Blue Mystic & Dark Angel - Soil - 1st Grow

[RodrigoG]

Hey!

I'm new on the forum and I want to share my first grow with you guys. I'm growing two Blue Mystic and one Dark Angel.
I'm already on week 6, but I want to share the pictures I have so far which are from week 1, 2, 5 and 6.

Indoor Grow
Veg week 6
Medium : soil (~15% Verimiculite + ~15% Perlite)
Pot size : 3 gallon fabric pot
Strains : 2 Blue mystics (indica), 1 Dark Angel (hybrid 50/50)
Nutes : FloraBloom, FloraMicro, FloraGro

Setup
Grow tent : 36" wide x 20" deep x 63" high
Light : 1 x Aircooled 400W HID (MH and HPS)
Inline Fan : 175 CFM 4"
Fan : Honeywell turboforce

 

[Garage Grower]

re: Blue Mystic & Dark Angel Soil 1st Grow

I'll come along for the ride... welcome to

 

[RodrigoG]

re: Blue Mystic & Dark Angel Soil 1st Grow

Thanks to you Garage grower !
Happy to have company

So, here's my first pictures that were taken a week after sprout.
I grow from seeds. I planted 2 Blue Mystics and a Dark Angel under plastic wrapped seedling pots which are the one on the picture. It worked quite well as 2 of them sprouted after 36 hours. I was pretty surprised since I once tried to germinate seeds in water and they took about 48 hours to get a tap root. I think I'll always plant seeds directly in the soil in the future.
Ok, let's take a look at week 1 of my plants.

This is one of the Blue Mystics. This seedling was weird from the beginning. It sprouted 24 to 36 hours after the other ones and got that weird pale green color spread on the leaves. Strangely enough, this plant is the one that grows the fastest. Let's call this plant BM2.

These are my 3 plants together. On the back is BM2. About the others, I don't remember which is which...

 

[RodrigoG]

re: Blue Mystic & Dark Angel Soil 1st Grow

2nd Week.

To say the truth, my plant had a hard time during the 3 first weeks, the light was too strong, the temperature too hot and me trying to figure out what was going on... I started with a 400W MH 50% dimmed about 3 feet away from the plant. The light wasn't aircooled at that time and the average temperature was about 33 C... I was afraid of how hot the tent will be at full power... That's when I decided to buy an aircooling tube. There difference is huge. Now (4 weeks later), I keep temp between 23 and 27C. The temperature outside is way cooler though. Like 25C cooler...
I forgot to say that I'm using 24h photoperiod.
Pictures !

Let me introduce you to my Dark Angel

Here's the other Blue Mystic that we'll call Blue Mystic 1

Blue Mystic 2

 

[RodrigoG]

re: Blue Mystic & Dark Angel Soil 1st Grow

Week 5:

Yeah... From week 2 to week 4, I messed up pretty heavily and lost enthusiasm. That's why I have no pictures of these weeks... What happened ? I won't repeat myself, it's pretty much what I said on the last post. Overheating, light too strong and even under watering... It explains why the growth was so slow and the plants are so small for the 5th week.

I transplanted my plants from the tiny seedling pots to these fabric smartpot-like pots. These a 3 gallons put, but after a few watering, the soil compacted itself and there's a pretty big gap between the pot top and the soil top.

The wires and stuff are for hygrometer sensors that are connected with an Arduino micro-controller that send data to my server database. By the way, I'm studying computer science in my parallel life Might explain the geeky stuff in the grow tent.

So pictures, pictures.

Dark Angel (Blue Mystic 2 is behind)

Blue Mystic 1

Blue Mystic 2

 

[RodrigoG]

re: Blue Mystic & Dark Angel Soil 1st Grow

Week 6:

Now the plants are doing great. Well, from my stand point

I tried a lot of things during that week. I tried my first FIMs. I didn't cut enough at first, so I FIMed again a 2 or 3 days late (it happened after the following pictures were taken) but FIMMed a bit too much on some of the tops. Overall, I consider my second FIMings as pretty much successful. It looks like some top will have 3 to 6 tops, but these are not all from the second FIM. I may talk more about that on my next update.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to speak about something pretty obvious. I LSTed my plants. My plants had 2 main stems as I topped them really early, right when they were 3 nodes high. I tied both main stem so that they remain pretty much horizontal and the internode growth can get some light. It's working great so far as you'll see on the next update. I'm speaking too much about the future, let's leave that for the next post.

