Sweet Seeds' "Dark Devil Auto"

Greetings, friends!​

We're starting our 3rd grow journal, with Sweet Seeds' "Dark Devil Auto", and we'd love to have you along on the journey!

If you've not seen my other grow journals, check 'em out here: (Warning: contains some "adult-themed" content)
Barney's Farm "LSD autoflower":
https://forum.grasscity.com/threads/barneys-farm-lsd-auto-qb96-v2s-2x4-tent-grow.1550789/

Crop King "Early Miss autoflower":
https://forum.grasscity.com/threads/first-grow-with-qb96s-freedom-dream-early-miss-autoflower.1540445/

We're changing up a few things with this grow, hoping to improve on our previous experience.
Notably, we're changing our soil mixture and we're only going to be running 2 plants, instead of 3.

Before i get in to the setup details, let's take a quick look at the strain...

From Sweet Seeds' website:


We chose this strain to grow primarily for the novelty of the colour... it's always nice to break out something that looks a bit exotic to your mates
I have heard that the strain is a bit unstable, with some wild variation in the phenotypes, so i'm definitely curious to see if we'll be able to get something decent out of it.
We received a "3+1" seed pack and are currently germinating two of the four.

The Grow Space:
Tent: "Unit Farm" 2ft x 4ft x 6ft
Lighting:
Veg: 2 x 2ft Sunblaster 6400K LED strip lights +
1 x HLG Elite 360 LED fixture (pre-built fixture containing 2 x QB96 Elite V2 boards)
Flower: 2 x 2ft Sunblaster 2700K T5HO strip lights +
1 x HLG Elite 360 LED fixture (pre-built fixture containing 2 x QB96 Elite V2 boards)
Exhaust: AC Infinity Cloudline T6
Intake: Passive, fresh air via 4" flex duct
Circulation: 1 x 6" Clip Fan (top of tent), 1 x 8" fan (floor)
Cooling: 8,000 BTU Air Conditioner (outside of tent), ducted in via 4" flex duct

The Substrate:
Soil:
- 60% Fox Farms Happy Frog,
- 30% Fox Farms Ocean Forest,
- 10% Dutch Treat Perlite (coarse)
- 12 tbsp "MYKE" mycorrhizae
- 2 tbsp Gaia Green Organic All-Purpose Fertilizer
Pots: 7 Gallon fabric pot

 

No, I've been doing 5 gallon pots so far, three of them at a time in my 2x4.
Just wanted to experiment with doing two 7 gallon pots for this run.
I'd also like to do a run of 3 gallon pots to compare.

 

Germination Day -3:
With this soil mixture, i'm toning down the initial fertilizers. I think a lot of the problems from my last grow had to do with the fact that i was a bit too liberal with not only the Gaia Green dry amendment fertilizers but i also used a few handfuls of composted manure. I believe this lead to an imbalance and high levels of Nitrogen.

With this grow, i'm going minimal with the initial fertilizers, instead relying on a supplementary feeding schedule of Remo Nutrients during the veg and bloom stages.

After mixing up the soil, i checked the pH with a soil pH meter. Initially, the meter was reading 6.5/6.6. After about 2hrs, it had settled at about 6.7.


I dropped 2 of the 4 Dark Devil seeds into a glass of distilled water, which was then placed in a seedling tray on a heat mat.
The seeds were soaked for approximately 16hrs then transferred to damp paper towel on a plate, replacing the glass of water in the seedling tray.


Germination Day -2
Both seeds showing tap root.
Poked 3/4" deep hole into pre-moistened soil, sprinkled small amount of mycorrhizae into each hole and planted seeds.
Watered gently with spray mist bottle, plain tap water.
Placed pots on heat mat in tent, set to 25C and covered with humidity cloches.

 

Ya, i use Gaia veg & bloom for most of my houseplant and outdoor patio potted plants and never have issues but i think using it with Ocean Forest soil and composted manure was causing the nitrogen to spike. Combine that with a regime of liquid fertilizers and it just wasn't working for me.
You're right though, it's less likely due to the Gaia and more to do with the manure and liquid ferts.

