grow too well.

yeah, it's unbelievable how tall they grew. i'm going to have to come up with a plan sometime soon to somehow tie those tops down. i can't be happier with my first grow.

 

[neversummer28]

19 days into 12/12 lighting. There are freakin' buds everywhere. Added two gallons of water to the reservoir last night. There are a lot of dying leaves at the bottom, cleaning away over a handful of leaves every night.

The plants continue to grow upwards, I will need to come up with a way soon to tie down the tops.

Pic: This is why you don't want your CFLs touching the leaves.

 

[neversummer28]

Wow have I dropped the ball with updating my journal. Not to worry, I haven't been neglecting my girls in the same way.

24 days into 12/12 lighting and my girls won't stop growing! I had to ghetto-rig some of the branches by tying trying a string to them and pulling them off towards the side of the box. It's a bit ridiculous. I might need to learn how to do a SCROG set-up.

The girls continue to drink about 1 gallon of water a day. My vacation to California starts on Wednesday so I've been preparing for the time away from the girls. I tried jigfresh's recommendation of a gravity water feeder, could not get it to work. I'm going to basically top off the reservoir tomorrow night, filling it to about 6.5 gallons and hoping that at 1 gallon a day, there will still be at least a gallon of water when I get back.

I will be changing the reservoir and for the nutes, I will be going by GH's schedule for aggressive flowering.

It's ridiculous how much bud there is, especially on Lois Lane (AK-4. The crystals are really showing on LL. Jean Grey (Master Kush) is also doing really strong and starting to show some crystals. Mary Jane is the slowest among all three in regards to amount of bud. Let's hope she catches up.

I'll throw some pics up tomorrow night.

 

[neversummer28]

Aaaaannnnd I'm BACK! Holy crap it's been over two weeks since the last update. The girls are all dead. The end.

No, seriously, all is well... really well. I ended up topping off the reservoir entirely before leaving for my vacation and came back with still a good amount of water left. Smoked some incredible weed on my vacation in Cali.

I ended up having to turn off my CFLs two weeks ago because they were burning the leaves and I couldn't move them up any higher. So since, only the HID bulb has been on... and the girls seemed to respond really well to it.

Each girl has 2 primary stems with significant amount of buds, along with a bunch of smaller stems. It's amazing how massive they are. Some branches have a lot of crystals and some buds are showing red hairs.

I'm about a month into flowering and have about a month left.

Pics taken just now:
1. The girls - the top of three branches are above the light line.

2. Lois Lane (AK4 - you can kind of see the crystals in this pic

3. Jean Grey (Master Kush) - looking up the branch... this one is massive.

4. Mary Jane (Master Kush) - i call these two... the twins

 

[tom__420]

God damn dude they blew up!! The buds are looking super nice too man, real frosty. Keep up the excellent work dude

 

[neversummer28]

God damn dude they blew up!! The buds are looking super nice too man, real frosty. Keep up the excellent work dude

Thanks Tom... yeah those buds in the pic are extra frosty. but then there are also stems with very little crystals. Thanks for the support, in a few short weeks, it should be close to harvest time!

 

[neversummer28]

Happy Independence Day!

Thanks to everyone for the rep, and Jigfresh, I apologize for the joke. Now looking back at it, you're right, not a funny joke. If they were really dead, I'd be devastated.

I changed the reservoir yesterday and continued with GH's recommendation for aggressive flowering. I should only have 1 or 2 more reservoir changes after yesterday's.

It's amazing how the plants naturally thin out the growth under the "canopy" in order to get more light to the flowers further below.

Here's a question... I'm debating whether or not to take the time to figure out how to mount the CFLs so they don't burn the leaves. I don't know if more lumens will increase the buddage, much like how more lumens increases more growth during vegetative growth. The girls have been going 2 1/2 weeks now with just the 250W HID bulb and seem to be doing great. The way I look at it, it further similulates the coming of Fall, with less intense sun. What's everyones thought on this? Just stick with the HID or should I figure out how to get the 4 CFL bulbs going again?

Have a great holiday everyone.

 

[jigfresh]

More light is better as long as it's not too hot, and I don't think 4 cfl's are going to heat the whole thing up.

If you want to tell the plants the winter is coming you can decrease the amount of light time too.

Either way, more light anytime is better in my book.