DankDave420's Mixed Strain Soil Grow from seed.

Soil grow. FF Happy Frog with pearlite.
Fox Farms Trio. Blackstrap molasses as cal-mag replacement and carbs.
Viparspectra Reflector 450.
32x32x63 grow tent. Ventilated.
Solo cups to 6" pot to 3 gallon smart pot.
Temps 70-82
Humidity 40-65. Struggle with low humidity when furnace runs.
PH 6.2-6.8
Bag seeds from good grower and genetics. Mixed Strains. Blueberry. P Ex. Grapefruit. Orange Kush. Pink Kush. Missed a male and seeded. Not sure how many of which or any or all. Bag seed.
Germination start: Oct 1
All sprouted from soil by Oct 6.
This is my first LED grow. I have some growing experience with seeds and cloning but it has been about 5 years.
I currently have 17 seedlings. I planted extra to account for duds and males but they all sprouted. I had a PH issue at first before I got my kit and led to over watering to fix that but it wasn't severe, I believe it slowed the growth some though. I plant to take a couple mothers and just SOG the rest of the females on the first grow. Next grow I will likely SCROG once I figure out how my set up works out. This grow I am going for expedited harvest date primarily.

hey Dave I seen you had another post concerning the distance your light is from your plants those seedlings are pretty young & you're probably doing the right thing to keep your light 30-36 in. above the plants when you get a little more growth you should be able to start lowering your light I run leds & am still learning as well the vipar you're running looks like a good deal for the money I'm considering buying one myself currently I have a California light works ss-275 (200w.) & a Johnson cx-6 (340w.) both are in 3x3 tents if it's cool I'll pull up a chair

Thanks man. Yes the light seems good quality to me. I just hope it is enough to get me through flower in my tent. I can always supplement I guess. I had been following the manufactures recommendations for height but others were saying it is a bit too conservative. I am lowering it slowly and watching for feedback. I am also only using the veg switch and others have said I should just use both. I probably will once I know they are strong enough and if I run out of coverage with only the veg. Alot of trial and error with these LEDs I guess, the information available varies alot. I will try to find some other journals using this light. I just don't want to be too conservative and slow my grow down too much. Thanks again.

Trueliving Outdoors All Purpose Potting Soil will not grow cannabis! I was wondering why my plants were so slow. Transplanted out of that crap yesterday and my babies are already having a growth spurt. Everyone I've found that has grown in this soil had the same problem as me, and instant improvement after transplanting. I knew not to grow in cheap dirt but my fiancee picked it up and I thought WTH seedlings will be ok. Absolutely not. They are in FF Happy frog now because it is all I could get around here that was stored indoors and quality.

Ok my Viparspectra 450 is giving me about 28 watts per square foot. I am starting to doubt that this is sufficient for 32x32". But my research is inconsistent with sources saying anywhere from 25-50 watts per square foot is optimum. Any advice? Should I pick up another fixture? Maybe a Viparspectra 300? That would give me about 45w per sq. ft. Or is this too much?

Update: Well I sucked one of my best babies up in the shop vac Tried to transplant one of my ones that didn't get transplanted originally into the pot and ended up collapsing it. Might just dump those three that were in bad soil, they are lagging. That would leave me with 13 healthy looking babies so I'm not too upset. It is sad though.
Anyways I haven't been able to decide what I'm doing with mothers with all these unsexed babies. I've thought clone each one and keep track of them until I flower their moms. Or just take a few for moms n hope for the best.
Well, now I am hearing about this monster cropping and I think it might be the way for me to go. That way I know I am only cloning females and can still get an idea of the phenotype before growing them all out.
Also I notice with the sucked up baby that the most of the roots were in the old soil and it seemed to be air pruning some and not spreading into the new medium. I think this is because I overwatered early and was trying to keep them dryer because I had a few gnats. Well I think I was too dry and the better soil was drier than the original and was air pruning the roots.
Overall though I am getting good growth now and they look really healthy. Instead of watering near the plant I will water around the edges and hopefully will be good to go.
Gave them a very small amount of Big Bloom and molasses for Cal Mag. Like 10% strength still to be cautious. They don't need nutes yet. They look great.

