First Time

I will be starting this grow with 11 clones. 5 Super Lemon Haze, 5 Critical Kush and 1 Bubba Kush (The dispensary threw that one in as a freebie). I have never grown anything before, not a tomato or a carrot. I am starting this journal 16 days into the grow, and I will try to update every week. Feel free to let me know what I am doing right or wrong. I am really just going off internet research here. I don't know anyone else that grows.

I will be growing in a small 4'h x 3'w x 2'd grow box under 504 watts of CFL's. If you are interested in the grow box specifics, you can see my grow box build here:

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=338721

2/5/2017 Day 1:



I went and picked up the clones in the morning. Replanted them into small pots using FoxFarms Ocean Forest Soil, watered (PH 6.5) and put them in the box. Some of the bottom leaves are yellowing a bit. Not sure what that means. Off to the superbowl party...

2/10/2017 Day 5: All the plants were topped and tied down to (hopefully) start some lateral growth. Watered at PH 6.5. I also installed a webcam and a soil moisture meter.



2/15/2017 Day 10: Still dealing with yellowing or burnt leaves. The SLH actually looks a lot better that the CK. I still have not added any nutrients because I am not really sure what is causing this. Up to this point I have been very careful not to over water. The soil moisture meter I bought also measures PH and it is reading about 7.5. I think I will ph my water down to 6.0 for the next few waterings.

Day 16

Day 16

2/21/2017 Day 16: Today I picked the best looking 8 plants and moved them into my SCROG box. The other three were given to a buddy. If you want the specific on the scrog box, you can find them here:

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=338697

I also removed all the plant ties. The clones all looked like they were well rooted. Roots all look good and I am pretty sure the timing of the transplant was right. They will stay in this configuration until harvest. Hopefully I will be able to get some good time lapse imaging with the wifi camera.

Most likely the Fox Farm soil is too hot (too strong in nutrient content) for your young clones. They should be fine after a bit though so I'd just leave them be.

Optimum PH is 6.3-6.8. Are you letting your water sit for 24 hours so it can off gas and get rid of the chlorine?

Also, for next time you should either top or tie down, not both in my opinion. Topping will provide more tops to form as colas and tying down allows the branches to grow vertically to also make more colas.

Is it straight tap water? I would start adding LIGHT nutes and possibly cal/mag. How are you checking and adjusting PH?

CosmicCharlie said:

Most likely the Fox Farm soil is too hot (too strong in nutrient content) for your young clones. They should be fine after a bit though so I'd just leave them be.

Optimum PH is 6.3-6.8. Are you letting your water sit for 24 hours so it can off gas and get rid of the chlorine?

Also, for next time you should either top or tie down, not both in my opinion. Topping will provide more tops to form as colas and tying down allows the branches to grow vertically to also make more colas.

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I have heard the Foxfarm soil is hot. I will probably try something else on my next grow. As for letting my water sit, I have never heard of that. I will try it next time I water. Thanks for the tip

He is in Fox Farm Ocean Forrest soil which is known to be too hot for seedlings and fresh clones. Also the leaves look burnt like from too much nutrients. So advising to add light nutes isn't correct in my opinion.

Rolling Stoner said:

Is it straight tap water? I would start adding LIGHT nutes and possibly cal/mag. How are you checking and adjusting PH?

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I am using the foxfarms line of nutes. For the PH, I bought one of the PH kits from the hydro store (the one that you add drops to the little test tube). I have been thinking the burnt leaf issue may be related to PH so I just went out and bought a digital meter. It looks like the kit I got at the hydro store is matching what I am getting on the digital readings. (anoher $30 down the drain if I cant pull some buds out of this box!). And yes, I am just using tap.

CosmicCharlie said:

He is in Fox Farm Ocean Forrest soil which is known to be too hot for seedlings and fresh clones. Also the leaves look burnt like from too much nutrients. So advising to add light nutes isn't correct in my opinion.

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We all have an opinion based on experience to work with. I have put seeds and clones in Ocean forest more times than I can remember with no issues, and started feeding in 2 weeks. Perhaps flush and run half strength nutes after. Or better yet don't fuck with anything and let the plants do their thing.

