My journal for my first grow - Hydro Super Silver Haze

Hi everyone!! This is a great site and my first stop when I need to find some info. I am a few days into my first grow ever and thought I would start a grow journal. I am very attentive over my plants, so hopefully this grow will go well and this thread should help me keep track and stay focused. I enjoy complex hobbies, especially ones that pay off so well, both monetarily and spiritually. Ive never grown anything before and can hardly keep the grass in my lawn alive, but I am amazed by these little plants and take a lot of happiness just from watching them thrive. Such a natural and productive process was exactly what I needed in my life right now. And Id like to note, my grow is legal and I have the paperwork to prove it. Im allowed 3 plants producing a usable form a MJ and am growing only for personal use and enjoyment. I like to be self sufficient, and I would really like to be able to save the money I used to spend on bud every month. This first grow, I intend to take my time and not rush things. It will be a few weeks before I can buy my HPS light anyway. I will also be trying my hand at LST this grow since I have limited space.

Note I am usually buzzed when I sit down to type this stuff, so I may ramble or get a little wordy. Im sure you understand

I welcome comments and criticism(constructive only please) in this thread.

First, I will describe my grow setup. I have been piecing together stuff for the last few weeks and feel I am well enough equipped and supplied for the next few weeks, and even then, I only need to pick up a light for flowering.

I am growing in my basement using a hyrdoponic drip system. My reservoir is a heavy duty 27gal tote. Its extra thick, has black sides, and a nice ribbed heavy duty lid. This system is designed to support 3 plants at a time. Eventually, when I can make more space, I intend to have a separate veg and flower chamber so I can keep a few mothers of my favorite strains on hand so I can be totally self sufficient.

I am using a submersible pump with some tubing running up to each plant so I can place it wherever I want for best results. One of my hoses like to move on me, so I am going to wire it down ASAP, but otherwise I am pleased with the setup. I have an air pump to a 6" round air stone in my reservoir for aeration. I have another air stone on hand and I will likely pick up some misc fittings so I can hook up the second one as well to help even more. My basement stays pretty regulated for temperature, especially now that I have the ventilation in place. Ill get to this more in a moment. But since winter is coming, I do have a few aquarium heaters if they are needed. They are not currently hooked up since my reservoir stays nice and cool. And now that I have my ventilation, more air is drawn into the basement so it stays cooler as well in general. Plus this is Colorado, so humidity is really only an issue for about 2 months a year when I run my swamp cooler in the house and we are past that point.

My ventilation consists of a small duct fan/shroud, and vent tube. My basement has a very small window that had been half blocked off with wood and had a old dryer vent coupler/hole in it. My washer and dryer use a different type of vent, so this hole was just wide open when I moved in. It let bugs in as well as leached heat/cool air respectively. I just stuffed a tshirt in it and called it good for a year. Now that I set up my grow, all I needed was a 20' flexible vent hose from HD and it was a perfect fit. And now this fan not only draws out old air from the basement, but helps draw fresh air down and plugs the hole To supplement the exhaust fan, I have a small box fan circulating air and strengthening the stems. When I can afford it, I will pick up a larger oscillating fan in a few weeks once the plants get larger, but this should do just fine for now.

For lights, Im currently using (5) 28w CFLs. I need to buy a fixture for flowering still. I intend to buy a 400 watt unit that will work with both mh and hps so I can use all three types for my next grow. It will be 3-4 weeks before I can afford it though.

Im using FoxFarm hydro nutrients, 8" pots, 4" rockwool cubes, and hydroton. I am lucky enough to live in a state that not only has medical marijuana, but has had organic growers, hippies, and hydroponics nuts for a while, so I can get supplies and advice easily locally.

I also make sure to give lots of happiness and good vibes to my plants to help them grow. I play them music every day, I sing to them, talk to them, and watching them grow truly makes me happy, so that helps to. These plants are so amazing how they move and grow so quickly and then how they make me feel once they reach fruition. Also, if you havent seen it before, you should do some research on Masura Emoto and his water crystal experiment. So I have encouraging messages written on my reservoir. Call me silly, but it doesnt cost me anything but a few moments and some happy thoughts, and it could possibly make a difference to my plants.

