Auto Bomb in a tent (noob-grow - tips are warmly welcomed)

COMPLETED

This journal is started as a conclusion to this thread. I'd like to thank everyone (especially @Slick21) who helped me out with my noob questions, and helped me get all the gear in order before starting. May your crops forever be rich and plentiful!

Equipment

• Grow tent, 60x60x150 cm (2x2x5 ft.), Secret Jardin
• Inline fan, dual-mode, 220/280 m³/h, ø125mm
• Carbon filter, 400 m³/h, ø125mm
• Grow light, 250W CFL, 6400°K, Plasmalight
• Bloom light, 200W CFL, 2700°K, Plasmalight
• CFL Reflector, 50x50 cm (20x20 inches)

Originally, I ordered a smaller fan and a smaller filter. But I got a mail from the company I ordered from, saying that they didn't have the filter on stock. And because they wanted to ship it right away, they offered to upgrade the filter, the fan and the alu ducting FOR FREE! I love dealing with stoner-companies!!

Setup

(updated 05-19-16 - moved carbon filter to the top)

The tent is placed in a wardrobe with sliding doors, where the back wall has been removed. In spite of a bit of protest, the tent takes in air directly from the side of the tent and exhausts it out directly at top of the tent - all the ducting I used is visible in the above picture. My apartment has build-in ventilation in every room, and I'll keep a window open as often as possible, in the room where the tent is. It's not optimal, but it'll have to do.

Update 06-17-16: I added a clip-on fan, for circulation and better temperature control. It blows air into the reflector, thus cooling it down by distributing the heat it generates more evenly. (see day 24)

What I'll grow
I've choosen to grow Auto Bomb - it's described as an easy plants for beginners, that grows fast and yields high amounts of bud. So it sounds like the perfect choice for me.

I'll plant two plants:

The plant to the left is called Leslie, and the plant to the right is called Rosemary. Rosemary is 4 days older than Leslie, because the first seed I planted in Leslie's pot didn't make it, so I had to plant another one.

Soil and nutrients
I'll be using regular potting soil, mixed with perlite and vermiculite (at ratio 50:25:25).
For nutrients, I'll use Biobizz Grow, Bloom and Top Max.

Growth rates

(last and final update on 07-20-2016 - after those last measurements were taken, I trained Leslie to be shorter, and further measuring wouldn't make sense)

Important lessons learned from this grow

• Growing inside is about control, and autoflowers are impossible to control! Still very possible to grow, though.
• Auto Bomb is a very forgiving strain; she'll grow and flourish in spite of wacky heat and humidity, malnutrition, pH-imbalances and even abuse - she's a PERFECT plant for beginners!
• That being said, she IS very sensitive to nutes. But that, in itself, proves to be a good lesson in being conservative with nutes.
• When growing in soil which buffers the pH at around 6, it's unnecessary (perhaps even undesirable) to adjust the pH - at least when using Biobizz organic nutes.
• Despite the previous point, at some point the soil WILL eventually loose its buffer capabilities, and pH adjustments WILL be necessary!
• It IS my first grow, but growing inside, in a small space, without training is dumb - might as well use SCROG, or at least tie-down LST, and maximize that yield!

NEXT GROW: 707 Headband

Shortcuts
Day 1 - planting the seeds
Day 9 - seedlings!
Day 15 - growing up
Day 19 - nutes and pH
Day 24 - big, healthy plants!
Day 31 - flowers!
Day 38 - nuggets
Day 48 - bigger nuggets!
Day 52 - still a long way to go
Day 57 - low-stress intentions, high-stress results
Day 67 - who needs Coca Cola, when you have 12 auto colas?
Day 77 - 3 weeks to harvest!
Day 89 - one week left!
Harvest day

 

Thanks for the tip
I was actually just gonna write about how the temperature already seems way too hot. I don't know if I'd be able to hook it to the top of the tent, cause it's pretty big. But I'll definitely try and get it as close as I can.

 

Day -7
This is a dull start to the journal, cause I haven't planted the seeds yet. In fact, I haven't gotten them by mail yet. And I can't get perlite and vermiculite until next week. But I decided to start the journal anyway, because setting it all up seemed to be half the battle. And I already learned something important, so I think I made the right choice.

