Hydro Drip Nirvana NLxBB and AK-48 1st Grow florescents

[d3former]

This is my first grow wanted a way to document my grow so i can improve on it next grow. First grow, been planing for a while. I never really posted much just used the search button here and answered anything I could think of lol. Built my own hydro system cause it seemed to be the easiest clean up for my application and everyone talks about how easy it is to build your own hydro. Hydro is a drip system with a 5 gallon Res watering 3 times every 28 hours for 15 mins using Fox Farm hydro nutes with rockwool medium. Lights are 4 florescent 40 watt 4 foot 6700k bulbs on 20/4 cycle.

Planted 4 NLxbb and 4 Ak-48 Germinated seeds on Feb. 1
Let them germinate to long and had trouble planting almost lost an ak48 but healthy now.

High temp =75F
Night Temp=67
RH High - 55
RH low-40

Planted 1 Purple bag weed (PBW) germinated seed on Feb.7

I want to find 3 good mothers out of these that i can make clones from and have a veg room setup more then likely an ebb n flow system so i can take 4-5 clones every 4 weeks so i can be harvesting every 4 weeks. But i got a while till then anyways heres pics from up to now.

Pic 1 plants at Day 7
Pic 2 NLxBB at day 14 and PBW at day 7
Pic 3 AK-48 at day 14
Pic 4 Side View from AK48
Pic 5 Grow Room
Pic 6 Side View from NLxbb
Pic 7 NLxBB Close up
Pic 8 AK48 Close
Pic 9 Ak48b Close
Pic 10 PBW close at 7 days

[d3former]

Whats the least amount of nodes i wanna have before i can do my first top?

[THesCientist]

Originally Posted by d3former

Whats the least amount of nodes i wanna have before i can do my first top?

Wait till there's growth above the second node. Then give her a top. Looking great man, I like the drip set up.

++

[d3former]

Well I took out one of the girls today to look at the growth and I figured I take a pictue to find out where i should be topping at the RED line or the YELLOW line so if someone could look at that and let me know where to cut her at it would help a lot. Also took a picture of the bottom of the rockwool and looks like i need to get her into a bigger pot what size should I get so i dont have to move her again allowing for growth up to 4 feet?

[redItreefrog]

slightly below the red line. just slightly.

[d3former]

Originally Posted by redItreefrog

slightly below the red line. just slightly.

Just above the 2 branches or below?

Just above, there is a nice tutorial floating around.

[d3former]

Did some maintenance and changed out my res this week. Plants took off this week got a few issues though. First one is almost all the plants have a little bit of green mold growing on the top part of the rockwool, the area explosed to light guess thats why they make those little white covers. Going to do a search on here to see what people recommend after this update. Second issue is this NLxBB runt, this little guy has been giving me issues from the start and because of that has had some serious stunt in growth. So, I'm going to put it to death later this week which works out cause my drip system can only support 8 plants and the baby purple bag weed needs a dripper. Lastly I topped all the plants for my first time ever this week how good of a job did i do?


Pic 1 NLxBB runt sentance to death later
Pic 2 Group NLxBB (look how much smaller the runt is)
Pic 3 Group AK47
Pic 4 Got mold
Pic 5 largest plant, ak47 top view
Pic 6 largest ak47 side view Freshly Topped

[d3former]

I went out today and got some pots and hydroton so i could replant all my babies. Before I transfered I found a post on here about that Mold issues I had and they said just cut off the mold off the rockwool so thats what I did. The pots I bought only allowed for 7 plants in my grow area so I had to take out another plant today So, I took out the smallest NLxBB. That leaves me with 3 NorthLights x Bigbuds, 3 AK47, and 1 Purple Bag Seed. Also bought some Rootech Cloning Gel and a Humidty tent so I can be ready to take some clones soon and figure out sex

[Maverick223]

Looking good!

[d3former]

Well, it was clonning week this week. Pulled a clone from each of the 30 day old plants on sunday and they are very droopy today hopefully they perk back up. Keeping them at 85-90% rh and 75 degrees using rootech cloning gel in 1" rockwool cubes. Plants are reallying growing moving the lights twice a week now on the big guys im hoping the 3 smaller guys catch up quick. I cant belive the size of these fan leaves on the ak48 they are huge. Also added 6 tablespoons of Big Bloom and Grow Big and brought water up to 5 gallons.

Smell was starting to become an issue in my house even though grow room is behind 2 closed doors the smell from the ak48 has lingered through out the house so I built a carbon filter. Mats were pretty cheap for me since I already had a fan i could use:

4" computer fan
Chicken wire fencing
Pair of stalkings ripped and half at croch
4" rubber cap
4" Metel duct rounder
Duct Tape
Active Carbon

I used an old computer power supply and wired it so the on/off switch on the power supply controls the fan. Then I connected the carbon filter fan to a fan speed controler so I can adjust the speed of the fan so its not as loud. Seems to be working pretty good real test will be when we start budding.

[d3former]

Quick update about the grow started sexing last week showed sex this week. Today they are 6 weeks old now. Found 4 males out of 9 plants. One of the slow growing NLxBB survied to be a female so she got replanted. So that "leaves" me with:

2 Ak48
3 NLxBB
1 pbw (Male)

Going to take the 3 males dry them out and make some butter in my crockpot did a few searches on here for some reciepes but if anyone has one they recommend please let me know. and can I just chop up the plants real small and put them into the pot.

[d3former]

Well I haven't done a real update in a while it feels like. Just wanna recap some things on my other posts. I had issues with my clones I couldn't get them to take root my feelings on why is because the rockwool cubes I used didn't really hold the plant well they were the 1" pargro cubes. So, I never did get a batch of clones going. I'm going to start from seed on my next grow anyways.

I also experimented with making butter with my males this week. I'm not sure exactly what I did wrong but, didn't get much of a high off the brownies I made. I think I may have left the butter in my Crockpot too long. I had it on low for 15 hours and didn't stir it up really at all kinda just put it in the pot and left my house lol. So, I think that may be part of the reason why.

Ive also decided that I didn't put enough carbon into my homemade scrubber cause its not really working effectively. My tube is only about 1/3 of the way full of carbon and I'm thinking that it may need to be around 90% full for it to work effectively at removing the smell would love some input on this cause I've never seen one in real life.

Something else I'd like some input on is my watering schedule. It's kinda difficult for me to find much input on a water schedule for a drip system. Right now I'm watering my plants 3 times a day during light hours for 30 min a time and not watering at all at night. So basicly they get watered as soon as the lights come on, in the "afternoon", and before lights go out. Is this a good schedule and should I add a few waters at night also?

Lastly this week was my week to change my res out. Still having this orange clay crap in my res from my hydrotron I really wish I would have washed these out better. Got rid of the male Purple Bag Weed after it was confirmed to be a male this week. These 5 females I got left are really showing the hairs on them, I'm surprised how fast they have taken off. Hopefully next week I'll have a digi cam so I can take some up close shots of the buds but until then enjoy:

[aregan35]

wow looking good

[d3former]

Went out lastnight and finally got some 2700k light bulbs to switch out for these 6700k bulbs. Wish it wouldn't have taken me so long to do but, the plants seemed to be doing fine with out them anyways.