Ak-48 250w HPS DWC

Well, after many mishaps (the sort that come with a first attempt at this) I am proud to announce that my (so be it recovering) babies have caught on.

I don't want to dwell too much on what went wrong and cause many a frustrated night but I'll leave it at I've iron most of the major kinks out and have learned a lot of stuff that can truly only be learned through trial and error.

I will update tonight as I have to leave right now, but I hope that this journal will at least help one person once I've updated with all the mistakes I've made so that someone else doesn't fall prey to the same issues I did.

Toke it easy.

-hazyintentions

EDIT:

Well, after many mishaps (the sort that come with a first attempt at this) I am proud to announce that my (so be it recovering) babies have caught on.

I don't want to dwell too much on what went wrong and cause many a frustrated night but I'll leave it at I've iron most of the major kinks out and have learned a lot of stuff that can truly only be learned through trial and error.

I will update tonight as I have to leave right now, but I hope that this journal will at least help one person once I've updated with all the mistakes I've made so that someone else doesn't fall prey to the same issues I did.

Toke it easy.

-hazyintentions

EDIT:

Well here's my story, now bare with me I'm buzzed right now..

These first 2 plants started (made it above the rooter plugs) November 27th.

I started them when my cabinet was still under construction in the garage. The first issue I ran into was heat. Running the 4 CFL's would heat the veg/clone chamber up to 95 F in no time which almost got my seedling thank god I only left them in the chamber with the door closed for 20 minutes. After that narrow miss I cut a 4" hole and installed a 120mm 50 CFM 12v fan to help ventilate. That helped but I never got to creating an intake so that's on my punch-out list. After getting the seedlings settled in I realized I never truly pushed them into the rooter plugs just simply set them into the small holes after germination, so that combined with the plants being 18" away from the CFL's created major stretching, I cured that by stacking another piece of rock wool on top the first to support to plants lower stem/root.



after that I had trouble maintaining chamber temp because the garage was frequently opened/closed so I then had to move the whole thing into my closet in my room where I could precisely control the environment.


About day 10 the signs of heat stress are truly apparent from the lights, 81~82 F was a tad too much soo I had to keep the door open a crack while they where under full (4x) CFL lighting in the veg chamber.

At day 14 I went to place the ligths under the HPS only to find my ballast to my brand new light is DOA. After investigation I found it to just be a faulty resistor (it pays being familiar with electricity and multimeters ). It took a full 7 days to finally find the right resistor to replace the faulty one.

Upon placing them into the flower chamber which is 2'x2'x>4' I realized that a 250 HPS puts out alot of heat in a 16ft^3 chamber. So I then had to cut out 2 holes in the hood of my reflector to route 4" dryer vent and two other holes into the top of the cabinet for intake/exhaust.While i was at it I went ahead and cut out the intake on the bottom that I failed to cut upon initial construction.

Now even with 2 fans both pulling hot air from the reflector and a third fan venting through the side wall I still hit 85 F+ when the door is closed.

So until I get the size of glass cut that I need to isolate the light from the rest of the cabinet I must leave the door cracked about 2" 24/7.


Okay so fast forward to day #23. Plants are still moving at a snails pace. Damage from the heat stress is still causing stunting. roots have not yet made it to the bottom of the 6" net pots into the res and things aren't looking great. Just a waiting game as the plant recuperate.

After almost of week of watching my yellow plants barely move and still no sign of roots at the bottom of the 6" net pots I popped another seed after consulting in another forum.

That seed popped New Year's Day and it's looking really green. Same day the seed popped the roots of plants A and B finally made it through the bottom of the net pots.

Between then and now The plants have grown 2 new sets of 3 fingered leaves and all the new growth is green.

I will update with current pics of all plants but I will now list what I have learned for anyone who's willing to read this.

#1 - Finish and test EVERYTHING first. Starting with everything in the environment stable and completely finished is 100x easy/better than trying to scramble and finish everything while your plants are trying to cope with your errors. Which brings me to my next lesson.

#2 - PATIENCE is a virtue. Don't get antsy and start your grow before your ready for it like I did, learn everything you need too. Which also leads into something else I've learned.

#3 - Plan out your grow and then review it for missing steps and feel in the blanks until you've got everything you need to do down to a science. Practice things like testing pH and mixing nutrients so you've got it right, the little resources you'll use to learn how to do it right are worth not taxing your plants.

#4- Find a place where controlling the environment outside your space isn't an issue. For me my room worked perfect.


Well I will put up pictures ASAP my usual camera isn't here and the other one's battery is shot.

Gnight.

Update:

This is day #34 for my two elder babies.

78 F
pH @ 6.3
53% RH
10% min suggested mix of Bio-Bloom.

Plant A/#1 Sorry about the flash, I will probably just wait till the next update to put a better picture up but what you can't see here is small grayish spots occurring along the newer growth.



