Nirvana White Widow and Ice Grow

What's up everybody, new to the forum, slightly new to the wide world of medical marijuana. It's getting to be that extra special time where the cutdown is close. I figure since I've had such a grand time immersing myself in this artform of crafting quality home-grown product, I'd share some photos and some of my experiences.



Being the type of person who tends to jump into things with both feet, for my 2nd grow I constructed my own grow box measuring 2x5x6. This is what you see in the above picture. I acutally modeled the box after the BC Northern Lights bloombox as I certainly wasn't going to spend $3000 dollars on something I create for exponentially less. Besides, as nice as it would be to simply flip a switch, say presto, and there you have it, weed in 90 days with no fuss?? Now come on, what kinda down to earth grow is that, I believe you need get to know the plants that are going to give you so much in return. Moral of the story, I kept it simple, just the right amount of monitoring to let me know what's going on with my beauties.



As you can see, they are in full swing veg state. With my first grow I had lots of issues maintaing pH levels correctly. Instead of investing in a monitor I had the pH test tube drop method. Needless to say, this method is woefully inadequate. Red stems and burnt leaves were my nightmare. This time around I made what is quite possibly the best investment in my entire setup, the Nutradip Tri-meter. Giving a constant readout of pH, ppm, and reservior temp, this thing is badass to say the least. Gone are the days of wondering if the shade of yellow in my test tube was yellow enough or if it was meandering towards the greener shade of shades.



Now if you're a perceptive person, you can see that the enivronment has changed quite a bit since the original photo. This is due to the fact that I broke down and bought a grow tent. You may ask, why on earth would I go out, after building my own self contained grow box, and spend more money on something that is far less sturdy and certainly not as cool looking. Well the answer to that is that even with a 400 CFM outtake fan, a 265 CFM intake fan, and a sentinel enivronmental controller, the temps simply wouldn't allow me to keep the door of the cabinet closed. So I decided once again to take another monetary plunge and purchaed a Sun Hut XL 4x4 grow tent, and let me tell you, it's awesome. If you have the space for one of these puppies, order one immeadiately! I got mine off of Plantlightinghydroponics.com, which by the way is where I get all of my growing supplies, aside from my Advanced Nutrients, which I order directly from them. This tent is perfect, it has a completely reflective interior, multiple ports for intake and exhaust, and movable ceiling supports to hang your reflector and carbon filter. Best part about it is that you've got a 7 ft clearance in this thing, which is great for growing larger plants, such as the ones I have going right now.

Now unfortunately, it's not going to let me add more pictures as I've apparently reached my limit, but there will be more to come!

On to the juicy details:
Currently growing Nirvana Ice and Nirvana White Widow under a 600w HPS (for entire length of grow) connected to Phantom digital ballast, using Digilux bulb.
Daystar Air Cooled reflector vented to outside
16 inch Phat Filter to take away to lovely stank
Recirculating DWC reservior system with (3) 5 gallon bubble buckets
Sentinel environmental controller
Nutradip Tri-meter

Now I know this post is located in the harvesting and curing section, which to some people may seem quite odd as up to this point, there hasn't been a single mention of either harvesting or curing, but alas, it shall come! Later this evening I will be posting new photos of my large babies. I'm looking for some advice as to when to harvest these beauties. The buds are beginning to stack up real nice, the fan leaves are starting to leach out telling me that every drop of juicy goodness is transferring from leaf to bud.

Lastly, if anyone has any questions as to how I went about my growing method, how I built my various grow boxes, or just anything in general, please don't hesitate to ask. Happy growing everyone!

Back with the photos! I generally don't keep track of when I started, all my plants are grown from seed. They were vegged for atleast a month until they were about 2-2 1/2 feet tall, at which point they were switched to 12/12. Real question is, how much longer do I go? Obviously, they're not ready yet, tricky part is that since they're both white strains, I don't expect to get a lot of coloring out of the pistils. I haven't really checked out the trichomes yet but they just don't seem to be as frosty as they should. Anyone has any input let me know.

Looking good. Nice job!

Ditto..great job. How much was ur tri monitor?

The nutradip tri-meter will run you around $170 depending on where you pick it up. Considering how much you would spend on a testing pen though, it's well worth the investment. I don't do reservoir changes, so keeping exact track of what going on in there is really important.

Might wanna start doing some res changes....

The one thing I've been wondering this whole grow is whether or not to change out the res. Most people will tell you that changing out the res at least once every week or two is important to keep your nutrient levels consistent. I tend to think that changing doing these changes isn't necessary as long as you have a good montoring system in place. That being said, the fan leaves surrounding many of the larger colas have indeed begun to show signs of what would appear to be nutrient burn. However, is this actual burn or simply the plant taking what is stored in the fan leaves and transferring all that goodness into the buds? I imagine it's the latter. Seeing as how I haven't changed the res out once for the entire grow, but simply top of with fresh pH'd water and nutrients, I think they're thriving quite nicely.

Somebeech- how much longer do you think I should allow before I flush? The pistils on some of the smaller buds are beginnings to brown and retract, however, the vast majority of the rest of the buds are simply big white fluffy mothers. I'd like to get a good two week flush in and really make these baby's suck what energy is left of the plants before I chop them down. That being said, should I give it a few more weeks before the flush or do you think it's about that time?

I still find it hard to believe you never changed the res from vegg to Flower.....Get a scope and look at trics i bet there ready to flush.I agree alot of ppl do overdue Res changes as long as temps are kept intact il go two weeks.Got a pic without that HPS on will be able to see alot better.Looks like might have a cal mag problem,with the white leaf tips.Leaf tips are also burnt and thats Nutes!!

Dsa7672022 said:

The one thing I've been wondering this whole grow is whether or not to change out the res. Most people will tell you that changing out the res at least once every week or two is important to keep your nutrient levels consistent. I tend to think that changing doing these changes isn't necessary as long as you have a good montoring system in place. That being said, the fan leaves surrounding many of the larger colas have indeed begun to show signs of what would appear to be nutrient burn. However, is this actual burn or simply the plant taking what is stored in the fan leaves and transferring all that goodness into the buds? I imagine it's the latter. Seeing as how I haven't changed the res out once for the entire grow, but simply top of with fresh pH'd water and nutrients, I think they're thriving quite nicely.

Somebeech- how much longer do you think I should allow before I flush? The pistils on some of the smaller buds are beginnings to brown and retract, however, the vast majority of the rest of the buds are simply big white fluffy mothers. I'd like to get a good two week flush in and really make these baby's suck what energy is left of the plants before I chop them down. That being said, should I give it a few more weeks before the flush or do you think it's about that time?

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I disagree this is fried.Id empty and run GH Florakleen for 2-3hrs or something similiar.Will help breakdown the Salt buildup.But they look done so just flushem.

SOMEBEECH said:

Might wanna start doing some res changes....

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Oh, yeah. That plant is wickedly burned.

Dsa7672022 said:

The one thing I've been wondering this whole grow is whether or not to change out the res. Most people will tell you that changing out the res at least once every week or two is important to keep your nutrient levels consistent. I tend to think that changing doing these changes isn't necessary as long as you have a good montoring system in place. That being said, the fan leaves surrounding many of the larger colas have indeed begun to show signs of what would appear to be nutrient burn. However, is this actual burn or simply the plant taking what is stored in the fan leaves and transferring all that goodness into the buds? I imagine it's the latter. Seeing as how I haven't changed the res out once for the entire grow, but simply top of with fresh pH'd water and nutrients, I think they're thriving quite nicely.

Somebeech- how much longer do you think I should allow before I flush? The pistils on some of the smaller buds are beginnings to brown and retract, however, the vast majority of the rest of the buds are simply big white fluffy mothers. I'd like to get a good two week flush in and really make these baby's suck what energy is left of the plants before I chop them down. That being said, should I give it a few more weeks before the flush or do you think it's about that time?

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You're talking about translocation. This is a plant fried by overnuting and salt buildup.

You gotta rinse your roots regularly, man. Sorry. And you way overfed them.

That is a classic case of over doing the nutes and/or salt build up in your res. I can't believe they are only at the point they show in the pics... I would have thought the plant would have shriveled up and died lol. Just goes to show how strong these little fuckers are sometimes...

So back again, it's been a few days. I've since chopped down two of the smallest plants in the room. They weren't getting as much light as the other ones and were just about ready anyway. So I've taken some of the above advice and done a little reservoir change. Good news is that there wasn't any salt build up in the res's whatsoever, maybe i just got lucky. As for the remaining three ladies, they're still going strong and swelling up. I figure I've got a few more weeks to go, let them juice up as much as possible and get better milky to amber trich ratio. Enjoy

P.S. Little after dark photo shoot

Hey man Im currently running the same strains with Chrystal as well. Take a look at some of my posts and you see pics.. Im on day 55 of both and WW is on week 1 of 12/12 no pics of her yet.. one thing I can tell you about the Ice is she started out slower then chrystal but it got warm in my room june-july really warm 85 degrees.. and she shot off like a missile. So I can say she likes it Hot! If you look at my posts and pics Ice is not topped and the Chrystal's are. she can take nutes like a champ I keep loading her with no problems just ran into a slight cal/mag def a few weeks into 12/12 but fixed her right up. Here is some pics of her as of today day 55...the last pic is from week 6..... Hope this helps I know its good to have others going at the same time to compare and talk.View attachment 2332679View attachment 2332680View attachment 2332681

Ps urs look a shit ton better then mine... im running 400 hos in 3 gallon soil. I think my cal/mad def effected my yield severely im not sure but urs a 2x as full as mine.. im kinda jealous haha good job.. and when did you start to harvest?? day/week? tomorrow will be week 8 for me and im still all cloudy

The upside of overnuting your plants is that you force it to yield more bud... trouble is, it's not the best bud the plant could have produced.

I used to overnute like that but deciced to cut back on yield and concentrate on quality instead.

Aside from that, it looks mighty plentiful. I'd watch those huge colas for mold, though. Keep your air dry and moving.

Last grow was 5 gallon DWC. Never once changed the res from start to finish. Harvested 6.5 o's under a 400w HPS in ~3 months total grow time. It's not impossible but towards the end you can expect some really funny readings and crispy leaves to go with it. But hell, who smokes leaves?



This plant killed my local suppliers other source since no one wanted anything but this medicine.

ULMResearch said:

Last grow was 5 gallon DWC. Never once changed the res from start to finish. Harvested 6.5 o's under a 400w HPS in ~3 months total grow time. It's not impossible but towards the end you can expect some really funny readings and crispy leaves to go with it. But hell, who smokes leaves?

View attachment 2333849View attachment 2333850

This plant killed my local suppliers other source since no one wanted anything but this medicine.

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I used to burn the fuck out of my leaves for a bloated yield. Quality suffers... believe me.