Mars Hydro PrimeDay Giveaway Grow Journal

Hello all!

Finally getting around to doing this as part of winning the prize. The tent took longer than expected to get here and my overall life can be quite busy so I've just snapped pictures when I can while working with the plants. I'll update more tomorrow.

Anyways, time to get into it!

Equipment:
MarsHydro 5'x5' 1680D Grow Tent
MarsHydro TSW3000 LED grow light
2x Woozoo 12in oscillating fans
70/30 - coco coir/perlite medium
DynaGro Liquid Nutrients, specifically ProTekt, FoliagePro, MagPro, and Bloom

Plants:
2 x Critical Feminized by Seedsman
3 x Sour Diesel Feminized by Seedsman (1 extra kinda by accident)
2 x Blueberry Feminized by Seedsman
Got these as freebies during their 4/20 sale and decided to give them a shot. All photoperiod strains.

Germination 8/18:
Threw them into a shot glass with RO water that was mixed with ProTekt and FoliagePro on a very miniscule level. Let them soak for like 7 hours and by then they'd all sunk. At this point I only had 2 of each strain.



Seedling 8/21:
Ignore the terribly built wooden bench thing, didn't have a place to put it until later. After the shot glass soak, just straight into rapid rooters, tore a piece of the bottom and plugged the hole.



Soaked with RO water mixed in a half gallon @ .625ml ProTekt and 2ml of FoliagePro. At this ratio, it stabilizes at a pH of 6.0-6.1. One seedling was struggling to pop out and I thought it was a dud so I started another Sour Diesel to replace it, but it came back! So now there is 7. Probably give the slacker away at some point.



Let them sprout and once I saw roots starting to poke out, into a solo cup they went!

Vegetation 8/24:
Now in solo cups and still currently in cups. Once in the cups changed nutrients to
2ml ProTekt
4ml FoliagePro
2ml MagPro
@ 1 gallon of water
pH comes out to 6.1-6.2 with these ratios



Overall they are doing pretty well! I've only got two other plants under my belt in my first grow, one wasn't the best, the other is drying now and looking amazing. I'm taking all my lessons and applying then here.

With that said, bare with me as it won't be perfect! Last photo for this post, group photo from 8/28:

Quick follow up post!

Would've hit the image cap in the opening post.

Here are some personal images of the plants from 8/31. I'll be sure to give more up to date photos tomorrow along with room setup photos.

I'm so excited to get this opportunity to grow some more of these beautiful plants! Thanks again @MarsHydrofactory for the giveaway and I'll be doing my best with this!

Critical:




Sour Diesel:






Blueberry:

Nice

Update time! Totally didn't get to this when I said I would, but better late than never.

So this new MarsHydro 5'x5' shares space with another 4'x4' tent, making it a bit crowded, but it works!

Here is a picture of the entrance to the tent room:



For ventilation, I'm using am A/C Infinity S6 @ 5th speed level and a Y duct splitter to grab air from both tents and push it out the carbon filter. I know pushing out the filter isn't ideal, but it's cheaper than buying a whole second set of outake ventilation. Definitely will get to this in the future, but working with what I can on the cheap.



Using some small storage shelving, I got most things on there to help save space as I need as much as I can. The walk spaces to get to one side or the other are only like 11" wide.



With this layout I do have access to all tent openings, so that's pretty nice. Basically, just have the tents staggered, but slightly intersecting over the corners to fit in this space.





If you are wondering about temperature and humidity, it was tough dialing it in, but I can actually manage to keep it at max, 82 degrees inside the tent at the hottest point of the day and humidity ranges from 48% to 55%. Living in the southwest, it's a little hotter and dryer so without running my electric bill through the roof, this is what I can do until it cools down around here.

If you have questions about the grow, feel free to ask!

Since I couldn't fit all the pictures in the last post, here is a quick set of photos to look through for plant updates!

Would sort them out, but my work break has ended before I could. Will be more organized in future updates!

More updates!

They were overdue for a transplant and this was done on Wednesday. They've now been out of the ground for 3 weeks now and seem to be enjoying themselves!

I finally got around to better plant labels to keep track of them. The Blueberry strain seems to either a bit defective, especially the Beta one, or they don't like the nutes as much as the Critical and Sour Diesel.

Anyways, things have been going easy. Still using same nutrient ratio from the first post. I have a bit of a time constraint to finish this grow due to personal things, so I will probably send these into flower here soon to get things moving along.

