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First Grow - 250W Cab - Hydro drip system - F13 from seed

mark1253

mark1253

Member
Hey green penguin, that looks freakin awesome:yeahthats

I am in day 16 of flower but I think I may be watering (drips on) too much...7 times for half an hour during lights on.

I read a comment you made on another thread and you mentioned you were watering 3 times daily.

I only have one drip going into each plant and I noticed you have four so that would make a difference.

Basically whats your watering schedule mate ?:joint:
 
G

greenpenguin

Active member
Hey mark1253, yeah i added the extra drippers because my roots have really grown out and the single dripper wasn't getting all the hydroton areas wet.

My feeding schedule is simple; I only feed when the lights are on because I dont want too much humidity when the heat from lights aren't there, and I don't think there's any benefit for the plant. Currently in the flower room where I have 12 hours of light I feed every 5 hours for 15 minutes at a time. So I start at 8pm, feed again at 1am, and once again at 6am (I run the lights at night). I have a circulating drip using the Lucas Formula, currently at 0/4.5/9 using GH 3 part flora at an EC of 2.2 (1100ppm-0.5) and pH of 5.8.
 
justanotherbozo

justanotherbozo

Active member
Veteran
hey bro, sorry i've not been by lately but i can see everything is lookin'
great man! your canopy is really filling up nicely!

also, don't take the inattention personally, i'm sure it was partly due to
people being pre-occupied trying to learn how to navigate after the new
software upgrade!

anyway, it's really good to see ya doin' so well!
 
mark1253

mark1253

Member
Cheers for that. Think I'll cut back on the water as they are looking a bit 'droopy'.

I'm gonna pull up a chair as I intend to scrog my next grow.............:woohoo:
 
G

greenpenguin

Active member
JustAnotherBozo: Thanks for stopping by, I don't take it too personally that nobody stops by, this is mainly for my own documentation anyways. But it's definitely nice to get some attention. And yes the canopy is filling up nicely, a little too nicely. I have trouble keeping budsites from getting covered, it makes me wish I had a bigger flower room. I've considered clipping leaves but almost every leaf is connected to a budsite and I don't want to stunt any growth. I feel that the leaves photosynthesize better than the flowers and also feed the flowers so keeping them around might be more beneficial.

mark1253: For limited plants and limited space, I definitely feel SCRoG is the way to go, just look at how many budsites I have on my single plant, I've tried counting and it's over 30. I'm doing what I can to give that one plant the nutes it needs to make each of those budsites grow big. Right now, I kinda wish I had a 400watt HPS instead of just a 250. I had originally spec'ed the 250 for heat reasons, but with my cooltube and it's own ventilation, temps are not a problem at all during this winter. In fact I have the cooltube about 4 inches from the tops. A friend of mine offered to lend me his 1K ballast and bulb but I think that might be too much.

Anyhow I'll be updating soon, I just borrowed a DSLR with a macro lense from a friend at work so I'm gonna try to get some macro shots of my buds.
 
G

greenpenguin

Active member
ok I'm a cruddy photographer and I couldn't get the pimp super close macro shots some other people on here seem to get... how the hell do they do it?!?! Anyhow here's some shots I took, they are approx day 25 of flower shots.

picture.php

View image in gallery​









Also I'm noticing some leaf curling, I'm wondering if I'm over watering a tad bit, I had added two more drippers so I turned one of them off.
 
H

Headcase

Member
lookin awesome man.

I just started a 250w scrog myself. It's early, but if I can get my screen filled like yours i'll be quite pleased!
 
G

greenpenguin

Active member
Eep: Thanks for stopping by!

Headcase: SCROG is the way to go. I saw your thread and noticed your decision to go CMH. I checked out the CMH thread, looks interesting, has me tempted to switch to a CMH 250W...
 
G

greenpenguin

Active member
purps

purps

Hey all, it's been a week since my last update. I've been really busy with work and research so I haven't put much effort into this diary lately.

I definitely have been putting my Veg room as a much lower priority than my flower which could be a mistake, but I can't help it. I get really excited with the flowers. Anyhow my veg room I had a #3 pheno clone (with variegations and autoflowering) which got a clogged dripper, the plant shriveled and took 3 days for it to not be limp anymore.
I have a #1 clone from my first run of cloning which is Vegging quite nicely and is being LST'd as well. It's in day 67 of veg, check it out:


Then I have this other #1 pheno clone from my second run of cloning, this sucker is really growing, check out this fan leave from it.



On to the flowering... Here's a shot of some under screen buds. I'm know I should cut them to divert more energy into producing the big buds, but it's hard to get myself to do it. I actually have a decent amount of under screen buds. Convince me to cut them!!



Here are some beautiful group photos. You can really seen they are growing nicely. There's lots of great color to it. The calyxs have a purple tone to them. Even the fan leaves have a tone to them, I love the way it looks. I'm glad it's not just a plain green plant, not that there's anything wrong with that.
Currently I'm replacing the reservoir weekly.
PH is at 5.8-6.0
EC is at 2.0-2.4
PPM is around 100 - 120 PPM (0.5)
Light sits about 4 or 5 inches above the canopy.






Here are some closeups, I really hope these flowers bulk up a lot in the next few weeks. I feel like upward growth has really slowed.






So as for upcoming plans for this girl... I've purchased a CMH 250w bulb to replace my HPS, after seeing Eep's thread mention the CMH thread, I've been reading through there and I'm confident that CMH is the way to go. A fuller spectrum with almost the same spikes as the HPS, and cooler temperatures (not that heat is an issue for me right now but in the summer...), that plus the UVB it provides I just don't feel confident in my HPS anymore. I also saw that Freezerboy uses CMH, that's almost enough for me to switch.