Today I learned

• Grow equipment is much bigger than expected
• 250W CFL's are gigantic! :O
• Carbon filters go BEFORE the fan, not after (for a while, I was about to give up cause I thought I'd gotten the wrong kind of carbon filter)
• Even the most environmentally friendly CFL bulb WILL produce great amounts of heat (when it's that big)
• Grow tents with alu ducting has a delicious retro sci-fi look
• The air-intake hole must be small enough to make the fan struggle a bit - as long as the tent's canvas caves in when it's closed, I figure it's good enough
• Grow fans generates A LOT of resonance! I had to replace the nylon strips, that I used to attach it to the tent, with a soft rubber strip - this rubber strip is now the only thing that supports the fan, and ALL the resonance is gone. Yay!
• And the most important lesson, I think: air must be injected at the bottom of the tent, and extracted from the top, so that the warm and "used-up" air will be filtered and exhausted

 

Day -6
I moved the carbon filter to the top of the tent (picture in the first post has been updated), at least as close as I could get it. It was a pain, to put it mildly, cause the filter is big and heavy and with the ducting and the fan, it's become rather cramped in the top of the tent. There's just enough room for the lights up there, but if I need to have them up that high, I might need to bend the reflector slightly, so it doesn't touch the fan (cause that makes an annoying rattling sound).

However, I did a test-run with the lights on and the fan at max, and I got around 30°C (86°F) in the tent - as far as I know, that's just only barely acceptable but the problem is that it's not that hot outside, and it's gonna get warmer on some days - I just really hope it's gonna work out, cause I don't know what else to do about temperature at this point :/

Update
I just received the seeds by mail. I got:

• 2 complimentary Kush seeds, bred over 40 years in my country (nice!)
• 10 Narkush regular seeds (not so nice!)

They gave me the wrong seeds
Honestly, the Narkush looks nice, and I would've actually been up for using them instead, except that they're not feminized; with the little space I have available, I can't afford spending time on growing plants that'll turn out to be males. So I wrote them a mail, hoping that they'll send me the right seeds, and then they'll get the Narkush back. My experience in dealing with stoner-based companies tells me, that it shouldn't be a problem - everyone is friendly

 

Eh, I tried mailing them and got no answer yet. But I just found out I used the wrong mail address; apparently they have a mail form.

So far, I've had incredibly bad luck with the seeds - the first company I ordered them from didn't send a receipt so I contacted them. Heard from them a couple of days later. Turned out, they'd been under police investigation for allegedly selling illegal cannabis oils. Nothing illegal was found (CBD-only oils are legal in my country). And on top of that, they informed me that they didn't have anymore of those seeds, so I had to find a different company. Yay!

 

Day 1
The growing finally begins! I got the right seeds from the vendor (no trouble there), and I got the package with the perlite and vermiculite (and the bloom bulb).

I've been reading up on how to start the grow, and although the internet seems to suggest starting in a smaller pot, I decided to plant directly in the final 3.2 gallon pots, using the watering technique as described here (basically, I'll be watering slowly in circles around the plant, until there's runaway water, which I'll then remove).

Also, I decided to plant the seed without germinating it first. I know this is ill advised, but it just seems like the risk of ruining the seeds are greater when using the germination methods, and after all planting directly in soil is nature's way.

So, I planted 2 seeds in two 3.2 gallon pots, about an inch deep (after mixing the soil: 50% soil, 25% perlite and 25% vermiculite). Then I did the slow-circle-water method for each (without using nutrients), until runaway water appeared. Apparently I didn't do it slow enough, cause once the runaway water started appearing, it just wouldn't stop! Took me about half an hour, where I had to continuously remove it. But well, it's gone now, and I hope she'll forgive me. I promise to be more careful in the future


Here are the pots after planting and watering - not much to see yet..


This is what the setup currently looks like. Are the lights too close/far away from the plants?

Also, I changed the air intake setup a bit; now the ducting runs along the bottom front of the tent, as you can see in the picture, and I've cut holes in it along the way, hoping it will result in a more scattered and even air distribution.

After watering, the runaway water had a pH on the slightly sour side of 7. I know it's not that relevant yet, since I'm not using nutrition and the seed has its own nutrients, sufficient for now, but in the future I might want to adjust with lemon juice, unless the soil will manage to keep it buffered at 6.5 (according to the soil's specs, it will, but the perlite and vermiculite are variables).

I've set the light schedule to 18/6. The light turns on at 5pm, and turns off at 11am - this is in an attempt to have the lights on during the least warm period of the day. However, for the first day I turned on the light when I planted the seeds (at about 3pm), and will be keeping them on until 11am. That means the plant will get an extra 2 hours of light (the first day only). Since there's no "plant" yet, I figured it didn't matter - in fact, it's mostly just to keep the seed warm.

Now, for a noob-question: since the seed hasn't sprouted, will I have to continuously keep it moist until it sprouts, or should I wait to add water again until the top inch of the soil is dry?

