Hutch's Perpetual Grow Journal

HutchBenedict

Well-Known Member
Hello everyone! I'm very excited to begin a new grow and a new grow journal. The original plan was to begin my first photoperiod to see what all the fuss is about. Ordered about 10 different strains from Seedsman but I decided, for now, that I don't want a bunch of smelly flowers stinking up the house around Xmas. So instead we are going for another round of autos that should be ready to chop in early December. Can't afford to let the stash run dry.

In mid-October I will start a photoperiod, probably RQS Green Gelato. It will veg for 7 or 8 weeks and flip mid-December when the autos come down.

Seeds: For this grow I'll be growing a Lambs Breath from Crop King here in Vancouver and an AK-48 from Nirvana Seeds which came as a freebie from Seedsman. I grew a couple of Lambs Breath last spring during my first grow. We like the effect and it really knocks me out at bed time.

Tent: Mars-Hydro 27" x 27" x 60".

Nutes: General Hydroponics trio.

Light: 600w blurple LED

Pots: 5 gallon fabric grow bags

Soil: Promix HP

September 13, 2019
Placed one each of Lambs Breath and AK-48 in shot glasses.

September 14, 2019
Tapped both seeds and they sank to bottom. In the evening placed them in wet paper towels on plates and put the whole thing in baggies.

Today, September 16, 2019
Both seeds had tap roots about an inch long.

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The Ak-48 has a strange discoloration at the tip of the tap root. It's not a new development as I could see it as the shell was cracking open.

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I let both seeds grow on the paper towel an extra day to get the nice long thick healthy tap root. Makes it easier to plant correctly and hopefully will get things going quicker than my usual method of just dropping the seed in upside down as soon as I see an eigth-inch root.

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Now that both seeds have been planted and placed in the tent I'm wondering if this plan will even work! Two five gallon pots pretty-well fill the tent. There's not much room to veg the photoperiod I planned on putting in there in October.

I drew out a roughly 6.5" grid on the floor of the tent and drew a big 'X' in the centre of the roof. The grid is great for measuring light at different locations and of course for laying out the pots if you see a bit cockeyed like I do.

Well, that's about it for today. Hopefully by tomorrow or the next day these germinations will become seedlings and the journey will begin with Day 1.
 
I decided, for now, that I don't want a bunch of smelly flowers stinking up the house around Xmas.

Ask "Santa" for a carbon filter and exhaust fan, lol.

Good luck with your grow!
 
Ask "Santa" for a carbon filter and exhaust fan, lol.

Good luck with your grow!

Thanks! Santa actually came early and brought me a giant 6" x 18" carbon filter and an AC Infinity fan to go with it a couple of weeks ago.

Problem is I don't really know how to set it up given the tinyness of the tent. The tent is in a closet and I saw one grower had his just sitting in the closet, outside the tent, not even attached to the tent. If just scrubbing the air in the closet that way could work then that would be my favourite way to go.

The next best option would be putting duct through the wall of the tent, attach that to the fan and then blow through the filter. Would that work?
 
Day 1
And so it begins...
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AK-48 Day 1

This lovely little gal emerged over night. What a beauty! Happy to see a first set of leaves right from the get go. I wonder how long they will last once we get into training?



Day 01.JPG

Lambs Breath Day 1

The LB started to emerge yesterday but this morning she still had her helmet on. I gently removed it and there she is, ready to unfold her cotyledons and reach for the light. She is about an inch tall.
 
As I mentioned above, I have an AC Infinity Cloudline 6" fan and a 6" x 18" carbon filter from Vivosun. Now I'm concerned that the fan is not strong enough for this filter. Does anyone know if these two will work together. I will probably be blowing through the filter rather than sucking.
 
Today both seedlings are looking very healthy with their fully formed first set of leaves. Promix was moistened prior to planting and the pots are still heavy. I will wait until the pots dry out before watering except for a dribble down the centre to make sure the tap root doesn't dry out on its way to the bottom of the pot.

