First Grow (White Widow Auto)

MrNoice · Oct 21, 2024

Hi guys, I thought I would start a log, or more or a "learn what NOT to do" lol.

Plants are currently on day 8.

I had some issues, the main being that I thought I had PESTS! saw a spider like insect moving inside the peat pellet! Probably from the medium or from outside the house (I live in the countryside) But it looks like to be a false alarm. I added some cinnamon to the top of the soil also. If indeed they have laid their eggs I will probably use the dunks, peroxide and neem oil with the traps and some cinnamon..

Subsequently the traps I purchased, one of which was stuck on the side of the tent fell on top of one of the seedlings lol.. It appears to have recovered now, somewhat. Still a little bent up, but I am hopefully. Purchased some backup seeds, just incase!

I also purchased mosquito dunks and neem oil and some yellow traps (gnats like yellow, apparently) I have to purchase in advance as I live in the country so getting stuff is pretty hard. I am hoping that if I do get spider mites or if I do have gnats at some point I can get in early.

So here it is:

Spider Farmer grow kit with SF1000 100W LED light
Bio Bizz light mix medium
I am running them on a 18/6 light schedule now (initially I was running 24hrs)
No nutes yet but I have purchased a try pack of Bio Bizz and will start when it arrives.
Also purchased a 300W FCE3000 bar LED (I may upgrade the tent if needed)
It's winter time here, and it will get colder.

I am running the carbon filter at the bottom of the tent with a oscilating fan and I have made 2 inline duct pipes using the excess ducting supplied from the fan with 2 of the nets provided by spider farmer to stop anything getting in. Tent is pretty tight, the quality (compared to one I used many years ago with HPS lights) is unmatched, amazing quality and overall good quality products. I will probably add another inline fan to create better airflow. I know a lot of people put the outake fan at the top but as heat is a concern for me I want to keep hot air in and draw in new air from the top. Though, this may change with the lighting upgrade.

If it gets too cold I'll put the tent down in my living room where I will start using a heater, so now excess electricity charges because we use it for the home anyway. I'll do this if temp drops below 18.

Current climate: Temps (min and max) 19.4 degrees C - 24 degrees C, humidity 61% min 70% max (today)

It's been a BIG learning curve, anyone seeing this from outside the forum searching because you want to grow, even though the setups can be bought fairly cheap it does require some time, don't do what I did and go away for the weekend leaving your seeds in a wet paper towel which when I came back became dry, but survived.

I sprouted the seeds from water and a wet paper towel, a few days in a small pot and then direct into the medium BIO-BIZZ LIGHT MIX.

Anyway I will post updates daily, I hope this grow log sees me through to flowering, but if it doesn't I think it's something I can definitely learn from and others can.

If I have one takeaway from this, I would definitely purchase a bigger tent with higher wattage lighting and essentially better products, because I am probably going to spend more buying more stuff along the way..

Anyway, enough of the babbling, I will update daily with photos and let's see where this takes us! Happy for any criticism and advice! You guys have been amazing so far with my questions and reading others diaries and posts.

BB22 · Oct 21, 2024

White Widow is what I grew out first

Where did you get yours

MrNoice · Oct 21, 2024

BB22 said:
White Widow is what I grew out first

Where did you get yours

I purchased mine locally, guy had them in temp fridge, 2FASTBUDS I think they are called? Almost all the other stuff I ordered online and arrived at sporadic times which made the grow at first a little complicated, because I actually germinated before I got the tent etc and had a small LED which I was using lol.

I am more looking for a learning grow on this one, gonna keep it at 2 plants and see how it goes, I grew many years ago but back then it was all HPS and different equipment, and I was growing with someone experienced, so this one is very much a solo run.

Galgrows · Oct 21, 2024

MrNoice said:
I purchased mine locally, guy had them in temp fridge, 2FASTBUDS I think they are called? Almost all the other stuff I ordered online and arrived at sporadic times which made the grow at first a little complicated, because I actually germinated before I got the tent etc and had a small LED which I was using lol.

I am more looking for a learning grow on this one, gonna keep it at 2 plants and see how it goes, I grew many years ago but back then it was all HPS and different equipment, and I was growing with someone experienced, so this one is very much a solo run.

Yep i think WW photoperiod was my first indoor grown weed.

MrNoice · Oct 22, 2024

A day later update.. I have noticed some pretty significant growth, not sure whether it was to do with the changes I have made, the curling of the leaves still make me a little concerned, I am going to hold off watering until later today, or indeed tomorrow.. But so far, I have no complaints, new seeds are arriving tomorrow which will be stored away, if I decide to get a new tent I may move these 2 to the bigger ones and start the others in the smaller one. So far, I am happy.

The nutes have arrived: Bio Bizz Try pack (Grow, Bloom and Flower) I'll start them in a week or two once they hit 15cm as reccomended by Bio..

Edit: Temp wise the humidity has increased to 75% and the temp is sitting at around 21 C. It's been raining quite a lot and it looks like winter is coming in full force! The 300W light arrives in a few days, so far the temp is sitting at the lower end of what I would want, but I am not concerned. Seedlings seem to be doing well.. I will update again with exact mins and maxes for both temp and RH when I go back up (she's currently about to enter her 6hr of dark, so I don't want to disturb them)

See attached photos...

MrNoice · Oct 23, 2024

3 hours back into their light period, after 6 hours off. I watered them with 6.8PH bottled water, waiting on some distilled so I can boil some tap water and PH it, as the tap water here is testing those PH test strips off the chart.

Steady temp of around 23C and humidity of 65-80. Which could be an issue closer to flower (we'll deal with that later)

Happy with the growth, still some concerns about some leafs curling, I've noticed the bigger leafs drooping but I imagine that was the dark period, I've seen time lapses where platings will go up and down during the lights on and off so not concerned at the moment. Some really good growth in the past few days...

I watered them with approx 400ml of water each one. Maybe a little too much but a lot of it went around the plant and kind of rolled down towards the edges.

MrNoice · Oct 25, 2024

Day 12.

Haven't watered yet, it's been 2 days, will probably wait until tomorrow (3 days) unless I start to see signs of underwatering, soil is moist and not dry, so I figure I would wait a little longer. Plus I am having some issues with water supply, I've been using bottled water, and want to use tap water which is PH'd.

Still using the Spider Farmer 100w, I have a 300 Watt Mars Hydro FCE-3000 that I will put up as I have ordered a bigger tent and have started germination on another 2 white widows, 1 OG kush and they gave me a free Gelato seed, all auto's.

I may use the smaller tent for 1-2 plants and then put the rest in the bigger 120/120/150 tent. However, I am unsure on the Gelato I've heard a lot of bad things about the strain and don't want to put time/money/equipment into a strain I don't know. I am sticking with White Widow and OG kush as they've been around for many many years.

Anyway here is the day 12 update (She's in her dark period, but I had to double check as I won't be at home until later and probably will be too lazy to check lol)