Farside05's Northern Lights Auto - Soilless Mix - LED - Grow Journal 2015

[farside05]

My first real attempt at growing (I'm not counting the couple bag seeds I chucked into soil 27 years ago). I've done a lot of reading before undertaking this task so I'm hoping it all goes to plan.

Strain = Northern Lights Auto by Nirvana
Soil = Pro-Mix BX + 20% Perlite
Container = 3 gallon Smart Pots
Grow Area = Indoor, 32" x 32" x 63" tent
Lights = 2 x Mars Hydro 300w LED (old version)
Nutrients = Dyna-Grow Foliage Pro/Dyna-Grow Bloom
Ventilation = 6" Duct Fam

Seed arrived on 9/22/2015. 5 Northern Lights Autos plus some freebies. I'm sticking to the Northern Lights for this go around. Plan to play around with the freebies after I see how this first run goes, and try my hand at cloning. Trying to learn how to walk before I run.

I didn't waste any time getting it in some soil to get it under way. Hoping to get 4 plants out of the 5 seeds. I could live with 3, 5 I'd be elated but I may be a little short on room in the tent. 2 or less I would consider a failure.

The tent is occupying space in a guest room closet. If anything I'll need to monitor the temps for a month until the outside temps drop a little more. At the moment, the lights are 24" away, and I'm only running 1 light.

 

[farside05]

Day 3

Looks like I am the proud father of 5 baby girls. All the seeds appear to have germinated. If I don't make any fatal mistakes, the tent could get pretty crowded.

 

[shadowmoses]

Subbed and watching farside .

 

[Dchannn]

What type of cycle do you run with your 6" fan?

Like the clean feel to your set up.

 

[nwpassage]

Love it. Perfect start up run. Excited to see the results.

 

[farside05]

Subbed and watching farside .

Thanks for showing up Shadowmoses. I've read through your first journal many times and will probably refer back to it during this grow as a base line, since there are quite a few similarities between the two (seeds, equipment, tent size).

What type of cycle do you run with your 6" fan?

Like the clean feel to your set up.

My fan is on 24/7 but I did put a Cradenza Dimmer in line so that its not running full blast. It was a pretty loud, and less than stealthy, so I turned it down to about 50%, which is about as loud now as the fan on the lights. The wife is much happier with that since her office is in the adjoining room.

I'm a little OCD with certain things and it looks like my grow tent is one. Two teenagers make it impossible to keep the house spotless, but at work my work space has to be laid out and organized exactly the same every day.

 

[bridgeofsighs]

Subbed. Interested in the results, as I'm just starting some Northern Lights, too. It's going to be a pretty basic grow on my end, as I'm not allowed to spend much more money, lol, but if they turn out ok I might invest in some decent lights and such.

 

[360noscope]

Subbed, I got 2 NL growing at the moment.

Nice efficient looking setup. Interested in how the Promix will be for seedlings. Is it neutral like sunshine mix #4? Too lazy too look it up on google lol.

check my grow out if ya will

 

[farside05]

Interested in how the Promix will be for seedlings. Is it neutral like sunshine mix #4? Too lazy too look it up on google lol.

From all I researched, Pro-Mix and Sunshine #4 are nearly identical and which product you choose depends mainly on price and availability. My family owned a greenhouse (for outdoor annuals and vegetables) and we used to use Pro-Mix for filling flats. We would start seed in Vermiculite, and after about a week to 10 days, we'd transplant into Pro-Mix with no problems. Not foreseeing any issues but time will tell.

 

[farside05]

...I'm not allowed to spend much more money, lol, but if they turn out ok I might invest in some decent lights and such.

It sure isn't hard to spend a small fortune. I already have more invested in this setup than I initially thought, and more than the wife knows about. Considering it's meds for her Fibromyalgia, I don't figure I'll catch too much grief. At least the cost of LED lights are a fraction of what they were a couple years ago when I looked into doing this.

 

[farside05]

Day 5

Had a close call but I think things are headed back in the right direction. One of the seedlings was wearing a helmet. The seed casing was stuck to the leaves. I was waiting to see if mother nature would work her magic but instead it was all bent towards the soil from the additional weight and it started to get very wilted. I figured I would loose her if I didn't do anything so I carefully tried to remove it. It was so shallow in the soil (which probably caused the casing not to fall off) that the whole tap root came out of the ground. Now that I have the whole seeding in my hand, I gently removed the casing, made a new hole in the starter plug, stuck her back in the ground and gave her a drink. I checked back in on her 6 hours later and it looked like it was getting worse instead of better. I figured this morning she'd be a crispy little sprout, but much to my surprise, she perked back up and turned towards the light. I'll feel better about it in a couple more days but it looks promising now. The seedling in question is the closest in the picture. You can see her bent stem from all the stress but I think she's young enough to grow out of it.

 

[smokers420]

Looks like your off to a great start my friend. Looking forward to seeing the outcome.

 

[farside05]

Day 7

Well its been one week. Today I made my soil-less mix, 80% Pro-Mix BX, 20% Perlite, and filled my 3 gallon Smart Pots. Thoroughly soaked the medium with 6.2 PH'd water and planted the plugs. The helmeted seedling is continuing to make progress and looks like it will make it. Its has straightened up but the growth was slightly stunted from the stress, so its a little behind the other 4. Both lights are now on and are 18" from the tops of the plants.