Enjoy the photos! Little bonus photo of a big ol nuggy from a recent harvest.

Top set up. Plants looking lovely

Whoops, been terrible at keeping this updated. Lots of busy stuff in life and what not.

Anyways, here are some updoots.

9/15 - Flipped them to flower, still in 2 gallon pots, and I was trying to give the third Sour Diesel away (the one in the middle still in a solo cup)



9/18 - Little bit LST action

Morning before LST


A bit after LST


Roughly 6 hours later


9/22 - Transfer from 2 gallon fabric pots 5 gallon, still coco/perlite mix, started feeding a slight bit of Bloom and pulled just a tad back on the Foliage Pro in nutrient mix. Ended up keeping the third SD cause the person that was gonna take it couldn't.



Other than that, not much besides growth. I haven't talked about the lighting too much, so here's what I've been doing.
Not really paying attention to height and specific power draw, but instead the PPFD and the DLI levels.
In the ground - first set of three blades: 300-400 PPFD, 25-35 DLI
Veg: Progressively going from 400 to 600-700, DLI being 35, going to 50-60
Flower: 800+ PPFD, 70+ DLI

I am gonna see just how far I can push the light levels for these plants. Although, the TSW3000 is recommended for only 4'x4' flowering space, this is a 5'x5' tent. So we'll see how well it can keep up being pushed to cover more than expected. The PPFD currently in the corners of the tent are still hitting 550-750 depending on how angled my sensor is. Light is only at like 80% draw and nearly max height in the tent.
Temps have been pretty manageable despite the cramped space this tent is in AND sharing it with a 4'x4' containing a whole grow on it's own. IMO, removable drivers are nearly a must for any LED board after experiencing the feature. Helps a lot in the tent temps personally.

Anyways, enjoy the photo spam below! (They're kinda random, I know) Any input or questions are welcomed!

9/24


9/27


9/28 (from front of tent, previous angles were side window shots)


10/2

Lovely lovely lovely. Can I ask if you are going to defoliate a bit?

I'm waiting on my mars hydro stuff to arrive to start one of these journals as well I've got the sp3000 & 4x2 tent coming it has supposedly shipped as of tuesday

horribleherk said:

I'm waiting on my mars hydro stuff to arrive to start one of these journals as well I've got the sp3000 & 4x2 tent coming it has supposedly shipped as of tuesday

Click to expand...

LaBoySM said:

Lovely lovely lovely. Can I ask if you are going to defoliate a bit?

Click to expand...

Thank you!

I did defoliate the bottom quarter pretty heavy, but I am thinking about going back in there and trimming away some of the branches that didn't make it high enough in the stretch. I will probably also remove some fan leaves that either just aren't getting light or could open up a bud site that's high enough for my liking.

On 10/6 we'll be at 3 weeks since flip and about 2 weeks since pistils, so I'd say a good time to free up some leaves since it'll be sugar leaves and bud production from there.

horribleherk said:

I'm waiting on my mars hydro stuff to arrive to start one of these journals as well I've got the sp3000 & 4x2 tent coming it has supposedly shipped as of tuesday

Click to expand...

Yeah I had some troubles getting the tent. Turns out the shipping label had my numbered address twice, i.e, 1234512345 and then the rest. UPS couldn't figure it out somehow... but after a few calls and claims I got it!

Light is very sweet. The TSW3000 is big, but pretty light, especially without the drivers. Recommend using a ratchet hanger for each of the 4 hooks to maximize space cause it's heat output is pretty high. I keep my drivers outside the tent and it does wonders.

The tent is really nice! I don't like that the viewing window is a mesh window and not some clear plastic, but it's whatever, hardly use it anyways. The zipper zips up nicely and doesn't snag as often as my Vivosun tent. I will say the poles seem a little weak, but they do the job and I have pretty high negative air pressure.

koalajesus said:

Thank you!

I did defoliate the bottom quarter pretty heavy, but I am thinking about going back in there and trimming away some of the branches that didn't make it high enough in the stretch. I will probably also remove some fan leaves that either just aren't getting light or could open up a bud site that's high enough for my liking.

On 10/6 we'll be at 3 weeks since flip and about 2 weeks since pistils, so I'd say a good time to free up some leaves since it'll be sugar leaves and bud production from there.



