Curious Giant Finds Hempy

[Giant]

I think I am going to keep this over here, as I like it better than the "journal" section.. This will be my space to post notes, as well as chart my progress. Please feel free to post recommendations, advice, or general observations. This is technically my third attempt all together, but my first shot at hempy (or anything soil-less for that matter). The specs:

*4'x4'x7' Sun Hut XL tent.

*3 '91 Chem Dawg, and 3 "East Coast" Sour Diesel. Two of my all time favorite strains, so this should be interesting!

*600w Quantum digital ballast w/ Sunmaster MH conversion bulb for veg, HPS for flower.

*RO water and GH nutes

Once these girls are ready for flower, I will pop up a second tent and start a new crop in the veg tent.

 

[Giant]

The tent assembled

I made some drain lines for the overflow to drain out of the tent.

It works!

I only had enough perlite to pot half of them this morning, but I will do the rest tonight. I fed them with RO water and GH nutes using the lucas formula at 50%.

Other thoughts this morning: I hope these girls grow out and not up. I thought I would have plenty of room, but after going to 5-gallon buckets and putting them on blocks, and taking in to account the reflector and carbon scrubber at the top of the tent, there is not much room for girls to grow! Looks like I may be doing some LST or something later.. :angel:

 

[Giant]

So the potted girls are looking good tonight. Temps held at about 63*f today and about 32% RH when I got home.

We are having some power problems tonight, due to the socal storms. Not really sure what I am going to do.. I dont want the lights clicking on and off all night, but I dont want them to be dark either..

 

[Sam the Caveman]

Looks like your all set to grow, can't wait to see the rest.

Hempy fan here too, for now.

 

[osecretgardeno]

i love me some hempys, i hope this goes well for ya

 

[Giant]

Thanks guys! I am slightly concerned about putting the clones directly into 5gal buckets, but I think it should be OK.

 

[osecretgardeno]

They'll be alright, just feed daily pretty much until their roots hit the res, then maybe you can switch to every other or every 3rd day. You'll know when they hit that res, trust me ...

 

[Luigi4Bud]

Great looking setup. I'm gonna tag along.

Are you using one or two fans?

Can you talk about what size fans yours using and temps?

How do you like the Sunhut?

thanks

 

[osecretgardeno]

Did you say 63*F with the lights on? Isn't that a little chilly? What is your plans when the lights go off?

If my assumptions are correct, maybe you should think about not aircooling that hood.

Just my

peace, sg

 

[Giant]

Found some interesting reading on the Chem Dawg genetics..

History of the Chemdawg Family

At a Grateful Dead show at Deer Creek Amphitheatre, 'joebrand' (aka 'wonkanobe') and 'pbud' met 'chemdog' and sold him an ounce of very high quality pot for $500. joe and chemdog exchanged numbers and they later arranged for two ounces to be shipped to chemdog on the east coast. According to chemdog, one ounce was seedless and the other had 13 seeds.

In ’91, chemdog popped the first 4 seeds. From these seeds, one male was found and disposed of (chemdog was young, you can’t blame him). The 3 females were labeled ‘chemdawg’ (now ’91 chemdawg), ‘chemdawg a’ (now chemdawg’s sister), and ‘chemdawg b’. In '01, chemdog and his girlfriend attempted to germ 3 more seeds, labeled ‘c’, ‘d’, and ‘e’. the ‘e’ seed never germinated, ‘c’ turned out to be junk (according to chemdog), and chemdawg ‘d’ was the keeper. In '06, 'chemdog' and 'joebrand' reunited and joe was given 4 of the last 6 beans: Chemdawg phenos 1-4, '4' being the chosen keeper. Joe thought the '4' was the best representation of the original and thus dubbed it the 'reunion pheno'. Chemdog still has two seeds left in his stash.

If the clones are what they say they are, I have the '91 Chem Dawg pheno. Cool!

