COBD Journal - coco tent grow

[Prof. COBD]

Hey all..

First time grower, located in Colorado. Been getting some advice from a seasoned vet over in the Mass/RI/Conn growers thread as well as trying to put things together on my own. I think its time I got some feedback on what I've got goin here.

Set-up:
Lighthouse Hydro grow tent - 32x32x60"
Hydrofarm Envirogrow T5 Fluorescent tubing - 4x2ft
K.I.S.S nutrient regime - only using General hydroponics Maxibloom so far
Phresh filter 4x12" (not hooked up yet)

For now, the tent is located in my room just a few feet from my bed, so noise was a fairly big concern. So I sprung for the TD-100xs (silent fan line from S&P).

So I've got 5 plants grown from seed in 100% coco. 4 were planted around 3/15, the 5th about 10 days later, so we are at about Day 40.
Got them going on an 18-6 sched, watering every day, full nutes in most waterings. pH has been good with my tap water and nutes, haven't had to adjust much at all.. floating around the mid 5's up to about 6.1. Judging from appearance and the possible strains ( the ones the dude I got the seeds from are growing) its likely they are a Bubba Kush / Northern lights cross.

I think its definitely time to switch them over to flowering. They are getting pretty tall.. main stem is about 18 inches on the biggest and the runt is at about 10" (and struggling for light exposure). I need to harvest by mid July due to a move, so I probably should have switched them over by now, but I've been crazy busy for a couple weeks so haven't been able to show them much love. I've only got about 2 more feet before they are hitting the bottom of the fan, and another foot to the tent ceiling. I guess I'll get some more room when I weed out any males, but right now the canopy takes up the entire lateral space of the tent. Very stocky and bushy strain, quite a bit of top light competition and relatively sparser underneath.

I'd love to get some feedback on what you guys think my flowering setup should be. I was hoping to go with a vertical 400w HPS with cooltube, but I'm worried about space and about noise. I think I'd have to get another fan to exhaust the heat.. my current fan runs at about 200 cfm, so I dont think it could really handle a light > filter > fan combo. So maybe CFLs are the way to go this time around, and I can upgrade to more space and a better light when I'm in my new place and have some room (and its not right next to my bed!).

I've also done no training.. too late I know for LST but should I consider topping them? Before/after I switch to flowering?

It'd be cool to get some feedback, but thanks for taking a peep either way.

Day 14 from seed:

Day 22 from seed. You can see a bit on fungus/mold on the coco surface. My understanding is this is normal and harmless.. anyone know different?

Day 43:

 

[Prof. COBD]

pics

pics

Failed on the pictures I suppose. Try #2

Day 14 from seed:

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Day 22 from seed. You can see a bit on fungus/mold on the coco surface. My understanding is this is normal and harmless.. anyone know different[/FONT]?

Day 43:

 

[Prof. COBD]

1 more

1 more

 

[hereigrow]

Beautifully crowded in there...really nice plants bro. They are going to be busting out of the sides of the rent by the time your ready to harvest!lol not necessarally a bad thing, watch for mold rh must be high

 

[ChemDgMillionre]

Ya mon!!

Finnnnnally you got your log going! Ya bud, those are lookin might fat leafed, I'm almost positive they are the bubba/NL/haze x space queen ....... She was the only girl that threw pollen around my room back then. They look fucking fantastic man, lol, took me like 3 rounds before I had girls looking like that!

Hmm and from the looks of things you might just wanna make life easy and flower under those T5's but with red bulbs... If that vagrant in your house wants to chip in some of his meager wage u should supplement with some LEDs.... I might have an extra LED laying around when ur home, if u wanna pay to ship it out to urself.

 

[ChemDgMillionre]

And the branching is pretty damn stellar in there man. I would recommend topping now, tonight. I would take a look at your over all canopy height, the height where most branches are reaching to, and then top the main stalk back to that height. This will promote heavy bushing.

Really man, they look excellent, I'm super excited to see what u find in there. And I have a plethora of goodies for ya to take back out there! Def rock a 2 tent perpetual at the new house, keep this tent as ur Veg setup & upgrade to a lil taller and bigger one for ur flower room, in which you shall house a very 400 ... I got one of those u can have, just gotta ship her back to urself. Oh ya I got cool tubes u can have too bro.

 

[NE_GROWER_978]

@ Prof : what up man! Glad.to have you one the boards. Nice setup too gonna fill in real nice. The ladies are nice and luscious and look like they,got some.vigor to them. Feel free to stop by the new MA/RI/Conn Part 2. Glad there's plenty of room in,the front row.

Subbed

NEG978

 

[Prof. COBD]

yeah Chem I'm leaning towards sticking with the T5 fixture is the way to go, I'll go find some red bulbs this weekend. I'm looking for a new house with a grow spot in mind, so I should have much more flexibility with the next setup. I'll take a look at your gear in May and figure out what will work.

Whattup NE, glad to have you on board. Yeah the strain is really bushy, already have a great level canopy that spread to the tent edges. I'm debating between pruning the side leaves off that are getting squished or just letting the plants work themselves out there.
We'll see how they respond to topping.