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Lambs Breath Day 2

This little seedling survived the helmet removal surgery quite well with only a touch of crispiness at the tip of one cotyledon.


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AK-48 Day 2

A little taller than yesterday but she is mainly trying to grow some nice roots.

Lux Meter
With this grow I have a new piece of equipment, a cheap Lux Meter, and I am going to try to keep the light at the optimum levels. I realize these Lux Meters are not ideal for LEDs but am currently only using the COBs for light and in any case it will give some information which is better than none.

According to RQS the range for seedlings is 5,000 to a max of 7,000 lux. Until a few moments ago the plants were receiving 9,000 lux. I raised the light as high as I could easily get and measured the plants at about 8,000. This should be fine as they grow into the veg range which is 15,000 to 50,000 lux.

I think this will be a great help as my plants have shown some stress from too much light in the past.
 
The big news of Day 3 is...Node 2! Both seedlings are starting to show their second set of leaves. The plan is to try quadlining, snipping above node two once their are five nodes. This depends on the plant being healthy and that there be five nodes by day 21. Otherwise we'll have to change plans.

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Lambs Breath Day 3. Second set of leaves peeking out.


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AK-48 Day 3. Second node slightly better developed.

Soil below the surface is still nicely damp so there will be no watering today. Tomorrow will probably be the first watering.
 
Meanwhile we may have problems with our outdoor patio grow. The Seedsman Amnesia Haze Auto was chopped 6 days ago. It had had powdery mildew on the leaves but this didn't seem to affect the buds. Sprayed with H2O2 solution and washed in Baking Soda solution then H2O2 solution and finally plain water and hung for 5 days. I put the almost dry bud in mason jars but the RH was in the 70's. I tried burping but last evening the RH zoomed to the mid-80's. The buds are out now drying on a flat surface with a fan over them. They seem much better but there is some browning. Is that brown area bud rot? Is the crop is ruined?

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Browning... Is that rot???
 
No it’s not rot. I don’t think it is anyway.

If your filter fits in the tent you can hang your filter inside and place the fan outside somewhere and run ducting between them. Or with a big filter you can just scrub the closet as you said but fresh air intake could be a problem if this is in a closet. But it works. You place the filter on the ground and hook the fan vertically on top and just turn it on.

If you want to see if your fans performance matches the filters needs you gotta give some cfms or m3/hr etc. But usually it’s an overly powerful fan that causes problems with odor leaks.
 
No it’s not rot. I don’t think it is anyway.

If your filter fits in the tent you can hang your filter inside and place the fan outside somewhere and run ducting between them. Or with a big filter you can just scrub the closet as you said but fresh air intake could be a problem if this is in a closet. But it works. You place the filter on the ground and hook the fan vertically on top and just turn it on.

If you want to see if your fans performance matches the filters needs you gotta give some cfms or m3/hr etc. But usually it’s an overly powerful fan that causes problems with odor leaks.

Thanks Crimson. I left the buds out all day yesterday with a fan blowing over them and jarred them up last evening. Today the three jars are holding steady at 61-63 RH and the smell is fresh and sweet. I'll let them set for a few weeks, burping frequently, and if they still smell good...into the pipe they go!

Thanks for the scrubbing info. If I can just "place the filter on the ground and hook the fan vertically on top and just turn it on", then why not get another light and use the closet itself to grow in? I could dispense with the tent altogether. I could cut a hole in the closet door and blow fresh air in with a little fan. This is exciting!
 
Thanks Crimson. I left the buds out all day yesterday with a fan blowing over them and jarred them up last evening. Today the three jars are holding steady at 61-63 RH and the smell is fresh and sweet. I'll let them set for a few weeks, burping frequently, and if they still smell good...into the pipe they go!

Thanks for the scrubbing info. If I can just "place the filter on the ground and hook the fan vertically on top and just turn it on", then why not get another light and use the closet itself to grow in? I could dispense with the tent altogether. I could cut a hole in the closet door and blow fresh air in with a little fan. This is exciting!

