2nd Grow - Strawberry Haze & Green Monster (from seed) (pics)

Okay so I had another grow journal, and it was just really cluttered. I'm making this more of for my documentation than anything. So here's my rather more organized grow journal =D

Okay so here's what I got. Not sure if I remembered every little thing, but this is most of if anyway if not all of it.

The cab. The remains from my last grow are still in it. I cleaned it out and gave the closet a good soap and water cleaning before I put anything back in it. Cant remember exactly how big it is but it's something like 22" x 30" and the plants have approximately 3' of ACTUAL vertical grow room (minus pots/light space).

Lights. 400w HPS for flower, and 356w CFL for veg.

Fans. Working on improving that situation. 2 PC fans and some shitty space heater fan. The PC fans push like 36 CFM and the heater fan is probably about the same. Not sure if that's the same as 90 CFM but it's all I got for now. A Valueline 6" inline fan is my next planned purcahse.

The meters are pretty self explanatory. I only use the pH meter (Yes I plan on getting one that measures the pH of liquids...eventually) and the moisture meter really. I just like playing with it sometimes even though I don't take the fertility meter seriously. I know it's not made for marijuana so I'm trying to "calberate" it myself I suppose, seeing where on the meter is the "best" for my plants. Or maybe I'm just high too much lol.

Nutes. FF Grow big (I'll be purchasing the other 2 by the time I go to flowering), Superthrive. Hydrated lime to control the pH.

Soilless medium, everything is listed on the pic. 3 gallon grow bags, I'm using 6 of them.

Timer is just some timer from WalMart. Brinks brand I think, 7 programs, I've never had to worry about it. Never have to reset it or anything.

Magnifying Glass/Handheld microscope for drooling over my beauties.

4" high velocity fan for inside the cabinet. Air movement between the bulbs and canopy.

 

5/4 - Started germinating seeds

5/5 - 5/6 Placed sprouted seeds in root cubes

5/12 - Germinated more seeds

5/13-5/14 - Placed seeds in root cubes


Only getting water with an extremely mild SUPERthrive (1/8th tsp/gal; watered down to 1/4 strength of that) solution.

 

5/20 - Transplanted int 8.5 oz Styrofoam cups, I was told that gradually increasing the container size builds a denser root ball, so that's what I'm trying for.

Didn't really take any pictures, but here's a couple of the seedlings pretty much as they first popped up. And some pics I took right after the transplant.

Started feeding them once I put them in the cups. 1/4 tsp/gal FF Grow Big and SUPERthrive @ drop-a-gallon.

 

5/28 - Wow, so it's only been about a week and I need to transplant again. Got the roots coming out of the bottom of the cups, so I'm going to put them in some 32 oz Styrofoam cups and see how that goes. It was actually rather a surprise. I pulled the cup out of the "holder" cup that catches water run off, and see that huge thing.

Ran into one complication during the transplant (it didn't actually hurt the plant, but I was freaking out at the time.) -- I ripped the bottom half of the root ball off trying to get it outta the damn cup lol. Thankfully nothing bad came of it, and in the end it was actually my healthiest plant.

 

5/30 - Went and got more CFL's today, so I'm now running 356 watts. 62 watts of which are soft white, the rest is daylight spectrum.


Pics. They seem 'pre happy. They're still getting like 1/4 tsp/gal of FF grow big every watering. Along with a drop-a-gallon SUPERthrive

 

6/3 - I noticed that the plants were wilting. They're neither under nor over watered. I assumed it was pH, so I stuck my meter and there and was reading about a 5.5 (I didn't leave the meter in long enough). I tested it again later and got about a 6.2 and it's pretty much stayed there.


I've since found out that the plants were just root bound, well that's not the only problem, but that was what was causing the wilting. Didn't think they'd outgrow the container THAT fast.

 

6/4 - Found a male today, they're about a month old so they'll all start showing sex soon. This will be the first, and hopefully last male. In a way I'm REALLY glad that this happened. I have 7 grow bags and 8 plants. NOW I can transplant. Gonna wait another day or two to see if any of the others show balls.

I was worried about putting a male in a final container and throwing out a potential female. I need to get bigger containers to sex them in before I stuff 'em into their final containers. 1 gallon grow bags maybe?

Oh well. Check out deez nutz.

