Fem Nirvana Bubblelicious under 400W HPS

I've been hovering around RIU for the better part of a year and figured I owed you guys big for secretly helping me out all this time. Mostly I just want to say thanks to the great, informative community here who serve as a most excellent reference to all the noobs in the shadows. Enough of that so here is the good stuff.

This is my third grow overall. This time around I am growing two feminized Nirvana Bubblelicious in an original hempy bucket with perlite / vermaculite. The ladies were fed General Hydroponics Flora Nova Grow for vegetative and currently on FN Bloom / Calmag / Bigbud for flowering. I am not an avid fan of the Flora Nova Grow formula since I always end up giving my plants a little too much nitrogen and they don't look very happy during early veg but I LOVE the FN Bloom formula... That stuff is just awesome in my limited experience. Anyway, the plants are growing in a converted bathroom shower with a CoolSun Reflector and a Hortilux Super HPS 400w. I can talk about bad experiences regarding previous crappy reflectors all day so if you want more, just ask.

Since I am little less than halfway done with my grow (started flowering 11/08/2013) figured I'd update everyone once a week or so with pictures. If anyone actually shows interest here or just wants to ask questions or shoot the shiat I'll be around for that too. If you would like way more details on this grow, just ask. More pics coming as the grow progresses!

They look stellar Great first post.(You have given out too much Reputation in the last 24 hours, try again later.)

Thanks for the kind words LGC! I haven't been social in a while but I figured I had to share after all I've been taking from you guys.

If you look closely you can see just a little variation in the pheno's which I read are quite common among Nirvana's Bubblelicious. The Sativa dominant got a tiny bit nute burned and as a result I have some brown hairs and little yellow tips on her. She's been flushed and I have reduced her feeding a tiny bit for now. The Indica dominant is eating nutes like a champ with no issues at all.

Been watering every 4 days or so depending on how light the buckets are. I watered the ladies yesterday and took a few more pictures. This time less flash so they don't look as unrealistically sugary It is summer in my hemisphere so with A/C on full the temperatures still near 28C with humidity around 40-45%. They seem ok with this though.

I really wanted to start a proper journal on my last grow but I chickened out. I hadn't grown in about three years and decided to jump in like a maniac and attempt three very different strains at once : Dinafem's WW, Dutch Passion's Hollands Hope (yeah i know its an outdoor strain) and Dutch Passion's Durban Poison (WOW). I wouldn't grow Hollands Hope again because it just didn't come out anywhere near as beautiful as the others but it smoked nicely. The Durban Poison is absolutely amazing and I will 100% grow it in the future. Sometimes I would brush against it and I wanted to eat my finger afterwards because of the sweet citrusy smell that would stay on there. It had a super sativa high that motivated the hell out of you (and this is coming from someone who loves the couchlock from some heavy indica's). Anyway, here are some pictures of my last grow while we wait for my young ladies to blossom.

They look great! Good post.

I just finished my first grow using CFL lights and it went great. Now I am in the process of starting a new grow soon.

I picked a light output of 400w since the tent is going to be in my room. Now I need to figure out what system I need, ballast + reflector + bulb.

My concern is the heat the 400w outputs, getting the heat out of the tent which reflector is good for removing heat out and pushing the most light to the plants.

Hey JCave! Glad you stopped by.


How many watts did you use for the CFL grow? Some pictures of your plants would be more than welcome!


A 400w bulb will heat up quite a bit unless you have some constant, cool air going through it. Considering the space you are working with in the tent and if your budget allows, I would highly recommend an enclosed reflector. I am not affiliated with any brands but I use a Cool Sun XL reflector made by sun systems. The benefit is that you can trap a lot of the heat inside the enclosure and quickly dissipate it by running an inline fan through it. I think the ballast comes down to personal choice and how much money you are willing to spend. I have a very generic 400w electronic ballast that has held up fine through my last two grows (knock on wood). For the bulb I started off using a very generic 400w Philips bulb and half way through I saw a video showing off the Hortilux EYE Super HPS and decided to get one. The differences in color and brightness are clearly visible on the Hortilux and my plants seem to be loving it so I'm sticking with it until something better catches my attention.


