First Grow - Indoor - Auto Bluetooth from MSNL

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Gashuffer

Gashuffer

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Hey all,

New member and first grow going on! Glad to join the community.

Lets start with my setup:
  • 32x32x64 Opulent grow tent
  • Mars Hydro TS1000 light
  • 4” Vivosun exhaust fan with carbon filter
  • (2) 6” non-oscillating fans inside the tent for circulation
  • Pure Guardian H965AR Ultrasonic Cool Mist Humidifier (really impressed with this thing, $25 used on eBay!)

Located in the utility room in my basement. Far from kids eyes and other visitors. I mean, what visitor finds themselves in your utility room in your basement?

Soil:
50% organic potting soil from Menards. It has some fertilizer in it, but it was hard for me to find something without slow release fertilizer.
25% pearlite
10-15% earthworm casings
10-15% coco coir

Supplements/Nutrients/etc:
Note:not all used at once. Just ones I have and plan to use thru the grow at some point or another.
  • MaxicroLiquid seaweed (used for seedling watering and misting)
  • Foxfarms Trio
  • Superthrive (used for years on outdoor gardening on various species)
  • pH up/down

Seeds:
Purchased thru MSNL. Pretty solid experience with them. I bought a few different strains, varying from autos to feminized photoperiod and just regular photoperiod. I intend to grow all, but chose to start with the Auto Bluetooth for my first.

Now onto the grow!
 
MarsHydroLED

MarsHydroLED

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Welcome to the farm! Looking forward to your complete journal, if could share some photos, it will be better 🌱 🥳
 
Gashuffer

Gashuffer

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Welcome to the farm! Looking forward to your complete journal, if could share some photos, it will be better 🌱 🥳

yeah, I had intended my above posts to be used for pics and notes on each stage. But, I can’t go back and edit the posts now for some reason. But, I will most definitely add pics and notes.
 
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Gashuffer

Gashuffer

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First, HEREis my grow log thus far. I have not noted every time I've misted or inspected or LSTed. But every major watering I had tracked.

Germination.

I germinated 2 seeds via the paper towel method. I placed the ziplock baggie with my seeds, towels and plates ontop of my water heater. This worked surprisingly quickly and I was able to plant the seeds. I've used this on pumpkin seeds and a whole slew of other types of seeds. But, since this was my first MJ grow, I wasn't sure what to expect.

3/2/2020 - Seeds into wet paper towel
3/5/2020 - Seeds were both placed into soil (Big Kai has the longer tap root, Little Kai has the taproot that barely broke from the shell)

I probably should have just planted Big Kai and left Little Kai to germinate in the paper towels for another day or so. This is part of the reason you'll notice a significant size difference in the two plants later. I had hopes of growing 2 plants. 1 as a control where I would use unpHed water and no touching/messing with at all. The other I was planning to try LST, nutrients, pHing water, etc. Everything that I had read about over the past couple months. However, from the beginning of the grow, that would not have been a great comparison. So, I scrapped that idea entirely and just went about taking this grow as a learning experience on the plant life cycle.
Seed Sprouts   352020   PM

After I planted, I placed my 2L bottle domes over the plants. At this time, I didn't have a humidifier yet and hoped this would help some. Heck, it couldn't hurt!
Seeds Planted with domes   352020   PM

Big Kai was doing really well by 3/10, only 5 days after first planting the germinated seed.
Big Kai   3102020   PM

While Little Kai was not doing so great by 3/10. I had watered a bit rough on accident and disturbed her. This cause her to slow down a bit further unfortunately.
Little Kai   3102020   PM

3/17, this is where you start to really see the difference in the two plants. Little Kai has barely cracked the soil surface. From here, went and grabbed an old CFL reading light and slammed it as close to Little Kai as I could. Hoping this would perk her up a bit.
Little Kai   3172020  PM
Little Kai   3182020 Light

By just 3/18, this CFL ontop of Little Kai seemed to help a good bit. So, I'm glad I did that to recover something. We will see how she goes the rest of the grow, but I don't expect a ton.