 

6/5 - Okay so I THINK I might see more balls today. Not sure though. I went ahead and transplanted all the other 6 plants that were showing NO signs of sex at all. Rather not stress them by having them seriously root bound, they look unhappy as it is. I also noticed a discoloring on a couple leaves. Seems to be Mg deficiency. Treated that one with a nute spray over the foliage. Just a real light FF Grow Big mix. Can't hurt. Unless I burn 'em

After the transplant I gave them the standard 1/4 strength mix, but after this I'm going to full strength mix @ 1tsp/gal. I think that may be the reason. Want to try to get my pH up closer to 7 too.

Okay so the pics. The first couple are of the plant I didn't transplant yet, I'm not throwing it out though. It seems as if the first one is a pollen sack and the 2nd looks more like it could be a female about to show her pistils =/

The next are right after the transplant.

And the leaf. Mg? Wasn't the only one but they're all 'pre much the same.

Oh, and I've got 3 of each strain left, minus the one in the cup, which I fucked up and lost the label to. I THINK its a Green Monster. I still have 2 in the smaller cups, seems I stunted their growth in the seedling stage, but they're just now starting to take off. Don't have pics of 'em yet but I'll get some close ups sometime.

 

Wow, finally up-to-date. That was really a pain in the ass to do, but I'm glad I did it.

Anyway, no real change today, they perked up a bit, but I'm not going to bother taking pics. No new signs on the sexing of any of them.

pH is about 6 on all of them, I need to raise that a little bit, I think 6.8 would be ideal?

Temps are running about 80 degrees at the canopy. I can lower the temps by making the intake bigger, but I just haven't gotten around to it.

Humidity is about 37% -- how do I raise this without a humidifier? If I shut off my ventilation it runs up to about 50-55% if I'm patient enough but my heat also goes up to like 87ish.

I did get sloppy with this grow a little though, I have 1 plant which I'm not sure of the strain due to carelessness when transplanting, and another one that I ALMOST messed up the same way. I meant to take better records, such as feeding schedule and everything, but I slacked off. Going to try to do that from this point on.

 

So I decided to flip on that HPS light and see what kind of temps I'm looking @ with my current ventilation....

Before I get into that, I'd like to explain something. My intake is lacking. I have a small 4 inch hole in the bottom/front of the grow cabinet. If it gets too warm, I just kinda pop it out a little to expand the hole. Never tried totally removing it but I'll test that too.

100.3 degrees w/ the board fully in place... I wasn't going to sit there and let the temps get higher. Not sure if they would have or not. I don't really see it going beyond 101 or 102. Either way too hot.

99.0 degrees w/ the board pulled out. It could probably get another fractions of a degree cooler, but I'm not waiting that long.

98.1 degrees with the board fully removed. Ugh.


So obviously I need more intake holes around the bottom. I need a more powerful exhaust fan. Ugh, I SHOULD have one by now, but fucking "friends" think they don't have to abide by the rules. I've been waiting on 150 bucks that my buddy owes me for over a month now =/ As soon as I get it I'm going to Walmart and getting one of those money cards and placing an order for a Valueline fan. Cheap and they'll do the job for now.

 

Yes, I'm running 24/0 light cycle, mostly because I'm too lazy to set up the timer right now, and I guess they grow faster under 24 hours of light. But about a week or two before I induce flowering I go to a 18/6 cycle.

I give them 24-36 hours of total darkness before switching to 12/12. I do this for 2 reasons. Supposedly they start flowering sooner with the prolonged dark period. 2ndly to change the hours I run my lights. My dark period is the opposite of what most people do. So I just hold 'em in the dark for 24 hours and then flip my lights back on at the appropriate hour and run 12/12 from there.

My dark period is at night because my closet obviously leaks light, the room my cabinet is in STAYS dark. I take out all the lamps/lights from the room and the windows are drawn shut. I need to light proof my cab, but its just a temporary place to grow and won't amount to anything more than a Veg cab once I get my flowering chamber built.

Edit: Ran some numbers on my lights.

