amateur grow: Trainwreck x ? and AK-47 x ? from seed

Hey all, so i am going to post as regularly as i have time for so you all can see how i'm doing and give me tips, advice, or whatever. Hopefully if i run into any problems you all can help me solve them. So far everyone in the grasscity forums have been awesome at providing information and help through research and basic knowledge.
Here's the grow:

• seeds: Unknown variety from a friend who was pollinated by an unknown father. The best information is that the mothers are his AK-47 and Trainwreck outdoor plants that were accidentally pollinated by a neighborhood unknown medical female who hermaphrodited and ruined my buddy's harvest... except that of course he got some medical hybrids with some vigorous growing skills. I am for now calling them SAMmy and these growing could be from either mother.

• medium: organic soil, currently growing in 80/20 blend of Light Warrior/Ocean Forest by Fox Farm in a shallow bowl planter. Their temperature/humidity is being kept close to: 80*F/60%RH daytiome and 70*F/55%RH overnight.

• setup: currently on the above-bar shelf of the closet, but will occupy larger bottom space when size increases and light/soil needs increase. Seedlings are sharing closet space with 8 clones (2 each by 4 varieties) that my friend is growing (occasional pictures for fun). Currently only lit by a 26w CFL and 2 18w CFLs surrounding the "Lucky 13", will be switching as necessary up to 200w in daylight CFLs, 400w HPS in air-cooled reflector, and up to 200w soft-white CFLs to be combined as necessary throughout grow life. Sun is on timer up for 19hr down for 5hr. Currently one small oscillating fan off timer blowing 24hr vigorously but kindly around grow space. Thermometer/Hygrometer functioning by spot sensor and min/max recorded.

• history: 15 seeds were "naturally" planted by hand just under surface of soil in shallow planter without ANY prepping (emery, soak, dips) and put near but not under a light to provide a realistic germination. 13 of 15 seeds germinated and broke surface 1.5" to 3" sprouts in 3 days total. By now they were happily working on first true leaves and needed to be no taller until under lights.

Up to speed....

DAY 1 (November 1)
Day 1 means the first day they were put under the lights and conveniently was the first of the month. The photo below is near the end of their first day of lights and their first set of true leaves are coming along nicely i think. The second photo is just a detail shot of one of them. Temp/Hum is doing fabulous with only 5*F fluctuations from what i want. For now they will grow up a few days before next photos.







DAY 4

Their growth has been vigorous!...or so it seems to me. They have considerable work done on their second set of leaves and look like birds or bats or something all next to each other. Just look at the ratio of seed-cot leaves to first true leaves in the two detail photos. So far so good i think, but they've barely just begun. More soon...

 

DAY 8
big update from over-the-weekend growth. Now monday they have grown... A LOT. Many of the 13 are now working on 3rd set of leaves and the 2nd set have three leaflets and they are much larger in leaf size and the seed cot leaves are barely worth anything now. One week of growth and they are booming. So far so good, but as Spike_Weed so astutely points out, i will be worried for tonight's first transplant into individual containers that will be at least 50/50 Light Warrior/OceanForest to get more soil in for veg. nutrients and then they hopefully won't be disturbed until they are bigger and hopefully only one final time right before true flowering. So process plan is: seeds in 80/20, then 1wk's into 50/50, 1mo.'s into 25/75 through end or then, 2mo.'s into 10/90 throughout flowering. I dunno what will be happening, but they will be getting transplant number 1 tonight and either tomorrow or Wednesday i will be posting the updated setup and any change comments. Here are some pictures, check out the weekend change!

