B14cklabel's Grow Journal

Hello all I will start by detailing my setup:

3' x 3' x 12'(ceiling) closet
PVC plastic walls and floor 4mil
Nylon tarp for floor base ( didnt go with foam, floor not concrete )
Reflective Mylar on the walls
Normal 36" nursery trays
3 gallon rez w/sponge filter and powerhead and heater
Advanced Nutrients Monkey Juice A/B Grow/Bloom
Advanced Nutrients Overdrive
Float n seed tray
1 and 2 gallon pots
coco-coir medium, no additives 100% coco-coir
400w HPS and MH (I alternate MH veg-HPS bud)
Humidifier (2 of them)
PH meter & TDS Meter & soil stick meters
(going to be getting soon)
8 bulb compact fluorescent (im building this)
new humidifier thats capable of 70% humidity

Right now I am starting with 2 seeds I pull from some Dank bags, I only smoke the dank or when that isnt around very top-o-line beasters. The plants are doing pretty well one is really taking off and the stem is getting brown really quick. They are in a MG soil and grew under a heat lamp with a good blue spectrum untill I got the MH fixture. These are about 2 weeks apart in age.

The last pic is of the larger more mature plant that I believe is slightly sick from the switch of 150w heat lamp to 400w MH ( i didnt have good setup at first had to wait for it )

Right now the plants are about 12-15" tall.

a. how much nutrients used: 600PPM Monkey juice/20-20-20 PH reducing solvent thats got plant food in it as well.
b. ph of water: 5.9-6.0 ( when not using solvent I use vinegar to drop PH )
c. medium used: soil for first 2 plants
d. temperature of room: never below 60F at night nor above 85F during lights on
e. light cycle calendared: currently at 15 hour days will switch to 14,13,12 gradually in the next 2 weeks since plants are already 2/4 weeks old
f. water schedule (frequency and quantity): Just started with setup I plan on watering every 3-4 days with 150ml for larger plant and 125ml for smaller with 600ppm nutes, dechlorinated. Will increase watering every watering by 15ml until maximum water level is reached depending on plant growth at that time.
g. humidity: began around 30% but now raised to 55-65% since being able to, will keep hopefully closer to 65% until I switch to flowing phase and will gradually lower humidity by about 3-5% per week.

everything looks great man, one suggestion is move your light a bit closer to your plants to prevent stretching.

they were stretching from the first light i had on them, insufficient to say the least.

Just to update on the journal

I ordered a 4x4x5'8 tent from eb*y for $120.00 seems to be made alright enough from the description and I write 2 letters to them telling them to not send it to me if it cannot support ~25lbs from the top of the frame or cannot support 400-600W light inside. It also said that no light comes in when plants are during off time if the tent is zipped and flaps are out correctly. so I will test this as I priced out what it would cost to build your own same sized tent and its just as if not more costly than the $120 just to get the 1/2" pvc and fittings, panda poly, velcro, nylon, zipper, stitch work hours, assembly and customization hours. Most people goto menards and they arent bad on prices, youll pay about $65-$70 at menards, $50 at least online for b/w poly as most stores do not have it (spent 2 hours looking through phone listings and calling and i live in metropolis of my state) for the zipper and the thread you will pay $15 at a fabric store, stitch work will take 1-2.3 hours depending on how your setup and your skill. A skilled person with the cuts made and seams ready to be done could finish all in 1 hour, a novice could take 5 hours.Now ask yourself if you think your finished product is going to be as nice looking as those wardrobe closets look, professional like. Probably not very much tbh. I suggest buying your tent if you can and need to have the appearance of innocence. Most whom build their own have nice ones I agree however they usually stop at the panda poly and do not make it look very clean cut so to say. Working is another story however I need mine to be as close to a closet style as possible without spending $200 lol, just ridiculous what some tents cost for 36" x 2", I can understand quality but really, you can get almost half of retail price of building materials by going to distributors. I can build the same tent I am ordering for $90 in materials including buying the poly online as I have business accounts with most distributors of various products, electrical, plumbing, mechanical, plastics, insulation, etc..
just google _____ distributors ( or manufacturer ) of _____ near YourCity, YourState

you will find resources

however through 1 sunday of research I conclude its more worth while to buy the tent made by a company thats made 500 or so before yours so your getting something thats been practiced and not your first attempt. even if you are on a fixed budget the cost of buying panda film online offsets the cost of buying one premade around $100 thats going to be just as quality most likely nicer than what your going to make. Just my 2 cents

Bought a new humidifier today, the Crane Affordable Series Penguin model, keeps the humidity just where I want it @ 45% and it works perfect!

Got my digital PH and TDS meters in the mail today and found out I have been feeding my plants water with ph of 4.6 and my liquid drop test kit sucks donkey midgets.

Immediately flushed both plants with 250ml of 555ppm nuted 5.8PH water, the sick plant is already seemingly perking up after 1 day.

Placed an order with Attitude Seeds and they are on the way, ordered on 17th, shipped on 18th, by 22nd I see them as being handed off to the USPS for delivery so we will see but seems like great shipping if they get here. I ordred super stealth with a t-shirt, I want my seeds

some new pics of the 2 plants, the one that was sick before is turning around a lot today. the leaves are perky and no longer bending at tips, while some burn seems to have occured on the top leaves from too low PH water, they seem to be thriving now and ready to xplode! I will be transplanting the smaller/younger one soon as the first leaves are now dieing finally.

well today I transplanted the plants into larger containers, 2 gal size from 1 gal pots. Surprisingly the smaller plant has a far more developed root system which tells me that the larger plant took some time to heal from an early injury where the stalk almost entirely broke. I buried the broken section in dirt and it grew back! I suppose thats why the roots have less attention than the other one as it took time to heal itself im thinking.

Some pics of the roots in general, all of them look excellent to me, no root rot or anything! Hopefully this transplant goes stress free on them as I added a 30% mix of rocks to the soil, from one of my aquariums, should be high in nutes for the plants on top of the MG soil. Watered with about 200 ml of low nuted water, next watering in 1-2 days will be a 10% over watering to test the true drainage of the rocks.

I placed 1" of rocks at the base and some rock-mg mix on top, transplanted the plants and surrounded the root system with the dirt mix. I thought this way the rocks on the base and the edges would create maximum drainage and aeration where there would be little before. My only thinking is that the porosity of the rocks I used is low so it may not help as much as I hope, but time will tell!

Day 9 since journal start and plants are really growin at it. Not going to water yet as soil is still moist so I just keep waiting for my moister meters to come and stir up the top 1" of soil to help aerate the parts below it. I find that when you pour water instead of spraying dirt tends to get cemented or compacted from the force so breaking up is a good way for aeration to me.

Not much to add waiting on seeds and tent! Found some more MG dirt in the house going to add more to the smaller plant

pics from today!

Day 11

Watered each plant 300ml of 155ppm nutes. The soil at the bottom was not dry yet to I watered to just get the top half of the soil hydrated as 1-2" down was dry.

I rotate the plants 3-4x daily to promote equal foliage growth. Perhaps next watering I will over-water by 10%, but I only will when it seems necessary. Trying to see how long the soil holds the moisture.

pics shows plants today, pretty nice foliage growth, 1 week and I will start veg.

got my seeds today!!!!!!! goooo attitude! I give super stealth 8/10 as the package and shirt were soft i could tell right away something was inside but they labeled it as like football cards and a tshirt or something so it never got opened! deserves 10/10 for not being opened by customs but hey I could feel something inside, if i was working for customs i would of opened.