Plant B/#2 This one struggled at first from recovering from it's heat burns. It's looking better than it's beefier sibling and even at this young stage it's clearly a more sative pheno compared to plant A.



Here's the complete view of my cabinet. I believe the spots on plant A/#1 are from a light leak problems with the res, another half-ass job/mistake on my part. Sealing the res is my priority today.



I believe the spots on plant A/#1 are from a light leak problems with the res, another half-ass job/mistake on my part. Sealing the res is my priority today.


Now for the little seedling with big plans.



I'm going to grow this in soil until it catches it's older sister's in size so I can figure out what exactly it is in the 2 week cycle before vegging that I am lacking/missing/no doing.


Well I would love comments/suggestions.
I'm on the learning curve and any tips/tricks are great.

Consider this my second installment and hopefully the end of all my troubles.

Day #38 Plants #1 and #2
Day #7 Plant #3
~81 F
50% RH
Nutes still at 10%
pH ~6.5

Everything was taken last night but roll it up wasn't cooperating so I just waited till now to update.




Here's a close shot to clearly illustrate how much more sativa plant #2 (right) is than the others. Will it be an interesting pheno? Let's wait and see.


Plant #1



Plant #2



And the breath of fresh air, start Plant #3







Jan 10th, 2010 Update:


Day #41 Plants #1 and #2
Day #10 Plant #3
~78 F45% RH
nutes upped to 25%
pH ~5.7


Well everything is going nicely, nothing to extraordinary. I wonder if anyone even reads this. Oh well it's good for keeping track of myself.

Finally got my ph control kit. Upon using it I found that my plants really prefer a 6.3 pH. After reading it at somewhere near 6.8 I used the ph down only to realize that it is about 3x more concentrated that the ph up. ph dropped to the second lowest reading I could get. Time for a res change anyways.

Plant #1

Leaves are getter fatter and fatter.


Plant #2 Almost starting going back downhill due to really low ph but she'll do fine once I get her back in familiar waters.




And the roots are starting to catch on.



That's about it for now. Just keeping up the pace.

I just wanna open up and say this is 6 days growth, nothing new for the experience growers but I'm really loving my plants


Okay so here we go

Day #47 Plants #1 and #2
Day #16 Plant #3
~82 F
47% RH
Nutes 25%
pH ~6.3


This picture sums up everything to me.

This is all three of my beauts on display.



This is plant #1. This picture doesn't do her any justice. She's really getting fat leaves, the finger over take each other to the point that I have to help them keep unstuck.



and for plant #2. It's interesting to watch each plant grow, the each have their own personality almost, I sometimes find my self sitting in front in the cabinet with the door open talking to them whilst smoking a bowl.

And although it's hard to see these plants are very vigorous. They have leaves sets emerging from everywhere with stems as thick as the main stalk. They are very pretty in person. The HPS takes all the green out of them.





Alright, now for something I'm very proud of/ happy with....



Look CLOSELY and you'll notice that this amazing plant is already starting a 5 finger leaf set on it's third node!!!! I don't know it that's a normal thing but I love it.I hate to play favorite's but I can tell this is the best candidate.

Look some more and I'll bet you can find some resin production already. It's time for 10% nutes.


Can I get some feedback? I feel so lonely in here.

hazyintentions said:

Can I get some feedback? I feel so lonely in here.

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Its hard with a grow log under 600watt, just doesnt seem to be much traffic interested in anything less. Had some newcomers here and there but none that stuck around... not as of yet anyhow.

Your 3 plants look good, everyone screws up their first grow a bit but as you said it, a lot of what is learned the first time can only be learned from trial and error. It took me 1 grow outdoors to tune in my first indoor grow. I still havent hit the nail on the head but damn it i have tried and given it my all, im sure you will as well!

Day 47 is a lot for what you have but i assume those 2 are the original 2 that you had problems with heat stress, stretching, etc. for have going through all that they are deff on the up and up.

I can see the 5 finger leaves on your 16-day-old plant, I just looked at some of my photos from day 14 and i cant make any out but i also dont have up close shots of any of them just group side photos. On day 21 though I can clearly see 5 finger leafs on about the 3rd set which is what my 14-day-old plants were just pushing out but not obvious yet it was still "new growth". If its another ak-48 it looks on par with mine thus far.

baggednismo said:

Its hard with a grow log under 600watt, just doesnt seem to be much traffic interested in anything less. Had some newcomers here and there but none that stuck around... not as of yet anyhow.

Your 3 plants look good, everyone screws up their first grow a bit but as you said it, a lot of what is learned the first time can only be learned from trial and error. It took me 1 grow outdoors to tune in my first indoor grow. I still havent hit the nail on the head but damn it i have tried and given it my all, im sure you will as well!

Day 47 is a lot for what you have but i assume those 2 are the original 2 that you had problems with heat stress, stretching, etc. for have going through all that they are deff on the up and up.