Grow cab is 22" x 31" x 61"

22" x 31" = 682"/(12"x12") = 4.7 sq/ft

So, so information on my lights:

Veg
7x42 watt 6500k @ 2,700 lumens = 294w @ 18,900 lumens
1 62 watt 4100k @ 4,200 lumens = 62w @ 4,200 lumens

Vegetation Total Watts: 356w
Vegetation Total Lumens: 23,100
Vegetation Watts per sq/ft: ~76
Vegetation Lumens per sq/ft: ~4,915

Flowering

400w Sylvania Lumalux HPS @ 50,000 lumens

Flowering Total Watts: 400
Flowering Total Lumens: 50,000
Flowering Watts per sq/ft: ~85
Flowering Lumens per sq/ft: ~10,638

Now let's take into consideration that I can't exactly run my HPS directly on top of my plants as I can with the CFL's.... this'll be my first attempt at playing with the inverse square law:

Intensity = light output/distance(2) so.... [note: (2) = squared]

50,000 = 50,000/1ft(2)
12,500 = 50,000/2ft(2)
5,555 = 50,000/3ft(2)

I'd never bother going further than 2 feet away, but I went ahead to 3 feet as I intend to grow plants approximately 2.5 feet tall. Doesn't make sense. 50,000 is supposed to be the output of light in lumens of my bulb. It's supposed to lose 50% of its light per foot. Therefore shouldn't 1 foot = 12,500 lumens?

Either way I just found a sweet chart, it seems to me that this chart is a little more accurate, and seems to be along the lines of what I was expecting as far as light intensity fading. Didn't think I'd be getting 50,000 lumens @ 1 foot because.... yeah.

Oh well, this post took me forever too make 'cuz I spent like 30 minutes looking for the answer to my own question haha. Well this chart is my new desktop background =D




Wait a second.... I run my CFL's @ 2" and my HPS @ 10"...

My CFL's @ 2 inches = ~20,000 lumens.....
My HPS @ 10" = ~20,0000 lumens....

And my HPS causes temp. problems? Oh for fucks sake...

 

Okay, couple of new things going on today.

I got some Epsom salt for that magnesium deficiency, going to be doing a little spraying later. That plant is looking worse. I'll upload some pics here in a little bit. But they should be getting watered today, this will be the first time they get full strength nutes. Hope they don't get any nute burn.

Edit: Few hours later. It actually seems to have SOME improvement. The leaf isn't curling so much anymore, still 'pre ugly tho. I ran a 1/3 strength hydrated lime solution through all of my plants like an hour after I misted them. See if that helps any.

I also got a shitty pH test kit for water in fish aquariums. I've got a pH meter but everyone's like TEST THE WATER, TEST THE WATER! So I'm gonna test the water

Edit: I tested the pH of the runoff water, I also broke my pH meter, now it won't read anything other than 7, and the indicator doesn't even move on any of the other settings. It's just stuck in that one spot. Anyway pH results after running the hydrated lime through were pretty consistent from plant to plant. The last two got a little weird on me, but I'm just going to ignore those:

S.H #1 - 7.0 - 7,2
S.H #2 - 7.2 - 7.4 (Weird one, I retested an adiditional sample of the runoff and got about 6.6-6.8
S.H #3 - 6.6-6.8 (this is the one with Mg problems)
G.M #1 - 7.6 (Other weird one, I retested it and got a 6.8ish)
G.M #2 - 6.8-7.0
G.M #3 - 6.6-6.8

I was testing the soil after running the lime through, to and it was giving very similiar readings to the water test I was making, until I was halfway through. Then it just kept reading a 7. I didnt even notice it until I was doing the last plant. Ugh.

I'm ordering a Valueline 565 CFM, FF Big Bloom, and FF Tiger Bloom. The fan supports 8" duct work, so that's pretty big, but I guess the 6" 256 CFM isn't going to cool my cab. All of this is getting ordered from Grow Lights, Grow Bulbs and Hydroponics - Plantlighting Hydroponics & Grow Lights

Edit: So I put this off a little bit. Couple reasons. I'm finding 2 CFM ratings for that very same fan. 545 CFM and like 746 CFM or something (can't remember the latter totally). I'm also looking into making a homemade cool tube for my light. I'll be doing SOMETHING soon enough. I got about 140 bucks to spend, which is pretty much exactly how much the Fan and nutes cost combined.

No pics right now. I'll edit this tomorrow and add some, I've spent more time working with this and researching today than I cared to.

 

6/9- 1 plant have turned out to be female. It's showing pistils, so that's awesome. I've got another plant showing what SEEMS to be pistils, they're too tiny to take a picture of. I thought I saw some male characteristics in a couple of the plants, but it's too early to really tell. I'll add the pictures I took.