Pictures !

Dark Angel (1st FIM)

Blue Mystic 2

Blue Mystic 1

New growth after failed FIM (Only one growth)

Same here.

That one failed too... Too much growth left.

 

[DSXJ]

re: Blue Mystic & Dark Angel Soil 1st Grow

Hey Rodrigo, nice work man!

Don't worry about what you refer to as the geeky stuff, it's science bro! Any science towards marijuana is good science and nothing to be ashamed of.

As for heat cannabis plants a very tolerable to heat and can with stand huge temperature variations. In one of my grows I had temperature issues and ended up crisping a few tops. Adding an inline fan and a central fan cooled it to 27c but there was no ill effect on my previous one with the heat being above 33c a side from the crisp tops and the light being a bit close.

I use a pretty similar tent to you, a little bigger but similar, 48x24x56 ( 56 I'm not sure on exact measurement but close ). Running a 600w I'm able to keep it around 25-27c running lights and it drops about 10 degrees over the dark period.

Do you have a central fan in your room circulating air around? I try and keep one at the canopy level so they can avoid burning or crisping, I also put my girls into a screen to keep the height down. You can also achieve the same effect through LST ( low stress training ). The screen is almost like LST but instead of tying the nodes down you bend them through a screen. Take a look at some links in my signature if you're curious about the screen, gives you an amazing yield, much better if you had not added the screen!

Good luck buddy, I'll be stopping in and out to try and help you if needed! Don't get discouraged, sometimes veg can be boring but once those flowers start you wont be able to keep your nose out!

 

[RodrigoG]

re: Blue Mystic & Dark Angel Soil 1st Grow

Hey ! Thanks for your support ! Happy to have people around !

Actually, I'm not having any overheating problems since I bought the aircooled hood. I have an inline fan. The air goes from the tent through a carbon scrubber, the hood, the fan and out of the tent. I have a little honeywell fan to circulate air into the tent. It does a good enough job so far.

I thought about SCROG as my plants are really really bushy. However, I'd like to switch to flowering in 2 weeks (3 weeks after the pictures were taken) and I'm not sure if it's enough time to fill a screen with growth. Do I have to fill the screen before changing light schedule for flowering ? For this grow, I prioritize time over yield. I'd like to harvest during the first weeks of January to harvest the my 2nd grow before the summer shows up. It's really hot and humid here during the summer and I want to avoid that.

 

[RodrigoG]

re: Blue Mystic & Dark Angel Soil 1st Grow

DSXJ I just found out we have the exact same inline fan and scrubber. I was wondering : was that scrubber good enough to kill the smell ?

 

[DSXJ]

re: Blue Mystic & Dark Angel Soil 1st Grow

DSXJ I just found out we have the exact same inline fan and scrubber. I was wondering : was that scrubber good enough to kill the smell ?

Yea dude it works great! Many grows on it and have not had to change carbon yet and the fan runs flawless.

A buddy of mine just put a screen in 2 weeks before flower and his plants were stretching hard, he's pulling a better crop off it not than he would have. Remember they stretch 3x pretty much in flower so to put in a screen and bend the tops over into the holes. It should fill up pretty fast and have nice fist size colas for every shoot.

 

[RodrigoG]

re: Blue Mystic & Dark Angel Soil 1st Grow

Week 7 (Day 49)

DSXJ I'm really happy to hear that. Hopefully that scrubber will work as well for me !
You totally convinced me to go SCROG ! I wasn't sure about it at first, but hey, why not ?! My plants are so bushy that it's the best way to go. I gave the plant some nutrients one week a go and the next feed will be another one with nutrients.
I use the General Hydroponics Flora Series.

