Auto DR90 Apartment Grow

Hey everyone, been lurking around gathering info and setting up a grow so, I thought that I would document it and throw it up on rollitup. I will list what I am working with and guess we will go from there. Any advise, info, suggestions, questions, and comments are all welcome. I will try to keep it updated a couple of times a week and hopefully these girls turn out fantastic.

So here is what I am working with:

5 Beans: Two unknown from some bud, One World of Seeds Afghan Kush Ryder, Pyramid Auto Pipi, and Auto Berry Ryder Automatic. The autos are feminized.
5 gal nursery pots with Sunshine Mix #4, mixed with a bit of schultz potting soil that I had left over.
Secret Jardin DR90 grow tent.
Sunleaves Windtunnel 6"
OdorX 400+cfm carbon filter
Digital 400W ballast with MH and a Gavita HPS bulb
Holland Secret Nutes: Micro, Grow, Bloom, Super B+, and Ton O Bud. PH Down, and I am using old school limus paper and liquid test kit from GH.
City Water left overnight

My Beans sprouted Feb 5-7 and I am just about to hit the two week mark. I have been running the MH 18-6 since the start. I have it 18-22" from the tops. Temps are a little high 75-85ish but my apartment has real shytti temperature controls and it is freaking hot if i don't leave my patio open. I am also on the top floor. I have the exhaust pumping into my bathroom where I send it out via the bathroom exhaust fan, there is definitely some positive pressure in the bathroom and I have no freakin idea where my bathroom is exhausted to (most likely the roof? or my neighbors bathroom). I have been on top of the PH as much as the litmus will let me, and my motto is if its green its good to go, around 6.2 - 6.5 ish. Will be investing in a digital one soon. The soil runoff at first seemed a little low, but my city water is high so I guess it evened out over the two weeks here. Now I keep my water as much as possible at 6.5. The fist set of leaves had a tiny burn at the very tip, but now its gone and they seem happy. I just started to run 1/2 of suggested light schedule of 300ppm, so around 150ppm. And next watering I will hit them with Holland Secrets 670ppm schedule.

The Auto's are already showing sex, except the pipi it sprouted around the 14 so its a week behind. I was gone for two days and when I got back I noticed a smell walking into my pad, wasnt bad at all, but I am now am going to run the carbon filter. Basically I am now going to wait for the 3 week mark to switch to HPS and give them around a full day of night. I may take out the Pipi since its a week behind. I don't care too much about the two unknown beans, so they are my test subjects and if one is male I will save its pollen to make some beans of my own with the Autos.
The Berry is in the top left, the Afghan is in the middle, the Pipi is top right, Two unknown bottom left and right. I am running the DR90 in my storage closet and the exhaust is pumped into the batroom right above that pretty lady.

Post again soon.

awesome for such a small space to work with. Looking forward to the rest of your grow. good luck

Ok, so hit day 14 (21Feb13) with no real big issues so far. The center Auto Kush has a bit of leaf curl upwards. My humidity is super low. I am in a really cold dry climate right now. I have a tray with water and paper-towels sitting on the floor and a small ion humidifier. The Airoswiss humidifier actually drops my temps a fair bit. Almost like air conditioning. I haven't seen anything over 50% despite my efforts, misting every other day as well.

@autogrown, I was wondering if that 6 inch sunleaves fan was too much fan for the dr90? I'm trying to decide between the 4 and 6 inch fan size. Are you using a speed controller?

I would go for the 6" over the 4" I got my 6" off Amazon for a pretty good price. I got a speed controller on it. Its the simple rheostat type. Some say you need to go with a variac transformer to slow er down without any hurt. I don't think that is true if you are running 24/7 like me. I am keen on keeping my smell to a minimum so I am constantly scrubbing. I don't have a vented hood and my temps are on par with the room temp at half speed and nice and quiet. I noticed once the buzzing noise that everyone talks about with the speed controllers, but that was when I tried to start from a dead stop and go straight to a low speed. What I think I heard is arching on the brushes, not enough juice to get it spinning. Not going to kill the motor instantly but not great... The speed controller works great if you start on full and slow it down from there and just let it run. The speed controller will get a little hot, but this is normal, just a big resistor, and not nearly as hot as my ballast. I can sure put some negative pressure on the tent with the 6" you can see the walls cave in a bit. I went big with the fan too because I was a little paranoid about the temps getting high. Every other time I have "tried" to grow in a closet I have battled temps basically to the death of the plants, this time I did not want to have that problem and I don't so I am satisfied. I cant compare but I bet my 6" at half throttle is quieter than the 4" at full or near full. Another bonus. My bathroom exhaust fan is louder than the exhaust end of the sunleaves. I guess you could say I am happy with the 6".

