1st Day of 1st Grade!!!

What up?!?!

First post on first day of my first grow!!!

Here's what I'm working with...

5x5 Gorilla tent
1000w MH bulb - plan on switching to HPS for flowering
Dimmable digital ballast currently @50% - cranking it up once I'm sure I haven't royally messed up anything
6" Air cooled hood
Carbon scrubber
Soler & Palau TD-150S 6"
2 Kushberry clones
2 Chernobyl clones

I just put the clones into small potters & solo cups. Using some miracle grow soil I had lying around until I am ready to transfer everything into 7 gallon smart pots with new soil & probably perlite

Have my timer set for 18/6. Shooting for temps of high 70s to low/mid 80s.

The tent is in the 2nd bedroom of my 2 bedroom apt. No roomies.

The ceremonial pics(not sure why they rotated they were upright when I took them but I'm on my iPad so w/e)...

Wish me luck!!! I'm stoked!!!

They look healthy =).. Try to keep them plants between 78-80 if you go lower than 75 they tend not to thrive in my opinion. spray them with water once a day they love to be pampered =).. Also give em nutrients after they are around 2 weeks old but just feed them half of what they recomend.

How tall is ur tent?

I have 8 feet tall ceiling, I veg mine for 6-7 weeks they grew 2 feet tall.


Keep us updated it man and good luck =)

Thanks!

I sprayed them and poured a little water into the soil right after I transferred them. PH'd at ~5.0-5.5.

Like I said before I was on my iPad before(cell phone now) but I want to get some pics up of the tent/room/etc as a visual aid.

Short-term: I hope to keep these things alive.

Long-term: I hope to figure out how to mainline at least 2 of my 4 up to 8 and if I'm feeling lucky 16.

Lofty goals I know but I've done a shitton of research up to this point, now it's just a matter of putting the theory into practice.

Stay tuned...

My tent is 8ft I think btw.

I'm just under 6 and I can reach the top just barely. I don't have the extensions installed that they include so whatever the standard Gorilla height is.

Also, as this is my first grow I've only ever seen 1 other tent in person before and didn't inspect it too closely. That being said, these Gorilla tents are beasts!!! 99% of what you read/see in reviews is legit. SUPER thick material. I'm ~175lbs and I can hang from the top. 360 degree access is sweet. More vents & port holes than you can shake a stick at.

IF and only if I were to say something negative it'd be about the zippers. A few times I've had to jiggle them to get them to zip but it just takes some finesse.

If you're on the fence about getting a Gorilla or something else that's cheaper don't cheat yourself. It's worth it. 100%.

Beginning of Day #4

I was out of town yesterday and had watered all 4 girls prior to leaving a touch extra so I didn't have to worry. It seems as though 1 of my kushberry clones either went through what water I did give it or never got what it needed in the first place when I transplanted it into soil. I'm almost positive the following picture proves that it's experiencing under watering. Any insight is appreciated.



I watered everything this morning and will be checking back later today/tonight. Not too worried but it would def suck if I lost 1 of my 4. Especially one of the kushberry clones as that's the strain I'm looking most forward to.

Also, here's a quick shot of my tent. LOTS of room to fill out.


PS- Not sure why all my pics rotate like that. I'll try to post pics on the computer vs iPad from now on.

Nice looking setup. A couple things you may want to consider.

1.) Water pH for soil you should be shooting for is 6.5, not 5-5.5 which is better suited for hydro
2.) Clones often look the worst right before they are about to taker off, so don't yank them unless they are completely dried out and shriveled. The last 3 clones I took I almost pitched right before they took off, they look so bad because they concentrate on the roots, after that is established they should perk up.
3.) For your clones, you are better off with some smaller lights up close than that big ass 100 way up high. Save some money from running that thing and drop a couple smaller lights down there for the next week or two until your clones take off

I agree with mr bum here ^ get some cfls and hang them tell there ready. subbed and along for the ride =P

P.S. start some LST so you can maximize your grow space! (when they pick up of course)

Thanks for the input!

My PH was 5.0-5.5 today, not sure why I didn't put that but I'm keeping a hardcopy journal as well with all of the boring details. It was stressed to me before I even thought about growing how important PHing your water was.

Im going to look into getting a quick CFL setup going here today.

TBH I haven't even looked @CFLs yet but it is on my list --> I wasn't sure how I was going to get clones off of these to keep a continual grow going but was pretty sure CFLs were going to be the ticket.

Keep your eyes peeled for my new CFL setup! I don't have work today and other than working out nothing is going on. Readyyyy GO!

If you can get a fluorescent rig to drop down that would work for your space as well. That way you can use less power, and get them right down there on the plants. The clones tend to like it with a bit higher heat and humidity.

Are you dropping the pH of your water that low on purpose or is that just how your comes out?

Here's my PH logic:

There's acceptable PH ranges for certain things. As long as I'm in that range ill be able to sleep at night.

This morning the PH was on the high side out of the faucet 7.0+ so I dropped it down to 5.0-5.5. So I guess I did it on purpose today.

