1st Grow Ever! Vertical Grow Rack

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Urameshi

Urameshi

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First off I'd like to thank you all for your many threads/posts with informative information. This is a great resource for noobs and veterans, the grower community like most communities seems pretty welcoming of course with its few snobs but they are the minority. I've been around weed for about 10+ years now but mostly Black Market m*ddle man things. One of my suppliers mentioned they were getting into consulting and he put the battery in my back to get started, we began building indoor grows allegedly all over town, sticking to the rules and being as above board as possible. Even though we have a "few" setups, I basically manage, invest, smoke, make money from them but I wanted to learn on my own in terms of trial and error/no handholding so I put a rack up in my old family home, I can't even smoke where I live or it's a $500 fee and my neighbors have no problem complaining so definitely didn't want to put the grow there. The problem with my old family house is it's old so I might be limited to what I have now unless I upgrade the electrical which I might do.

Currently I'm in Flower @ the end of week 6. I got the babies on May 2nd, got them acclimated to the environment and the lights, running 4 440 watt Volt VL-1 Grow Lights, I also use the FL 1 which are 720s in my other grows and they do extremely well for those interested in great lights at a great cost and for any sponsors out there I'd love to review your product!

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1 Kush Mints
2 Ice Cream Cake
3 Dosidos

Genetics hunted by the team

The boltless shelving rack is an 8x4, the 440 w VL1s are supposed to be for a 4x4 5x5 area but if you hang them horizontally? you can maximize space and achieve 880 watts in a 4x4 area by hanging 2 next to each other so 4 on the whole rack. The 440s are great because they can reflect outward and inward.
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They are in 5 gallon pots and were flipped on May 17th to their 12/12 cycle like I say the electrical is bad so the timer plugs I bought to help with this weren't put to use because they trip the breaker. I run 2 lights in the room and 2 lights out of the room via extension cable. There are 2 16' oscillating wall fans that provide pretty great airflow, as well as a 12,000 btu AC that was added in the beginning of week 6 before then I had a 5k btu that did nothing to prevent levels of 90+ degrees on our hot days and an ac thats in the adjoining room that weirdly provided way more support than the ac in the actual grow room because of that I kept the relative temp 83-87, 40-50 RH I figured that was a decent range because I'm using LEDs. I did plant training the week they went into 5 gallons, using ties, put a scrogg on week 2 of flower but took it down after week 3 day 21 defoliation/lollipop I do need to put up a tighter scrog next time.

I apologize for scattering all the info, I saw a questionnaire for grows on here to start your diaries but can't find it to copy. We are using FoxFarm Cultivation Nation 70/30 mix in all our grows. My guy usially does no till stuff on his farm but this is better for the nutrients we are giving them. The nutes I can't say I signed an NDA, he is trying to establish a good formula and tbh with my environment aside the plants love the regimen. There are 4 parts, part D doesn't start until week 3 of flower if that helps lol since this one is my own I've bought things to maybe boost (or stall) growth. Overdrive (which I've read bad things on here so I watch how much I use), Humboldt Flower Stacker, Recharge and Molasses. The molasses I give maybe once a week, the recharge I give the day after feeding Overdrive but usually once a week maybe 2x and I give them their regular nutes + flower stacker OFTEN. I mix part A, then Part B, Then Part C then Part D then the stacker. I water the coco everyday roughly around a liter thats what gives me a good amount of runoff which I use my shop vac to get rid of, I turn on the lights AT 9:30am let them soak up some sun for a second or 2 then feed. I have a 33 gallon reservoir but I've been using my 5 gallon bucket mostly with an air stone/ pump. I put mylar sheets around the room, a green LED bulb is the rooms main light for night time brief in and outs. I don't usually get light leaks but I do need better ways to hide the morning sun creeping in the curtains. We use insulation boards at most of our locations so I need to just do that. There have been instances of lights going on or off 1-8 minutes late with to no adverse affects from what I can tell but I've seen people say their lights have went out for hours and they were fine, not trying to test that out though.

The goals are always to pull a P plus per plant, usually we put 6 plants on an 8x4 instead of the 8 or more we see others do but less is best is our method. Around week 4/week 5 due to laziness I lost a plant (ICC, left runoff in saucer, I thought it was fine because I have rocks in the saucers so figured it was above the runoff but NAHHHHH and it was my biggest girl at the time. Since then I've been diligent with cleaning up. On week 6 I put Plant Trainers (check them out on IG, great customer service!) on the girls and theyre great, we use these on some of our girls in other locations they're awesome, of course you can't scrog these but you can buy their scrogger 2 packs for about $12, the plant trainers themselves are $25 free shipping.

I learned my tap waters PH and left it alone, I forgot it but it works lol my guy says 6.0 is our range for the coco. Don't really care too much for PPM, EC, etc I do understand the importance of them tho, I do care about VPD and try to keep the plant in the happy range at all times. At the start of week 6 my temps have been 75-80 during the day and 69-73 at Night with my RH fluctuating from 40-60. I have a dehum that I've been leaving on to help with any problems as they arise but I think its been off mostly, its on auto for 55-60%

I have a hum that I used more for Veg.