I do get nervous with the LED. I thought my tops looked a little droopy and my leaves aren't very big so I worried it was too much light too soon. Also have like no internodal spacing. So I backed it off and also backed the fan up a little, they were really blowing around. It has been a few hours and most of them look like they really perked up. Tops are pointing up on most of them now. Could just be the watering and high humidity today. Idk. I'll ease the light back down, it should actually be too far now. Would rather see a little stretch than be stunting them and not realize it. Nothing drastic though, they look good.

Well heard somewhere once a plant is stunted it always is. My plants are growing good now but out of abundance of caution and with my abundance of seeds and an empty veg cabinet, going ahead and starting another round of seeds. I plan to eventually order seeds online so might as well try out as many phenos as possible. Maybe a real killer in what I have already.

Ok I'm officially considering my babies in veg. After a rough start they look good and are growing fast now that I have got the environment right for them.

I am going to squeeze 9 in my tent for veg until they get sexed and monster cropped. Plan to try FIMing out too. I am going to put the smallest 4 straight into flower in my veg cabinet for fun.
My veg cabinet will need a bit more light.

Not sure if I will keep these new seedlings as I have decided on strains to order that really fit my grow and appeal to me. Just hoping they show up without issues. I may wait to see how well these 4 early ones flower though because they are good genetics but are still not properly bred. I'm paranoid they will end up hermies. Dude they came from went off the grid so I never got to ask how they got seeded. All he said was he missed one and I never went into depth because I hadn't planned to grow at that time. The buds were like 75% seed. I do believe the male was blueberry if I remember correctly. Time will tell.

Got me a new 2ft 4 bulb T5 for the veg cabinet. Think I am going to flower my smallest 6 under that immediately and train the ones in my tent a while before flowering and monster cropping. I think my plants are compact enough to flower OK under the T5. Plus I have more supplemental light if needed. Then I will be on a good 2 light rotation schedule after I get clones started.

One month old. Last day they will be together. They are getting split in half. One half will be going into flower, the other will vegged and trained. Because there is so many plants this go, the smallest will be flowered in the veg cabinet and the biggest will be trained in the bloom tent. It seems silly but I think it will be best until I get clones started.

Ok so it has been like 16 hours since my last post all hell broke loose. I used extra molasses last watering because I didn't have Cal Mag. Well one of my plant was looking a little funny. So I wanted to get them watered today when my delivery came so I ran the exaust all day trying to make sure they were dry enough. Well delivery showed up late. The humidity wasn't super low but my plants were drooping pretty bad. Well when I was watering I pinched 1 leaf on two plants because they were drooping down to the pinch point between pots. One leaf was cut partially off, the other has a slice through. I mean they went from looking killer earlier to looking like shit. I'm freaking out.
Gave them thier first nutes today too at under 1/4 strength.
Got my cabinet set up but didn't get my plants split up because they were looking bad and because I want to run the setup and see what the conditions look like with my new light. So my seedings I've been trying to kill are the test subjects.
I put them right under an led trying to fry them, bent thier stems all around and actually broke one, let them dry out, too hot, to cold, still everyone of them are looking ok. Even the broken one I just turned it so it leans so it holds together and it looks great. Lol. Anyways, hope my bigger babies are feeling good when I wake up and I can get them all separated. I was hoping to top them soon but idk now. Will see.

Babies look great today. So I learned:
It isn't a good idea to try to use molasses instead of Cal-Mag.
It isn't a good idea to try to dehydrate your plants with low humidity so you can water them sooner.
And I shouldn't try to do alot with them when I am exhausted because I end up doing more harm then good.

