Nirvana Northern Lights Autoflower 600w HPS DWC

Hi
I am at the begining of my third grow after two failed attempts (first grow,Power Africa, turned out to be male, the second, AK 48, I had servre tempreture problems because of the summer). So I have held off untill the end of the summer untill starting my next grow.

During this grow i will be using 50l dwc system using advanced nutrients Micro/Grow/Bloom. I will use two 300w 6400k CFL's for Veg and a 600wHPS cooltube for flower. This is all inside a Secret Jardin 100 and is vent by a 4" fan/carbon filter set up.

I bought 5 of Nirvana's Feminised Nothern Lights Autoflower on 25/08/10 and they arrived monday 06/09/10. I started to germ them straight away using the paper towel method and all had cracked and had a fair sized tap root by wednesday morning 08/09/10. This is the first time i have had a 100% germination rate and because of this i will be using nirvana again, I am already thinking about some Nirvana Wonder Woman anyways... I then, after work that night, put all the seeds into 1" rockwool cubes that i had left to soak in ph balanced water. I placed these in a propagator and put them under my 2 300w CFL lights which were on a 24/0 light schedule. On thursday morning I had 3 sprouts with thier first set of cotyledon and then on friday morning the other two had sprouted.

Now all 5 ladies are doin well, I have taken them out of the propagator (mon 13/09/10) and into 3" netpots in the dwc system. There an initial problem, a slight bit of nute burn to the ends of the first proper set of leaves on 4 of them. They now have a second set of proper leaves and are only 12 days from seed. I have changed the light cycle to 20/4 after 5 days 24/0, this is probably what i will keep the cycle at for the rest of the grow veg and flower.

Any thoughts and previous expirence with nirvana northern lights autoflower please share, cheers

Here are some pics of the seeds on 08/09/10 and the three sprouts on 09/09/10. I will try to get some more pics up but i have lost my battery charger for my camera.
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So today I'm going to add a fan to get the ladies dancing and to circulate the air in the tent. I will also do a res change and add some new nutes, i check the ph but i do not worry to much about it as long as its in the 5.5-6.5 range thats fine for me. The tap water in my area is normally around 5.7-6.0 ph and the nutes doesnt throw it out that much. My current dwc system can hold 8 plants but i think 5 is to much for it so i may pull two ladies out and stick them in a separate dwc system. If I do it now while the roots are still small and managable I may avoid trouble do it later in the grow. I have a second pump but no airstone atm so may hold on untill monday till i transplant. Will try to get some pics up today or tomorrow

I have been reading alot of complaints about Nirvanas autos not being autos.

bigv1976 said:

I have been reading alot of complaints about Nirvanas autos not being autos.

Click to expand...

yea me too, should of done some research BEFORE parting with my money...oh well, we will see how they ride out.

I have a trip to the dam booked 4th-8th nov so if they have not started to flower on their own i will leave them to veg untill i come back and then flip them. I have a friend staying to look after the cat and dog and will keep and eye on the grow. I was hoping to be able to smoke it for christmas but i hope leaving to veg for longer will increase the yield. I am restricted by the size of my tent but if they dont show preflowers by the 3rd or 4th week i will start to use a SCROG screen to control the height.

I also emailed nirvana asking for a light schedule to see if they suggest flipping 12/12

I changed the res water for the first time earlier. I put 0.65ml/L of advanced nutrients micro and grow and then, 0.1ml/L of bloom. This is around a 3rd of the recomended amount. I also moved the lights in closer. I had the lights around 6" away from the plants before as they were young and i didnt want to burn/stress them. Now they are around an inch away, I'm hoping for a growth spurt over the next 24 hours. No luck with the camera charger, i've left it at my parents i think, so I'll go round there after work tomorrow.

Had a quick look at the plants this morning before work and every lady has a third set of leaves. After dropping the lights down yesterday I was checking the plants every few hours for signs of heat stress and also nuts burn as yesterday was thier first proper feeding but by the looks of it they have responded well.

So today while I'm at work I'll get a new airstone. I think I will transplate the two biggest girls into a 25l dwc and then put a light over each tub. I think this will be a better use of the lights. I think I am deffinately gonna SCROG this grow. But I'll wait to put the screen in till the plants are around 8" tall.

Just bought a new 12" airstone and some 4mm air line, deffinately goin to transplant tonite

So i have completed the transplant into two seperate DWC systems. I took the two larger plants and put them into a smaller 25L DWC made from an old 25L deionised water bottle. I Siliconed the lid so I didnt get any leaks also making sure I cut the holes for the net pots on the same side as the lid but in theory the water level should never get that high anyway. I hooked up the new 12" stone to the pump and added the same nute dose as before and now that system is bubbling away nicely.