Yeah you can utilize the whole closet if you like. That is a very basic setup. No ducting no nothing. In time if you like you can do more advanced setups. The problem with cutting a whole in the closet is that there might be light leaks so be sure to place the closet in a dark room and get some ducting and do couple of elbows on the intake hole so that the light from outside can be dispersed and doesn’t reach your flowering gals also using black flexible ducts could help you even more on this. Also if you are gonna utilize the whole closet and gonna cut some holes anyway, cut one on the top and hook some flexible ducts and hook that up to your fan to push the inside air outside. It’d help you very much in keeping the temps and the humidity in acceptable levels. Other than that i don’t see any problems.
 
Not much change today, at least above the ground. Seedlings are about 4 inches tall and look a little scraggly. I usually lower the light to keep the stretch down but this time I'm sticking to the recommended lux. The pots need another inch or so of dirt anyway so that should help prop them up. Today I gave a little water in a circle about two inches from the sprouts. One half litre each. Hopefully I have the patience to wait until the pot dries out before watering again. Here's the pics:

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Lambs Breath Day 4

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Ak-48 Day 4

I could have used yesterday's pictures, lol.
 
Yeah you can utilize the whole closet if you like. That is a very basic setup. No ducting no nothing. In time if you like you can do more advanced setups. The problem with cutting a whole in the closet is that there might be light leaks so be sure to place the closet in a dark room and get some ducting and do couple of elbows on the intake hole so that the light from outside can be dispersed and doesn’t reach your flowering gals also using black flexible ducts could help you even more on this. Also if you are gonna utilize the whole closet and gonna cut some holes anyway, cut one on the top and hook some flexible ducts and hook that up to your fan to push the inside air outside. It’d help you very much in keeping the temps and the humidity in acceptable levels. Other than that i don’t see any problems.

Cool! I hadn't thought about light leaks but I can take care of that. Temps should be ok until next summer and by then I should, hopefully, have this fine tuned.
 
Yikes! I wanted to get some of those Dark Devil Auto seeds so put a three pack in my Seedsman cart. Next time I go there "Out of Stock" so I put the 5 pack in my cart. That was yesterday, today the 5 packs are gone as well. Should I put the 100 pack in my cart? CA$512.26. I think not but I guess it wouldn't matter anyway, lol.
 
A minor development in the tent overnight...
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Lambs Breath Day 7.

She has decided to grow sideways. I'm just not sure about the lights. According to the lux meter we are at about 8,000 lux. Not really sure if this is the number I should be using. The light so far is only from the cob, no blurple. In any case we are going ahead assuming this is close enough.

Here's the remediation...
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Kinda messy looking but hopefully it will do the trick. When feeding starts I will be adding a bit of Protekt for the silica.

AK-48 is looking very nice. No support needed at this time.
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AK-48 Day 7

The AK-48 is about 2.75" tall and the Lambs Breath is about 3.5". Lights are 18/6 if I haven't mentioned it before.

I have grown a few plants in Promix before but this is the first time I have pre-moistened the soil as some say you should. Therefore I'm not used to the pots being this heavy at this stage and it kind of throws my watering routine off a bit. Usually I give water by the teaspoon for a couple of days, then a watering in a widening circle as the plant grows until a full drench. After which it is water to runoff when the soil dries out.

Both plants look fine as far as moisture goes but I am so anxious to get some nutrients in there. The time line is very short with autos and training needs to begin by day 21. We have two weeks to go to develop three more healthy nodes. Going to try to hold off feeding until day 10.
 
The soil was very dry in the pot today, at least to 4" or so below the surface, pot still heavy so I'm sure below that it's still damp. Watered about 1/2 litre each around the plants in a circle and some straight down the centre.

Day 08.JPG

Lambs Breath Day 8

Looks to be appreciating all the support. No measurable growth.

Day 08.JPG

AK-48 Day 8

Something seems to be going on in the centre, node three emerging? No measurable growth.
 
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