 

Day 9
I haven't posted in a while, but that doesn't mean stuff hasn't happened. I decided to name the plants - the plant on the left is called Leslie ("left" -> "L" -> "Leslie"), and the one on the right is called Rosemary.

Rosemary came out of the dirt the 28th of May. She's been growing steadily and is now about 5 cm (2 inches) tall, with broad leaves and a second node of leaves about to come up.


Rosemary, growing wide and proud

Leslie is younger than Rosemary, cause the day that Rosemary showed herself, there was nothing in Leslie's pot. So I did a bit of digging, and found that the seed hadn't even sprouted. So on that same day, I germinated a new seed (I got 5 in the pack). The new seed, Leslie's seed, was ready to plant the next day. Leslie came out of the dirt sometime between the 31st of May and yesterday. She's now about 3 cm (1.2 inches) tall, but for some reason her leaves haven't unfolded yet.


Leslie, working hard to keep up with her sister

Now for all the stuff I'm in doubt about - is it true that it's best to wait 2 weeks from the day the plant's sprout comes up from the dirt, before you start giving it nutrition?

If that's the case, Leslie will get her nutrients for the first time on the 15th of June, and Rosemary will get her's on the 11th of June. I was thinking, because I want to compensate a bit for the age gap between them, that maybe I could wait to give Rosemary nutrients until the 15th, when Leslie will get her's - would that be a bad idea?
I'm thinking of nutrients as vitamins for the plants; it's the light and water that they need to live, but the nutrients that takes them to peak condition yet aren't vital for them.

Also, summer has finally taken it's toll. It's hot as hell, and in my tent I get temperatures up to 38°C (100°F), though mostly they're around 33°C (91.5°F). When the lights are off, they're down to around 25°C (77°F). Are those temps too hot for my girls?

 

3-4 weeks?! I find that hard to believe, cause Rosemary came up a week ago tomorrow, and she's only 5 cm (2 inches) tall :O Is something wrong with her?

EDIT: I just read that the growth rate will accelerate for every new node of leafs - it all makes sense

Also, I noticed that Leslie, despite being 4 days younger, is now as big as Rosemary. Her main stem is also thicker, and so are the leafs. They're both seeds from the same pack, only difference is that I germinated Leslie before planting her, and didn't germinate Rosemary. What the heck is going on? :O

About the heat, we're having a heat wave at the moment with around 80 degrees during the warmest period of the day (I know it doesn't sound like much, but in Scandinavia that's really hot) and it should taper off in about a week or so, and I expect the temps in the tent to return to 86 degrees during daytime. In the meantime, since the plant is vegging and has no odor, I'm keeping the tent open most of the daytime (I set the daytime to start at 5pm so the lights are on during the coldest hours of the day) with an oscillating fan blowing into it.

But seriously, what is the best method of cooling down the tent? I can't cool the air outside the tent (I really wish I could, cause it's hot!) so AC isn't an option, so I've been considering either an intake fan or installing a small oscillating fan inside the tent. Which would work better? The exhaust fan is pretty powerful, and exhausts more air than the passive intake can deliver.

And not to worry, I'm very mindful not to overwater - I wait until the top inch of soil is dry.. And I'm gonna be very conservative with the nutes; I'll be using 1 mL per liter of water, where the official instructions says 2 mL per liter..

 

Day 15
Both plants have grown significantly. Leslie is 8 days out of the ground, and Rosemary is 12 days. Gave them both a complete watering two days ago (using the slow-circle watering method), and I expect the next watering to be in 4 days, where I'm planning to slowly start introducing nutes and pH correct the water (after last watering, the pH of the runaway water was around 7.2).

This is Leslie:

She's around 3.5 cm (1.4 inches) tall. Has grown 2 sets of leaves (one of the leaves are a bit handicapped), with new leaves on the way.

This is Rosemary

She's had an intense growth spurt, and is now about 5.5 cm (2.2 inches) tall. Although she's grown 1.5 cm (.6 inches) overnight, her growth has mostly been horizontal (she is an indica, after all). Still can't believe that she's max 2 weeks away from flowering

So far, both plants are looking healthy (except for that one quirky leaf on Leslie, which I see as nothing more than a quirk) - no spots, mold, saggy leafs or anything.

I'm planning on doing tie-down LST on them, but I figured it would be best to wait until all the side branches has grown out, and the stem for the main cola is apparent (please correct me if I'm wrong) - my plan is to simply tie down the main cola, and direct the side-branches upwards, so that all colas have the same height (guess that's the whole point of LST).

 

Awesome, good to hear I'm not completely messing up I'll get some clip-on fans.

So, if I understand it right, LST is about keeping all colas the same height, so the growth hormone is evenly distributed?