Organic Inda Gro 420 Pro Par with TGA Space Dawg, first indoor grow!

Hello everyone!

My name is Brandon, and I will be working on my first indoor grow and would like to document it for my (and hopefully, your) enjoyment, experience and education. My "grow room" is at the end of my closet, which I have sectioned off with panda plastic, a staple gun, and tape. I attached an adhesive backed zipper onto the front to use as a doorway. This room encloses an area that is about 5' wide, 2.5' deep, and just over 6' tall. I have a 4" Vortex fan connected to a carbon filter and out take, with a 6" passive air intake with a basic filter on it for dust and bugs. The fan is too powerful it seems, so I am purchasing a variable transformer to run my fan at a lower operating power. Inside the tent, I have lined the floor with a plastic drop cloth, and have my light hanging above the 5'x2.5' area. The fan is attached to the walls by rope, an attempt by me to decrease the noise of the fan as well as using insulated ducting. Please feel free to give any advice on grow room construction or grow!

I will be growing a Space Dawg clone gifted to me by a very good friend. I have never grown indoors, or the strain Space Dawg, so this should be a very interesting ride with many lessons learned! I plan on vegging in a 3 gallon smart pot filled partially with super soil, and flowering in a 10 gallon smart pot with super soil.

I won't be flowering for a while I suppose, just vegging and training the clone into a well structured mother bonsai. Just got the clone Monday and she's growing quickly!
This picture is from Tuesday.

Hello everyone,

I'm studying for my finals right now and took a break to snap a few pictures of my lady Space Dawg this morning before heading to the library. She has been growing now for about 1 week under the light, and has grown a few new nodes. Her side branches are very vigorous and are trying to push past her baby fan leaves to get more light. I'm going to top her tonight and might post another picture later. I will probably transplant her into a 3 gallon smart pot next week. Have a good week everyone!

Brandon

Hey everyone!

I'm doing great! Finals went well, and I ended up getting the highest GPA I have ever gotten in my life, a 3.75! It was a very hard quarter, I took: Properties of Electronic Materials and Devices, Probability for Engineers, and Technical writing. Looking forward to my short break that begins tomorrow night!

Anyways, the Space Dawg girl has been growing well, but with slight yellowing in it's older fan leaves. Late last week I topped her and staked the top down. Her side branches are growing quickly and vigorously, this girl is going to be bushy! I then transplanted her on Sunday into a 2.5 gallon plastic pot with holes drilled in the bottom filled with about 40% super soil and the rest Fox Farms Ocean Forest to buffer the transplanted plant. I have placed metal hooks on the sides of the pot to tie branches down to shape her to fit my rectangular footprint, and I am even considering adding a screen. On the sides, I have two small pots; one containing beets and the other mixed lettuce

Nice Job Brandon!

I dont grow in soil so I have questions... Is SuperSoil allready charged with Nutes, or are you feeding her?

What type of Light do you use?

Thanks in Advance, WooHoo, I am looking forward to your Training Sessions!

Peace

MedScientist said:

Nice Job Brandon!

I dont grow in soil so I have questions... Is SuperSoil allready charged with Nutes, or are you feeding her?

What type of Light do you use?

Thanks in Advance, WooHoo, I am looking forward to your Training Sessions!

Peace

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Hey MedScientist,

Supersoil is a base soil with a lot of amendments and nutrients mixed into it and allowed to "cook" or kind of decompose together so that the nutrients are available for the plant to use. The soil should have all of the nutrients the plant needs, the trick is giving the right amount of super soil in the allotted growing time.

My light I am using is an induction light, it is made by the company Inda Gro and it is called the Pro 420 Par series. Here is their website: http://www.inda-gro.com/. The aspects of the light that attracted me to it are that it operates with great energy efficiency and the light itself doesn't create much heat while on. The light itself is 3.5' long and about 1.5' wide so it pretty much fills up the whole closet, and it consistently stays around 75-82 degrees Fahrenheit with the light on 18/6 and no fan on. The interesting part about the light that I have yet to experience is that it is a broad spectrum of wavelengths of light emitted, like sunlight, so the light appears white. But, a friend has told me in flowering I will need more yellow spectrum to add density, and to achieve this by complementing this light with CFLs, which I have yet to look into much.

Thanks for stopping by Med, sorry to hit you with a wall of text of reply lol but you were my first responder and I got kind of excited.

Brandon

WooHoo! The Science looks AMAZING! You are a True Pioneer!