Pictures to follow.

I got these 2 plants late on 9/3 as rooted clones. They were in 1" rockwool cubes with lots of happy roots showing out the bottom and were about 8" tall. They were a little droopy from the trip home, so I soaked the 4" rockwool cubes in water, plugged the smaller cubes in, then set them inside a dome for 24 hrs. They perked up immediately in the dome. The 2 plants were clones from the same plant and were both of the same height, but one is noticeably larger, both in the size of the stem as well as the number of leaves/braches on it. I named both my plants as well. The larger of my 2 girls is Helga. She is a burly girl and I have high hopes for. Jenny is the smaller plant and has less branches, but I am sure she will do well. I only have about 6 feet of total headspace, and with a sativa dominant strain, I will have to control its height. I am going to try my hand at LST training and I have a lot of faith in these plants to handle it. They seem pretty resilient.

After 24hrs, I transferred the plants over to their pots and set up the reservoir for its first run. I didnt think about it at the time like a bonehead and mixed the nutrients at full concentration though. When I potted the plants, the larger plant turned to spaghetti immediately and limped over looking very pathetic. So they got their first feeding, and I set the dome back over the top of the pots, and in 2 hrs or so, she was standing tall again. After another 12 hrs or so the dome was able to come off for good.

I quickly realized that the nutrients were too much for the first timers, and they got some burnt tips. So I diluted the res after their first feeding. For the next day or two I struggled to get the nutrient balance right for the new plants. After diluting it down, the smaller plant was doing fine, but the larger plant immediately began to crave nutes, and the largest, oldest set of leaves yellowed pretty badly until I upped the concentration. A friend of mine hooked me up with a little Root Excelurator a few days ago along with some Magic Green, both of which I used immediately and I also raised the reservoir concentration to about 900ppm. The next day I saw noticeable growth and the plants looked much healthier.

As soon as I saw that the plants were producing new growth, I waited until just before a feeding and tied down the plants to start the LST. They bent over just fine, and as soon as they received their next feeding they immediately began turning toward the lights. It was amazing to watch! I stood their for about 10 minutes and watched the leaves turn over and the plant shift to accommodate the light. Ive never seen anything like it! Today, a day after tying them down, the larger plant is just exploding with new growth all over with all its branches, and the smaller plant is filling in nicely. I plan to have a longer veg period, 5-6 weeks, to manage the growth, as well as allow me time to get the light I need for flowering. I would like to have a nice substantial harvest before christmas out of this setup.

The training continues. The larger of the two plants is responding REALLY well to the training. The smaller plant is doing well, just growing a bit slower, but it was a significantly smaller cutting to begin with. I have high hopes for the larger plant. I hope to be able to circle the entire pot before flowering. I might not make it all the way around with the smaller one. I am using some 16g solid core wire to tie the stems down and it works really well. It is stiff enough that it will hold its shape, but pliable enough to work with.

These are preflowers right? Sorry for the crappy pics, my cam doesnt do well with the weird lighting and the only clear pic I could get had a perfect image of my fingerprint in the background, so I switched to paper to hep the focus

There are 2 "hairs" on each intersection in the pic although it is kinda fuzzy and looks like one. This is my larger plant, about 2 weeks old. The smaller plant is not showing the 2 hairs yet, just the one pointy shoot.

EDIT: Correction, the smaller one has them too, theyre just harder to see

The plants are starting to fill out nicely! And the twisting stems are badass looking My larger plant looks happier and happier everyday with the circular LST. The smaller plant is gaining steam though and will start catching up soon. The plants are showing preflowers already and are gaining momentum. Everyday I get more excited watching the larger of the two plants.

I am hoping that I will be able to get my hands on a G13 clone in the next few days that I can sneak in since these will be vegging for a while until I make it all the way around the pot with the larger plant.

By tying the stems down, the stem twisted some and after a few days is thicker at the twist than the base of the stem is. Also, on the larger plant, the stem continued to twist even more and it has been rotating all its fan leaves to the outside of the radius. Its like it knows how I want it line up. This plant has not been producing a node off to each side, they alternate side to side, but it has rotated almost all of them outward in line, and im hoping it will continue to do so as I train it around the pot. It is forming a nice strong top at each node, and I expect this plant to have several colas when its done. I also gave it a few pinches here and there on some of the older tops to slow it down a bit, but to also help beef it up to hold some major buds.