Still messing with the veg cabinet. Ran into a few issues. My extension cord doesn't fit in my timer, it jams the wheel. And two timers don't fit into the chord. Basically my chords are shit.
Also the cabinet got up to 86 last night sealed, and the humidity got down to 32%. Should be able to get enough air in there with some mods. Plus the chord opening is pretty big and it was covered, I had the chord through a door crack. Plus opening the doors partially is not an issue if I need to. Still plan to get the cabinet up and running today.
Also had the light about 2" from my test seedlings which I am pretty sure is too close. They all grew. The only one that looks like it had an issue was the one furthest from the fan. The new growth looks a little reddish brown. These things are tough. Think I am going to put them into 12-12 beside the others just for fun under my little crap Roleadro 45W(26W). Lol LED.

I can't figure out how to delete a post and I made a blank reply so I will just mention I have springtails and for some reason, maybe the heat, they are springing everywhere in there. I hadn't seen them for awhile so I thought maybe they were gone. I don't really like them, but now even worse because they are springing everywhere. At least now they are springing so I am way more certain they are in fact springtails. When I first spotted them they only crawled. Hopefully they won't be a problem. I didn't think I was overwatering them, I only try to keep it damp because they are seedlings and the humidity was low in there and they were droopy when they got more dry. Guess I will let them dry better. Wonder If I should Azamax them. Oh it says I can delete it now

Update: I had some old perethrin powder on the porch so I put a layer on the soil. Also got a good coat on the seedlings unintentionally. It is twice the strength of 8 dust.
I kept knocking them over so I ended up having to top off the cups to get them to stay up. So I did a good layer of perethrin and topped them off. They are crazy tough if they get through that. They probably came in that soil anyways but they were driving me nuts when I was trying to set up in there n they keep popping around. Then I feel like they are crawling in my hair n shit.
Will be surprised if those seedlings don't die this time. One of them has holes burnt through the leaf, hoping it wasn't a bug. I do also have Azamax on hand though. I'm considering a preventative application. IDK.

Update: Springtails still springing. Had some Ortho max spray I forgot about. Hitting both my grow spaces good for preventive. Not gonna Azamax the plants yet. And if those Springtails are still around I will just let them go if they aren't harming anything. I am more concerned about mites, aphids, and thrips.

Update: Well one of my seedlings met its match. Shop-Vac got its second victim. Damn thing.
I have a container of water with paper towels sticking out to maximize the surface area to help keep my humidity up. Well some Springtails had been in hopping in there so I put some dust perethrin in it. Those things just swim around in there. So I might put some Ortho in there and see what that does. I am over them but are these things immortal? Not when I smash them

And my cabinet has plants in it and is set for 12-12. I know I might not get great bud from that 2 ft 4 bulb T5 but, it doesn't matter. Better than killing them. I can always add light. Had a hard time deciding which plants to put in because they all are looking good. Topping my ones in my tent as soon as there is enough node above the current leaves they are putting out. Probably in next couple days. Glad I got some spread in there because I keep clipping leaves and sticking them to my fly trap. Lol. But I basically kept the ones with the most lateral growth in the tent. They will be topped and cloned before flowering or possibly monster cropped, not sure yet.

Alright I FIM'ed my two biggest babies. They are putting out 7 leaflet leaves at the 5th node so I decided to FIM above that. This is my first time FIM'ing and I now see that to FIM there it will be better to wait another day since those fan leaves are still pretty small. It is like at the point in between where I should FIM them with the top or go above them. I want those leaves so I will wait another day.
Then as soon as they start growing again I will transplant them into their final 3G smart pots.

My plants that I moved backward into the veg room to flower look ok. Except one has some reddening of the new growth. I would assume it is stress from that light or heat but I can't find any source to confirm that. All I am finding that match the description is a P deficiency. None of the plants in the other tent have any signs of this and they all just got thier first weak dose of nutes last watering.
I will not make any changes as of now and I will keep an eye on it. Maybe it was just a shock to go from the Blue LED to the red T5s. IDK.

DAMN IT!!! Decided to Azamax the plants preventatively today. Dropped one bad. I'll be surprised if it keeps up at all now or even if it doesn't die. Did see that the roots are getting pretty tight and they have slowed down so guess I better transplant.

So I flipped the veg room to flower last week so I figured since I hadn't fed them Grow Big, I hit them with a 1/4 dose. The seedlings in cups took it well but the bigger plants started clawing and drooping by the next morning. I am just not sure why they would do that. All I can guess is because they are rootbound and my soil was a bit too dry. But I flushed them and they look a little less droopy but there are still a few badly clawed leaves. Especially my biggest plant. It was the highest PPM I have given them. Think it was like 450 with the Cal-Mag, Big Bloom, and Grow big, and a little dab of molasses. They have me stumped. Need to switch over to Tiger bloom anyways, I hope they get better.

The big tent was transplanted and I topped 2 more, so the four that are topped are looking great, a couple are showing a bit of pink growth. Still not sure if it is genetics or deficiency. The other three in there are not growing as fast and aren't as perky. So I didn't top them, letting them get caught up with minimal stress. Had a few leaves in the dirt I trimmed off. The one that was dropped looks the worst, really slow growth, but it doesn't look like it is dying. Also I flipped the bloom switch on for the extra light.
If the tent is full of females I will get another light. If 4 or less I will just use the one for now.
I was going to clone them, I still may, but I may just start another big batch of seeds since I have had a few issues this grow. Just working out the kinks, made some noob mistakes early that are still affecting the grow. Starting off in that junk soil was a major issue I am still paying for.
Also I need to transplant the smaller cabinet but I don't have the room, so I am hoping they show sex soon so I can lower the plant count. Like I said, I believe I am getting problems from them being rootbound. Or they are just seriously picky, light feeders. Which I have heard blueberry can be. If they are in fact blueberry, it explains alot of things like the colors I can't fix, and the nute problems.
The seedlings got the same 1/4 strength and sprayed with everything but they are still growing like champs. I think starting in the better soil would have prevented most of my issues. Hoping I can keep the seedlings, never went 12-12 from seed and since they are immortal, it just makes it fun. Will know more when the others start showing sex.

Getting my first signs of flowering in the cabinet. Seen a few pistols.

Fimmed the rest in the tent. All are looking pretty good. As soon as they recover I am flipping them.

I am about to go across the lake right now and gather some spring water to test. Used to bottle it to drink when we were kids because our well water is basically hardened lake water in this valley. So hopefully it comes in at good levels so I can save some money. Been buying jugs of water.

My Vivosun inline fan is making cricket chirping noises which is annoying, go figure it is 3 days past the return window. It is way too new to have issues. It is probably bothering me way more than it should, but It is in my bedroom. Not sure what I am going to do, may email Vivosun. Hate to have to write a bad review, I like Vivosun. I realize 100% perfection is impossible, especially for $50. It has only ran about 8 hours a day for not even a month so clearly it is faulty, I am guessing it is a bearing. Def can't have it crapping out after a month when I start flowering and running it 24/7. If my crop gets fried I will be pissed.

Spring water was coming in at 150ppm and high six PH. So I am going to try it for awhile.

Went to move some plants around and had a mite right on top of the first one I touched. I tried my best to ID it with a magnifier. Pretty sure it was just one of my soil mites. I checked them intensely and didn't find a single other bug or stippling or anything. Went ahead and AzaMaxed both my grow areas to be sure. F*ck spider mites.

OK my FIMs seem to have failed. My growth tip is coming back up, the only difference being the leaves that were sprouting when I FIM'ed are deformed. It may have stunted a little to let the bottom branches catch up a some, but the outcome was not expected or desired. I have to top the ones I had FIM'ed early and just going to have to let the ones I just FIM'ed go. Live and learn.