 

DAY 10 (November 10)
First transplant has been done and now they are in individual habitats (except the twins - two that share since there's an odd 13). Their temp/hum/light seems pretty good for now, until they get bigger of course. The worry of root tangles hadn't become anything to worry about yet... could have left them in first seed starter mix longer, but waiting isn't necessary and i found mostly really happy and bright white root growth that seemed focused on growing DOWN not wide and into the other plants. Two of the plants had really poor roots and one of them had some roots ripped (first out of pot), but mostly transplant went well and relatively trauma-free. Once in new containers i watered them with vitB1 (root growth/shock aid) infused water until soaked once through and let them stay in normal room light for some time to dry and stiff up before being put into the lights. This was all last night and today this is where the plants are in the morning:

• The first two are to give you an idea of their current environments and here are a couple detail photos (different plants shown):

 

DAY 13:
Okay, they mostly survived the transplant well, but as i feared there are a couple slow to bounce back plants... most plants hit the ground running though and a few are impressing me. One plant looks bad and i may cull it, but we shall see. They are now in 50/50 Light Warrior/Ocean Forest and under 168w of 5700K CFLs. They have been named after the first 12 letters of the Hebrew alphabet (aleph, bet, gimmel, ...) with the twins being named chaf and kaf (same letter, different use). What fun. Anyway, the leaves from Day 10 that were just bursting out with 5 fingers are now fully out and another set on the way similar sized... not bad in three days for having to regrow roots and adjust to a new surrounding. I'm afraid they're not getting near enough circulation, but with how young they are it is something that can wait another week or more really. The two trays were photographed (badly) and put into one file in photoshop and then two details of plants Aleph and Chaf are shown since they are doing well and looked best in front of the camera.


Aleph at 2 weeks old:

and Chaf showing her stuff (hopefully HER):

 

DAY 18
Big update! It's been some growing time (5 days) and WOW! They are huge and overlapping each other big time and will soon be trained to the sides of their tanks to leave some space in the canopy for more leaves and undergrowth. The leaders of the pack have finished their second set of 7-bladed leaves and have considerable new nodal growth below. They have been moved into a new room that allows for much better venting as well as more space and now have a 400w HPS overhead (i don't own a MH ballast and i was told you can ruin your ballast by putting a MH bulb on an HPS ballast) and to keep the vegging a little better than just an HPS i've added around 100w of 6500K CFLs around the sides for dark spots and spectrum aid (this much light isn't just for my babies or they'd just be on CFL's til flowering but there are some bigger plants sharing the space who need the lumens... Still same soil but now they dry up faster and even though the light is hotter the room is cooler and dryer (averaging around 73*F/43%RH daytime - overnight is fine) so i might work on a bit of heating source since it is winter and if it's cold out that day, they don't warm past 75*F and i'd like 'em a little more like 80-85*F/65%RH ~ what do you guys think? I haven't gotten much feedback yet, but it has mostly been unneeded until now... please throw whatever ideas you got at me. Here's the pictures of how much growth has happened (you can tell i'm on HPS now from the yellow):

here's the group...


here's a detail of a top and a detail of some undergrowth (some have 5-fingered undergrowth leaves now!):

 

Thanks for the comment...
The space i'm working in is basically what the light can handle... around a 5'x6' room space (converted pantry) but the greenspace (where light is and plants grow) is about a 3'x5' space. Not really big and that's including my friend's plants. The 13 of mine (all ladies of course ) currently take up a little less than half the greenspace (roughly 2'x3' i guess).

As far as fans, right now this is totally low-tech and all we are running is a small oscillator in the corner for circulation, a partially open curtain and half-wall bottom to keep cats out at night for the front-door/intake vent and the grate you see pictured is the back-door/exhaust vent into the houses attic-space which leaks out quite well to the outside and would under normal circumstances be shut if we weren't trying to vent the room. We are running a low power air-"purifier" as an exhaust aid that blows through the open grate. It's not very good but since we have pets and we breathe, exercise, cook, and shower and do things to keep air warm, CO2-rich, and humid in the home it works well enough for now to have it just sucking and pushing the air back and forth through the 2 doors to the grow-room. Soon as they get BIG and more importantly are flowering they will need proper circulation and for that i have two cheap ($15 each) bathroom exhaust fans that each pull about 50CFM and are pretty loud at 4 sonnes, but should pull the air in and out of that room nicely once we seal it up proper.

The temperature near the plants (by hanging sensor pictured) stays around 74*F today which is a little low for my taste but acceptable and overnight drops to a minimum of 60*F which is fine. If it feels like Hawai'i in there, then i feel good about it. Admittedly the humidity has been too low lately (only around 40-45%RH) and i'd like it more like 65%RH while they're just vegging, but this is all built on whatever we already had lying around so it would cost us not a cent more. This one's for fun and education and hopefully some sweet smoke.