Deff let the water sit 24 hrs as Cosmic Charlie said for tap water.

Sounds like you are on to the PH.

Cal/Mag prob not needed for tap water.

Nice grow, I would replace some of those CFLs with LED bulbs

Quick Update

Quick Update

First picture from the webcam. It has been a little over 48 hours from transplant. None of the leaves were sticking up through the trellis when I moved everything over so you can see in the pic, there has been some significant growth in the last 2 days. I was expecting growth to stall for a few days so I am happy with the progress. I want to try and flip these girls before March 7th so I hope the screen fills out quickly...

BruceBanner said:

Nice grow, I would replace some of those CFLs with LED bulbs

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Thanks BB. I was thinking of that also but most of the led bulbs I have seen, the led diodes are all directed straight down. Can you recommend a bulb that has good side lighting? I could change my light fixture around to accommodate the downward facing bulbs, but I think height may be an issue towards the end. I have also read that led bulbs get quite a bit hotter than the CFL's. Aside from the efficiency issue, do you really think led's would give me any increase in yields? My current set up is about 84 watts per sq/ft. If I do this right, my buds will never be more than 6" from the lights (I am shooting for a shit load of smaller colas with a fairly even canopy). Everything I have read seems to say that the only problem with CFL's is the efficiency (which I am not really worried about) and the light penetration which shouldn't be a problem if my buds don't grow above 12" or so. Thanks for the feedback!

As I've read here on forum, everyone that changed from CFL's to LED bulbs would not go back to CFL's

Day 22

Day 22

Day 22 of Veg. Screen is filling out nicely. I am pretty sure I will flip them within the next 10 days or so...



Here is a shot from Day 17 for comparison

Day 4 (Flower)

Day 4 (Flower)

Hi guys. A few big updates this week. First of all, I flipped from 18/6 to 12/12 on March 2nd.

I started this grow with a 10 oz goal in mind. I understand that goal may be a little lofty for a first time grower and maybe i am kidding myself but, it has been a benchmark from the beginning. I have also been kind of winging this and changing things as I go based on research I am doing along the way. That being said, my second big update is the lighting situation. I made the decision to buy a Mars600 LED light from MarsHydro. I was not sure I would get there with 504 watts of CFL's and I am the type of person who would spend the next few months disappointed in myself if I didn't come close to my 10 oz goal. Since I probably cannot start another grow until after the summer, I decided to just go all in. At 10 oz I will probably be at $150 per ounce with the money I have spent so far and the increase in my electric bill. So economically, all of this will be worth my time If I can meet that goal with some decent quality bud. And my next grow will be a hell of a lot less money per ounce (taking the cost of the equipment out of the equation)

So... we are Day 4 in flower under a Mars600 (278 true watt) LED light fixture supplemented with 276 watts of 2700K CFL's for a total of 554 watts. The light is awesome. No noticeable change in temps and the girls seem to really like it as you can see from the pictures. I am a little worried about crowding (that I might have spent too long in veg). They look great now but I am not sure how bad it will get during the stretch. Aside from all that, I started with full strength nutes on my first watering in flower (Foxfarms: Big Bloom 1.5 tsp/gal, Grow Big 1 tsp/gal, and Tiger Bloom 1 tsp/gal). I am going off the Fox Farms soil feeding schedule week 5 at half strength which is what I have read in numerous blogs is like full strength for cannabis. I noticed that the PH did not need to be adjusted (6.4) after adding the nutrients. Interesting because my tap water has been consistently 7.8 or higher. Also I am now letting my water off gas overnight to eliminate chlorine.

Well I guess that's it for now! Any feedback is appreciated

!