FloraGro: 2ml/gal
FloraMicro: 3.5ml/gal
FloraBloom: 1.5ml/gal

I base my feed on a chart I found on the web. I give them the Regular (half strength) feed. The form just did change my link address which let me guessing that I can't say on what website I found it. Am I right ?

What else is there to say... Most of my FIMMINGs are getting new growth, some might get 4. I'm pretty happy with it. With all these new growths coming, my main concern right now is : will I have enough room for them to grow to their full potential. I'm pretty sure I won't. But hey, it means I'll use all the space I have and get the full potential of my tent ! Of course, one could do way better. But I'm really satisfied with that grow and I want to share that with you guys

Enough talking, there are the pictures.



My Setup

Dark Angel

Blue Mystic 1

Blue Mystic 2

Successful FIMs

How bushy is that.

My SCROG !!

 

[RosettaStoned]

re: Blue Mystic & Dark Angel Soil 1st Grow

Why soil over hydro?

Curious to why the people indoors don't just take advantage of hydro?

Otherwise looks great!

 

[RodrigoG]

re: Blue Mystic & Dark Angel Soil 1st Grow

It's my first grow ever, so I decided to go the "easy" way first. I really want to go hydro on my next grow though. The only little problem I see is that I won't have enough space to get the water tub out of the tent to empty it and then fill it with fresh water. I'd like to do that every 2 weeks at most. The idea I got so far is to get a water pump to get the water out of the tub into a smaller container so that I can change/carry the water easily. My tent is in my closet and I have about one feet wide to access my plants. We can see that on the last picture (SCROG).

Another advantage of going hydro would be not to have to manage great quantity of soil. (buy, carry, dispose)

Happy to have you around

 

[RodrigoG]

re: Blue Mystic & Dark Angel Soil 1st Grow

Week 7 (Day 51)

Hello there !

Here's a quick update. About my SCROG, I decided to tie the thread pretty much every where 2 threads crosses. The thread squares were so loose that it wouldn't have been strong enough to hold the shoots in place. Was did I buy thread in the first place ? Well, I wanted to build my SCROG asap and that's the best wire I found in the shop I went to. No surprise, I'm a bit lazy and I didn't want look up in another store... Anyways, with these ties, it's strong enough to hold shoots were I want them too be.

I fed them with nutes 2 days ago. I wrote my mix wrong the first time and I noticed it too late to edit the post.
So here's the mix I use :

FloraGro : 2.5ml / 4L
FloraMicro : 2.5ml / 4L
FloraBloom : 1.5ml / 4L

Now, I'd like to share my actual main concern with you guys and I'd like your opinions. At first, I thought I'd move to flowering stage in a little less than 2 weeks from now, but I'm not sure if it's really useful to waiting any longer before switching. What do you guys think ? From the pictures. Is it really better to wait for the SCROG to have more squares filled with shoots ? I know it will grow a lot taller during flowering stage (especially during the first two weeks) , so is there a point to wait ? Also, I have some FIMMed shoots growing slowly back as we can see on the last pictures of the set. I don't really know what else to say about it. I'm on 24/0 photoperiod. What would you guys do ?

Thanks !

So, let move to the pictures :

Dark Angel

Blue Mystic 1

Blue Mystic 2

FIM with 4 shoots !

 

[RodrigoG]

re: Blue Mystic & Dark Angel Soil 1st Grow

Week 7 (Day 55)

Quick update !

The plants are doing great and filling the SCROG with new shoots. I just decided that it's time for them to start flowering ! It's November 1st, perfect date to move to the next step !

Time to put my 400W HPS in the socket and give the plants their first sleep since they were young seedlings. I expect them to explode vertically. Really excited right now !

 

[DSXJ]

re: Blue Mystic & Dark Angel Soil 1st Grow

Looks sick rodrigo!

