I'm on week two of my first grow, and hope that I'm doing most things right. The Widow (White Widow/Big Bud cross) and the Blue Cheese are doing great, but the shark took an extra two days to germinate and then then got stuck in the seed shell for 3-4 days.
All seeds were ordered from Attitude via a postal money order. It took exactly 2 weeks from the date that I shipped the money order to the date that I received the seeds. I've got a lot of other seeds, but I didn't want to use my best ones for my first attempt.
I started the seeds in a "float and grow" tray under 100w of CFL lighting at 24/0. The "float and grow" is simply a styrofoam block with plugs in it for planting. This block goes into a tray filled with water and in turn keeps just the bottom of of the grow medium touching the water. By doing this, water wicks up and keeps the seeds at an optimum moisture level. It worked amazingly well. The Widow and Blue Cheese popped within 48 hours. About a week after they popped, I put transplanted them into Light Warrior in solo cups and put them under my 400w MH at 18/6 (that was three days ago). When I took them out of the tray, they had very, very long thin white roots (maybe 1ft or more).
I'm now doing FF Big Bloom & Grow big nutes twice a week at about 1/4 the recommended concentration. I'll up to half concentration if they take well to it.
I am currently using a 3x3 tent with a large reflector and cool tube in conjunction with an iPower 400w ballast and the generic mh lamp that came with it. I've got a fairly nice carbon filter mounted at the top of the tent for exhaust, and intake coming through vents at the bottom. I've got a very small heater on very low at the bottom that kicks on when the tube goes off. I've mounted a WiFi temperature probe in the tent that keeps track of heat at all times (it is right by the top of the tallest plant). Currently, I've got it dialed in at 77-78 degrees during the day and 72 degrees at night. There isn't more than a 1 degree fluctuation between those points during the day, and no more than 2 at night. It's in my cellar which stays at about 65 degrees ambient.
I've got the MH / Cool Tube about 8" from the top of the plant. I can get closer without it heating up the area much more, but wasn't sure if I should do that.
The soil in the cup gets dry past my second knuckle within about 36 hours, so that's when I've been watering (light warrior drains extraordinarily well and fast). The Blue Cheese and White Widow plants are 3" wide at their widest point. The shark is very small still--only about 1/2 to 3/4 wide at the widest point.
In couple weeks or so, I imagine I'll transplant into my 5 gallon square planters with Fox Farms Ocean Forrest soil. Once I get 4 nodes, I plan to start basic LSTing.
For Flower, I'll either be putting in an additional 192w of CFL lighting to go with a 400w HPS bulb, or (hopefully) switching to a 600w ballast with an Ushio SuperHPS. I don't know if the 6x 32w CFLs would really help much, especially in comparison to switching to a 600w HPS, but I've already got them so I figure no harm. I don't want to go much over 600w for power reasons.
I'm getting a PH tester in a few days, so I'll be able to keep that under a watchful eye.
Any guidance on how long/how big I should wait to put these into flower? Because I'm only going with 3 plants (I hope they are all fem. They are femenized seeds), I realize that the veg time will likely have to be longer than doing many little plants. I had originally hoped to be harvesting at 12-14 weeks, but with an 8 week flower time, I'm not sure 4-6 weeks will be even close to enough time to get decently large plants in veg (I'd be ecstatic with .5gr per Watt)
Also--do you continue to do LST after you put the plants in flower? I'm assuming that's a yes.
All seeds were ordered from Attitude via a postal money order. It took exactly 2 weeks from the date that I shipped the money order to the date that I received the seeds. I've got a lot of other seeds, but I didn't want to use my best ones for my first attempt.
I started the seeds in a "float and grow" tray under 100w of CFL lighting at 24/0. The "float and grow" is simply a styrofoam block with plugs in it for planting. This block goes into a tray filled with water and in turn keeps just the bottom of of the grow medium touching the water. By doing this, water wicks up and keeps the seeds at an optimum moisture level. It worked amazingly well. The Widow and Blue Cheese popped within 48 hours. About a week after they popped, I put transplanted them into Light Warrior in solo cups and put them under my 400w MH at 18/6 (that was three days ago). When I took them out of the tray, they had very, very long thin white roots (maybe 1ft or more).
I'm now doing FF Big Bloom & Grow big nutes twice a week at about 1/4 the recommended concentration. I'll up to half concentration if they take well to it.
I am currently using a 3x3 tent with a large reflector and cool tube in conjunction with an iPower 400w ballast and the generic mh lamp that came with it. I've got a fairly nice carbon filter mounted at the top of the tent for exhaust, and intake coming through vents at the bottom. I've got a very small heater on very low at the bottom that kicks on when the tube goes off. I've mounted a WiFi temperature probe in the tent that keeps track of heat at all times (it is right by the top of the tallest plant). Currently, I've got it dialed in at 77-78 degrees during the day and 72 degrees at night. There isn't more than a 1 degree fluctuation between those points during the day, and no more than 2 at night. It's in my cellar which stays at about 65 degrees ambient.
I've got the MH / Cool Tube about 8" from the top of the plant. I can get closer without it heating up the area much more, but wasn't sure if I should do that.
The soil in the cup gets dry past my second knuckle within about 36 hours, so that's when I've been watering (light warrior drains extraordinarily well and fast). The Blue Cheese and White Widow plants are 3" wide at their widest point. The shark is very small still--only about 1/2 to 3/4 wide at the widest point.
In couple weeks or so, I imagine I'll transplant into my 5 gallon square planters with Fox Farms Ocean Forrest soil. Once I get 4 nodes, I plan to start basic LSTing.
For Flower, I'll either be putting in an additional 192w of CFL lighting to go with a 400w HPS bulb, or (hopefully) switching to a 600w ballast with an Ushio SuperHPS. I don't know if the 6x 32w CFLs would really help much, especially in comparison to switching to a 600w HPS, but I've already got them so I figure no harm. I don't want to go much over 600w for power reasons.
I'm getting a PH tester in a few days, so I'll be able to keep that under a watchful eye.
Any guidance on how long/how big I should wait to put these into flower? Because I'm only going with 3 plants (I hope they are all fem. They are femenized seeds), I realize that the veg time will likely have to be longer than doing many little plants. I had originally hoped to be harvesting at 12-14 weeks, but with an 8 week flower time, I'm not sure 4-6 weeks will be even close to enough time to get decently large plants in veg (I'd be ecstatic with .5gr per Watt)
Also--do you continue to do LST after you put the plants in flower? I'm assuming that's a yes.