Dontcough's First Hydro Grow (2 Plant Closet DWC) White Widow & Critical + Automatic

Dontcough

Member
Hello everyone! I'm new to this forum & growing, so I decided to post my grow journal here on rollitup.org. I have 0 experience in botany besides basic gardening skills. I am very receptive to advice, so feel free to point me in the right direction if I start screwing up. Hopefully any problems I encounter can be dealt with more efficiently with the photo journal I'm posting here.

I've been consuming information regarding growing, but after I had already bought the things listed below. So yes I understand there are cheaper alternatives then what I used but oh well, I hope the end result is the same.

So anyway let's talk

Equipment
.

150W HPS Light ($100)
tweezers
some string ($2)
pair of scissors ($3)
timer ($16)
foam cups
hanging hooks ($3)
thumb tacks
sharpie
a roll of reflective material ($23)
General Hydroponics Floragrow, Florabloom, and Floramicro
2 General Hydroponics Powergrower Individual (includes drip system, nutrients, hydroton, air bubbler) ($75 each)
General Hydroponics PH Control kit. ($20)
a sponge like rapid rooter looking medium for germination I bought at a hydroponics store. ($5)
2 box fans ($30)
Burpee seed starting kit ($3)
feminized seeds Dinafem's White Widow and Dinafem's Critical + Automatic ($50)
a heating pad that I borrowed from my gf (priceless)

Environment

Closet grow in my place, temp kept in house between 75-78.
Room has access to two windows, for the occasional fresh air it's also facing a highway (co2?)
Closet is a polygon with 12' ceilings and about 2' x 6' I'll be using half of it, maybe all of it on the next grow if I'm successful

Procedure

It's funny, this actually started as an attic grow and as you all can imagine what ensued to cause this to be moved into my closet....

The seeds I'm using now are actually the free seeds that came with the ones I bought.

Now I'm not sure and maybe you guys might know but I did happen to leave the seeds I'm using in the attic for a couple days before I got them out, it gets up to 100-115 in there. Hopefully this has no impact on germination or the plant.

I had some tap water that had been left out for a couple days poured it into a couple foam cups, labeled them with a sharpie and dated appropriately. The white widow seed I put in the foam cup on 6/5 and crit + I put in on 6/6. I let both sit in there for 24 hours, unfortunately they didn't sink but I read from a couple different websites that sitting in the water for longer than 24 hours can cause rot of some sort so I pulled them out.

I immediately took the seed starting kit I bought from Home Depot and took out the jiffy peat pellets because I heard the PH is too high for canny seeds. I placed the rapid rooters in the humidome filled with 2 cups of the filtered water that sat out for a couple days, placed the rapid rooters inside. I transplanted the seeds into the upside down rapid rooters, used a chopstick to dig a small 1/4 inch hole and dropped the seeds in there. Placed the plastic lid on the top and placed the heating pad under it as well as placed it under the light immediately so it can start getting used to the 18/6 light cycle. Less than 20 minutes later there was condensation on the top of the plastic lid.

I covered the closet in the reflective material I managed to get from Lowe's used thumbtacks to secure it.

Once the seedlings break ground I will allow them to propagate and allow them to develop a good root system before I transfer it to the Powergrower. I'm pretty scared about the transplant and also worried about creating the nutrient mix in the buckets. I will only be growing two plants so I hope that the 150w HPS is sufficient. I do plan on adding a small CO2 generator. Now I'm going to just chill and keep my fingers crossed.

I will journal regularly with new developments =) Happy toking!

setup pic 4.jpg

setup pic 3.jpg

setup pic 2.jpg

setup pic 1.jpg

germ day 2.jpg
 

Dontcough

Member
Day 3: Checked on the babies today, looks like the WW is coming along nicely as the taproot has emerged, I was able to get a good pic of it without having to disturb it at all =) The Critical + Automatic may have emerged as well but I don't want to disturb it. Here's a pic of the taproot from the WW.

germ day 3, taproot emerges ww.jpg
 

Dontcough

Member
A few hours later this little buddy showed some good signs

germ day 3, taproot emerges cxa.jpg

Little reference for myself: WW started 6/5 C+A started 6/6
 

Dontcough

Member
C+A is looking good, sprouting and standing on it's own now

germ day 4, c+a sprout.jpg

WW looks like it has had a little bit of growth, not quite as quickly as the C+A must be a genetic thing since I actually germed the WW a day before the C+A, I'm a bit worried about it, if it sprouts great if not then I'll have to get some more seeds unfortunately.

Germ day 4 ww growth.jpg
 

Dontcough

Member
C+A has almost completely shed it's seed casing, the two cotelydons are easily visible with the first true leaves starting at the center

germ day 5 C+A seedling 2.jpggerm day 5 C+A seedling 1.jpg

I'm happy to say that the WW is doing good as well, it's a slower starter, probably because it's a strong indica but it's standing on it's own now

germ day 5 WW stands on it's own.jpg
 

Dontcough

Member
Whew, ok after rearranging everything in order to maximize light dispersal I finally managed to transplant the White Widow into the Powergrower. No nutrients yet, I read that I shouldn't start nutrients until the cotelydons start to turn yellow. I filled the C+A with a few cups of water, checked the PH and adjusted accordingly. Going to wait an hour after the transplant and recheck PH level. I'll closely monitor for any changes since the environment has changed slightly. I may throw some frozen water bottles into the res in order to drop the water temp a bit, I read it promotes root growth which is what I desire now. I'm hoping that the light will be enough for these two plants if not I may upgrade to something a bit stronger. There is consistent growth every day.

Here's a pic of the arrangement now.

day 8 transplanted ww and rearranged.jpg
 

Dontcough

Member
Added nutrients to reservoir today and topped off. Checked pH, its around 5.0-6, set it back under the light and leaving it alone. The White Widow is doing better, the real leaves are taking shape and the cotelydons are starting to droop. Once they start to look like the Critical + I'll add nutrients to it's reservoir as well. If you look closely in the pic you'll notice I relocated the CO2 tube to hang from the light since I read that CO2 is heavy and drops. I turned off one of the fans so that the plants can get some more CO2. I'll start the fan back up once the plants have been saturated in the gas. Everything is still looking good, hopefully the nutrients won't screw up anything. I followed their websites recommendations.

day 9 nutrients added to C+A.jpg
 

Dontcough

Member
The Critical + Automatic was showing signs of nutrient burn, obviously I added too much nutrients too early. I flushed out both of the reservoirs today, refilled, and adjusted pH accordingly. I think I will hold off on nutrients for now, I'll start them until around week 3 or so. Fortunately, both of the plant's second set of real leaves are taking form. The genetics on both of these Dinafem seeds seem strong enough to resist my noobness.
 

Medicinalhealing

Active Member
It's great that you have these two seeds as well we both ordered from worldwide last month I see. Lol I am actually a couple days ahead as I only started counting after they were standing on their own. I maybe even closer than that but I can compare my two unknowns to yours later when they get a bit bigger. I am pretty sure that the two unknowns are actually these two strains. Once we both have buds I'll be curious to see what they look like although if it is the white widow I will be force flowering after week 5. I will only know after the rest start flowering as all the rest are true autoflowers.
 

Dontcough

Member
It's great that you have these two seeds as well we both ordered from worldwide last month I see. Lol I am actually a couple days ahead as I only started counting after they were standing on their own. I maybe even closer than that but I can compare my two unknowns to yours later when they get a bit bigger. I am pretty sure that the two unknowns are actually these two strains. Once we both have buds I'll be curious to see what they look like although if it is the white widow I will be force flowering after week 5. I will only know after the rest start flowering as all the rest are true autoflowers.
Yup, you called it, I ordered from Worldwide. We'll definitely be able to learn from each other. If your a little ahead that works even better so you can try things first and if it's wrong I won't make the same mistake bwahahaha :weed:
 

Dontcough

Member
Subbed. How is that homemade CO2 thing working out for you? How did you make it? How long does it last you?
Seems like it's doing good, I don't have a CO2 meter or anything so I can't say the ppm, but it seems adequate. I read they last about 2 weeks and then have diminishing returns so I'll be swapping out the ingredients every 2.5 weeks or so. It definitely is enough to the point where I don't want to spend too much time in the closet as I'm probably killing brains cells. I've read other grow journals that had yellowish leaves, they added a CO2 gen and the leaves turned into a healthy green. Here's the link, it's two separate videos. I used a drill to make the holes in the caps which made it a nice airtight snug fit.
 

Dontcough

Member
Visited the local hydroponic shop today, got some great advice and decided to start nutes again. I'm using about 1/8 strength this time around and will be closely monitoring for any signs of stress. So far so good, they were looking a bit rough last night. The guy at the shop was nice enough to give me some free General Hydroponics Rapid Start Root enhancer so I added that to the mix, checked pH. He looked up my Powergrower and informed me that it's just a drip based system doesn't really add the bubble element to the mix so I went ahead and bought a two channel air pump with two air stones ($15), modified the Powergrowers a little bit, and added it to the system. Apparently the water where I'm at is rough so I'll be looking at some distilled water very soon.

C+A

C+A day 10.jpg

WW

WW day 10.jpg
 

Dontcough

Member
Their recovering, perky, and lots of the yellow that was there yesterday is gone now.

Critical + Automatic

Crit + day 11.jpg

White Widow

WW Day 11.jpg

I think I'll go get some clean water today since the tap water is shit.
 
Top