Purkles 1st 400w MH/HPS Grow - Blue Cheese, White Widow, Great White Shark

I'm on week two of my first grow, and hope that I'm doing most things right. The Widow (White Widow/Big Bud cross) and the Blue Cheese are doing great, but the shark took an extra two days to germinate and then then got stuck in the seed shell for 3-4 days.

All seeds were ordered from Attitude via a postal money order. It took exactly 2 weeks from the date that I shipped the money order to the date that I received the seeds. I've got a lot of other seeds, but I didn't want to use my best ones for my first attempt.

I started the seeds in a "float and grow" tray under 100w of CFL lighting at 24/0. The "float and grow" is simply a styrofoam block with plugs in it for planting. This block goes into a tray filled with water and in turn keeps just the bottom of of the grow medium touching the water. By doing this, water wicks up and keeps the seeds at an optimum moisture level. It worked amazingly well. The Widow and Blue Cheese popped within 48 hours. About a week after they popped, I put transplanted them into Light Warrior in solo cups and put them under my 400w MH at 18/6 (that was three days ago). When I took them out of the tray, they had very, very long thin white roots (maybe 1ft or more).

I'm now doing FF Big Bloom & Grow big nutes twice a week at about 1/4 the recommended concentration. I'll up to half concentration if they take well to it.

I am currently using a 3x3 tent with a large reflector and cool tube in conjunction with an iPower 400w ballast and the generic mh lamp that came with it. I've got a fairly nice carbon filter mounted at the top of the tent for exhaust, and intake coming through vents at the bottom. I've got a very small heater on very low at the bottom that kicks on when the tube goes off. I've mounted a WiFi temperature probe in the tent that keeps track of heat at all times (it is right by the top of the tallest plant). Currently, I've got it dialed in at 77-78 degrees during the day and 72 degrees at night. There isn't more than a 1 degree fluctuation between those points during the day, and no more than 2 at night. It's in my cellar which stays at about 65 degrees ambient.

I've got the MH / Cool Tube about 8" from the top of the plant. I can get closer without it heating up the area much more, but wasn't sure if I should do that.

The soil in the cup gets dry past my second knuckle within about 36 hours, so that's when I've been watering (light warrior drains extraordinarily well and fast). The Blue Cheese and White Widow plants are 3" wide at their widest point. The shark is very small still--only about 1/2 to 3/4 wide at the widest point.

In couple weeks or so, I imagine I'll transplant into my 5 gallon square planters with Fox Farms Ocean Forrest soil. Once I get 4 nodes, I plan to start basic LSTing.

For Flower, I'll either be putting in an additional 192w of CFL lighting to go with a 400w HPS bulb, or (hopefully) switching to a 600w ballast with an Ushio SuperHPS. I don't know if the 6x 32w CFLs would really help much, especially in comparison to switching to a 600w HPS, but I've already got them so I figure no harm. I don't want to go much over 600w for power reasons.

I'm getting a PH tester in a few days, so I'll be able to keep that under a watchful eye.

Any guidance on how long/how big I should wait to put these into flower? Because I'm only going with 3 plants (I hope they are all fem. They are femenized seeds), I realize that the veg time will likely have to be longer than doing many little plants. I had originally hoped to be harvesting at 12-14 weeks, but with an 8 week flower time, I'm not sure 4-6 weeks will be even close to enough time to get decently large plants in veg (I'd be ecstatic with .5gr per Watt)

Also--do you continue to do LST after you put the plants in flower? I'm assuming that's a yes.

hey purkles. nice journel so far, i'll def. be following it
I had a question about the seedlings in styrofoam. So You put the seedling in a plug in a styrofoam block and the roots eventually grow through the foam to the water? I'm interested to try the techique myself.

Also how big of a grow space you working with?

The float and grow has grow medium plugs with a small "pocket" to drop the seeds in to. I believe you can take any of the plugs out you aren't using, but I was dumb and didn't. First, you wet the plugs you are using and put them into the styrofoam block. Then you put the block into the tray, and fill the tray until the water level is about 1 to 1 and 1/2 inches. The tray will start floating as you fill it up.

As the seeds grow, eventually the roots will come out of the bottom into the water. Once you feel your seedlings are large enough (I waited until they were about 2" wide), you take the tray out, and gently push from the bottom until there is enough room at the top to pull (being careful not to push the roots).

Then you transplant the plug itself into your new medium (in my case, light warrior in solo cups).

any pics of the trays? a visual could help me some more

I think my 30d is in storage, so it may be a day or so before I can take pictures.

aight than

The Great White Shark has more than doubled in size in the last 2 days, but is still very far behind the blue cheese and widow/big bud, which both now have 3 nodes that are fairly tightly spaced.

However, I noticed last night that one of the plants has a few small, dark brown spots on a leaf. I've moved my 400 MH up a couple inches (I had the tube about 6" away from the canopy--the temperature at the canopy was fine at 77%, but I moved it to be cautious).