Heading to Home Depot to pickup 2 3-bulb fixtures today. Ill keep you guys posted.

you can get them at wal-mart cheaper (from my personal experience)

rikcherron99 said:

you can get them at wal-mart cheaper (from my personal experience)

Click to expand...

Fixture or bulbs or both?

Actually gonna stop at Restore first then go from there.

Thanks!

It's up to you,but 5.0-5.5 is too low for soil. That is the range you want for Hydroponics. 6.5 is ideal for soil grows, if you are getting 7.0 from your faucet, I probably would let it be since your soil should have no problem at all buffering from 7 to 6.8-6.5.

View attachment 2823954

Oh, and here is the comparison if you like:

View attachment 2823958

Thanks Bum!!! I hope you didn't think I was trying to argue PH with you - It's science!!!

It looks like a few things were unclear to me - most importantly a plants ability to 'buffer' the PH. Makes perfect sense now. Thanks again!

I've made the transition to CFLs for the time being. I picked up 2 40W bulbs with 8" reflectors. See picture below. The bulbs are ~4-6" away from the tops of the plants FYI.

***My only question***

Is this going to be enough light???




After the morning w/the MH still on it seemed as though the kushberry that was lacking water was picking up but that's only going off of the things that I had propped it up with, didn't really look any closer earlier...

If anybody thinks/knows that this is enough light or not I'd really appreciate any input!

Thanks in advance!

KE

I've given up on trying to rotate pics, sorry for your any stiff necks this causes.

That should be plenty, honestly the clones do not need much light while they are building out their roots. Once that is done and you start seeing new growth forming up top, you can start with the MH. I am not sure how far away the 1000 should be (I use a 400) but I am sure someone here can let you know.

Do you have a little fan in there that you can give your leaves a bit of a "sway"? A nice little oscillating fan would be best, that will help with fresh air and to strengthen the stems.

hbbum said:

That should be plenty, honestly the clones do not need much light while they are building out their roots. Once that is done and you start seeing new growth forming up top, you can start with the MH. I am not sure how far away the 1000 should be (I use a 400) but I am sure someone here can let you know.

Do you have a little fan in there that you can give your leaves a bit of a "sway"? A nice little oscillating fan would be best, that will help with fresh air and to strengthen the stems.

Click to expand...

SWEET!!! Thanks again for the reply!!! I'm new here but I've been in my fair share of forums - it's nice to have responses and it doesn't go unappreciated!!!

Currently there are 2 fans blowing at the plants. 1 fan blowing fresh air in. 1 fan pulling air out. So 4 total.

Obv it's tough to see in my pics but the leaves are all getting a nice amount of movement.

you can get drop lights at wal-mart for 10$ and the bulbs range from 2-16 dont get soft white cfls ether it will burn your plant

Good news!!!

The Kushberry clone that was in rough shape is turning around!!! There's some obvious damage to 2 of the fan leaves but overall I think it'll be salvageable. This pic is at a bad angle but you can tell it's not droopy like it was Monday morning when I found it.



Not a whole lot else to report.

The RH% in my tent is dipping below 30% which I'm not too worried about - temp is right around 75-80. I sprayed the leaves a couple times today and the soil is still moist.

In ~2 weeks I am going to have some visitors at my place and am not sure how I'm going to deal with it if at all... I'm pretty sure I'm going to give up my bedroom and just use the spare bedroom as my own while they are in town. I'm in a legal growing situation so I'm not worried about getting in trouble. Just how to explain to my Dad, Stepmom and little Sister what's going on. Wouldn't really be worried if it was my Mom or any other family.

Pretty much just maintaining now until these clones take off.... Stay tuned!

KE

What up People!?!?

Going on day 9 of having these clones in my possession.

Just got them transplanted into airpots with a soil/mushroom compost/perlite/worm casting mix.

Things seem to be going OKish. All but one of the clones seem to be growing.

Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure:

Overhead of garden

Here's what looks to be a problem starting to sprout up. This is on the plant that wasn't getting enough water right off the bat for me and got VERY droopy. I'm starting to do research to try to find the cause - any insight would be appreciated.

Here's another problem leaf. It's not the same plant as above but the same strain - Kushberry - It's isolated to this leaf at the moment but I don't really want it to spread. Again, any insight would be appreciated and would probably save me heaps of time.

Here's one of my Chernobyl clones - the one that doesn't seem to really be growing at all. I got a glimpse at the roots when I transplanted and they're popping out of the rockwool but not as robust as the others. We'll see after a few days in the new soil...

The second of my 2 Chernobyl clones. The root system on this one is blowing up. I think its just a matter of time before she really takes off.


The last 2 waterings I've added 5 drops of Superthrive and 10 of CalMag into my gallon container - PHd @6.5-7.0. I've been using the entire gallon container over a 2-3 day span. Today I filled it up again and just PHd it to 6.5-7.0 with nothing added. My temps have been in the high 70s/mid 80s with a RH% of 30-40%. I'm going to give them a day without any water tomorrow and revisit it on Wednesday. While keeping an eye on them closely to make sure the leaf situation doesn't get any worse.

As always questions, comments and concerns are always welcome and appreciated.

PEACE!

KE