By 3/20, Little Kai is on her way to growing on her own under the MarsHydro TS1000 along side Big Kai. However, you can still see a significant difference in size between the two.
Little Kai   3202020   AM
Big Kai   320 2020   PM

Right wrong or indifferent, I am calling Germination stage from 3/2 when I started, until 3/29 when I believe they entered the "preflower" stage, or I think that's also vegetative. This is the stage that I am at now.

Here are the last pictures around that time frame.
Big Kai
Big Kai   3292020   PM 1 hour after nutrients
Little Kai
Little Kai   3292020   PM Pre Nutrients
 
Big Kai   3172020   PM
Gashuffer

Gashuffer

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Preflower or Vegetative?

Starting 3/29, I started giving nutrients as that's what I've read you should do. I am following FoxFarms trio as close as I feel comfortable. Starting at 1/6 dose, now I'm at 1/3, and then I'll probably peak at 1/2. Maybe next grow, if I get two seeds that start about the same, I will go back to my original plan of having a control plant and a nutrient plant. That'll be a different write up though.

From here, I started getting a bit crazy I think. But, learning as I go!

Big Kai on 3.30.2020, and now you can see my humidifier. It's working pretty well to keep the RH about 40-50 on the lowest setting. It could easily get it to 80-90 but that'd be too much.
Big Kai   3302020   AM

And, Little Kai on 3.30.2020 as well.
Little Kai   3302020   AM

My soil settled pretty good, or I just didn't put enough in each pot. The lip of the pot was pretty high relative to the soil. They were cheap pots so I just carefully cut off the lip about 1/2" above the soil line. Hoping this would allow more airflow up through the plants to prevent mold or any other issues that may arise from low airflow. I was looking into Air Pots for my future grows, but man are they pricey.
Big Kai   3302020   PM   Top lip of bucket cut

You can see on Big Kai that my LST with bent wires are working pretty well. I definitely have some room for improvement for planning on where I route the new growth. But, you can see the stalk really bend around clockwise here.
Big Kai   3302020   PM Trunk

A few days ago I got a bit carried away with Big Kai. Here she is on 3.31, with a ton of fan leaves and such that are covering quite a few of the flowering sites.
Big Kai   3312020   AM   LST

So, I started trimming some of them. I'm not sure if this was a great move or not. I read quite a few mixed reviews on this method. But, she seems to be handling it fine. The downfall with a single plant is that I really have no way of knowing if this will impact my final harvest. I really wish I could have kept my control.
Big Kai   3312020   PM Defoliation

Sorry this was a lot! But it was about a month of catch up from pics and such. The next posts will be much more manageable!

I'll grab a few more pictures of them tonight, but, here is my tent with both plants and equipment visible for now!

Don't mind the drip pans in back. Those are where I put the pots to catch the runoff from watering. I then move the pots to the mostly dry pan once they've drained a bit. I've just been letting it evaporate and rinsing it off a day or so later.

Whole Tent Setup
 
Gashuffer

Gashuffer

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Just did my evening check. I watered this morning which is noted in my grow log here.

I won’t go into detail as it’s all noted there, but I did up the volume given to both plants as the soil was the driest I have let it get. And, neither plant showed any ill effects. It will probably be my new target dryness now.

But, 4/2/2020 and here is the setup and the girls relative to each other. I have the grow light about 18” above the top leaves. Per MarsHydros recommendation, granted it’s on the high end of their recommendation for now.
C61F3618 B81C 4315 A8B2 F3870667EBAC

Here is Big Kai in all her trimmed glory. You can definitely tell she is starting to flower though. I think this is the preflower stage, but being my first grow, I’m not too sure.
C034DF41 C6B1 4A3A B1A7 A68D273952A9

And here is Little Kai. It doesn’t look like she is flowering just yet. The buds still look like they are sending out new leaves and she hasn’t hit any “explosive growth” that I’ve read about yet.C3D6DEA2 3B0A 4D86 AD86 5BCC4755EE4A
 
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Moshmen

Moshmen

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They look hungry , sorry didn’t back read have you posted your latest runoff ppm and ph? How often do you feed? Possible build up causing some nutes to be locked out?
 