I've been feeding at about every 48 hours. When the leaves looked a little droopy, I moved towards 36 hours, or until the top 2-2.5 inches or so of the solo cup is bone dry.

I'd only given one dose of nutes at about 1/8th strength three days ago, but I realized that light warrior has NO nutrients, and so I've upped that to between 1/4 and 1/2 of what FF has on the bottle for general feeding and dosed again (I've read that their instructions run a bit too hot?). 12 hours later, and the plants appear to be a bit darker green in color, so I'm optimistic that they've taken well to the increase.

On Saturday I decided to take the guess work out of it and replanted the plants into a mix of 66% Ocean Forest and 33% lightwarrior. The root systems seemed full and were good color (they'd reached the sides and bottom of the solo cup on all three plants). Since the transplant, the main stems have gone from purple/red to almost entirely green, and the leaf canoeing has reversed itself. I don't know if this is from the original dose of nutes Friday, the move to the new mix, or both. Regardless, I think the ocean forest should keep me good on nutes for at least a week or two.

The great white shark is catching up to the Blue Cheese and Widow/BigBud. I wasn't sure how it was going to do, but it finally seems to have established itself and is growing nicely.

You've got some nice stains growing the widow x big bud should be awesome. and good to hear the great white shark is doing well. cant wait for pics

BakedBrah said:

You've got some nice stains growing the widow x big bud should be awesome. and good to hear the great white shark is doing well. cant wait for pics

Click to expand...

I was just out at storage and didn't grab the stupid camera. Pics will come this week.

I'm now using the "how much does the cup weigh" method for watering. I've been fearful of overwatering. The cups weight is about triple or quadruple wet as it is dry. After 2 days, my plants were weighing almost identical to the cup of dry soil, so it seems 36-48 hours is fine for watering.

Pictures!
You can see the damage that I was talking about last week on the lower leafs. The WW/BB had significant twisting, but that seems to be correcting itself since the transplant to new soil. I think part of the damage was also because I got some nute-water on the leafs and put it back under the HPS. I didn't know better. I started with seeds on the 14th.

Purchased a milwaukee PH meter and tested my water at 7.8. I guess I'll need to purchase some PH down?
On another note--how long would you guys suggest using no nutes now that I've switched to 66% Ocean Forest 33% light warrior? A week or two?

I pushed the watering a little too far. The leaves were extremely wilted this morning on all but the GWS. The soil was completely dry. I watered and hope the plants didn't' get stressed too much.

Just let them dry out for a few days until they feel "light" then give them some pH down along with 1/2 strength feeding, I believe would give them a nice boost.

I am subscribed fo sho, love the strains and here for the ride

Check out my grow, ours are pretty similar.
https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/577642-drf-stealth-closet-grow-400w.html

The bottom pair of leaves of the blue cheese and WW/BB still look terrible, but I'm assuming they are just dying from the original damage. A couple other leaves look a little bad now, too, but I believe it's from the leaves wilting (needed to be watered) and then sitting in the soil for a few hours.

I fed nutes at half strength on Saturday morning. So far so good. The Great White Shark/Mazar may be my best looking plant now.

Now I'm just trying to figure out when I should transplant from the solo cups into the 4 gallon square pots.

Things seem to be getting worse. My GWS is now being effected. I don't believe it to be temperature or watering (I water every 48-50 hours, once the soil feels dry, the leafs start to just barely sag, and the weight of the cup is almost the same as a dry cup of medium).

It shouldn't be heat, as the top of the canopy is at 78 during light cycle, 72 during dark cycle.

Water is distilled at a ph of about 6.5.. Just not sure what is going on. Wasn't worried when it appeared to be the same leaves that were originally effected on the first two plants, but now it has hit the Great White, which was previously perfect. It seems to be exclusively the largest set of leafs on the bottom. Top growth looks fantastic.

I was unaware that it was normal for the bottom tri-leafs to die. Guess I was worrying over nothing.

After the yellowing and necrosis spread upward, I began to expect a deficiency in K. I flushed seems how many people seem to recommend doing so at week 5, and then transplanted to their new, final 4 gallon pots. The plants were only very mildly rootbound, but I suppose I'm lucky. I've heard numerous people say that week 5 from seed should be well past a solo cup.

My only question is: how long should I wait to start putting nutes in the 4 gallon ocean forest pots?

The problem is/was definitely K deficiency (among other things, probably), as I can see the small spots on the edge of the leafs on the GWS. Having said that, the spread of yellowing seems to have stopped, and I'm seeing new growth nodes and vertical growth since transplantation. If they keep growing like they are now, I might actually be due to flip the switch by December. My current intent is to give a full dose of big bloom and grow big the next time they need watered. Because they are now in the full size pots, I imagine that it may be another few days before I need to water again, though.

In the meantime, I may do a light foliar feeding to hold them over while the roots grow into the new medium.

I was really debating doing an LST with these girls, but as it is my first grow I'm thinking maybe I should just keep it as simple as possible.