First Grow: 400 watt HPS, Permafrost, White Widow, White Rhino, Blackjack

Hello Fellow Stoners! I'd like to start by thanking all of the pros of RUI who posted all of the great advice that I've learned along the way. I couldn't have done it without you guys.

Here is my setup:

Garage Cabinet Dimensions: 4ft wide x 2.5ft deep x 7ft tall
Cabinet has 3 separate areas: Flower room, clone room, veg room
Flower room: Powered by 400 watt HPS,
Cooled by 2 x 4” axial intake fans, 2 x mini fans for circulation, 1 exhaust fan w/ carbon sock.

Veg & Clone rooms: Powered by 125 watt CFL
Cooled by 1 x 4” axial exhaust fan with passive intake, 1 x mini fan for circulation.

Strains:
Permafrost, White Widow, White Rhino, Blackjack

The Permafrost and WW started out as clones. The WR & BJ are from the Nirvana seedbank.

The Plan:

I will be growing 3 strains after this first go around, Permafrost, WR, & BJ since they are all well know for their medical use. My current clones and seedlings are 1 week old. They will spend another 3 weeks under the CFL before I take cuttings and move them into the flower room. The plants will spend 8+ weeks in the flower room until they are harvested. A month after the first harvest I will have a turn-around of harvesting 3 plants every month.

My current dilemma:

The summer heat has turned the garage into a sauna. The cabinet temps get up to the mid 90’s when the light is on and drops to the mid 80’s when the light is off. I’m running the light at night to help with the heat but that is about all I can do at this point. I started the Permafrost and WW outdoors so they are used to the high temps. The good thing is that the cabinet stays about 5 degrees cooler than the garage so I’m assuming that I have good airflow in the flower room. The bad thing is that my first set of seedlings and clones boiled to death in the cabinet. They were not used to the high temps, so I took all of the equipment out and moved it indoors and set up shop in the spare shower. The new seedlings and clones love the mild mid 70’s temps and are doing well. The pics show the plants 1 week into flowering, the seedlings and clones are also 1 week old. Any advice is greatly appreciated and I will keep you posted on the progress.

Subscribed! Looks like a well planned operation. I plan on doing a Blackjack grow soon, as soon as I master my cloning technique. Its nice to have someone posting a blackjack grow. Thanks for posting and best of luck with the grow.

itsgrowinglikeaweed said:

Subscribed! Looks like a well planned operation. I plan on doing a Blackjack grow soon, as soon as I master my cloning technique. Its nice to have someone posting a blackjack grow. Thanks for posting and best of luck with the grow.

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Cloning technique? Build a clone machine like I have in my pics. It's cheap and easy to build and from what I hear they have almost 100% success rate. I have had 6 cuttings in mine for the last week and have roots forming on 1 cutting so far. Its kind of like the famous infomercial, "JUST SET IT AND FORGET IT".

jrp677 said:

Cloning technique? Build a clone machine like I have in my pics. It's cheap and easy to build and from what I hear they have almost 100% success rate. I have had 6 cuttings in mine for the last week and have roots forming on 1 cutting so far. Its kind of like the famous infomercial, "JUST SET IT AND FORGET IT".

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Thats what my intentions are. Waiting for the results. Or should i say the roots.

subscribed, I just recieved my Blackjack seeds from Nirvana yesterday along with Aurora Indica and Chrystal. It will be nice to see how your BJ responds throughout your grow so I can learn a little bit about the strains do's/dont's.

thanks!

As far as your heat issue, I am not sure how I would lower the temps... but something to think about, if your garage is hot in the summer it will likely be too cold in the winter (especially with lights off) so it might be worth getting a insulated tent or build a room in there. that way you would have a bit more room and also you could rig an AC or heater up pretty easily. I know what you mean about the high temps though.. in the middle of the summer its a pain in the ass.

Ahhh, very nice Mr. Ganja. I bet you'll have roots in 1 week's time.

Mame: I'd be real interested to see your Aurora indica grow. I was very tempted to order those as well as Papaya, both look like heavy weight knockouts. Are you going to start a grow journal?

Looking good man, really nice setup too.


keep us updated bro....

jrp677 said:

Mame: I'd be real interested to see your Aurora indica grow. I was very tempted to order those as well as Papaya, both look like heavy weight knockouts. Are you going to start a grow journal?

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Yeah I will be. I am about to chop down some bagseed later this week... at the same time I will start germing. I plan on 4 each of the 3 strains i got for a total of 12 plants. I will post a link for you when i get the journal started.

mame said:

Yeah I will be. I am about to chop down some bagseed later this week... at the same time I will start germing. I plan on 4 each of the 3 strains i got for a total of 12 plants. I will post a link for you when i get the journal started.