6/10 - Okay so I bought a Lasko blower fan, that pushes 258 CFM from what I've read. Lowe's website claims 450, but that's a far from true, not that I was worried about it. It was a bitch to rig up, because it has a dual intake, so I rigged the fan to only have 1 intake. It works just as well as it does with a dual intake. I made a thread that explains how I rigged it up. But I'll add some pictures of it so you can get the gist. But here's the thread I made if you wanna check it out:

http://forum.grasscity.com/grow-room-design-setup/406742-how-i-set-up-my-blower-fan.html#post4848973

 

6/10 - Wow. Been a long night of testing. It's 5:00 AM and I'm still going LOL. Ah well, I enjoy doing this. Okay so I've been testing that fan I installed and I'm pretty happy with the results. My goal was to bring my temps down to 85* from the original 89*-101*

At the time I was running approximately 90-100 CFM. I'm now running two 30-35 CFM computer fans and a 268 CFM blower(Seems to be the consensus; Lowe's has it listed as 450 CFM on their website but they're full of shit.) Anyway I tested the fan on different settings as well.:

Before I get to this, I added some more intake holes. I was only running a 5" square passive intake, and honestly once I hooked that blower up, that hole was hoovering that air in. I LOL'd @ the sound for like 10 minutes, then fired up my hole-cutter bit for my drill and put eleven 2" holes (6 on the front, 5 on the back; I was gonna put more on the back but I was sick of drilling holes... and it was like 11:30 PM LMAO. My neighbor musta been pissed. Not smart on my part, but I'm excited haha) anyway it's a nice gentle intake now instead of a damn turbine. I'll add some pics.


Fan set on high: Canopy @ 8"-10"

12" @ 82.4*
8" @ 85.5*
6"@ 88.3*

Fan set on low: Canopy @ 12"-15"

12" @ 85.5*

Fan set on Medium: Canopy @ 12"

12" @ 84.6* (

As far as I'm concerned that's money well spent. Only cost me about $60 total.

I'm considering removing that leaf from the Mg deficient plant. It looks pretty bad and would just open up light to the inside of the plant. Pic I just took today included.

Gonna go snap some current preflower shots and of the garden, don't think any explainations will be needed. I have 3 for sure females, I've provided 1 picture of each of the preflowers. So far this is what I got out of my plants:

Seedlings: I have 2 plants that were stunted during a transplant into the peat pots. They're both now just starting to grow. Not sure why I kept them, but as long as I can squeeze them in there... why not? They could be a good replacement for a male that turns up.

G.M. - 1 1/4" tall. Looks good.
S.H. - 1 1/2" tall. Looks good.

I also have 1 G.M. plant still in the large 32 oz cups. This plant is almost the same size as the others, but I'm keeping it around in case one turns male. This plant has shown ni signs of sex yet and stands about 5" tall, nice and bushy.

Green Monster: I notice that these are looking to be shorter than the Strawberry Haze plants, and have been showing sex a little earlier.

G.M. #1 - Female. You can see her pistils in the first picture of the pre-flowers. She stands @ 7 1/4"

G.M. #2 - Female. Best looking pistils of the lot. hers will be the 2nd one, she's got 3 sets, but I just picked one picture. She stands @ 6 1/2"

G.M. #3 - No signs of sex from this one yet. She stands @ 5 1/2"

Strawberry Haze: Taller, slower to show pre-flowers.

S.H. #1- No change. Still looks like it could be a male. Still looks like it could be new growth. Just keep waiting it out I guess. Stands @ 8"

S.H.#2 - Female. First S.H. plant to show pre-flower. Her pic will be the 3rd one. She stands @ 9" and will be the first plant to go into flower. I'm going to order FF flowering nutes and when they get her, she's going in.

S.H.. #3 -No sign of sex from this one. Stands @ 6"

I'll likely clone the bottom couple branches on every plant that goes into flower. My idea is to have like 2 clones take the place of each plant that goes into flower, keep the strongest one of each under my CFL's in a seperate closet, and clone the plants that grow well and give a good harvest and slowly transform this.... "mother searching" into a SOG with 2 clones taking the place of every plant that comes out in 1 gallon grow bags. 1 week veg and bud 'em out. I might go with 2 gallons if I can fit 12 of them in there. I could squeeze 2 more 3 gallon grow bags in there, but it'd be tight. But then again that's the whole idea of the SOG.

