RyGai's 1st Grow (BlackJack, Full Moon and Chrystal)

Hello and welcome to my very first grow journal. This is my first time growing anything, so I hope it all goes well!

I'm a complete novice when it comes to hydroponics, but I want to give it a shot anyway. I'm a fast learner so I'm hoping I'll be able to catch on before I murder too many plants! Anyway, down to business. Here's my setup:

x2 600w HPS Ushio HiLUX GRO Bulbs
x2 Cool Sun Reflectors
240v Lumatek Dual Ballast
x8 40w Fluorescent Lights (for vegetation)
6" 452cfm Vortex Inline Fan (w/ 6" Ducting)
66 CAN Carbon Filter
RO Filtration System

The room is still under construction atm, heres a few pictures so far:



I have my Veg closet briefly set up, with my 12 clones under light. There are 6 Full Moons, 3 Chrystals and 3 BlackJacks. I just got them yesterday (at a very good price)! Here are a few pictures:



I've noticed a few of them look a bit sickly, but I hope they'll turn around. I'm going to transplant them to the 5 gallon pots pretty soon. I'll chose my 3 strongest and keep them as mothers (hopefully 1 of each strain, if the BJ's pick up some speed). I've also got some full moon feminized seeds I'm want to germinate, but I won't even think about that until I get the transplanting done.

After I get a little more work done, I'll update here again. Later guys.

I forgot to make an entry yesterday, so I'll include that today. It's been 5 days since I picked up my clones, I declare 06/27/10 as the official date.

(06/30/10) -- First feed

I fed my clones with a quarter-strength nutrient solution using Cal-Mag, B Vitamins, Advanced Nutrient's Mother Earth and Rhino Skin. This was the first time I've ever fed my plants, and as it turns out it was successful! I mixed the solution up to about 250ppm (as recommended by a friend of mine). It wasn't as difficult as I may have thought, though I still need a lot of practice with this.



Still need to see if the plants turn around after a few days. I'm going to let them get dry before I feed them again (I read it's better to underfeed than to overfeed, so I want to get some practice with this concept).

(07/01/10) -- New reservoir and first transplanted Chrystal

Got some Perlite and a new 40 gallon res at the hydro store today, I just finished setting everything up. I put a water pump into the 22 gallon freshwater res to pump into the 40 gallon one and everything works pretty sweet. Still need to buy a lid for the res though.



Also, plants are doing much better today! I compared pics from today to pics from my last entry and it's easy to see the plants are doing much better than before. They've grown a lot in the last 5 days, it surprises me to see how fast these plants can grow. I have a lot of hope for this first group.

Before
After

I transplanted my weakest (Chrystal) plant to a 5 gallon container today. My mix was 1L of Perlite per container, the rest coco. I flushed the medium and tuned the pH down to 5.8 before transplanting. The root system for the plant was much smaller than I expected it to be, though it was my weakest plant. I'll wait a few days before declaring the transplant successful (I really hope it is!). I'm thinking about waiting to transplant the stronger ones and just let their root systems develop some, but I'll ask around for an opinion about that.



All in all, it's been a very productive 2 days. All I need atm is to board my window, get a 10000btu ac unit and some tape to hang my plastic. Tomorrow I may experiment with transplanting a strong plant, just because I'm curious.

Keep up the hard work Ry

Day 6 (07/03/10) -- A/C Unit installed

Plants were getting too heat-stressed and didn't want it to progress, so I got a 10000btu A/C unit today. I've got it set at 76 (f) on 24/7, but the closet actually reads about 70, which is perfect for the time being. I need to board up the window next.



I also fed the plants with their first full-strength solution, can't wait to see how it goes! Here's what I used:

Sensi Grow A & B
B-52
F-1 & H-2
Voodoo Juice

I mixed exactly what it said to on the label into a smaller 5-gallon res (so I could practice without messing up on a larger scale) and tuned the pH down to 5.8. Hopefully all goes well. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures until the 5th. Picture of the A/C unit was taken on the 5th.

