Skunk, unknown Indica Bagseed, and Il Diavalo Autoflower. Soil and BB 400 watt HPS

Hello everybody this is my second grow journal. My other journal sort of got left in the dust as nobody was commenting and my plants were a joke. I did get a harvest though unfortunately it was only 61 grams dry off of 2 plants. The good news is that its some killer smoke so I guess that makes up a little bit. I made quite a few errors my first go around that I wont make this time thats for sure.

My new plants are an unknown indica bagseed in ffof with fox farm nutes. My bubble bucket plants are some monster cropped clones using the Lucas formula and some Kool Bloom to help keep and phsophorus deficiencies at bay which I had heavily the last go around. Everything this time is way way healthier my roots are pure white and I am getting nine finger leaves on my clones. Last time I got 7 only.

I made a few adjustments to my tent as well first I switched the positioning of the screen to accomodate 3 plants and make it easier for me to work on them. Secondly I got a light mover 3.5 for my 400 watt light with an Eye Hortilux HPS bulb. The reflector is only moving 2 feet on the light rail so I shouldnt get airy buds from a lack of light on the plants right?????

I also switched some parts from Rumples bb design which I think are way better. I had too many problems with all of the pvc parts so now I just use grommets and the difference was night and day when it came to putting them together and keeping them leak free. My screen is already full as you can see and the plants are on the 12/12 schedule. I have a veg cab also which has a 6 bulb H.O. t5 ballast and a 2 bulb H.O. output t5 ballast and they are both 2 feet long. They output 25 watts per bulb so its a little over 200 watts for the veg room which worked out awesome.

My clones were about 20 inches tall when I transferred them into the tent. My screen is positioned 18 inches from/ the top of the buckets and my light is about 10 inches above the plants. In the veg cab there is and Il Diavalo Auto flowering strain and another unknown sativa bagseed. I think that the sativa is getting tossed though because I am sure it is a male but I am waiting for the balls to show up better.

I will do weekly updates with pics and possibly videos. I hope everyone enjoys and hopefully I can get some more visitors.

 

Thanks Naughty its good to have as experienced a grower as you follow along to give me some good advice

 

Ya the light rail was a hell of an investment as I didnt want to invest in another light because my power bill is already sky high and Im a noob still at growing. Plus I need a high power inline fan and a carbon filter before I invest in another light. The light rail is sweet though there is a delay at each end and you can adjust it fro 0-60 seconds to get the same amount of light on all the plants. It took like a half hor to install too. I would not get any other light rail except for the light rail 3.5 or 5. They are all self contained motors no chains or nothing just what moves the light. This will hopefully help me maximize my yields this time.

 

Haha thanks for the compliment. Ya my last plants were given to me from a buddy and they were started on 12/12. They sucked to say the least haha. Anyways my new plants are two monster cropped clones in the bubble buckets and an unknown Indica strain in the soil. Monster cropping is awesome and I would recommend it to anyone just make sure to take the clones from the bottom and when there is buds on them if not it will not be a true monster cropped clone and it wont grow like crazy.

I harvested the last plants to and only got a puny 61 grams but hey you live and learn and let me tell you I learned a lot from my first grow . These ones are a hell of a lot healthier so I am certain I get way more this go around just as long as I dont run into a damned Phosphorus deficiency like I did last time it pretty much killed me. That and the plants sucked all around haha. My next grow is going to be Tangerine Dream, White Widow, and Fruity Chronic Juice. I already have the seeds Im just waiting to start them around week 6 or 7 of flowering. They will all be in bubble buckets as I dont really care for growing in soil as its way to much work. Bubble buckets are easy peasy

 

Haha I was just checking out my last journal and looked at my plants when I got them. God do they look pathetic hahaha

 

Ya I guess I should say that its easy once you know what you're doing. You have to check the ph, ec, and ppm once or twice daily until its dialed in. But is it ever dialed in? The plants change how much nutrients they uptake all through their lifecycle so check it once or twice a day to better your end results. Better if you can do it once in the morning and once before lights out but if you can only do it once a day do it a few hours before lights out and add your water back and nutes if needed. A lot of people will just add water back until they add back as much as their reservoir holds and I did it for 3/4 of my first grow.
But now I just add back nutrients as needed because the other way was way to much work and I was going through nutes like crazy since my plants would drink 3 gals in 3 days and then I have to change my nutes. The batch I have going now has stayed between 800-900 ppms since they could handle it and I have changed the res once.