 

[ChemDgMillionre]

Thing is, when you flip the light schedule to 12/12 the main stalk will still stretch the most. In your sitcheeation you want to do an even canopy across the tent. To ensure that happens, top the main stalk down a bit, and throw a trellis net over the ladies. As the little bushes stretch you will weave the branches thru the trellis and fill as much of it as possible.. Then (now this is the hard part fir first time growers..) trim everything below the trellis that is not getting light. I will find you some pics of how to properly do this... This will guarantee you get the biggest yield & best buds possible using T5s. When your in the new spot the HIDs will work out better for ya, and you will be running them vert if I can convince ya.

 

[Prof. COBD]

sounds reasonable.. does pruning and cutting the stems and leaves below the canopy stress the plant out at all?

I topped them a couple nights ago, but just snipped the very top right below the last nodes, I might have to do more if they start to shoot up again. vertical room to grow looks like its going to be a problem, particularly if they continue to stretch during flowering. Is it bad to keep pruning / topping them back during flower?

 

[ChemDgMillionre]

You can probably be more aggressive with your main stalk topping. Find the height where MOST of the branches are creating a canopy at, and top the main stalk below to that point. Every time you snip, growth ceases from main stalk and diverts to the TWO nodes directly below the snip... So where there was one branch, now there will be two.

You will only snip below the canopy ONCE you have put a trellis net over them & filled it in while the stretch. The trellis net & topping will result in your canopy level staying relatively close to where it is now. Search "screen of green" and you will understand the concept.

Can't wait to see ya noobs in a couple weeks homie

 

[Prof. COBD]

cool.. just picked up a net and will get em going once the red bulbs arrive. Only problem I see with the scrog method is if I get any males in there. From what I can understand, I will start weaving the shoots through the net as they hit that canopy height right after I force to 12/12, so everything will get pretty intertwined fairly quickly. By the time I will be able to tell if there are any dudes and get them out of there I guess I'll have some pretty big canopy gaps, and it might be too late to space the rest of the plants out and fill out the screen? Might just be something I'll have to live with

 

[ChemDgMillionre]

Your completey right, I over looked that. No screen then just top them like I essplained & prune the growth below canopy after first week of stretch.. By then you will know if a branch will make it to canopy or stay below and hurt your yield.

 

[Prof. COBD]

word.. too bad, because the screen seemed like a great way to control vertical growth. Next grow I might use it, once I know all the plants are ladies.

So vertical growth might be a problem again here.. I can top everything down to a set canopy height right when I switch to flower, but what can I do to keep the stretch down and give the buds enough room once they get going? Not good to keep topping throughout flower, right? Might be they will just figure themselves out and stop reaching when they get too close to the light?

 

[ChemDgMillionre]

First off, you may get lucky and have some not so stretchy phenos. But chances are youll have to raise the light as high as fucking possible as they continue to grow into it. And no, you can't continue topping thru flower.. The stretch will last about 2-3 weeks and I wouldn't top past week 1 in 12/12 latest. Look into and watch vids on SUPER CROPPING .. U can still create a nice canopy using this method, with out a screen.

 

[Prof. COBD]

snipped em down today using a mixture of topping and super cropping to get a level canopy. About 2 or 2.5 ft of space to max height. Red tubes should get here in a few days and I plan to switch them over right away.

Before (Day 49)


After (Day 49):

 

[ChemDgMillionre]

Looks perfect man. You have quite the green thumb my brother. Seriously, for a first go at this.. Your doing excellent, and ur getting it done on your own.. Mucho respecto.

To get pics bigger in ur post... When u post go to "go advanced", then "forum albums", find the picture & copy the BB Image Code (located under pic), paste this into ur post & the big pics will show up. Keke

 

[ChemDgMillionre]

how they looking?

 

[Prof. COBD]

just got done with a long day of working with my plants.. I leave tomorrow for 3 weeks and will have a friend looking after them. Hard to say goodbye at a critical time, but hopefully I've got them ready to go.

We are at day 8 of flower, and unless I suck at sexing them it looks like all 5 are girls. We'll be on the lookout for any hermies that show in the next week or so, but lookin good so far

Today I flushed them all out, changed the light, hooked up the carbon filter, and pruned a bunch of the lower branches. I had them under red fluorescents for the first week of flowering, but just switched that out to a badass Haight Solid State PPF-1600 LED Grow light - 300w of pure fiery goodness. I'm a little worried about heat under the new light.. I'm almost completely out of vertical space and the plants are still stretching a bit I think, so hopefully they will stop soon or they will all be kissing the light. Right now I have about 8 inches between the light and the plants, with another 6 inches or so that I can work with. Startin to get pumped to see these girls bud out!

a lady showin her goods

the LED array at work

not sure about the sex of this one, hopin it shows more in the next couple days

thanks for the image help, was wondering why all my pics look like thumbnails

 

[ChemDgMillionre]

I can't say it enough man, I'm so damn impressed with ur first timer abilities... You were born for this line of work brother! God... 3 rounds from now you will be untouchable, lol! Ya I'm excited to see what kinda flowers show up.. Them big leaves are still looking bubba-ish to me. Are the girls doubling in size (during stretch), or some more than others?

Once your positive all your males are removed, throw that trellis net over the top to help keep branches from growing into LED. It is pretty easy to get LED burn / bleaching once you are within 5-6 inches of the plant. Those girlies are little monsters.. Ur gunna get a nice yield!