My growing environment is a little different than yours but I have attached some pictures to show you how easy it is to cool the enclosed reflector using a regular house fan. Worth noting that I used to have a weirdly noisy inline fan with ducting sending the heat to the laundry room but this grow I went back to basics and just threw a fan right on the reflector. The reflector stays cool to the touch and I leave my doors open so air flow isn't a problem to the room. I'm limiting my grows to two plants so they have enough light to stay happy. As a result the smell isn't bad at all so I even detached my filter! Hopefully some of the pros here can give you better advice

i've been away for a bit but no one missed much. the two bubbleicious ladies grew quite a bit since the last post. i cut the indica pheno down yesterday after a grueling 66 days of flowering. I had predicted that they would both finish together but the one leaning to sativa is taking a bit longer to mature. that's perfectly fine though, it took nearly 4 and a half hours to trim just this one plant. without further ado here is nirvana's bubbelicious main cola in all her glory.




she was flushed with florakleen and given only water for 10 days. after the final watering she went 5 days in pretty dry air (~40% humidity / 26C ) before the cut.




i always see people asking for the magic signs of when it's time to cut... when you see the plant transform into a swollen alien monster, it is ready. if you look at your garden and need to ask 'hmmm, does that look ready?', it probably isn't yet... wait another week for it to swell into a giant weird alien spiky fruit. if you have too many of the original white hairs still hanging around, kind of spindly, wait another week or ten days and you will absolutely notice the difference. in the last 10 days i got this abnormal growth explosion in lower branches of this plant and that was a nice bonus. if you go by the trichome color alone, you could be fooled into harvesting too early. so first step, notice the difference in the fruit. it'll plump up and glisten and that's when you should be looking at the trichomes under the scope.



after a tedious trimming session i finally hung her up in the drying room. the big fan leaves can be picked off with your hands and should snap right off at the base. for the sugar leaves make sure you invest in a reliable pair of pruning shears. it's a good idea to hang a piece of string down in your trimming area so you can hang the bud you are trimming upside down while you trim it. this might not seem like a big deal at first but after a few hours your hand starts getting tired so it's easier to just trim them as they hang in front of you.



i didn't know what to expect when i popped these seeds into the rockwhool. they were very small seeds compared to other companies i've seen/had... but forget that, i am amazed. they grew incredibly fast in all phases and produced some sweet smelling delicious alien plants.

can't wait to harvest the nest one! hopefully next weekend ill have more pics!

Hello again. Thought I'd share some progress on the drying and curing process going down. First though, here is one of my favorite pictures from the last lady I cut down. This was the indica leaning pheno bubbleicious at 66 days (just before cut).



She was drying since Jan 11th (Saturday) which make it day 5 now. I tried something a little different this time around in that I dried her in a slightly warmer and dryer space than normal. It's about 80F with 45% humidity in there and the buds got a little crispy at day 3 without the inner stem snapping before I moved them to paper bags.



Through trial and error I noticed that if you jar the buds early while they are still wet you will suffer trying to get the humidity levels down and the cure will take way too long. I like drying the buds a little crispier (not 100% dry) because they will get a little moist when you jar them up. First though, a paper bag full of buds folded over does a great job of slowing the dry just a little.



By the end of day 5 they were ready for the jar. I got these 1.5 liter jars with a tight seal which are pretty nice. I ended up with about 1 and a half jars worth from the first lady. These are super tight golf ball nugs. I can't wait for them to cure!

As an added bonus I got about a 1/4 from the lower branches growth explosion that happened right at the end of flowering. I air dried this little freebie and plan on smoking it up while I wait for the delicious nugs to cure.



Not a bad bonus!

To get totally caught up, here is the sativa leaning bubbelicious at day 70. She's been off nutes for over two weeks now and refuses to turn yellow.



Some people will agree and others won't but towards the end of my plants flowering I like to remove most of the leaves around the colas to maximize air flow and light penetration. I don't remove any of leaves on the cola themselves, just stuff hanging off that creates shade for the lower branches. Before I started doing this I noticed that I would end up with a bunch of little nugs that had never developed on the lower branches. After removing most of the leaves I started seeing fully formed smaller nugs on the lower branches which adds a little extra in the grow.

