First Ever Grow - Auto Polar Express - Hydro - 600W HPS

MrKipling

New Member
Hi. Thought id share my first ever grow.

On day 29 now, been a bit of a disaster at times.

Actually know very little about weed, and haven't smoked too much, the odd weekend trip to Amsterdam with EasyJet ha. Then started to help some local nuns run their food bank. Id come back with boxes of Cornflakes and some weed.
It was great for my panic, don't really leave the house much. Decided its time to do a grow myself.

Basically I'm trying to say forgive me if my plants look bad, I really am a total noob.

So..the equipment I got..
Digital Ballast with 600w HPS bulb
2 Hydro pots
Fans, humidifier, PH and EC meters, hydro plant food and PH up n down

Mistake made so far...
1. Make sure you have the equipment before doing anything ha.
I put the seedlings under a normal bulb. They sprouted ok, was all quite excited. Got ready to transfer them to my hydro pots. Which was when I realised the hydro pots came with the pots but no pump or air stone in them. Sent back to Amazon. Wait for refund and new one. By now the little plants were getting very long and stringy, trying to reach for the silly low watt house bulb. They started to fall over, got them propped up with a stick.

When the new buckets arrived , transferred them ok. And went to now set up my HPS light.
Was then I realised this is no normal light ha. Read more and discovered I need a ballast thingummy. And a metal hood thing to screw it into. Poor little plants now sitting in their hydro pots with my bedside lamps hanging above them.

Ballast arrived from Amazon with the metal hood thing. Switched on, worked fine, went for some kip. Woke up. Ballast had died. Ballast back to Amazon, fortunately they sent a new one out straight away. New one has been going fine now.

The poor little plants were not in a great way so thin and tall.

Other mistakes made, well I didn't think id need a fan, until the temperature was hitting 30C near the top of the plants. So ordered a fan, then the leaves started to get yellow patches on the edges, got PH meters, and EC meters

Sooo moving on now to day 29. They've clearly recovered and now I'm sure I can see the first signs of the flowery bits and there is a slight whiff ha. Not too much, I read the Polar express is pretty low odour.

The yellow bits have stayed yellow, but thankfully no more yellow spots have appeared.

On to the pics...
 
You've done fine to recognise and overcome the problems, that makes this grow a success already. I'll attach a few charts that might help you later. I grow dwc, so if you have any questions I'll be happy to try and help. Good luck.


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Thanks so much for that. A few of the leaves look like the one for PH fluctuations.
Since getting the meter, i've had the PH around 6.0
And an EC reading starting at 1.2 and now up to about 1.5 as it grows. The EC meter was sooo confusing tho, different modes, pp this and that...

When i first got my PH meter, the PH was reading around 7 i think? And then struggled with the PH up n down, id put a few drops in and the PH would go down to 3.0 ha. More drops to go back up...

Thinks its stable now, and hope i haven't damaged them too much.

Seems a fairly ok strain so far for a first grow. Very little odour, not too tall, and as its an auto i just use an 18/6 light schedule
 
Day 42. Plant on the right not looking too good. Yellow leaves at the bottom, lighter colour to the rest of the leaves and nowhere near so much flowering growth.

Used Formulex Nutrient solution-universal profile off Amazon. Though having read a bit, ive just switched yesterday to one designed for the flowering stage-BioBuzz BioBloom

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I've umm also committed that cardinal sin of picking off 2 buds, bunging it on top of the ballast to dry, then smoking it.

Terrible of me i know and lets face it, they've only just started flowering! Haven't had a joint in 2 years though. Felt i needed it ha, in recent months house got burgled, got stabbed in the street, mum died and had to move house.
Was pretty nice, but ha, im no expert
 
Day 55. Some of the top flowers on the plant on the right got burnt by the light. Couldn't figure a way to get the light any higher, they've grown so much more than the website said their max height would be.
 
Sooo, again sorry for the quality of the photos, might try taking them out in the lounge and photo them there.

Anyways, the worries I have. Feel a bit like its a race to see how far they can flower before I end up accidently killing the plant. Leaves looking yellow. Brown bits on the flowery things a bit. Left plant 5ft, right plant now 6ft and tops burnt from the lights :-(
Lots of shrivelled leaves.

The left plant has much more developed flowers.
I just don't really know when to start doing this 2 week nutrient flush.

And my big problem is that I have to go away for Xmas for around 10 days.

Maybe the left plant will be ready to harvest soon? But then there's the drying, and then curing...I read that process can take 2 weeks. If I'm not there for 10 days to lift lids of glass jars...

Would there really, really be much of a downside to just saying right, ill harvest them in say 10 days, 3-4 days drying, 2 weeks for the curing to make sure I can go away and leave them in jars without them growing mouldy. I'm not exactly a weed connoisseur ha. And I've been bad and been picking bits off for over a week now. Seems fine :)

This will be far too much weed than I need, so I'm not too fussed if they haven't gotten to be the biggest, fattest etc

Sorry for the waffle, the packet said they would only grow 4ft. I've never even managed to keep an Ikea houseplant alive.
 
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