Third time's the charm - femmed white widow in hydro

[Help_Needed]

Well, here goes grow number three. Hopefully it will be even more successful as my last one Yeah I know, I called the last grow my "first" but it was really only my first harvest. There was an earlier grow attempt that failed when all the plants ended up too manly for use. So this is #3...


Strain - Femmed white widow from Dr. Cronic. No manly plants for me this time. And I've got to say that I was really impressed with the Doc's speed, and his "stealth" packaging left me laughing for hours.


Grow Style - Not going to try anything fancy, but I am going to work on improving my yield over last time. I've heard that white widow gets tall during flowering so I'll be topping all of the plants at least once before I turn them on to 12/12. I want o get some short little bushes going and then I'll flower em.

Grow Location - Hydro hut ...in the closet of course. It's the only way to keep nosy people and curious dogs out of my grow. Especially the dog...he's decided he likes the taste of weed. Not sure where he found it, but I caught him munching on a small nugget last night. I must have dropped it while I was jarring my last crop this weekend. And I've got to say a naturally hyper min-pin who's high on weed is NOT a good thing rofl.


Lighting - CFL's for the first couple of weeks until they're truly in veg. Then 400 watt HPS for the rest of the grow


Grow Medium - Well, hydro, DUH! . I've got a drip feed, 6 plant DWC system. And yes, I'll be using the Lucas Formula again. It's easy. It's stable. And it gives good results. If it ain't broke, don't fix it .


Other thoughts - I've read somewhere that WW doesn't like a lot of nutes and burns easily, so I'll have to be careful about that, especially when I bring the nutes up to full strength for flowering. I may not be able to run at 950ppm, even with HPS lighting.

Also, on a sad note, my grandmother is very sick and they don't expect her to make it until Christmas . So there's a very good chance during this grow that I'll be making a 3-4 day trip out of town during the grow. With the Lucas Formula I won't have to worry about the pH or nute concentration too much, but I will need to work something out to keep the reservoir topped off while I'm gone. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Help_Needed]

While visions of sugared buds danced in their heads .

I put five seeds in rapid rooters to get them germinating. Hopefully I'll have 4 or 5 new little girls in a week or so.

[Help_Needed]

Well, it wouldn't be a Help_Needed grow if there weren't any problems, and I've already got my first lol.

I tried to set up my brand new, shiny hydro hut yesterday. Apparently whoever packed the box at the factory had trouble counting to four. My box had 5 bottom corner poles, and only 3 top corner poles. Needless to say it's all back in the box and I'll be going back for a new one today.

No sign of sprouts yet, but hey, it's only Day 1 .

[privatepile]

1ST of all i am sorry to hera about your grandmother.

I am growing WW at the moment.I also understand that you have to be carefull with the nutes.They dont like to much food.I suggest starting with very diluted solutions.Probably 1/4 strength.

[Bigbudblazer]

Sounds great, I'm about to embark on my first hydro grow and I am looking at some fem seeds from dr chronic too, still can't decide what kind..Any suggestions ? I am also going to apply the Lucas Method, I'm glad to hear that it maintains the PH levels fairly well.

[Help_Needed]

Originally Posted by Bigbudblazer

Sounds great, I'm about to embark on my first hydro grow and I am looking at some fem seeds from dr chronic too, still can't decide what kind..Any suggestions ?

I'm a newb smoker so couldn't tell you much about strains at all. The Doc has a fairly good reputation though, so I'm sure whichever strain you go with will be good.

I am also going to apply the Lucas Method, I'm glad to hear that it maintains the PH levels fairly well.

That's a pretty significant understatement. The pH doesn't move at all, really, except when I added nutes to the reservoir. And then all it took was an insanely minor adjustment to put things exactly where I wanted them.

[SmknVTEC]

Hey man sounds good. Best wishes for granny. I am growing WW right now in soil. Do you have pics of the hydro hut?

[Help_Needed]

Originally Posted by SmknVTEC

Hey man sounds good. Best wishes for granny. I am growing WW right now in soil. Do you have pics of the hydro hut?