One thing that bugs me is that my EC is always rising fairly fast, I know that usually indicates I may be feeding too much but I really don't feel like I am. I honestly feel like I could feed more, like sometimes my EC will spike really high over the course of a week, like 2.8-2.9 and I don't even see any burn on these plants. Anyhow, the CMH comes in tomorrow so I'll be switching the bulb soon.
 
G

greenpenguin

Active member
Outdoe & Urbanfunk: thanks for stopping by!

Update:
I decided to chop some of the under screen flower growth, I chopped most of it there are still a few popcorn buds growing which I plan on chopping as well. I dried them for a few days and am currently curing them in little containers made of inert plastic.




I also got myself an Eyeclops Bionicam. It's a bit difficult to use, one thing the helped a lot was removing the stupid focusing cover. All that thing does is keep things a certain distance away from the lens and I feel like it actually blocks some of the light making it difficult to use. Anyhow here are some photos I snapped of my popcorn nugs with it. I'll take photos of my big buds later when the light is on.



So I was a bit off on the shipping date of my CMH and it finally arrived this week. I installed it yesterday into my cooltube:



Here it is firing up:



Here it is FIRED up!



And a current bud shot... not the apial bud
 
G

greenpenguin

Active member
My F13 started showing some signs of what looked like potassium or calcium deficiencies, I've been using the Lucas formula for a while with no issues and my pH has been stable but my EC was constantly rising. I read that F13 takes it's nutes light so I felt that a flush was in order. Right now I've been flushing with pH adjusted tap water for the last 2 days.

I started out with ppms at 240ppm (0.5), currently It's at 420ppm (0.5). I'll probably keep flushing until tomorrow and then re-introduce nutes at a much lower ppm than before. I was previously starting my reservoirs at 1060ppm, I'll move down to around 800.

It's day 47 of flower, this plant definitely is not a high yielder which is a bit disappointing but I was expecting that. Based on what I've read in other F13 grows, I should expect to harvest at around day 57-62. I'm going to attempt to be diligent in watching my trichomes. Currently my trichomes seem to be some clear, mostly cloudy. I plan on beginning the real final flush on day 52. Harvest time is closing in!!!

Here's what my trichomes look like on the buds in the flower room, it was hard to get a clear shot...




 
RussCargill

RussCargill

Member
GP- That is a freaking awesome cab. Its great to see people sit down and study before throwing seeds in the ground. seeing that gnarled up stock gets me excited to start tying my girls down. Oh how I love Cannabis bondage. F-13 may not yield, but the DJ is known to kick your ass.
 
G

greenpenguin

Active member
RussCargill: thanks for the compliments, really did do my best to learn what I could before starting the grow, I still made plenty of mistakes and learned a lot however. I'm excited to find out exactly how much I yielded, I'm guessing right now it's gonna be about 2 ounces dry, but I really have no idea.

Now for updates.....
I'm in day 50 (now day 51 since it's past midnight) of flower and I have begun flushing earlier than planned. I checked trichomes again today and I can definitely tell harvest time is soon, I hope I didn't start the real flush too late.

I took a shot of the trichomes from the apical bud and It seems like it's already ready for harvest!

However the rest of the buds are not quite there yet, looks mostly cloudy

I'll be checking trichomes everyday now since I feel close to harvest time. I've borrowed some fiskars from a friend in preparation and cleaned them off, still had a bunch of scissor hash I had to scrap off and then wipe down with iso.


If you've ever read the "F13 - Keeper phenos and what to expect" thread, I think my F13 looks like the threadstarter's #4 pheno... the flodica. We'll see how it smokes I guess when it's done.
Anyhow, just to show you guys how things are looking just a few days (hopefully) from harvest here are some more shots of what things look like on day 50 of flower:




Below is the apical bud


some other buds

Here's an interesting side view of one of my bud stems, you can see the canopy is purple, while below is green still
 
enter sandman

enter sandman

Active member
beautiful photos...I have the exact same cab from the depot, but using a 200 watt hps and soil. The 200 watter can be found at 1000bulbs.com for anyone interested in something in between the 150 and 250. Peace and Stay Safe
 
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greenpenguin

Active member
enter sandman: thanks, I actually now wish I had gone with a higher wattage light. With my cooltube a 400w CMH would be perfect in this cab.

Libby: Not much is happening, I'm just flushing still and checking trichomes everyday. A few of the buds are showing a few amber trichs but some buds are showing none. I feel like now would be a good time to harvest but I've only been flushing for 6 days and I kinda of wanted to flush for at least 10 days. No new pictures yet.

I bought bubble bags for hash making. Oh and I smoked some of the dried/cured-ish popcorn buds I had plucked. Even just the popcorn buds I really like the high. Very cerebral but low anxiety, a functional but potent high. I really enjoy it, I wonder what the final product will be like!
 
hanfiking

hanfiking

Active member
You grow is turning out spectacular, very colouful, worthy of XyZ and hanfi invite colour
connoisseurs!

One of the reasons I think your plants had so many leaf malformations is that at a certain
point during their young life they were exposed to, too much water which wasn't running
off. The roots will try to take up water constantly and the plant will try to put it
somewhere which caused lots of cells to overload and burst causing the leaf structure to
collapse. One way to fix that is, more light or less water.

But it's just an assumption so unless you feel like this applies to what you did, just
disregard it ;) PEACE
 
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