Day 1, 1st indoor grow

Strains: Blue Dream (2), Blue Queen (1), and Strawberry Cheesecake (1) from Dark Heart Nurseries.

Setup:
5x5x7 vivosun tent
2 600W LED Viparspectra w/ dimmers
AC infinity Cloudline T6 air outtake fan w/ carbon filter (no air intake fan)
2 clip-on fans

Soil/nutrients:
Foxfarm Ocean Forest soil
Fish fertilizer (organic) 5-1-1
Eleanor's VF-11 0.15-0.85-0.55
Rooting powder
Distilled water (until R/O filter arrives)
NOTE: gathered nutrients during COVID-19 quarantine so the best option was to snag these at the local hardware/garden store.

Day 1:
Sprinkled rockwool on clones with rooting powder and plant in 2gal fabric buckets w/ foxfarm. Lightly watered w/ distilled water and half suggested dosage of nutrients.

Stress trained begining of limbs with the pinch and roll technique. Damaged one limb horribly not knowing my own strength, hope it bounces back healthy!

Those lights will be fine for vegetation but they aren’t going to cut it for decent growth in flower for 25 square feet of growing area. Those lights each only pull 260W so your looking at only 20.8W/sqft. For that type of LED light you’re going to want double that, but I would recommend putting that money into something better, rather than two more of those lights. Good luck with your grow! It can be very addicting

Also forgot to mention to try to avoid any training for now. Let them get acclimated in their pots so they can get rooted in there before you stress them in any way.

Hey @TreeFarmerCharlie thanks for the input! I was slightly afraid of the LED output after doing some further research (HPS was the tech we used a decade ago, but now we have options with better full spectrum and energy usage - want to keep this home grow cheap).

The Samsung panels look decent but do you have any recs? Should I ditch LED alltogether for flower?

Trew said:

Hey @TreeFarmerCharlie thanks for the input! I was slightly afraid of the LED output after doing some further research (HPS was the tech we used a decade ago, but now we have options with better full spectrum and energy usage - want to keep this home grow cheap).

The Samsung panels look decent but do you have any recs? Should I ditch LED alltogether for flower?

Click to expand...

Quantum boards are amazing but I haven’t had the extra cash to purchase them for my own tent yet. I run two of THESE in my 4x4 tent and they are fantastic for the price. I bought them with the expectations that they wouldn’t be that great, but I’ve had really good results with them for 2 years. If you have the cash to spend on a quality QB setup then I’d go with that. If you don’t, then the light I linked to is great for the money.

UPDATE: Day 3 veg

Normally wouldn't update this fast, but notice I damaged the ladies Newbie mistake.

Had them all on stilts to help the premature LST (also too hard). Blue Dream #2 and Dream Queen lost a limb. Blue Dream #2 is still on stilts today.

Watered them will molasses yesterday. Slowly watering to guage at first. Tested soil pH and to no surprise it's perfect (for now). Decided they need a haircut from yellowing leaves. Diagnosed the yellowing as under watering and over heating.

Their close-ups:

Blue Dream #1


Blue dream #2


Strawberry Cheesecake:


Dream Queen:

Mollases and haircuts already? I tend to leave my plants alone for first 2 weeks and have great results. Good luck tho

You need to leave the plants alone if you want them to do well. Every time you cut leaves you are setting them back and, IMO, you should never have to cut leaves unless you are doing it to a newly clipped clone before you put it in solution to root. When you cut them because "they have yellow tips" you are aren't fixing anything...you are just hiding the actual issue from yourself and making issues harder to diagnose. Let the pot dry out, water it until you get run-off, and then step away and leave them be until they are ready to be watered again.

You also shouldn't need to crutch them like that. Get a light breeze in there that GENTLY rocks them back and forth and they will strengthen up. Bracing them just lets the stems get away with being weak.

Definitely taken into consideration everyone. Thanks for the feedback. Seems I'm a being a bit too eager.

Crutches removed and only water for now. Spread the plants apart more as well and topped off watering until drainage occurred.

Trew said:

Definitely taken into consideration everyone. Thanks for the feedback. Seems I'm a being a bit too eager.

Crutches removed and only water for now. Spread the plants apart more as well and topped off watering until drainage occurred.

Click to expand...