It's still in the box lol. I'll get some pics as soon as I have everything set up.

[Mr.GoodStuff]

I forgot you were doing a new thread man! White widow huh? Great strain, especially medical. Grows monster colas too- especially with the HPS! Very happy for you bro- major improvements all around this run. Very impressed.

About the leaving thing-

One option is to reduce nutrient solution strength down to the level the plants eat and drink at the same speed and have a lot more solution in the rez than normal. This way the Ph doesn't get too out of whack even if you leave for a whole week, and with enough nutrient solution you could leave for over 2 weeks if you left your light high enough so that the plants didn't grow into while you are gone.

With enough water and the right nutrient strength, you could probably not even touch it except when changing the light cycle. One of my friends is sick and I'm trying to design a mostly self-maintaining hydroponics system that requires very little attention.

But I can't wait to see this one... Should make for a great read!

[Help_Needed]

Yeah, this will really be just 3-4 days, tops. I'm out of vacation time at work so I'd only have 3 days of bereavement leave to use.

Honestly, I think if I top off the rez with a bit of extra solution it'll probably be ok.

[SmknVTEC]

Originally Posted by Help_Needed

It's still in the box lol. I'll get some pics as soon as I have everything set up.

Take a picture of the box on the side with the if you can. Also keep the box and receipt if you can. There are some guys out there with killer hydro huts. Just wanna make sure yours is not one.

[Help_Needed]

It's been a few days since my last entry and unfortunately there have been a couple of rather bad setbacks. I'm actually considering scrubbing this grow and trying again in a couple of weeks (once a new set of seeds gets here).

I did finally get the hydro hut set up, although it just barely fits in the closet. I'm very impressed with the quality of the hut's construction, although it's a bit of a bitch to assemble. And unfortunately I didn't realize that I hadn't attached the flange for the exhaust port until after it was up. There is absolutely NO room to maneuver in there, so I'm going to have to partially disassemble the hut to put the flange in. Same goes for any other flanges I want to install. I've got some pics of the hut below, for those who are curious. I don't have everything set up in side yet. In fact the HPS is still in the box (in front), and I have the two new mother plants that I grabbed from the last grow in there too, for now.

Four of the five seeds sprouted over the weekend. Two of them stretched really fast, and I don't think it was the light, since I'm using the same lighting as last grow and I didn't have this problem. I did remove the humidity dome, though, so I can move the light down a bit closer.

That said, I've already lost two of the sprouts. As I mentioned earlier, my dog likes the taste of weed, and I was stupid enough to leave him unattended in the room with the closet door open for a couple of minutes. *munch, munch, munch* Let's just say that I came very close to forgetting how much I love the little guy . Ah well, at least two of them survived, and I learned my lesson. On the plus side, I took a peak and it looks like the fifth seed has cracked open, so I may end up with a third plant.

Last, I received the very sad news that my grandmother passed away on Saturday morning . While we all knew she was very ill, her passing was even sooner than expected. It also puts me in a bad spot with this grow, since seedlings are really too fragile to leave unattended for the 4 days or so I'm going to be gone for the funeral. I may just say to hell with it and order another set of seeds and start this grow over when I get back. Or maybe I'll just set things up the best I can and if they're alive when I get back, so be it.

[SmknVTEC]

Sorry about grandma. If you water the seeds in good they should be ok for 4 days I would think.

[Bigbudblazer]

I'm very sorry to hear the news about your grandmother. Hopefully the grow will work itself out, if not, like you said, you can just start all over with some new seeds.

[Help_Needed]

Originally Posted by SmknVTEC

Sorry about grandma. If you water the seeds in good they should be ok for 4 days I would think.

They're not in soil yet, just in the rapid rooter plugs. My plan was to move them into the hydro setup once they got their first set of true leaves in. The plugs don't hold much water. Should I go ahead and plant them now? Or maybe put them in soil for a few days since that's a bit steadier?