GoogleGenie's First Grow - LED Hydro - Northern Light Blue & Fruity Chronic Juice

GoogleGenie

Well-Known Member
Evening all,

I decided to try a hydro grow of a few different strains. I'm a complete noob at this but have spent the last 2 weeks or so researching and preparing for it. From everything from germination to flowering. I didn't even know what germination was 2 weeks ago so be gentle with me :)

Seeds
I ordered 3 seeds from Delicious Seeds. They came very quickly and discretely, so if you are looking for somewhere to buy seeds, these guys seems to be pretty good. Anyway, there are the seeds i bought:

- Il Diavolo Auto (Feminized)
- Northern Lights Blue (Feminized)
- Fruity Chronic Juice (Feminized)

Germination
I have already successfully germinated all 3 of these seeds and they have already been transferred to Rockwool and are sitting in a homemade propagation unit (until my heated propagation unit arrives)

I plan on keeping this unit in the dark until the seeds sprout, then I will be using my CFL 20watt cool white light.

To germinate the seeds, I dropped the seeds into a glass of tap water (not distilled) on Tuesday evening. I waited until all 3 had sunk before removing them. The Northern lights blue dropped to the bottom after 20 minutes, Il Diavolo sank after a couple of hours. The Fruity Chronic Juice sank the next morning, however I left them all in the glass until i got home from work (in all, approx 19-20 hours).

I then used the wet tissue method. I placed the seeds in between a few sheets of damp, warm tissue and left them for approx 72hours in between 2 plates (creating a shell like container) so that all of the seeds sprouted a tap root of between 1/4 an 1/2 inch. The first to pop was the Northern lights on the Wednesday morning, the last was the Fruity Chronic Juice Friday evening.

Planting medium
I am using Rockwool for planting the seeds. I soaked the Rockwool in ph 5.5 water for a few hours. I then drained the water they were soaking in, and soaked them in ph 5.5 water again. This is because Rockwool has a higher ph to start with so needs to be adjusted. After an additional 15 minutes i removed the Rockwool from the water, I did NOT squeeze the Rockwool to drain the water. I poked holes in 2 of the Rockwool to plant the seeds (Northern Lights Blue and Fruity Chronic), i then covered these holes over (2 down 1 to go). As for Il Diavolo however, I split the Rockwool and placed the seed inside because the tap root was considerable longer than the others and would have been difficult to manoeuvre through a hole without damaging it. Once all were prepared, i placed them inside my propagation unit (cheap plastic container wrapped in a carrier bag to keep humidity) and placed it next to a medium heat radiator.

Growing Medium
I plan on building (i have the parts on their way) my own hydroponic growing system using the following:

45 gallon black plastic box with lockable lid
1 x water pump + black plastic tubing
1 x air pump + transparent air tubing
Hydroponic 3" grow pots
Clay pebbles

Lighting
First 2 - 3 weeks - I have a 20w cool white CFL bulb for the early stages
I plan on purchasing a 120watt 7 spectrum LED Light for the veg stage

I was thinking about maybe purchasing an additional RED only LED light to use along with the above during flowering as this has been known to bring out more potent flowers (correct me if i am wrong)

The reason I have decided to go LED is because of the heat and power consumption factor. For me this played a major part in my decision. I understand that HID is still a proven lighting system. However, recently people have been able to demonstrate real results using LED, and this only reinforced my decision.

Summary
Ok, to get me started i needed the following for my Germination phase shopping list:
- Seeds
- Glass and Paper towel
- Tap water
- Ph DOWN solution and dropper for application
- Rockwool
- Bucket/Water carrier
- Heated propagation unit (if you can afford one, about £20 from amazon)
- Patience
- I have used NO nutrients so far

Tuesday 5th November dropped seeds into glass
Wednesday 6th November moved seeds to tissue
Friday 8th November moved seeds to Rockwool

At the moment I'm just going to leave the seeds to it and check on them every day. When they sprout i'm going to apply light and start feeding.