Don't want to disappoint you, but your plants are too small for 10 Oz, I have bigger space coverage than you, and I'm gonna be happy if I get 5 Oz, they are mini plants, but yours wont stretch that much to be a lot bigger me thinks, btw. it's also my first indoor grow and I have also started with 10 Oz in mind hahahaha

BruceBanner said:

Don't want to disappoint you, but your plants are too small for 10 Oz, I have bigger space coverage than you, and I'm gonna be happy if I get 5 Oz, they are mini plants, but yours wont stretch that much to be a lot bigger me thinks, btw. it's also my first indoor grow and I have also started with 10 Oz in mind hahahaha

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LOL! I guess I have always been a dreamer! Well I hope I can at least put up a respectable yield. I got that number from something I read before I started this grow. Experienced growers shoot for about a gram per watt. Beginner growers can expect somewhere between .25-0.5 per watt. That's where I got my 10 oz goal. For my next grow, I want to do just 2 plants. Veg them all summer and do some main lining. I will get 10 oz. If not this grow, then maybe the the next. I appreciate all the feedback.

Update 03/10/17

Update 03/10/17

Day 9 of flower. Did some defoliation a couple days ago. I removed some of the bigger fan leaves on top that were blocking light to the other tops. Aside from that, I have just been tucking and arranging the tops under the SCROG. The plants all look very healthy and enjoying their new light. A few days ago, my box popped the GFCI breaker when the outside temps were in the 20's. The box did not get below 48 degrees, but the girls were left in the dark for 21 hours before I realized what had happened. I hope that wont cause any issues. It looks like I will have around 40-50 tops depending on if some of the smaller ones make it to the screen. I think from here on out, I will just let them stretch a bit. I have about 12" of vertical space to raise the light so from this point forward, I will just focus on trying to keep the canopy as even as possible. Feedback appreciated!

Light too low?

Light too low?

I have been kind of experimenting with the height of my new LED light. I waited to flip to 12/12 until I received the light and it was in the configuration below for the first week (about 18" from the canopy)



So yesterday morning I lowered the light to about 12". The manufacturer recommends 12"-24" for flower. Today, I noticed the some of the leaves are slightly discolored. I took some pictures but you cant really tell. Here is the current configuration from my last update:



So I guess my question is, where should my light be? Does anyone have any experience with MarsHydro Mars600 grow light? Its a little tricky since I have about half of my wattage in CFL and half LED.

*On a side note, I have decided not to back off of my 10 oz goal. Both of the strains I am growing are high yielding strains (Super Lemon Haze 800g/m² indoor and Critical Kush 600g/m² indoor). I have roughly half a m², more than 50 tops, a filled SCROG and more than enough wattage. If anyone has a good reason why this is unrealistic, I would love to hear from you. Until then, I will consider anything less than 10 oz a complete and utter failure!

Defoliation

Defoliation

I did some defoliation today. Cleaned up a lot of the undergrowth and the bigger fan leaves on the top of the canopy that were blocking light. I think it turned out well but it hurt to take so much. I cringe when I look at that pile of leaves. I decided to do one last tuck, since I was already in there and I figure they are probably a little more than halfway through their stretch. I am trying to end the stretch with the canopy about 6"-8" above the net. They have been about 1-1.5" of growth every day for the past week or so, but I have been diligently tucking and arranging the tops. These plants are going to be a bitch to untangle from the net! I hope I didn't take too much...



My only big concern right now is this. I mentioned before that last week the GFCI was tripped during a cold spell and my plants were in the dark for 20 hours for one cycle. Well in a random coincidence, yesterday after I did my defoliation, my dogs must have been fucking around where my extension cord for my box is plugged in and long story short, it happened again. I realized it this morning at 7am (my light cycle is currently 11PM - 11AM so they had another 20 hour dark cycle. I have read a lot of different opinions on how this might affect the girls. What do you guys think? Needless to say, I am going to have to be much more diligent in checking the lights are on every night.

Update 3/19/17

Update 3/19/17

Well my trim job stalled them out for a couple days but they are happy now! I was starting to get a little worried but, on the third day from the trim, I noticed significant growth. The last two days have been pretty impressive. The first picture is the canopy taken day 15 in the morning. The next four pictures are a sequence of growth (from the WIFI cam) starting day 16 at 11:00 AM and taken every 12 hours. The last picture was taken a few minutes ago.



Well I'm off to Vegas for some March Madness action! My next update will probably be in 10 days or so.