Too bad about the screen, the first one looked ultra slick bro. The second one looks like it took a lot of work! In the future, I've found it's easiest to find things that are already squared up like nets and shit. When I put my last one in it was an old net I had laying around and it worked perfect other than the holes were pretty much 1x1 and 2x2 is ideal. Before that the best way I found was to make it out of PVC. 4 Elbow pieces and then the measured pieces to fit accordingly in your tent. You can suspend it from the frame of your tent or attach a 3 way PVC piece in the middle of your screen frame and build legs. I've done the legs and I would prefer to do the hanging from the screen. Next you would then mark every 2" along the PVC frame with a permanent marker ( width and length ) then drill screws into the designated marked spots. Then it comes together really easy you can use 100lb fishing line or what ever has some structure to it, hell even rope. Tie it to one screw on the corner and run the material across the screen, lap it passed two screws to create your square and then back across. Zig zag the whole way and then repeat side to side. Easiest and best structural design imo.

Also, you got a ppm meter bro? We use the same nutrient line and I can get my girls up to 1800 ppm with little to 0 burn ( Strain dependent ). I noticed with following the bottle guidelines your ppms come out lower, I only bought one because I hate guess work of what PPM could be. The 7$ was worth it and lets me know exactly how much food my girls can take and how much is too much.

Keep on going bro, looks realllll fucken nice! +REPs

 

[RodrigoG]

re: Blue Mystic & Dark Angel Soil 1st Grow

Thanks DSXJ !

I agree with you. My screen design was pretty weak and the one your explaining seems great ! I'll build it if I decide to use SCROG again. Oh yeah, it was a quite pain to tie each and every thread crossings...

Man, you opened my eyes. Just found out the chart I was using was way below General Hydroponics suggested dosage. I'll stick to GH's for the rest of the grow. I have a PPM reader and a PH reader. My last feed ppm reading was 480. I'm a bit shy with nutes for now since I really don't want to mess it up for being too audacious. Do you have a kind of range (min-max) of ppm by growth stage ? I found one on that forum I think :

Seedlings : 100-250 ppm
Early Veg : 300-400 ppm
Full Veg : 450-700 ppm
Early Bloom : 750-950 ppm
Full Bloom : 1000-1600 ppm

From your experience, would you say it's accurate ?

About the plants, they really enjoyed their first night in quite a while. They grew a lot ! I have to go out of town next week-end for 48 hours and I'm afraid they'll tear the net down...

 

[RodrigoG]

re: Blue Mystic & Dark Angel - Soil - 1st Grow

Hey !
Sorry for that week without updates. My internet was down. I took some pictures anyway.

My plants flowered for 11 days now. Little white hairs appeared on all of them.

Week 8 Day 4 (Flower day 6)

Week 9 Day 1 (Flower day 10)

Week 9 Day 3 (Flower day 11)

 

[RodrigoG]

Week 10 Day 2 (Day 17 of Flowering)
Hey guys !

I owe you some updates ! I didn't have so much to do during the last weeks but taking off dead leaves and give it a little trim at the bottom. There's more and more buds and its getting really fun to follow ! There's no smell at all for now. The breeder says that the smell of Blue Mystic is very very light. I literally have to put the bud into my nose to get its smell. It smells amazing, really. It's a fruity sweet smell. In the other hand, the Dark Angel smells skunky but I need to use the same technique to smell it.

I changed my feed dosage as you suggested DSJX. Now, I pretty much follow the indications of the product. Last feed was about 880ppm. I try to give them some nutes only once a week. I alternate between no nutes and nutes feed. They take about 3 to 4 days to get the soil dry.

The Dark Angel is a bit behind in terms of growth. I even had to jack it up to try to even the canopy 2 or 3 weeks ago. But still it has some great shoots too, but most of them are small.

What's to come ? I'm going to defoliate them during the week end (about 23 days of flowering) to let light reach the lower buds. I'll go a little stronger on nutes as I used 80% of the dosage on the previous ones. I'll go full strength. That's pretty much it.

Pictures !



Blue Mystics

Dark Angel

 

[RodrigoG]

Hey !

I have some bad news... A few days ago, I gave my plants the 20-25 day of flowering defoliation. I found out one on my plant is an hermi and had opened pollen sacks. Not so many, but at least 2. Some nanners appeared and I'm pretty sure the plant pollinated itself. I hope it won't be that bad... From now on, I'm going to tear off every nanners and male part I see hoping to minimize pollination. I have no other room to isolate it from the other plants.

These are nanner aren't they ?