I hope that i am doing things right. I spent a long time researching and this is what i have come up with.

Please let me know if i have done anything wrong or if i could do anything better, i welcome all of your input as i am sure you are all more experienced than me :)

I do have a question...

Which nutrients should I used when the seeds sprout and I put them under light?

Thanks for reading,Here are some pictures of the tissue method; the seeds and their tap roots; and my temporary propagation unit housing the seeds in Rockwool. Lets face it, pictures always make it more interesting :)

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Re: First time grow (Hydro/LED) - Day 0-5 - Research and Germination

Great start man! I am not a hydro grower (yet) but I'd be wary of feeding them almost any nutrient in the beginning. Or at least until the first sets of 'True Leaves" come in. On the other hand Please take someone else suggestion on when for Hydro. Sometime soon I plan on making my own DWC bucket system. But I Refuse to do so until I have a TDS meter. Like 100 bucks on amazon and it will read your ppm (particles per million in your water) E.C. (Electrical Conductivity) and PH at ALL times. SOLD! ha so make sure you have at the very least a ppm pen and a ph pen so you can actively diagnose almost everything by JUST knowing your levels. Haha Just gave you the speech in my head I've been giving myself for weeks :Namaste:
 
Re: First time grow (Hydro/LED) - Day 0-5 - Research and Germination

Cheers mate :) and thanks for the tip on the feeding. I'll make sure I hold off until I see some leaves before I feed them anything then. The tops emerged today from the Rockwool, it was beautiful haha well 2 of them at least, this Fruity Chronic Juice has been stubborn from the start. I'll post an update in a sec with a couple of pics, it's like watching a child grow....just really quickly!

Funny you say that, just last night I was doing some reading on water levels and purity and stuff actually, this is a pretty good article, and by the sounds of it you can probably just get away with a TDS (i think). Let me know what you think.

$100, wow!! That device must be the sh*t lol. Mine cost me £6 haha! I hope it's accurate enough....
TDS Digital Water Quality Tester Meter ppm Hydroponics
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It was an excellent speech :) admittedly I only invested in cheap devices to measure my PH and TDS (buy cheap buy twice and all that). Yours sounds sick, may have to invest down the line
 
First time grow (Hydro/LED) - Day 6 - The Sprouts

So they have all sprouted and are on their way, and i'm thrilled about it :)

So I wake up and when I check on my plants, I'm delighted to find that Il Diavolo was the first one to sprout, shortly after was the Northern Light Blue, the Fruity Chronic Juice, being the stubborn little bugger that it is is still to show signs of sprouting. But the others look good!

Before I went to bed, I dipped each of the Rockwool cubes halfway in 5.5ph water for 5 seconds (no nutes), and I put them back in my little propagation unit, wrapped it in a plastic bag and went to bed. Here are some pictures from day 6
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You can't tell but the Northern Light Blue at the end has a tiny sprout emerging at this point
 
First time grow (Hydro/LED) - Day 7 - Hydroton

Every single morning is like Christmas morning when your seeds are yet to sprout!

Day 7
The Fruity Chronic Juice has finally sprouted! That's 3 out of 3, thank you Delicious Seeds Feminized Cannabis Seeds!

I sprayed the rockwool with ph5.5 water and left all 3 in the propagation unit for the day.

When I got home from work today I moved them over to Hydroton and turned on my 20watt CFL COOL WHITE light (4200k). I placed all 3 hydro pots in a tray and filled it to 1cm with feeding water (ph5.5).

I plan on leaving them this way not until i get some proper leaves, then i'll be feeding with 1/4 strength nutrients.