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12 Plants, LUCKY YOU! Oregon medical marijuana law only allows for 6 plants over 1 ft high and 1 ft wide . I'll keep my eyes pealed for your journal.

https://www.rollitup.org/2845979-post185.html all are blackjack except the one taller one.. that is bag seed.. What i find funny is the blackjack has very indica like leaves (thick and fat) and the bag seed is showing traits of sativa. (thin leaves)

Day 14 of flowering:

The heat wasn’t as intense this last week and I was able to get the temp down about 10 degrees by keeping one of the doors open during the light hours. The cabinet stays about 5 degrees cooler than ambient temp during the off hours so there isn’t an issue when the lights go out. The plants seem to be reacting positively to the lower temps but I am still not seeing any flower clusters forming yet. I didn’t state this in my first post; the two bushy plants are permafrost and the single cola is white widow. My current exhaust is powered by a 265 CFM squirrel cage fan which I took the carbon sock off of to help circulate the hot air out of the cabinet. I’ve very concerned that the plants will start to smell in the upcoming weeks and that I will no longer be able to keep the carbon sock off or keep the door open during the light hours so I purchased a 465 CFM fan which I’ll install sometime this week. Hopefully the air exchange will be rapid enough to allow me to close up the cabinet without heat issues. If not then I will hook up the 265 as well and run both. If that doesn’t work then I’m screwed. Within the last week the roots from the seedlings popped out of the sides of the grow plug so I transplanted them into a 3” pot where they will stay for the next couple of weeks. The taller of the seedlings is the white rhino and the other is blackjack. I’ve been a bit disappointed in the seedlings slow / lack of growth over the last week. I expected to have at least 3 sets of leaves by now. I keep the 125 watt CFL within 1-2 inches of the plants and the temps stay between 75-80 degrees so WTF is the problem? Also, the seedlings have a weird light green, kind of sickly look to them, is this normal for sprouts? The clones on the other hand have really taken off. I changed out the water in the clone bucket at the beginning of the week because they still weren’t showing signs of root development. I don’t know if that made any difference but holy F-Bomb, the clones really took off! I planted the clones in soil and watered them with ½ strength rooting solution. I also watered the seedlings with the same solution with the hope it will give the seedlings a kick in the pants. I’ll be keeping the best permafrost clone and then I’ll donate the rest back to the place who gave me the PF and WW clones I got started with. So this is where I stand now, the clones and seedlings will continue to veg under the 125 CFL for the next two weeks before I take cuttings, transplant them into bigger pots, and move them into the flower room. Please feel free to comment if you have any advice or ideas of how I could be doing this better.

I agree the seedlings look a bit pale, sickly. Perhaps you've been overwatering them? I bet they'll green up since you've transplanted them.
Peace...-IGLAW

itsgrowinglikeaweed said:

I agree the seedlings look a bit pale, sickly. Perhaps you've been overwatering them? I bet they'll green up since you've transplanted them.
Peace...-IGLAW

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Until today the clones and sprouts have been on a 24/0 cycle. Is it possible that the continuous hours of light caused the problems I'm having with the sprouts? I switched the cycle to 18/6 today and will keep it that way until I move them into the flower room. I considered that I may be overwatering but I thought that droopy leaves were a sign of over watering. These aren't droopy but they seem to be curling under. Sorry about the poor quality pics but I think you get the idea. What do you think?

Its tricky because the plant responds the same way to over AND under watering. Either way, droopy. But your right its not so much droopy as curled. So i looked at all the pics again and....

I think the seedlings are too close to that light. Seedlings dont need that much light. The leaves are curled under to avoid the light.

itsgrowinglikeaweed said:

Its tricky because the plant responds the same way to over AND under watering. Either way, droopy. But your right its not so much droopy as curled. So i looked at all the pics again and....

I think the seedlings are too close to that light. Seedlings dont need that much light. The leaves are curled under to avoid the light.

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Thanks IGLAW, that makes sence. I moved things around a little, now the seedlings are about 4 inches from the bulb. Hopefully that will do the trick.

jrp677 said:

Thanks IGLAW, that makes sence. I moved things around a little, now the seedlings are about 4 inches from the bulb. Hopefully that will do the trick.

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A day and a half ago my seedlings were yellowish, stunted, and curling up. the light was about 1 inch away from the seedlings but is now about 5 inches away. WHAT A DIFFERENCE! The seedlings are getting darker and actually growing now. I have a bad feeling that the seedlings won't be big enough to take cuttings from in a week and a half but maybe they'll surprise me. Thanks again IGLAW for the great advice. Peace out Homies, new update every Tuesday.

jrp677 said:

A day and a half ago my seedlings were yellowish, stunted, and curling up. the light was about 1 inch away from the seedlings but is now about 5 inches away. WHAT A DIFFERENCE! The seedlings are getting darker and actually growing now. I have a bad feeling that the seedlings won't be big enough to take cuttings from in a week and a half but maybe they'll surprise me. Thanks again IGLAW for the great advice. Peace out Homies, new update every Tuesday.

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Sweet! Stay green.

I have a 19 inch white widow plant and in a week im about to put it in for flowering. how much bigger will it get under a 600 watt hps light from now to harvest?

medgrower420 said:

I have a 19 inch white widow plant and in a week im about to put it in for flowering. how much bigger will it get under a 600 watt hps light from now to harvest?

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I can't tell you from experience since this is my first grow but from what I've read you should expect the plant to almost double in size by harvest time. Nice plant btw.

Subscribed... looks real good...

and just as a rule of thumb... Sativas can triple in size during flower.. Indicas usually double...