Thanks for the Quick and Informative response!

Peace

Nice set up mate.I have the same smart pot than you do . Have you ever used her before ? i still want to find the pros/cons of her.I would might go that far and say that this yellow leaf needs some N..!! Happy Space Dawg..( haven't tried that one yet.)

qroox said:

Nice set up mate.I have the same smart pot than you do . Have you ever used her before ? i still want to find the pros/cons of her.I would might go that far and say that this yellow leaf needs some N..!! Happy Space Dawg..( haven't tried that one yet.)

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Hey groox,

Yea I have used a smart pot a few times before, never indoors though. This past summer I had an Ace of Spades plant in a 60 gallon smart pot and it worked great, she just dried out pretty quickly.

From what I understand the main pros/cons are: air prunes roots (roots don't hug the wall of the pot trying to grow outwards), allows more oxygen to rootzone of plant. Cons are that they dry out faster and need more frequent watering, and are annoying to transplant out of lol. I have read that placing the smart pot on a crate or something so oxygen can flow beneath the pot as well will make a large difference in the amount of oxygen in the rootzone and plant health.

PetFlora said:

Congrats on the 3.75

Plant is a bit yellow. Try lowering the light (or raising the plant)

Oh, and excellent lamp choice

Don't forget the pontoons

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Thank you! I have left my home where the plant is growing to visit my parents for christmas, but before I left I raised the light a bit more even to allow about 12" of space for plant growth. I took the pictures above the day after transplant, and on Wednesday before I left she was darkening up to a healthy shade of deep green nicely.

Do you have experience with inda gro or other induction lighting? I would greatly appreciate feedback on something I can add to supplement BESIDES the inda gro pontoons. I spent all my money on getting this stuff together and I am an EXTREMELY broke student as of right now with a $7,000 tuition bill waiting to be paid . Thanks for any feedback and thanks for stopping in and taking a look!!!

brandon727272 said:

Hey groox,

Yea I have used a smart pot a few times before, never indoors though. This past summer I had an Ace of Spades plant in a 60 gallon smart pot and it worked great, she just dried out pretty quickly.

From what I understand the main pros/cons are: air prunes roots (roots don't hug the wall of the pot trying to grow outwards), allows more oxygen to rootzone of plant. Cons are that they dry out faster and need more frequent watering, and are annoying to transplant out of lol. I have read that placing the smart pot on a crate or something so oxygen can flow beneath the pot as well will make a large difference in the amount of oxygen in the rootzone and plant health.

Click to expand...

Hey..!! It's ''q''roox actually or bill,but that's ok.. . I was thinking the same thing about my smart pot,raising her a little bit,and maybe add a container to save me from run-off.Though i am growing indoors and an auto flowering ( green-o ) resides in her,i can't really say much right now.Harvesting won't take as much as my sativa's ( sleestack*skunk#1 ) which they need at least 1 and a half month so 'll be able to tell if there was a difference regarding root structure. Did you get any leackages from the bottom ? I try not to since i'm in a tent.That's the only con so far.. .
Never smoked ace of spades,did it smoke-yield good ? How hard was it to grow ?

Don't fret over it. It will be a nice present to yourself that will take high quality buds to an even higher level

brandon727272 said:

Hey groox,

Yea I have used a smart pot a few times before, never indoors though. This past summer I had an Ace of Spades plant in a 60 gallon smart pot and it worked great, she just dried out pretty quickly.

From what I understand the main pros/cons are: air prunes roots (roots don't hug the wall of the pot trying to grow outwards), allows more oxygen to rootzone of plant. Cons are that they dry out faster and need more frequent watering, and are annoying to transplant out of lol. I have read that placing the smart pot on a crate or something so oxygen can flow beneath the pot as well will make a large difference in the amount of oxygen in the rootzone and plant health.





Thank you! I have left my home where the plant is growing to visit my parents for christmas, but before I left I raised the light a bit more even to allow about 12" of space for plant growth. I took the pictures above the day after transplant, and on Wednesday before I left she was darkening up to a healthy shade of deep green nicely.

Do you have experience with inda gro or other induction lighting? I would greatly appreciate feedback on something I can add to supplement BESIDES the inda gro pontoons. I spent all my money on getting this stuff together and I am an EXTREMELY broke student as of right now with a $7,000 tuition bill waiting to be paid . Thanks for any feedback and thanks for stopping in and taking a look!!!

Click to expand...

Hi Bradon, and friends...

