SmokeyMcFly's First Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush - Haze - BlueBerry - LED Mars II

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

Thanks so much KJC! I wasn't sure about the water softener but I assumed it was not a good idea. The problem is my tap water comes through the softener so I can't feed them tap water without it being softened first unless I keep the softener empty and never put any salt in it. Its been empty for a couple months now but my GF is not to happy bout that so I cant rely on that long term. What should I ph the water to for the pro-mix 6.5? Also I was going to mix in ~20% of FFOF and put a gal or two at the bottom of each pot. Is this an ok idea or would it be better to just stick with the pro-mix?

I didn't realize the pro-mix was considered soiless either, thanks for the heads up on that I just thought it was a bag of good dirt

 

[KingJohnC]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

I pH adjust my soiless mixture of peat moss, perlite, vermiculite and mycorrhizae tp pH 5.8. you want pH 5.8 for hydroponic and soiless (peat moss and coco coir) and pH 6.5 for soil. I would install a water tap ahead of your water softner input so you can use the water before it is softened with water softner pellets. you can ammend your Pro-Mix HP with FoxFarm Ocean Forest soil if you like but if you are using liquid nutrients anyways there is not much point as it would make it more difficult to feed nutrients to your plants. I have used Pro-Mix HP with vermiculite and mycorrhizae as a soiless mixture without issues.

 

[adrax]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

Subscribed. I am interested to see how this journey turns out. I was looking at a similar setup of lights and strains.

How big is the closet that you have your LED light hung up in?

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

Thanks KJC. It looks like there is a valve and faucet right before the water softener I never even noticed it before so thats good news. I really didn't want to buy a RO filter right now. I guess Ill just stick with straight pro-mix, I like to keep things simple as possible.

Adrax The closet is about ~2' deep x 4' wide. Thanks for checking out my journal hopefully we can get some good results.

I picked up some worm poop (for high brix kit) and a bottle of iguana juice veg to feed these autos until they bloom. I also mixed up half of the high brix kit and have it cooking in a 30gal trash can. Was really easy just add the worm poop the bag of stuff from the kit and water mix it up good and put it away for a month I wish I would of known about it a month ago and it was ready to use for this auto grow but must be patient.

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

Little update. All seeds are either popped through with there first two leaves or are just about to finish breaking through within the next 24 hours. I grabbed a temp humidity monitor and fired up my humidifier. It is staying around 77-80 in the day and drops down to 72 maybe 70 at night with the humidity just over 50%. I moved them under the LED at about 45" away. I don't know if the light change in a week or two would of made them flip sooner than they wanted but I figured why risk it.

I am thinking of running two Candy Kush and 1 AK49 out of these seeds. I have not read good things about the other ones.

Questions
I have never used soilless medium. Is there anything I need to do different for ferts. Before I grew in FFOF and fertilized very little if any during veg. Should I pre soak the soil with a little iguana juice or do anything to prep it before planting?

Will I need to start ferting sooner since I am not using soil? What would be a rough idea starting point for adding the nutes.

Should I get some Iguana juice bloom instead of the connoisseur? It has been sitting in my garage for a couple years and I am concerned bout it being effected. Also I like the idea of keeping it organic all the way through but I did have great results with the connoisseur in the past with no negative effects on taste that I could tell.

Is there anything that I should use with the iguana when im in bloom. I have the Adv Neut big bud and all that jazz listed in my OP but not sure what if any of it I should use. Also it is just as old as the connoisseur so not sure if its even any good anymore.

@adrax, I measured the closet. It is 22" x 5'

The airpots come tomorrow. I am prolly going to transplant into them this weekend if all is going well.

Thanks for the help everyone!

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

Sorry for the bad pics, I don't think my phone's camera likes the LED.

 

[GrizzWald]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

G'day mcfly, nice start, looking forward to watching this, best of buds to ya....peace. Exact same measurement as my cupboard, vegging two under 80x5w have another 80x5w to put in for flowering, also have a 120x5w so that may go in to flower instead. An 400 & 700, I should get plenty of light in that space

 

[adrax]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

I found this by searching around. I remember reading this a few months ago when I was preparing to make a purchase for my own supply. It is from Advance Nutrients support about the shelf life of their products. Just for full disclosure, I did not send or receive an email from them. It is just something I found browsing around awhile back.

"Our products have a shelf life of 24 months, excluding Sensizym which has a shelf life of 18 months. If there are crystals, it means that certain parts elements have fallen out of solution. You may consider trying to reconstitute them using a bowl and hot water."