Anyway, she finally started to glisten up and is nearing the visual queue of turning into a plump alien fruit.



Do everything you can to wait until your bud swells up into something 'different' looking. You'll know when it happens! I will most likely chop her down on Saturday which puts her at 72 days. Let's see what happens!

Hello! The harvest is complete! Spent most of the morning trimming bubbleicious #2.



I fed this plant considerably less than the indica leaning pheno because she was quick to show nute burn at even a small increase in food. Now I'm not sure if this is related to the pheno difference or feeding but the one I fed quite a bit more to ended up with lots more leaf and thin tight buds. Bubbleicious #2 though had fewer of the big fan leaves and the stems are noticeably thinner but the buds are quite large and compact. I'll definitely grow this strain again to compare.

Bubbleicious #1 has been curing for a few days and the sweet smell is starting to linger when I burp the jar. I read that the plants could end up with a range of smells so I'm happy with the sweet candy smell I've enjoyed throughout the grow.



Overall I am super happy with this strain and am counting down the final weeks to get this cured and smoked up! Nirvana, you make me sad I used to like Dutch Passion. I will update again once the drying / curing process progresses a little bit. I usually take a break from smoking when the grow starts so earlier today I looked at the dry room with bud everywhere and thought 'welcome back to the big leagues'.

Hello again. Some updates of both the good and bad variety... Bubbleicious #2 was finally dry enough to put into jars so they got sealed yesterday after nearly four days drying. Both plants smelled quite fruity and sweet throughout the later stages of flowering but bubble #2 is clearly going to smell extra sweet after the cure. Just got done cracking the jars open and the whole room smells great.

Here's a shot of Bubbleicious #2 after her first day in the jar.



To compare, here is a shot of Bubbleicious #1, the older sister as she goes into day 6 of curing.



Curing really is magic! Bubble #1 is curing into a skunky smell which is very different than when I cut her down.

Which brings us to the yield phase. I don't have a scale as this is purely recreational. Here is a shot of what I ended up with though.



Those are 1.5 liter jars with rubber seals. They are packed pretty tight as it seems like the buds turn into a nicer shape when they are a bit more compressed during the cure. Just make sure to open the jar up and move the buds around every day to avoid mold.

Fucking molds... Which brings up the bad news. I was final trimming the dried buds up yesterday to put in the jars and since the main cola was so large I decided to chop her in half only to reveal??? ....BUD ROT....



(black spots are coffee grounds... i forgot to take pictures so i had to fish these out of the garbage to make sure i documented the bud rot!)

The outside of plant looked perfect but inside was pretty much destroyed@#($*! I lost about half of the main cola. Looking back I think there were a series of events that caused this. I was testing nutrient levels and overfed the plants a little to check reactions and on one of the feedings Bubble #2 locked up and the fan leaves on the main cola became weak allowing the HPS to burn them quite badly. I fixed the nute issue but I think that week really destroyed my main cola since it was a bit closer to the light source. I would have nearly filled that last jar up with the lost bud but at the end of the day I am still very happy.

Final thoughts... I had done tons and tons of research before I ever grew my first plant a few years ago. When I started growing again I went back to research mode and monitored my first plants growth like I was a scientist studying some disease



That notebook is from a year ago, I was in the grow room constantly measuring ph levels and making sure everything was perfect and here is my advice... FORGET ALL OF THAT SHIT. Unless you are a growing operation and need to absolutely make sure you have max yield on every harvest, just keep things simple.

- This grow I gave up testing PH... I just bought a wall filter and only used filtered water throughout. Never had ph issues.
- When starting, it's best to under feed than over feed. If you are observant you'll see when the plant needs more or less nutrients.
- Always have a flushing solution because shit can go bad at any minute
- Spend days or years finding the perfect seeds (genetics) if you can't make your own because if you're spending months growing it might as well be the best. This is my next task.

Well I hope someone out there enjoyed or found this useful. I am set on growing for the next few months which will give me some time to find some great genetics.

I will update again once my cure is done and I have finally smoked a nice bowl of bubbleicious.

Any Comments? Suggestions? Criticisms?