They are like 30-40 days old I'm not really sure though as I quit taking notes and just started growing. Anyways just add back nutes as needed I usually add back ph-ed water one day then the next day add a light dose of nutes usually an 8/16 dose per gallon of water if you're using the lucas formula. Also, keep the ph at 5.8 when you add water or nutes and I like to let the ph drift so I will go to like 5.7 or 5.6 when I know they need more nutrients just because different nutes are absorbed at different ph levels. I use the lucas formula but not at full strength as it is like 1000 ppm at a .5 conversion scale for the ec/tds meter. I do like 6/12 per gallon for veg and 5/10 in flowering with 8 ml of Kool Bloom per 9 gallons of water. That puts me at 850 ppm at .5 conversion. I definately recommend Kool Bloom or some Phosphorus and Potassium bloom booster when using General Hydroponics micro nutrients.

Wheww this is a lot but bare with me.

Next you need to make sure your water temps are below 75 degrees. If you can go below 70 degrees you will be much better. Also check your airstones weekly them damned things clog about every 16-20 days for me so have lots on hand. I would recommend getting a ceramic stone but they are $30 bucks a piece but I have heard good things. I use the 2" airstones 2 per bucket and they cost like $2 for a pack of four. Im sticking with them since they are cheap as dirt and I dont know personally how the ceramic stones work.

The next thing is make sure you have an inline water pump to circulate your nutes from your res and buckets. It also makes changing nutes a breeze. This is hands down a must for buckets especially if your doing a scrog which you already are.

Make sure your buckets are lightproof also. I am posting my parts for my buckets soon as I tried Rumples bubble bucket design. It works awesome and I still use it I just modified it with better parts. Fuck working with the pvc parts they suck big time and they leak. Rubber grommets are the only way to go I have been leakproof since I switched.

Thats about all I have for what is a necessity with bubble buckets but if you have any questions just ask and Ill help you out the best i can.

 

Alright so I tried to upload a video and i cant because it is 125 mb and they allow you 5 mb for an upload wtf. Anyways does anybody have a solution for me??? I really dont want to upload it to youtube so is there any other way. Plants look awesome today by the way. I think I will go take some pics to share with you all since this vid didnt work.

 

Has anybody grown an autoflower with ffof soil and fox farm nutes. I am curious about how they grow and how they bud? Please help me out!

 

Nobody has any input on autoflowering plants???? Im curious and i have searched and i havent found any real good info on autos except for growing them in a 2-3 gallon pot instead of a five gallon.

 

So i am on my 3rd leafset with my Il Diavolo auto and it already has 5 finger leaves. I am stoked out of 4 soil plants this one is the healthiest and most robust. Ill post a few pics tonight of everything. I also need to tuck my plants under the screen in the flowering room. Ill post some before and after pics of that as well. Those plants are rocking and loving that my 400 watter is hovering about 6" above them. I love this light rail roots are still pearly white and thick. I dont know what i did to my last plants but the roots were never this healthy looking or robust. Nine finger leafsets popping up everywhere and I think my indica is starting to get its bud on. The female pistils are about 2" long its crazy they look like long spears. I think I love this plant the most out of them all. I prayed that she would be female since it was just an unknown bagseed and she was, even with the stress of my dog almost completely eating her earlier in her life. I think I owe my dog an apology as she did more good than bad when she decided to rip her apart

 

----bump----

 

pics from today

 

Nice where were you from upper michigan or lower michigan? Just ran into a problem this morning with my babies. The power went out last night around 10 pm and my heater shut off with it and never turned back on. Needless to say i walked into a 30 degree grow room this morning! Good thing my seedling is old enough to withstand it