I can see the 5 finger leaves on your 16-day-old plant, I just looked at some of my photos from day 14 and i cant make any out but i also dont have up close shots of any of them just group side photos. On day 21 though I can clearly see 5 finger leafs on about the 3rd set which is what my 14-day-old plants were just pushing out but not obvious yet it was still "new growth". If its another ak-48 it looks on par with mine thus far.

Click to expand...

Thanks for dropping in. The little lights don't get much garner.

Yeah, I know, you just don't expect alot of what does happen to even happen at all. My main issue is not getting the right nutes. Now I've learned all about minerals and their decencies and will have a much more controlled operation in the rest this grow along with everything in the future.

And your right the third one is Ak-48. Which is the plant I've begun to lst.

As for my Update:

Day #61 Plants #1 and #2
Day #30 Plant #3
~82 F
55% RH
Nutes @ 20% Bio-Grow/10% MG
pH ~5.7


Everything's speeding up now. Despite recent trip ups on my nutrient choices, problems which are soon to be adjusted.


They are very bushy, they are both female without a doubt. Fighting for space has become an issue, but for once and issue I like.
Onwards to the pictures!!

Disclaimer: I know they are burning at the tips, this is because I've got to supplement Bio-Grow with MG nutes.

I will get Fox Farm nutes soon.



A darker shot....


They are so tight, these plants are begging for the chicken wire.


And now for some porn shots because I was high whilst taking these pictures.





1/31 Update : Installed SCROG screen/chicken wire.

I find it funny how although bigger grows get so much attention but because they not using the great high yield techniques that our "stealth" cabs use; us "small" grows yield sometimes as much as twice as much per watt

Well, it's day 20 of training my babies in the screen.

Some say a picture is worth a thousand words so I'll cheat and skip to the juicy part.



This is just a lose shot illustrating the thickness of the canopy.

For those who like to document like me:
Day #20 for plants 1& 2 in the Screen
Plant #3 is just chugging along despite only having 50w of CFL's and fungus gnat larvae eating at her roots
~82 F
30% RH
nutes @ 1/3 FF rec.
pH ~6.2


Bad stuff first:

I felt a devotion to using distilled water, I have been battling the ph for 2 weeks, the plants eat up the nutes so quick the the ph is on a constant rise.

This is the reason I've been having slightly discolored (yellowing) in my leaves.

Well after reading more in depth about the buffering properties you find in tap water I've replaced the res water with ph'd tap with 1/3 Fox Farm's Grow Big suggested amount.

In the process I also mixed up a gallon of the nutrient mix two fold, it burnt some tips pretty bad

but it's resolved now.

The good:

It's becoming a challenge to find places to tie down stems, next round I will definitely tie down the branches some more so they'll branch out more, so I'll have a better distribution stems across the screen instead of having too many in the center and not enough towards to outside edges.

Onwards to the pictures.



Here's a good shot of the overall coverage so far, it's really tempting to jump into 12/12 but this is where patience pays off, I wanna fill this screen up.



This one is solely to help visualize the constant battle of the lower stems for light.





All-in-all I'm very satisfied with my learning curve.

This strain bounces back from next to anything, it's allowed me to majorly fuck up a couple times and still rewards me with great looking structure. I have worked 99% of the kinks out and when I start my next grow in this cabinet I'll be ready and armed for so seriously good looking plants.


Also, for anyone concerned here's the lil sister.



I plan on putting this on outside just as if I was growing outdoors, it should be a nice 12" LST'd bush by mid April.

I'm gonna put it in a huge pot with an organic mix at an undisclosed location and just watch it soar into a bush in the lovely sun.

I wanna see how this indoor strain reacts to being in a natural environment. I'm honestly hoping for upwards of 1 lb from this one.

Alright, figured today would do for an update.


Starting flowering 2/21.

Unfortunately I didn't realize how thirsty my plants are and they drink up more water than nutrient giving me a ever increasing nute burn issue.

I've gotten my res back up to level and have learned my lesson, I have to fill this thing a lot more often.

So here's the good stuff.


The Screen is pretty much covered...



Because I could.



From the side...

where are we at now?

formula42 said:

where are we at now?

Click to expand...

Had to call an abort. My brother blabbed and I couldn't have the risk.

Don't get to upset though. I may just still have something to show for it in about 6 weeks.

FuZZyBUDz said:

YO hazey! i was wondering if u would like to post sum piks and a story in my DWC thread, just show off wat u got and drop a story and wat ur running (pump, nutes, bucket size, ect...) heres the link,

D.W.C 'Show-Off' THREAD. post your pretty and proud DWC piks here

Click to expand...

Man I would love too but for security reasons I can't at this moment man. I had to abort where I was and destroy the cabinet. I still got pictures hidden away.

I'll break them out when I feel secure and the dust settles for me.