First Grow - Northern Lights - 600w - 3x3 Grow Tent

Well hello there everyone
 
So this is my first ever grow.  I've been reading everything I can get my hands on for the last month or so and figured it would be time to see just how green my thumb is.  So wish me luck.
 
First I'll go through the equipment that I've purchased and how much I spent on everything.  I'll go through the prices so if anyone else first starting out is wanting to go the route I have they can get an idea of what it will cost:
 
Lights:

• 2 23W 6500k CFLs - $7
• IPower 600W HPS/MH dimmable digital balast - $165
• Includes timmer, cooling tube, and hangers

Soil:

• Bag of Happy Frog Soil - $11
• 20 Qts EWC - $10
• 12 Qt Perlite - $6
• Epsoma Garden Tone - $11
• All Purpose Fert mix (Several Meals mixed) - $7
• 5 3gal Smart Pots -$25
• Blood Meal - $7
• Vermiculite - $4

Grow Area:

• 3x3 Apollo Grow Tent - $85
• Oscillating Fan - $6

Seeds ($46 including shipping):

• 5 Northern Lights
• 1 White Widow - Free
• 1 Afghani - Free

Well that pretty much sums up all the equipment that I've got so far.  I still have a ton of the soil and amendments left over that I'll cook up later for the next round of seeds I plant.
 
Now for the fun parts
 
The soil I mixed up was based off of Happy Frog.  I started with that as a base since it's the middle of winter right now and is kinda hard to track down all the amendments that I wanted to use. Everything I read about HF said it was a very mild mix and I figured that would be a good base for the rest of things.
 
Equal Parts:

• HF
• Perlite/vermiculite
• EWC

1 Cup:

• Garden Tome
• The all purpose fertilizer

Planned Top Dress Once I transplant to final container:

• Blood Meal
• AlfAlfa Meal

 
Germination (Started 11/16):
I used the small paper/material strawberry boxes that I got my strawberries in last season from the farmers market as my sprouting pots.  They are larger than a Solo cup and I figured they would work great for draining as well.  I used straight HF for my mix (I should have mixed in some of the perlite and/or vermiculite to this mix).  The 3 NL seeds were dropped straight into the soil and watered with de-clorinated tape water (let stand for ~24 hrs). These buckets were placed inside of a small tuperware container I had laying around to catch and hold any extra run off.  
 


 
 
2 of the seeds popped through the ground on 11/20.  The third kinda broke the soil but did not do very well at all.  In fact, it died before ever really popping up.  I think this was due to over watering, but could have just been a dud seed.
 


 
Seedlings:
about 12hrs after the seeds popped up I put them under a small CFL setup.  I used splitters and 2 23W 6500K CFLs and 2 13w 2700k lights that I already had around the house as well.  One of the seedlings looked like it was stretching a little bit.  I'm not really sure since some of the seedlings I've seen in other journals looked liked mine, but then some others were super short.  I figured either way I wanted to get them under my grow lights and in my tents.
 

 
I setup the MH lights dimmed to 50%.  And put the little ladies (hopefully) about 24" away.  My temp was staying a little high during the day time here so I bumped it up to about 32" and could maintain the temps right around 80F.
 
Issue so far:
One of my seedlings is yellowing just a slight bit right in the very center of the new leafs.  I've googled and looked on here and haven't seen exactly what I have.  Most of the yellowing I've seen is at the tips of the leaves on seedlings and not coming from the middle.  I've posted up in the issues/problems section on here but haven't gotten any responses yet.  I believe it was from over watering when the seedlings were sitting under the CFLs.  Under the MH they are drying up a little bit faster now So I'm hoping that won't be an issue
 

 
I will definitely be updating on here very regularly, so if you are in the mood to watch a beginner get his hands a little dirty and hopefully grow some delicious bud, buckle up and lets grow

 

Thanks deez trees. Let's hope everything goes smooth, and if not at least I'll learn a couple things along the way.

 

So it seems like everything is still going reasonably well. One of the seeds the sprouts that popped up in the very beginning shot up a lot more than the other seeds and wad a lot longer and more spindly then the other. This was even before the leaves had even kicked off the shell of the seed. I wasn't to worried about it in the beginning. I figured putting it under some decent light and getting a fan on it would take care of things. This is not the case. I had to put a little stake in the pot and leaned her up against it. This didn't fix the issue either. With the fan going I would come in to check on things and still find her flopped over on the ground. So I went ahead and tied her to the stake. Hopefully this will help out long enough for the stalk to stiffen up a little bit.

The other seedling is doing great. She's standing up tall and seems fairly strong. Her second set of true leaves are starting to sprout so think she is going to do great.