Yeah I had some troubles getting the tent. Turns out the shipping label had my numbered address twice, i.e, 1234512345 and then the rest. UPS couldn't figure it out somehow... but after a few calls and claims I got it!

Light is very sweet. The TSW3000 is big, but pretty light, especially without the drivers. Recommend using a ratchet hanger for each of the 4 hooks to maximize space cause it's heat output is pretty high. I keep my drivers outside the tent and it does wonders.

The tent is really nice! I don't like that the viewing window is a mesh window and not some clear plastic, but it's whatever, hardly use it anyways. The zipper zips up nicely and doesn't snag as often as my Vivosun tent. I will say the poles seem a little weak, but they do the job and I have pretty high negative air pressure.

Click to expand...

So if the weather gets cold you could move drivers back inside the tent? my light has the same power but is longer and more narrow better suited for the 4x2 tent this will be the 4th led I've hat the led I have in my 4x4 I built I'm real anxious to try the mars with the samsung & osram diodes I'll start a journal as soon as I get the light I've already got my seeds soaking I'm gonna have to move my 3x3 to make room my 4x4 is just starting to bud so until it finishes I cant move it I have to make a choice to shut either the 4x4 or the 3x3 down it cost too much to run all 3

horribleherk said:

So if the weather gets cold you could move drivers back inside the tent? my light has the same power but is longer and more narrow better suited for the 4x2 tent this will be the 4th led I've hat the led I have in my 4x4 I built I'm real anxious to try the mars with the samsung & osram diodes I'll start a journal as soon as I get the light I've already got my seeds soaking I'm gonna have to move my 3x3 to make room my 4x4 is just starting to bud so until it finishes I cant move it I have to make a choice to shut either the 4x4 or the 3x3 down it cost too much to run all 3

Click to expand...

Yeah you can move them back in if you'd like. You might run into conflict though if you want to make this change mid grow. Your best bet would be to get some heat resistant gloves cause those drivers are hot. Or go with lights off and just let whatever light support your plants in the meantime. Of course, in flower that's kinda risky.

I shouldn't have much to worry about, in my climate coldest it gets outside at night is about 45°F (7-8°C) and the house pretty much holds in at probably 68-70°F at the lowest with no A/C. It will be my first winter and growing so we'll see just how much it affects the room.

Super bummed right now.

My Feminized Sour Diesel plant is a true hermie.



From my research, I caught it early, but I also read that this type of hermie can't really be changed no matter how much I pluck them balls off.

Do I kill it? It's one of my top performers. I think it might be because I super cropped it on accident in veg, but I didn't think that kind of stress would cause this.

I don't have another tent and my outdoors would kill it in less than a few hours.

Gonna try to pluck for now, but I'm open to some suggestions.

In all honesty. To me it looks like a seed pod and not a pollen sac. Any other better close up pics, just to be extra sure

Stayed up late picking em off, but I did take another picture before I cleaned off all the ones I could find.



It does kinda look like a seed pod, but I didn't think they'd form so early 18 days from flip. None of my other 6 plants have this problem from what I can tell.

Yea man. That's a sac. Let's hope he/she works out ok

LaBoySM said:

Yea man. That's a sac. Let's hope he/she works out ok

Click to expand...

Figured as much. First time happening to me, so it had to go down at some point. I'm gonna try and maintain it, but if it gets out of hand I'll probably let him/her go.

Quick update while I got the time.

Grow is coming along nicely. Day 45 since they came out of the ground and day 20 since flip to flower.







Not too long after watering so they're still drinking up a bit and haven't quite started praying to the light gods.

That hermie hasn't spawned more balls since I snipped them. I've spent the last couple nights just starting at the base, hitting the closest branch, trail up it and scan all the points, go back to the trunk, hit up the next branch and repeat.
Trying my best to watch the clusters of calyxes that are forming, but it's tough. It's getting thick and hairy already.

Anyways, bonus update! Part of the reason why I'm busy is that I'm running another tent in the same space as this one. Just a 4'x4' running 4 autoflowers. They're my first autos and the only auto seeds I've bought. Really interesting things compared to photos that's for sure.



I am happy though that one of the plants I picked based on the purple bud color scheme and name actually is showing hints of purps!



Also, these plants have been out of the ground for....25 days. Autos are fast as heck, that's for sure. Since I picked four different strains though they're all over the place. Luckily I have four separate lights, so I am accomodating to each.

That's all for now though! Coming weeks is gonna be really exciting!