Gashuffer

Gashuffer

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They look hungry , sorry didn’t back read have you posted your latest runoff ppm and ph? How often do you feed? Possible build up causing some nutes to be locked out?

I have a pH pen and TDS meter coming on Saturday. I have only been checking with pH strips, which are rough. The pH was a bit high on the runoff, but pH of my water supply was a bit low. So I’ve been trying to balance around it.

I’ll know more and record it once I get the meters.

What about them look hungry to you? Color? Leaf size? Growth rate? Stem color?
 
Gashuffer

Gashuffer

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Just a quick check-in. I’ve got my Wyze camera set up to view. They’re cheap and don’t require a hub. This really helps me just check in without running down to the basement.

898AB4F6 F85D 4FEB 8C6B 8500C5B091EC
 
Moshmen

Moshmen

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I have a pH pen and TDS meter coming on Saturday. I have only been checking with pH strips, which are rough. The pH was a bit high on the runoff, but pH of my water supply was a bit low. So I’ve been trying to balance around it.

I’ll know more and record it once I get the meters.

What about them look hungry to you? Color? Leaf size? Growth rate? Stem color?
Coloring and leaf structure, I see a little nute burn on the tips but deficiencies in the rest of the leave , indicates possible ph problems the slow release stuff in the soil may be causing, or the buffers in the soil. A lot of people use those strips even prefer them,
It would be nice to here what your runoff numbers are ? I may tag someone else with more experience for ya
 
Gashuffer

Gashuffer

314
63
Coloring and leaf structure, I see a little nute burn on the tips but deficiencies in the rest of the leave , indicates possible ph problems the slow release stuff in the soil may be causing, or the buffers in the soil. A lot of people use those strips even prefer them,
It would be nice to here what your runoff numbers are ? I may tag someone else with more experience for ya

thatd be cool. Let me get the runoff readings first. I’ll probably wait until next watering and call the runoff I still have sitting in the tray contaminated or no longer accurate due to evaluation.

I do have a soil ph tester. I’m not sure how accurate that is tho. The reading is saying right at 7 for Big Kai’s soil.

6DEB41AC F0A2 4B32 87C2 7D3FC02721BA
 
Gashuffer

Gashuffer

314
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Found this post on rollitup. Looks like a great experiment to see what higher pH does.

https://www.invalid.com/t/high-ph--symptoms-and-correcting-pictorial-a-must-read-for-newbz.763067/

If I’m being critical, my pH may be a bit high based on my leaf smoothness.

I’ll get this pH pen and TDS meter in and maybe try to run a bit lower pH on my watering next time. Maybe I’ve been shooting too mid range for the pH of the water, while the soil has been a tad high?

Trial and error on this first grow!
 
Moshmen

Moshmen

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Found this post on rollitup. Looks like a great experiment to see what higher pH does.



If I’m being critical, my pH may be a bit high based on my leaf smoothness.

I’ll get this pH pen and TDS meter in and maybe try to run a bit lower pH on my watering next time. Maybe I’ve been shooting too mid range for the pH of the water, while the soil has been a tad high?

Trial and error on this first grow!
Numbers man numbers
 
Gashuffer

Gashuffer

314
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Well looks like I can’t post the link. But, a person on another forum simulated feeding a healthy MJ plant a pH of 8.5 and monitored the effects.
 
Gashuffer

Gashuffer

314
63
Numbers man numbers

yeah yeah yeah. The pH meter came tonight tho! So I’ll be checking stuff for now. My tap water is slightly basic. 7.4. So if that’s my starting point, and I add nutes, and modify the pH, who knows what it’s been.
 
Gashuffer

Gashuffer

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Just checked a few bits.
My water bucket that I had pHed that I use as a reservoir for my spray and nutrient base is 7.2.

my runoff at this point, which is a few days after collecting the runoff was 6.0. Not quite accurate due to the time it’s sat in the drip tray evaporating. But, I’ll get better records as I go now.
 
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