Day 8 (07/05/10) -- Big turnaround

Plants are looking amazing today! Looks like the combination of A/C and nutrients did the trick. Here are some pics:

Mama Full Moon
Almost-dead Chrystal


Day 10 (07/07/10) -- Transplant into 2 gallons

I transplanted a healthy Full Moon and Chrystal plant last night, which look excellent today. Even my sickly Chrystal plant (which I never lost hope of, haha) came back from the dead! Unfortunately, it also brought powdery mildew with it, so I scraped off the top layer. I'll address that issue soon.

2-gallon Chrystal
Back-from-the-dead Chrystal
Mama Full Moon

2-gallon Full Moon in the back

Day 15 (07/12/10) -- More work done on room + feeding day

My A/C unit was dripping water out of the back (a lot) and it pooled under the top layer of plastic. Very annoying. So I moved it aside, wiped it dry and did a little taping since I was at it. It looks very nice. Still have a bit to go though.



Also fed the plants again. They were really dry and it had been a few days since I fed them. They're looking much better than they did in the morning today, they were wilting a bit earlier. Pics were taken after feeding.

Mama Chrystal on left, BlackJacks on right
Very yellow Full Moons, bushy Full Moon on right

Mama Full Moon
Back-from-the-dead Chrystal
Bushy Chrystal

Also, I planted my Full Moon seed. Soaked it in water for a night, then put it between some moist paper towels for a few days. Hope it takes off!

Looking better.
if you need anything let me know

looks good. ill stop by again

Day 21 (07/18/10) -- New fan, day before feeding

I saw a perfect medium-sized fan at home depot today which was perfect for the closet. Just put it in today, temps are nominal. My humidity is very low though, I need to get a humidifier but I can't figure out how to turn the dehumidifier function off my A/C unit. I really don't think it's possible. It said "dehumidifier function" on the box, so I figured you can control it... Guess not.

The Full Moon seed I planted has finally sprouted! It's looking very good so far, I'm really excited for it.

Day 23 (07/20/10) -- Day after feeding

Fed the babies yesterday and they look great again today. I'm at 1100ppm now and they are loving it! I'm not too experienced with exactly what how much nutrients I should give, but I've been following the instructions on the bottles and it's been working nicely. Here's some pics.

I'm thinking about foliar feeding in a few days with Tarantula, to get familiar with foliar feeding while also adding some beneficial bacteria.

Also, while feeding I knocked over the tray I had my seedling in... my heart stopped when I heard it fall over. It was a really terrible choice for a container for a seed now that I think of it (not ever doing that again...). The stem is bent in half and it looks pretty bad, but I'm not going to give up on her. I'll keep dripping her water until she's dead (I really hope she won't die though).

yeah 1100ppm is getting high RY You know how large my mothers are and they only get 1000ppm. FYI if they seem to be wanting more if your using 1100 now and water,water within the week. then i would suggest 1000ppm,800,ppm,water for the week should keep green.
LOOKING GOOD,also im going to be picking up about 6 to 10 more strains within the month.For sure CHEMDAWG,MASTER KUSH,Trainwreck,Blueberry,Cali mist,dont know the remainder yet

Right on man, I'm looking forward for those new strains! I'm switching over to flowering tomorrow, so I'm just going to follow the Advanced Nutrients calc like you said. I'll put some pics up when I do so you can check them out again and see what you think

start planning on getting more clones or cloning you need to get some girls ready to flower
excited for you Ry

pssst I got AK-47 and Diablo now

Hell yeah so you got em huh? Can't wait to see how those turn out Johnny

By the way man, I'm having trouble with humidity and temperature right now. Temps are nominal early on in the day, but toward the end of the cycle it tops out at around 81 degrees... I'm venting everything into the attic. Problem is theres no roof vent up there, so hot air builds up and pumps back into the room. Any idea what I can do? Theres a trapdoor up there that leads to another space in the attic. I'm propping it open atm. Doesn't seem to be helping very much though.

I finally have some cash now, so I'm grabbing a humidifier tomorrow morning. And by the way, I'm a week into flowering now and they are looking great! I'll put some pics up tomorrow

I'm gonna be cloning soon too... I'll ask you more about that later.

after talking to you earlier you seem to have it covered in your flower room on the humidity and remember Jorge says 75* day no more than 10* to 12* lower at nite me I like 65* @ nite n

Keep up the hard work