Pic of the stunted/formerly helmeted plant

The rest look like this

Setup with pots and both lights on.

 

[shadowmoses]

Looking good farside. You probably won't have to water those girls for quite some time in those pots, especially if you soaked the medium really good. Might take 2 to 3 weeks for them to dry out. You will want them to dry out really good before you water again.

Happy growing buddy!

 

[360noscope]

Looking good farside. You probably won't have to water those girls for quite some time in those pots, especially if you soaked the medium really good. Might take 2 to 3 weeks for them to dry out. You will want them to dry out really good before you water again.

^^ Exactly, and I'd recommend only watering a few inches around the seedling until it gets bigger. I like to put my rockwool seedlings into a 1 gal pot, sometimes smaller, and then pot up again. Not a huge deal, but be careful with over watering

 

[farside05]

Day 12 (from seed)

Things are progressing with a few bumps in the road. First, I have raised the lights back up to 24" above the plant tops and have switched to a 18/6 lighting schedule from 20/4. We had some higher outside temperatures and my tent gets some fresh air through an attic access. That being said, it got a little warm in the tent for a few days and the plants didn't seem to respond too well to it. With the above changes and the addition of a tower fan inside the tent, things have gotten more manageable, although we are supposed to have some warmer days again this week. I'll have to keep a close eye on the, but since I'm a paranoid grower and check on them every 3-4 hours, it just gives me an excuse to look at them again.

My pots are finally drying out some but probably can still go several more days before needing watered. Problem being, there are no real nutrients in my soil-less mix, and when I transplanted into the bigger pots I was afraid to use any fertilizer due to their young age. I believe my plants were kind of stalled out looking for something to eat. They aren't yellowing or displaying any other undesirable signs, but they seem to be behind compared to other similar grows at the same time period (like Shadowmoses'). So today I decided to start foliar feeding with Dyna-Gro Foliage Pro (1/4 tsp per gallon). I probably should have started this sooner but I didn't want to fry their little leaves. I applied a liberal mist right at the beginning of their light cycle. I checked back in on them 4 hours later and so far they seem to be liking it and no visual signs of any nute burn. I plan on continuing foliar feeding daily until I'm able to water them with some fertilizer.

The runt, formerly helmeted plant, is progressing still. She looks a little funky and gnarled up but still seems to be moving on. Hoping that as she continues to produce new foliage that she'll begin to look more normal. I'd guess that she's about 4 days behind the other plants.

The setup with new tower fan

The Runt

Plant #3

Plant #2

Plant #1

Looks like I missed taking a picture of Plant #4

 

[Dchannn]

Can u give me your input on the bag-felt like pots you are using?

- how does that vent fan work out for you?

 

[360noscope]

They look fine, maybe a little slow. Are you using rockwool?? Was it pHed?? What's your water like ?

 

[farside05]

Can u give me your input on the bag-felt like pots you are using?

- how does that vent fan work out for you?

My bag pots are knock offs of Smart Pots that I found on Amazon. Frankly I think the price for the brand name Smart Pots is a little ridiculous. If you search Amazon for Fabric Grow Bags, the vendor I bough from is Ruth's Tree Farm. They seem well stitched and if you are familiar with weed barrier for your garden, that's what the material is like. I like the idea that water can freely exit the container from anywhere if over watered, rather than having to find its way out of several small holes like in a plastic pot. They seem sturdy enough to last through several uses. Not to mention, when not in use they can be folded flat and take up very little space. So far I like them.

As for the vent fan, I suppose that it would function better under different circumstances. First off, it does have the ability to move quite a bit of air, but it also is louder than I would like. The tent is situated in a closet off of the wife's home office and she was not happy with the amount of noise it made running at full blast. To combat the noise, but still get some of the hot air out of the top of the tent, I put it on a dimmer and turned it down to about half speed. It still sucks out the hot air from inside the tent, but the noise level is manageable. Now for the issue, the hot air pulled from inside the tent builds up in the closet instead. It takes longer, since the closet is larger than the tent, but it still can be an issue. The closet its self has access to a small attic space that is not climate controlled and has vents to the outdoors. When outside temps are 70 degrees or less, everything works as planned and the temps in the tent are optimal. But when we get a warmer day, temps inside the tent climb to about 84 degrees. Now I can close the access door to the attic space and open the closet door and the air conditioning from the wife's office solves the problem, BUT then I get complaints from the wife regarding the humming fan noises from the tower fan, tent exhaust fan, and fans on the lights. This issue should solve its self here in another couple weeks as we transition to more fall like temperatures. Until then, I go in the wife's office every couple hours and fan the closet door a couple times to get the warm air out of the closet, and some cooler air conditioned air in it. Occasionally I get a dirty look, but she tolerates it for a few minutes. After all, it is her medicine, I'm just the caretaker.

 

[farside05]

They look fine, maybe a little slow. Are you using rockwool?? Was it pHed?? What's your water like ?

Seeds were started in Jiffy pellets. Transplanted into Pro-Mix BX with an additional 20% Perlite. The medium was thoroughly soaked with 6.2 PH water (no nutes added, just straight water) before the transplant. Haven't watered again yet to check the runoff for PH.