 

DAY 19
Hey all, just a photo day since they just looked so good after today's "rainstorm". Enjoy the snapshots.

 

DAY 30!
So here we are at 30 days and some serious height and size has been put on these plants since last update back on DAY 19 (sorry about the week off, i was outta town). The other part of the delay in update was i have been working on a new home for them now that they are getting bigger and considering flowering soon-ish.
I built them a 3'x4'x6' (DxWxH) solid cedar cabinet with a vent fan on each side (higher on the left-side intake and lower on the right-side exhaust. There is a sealable opening on the top for extra venting that is covered in a mesh wire and the walls are taped and covered in mylar reflectix. The lighting is currently just some underwattage of CFL's (blended spectrum) and they have been growing fantastically.
The tallest of the plants (chaf and kaf, aleph, and zayin) are all around 11"-13" already and the shorters range from there down to around 8", so flowering can't be far off if i want to use this cabinet. I have some serious questions that i could use answered now if any experts out there want to help a newbie out (please )

QUESTION 1: What do people think about T5 HO lighting setups for a grow setup like mine and
also which ones would you recommend? I am wondering about their prices and wattages since i
can't afford a WHOLE lot but care about my plants and lumen-to-watt ratios. I have a 400 watt
HPS that is being used for flowering my friend's plants right now and i need another setup that
can be spectrum switchable/controllable and not cost and arm and a leg, what do you guys/gals
/smokers think?

QUESTION 2: If my biggest plants are already over a foot tall should i hit the switch soon if i
want to keep them in this space or are they immature still? They're pretty bushy but no
pre-flower hairs or anything yet that i see. They are from seed and only 30 days from first true
leaves... is this earlier/later/normal for seed plants and either way when can i start trying to
flower them?

I guess those are the things i'm concerned about for help currently, i just wish quieter exhaust fans were as cheap as the ones i bought ) I really love my babies! They grow up so fast and they are showing SO much character... there does seem to be two obvious plant types in there: 1) longer stems for fan leaves and more air-space under top leaves, 2) HUGE fan leaves with short distance from meristem making bushy seed plants. They also have a lot of individual characteristics. Zayin grew too fast and burned her top hugging a CFL for about a day (cute but maimed new growth) and has since been recently topped. So we have one plant topped to experiment. Chaf and Kaf are growing up huge together and if one is male and one female they get a cinderella story container to themselves so they can get it on dirty hybrid vigorous style to bear me some for-fun seeds. Aleph is HUGE and TALL and a couple of the short ones have that bushy tight-to-stem trait going on. As they get older they'll get fuller names.
Your help, comments, criticism, and any kind of participation here is very welcome and appreciated but for now here's some photos of the lovely "ladies":

• The Top 10

• A side shot for height comparison

• Chaf and Kaf, lovers of some kind - sexes and futures unknown

• Just a sexy glow off some leaves for detail

Smoke Report: Right now i've been smokin' on some beautiful local Redwood Kush and loving it. I've been a long fan of this strain from around here in Humboldt and am into tracking down some good clones someday for a near-future grow. I'm also packing a little bit of Pure Kush and Orange Crush in the pipe, but mainly peacin' out on the Redwood Kush pictured here from the Arcata iCenter:

 

Thanks AbrahamX, the advice is very welcome as this is my first serious grow... your plants are looking quite good, i bet your itchin' to cut 'em down but love watching those huge colas fatten up nice. They look beautiful, will be watching your posts... what do you think about T5 lighting? or do you have any experience with them?
Anyone else have insight to the two questions above?