Theres a Pro Co2 bucket in there that I think works, we don't use co2 in any of our grows so figured I'd see what it do.


Also never did germinating or super soil myself so I started working on my next grow germinating seeds by leaving them floating in a cup of water for days without the paper towel, and the soil being mother earth coco peat, bruts super soil and coots nutrient/mineral pack don't know if that will be too hot for my seedlings, GNick said I should probably stick to the plain coco peat for the seeds but I mixed everything 🥴currently cooking in that 33 gallon tote I mentioned earlier. I left it on my balcony btw the grow room is on the 2nd floor in the back of the house, no smell issues currently but I come to this house to smoke so don't think that'll ever be an issue lol. I also have an air purifier but haven't been using it and use Lost Coast Plant Therapy about once a week or every 2 weeks as a preventative. I've had a couple of pests but nothing that wouldn't already be there like regular house flies that sneak in from outside. This might've been long winded but thanks for sticking with me and I'll update this and make more threads! Compressing my first vidI made pre-flower flip and one I shot yesterday for overall comparison
 
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Urameshi

Urameshi

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PRE FLIP, PROBABLY LAST WEEK OF VEG


6 WEEKS IN AT THE END OF THE 6TH WEEK, RECORDED THIS MORNING 6.26.21

AND HERES SOME VIDS OF RANDOM MOMENTS IN THE WEEKS, SHOWING YOU HOW I LOST ONE OF THE ICE CREAM CAKES :/




 
ComfortablyNumb

ComfortablyNumb

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First off, lets get some more holes in those pots. You don't have anywhere near enough drainage and that might be the basis of the problem.
Get you a drill and put a 3/16th hole every inch around the bucket side, starting at the bottom. Make at least 3 layers of holes.
 
Urameshi

Urameshi

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Sheesh that's a ton of hole, I didn't think drainage was a problem. With the one I killed I basically had it sitting in its RO water for like 10+ hours in a hot a$* room after that I decided to stop being lazy and shop vac every time if you see the 2nd YT vid my girls are doing really well at the moment, they're pretty much on automatic at this point

I'm running foxfarm cultivation nation 70/30 coco perlite, with nutes on this run (my first)

and decided to try more of the organic route on my 2nd, created a super soil (1.5 coco peat mother earth full of nutes, 30 lbs of Brut Super Soil, 2.5 cups of coots nutes and mineral mix and 1 cup of blended barley mixed together. I have it "cooking" in my 33 gallon tote on my balcony. I never dealt with soil and was wondering if it was too hot of a mix.

every see d pretty much popped using GreenGene's float tech method, left the seeds in a cup of water in the drawer for a cpouple days and the roots popped usually the next day, with one straggler, no paper towel needed
 
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Urameshi

Urameshi

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i potted them yesterday, ordered a cheap 100w led light off amazon, threw it up in the closet and they have their home for the next couple of weeks
 
ComfortablyNumb

ComfortablyNumb

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The water level in your pots is not what you think it is.
I'm sure you've heard about 'water tables' in the ground. That's how far down you have to dig to hit water.
Your pots have the same thing. They hold water in the pot at a certain point. Without knowing, you can literally drown a plant because of this.
When you add the holes, you do 2 things;

1. Make it possible to lower the water table in the pot.
2. Provide more oxygen to the root zone for better health and nutrient uptake.

These 2 reasons are the reason so many use fabric pots now.
 
ComfortablyNumb

ComfortablyNumb

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Is it a 'Grow light' or a regular 100w bulb?
If it's a blurple (blue/red only) grow light then it might be closer to 50w.
 
Urameshi

Urameshi

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Is it a 'Grow light' or a regular 100w bulb?
If it's a blurple (blue/red only) grow light then it might be closer to 50w.
I hope not

and thanks for the info brodie! This is how we have the pots usually, this is the pot for the dead one. I'm pretty sure my laziness would've killed them in fabric pots too lol BUT I am going to repot these babies in fabric pots if they do survive lol
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B082Y1PMWF/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
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ComfortablyNumb

ComfortablyNumb

6,099
313
I hope not

and thanks for the info brodie! This is how we have the pots usually, this is the pot for the dead one. I'm pretty sure my laziness would've killed them in fabric pots too lol BUT I am going to repot these babies in fabric pots if they do survive lol
Yeah, nowhere near enough drainage in that.

That looks like a great light for a single plant.
Get a lizard bulb (UV-A & B) for after flipping to flower. UV will boost your Trich's.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B082Y1PMWF/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
Urameshi

Urameshi

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Do you think it’s good enough for veg?

I use 4 of these for flower in a 8x4 here’s an example of the teams setups, my guy came up with a brilliant way for the vertical grows and a great feeding system. I love his methods as I assist and do it solo but I’m a man of automation I can see why we have to people for this but at the same time I like doing the work and seeing the girth lol I will improve on this system after my next few grows tho
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ComfortablyNumb

ComfortablyNumb

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You going to move them into a 20' footer after they veg? At this height (6') they will get 12 feet tall by the end.
 
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