I too have just purchased an Inda-Gro 420 Induction light. I am very interested in following your progress. I seem to buy the latest technology evidenced by my collection of 600 watt MH and HPS systems, AdvancedLEDLights, and now the induction light. I have been growing for about 6 years mainly hydroponically, but recently switched to natural/organic in soil. I am experiencing the same lower yellowing. I tried foliar feeding and soil feeding with plant protein, which has some soluble nitrogen available. This helped a little, but not enough and the plant still showing signs of yellowing. So in order to get the plant back on track I decided to use Botanicare's Pure Blend Pro Grow (PBPG) and it did the trick. BTW I mixing my own soil with spagnum peat, vermiculite, compost, and a bunch of amendments (goal was to stay completely organic), but I was told that since I am using Pure Blend that it will kill all of the microbes in soil. So I am stuck using PBPG.

Anyway, I just wanted to give a heads up to my situation so maybe it will help with yours. Looking forward to following your grow. Happy Holidays and good luck in school.

Hi Brandon,

Get through a couple of runs with just the 420 light. The gurlz will flower nicely evern without the Pontoon. You can always add one after a run or two and you'll appreciate the extra weight. Good luck grower!

qroox said:

Hey..!! It's ''q''roox actually or bill,but that's ok.. . I was thinking the same thing about my smart pot,raising her a little bit,and maybe add a container to save me from run-off.Though i am growing indoors and an auto flowering ( green-o ) resides in her,i can't really say much right now.Harvesting won't take as much as my sativa's ( sleestack*skunk#1 ) which they need at least 1 and a half month so 'll be able to tell if there was a difference regarding root structure. Did you get any leackages from the bottom ? I try not to since i'm in a tent.That's the only con so far.. .
Never smoked ace of spades,did it smoke-yield good ? How hard was it to grow ?

Click to expand...

Hey qroox, sorry man!

My smart pots did leak out the bottom and sides a bit when watered excessively. I wasn't very careful about adding just enough water to saturate the soil but not too much to run out the bottom very much, so maybe if you were it wouldn't be too much of a problem. The Ace of Spades is very easy to grow, it has stems that are very strong and I didn't support them when they were flowering and they held up in wind. Yielded pretty well, less than my other two plants (Chernobyl and Romulan) but the AoS was in a 60 gal smart pot and the other two were in the ground. Smoke is great, she is part purple and part green, nice and dense, very frosty, and smells sweet with hints of berry and sour funk. Here are some pictures of her outdoor life this summer.

bprz said:

Hi Bradon, and friends...

I too have just purchased an Inda-Gro 420 Induction light. I am very interested in following your progress. I seem to buy the latest technology evidenced by my collection of 600 watt MH and HPS systems, AdvancedLEDLights, and now the induction light. I have been growing for about 6 years mainly hydroponically, but recently switched to natural/organic in soil. I am experiencing the same lower yellowing. I tried foliar feeding and soil feeding with plant protein, which has some soluble nitrogen available. This helped a little, but not enough and the plant still showing signs of yellowing. So in order to get the plant back on track I decided to use Botanicare's Pure Blend Pro Grow (PBPG) and it did the trick. BTW I mixing my own soil with spagnum peat, vermiculite, compost, and a bunch of amendments (goal was to stay completely organic), but I was told that since I am using Pure Blend that it will kill all of the microbes in soil. So I am stuck using PBPG.

Anyway, I just wanted to give a heads up to my situation so maybe it will help with yours. Looking forward to following your grow. Happy Holidays and good luck in school.

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Hey bprz,

Your latest technology purchasing habit must be pretty expensive lol, but that's cool you see the systems evolve and the changes that are made! My only suggestion is that you can top dress your plants with more organic amendments that are rich in Nitrogen (like earthworm castings) and this will provide an extra boost to keep the fans green. Or you could adjust your base soil mix to include more Nitrogen rich materials to sustain your plant for longer. Thanks for the well wishes, I send them back your way!!
P.S. If this truly is your first post since 2009, I am honored !

chazbolin said:

Hi Brandon,

Get through a couple of runs with just the 420 light. The gurlz will flower nicely evern without the Pontoon. You can always add one after a run or two and you'll appreciate the extra weight. Good luck grower!

Click to expand...

Hi chazbolin,

Thanks for the reinforcing words! I am interested to see how they turn out once they do go into flower. My friend who gifted me the clone warned me that he had seen an Inda gro light produce very fluffy buds.

No question that the pontoons with their 660nm diodes meet a peak chlorophyll b peak that cannabis likes. Extra weight as the plants fill in flowers between nodes. There are a lot of quality gardens you can see on RIU that went full cycle veg thru flower without a pontoon and this is a good video to check out as well since this gardener has seen results and describes in detail the before and after results.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=529670157085289&set=vb.262974713805120&type=3&theater

Hey everyone, happy new year!

Hope you all had a great holiday! I went home and visited my parents for 15 days and left my baby space dawg at home to fend for herself (something I did very reluctantly). I was very concerned about how she would stay alive as I usually water every 4 or 5 days, so I set up a bucket full of water next to the plant with a strip of towel leading from the water in the bucket to the top of the soil. I filled the bucket up and left, and to my great surprise, the plant was extremely happy with no wilts when I returned! The bucket was dry and the soil in the pot was bone dry too, but the plant was healthy and green. I topped her before I left on all of her most vigorous branches.

Her is a quick picture update of her. She is growing quickly and is a nice deep shade of green (almost too deep, N toxicity?). I'm using all the hooks around the edge of the bucket to tie her down and give her the shape of the rectangular closet I am working in. I'm going to try to set up a small clone station so I can clone her and flower her. I really want to get some new clones in here so I can veg them for outdoor season I'm an outdoor grower and farmer at heart



Hope everyone is having a great year so far and had amazing holidays!

Brandon

Preparing for 2 Summer vacations, I switched over to Growing with Wicks... basically suspending the grow container in a 5 Gallon bucket LID with a Microfiber Wick hanging down from the Grow Container into the Res/Water/Feed below. Since I flower My Trees in 1/2 Gallon containers, the Res will last 2-3 days before refilling the res THRU the Medium.

Plants CONTINUE to Grow FAST! Although I BELIEVE that setting up an AutoWater System to recirc the Res's thru the Medium would be BEST.

The DEEP Green is Fine! I SEE NO Toxicity. Your Training is Spot ON! Great Job!

Peace

Hey everyone!

Hope everyone is doing well with this new year. School started again for me on the 6th and I have been very busy since. I am taking Logic Design and C programming this quarter and both of these classes have labs which blows lol. So far each week I have 3 labs due which has been keeping me pretty busy with random thoughts about lab always popping up in the back of my mind while I am doing something else .

That's enough about me lol, the space dawg seems to be happy, although last week I put the light about 3 inches above her and it burned a few leaves after a few days; so back up to about 6 inches the light went! A few of her lower fans have yellowed and I pulled them off, so I top dressed her with more super soil. I have been pulling her branches down and apart every few days to try to form her to a rectangle like the closet she is in, and she is beginning to form a nice little bush! I am somewhat happy with the training results, I think I am planning on building a little screen or trellis for her while she flowers.

At this point, I need to buy some cloning supplies and test my hand at it. After taking a successful cut of this Space Dawg, I think I will flower her!

Have a great week everyone!!

Hey everyone!!!

Hope all is going well with all of you out there enjoying my thread (I hope you're enjoying it!)! Classes have kept me very busy as of lately. Instead of my usual class load of hard to conceptualize paired with difficult math has changed to all programming, and I hate it! I know it will more than likely be my future so I should embrace it and learn to love it (hah!), but I just get to a point and hit a wall in my lab and end up banging my head against it . Oh well, each day passes and another begins.

My plant is doing well! I have been slowly pulling her down and apart to form a low bush. My friend who gifted me with the clone in the first place recommended that I use filtered water from inside the grocery store because it does not have Chloramine that is in the water from the tap. So I did this recently, as well as began using a product called Photosynthesis Plus by Microbe Life. I used some with my last watering and my Space Dawg seems to really enjoy it! I plan on transplanting to the 10 gallon smart pot soon, maybe tomorrow? I will be flowering this gal in a few weeks, I am super excited ! Any input? Think she is too early to go into flower in a few weeks?

Also, there are purple stripes on my branches that my friend who gave me the clone said were not there, does anyone recognize this as a deficiency? I took a picture of it.

Hey everyone!


Sorry I've been MIA for a while, I have been busy with my classes everyday from 9AM until midnight, I hate programming labs.

I transplanted the dawg into her final home, her 10 gallon smart pot some time last week. I didn't buffer it with enough soil because this past week she was stunted and got a little burnt on the tips of her leaves. Now that she has a bigger root mass she is beginning to form into a nice bush, and I plan on flowering her maybe next week, and will provide more frequent updates hopefully.