The plants are doing really well and are growing really fast now. Im continuing to tie down the main stem, and today, on both plants, the lowest branch stretched a bunch, so I tied them down to to get more light and to try and keep the plants even so they make nice bushes. Today is the end of week 2 of veg. The plants were a week old when I got them as rooted clones.

The plants are growing well, but I have had a few uninvited guest show up in my grow area. First was one of the annoying bugs thats all over the place outside this time of year. Dont know what its called, kinda oval shaped, about the size of a grain of rice. Yellow with 2 black stripes down its back. Squishes a funky yellow mush. He was dead on my res lid. A few days later, I saw two or three tiny little bugs on the floor next to my res. Killed em, havent seen anymore since. And today I found what looked like a very small winged black ant on my res lid, and it took several tries to squish it with my finger, it was a tough little bugger. Im going to keep an eye out for other bugs. Ive always had spiders, but I bombed just before I set up the grow and killed most of them, but I have seen a few small webs on my lights.

Will bug bombs harm the plants?

Any comments on the plants? the grow? anything?

Subbed up! The grow and your attitude towards this project and your love for marijuana is awesome!
Good luck man.
Also I like the hydro setup, I've been thinking of doing the same sorta thing.

It may end up being 3 weeks until I can afford my 600w HPS setup instead of what I had hoped would be 1 week. My current light setup should be fine for a week or two of 12/12 right? I dont have a whole lot of space so Im thinking I should start flowering soon since this plant is a dominant sativa hybrid.

Ive been vegging these plants for 2 weeks and today is time to change my reservoir. You think I should switch to flowering nutes and switch to 12/12? Im thinking it might be a good idea so that I might be able to have some bud by new years.

My friend loaned me his 600w HPS for a few weeks until I cna afford my own. So I threw that up and am going to veg a while longer under it to see what kind of growth I can get. I cant seem to take a good picture because of the light, but as soon as I figure something out, Ill post pics. Im to the point where I am having to tie down the branches to keep everything even.

My plants are digging the new 600w HPS and have started growing much faster than they ever did under the 10 T5 bulbs. They have also started showing signs of some sort of nutrient deficiency. I ran out of big bloom the other day when I refilled the res and had to wait a few days to get more. I topped off the BB I was short, and then added more BB and Grow Big and raised the PPM to about 1200(from about 900), and gave them a Magic Green treatment. The oldest fan leaves were yellowing and turning brown. The plants have been feeding at the higher concentration for about 24 hours now and Im going to keep an eye on them for a few days to see how they respond.

I still cant figure out a good way to take pics with the HPS lamp and my digi cams. Any suggestions?

Today I reorganized a bit and made more space, which I am very happy about. Pics as soon as I can take a decent one. While I was cleaning up today, I found a brown widow spider living about 3 feet away from my plants. She had to go outside. I dont mind the occasional spider here or there, but the ones with potent neurotoxins cant live where I spend time regularly. Luckily I didnt see any signs of any other type of bug or pest down there!

I got a few decent pics out of a bunch of crappy ones. You can see where the leaves are yellowing badly on the oldest fan leaves, kinda. Othrewise the plants look pretty good. The smaller of the two plants isnt as prolific as the larger one, and looks scrawny in the pics, but it looks much better in person, although it wont be nearly as large when its done as its partner.

I determined that my nutrient problem was lockout due to high salinity. I have been noticing a lot of salt buildup on the hydroton ever since I set up this system, guess it finally caught up to the rockwool. I am going to pick up some Clearex next week when I get paid and see how that goes.

Im still a little unclear on Clearex though, is it something you just give a treatment to, and drain to waste, or is this something that can be added to the reservoir and run constantly without affecting the plant? Thats what I want, something I can use regularly to combat salt buildup.

My plants are recovering now, but had some issues there for a few days. The older leaves were turning yellow and withering pretty fast, and new growth stopped for a few days. I lost a few of the oldest fan leaves too. I flushed the hell out of them, as well as gave them Magic Green spray, and a few days ago the green slowly began returning to the yellowed leaves that hadnt started withering yet. The smaller plant is taking longer to recover, and it has always been less hearty than the other plant I have(both clones from the same mother, but one was a much bigger cutting).