Since I'm not overly concerned with being organic, i wanted to go with a substrate that was relatively low in nutrients, to give me a better feel for having control over what the plants are being fed on a weekly basis.
I almost went all coco for this run but chickened out at the last minute... Lol. Baby steps...
This mix is my version of a compromise between an enriched and an inert media.
I've always been one for experimentation.

 

Good to have you along!
Hoping i can do this strain justice and coax some devilishly dark buds from these seeds.

 

Sweet Seeds' Dark Devil autoflower

Germination Day -1:
- No change

Day 1:
- Approximately 28hrs after putting seeds into soil, the first sprout appears.


Day 2:
- Both sprouts showing
- The two Sunblaster LED strips are 12-14" above seedlings
- The "Elite 360" fixture is set to 10% intensity, 4ft above seedlings. It probably isn't necessary at this point, but it's helping regulate my temperature so i'll be keeping it on.
- Temp: 74F
- RH: 55%
- I turned on the humidifier today to bring the RH up, set to 30mins on/30mins off on "low" setting. Aiming for around 65% RH.
- I still have the humidity domes on the seedlings, will remove once the RH in the tent stabilizes in range.

 

Sweet Seeds' Dark Devil autoflower

Day 3:
- very lightly watered "DD-1" with mister bottle

Day 4:
- reduced light cycle to 20/4 instead of 24/0.
- Temp: 72-75F
- RH: 70-75%
- removed humidity dome for 4hrs

 

Sweet Seeds' Dark Devil autoflower

Day 5:
- removed the humidity domes from the seedlings for 4hrs
- watered very lightly "DD-2"

Day 6:
- removed humidity domes
- installed small circulation fan at the top of the tent, facing down towards (but not directly on) the seedlings

Day 7:
- RH: 50-55%
- increased humidifier to bring RH up to 60-65%

Day 8:
- Temp: 68F (lights off), 75F (lights on)
- RH: 58-65%
- It looks like the seedlings might be a little light stressed. I suspect that the humidity domes had been filtering the light intensity, and removing them caused the seedlings to receive a bit of a shock.
- Moved the two Sunblaster LED strips up 2 inches
- Light levels reading approximately 11,000 LUX at seedlings.

 

Sweet Seeds' Dark Devil autoflower

Day 9:
- no change

Day 10:
- watered both plants with a 70ppm nutrient solution consisting of .25ml per gallon each of Remo Nutrients' "Micro", "Grow" & "VeloKelp", pH'd to 6.4/6.5.
- our tap water sits at about 25-30ppm and the solution was measuring 100ppm.
- I wasn't planning on even thinking of feeding until week 3 but for some inexplicable reason, i decided to give the girls a wee taste.

 

Sweet Seeds' Dark Devil autoflower

Day 11:
- moved circulation fan to provide a gentle breeze on the seedlings to promote stem strength

Day 12:
- no change


Day 13:
- watered lightly with tap water, pH'd to 6.5

 

Sweet Seeds' Dark Devil autoflower

Day 14:
The end of week 2 has been pretty uneventful. The seedlings seem to be growing fairly slowly though. I'm hoping things will be picking up this next week.
We plan to start feeding this next week, somewhere around 150-300ppm once or twice a week, depending on how they react.
Today, we increased the light intensity of the HLG Elite 360 fixture, from 10% to 20% and lowered it to 36" above canopy.
This has increased LUX readings by about 3-5,000 LUX, to approximately 14-16,000 LUX.

 

Ya, LUX is a bit lower than either of my last 2 grows were at the same growth stage.
In my last grows i found that i was constantly increasing and decreasing intensity when I'd notice light stress.
I wanted to try to avoid that during this grow but maybe I've been a bit too conservative...
I plan on increasing the light levels throughout this coming week, bumping the light intensity up by 5% each day.
I'm aiming for 22-25,000 LUX before day 21.

The fungas gnats are leftovers from a few of my girlfriends orchids that were REALLY badly infested. We've been using "gnatrol" (BT bacteria) during watering and just last week topped the soil with diatomaceous earth, which has really helped.
So far I've only noticed a couple in the grow tent so I'm just using the sticky traps.