The vast majority of us did the same when we started out. It took me over a year to finally figure out how to water properly. When you finally nail it down correctly, from the beginning of a grow, you will see that your plants look like textbook cannabis plants during veg (unless they have mutations), and they will be so much more predictable with their growth. For the first year all my plants looked like little mutants during the seedling and early veg stages and it was all due to me over watering. I was just lucky that I didn't over water them enough to kill them.

Day 5 veg:

Recovery seems to be swimmingly so far except for one of the Blue Dream.

Watered a second time last night. Misting lightly once on off days. Lowered lights to 24in. and dimmed to 50%.

Realized I need a more accurate space heater.

Strawberry Cheesecake showing some browning on just one leaf, perhaps light burn? The others are showing light burn symptoms I believe with the yellowing pattern.


The rest:




Blue Dream:



Space Queen:


Strawberry Cheesecake:

Micro Update:

Adjusting with stride. Temperature level has been down to 73.0% or %72 a few times.

Top Left: Strrawberry cheesecake
Right: Space Qween
Bottom Left: Blue Dream #2
Right: Blue Dream #1

Quarantine has given lots of time for reading... Luckily I'm still working so I'm not messing with the plants at all. Environment has stayed a steady 73-78° F and 40-50% humidity. Hardly ever swings 1 or 2 units passed max/low for both and it's brief.

Deep green is showing back up faster. Lowered the lights 4in to 20in. and adjusted dimmer to 60% (~162W true output between both lights) hoping that gives them light they agree with more while helping with heat at night.

Tested soil pH, still reading 6.5. to my understanding that's the max I want. Tested distilledwater (tested 4 or lower). Got it up to 6.0 with pH Up.

Added another fan (on base for now but has clip) to increase circulation - they're all gently swaying now.

Almost end of week 1 vegging these clones. Made mistakes and growing as new growers do. Praying for an eventful week 2!

Posing some setup pics after misting and organizing.

Actually decided to dial the lights back to 24in. height and 50% dim. Reason being the yellow still on the leaves (BD #1&2 especially). After eliminating everything but light and lots of reading, they may not be well rooted yet and it's too much light.

Hoping for solid root growth to occur before turning up the lights for some more plant growth. The new growth coming in so far looks satisfactory. Leaves attached to limbs that suffered damage from the pinch and roll day 1 may just need to be ignored for the new growth as it shouldn't matter much later on.

In the meantime, patience...

Attached some non-burple pics for reference. In order: SC, SQ, BD #1, BD #2

Fuckin proud of these stats past night. Really dialing in the Temp and RH mgmt. Important with a whole new setup probably as I see many people struggling with those issues.

Plants seemed to love the higher humidity (50% avg) over night. Considering their previous environment, makes sense. Bumped RH to 50-55% target range for now. Bumped light dimmers to 60% as well to support the new growth up top.

Watching pH and Nitrogen now for the yellowing.

Preparing for a decent investment in a quality dehuey for flower as my location is naturally humid.

Soil pH jumped from 6.5 last reading to 7.0 ... Explains yellowing - think it's nute burn in conjunction with branch damage inhibiting essential flows to certain leaves (namely the BD is affected). Over nuted if anything due to the early feeding. The BD may also need more Nitrogen now at 1wk. Glad I got that 5-1-1 fish fertalizer in anticipation. Higher humidity may help rebuild some of that with promoting leaf water intake. Noticed some signs of over watering, so watching soil moisture closely. They're almost due for the next water. Re-assessing then.

At this point, I cut off 1 inevitably dying limb/branch from each BD. They need to catch up and those were going anyways.

Day 8 - 4/6/20

Flushed BD #1&2 with distilled water @ about 4 pH. Somehow they're still reading almost 7. Thinking the pH needs time to adjust. They're looking happier without the dying limbs and began producing more up top.

SC going beast, may top that long before the others.

Adjusted light height to keep 24in distance. Keeping right dimmer @ 60%, left is now dialed down to about 40%. New tips on the BD still showing up yellow. Wondering if that's just the genetics.

Also put a heating pad under the BDs hoping to help them flourish. Notice floor temp is much cooler than the tent.

Started running 60% RH last night and keeping the temp toward 78% F but not above. Been running the outtake fan low as possible. Bumped it a little higher to keep air fresh so no mildew or etc. surprises me.