I left the three smaller girls in the orignal tank, fished out the loose hydroton in the res and placed a light over each system.

oh and i finally got a the charger for the camera so here are some pics

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Not much to update, I recieved an email back from 'Alice' at nirvana, after asking them if i would need to induce flowering through changing the light schedule (12/12). She said that 20/4 was a good schedule for all AF's......Tell me summin I dont know!?! This is what i have the plants on already as there is reams of info all over RIU on AF's which I have read. So I've emailed her back asking her to be more specific to the strain and also asking why their whole range of new AF's is no out of stock?(I read a thread today about it by crypnotic) If these new strains are unstable and if i do flip them 12/12 to flower i will loose half the yield. I think I might pull this grow and request some new seeds from nirvana which is the route crypnotic went to resolve the issue. Just got to wait for an email back.

As for the girls, Fat Lady#2 has took off but Small Lady#2 definately is lacking. I feel a bit disheartened now after reading everything but i will carry on untill i get a solution from nirvana

I'm still waiting on a reply from nirvana, I don't know why they are taking this long to reply maybe they are trying to come up with a contingency plan? The plants are doin well and they are really taking off now. I will post a full update with pics tonite after work

Not much to update, The plants are really taking off now, they have exploded over the last day or so. They are filling out and are about 3" tall. There has rapid root growth aswell, which makes me glad that i transplanted earlier, even at this stage.

Heres a couple of pics
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Also just read a statement placed on nirvana's AF page basicly saying there are problems with certain batches only and that customers have reported good results. also only contact them once you have a problem which, is no good if you've got a bad batch of seeds and have spent time/money etc. on it. Its all well and good replacing with free seeds but that doesnt replace the time spent. We will see what happens and hope that nirvana arent trying to limit the damage. I feel abit more optimistic now.

Plants look good !
Sucks about the AF issue, but good vibes sent your way !

Cheers Flo

I think i will veg the plants for another 3 weeks and if there is no sign of any buds i will flip the lights 12/12, I'm just hoping my seeds are from a good batch and flower on thier own. I had a quick look at the girls this morning and there is always noticable growth after they have had thier 4 hour dark period, gonna have to raise the lights tonight after work.

So I have lifted the lights from 1/2" to about 2" from the canopy (if you can call it a canopy?). I am hoping the plants will stretch a bit as they are producing thier 4th node already and are around 3" tall. The reason for this is that i want to get the SCROG screen in quick as possible.

Added another 1/4 dose of nutes and topped up each res with water. I will give another 1/4 dose on monday when i do a res change. Then after that i will give a full dose of nutes every week after a res change untill flush. If these plants do not turn out to show the AF trait I think I'll feed these girls how I would a normal photo period plant and not how you would an AF strain.

Overall I am pleased so far apart from my air pumps, for my last two grow i had a fairly decent pump but I let the water run back into it!?! So i bought two on the cheap and I'm not very happy with them. I think I will get a dual outlet pump next week.

I also moved the biggest lady from the middle hole in that system to the rear hole so now every plant has enough room.

Below are some pics of the grow.
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And here are the roots of the biggest plant when I moved it
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Oh and its now just under six weeks till I go to amsterdam, cant wait

Had a look at the girls this morning and they have really grown, There is a noticable gap between each node instead of them all being bunch up. I know most growers would prefer tighter nodes but I want to put the SCROG in as soon as. The largest of the plants in the orignal system is now nearly as big as the two biggest ones. Also I think I've got 2 different types of pheno's, The 1st has broad darker green leaves, I have 3 of these (more indica dominant I think). The second has lighter, thinner leaves (sativa??).

Also I read Flo Grow's journal last nite and I'm gently getting swayed towards a cooler box res tank, I wished I knew about this on my last grow could of saved it i reckon. I may get 2 large cooler boxes for my next grow

I have just finished installing the SCROG screen. I know it raises the light quite far away from the canopy and the light diminishing is worse with CFL's due to their lower lumen output but I am impatient and I am hoping they will stretch a bit. Would put pics up but I'm gettin ready to go out for a friends birthday, Beer and a Spliff and the possibility of summin stronger so no pics till tomorrow unfortunately.

I'm subscribing. I will start my first grow as soon as nirvana get some blue mystic autos back. Can you post pics of the setup with the carbon filter?

When you germ how long did you soak the rockwool? When transplanting you bury the rockwool under the hydroton? Sorry for all the questions, I'm a noob and trying to understand everything.

The next grow I will go back to SCROG myself !
Had to grow a few trees, learn the topping responses from different nodes, lollipopping, etc.
Nothing compares to the yield AND efficiency of space utilization like SCROG imho !
Want to grow Double Purple Doja, C-99 and ChemDog (again), but can't make up my mind which ONE !!