I'm just glad all of this is coming together just in time. I'm gonna be broke as shit lol. After I cough up for these nutes, I'm gonna have like 20 bucks to eat on for 2 weeks until I get some more cash.. HOTDOGS AND RAMEN, HERE I COME!

I'm also looking into rigging some CFL's to catch the bottom branches if i can. We'll see how that works out. Doubt it with the space allowed but I'm gonna do what I can.

 

6/11 - Ordered my flowering nutes and GH pH up/down test kit from https://www.plantlightinghydroponics.com hopefully it won't take too long. I used a debit card on this one, and am having it shipped here, but really its just nutes and a pH adjustor... nothing to worry about, right?

A little under 50 bucks for all of it included shipping. Not too bad I suppose. Would have costed me about 10 bucks more at my "local" hydro shop, and then another 10 bucks in gas just to take the 2 hour round trip. Hopefully it doesn't take them too long to get here.

I'll be starting flowering within 24 hours of their arrival.

With all the shit I've done lately, I don't think I'll be doing much of anything with my plants today other than the daily sex-check. I'll post pics if anything new comes about.

That fan is 'pre loud though, even on the low setting. I need to look into a way to muffle that bitch. It's nothing I need to worry about, but it took me a while to get used to the sound while I was trying to sleep. I could do without it, but I can also deal with it. Doesn't matter either way. It's more of the air being pulled through that aluminum piping than the actual fan.

 

6/11 (Later) - I pinched off 2 damaged fan leaves off the bottom of a plant, the one with Mg deficiency. They were irritating me, so I just removed them. Okay so I just topped 2 plants. I only intended to top my largest, which is 9 1/2" tall and has shown to be female. However I accidentally chopped the top off my 2nd tallest, which hasn't shown sex yet. Ah well. I was high, I got a good excuse! Anyway I went ahead and topped the one I had originally planned on topping. I'll be topping all of them once @ 8"-10". The first one goes into flowering when its 12" tall (3 more inches to go!) and then I'll be placing another in flowering at 10 day intervals. I'll probably have to rely on a little bit of pruning to keep them to a certain size.

I'll be taking 2 clones from each plant that goes in flowering. I'll be looking for a mother plant from these clones. I'm interested in the flowering characteristics as well. I'll be keeping 1 mother of each strain. Not quite sure what I'll do what the leftover clones. I would possibly try to flower them under CFLS until space in my cab opens up, and just flower those before I take anymore cuttings and just let my mothers beef up nicely. Or I could just toss 'em out and simplify it

I did the daily sex check, no change in anything. Pics of the 2 plants that I topped will be added.

RustyJay- My cabinet sucks, I know =D But it was free, and my last grow was probably the most low budget HPS grow to exist I didn't even have ventilation for my last grow, NOT EVEN HOLES. I got a quarter-pound out of 4 plants though, but they were like 6' tall LOL. But yes, it does allow for light leaks. What I did last time was I just had my lights turn on in the morning more or less when light started coming in from the sun, and by the time they went off it was dark (it was during the winter).

What I'm going to be doing is getting some black plastic and just hanging that shit from floor to ceiling all around my cab. I'm considering running my lights at night when its cooler. My cab is in my bedroom and its pretty open. I don't have a bedroom door but I'll take some pictures and add them to this so you can get an idea. It's a really small place. The light leaks won't prevent me from sleeping, and my windows are covered well enough. The fan actually feels really good, it's just somewhat loud. I'm working on muffling the sounds.

I need to get that plastic to run a test to make sure it won't allow light in during the day. I'll check out the hardware stores tomorrow. Anyway pics:

1st one is the plant I didn't mean to top. Got 'em mixed up. Oh well.
2nd is the female which I intended to top. Got her too.

3rd pic: notice that I don't have a door. This is why i vent my cab directly into my room. My whole apartment is cooled with a small AC unit, my apartment is small. My bedroom is a 6'4" x 11'6". I keep a ceiling fan on @ high all the time, my AC is in the kitchen set @ 60 degrees 24/7, doesn't keep my whole apartment that cool, but I run about 68-70 degree temps. The room I grow in rarely goes over 72-75, even when exhausting the heat into it.

Note: The trash bag isn't trash lol, well it is but it isn't garbage I'm not THAT lazy. it's leftovers from my last grow I haven't gotten rid of yet. I need to get around from that. It's bags of dirt that I grew in. Not sure what to do with those yet =/ Don't wanna just throw 'em in a dumpster AND that bag weighs like 150 lbs.