Is that AK49 that you are going to run an auto too?

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

I found this by searching around. I remember reading this a few months ago when I was preparing to make a purchase for my own supply. It is from Advance Nutrients support about the shelf life of their products. Just for full disclosure, I did not send or receive an email from them. It is just something I found browsing around awhile back.

"Our products have a shelf life of 24 months, excluding Sensizym which has a shelf life of 18 months. If there are crystals, it means that certain parts elements have fallen out of solution. You may consider trying to reconstitute them using a bowl and hot water."

Is that AK49 that you are going to run an auto too?

Thanks for the feedback. I will prolly throw it away. Its been in storage a good two years and some of it was purchased as much as a year before it got put away plus who knows how long it sat around before I got ahold of it.

Yes the AK49 is also an auto its from Vision seeds. It was a freebie and it was the first one to pop and show some real leaves so I think its a keeper!

Vision AK 49 Autoflowering Feminised Seeds Info
The AK-49 Auto is the Vision Seeds auto-flowering variant of one of the most powerful strains ever. This cross between the AK-49 and Lowryder has resulted is a strong stable auto-flowering strain in which all the desired characteristics of the AK-49 are retained. The AK-49 Auto produces resinous marijuana plants with compact buds full of hair and glistening trichomes. It has a spicy scent bordering on Skunk and a sweet fresh taste and her potency equals that of the AK-49 itself, she has a strong psychoactive impact bringing about a euphoric and very stimulating high.

For the best results the AK-49 Auto needs space in which her roots can develop freely, we advise you to use pots of at least 10 litres. Keep in mind when choosing a location and your grow-equipment that the AK-49 Auto gives of a strong pungent odour.

The AK-49 Auto is one of the most potent auto-flowering strains currently available on the market and under the right conditions also has the potential to produce drastically higher yields then your average other auto-flowering strain.

My AirPots showed up today I also grabbed a new ph meter mine was all over the place and was swinging as much as 1.5 pts per reading of the exact same water within just a few minutes time. I also got a cheap air pump and stone to prep my feed water with. I think I am mostly done needing to buy things now other than my tents and another light for my veg room. I shouldn't need the veg room until I get my next batch of girls flowering since these are autos my next batch moms can grow up in the same room the autos are blooming in.

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

Thanks for stopping by Grizzwald. Do you have a journal going for your grow? Since its so similar I would like to keep an eye on it.

Ok so tonight was fun. Spent an hour or so with a tape measure and my air pots trying to figure out what sized tent would fit in my room and allow me to grow enough to keep me happy. A 5x5 is just to big for my room. It is a very small bedroom / den and a 5x5 would take up most of it. When the door to the room opens it would almost rub the tent and not really give me any room to get behind it either. 4x4 would give a little better clearance but I still wouldn't be able to get behind it or do much else in the room. Both of these are just going to be to big for this room / house. I am renting so I need to keep this as low key as possible even though I have my med card my landlord might not love it.

I decided on a 2x4 gorilla for my flower tent until I move and ordered it tonight . This will fit in the room much better. I will still be able to work in the room and should have easy access to all plants in the tent since its only 1 plant deep. I should be able to bloom out 3 autos in it np and I figure I can run two plants in it at a time when I start running normal plants or three smaller ones if I have three diff strains I wanna run. Since the tent can go so high and I have the 5w chips I shouldn't need to spread them out much and just let them grow as high as they want. As long as I can get 6 oz every two months I will be more than happy, 4 would even do just fine really.

Once I move I am going to make this tent my Veg tent. I prolly wont run a tent for flower then not sure but if I do it will most likely be a 5x5. Will have to wait to see what kind of room I have and what all we want to grow. We have a 4 immature plant 3 mature plant limit here so I cant have anymore than that but we are considering growing some veggies along side the meds.

I am going to get a TOPLED Reflector series 96x3w light to run in my closet once I start my first batch of non autoflowers in another month and a half or so. Once the tent starts veg duty I will move this light into it and the marsII out into my new flower area what ever that ends up being.
reflector led grow light 96x3w

A second marsII 700 will probably be in my future at some point also. The 2x4 would really be cranking with one of those right over each plant

 

[GrizzWald]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

Hey man, nah no journal here. Baby+mortgage+business=paranoia and no time lol. Love too, just don't know about iPhone security? I'm three weeks ahead, hempy, bag seed. Yours will be finished as I put mine into flower lol. Looking forward to this, here for the journey. love led journals and the plants that LEDs produce, the crystals are insane. Sugar babies!!! Peace man

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

Hey man, nah no journal here. Baby+mortgage+business=paranoia and no time lol. Love too, just don't know about iPhone security? I'm three weeks ahead, hempy, bag seed. Yours will be finished as I put mine into flower lol. Looking forward to this, here for the journey. love led journals and the plants that LEDs produce, the crystals are insane. Sugar babies!!! Peace man

I totally understand. I am beyond careful / paranoid and it has paid off. I have smoked for >20 years and worked for a defense contractor for most of them so I have always had to be super careful. I actually started growing originally to lessen my risk of getting caught. A simple possession charge and I would of lost my clearance and job. It was totally fine for me to be on oxycodone and soma zonked out of my mind all day though. Our system is so fucked up. I lived in the middle of no where so the only time I was really at risk was when I had to go pick it up every month. I figured if it never left my house and no one knew about it that it would be pretty hard to get in trouble. I was constantly paranoid about it though and ended up taking it down after about a year. Now I have a card and live in a somewhat friendly state so I am finally much less worried about it and it feels amazing! When I was doing my first grows years ago I wouldn't even do research from my house. Anything that had to be done online was done by the only other person that knew about it. I would of preferred to not even tell him but I was getting ready to have spine surgery that year and was pretty jacked up and needed his help with everything. Just remember if you can't keep quiet about your grow most likely neither can the person your telling.

If you take pictures with your iphone make sure geo tagging is turned off. You should keep this off no matter if its a pic of something incriminating or just any normal old picture. Companies are starting to use big data to track us and geo tagging is a huge source of data for them. They are doing good enough job spying on us, on their own. Don't make it any easier for them.

LOL I am so parionid I was just looking at a close up bud shot with someones hand in it thinking I wonder if you could zoom enough to read the finger print...

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

Equipment list in case anyone is interested and I wanted a record of what I had to get. I tried to keep it as affordable as possible without sacrificing quality or performance. The savings on the TOPLED lights compared to the higher priced alternatives that I would of gone with if it wasn't for this forum are covering the cost of a most if not all of the rest of the equipment.

Equipment List
Gorilla Grow Tent 2x4x8 - $300
MarsII 700w LED - $310
PH Meter $100
PH Down $10
Air Pots 7 Gal Equiv x 4 $70
2.2 CuFt Pro-Mix HP $25
Iguana Juice Grow $40
Seedling tray $5
Medium Fan $15
2 26w CFLs (didn't really need) $25
Air pump / stone $15
Temp / Humidity Monitor $20
Pair of yoyo hangers $18
Digital timer, had from old grow
Humidifier, had from house

Still need
Exhaust fan thinking around 150 - 200cfm 4" ~$125
Charcoal filter thinking 4x8 or 4x12 phresh filter ~$90
Veg light TOPLED Reflector 96x3 $180

* Not including the high brix stuff since its not being used in this grow.

Medical Card so I can do all this legally, PRICELESS

Not sure if going with a traditional carbon filter and exhaust fan makes sense with leds in an air conditioned room. I imagine I need to get some air in and out of there still unless I do something to increase co2? Seems like the fan and filter would be the simplest even though I don't really need it for heat just to get fresh air in and odor control. How much of a problem is it going to be that our windows are pretty much never open and this isn't going to be vented to the outside? Will I have a problem keeping co2 high enough?

Sorry I ramble so much. I sit down smoke and next thing I know im typing out all the things I am thinking about. Don't really have anyone I can talk to about this in person other than my GF and she doesn't really wanna hear about it lol.

 

[GrizzWald]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

Ah mcfly you sound like me lol. My grow I want 10 ounces for at least 2 ounce a month habit, would like a bit extra to make nice bubble. 20years+a couple more, bong smoker. Looking to buy vaporiser to help lungs maybe stash? Just hope the process of vaping is as enjoyable as what I enjoy now. That's right I had a point, you got a ppm meter? They say you can gat away with it but it's nice to be able to bump it up by points not ml. Peace man

 

[blo0]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

Definitely subed. Great grow Mcfly.

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

So I popped a couple of the rockwool cubes out to make sure the roots were not growing out of the cubes yet and sure enough on the biggest one (AK49) the tap root is sticking out an inch and a half to two inches. The rest are ok for another day or two and I want to let them go as long as I can since i'm not sure which ones I will go with yet out of the rest. Due to space restraints most likely only three of them will make it into the air pots.

The younger ones that opened up yesterday are not looking super great so I lowered them all the way to the floor. I think the light is a bit much for them even at 40 - 45" as you can see they certainly are not stretching. The bottom branches are going to be almost in the soil. Here is the AK before and after transplant, she is so small you can barely even spot her in that huge pot lol. You can see the tap root sticking straight out the bottom of the rockwool here.

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

Ah mcfly you sound like me lol. My grow I want 10 ounces for at least 2 ounce a month habit, would like a bit extra to make nice bubble. 20years+a couple more, bong smoker. Looking to buy vaporiser to help lungs maybe stash? Just hope the process of vaping is as enjoyable as what I enjoy now. That's right I had a point, you got a ppm meter? They say you can gat away with it but it's nice to be able to bump it up by points not ml. Peace man

I never liked vaporizers for bud. I have one I use from time to time with some Wax I get from the dispensary and that works good. I have never bought a real expensive one either so maybe I am missing out.

I don't have a ppm meter. I would get one if I was going to continue to grow with liquid ferts. After this grow I will be doing Doc Buds High Brix kit and I wont have any use for it, at least I don't think I will.

I get better pain relief from edibles and can't wait to have enough bud and trim to make some super concentrated canna pills. I don't like the taste of eating things made of herb so the pills work best for me and I don't wanna have to take a bunch of them every time. I also wanna make some super strong ecig THC juice that I can hit just about anywhere

Anyone have experience with that butter machine that is a sponsor on here. Looks pretty nice, is it possible to make highly concentrated oil / butter in it?

Definitely subed. Great grow Mcfly.

Thanks man! Glad to have you here!

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

I moved the rest of the rockwool cubes into beer cups for now. They were only going to be good for another day max in the cubes. I am trying to keep the roots from hitting anything but cant put all 6 into 7gal pots lol. Hopefully I can pick the other two keepers and get them into real pots before the tap root makes it to the bottom of the beer cup but I think its only going to be a 2-3 days before that happens.

So far we have these left. The rest did not make it all the way out of the rockwool.

2 Candy Kush
2 White Widow
1 AK49
1 Blueberry

 

[KingJohnC]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

There are several reviews of the Magical Butter machine in the 420 Product Reviews forum as well as in individual journals.

MagicalButter.com MB2

Magic Butter Review for Bhang!

Magic Butter Machine Makes Tincture

More on Magical Butter

Magical Butter Product Review

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

There are several reviews of the Magical Butter machine in the 420 Product Reviews forum as well as in individual journals.

MagicalButter.com MB2

Magic Butter Review for Bhang!

Magic Butter Machine Makes Tincture

More on Magical Butter

Magical Butter Product Review

Thanks KJC, looks like a nice product. I always had a bitch of a time making edibles so I like the idea of it being idiot proof.

I could use some input on my ventilation setup. I am having a hard time deciding between a 4" and 6" setup. Based on my tent being 64 cubic feet and an estimated 20% loss from the filter and ducting the Can Fan S400 (142CFM) would give me just over 1 full turn over a minute at 40% power (the lowest they recommend you run it at) and roughly two full turnovers a minute on full power. The 6" S600 (270CFM) would give me just over two per minute at min setting and ~3.3 turnovers at max setting. These are supposed to be real CFM numbers not bullshit inflated marketing numbers.

The room my tent will be in stays between 68-72 depending on what time of the year but pretty close to 70 at all times. Right now the room is 72 and the closet with my light in it is only going up about 5 degrees over that with no ventilation just an oscillating fan inside it with the sliding doors cracked a couple inches on each side. I might want to add another LED panel at some point too so that would double the heat being generated in my grow so I want to account for that when I buy my ventilation now.

Ideally I would like a controller that will run the fan on low ~40-50% most of the time and if it starts to heat up it can spin up the fan more and pull more cool air in. Im just not sure what size will work best like this.

Also I want to make sure I have enough air flow for proper filtration. Odor control is a bigger concern with this setup than the temp control since its already in a temp controlled room. My GF is not gonna be having this if the house ends up smelling like a skunk so I want to make sure I have lots of filtration ability. I was even thinking of running a big 8 or 10" fan and filter stand alone in the room instead of filtering the tent if I couldn't get enough air through the tent to filter properly but I don't think thats going to be necessary.

I have read everything from you need to turn your air over 5 times a minute to once every five minutes so i'm not to sure what target I should be shooting for and thats making it a little difficult to pick. How many turnovers per minute should you target for LED lighting?

Since my temps are staying under control I am thinking the 4" makes more sense. Even at lowest setting it should be changing all the air once per minute.

Any thoughts? What would you go with if this was your setup?

Thanks for the help guys and gals!