Hit day 21 with no real issues. Temps got a little high yesterday about 88 but that was only because my apartment was around that temp. Bumped up the nutes to the 820ppm still with more grow than bloom. I am going to hit them soon with 24 hours of dark and switch to HPS, most likely this weekend when I can be around for right time to do the switch and switch back on. I am usually sleeping by the time its lights out in the DR90. The two unknowns are still not showing any signs of definite sex, something is popping up but not sure yet if its a dude, to be honest this is the first real grow for me and never have seen a male plant before so just leaning to catch the signs as I go on. The Femmy Autos are great they get right into it. Tried to get some close ups of the autos "buds" but the iphone will only do so much justice. Wish me luck dudes, this is actually going all right so far.

Day 26, Bumped up the nutes a bit, with intervals of just plain ol 6.5 ph city water. Gave them a full 24 hours of darkness 4 days ago, and switched to HPS. I am noticing a stretch in all the auto's, I think my two unknown seeds are female and they did not stretch at all over the switch just still puffing up. Kind of wondering what's going on with the autos stretching, I am keeping the PH around 6.5 still and running somewhere around 870ppm for nutes on the Holland Secret feed guide. I haven't trimmed the plants at all and no rope or ties yet. Or is this normal and they just need more time to bud up??? Should I just bump up the bloom in the nutes? Take a look and tell me what you guys think. I am hesitant on raising the light just because of the BerryAuto in the corner... I am also thinking maybe of going to pick up a different HPS bulb... Any suggestions for the 400W? Thanks in advance.

REAL nice. I'm going to have an identical setup. I'm going to be growing out of my small apartment as well. Any noticeable odor now that the plants are flowering?

My tent is going to be in my room, will the fan at half speed keep me up?

@dictate No odor, I am happy with the carbon filter I got. $159.99. Can't smell a thing anymore walking into my apartment. Only can smell em when I am in the closet with the door open. The 6" probably will keep you awake until you get used to it. I don't think there is any other way to keep the temps in check than the 6". The 4" may work if your running a cool tube.

Auto,

What kind of lighting schedule are you running with the autos? 20/4?

@thamagnificent, After reading about growing autos I went with 18/6, and a little push from the two non-auto's in there (which now have shown they are both female) made me go with the 18/6 schedule. The autoberry ryder is the only one really stretching and after reading more on it it can be anywhere from 30cm to 70cm. I think the 24 hours of dark and the switch to HPS may have shocked them a little, but the stretching has slowed down over the last couple of days and the buds have gotten bigger. Just gave them a healthy dose of bloom nutes and no burning showing. I still have room to go up in the DR90II so my worries have faded a little. When the autos finish I am going to switch the two non-autos to 12/12 till they are done, and then just go with a new batch of autos from seed. If the berry ryder keeps budding up like it is then that stretch wasn't a bad thing. I am just letting them grow wild with no trimming, bud sites everywhere. Definitely digging the autos, they are pretty exciting to watch grow since buds started forming at 14 days from sprouting whereas the nonautos just showed sex today and yesterday after 28 days since sprouting.

Day 30....

Took the Auto Berry Ryder, and Auto Afghan Kush out for a photo shoot. Enjoy.

Cool! But you're still running the 18/6 under HPS too correct?

@thamagnificent yup, 18/6 with the HPS also.

Day 36, no problems yet. I am running lots of nutes, esp. the Bloom. 50ml/10L (h2o). Added the ton-o-bud, no burning issues. Running about 5ml of the powder to 10L. It all goes into one big bucket. They are drinking lots. About ever second day I add about 2L to each plant. Temps are good and PH is around 6.5 or lower. Got another 6" fan to put in there and going to get a digital PH meter and some late bloom nutes this weekend. Added some stakes since the berry rider is swaying a little with the little fan I got. The Auto's sure liked the bloom. They were getting a light green color, but now have that deep green going again and the Berry Ryder is making some sugar!

same as me lol... i love my dr90.. little small now that im flowering but oh well... tents awesome and has more vents then i could ask for.. good luck bro... i got dinafems- og kush, blue widow, critical jack and medical seeds y griega in mine.. i call it my house of funk

I am really liking the DR90 as well. Thinking of investing in a DR60 for vegging with a 200W hydrofarm. Do a harvest with the autos every 2 weeks 1 plant.

Day 46, no big issues so far, drinking lots. Going to give them one last bloom feeding, then start to flush.



Will be topping the two non auto's soon, they are getting too tall for the DR90. Once they are done, I will be growing nothing but auto's. They work well with the DR90, and more fun to grow as well.

Day 62 respectively. Have been flushing the Auto's for almost a week now with just PH'd city water. Gave them Final Finish 3 days ago. I will be cropping the BR in a week for sure. Just keeping an eye out on the autos for the tell tale signs that they are getting close to being done. The trichromes arnt showing any signs of yellowing under a 30X magnifier. Keeping an eye out for the fan leaves going yellow now. Got another tent for vegging its a DR60 clone for 85$ from a local shop. Got around 250 watts of CFL in there and will be only doing 2 autos at a time in that one. I put the two non auto flowers that I have going since they are way too big for the DR90 and hogging light from the autos. I may just kill them, time will tell. Started some more beans in the mean time.