In any case the girls are looking good this morning. I watered again at 50% strength. Temps were chilly at around 50*f inside the tent this morning, and humidity was down at 33%.

 

[Giant]

Not much new to report here. I have still been feeding using a light concentration of about 3:6 M/B noticed a very tiny amount of tip burn today, so I gave them just ph'd RO water. Although I cant be certain what pH because my hanna is on the fritz, and apparantly I'm color blind because I cant seem to work the GH vial tester. All those damn colors look the same. I just squirted a few mils of pH down into my wata and called it close enough.

I have been having some power problems, and am seriously considering a Sentinel MDT-1 for my ballasts sake. Are they worth it?

 

[IamNug]

Really nice tent setup you have there, Giant. not sure, but a few mils of ph down sounds like a lot? I thought I recall just using a few drops but don't use it anymore. Also that was on tap water not RO, theres probably a difference. Sometimes it helps to hold the liquid ph test in front of something white, like a piece of paper. Will be hangin out to check your updates, thanks for sharing!

 

[Giant]

Picture update! They are looking a little sad.. I am having a hard time holding off on watering them twice a day, but in the spirit of hempy I will wait until tomorrow to feed them again.

I hit them this morning with pH'd RO water because they looked a little burnt at the tips. Now they look like they want more N, so its back on the nutes tomorrow.. I have a feeling its going to be pretty stressful around here until they hit that res at the bottom and begin to take off..

 

[osecretgardeno]

You gotta get that temp up ... 50*F with the lights on 24 hrs is not going to make them very happy.

Why don't you take off the air cooling for the hood and just let the light heat it up a little?

Plants function best between 60 and 85 F. Temps below 50 tend to slow growth for a lot of strains and if you end up getting down closer to 40, you will start causing damage.

Just my twocents but I'd def say try to get those temps up.

Peace, sg

 

[Giant]

My ladies do not look happy with me.. I have increased my feeding to 3ml of micro and 6ml of bloom per gallon every morning for 2 days now.

Temps and humidity are both staying pretty consistent..

68*f is the temp inside the tent, the "outside" temp is actually my exhaust temp.

 

[Hammerhead]

Yes increase the temp by 10f there to cold. I keep my tent at 75+- 3F. I would build a stand for the tent 6-10". Place the tent on the stand so you wont lose any head room. plywood and 2x2 very easy to make.

 

[Giant]

Damn, so pretty much like osecretgardeno was saying?

I removed the air cooling from my hood and the temps shot up to almost 80*f in about 2 hours. I think I will have to go out and get a variac tomorrow and see if I can control temps that way. If not, I may be building a stand, which I did not want to do..

 

[Hammerhead]

Or you could use one of these just hook up your hood fan pwer cord and set the temp.

http://www.discount-hydro.com/productdisp.php?pid=571&navid=6

 

[Giant]

Or you could use one of these just hook up your hood fan pwer cord and set the temp.

http://www.discount-hydro.com/productdisp.php?pid=571&navid=6

Will that work for my hoods? It doesnt seem good to have the fan kicking on and off every few minutes. Wont the bulb temps spike up pretty quickly with the fan off? Is that bad for the bulb?

 

[Giant]

Oh baby! Now the fun is really starting to begin. Now that my first tent was rolling along I was anxious to get my flower tent going. I saw some lovely ladies today that I could not pass up, and it sent me over the edge. Now I cant exactly put these directly in to flower, so I guess I will be running two veg tents for at least a week or two.

Oh, in case you were wondering about the beautiful ladies in the picture... I ended up with 2 Cantaloupe haze, 3 Chem Dawg D, and a Pre-98 Bubba.

Because of the size of these clones, I think I will finish them in soil. I picked up some Fox Farm Happy Frog today at the nursery. It should be interesting trying to keep up with both a soil and a hydro grow at the same time.

Again, I think I estimated the size of these "4x4'" tents side by side. At least I have enough room for everything that matters. :angel: