Welcome to my 600wHPS multi-strain grow.

[BlackGoose]

Hi, RIU community. This is my first grow journal here, and my first serious attempt at growing. I've messed around a few times when I was younger, gathering bits of info over the years. Now I've got my recommendation, so I feel comfortable to have a small legit set up. What really got me hooked was my first yeilding plant, harvested a couple months ago. This plant was a real trooper! Long story short, I planted her a few days befor my bday, she sprouted on my bday, grew for 3 months very slowly due to nute lock from bad well water, and no pH adjustment and started to flower, it was only about 14" tall after 3 months growth lol, so I added some outdoor supplemental lighting to throw her back to veg, and started feeding her with piss and vinegar (to lower pH and add nitro) and she slowly began to get greener and reveg, single blade non serrated leave freakout for a while then she had a little microburst of growth and I added a 150w hps to her and dropped the supplemental lighting and she went back to flower. I only fed this plant with some of my pee, and a teaspoon of vinegar every watering, but never actually measured the pH. The strain was a trainwreck x OG and in 7 months time I had a 20" beauty ready for harvest lol. I was very surprised at the quality of this "piss n vinegar" harvest. It was small, but very cool given all she had been through. First pic is her. So anyways that's how I became hooked! Now on to my current new set up....

Room - 6'x4'x6' constructed wood box
Lights - 2x 125w cfl 6400k, 1x 600w hps w/cooltube on digi/dimmable ballast
Ventilation - 1x 6" 440 cfm blower 1x 6" 450 cfm carbon filter 1x 6" 250 cfm inline fan 1x circulation fan
Soil - 50/50 mix FFOF/HAPPY FROG and added perlite
Nutes - fox farm trio grow big big bloom and tiger bloom
Genetics - Private reserve/OG, XXX/Bubba, random bagseed

The pr/og and xxx/bubba are clones, and I actually got them mixed up during transplant and now don't know which is which! Lol oh well.. they are 25 days old, and the random bagseed is about 16 days old. They are on 19-6 lighting and they've been fed twice at 1/4 strength but showed signs of burn, and I realized my soil mix is probably doing just fine on feeding them for now. I just transplanted the 4 clones on 10/30 into 3 gal containers. They have been popped (supercropped) twice as of last night. I plan to veg them another 2 weeks under 2 125w cfls and then switch to 12/12 and throw in the hps. I plan to take a cutting from each plant before they go into flowering for my homemade bubble cloner. Or I may just take cuttings from the strongest looking plant, not sure yet. That's all for the moment... here are some pics, first 3 pics are of my miniature outdoor harvest. Others are of current girls. ! St week 2nd week 3rd week and current.

 

[BlackGoose]

Just a little 4 week update. Girls doing well. Loving the supercrop. Added the new hps in with cool tube and 440 cfm blower and I can't get the room above 74f! Thinking I need a fan controller. The 440 cfm blower is a little overkill for a 6x4x6. Questions and comments welcome.

 

[BlackGoose]

Just thinking here... but has anyone ever tried using a simple dimmer switch for lighting, as a fan controller??

 

[medicalman1983]

i use http://www.htgsupply.com/Product-Blower---Fan-Speed-Control works good to dial in temps. just turn it up or down depending on temps when needed

 

[BlackGoose]

i use http://www.htgsupply.com/Product-Blower---Fan-Speed-Control works good to dial in temps. just turn it up or down depending on temps when needed

Thanks for the info medicalman... ill be ordering one of those tomorrow. Temps are sitting pretty low in there right. Been stuck around 64°f but the ladies seem to be pretty perky. Any idea what's the lowest temps they can still thrive in?

In other news.... DECAPITATION IN GROW ROOM YESTERDAY! It was really sad lol. Trying to get my screen measured out for scrofula and was having the girlfriend help me(mistake) and she dropped the screen over the plants and one was decapitated. I tried to save the top and throw it in the bubble cloner... we'll see how she does. Pics coming up....

 

[BlackGoose]

So yea here's the ladies at day 32... and the decapitated female... the temp in room during this pic is 64f. Seems like theyed be a lil droopy at that temp?? Got the decapitated head in the bubblecloner (probably too cold in there too)waiting to see what happens. I even threw in a 125w cfl to bring heat up a bit and it did nothing. Oh well ladies lookin good

 

[BlackGoose]

What's up everyone.. just a little update to my room. Added 2 125w 6400k flouros on either side of my 600w hps. Plants seem to be enjoying it, and now my temps are more in the optimum range. Questions or comments welcomed/appreciated!

 

[BlackGoose]

What's up everyone. Decided last night to get my screen ready for scrog. Gonna flip to 12/12 coming here in the begining of week six. Not quite sure how to judge/manage the stretch I'm going to get in flowering. Never done a scrog. Do you guys think they're ready to flower and fill the screen? Or should I veg another week or two? The strains are XXX/Bubba and private reserve og.

Other than that, ladys looking good. They seem to be taking off, and bulking up very nicely. Each plant has 7-9 primary branches that are really taking off. I've supercropped three times and the stocks are turning into monsters! Any advice appreciated

P.s. other pics are of my outdoor red pepper harvest lol. Gonna make my own hot sauce this year... YEAAA BOI.

 

[BlackGoose]

I was just curious of anyone around here has grown out the strain?XXX/Bubba. Wondering if its gonna be stretching much?? Thanks in advance!

 

[BlackGoose]

What's up everyone! Been a pretty lonely grow journal, thus far.... This is my first real attempt at a grow, and I was really looking forward to hearing some constructive criticism/advice from the more experienced guys, but oh well keep on truckin right?!

So today marks day 42 of veg, and the 12/12 flip happens tonight. Was gonna do some research first on this 24hr dark period I've been seeing people mention. Before I heard anything about the 24hr dark period before flowering, I had planned on gradually bringing it down from 19/5 to 12/12 by hour increments each night. Seemed to me like it would give the plants a smoother transition into flowering, but hey what do I know!? Its me first time

Here are a couple pics of the ladys. I think they've done pretty decent for 42 days huh?and the only green pic you see was one of the ladys out of the room, 4 days ago just to give an idea of color. Those damn hps bulbs are so intense lol. And please! Comments welcome. ... even if they're bad

 

[Stevieh]

Piss and vinegar am loving it already lol .....
subbed
ive only got that far so going back to read the rest .......

 

[Stevieh]

Ha , that first plant nice mate ....

everything else looking good, I haven't used scrog or grew any of the strains,but keep going buddy am listening
Good luck....

 

[BlackGoose]

Piss and vinegar am loving it already lol .....
subbed
ive only got that far so going back to read the rest .......

Cool man thanks for stopping in! And yea, piss and vinegar! A couple friends and family members looked at me pretty funny about the pee thing and said they wouldn't sampling my urine buds... and I was like aw too bad... secretly thinking "more for me" The quality turned out to be grade A, and eventhough she was a small beauty, I was very proud of her lol.

 

[BlackGoose]

Hey guys... decided last minute to add a couple seedlings to the scrog before 12/12 switch. Came up with a neat little idea so they can just sit at the edges of my scrog. I just cut two pieces of plywood and then drilled out two 3" holes in each piece of plywood so that the little solo cup can just slip down it the 3" hole and then I set the plank of wood on top of my scrog strings. So in the center are the big girls and they're edged with some smaller 12/12 from seed plants. Please forgive me if this sounds completely ridiculous lol. Its my first run so I'm just messin around and testing out different things.... and I hope it turns out groovy... so all together I now have 4 strains in the flower box. XXX/Bubba - Private reserve OG - G-13 - and random bagseed. The random bagseed was strange at start... climbed to 11 point leaves within the fifth or sixth node. Never have seen that before. Anyways.. let the flowers begin

Also had to revise my bubble cloner as it was leaking too much light... so I got it all fixed up and sanitized to hold a couple g13 seedlings, and 1 cutting of XXX/B and 1 cutting of PR OG. Took only one cutting from the two strains for a few different reasons... the first being that I don't want to lose these genetics, the second cause I've never cloned and am anxious to try my hand at it, and lastly cause I made this cool little bubble cloner out of an old cabinet I had laying around and had to test her out! Used one of the drawers from the cabinet and flipped it upside down on top of the cabinet and hinged it there with an airlockseal so I could keep electronics, air pump etc. In its own little chamber mainly just cause I have ocd and cant handle a scattered grow area with wires and tubes exposed everywhere lol. Its kind of a ghetto little box but I like it. I hope those little girls root!! Lemme know what you guys think

 

[Stevieh]

Hey Goose....

Things are looking sweet .....

Thats weird that that the bag seed got 11 fingered leaves so soon you might be onto a cracker
The surprises of growing bag seed

 

[BlackGoose]

Hey Goose....

Things are looking sweet .....

Thats weird that that the bag seed got 11 fingered leaves so soon you might be onto a cracker
The surprises of growing bag seed

Thanks Stevieh! I forgot to mention about that bagseed that it smells insanely skunky for how young it is and it hasn't even shown its sex yet! Good thing I still have some more of those beans stashed away...

 

[BlackGoose]

Also, the two cuttings I took last night wilted and fell all the way over within an hour of putting them in the cloner. By this morning one of them was perked back up and going, the other is still wilted over. You guys think it can come back if its been wilted so badly for over 12hrs???

 

[BlackGoose]

Oh, and one more question... I'm using a 50/50 mix of happy frog and ocean forest, and I'm watering with pH'd tap water that I leave out for two or three days. My question is about the pH buffering capabilities of the happy frog and ocean forest.... can that soil mixture buffer a 8.0+ pH level? And also does it work the opposite as well? If I lower my pH to say 4.8, will it bring it back up for me as well? Oh and I forgot to mention, I have added perlite in the mix so its about 40%40%20% ratio. Thanks in advance!

 

[Stevieh]

Oh, and one more question... I'm using a 50/50 mix of happy frog and ocean forest, and I'm watering with pH'd tap water that I leave out for two or three days. My question is about the pH buffering capabilities of the happy frog and ocean forest.... can that soil mixture buffer a 8.0+ pH level? And also does it work the opposite as well? If I lower my pH to say 4.8, will it bring it back up for me as well? Oh and I forgot to mention, I have added perlite in the mix so its about 40%40%20% ratio. Thanks in advance!

Would try and help you but am mashed and it's not making sense sorry ... Give you a bump anyway

 

[BlackGoose]

Would try and help you but am mashed and it's not making sense sorry ... Give you a bump anyway

Thanks mate