 

DAY 32 (Dec. 2)

So these little buggers are growing amazingly fast... on the 30th the tallest plant was 13" and now, just a couple days later, and she's already 16.5" !!! Over 3" in just over 2 days?! Is that normal? wow.
So here are some individual entity shots and some vital data on size and basic characteristics. This is just for fun and in case i need to reference anything... It also gives me and you guys a basic idea of my plants' true sizes before entering flowering (tomorrow maybe?)... here are the plants and info:

• Name: Top height/Largest diameter or width - traits (if any yet)

1. Aleph: 15"/18" - working on 11-bladed leaves, great branches
2. Bet: 13"/17" - shaggier plant and leaves
3. Dalet: 12.5"/16" - common airier look
4. He: 8.5"/19" - short and incredibly bushy, very large leaves
5. Zayin: 11.5"/25" - only topped plant, leaves reach 15" high, good hormones
6. Het: 12.5"/18" - super shaggy, big leaves and great nodes
7. Tet: 12"/17" - by far "kushiest" looking and shaggy
8. Yod: 8.5"/17" - incredibly bushy and kushy big leaves for size
9. Chaf and Kaf: 16.5"/20" and 15.5"/18" - sort of the star attraction, we'll see...

 

DAY 34 - final day of vegging
So, i finally got a new light source for my little teenagers...
I bought the Sunleaves Pioneer VIII T5 HO system... supposedly it puts out around 40,000 lumens (38,400?) but the light is so well balanced across the spectrum (even with the VitaLume Grow 2900K bulbs in) to the visible eye that it doesn't SEEM intense to look into the garden... makes me a little skeptical, but i'm sure it's fine. I'm excited to finish with this light and show everyone what is, or isn't, possible for this light - given of course the growspace and the gardener .
So that is the new plan everyone... i rigged the light in there (albeit not straight because i need to move a vent fan, but all will be well soon and for now it is good enough) and put a new circulating fan in there as well... last night they went to bed the same time at the usual 1:00 and woke up this morning at 6:00. Now normally they would get 19 hours of light today, but i'm putting them to bed probably around 16:00, a mere 10 hours of light before sleeping until 7:00 tomorrow and hitting a permanent 12/12 - on@7:00/off@19:00. This means they would get 15 hours of dark before hitting the flowering schedule... i don't know what everyone thinks about this - and please let me know...
I read a lot of journals and posts about advanced growers giving their plants a LOT of darkness before initiating 12/12, up to 72 hours!!, but usually 24 hours, and i am simply leaning a little darker for a day than 12/12... don't know if it matters or what specific difference it will make... i might give in to realism at the last second and just put them to bed at 19:00 and wake with the new schedule instead... today will tell, but here are some photos of the FINAL VEGGING PHOTOSHOOT:

The group and the new setup put in the box:


My "ladies" under a new light:



Smoke Report
Right now i am smoking the last of this Blackberry from the Arcata iCenter and looking at getting a little more of it while the stock is good. The aroma is incredible, filled with lots of notes and hints of things sweet and the taste upon burning in a short pipe is quite delicious, perhaps not as nice as the smell though. The high is very indica-body high style and overwhelms whatever you were smoking before it. It makes me relaxed in a way that stems from a removal of inhibitions and considerative thought making me laugh/smile or answer a question loosely or in a joke rather than feeling philosophical. It hits lungs hard with chest-lock, sort of in the way hash does - which i actually like a lot - and the "flavor" hangs in the sinus upon exhale. Here are two sides of a beautiful bud of the Blackberry plant:

 

• Yeah... i have heard this reporting of less dense buds and of course EVERYone just mentions to use HPS. I believe your friend probably didn't keep the plants close enough to the lamps, but it is hard to say. I have seen great flowerings with T5s on other journals and i most definitely will use it together with LED in the future... as that seems to be an amazing combo for bad-ass med growers. (not that i shouldn't mention plasma lighting, but i only know a bit of what i have read... That Argosun bulb sounds good though if i switch back to HID. I kind of feel blind and out of control with HID, it may be better for the common market right now, but i think things are gonna change fast... you should see what 200w of Plasma can do!

Today they went to bed at 18:00 and will wake up at 6:00 and maintain that schedule from now til end... i'm very interested to find spectrum charts for VitaLume 54w bulbs (grow and bloom) if anyone knows where i can find them... that being said, we will just see what happens. I am interested in both the UV output and dark red output of these bulbs (as well as the whole thing of course - certan nm seem to be important for cannabis).

Will update when anything happens or just another photo to show how the like or dislike the new light. Peace and keep smokin'