I am really pleased with how my larger plant is turning out. I am starting week 5 of veg. It looks a little droopy in the pics because I just tied down some more bits yesterday and did some supercropping on the older side branches to try to even things up. I plan to veg it for another week and let it fill upwards a bit more, then switch to flower. These gals are showing nice fluffy white pistils everywhere now. And my larger plant has roots peeking out of the bottom of the pot already. I hoped this 8" pot would do for the whole grow, what do you think? I really dont want/cant repot due to my LST'ing.

Day 32 of veg. What do you think? I think Im going to give them one more week of veg and then switch to 12/12. I continue to have nutrient issues from too much salt buildup and Im flushing every few days but theyre still growing well now that I have it at least partially managed. This weekend I should be able to finally get something to help with that.

Subbed, love the detail, will definatly be following and learning with this one!

Fuck yeah!! Upgrades!! Ive been working all day to install a few new upgrades to my grow area. Ive been back and forth to the hardware stores and finally everything is happy and functional.

First off is the light. I went looking for a 600w setup, but instead got offered a deal on a 1000w setup. What the hell, why not? Ballast, air cooled 6" hood, and a 1000w bulb. But I also picked up a Plantmax dual arc bulb(MH and HPS in one bulb).

I also now have a small squirrel fan since my inline duct fan was crap and wasnt up to the task for sure. I didnt have much to work with, but I got the fan mounted up. I had all sorts of trouble finding a plain 4" flange to mount to a flat surface for the vent hose that goes to outside using an old dryer vent. I HAVE one, but its in use. I went all over the place looking for something like I wanted. As I was on my way out of Home Depot, I was walking through the plumbing section and saw exactly what I needed! A 4" toilet flange! it was $3 and did the trick perfectly! That little fan is pretty loud though. We will see how I feel about it after a night in bed to see if I can hear it since its underneath my bed.

I also managed to pick up the nutes I was short on and even landed a cheapie 30x pocket scope and also got some Clearex to hopefully help with my salt buildup issues. Unfortunately, there are still some things I need but they will have to wait.

Today is day 36 of veg. Probably tomorrow I am going to change the res and switch to flower nutes and then start 12/12. I am a little concerned about the head room for the plants. The light is at its highest point it can go with my adjusters. I may need to remove them in the future and just use a chain on the hooks to make up a few inches. I will have to continue to train the plants as the flower, but Im not sure where I will tie everything down. Im running out of room already!

Comments??

I just finished a 24 hour dark period and flipped the lights on for 12/12. Today is day 1 of flowering!!

What do you think? One week into 12/12.

The plants are coming along nicely. Ill have some pics later once the lights come on. I built a carbon filter and also got a new tote/reservoir since I have been wanting to make some small changes to my setup. I needed the whole system to be easier to move around. I also wanted to get rid of the stiff irrigation hose coming from the pump. I decided to try out a distribution head. Hopefully, the salt wont clog it up too quickly, but considering I have been managing lockout due to too much salt, I should be able to stay on top of it. I also changed up the res lid drainage setup. Now I dont have any gaping holes in the lid, but still have enough access to check PPM and PH. And with this setup, it will be easy to just pop the lid off and turn or move it whereas right now, its a bit of a production between the wires and hoses and the stiff main hose.

I made a simple carbon filter with parts from Lowes(or HD) that cost about $17. I got a odor control filter with cut to fit screen and carbon sheet. It needs to be replaced every 30-90 days give or take, but should work fine fo my two plants until theyre done. I used a 6" duct coupler, and a 6" end cap with some hose clamps and zip ties to hold the screen together. I did not use the green filter that came in the kit.

As soon as my lights come on tonight, I am going to go install the filter, and Ill install the reservoir tomorrow when Im due to change the res and clean it.

Installed the filter and raised the light. Im going to monitor the temps as it seems a tad warmer now. If I need it, Ive got a small 6" helper fan I can install between the filter and hood. The plants look good and there are white hairs everywhere.