Just gave them both a little drink of water and snapped off a few pics.

 

See that's exactly what I thought. I'm not sure how it could be the lights either. This one shot up almost twice the other one even before the leaves had broken free of the seed. I'm guess just a crazy pheno that likes to grow tall haha.

Thanks for encouragement, plenty more updates to come

 

I originally wanted to do a ScrOG but I think with this being my first grow I'll stick to just doing a little topping and LST.

I also plan on taking a few clones and try my hand at that.

I think with doing those three things I should be able to keep her under control and increase my yield.

Right now I only have the two sprouts so I'm thinking of getting a auto going. I'm gonna try a heavyweight fast and fast a sweet cheese.

 

As long as I can keep it going until transplant that's what I'm planning on doing. I've read you can burry it almost all the way up to the first set of leaves.

With the autos, yeah I've read that anything above about 18 hrs of light is good for the autos. The fast and vast has a harvest time of about 8 weeks. I've read that autos usually take about a week longer then most projected harvest dates. Most places try to give as low of a time as possible so it is more appealing. I planned on vegging for about that long anyway so it should be good. Worst case I just have to go a week or so with 12/12

 

Day 12

Well so far so good! Everything seems to be going well so far. I have kicked the MH up to 75%. So I've got the little ladies sitting under 450w. I've got the ligjt ~2 ft away and have had the temperatures hovering right around the 79-82 range. This, however, has been with living the bedroom window open during the day and leaving the tent door partially open.

I didn't really like the idea of doing either of those, so I hit up ebay once again to pick up a carbon filter and fan combo. The fan kicks out about 450cfm and my room is 89 ft^3, so I think I should be pretty good.

I won't need the fan for the plants just yet, but my wife isn't really to hip on the idea.of the house having a faint soil smell to it. Haha. So the filter should take care of that too.

The little bit of yellowing that I saw on one of the plants seems to have not been am issue. I still have the long floppy one all tied up, but she seems to be doing good in spite of everything. They have bother started to get their second set of true leaves and are looking pretty healthy.

 

So my vent and fan showed up a little earlier today

I've got everything temporarily setup. I'm going to need to figure out a more permanent spot to mount the fan, but I figured I'd throw it up to see how well it works. I still need to straighten out more of the ventilation but it's looking good so far. I'll keep an eye on the temperatures for the next few hours.

Right now I just have the exhaust venting to the room but I'm building a little box so that I can mount the exhaust to the window and have some fresh air coming in.

 

That was what I originally had planned but there's not a whole lot of room with that light, the ventilation and the filter all up the top. I'm sure you can do it, thus just seemed easier for me right now.

 

Day 14
So everything seems to still be going pretty well.  I've gotten all my Exhaust/Filtering setup.  I ordered a 6" ventech fan/filter combo from EBay.  The fan is rated for 2730 RPMS and kicks out about 440 CFM.  The filter is rated to match.  I have the filter sitting on the floor of the tent (I really wanted it hanging from the top, and still may) this is routed straight to the glass tube, out of the tent, to the fan, and then a little bit more to the exhaust/intake box that I made.  the box is pretty simple, just partitioned off to intake and exhaust.  It is painted black and has a whole for the intake.  It is pretty simple an straight forward but seems to be doing a great job so far.  You can't see anything from outside and it looks pretty inconspicuous
 
Yesterday, I clicked the ballast up to 100%, so I've now got the full 600w MH shinning down.  My stems are still a little bit longer than I would like, and one of them is still tied up to a skewer.  I will probably be transplanting them in the next few days into the 3 gallon smart pots that they will spend the rest of their time in.  I picked up one of the pots today and just barely started to see some roots pocking down in one of them.  I should have plenty more time to transplant.  Once I do, I plan on burring the stems pretty deep.  Maybe .5-.75" down from the stem.  That should help with the lankiness of them so far. 
 
The internode space right now seems fairly tight, and I would hope it would be with that much light for the two of them.  I guess that is something we will see in the next week or so.
 
Last night was the first night that I started doing some foliar spraying as well.  I got a free sample of Nectar for the Gods and it came with their foliar spray.  I used that, I don't plan on using any of the rest of them right now as I'd like to build up my soil using the amendments thrown around in the organics section.  
 
I'll throw up a couple pics later.  Right now its time to head off to work.

 

Here's a couple quick shots. nit much different from the last few. Getting a few more leaves coming in, which is good

 

I'll definitely cut back on the watering until I transplant them.

How could they be stretching though under 400-600 mh? The light is 18-24" away. Would they be able to take the full 600w pulled down even closer?

I'll be able to burry some of that stem when I transplant, and that should be able to fix some of the early stretch, correct?