Overall, happy as a pig in sh*t right now :)

Here are some pics of Day 7:

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Re: First time grow (Hydro/LED) - Day 7 - Hydroton

Is it me or have they stretched? Perhaps I should have used light earlier, i think i got confused between "Don't feed until you see leaves" and "Dont use light until you see leaves" - I hope that doesn't compromise the crop, time will tell :s
 
Re: First Time Grow - Hydro - LED - Day 0-5 - Research and Germination

haha they look Good! From my understanding you just don't feed nutrients until the serrated leaves are out. Lights come on whenever you see first signs of a sprout!!! haha Your well on your way dude! I've seen my NL stretch in soil within the first tree days up to 4 inches!! Don't worry they appear to be happy!!! Just curious, what sort of nutrients are you planning on using?
 
Re: First Time Grow - Hydro/LED - Fast forward to Day 5 (Day 12 from Seed)

Hey, very sorry about the neglect. I've been silly busy with my regular job and these little buggers have been giving me nothing but a hard time (up until about 2 days ago). I've been having an especially difficult time because I've constantly been away from home on training courses for work and out of office meeting which has taken me from home for up to 3 days so far, HOWEVER, they are alive :)
Going by the day that the seedlings sprouted was day 1. I'm now on Day 34. And what a bloody rollercoaster it's been!

I have a hand written journal I have been keeping so i'll try and summarise the past 3 weeks, i have a few pictures, but there are some gaps where I was away from home.

After the seedlings sprouted, I set them up in a temporary grow space, with a single 4200k Cool White CFL. This seems to work well for the first few days with the seedlings producing nice healthy leaves.

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At this point, everything appears to be going well, after all, they're not dead! On reflection i should have used the 4200k as a supplement to a 6500k CFL. As a result of using the single Cool white lamp the seedlings started to stretch

The photo's above bring us to Day 5 (Day 1 being the sprouting)
 
Re: First Time Grow - Hydro/LED - Fast forward to Day 7 (Day 14 from Seed)

DISASTER STRIKES!!!

I got home from work one day to find this:

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Stupidly, I left the fan pointing directly at the seedlings instead of having it rotate. As a result the rockwool completely dried up and 2 of the 3 seedlings collapsed, the Fruity Chronic Juice however didn't seem bothered and was sturdy as ever, one thing i did notice though was that the stem has turned purple on this seedlings.

I think this ordeal was a combination of stretching and lack of water to be honest. I propped them up with some twisty wire:

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And the crisis appeared to have been averted!:thumb:

At this point, I was dipping the bottom half of the net pot in PH'd water and holding it there for 5 seconds before lights out. No nutes!
 
Re: First Time Grow - Hydro/LED - Up to Day 11 my mini DWC

So the Northern Light blue seems to have recoveredish, however I think that i must have damaged Il Diavolo somewhere in the rockwool because it continued to wither, and eventually die. I made so many mistakes at this point that i couldnt accurately pin point what the exact cause was, but hopefully i won't be making those mistakes again so with any luck i will avoid these problems in future. The Fruity Chronic Juice was looking good, but the leaves appear to be drooping quite heavily now.

You'll see from the pictures below what the set up looks like. I used an 80mm hole saw to drill 3 holes in the top of a celebrations box for my net pots. I then drilled 2 small holes for my air pipe. I covered the top of the box in white matt sticky paper and that was that for the DWC.

I used some left over cardboard to make some reflectors using the matt white sticky paper, and positioned everything together to make a miniature grow area

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Advice to first time growers:

1. Do NOT start until you have a PH meter reader.
2. Do NOT start until you have adequate lighting (1 CFL for 3 seedlings seems to work quite well for early stages)
 
Re: First Time Grow - Hydro - LED - Day 0-5 - Research and Germination

Hey Jimmy :) Thanks for the tip and taking the time to read this, I did eventually keep them between 1 and 2 inches in the end and that worked a treat, i was keeping them too far, i think the main stretching happened when i was using only a 4200k lamp, when i added a 6500k they seemed to react to it straight away.

This was day 11, i'm on day 34 now, just updating the journal :) watch this space
 
Re: First Time Grow - Hydro/LED - Up to Day 19

So I went to Amsterdam for 5 days at the end of November and left my brother watching over the seedlings, I came back to find that both ladies had pretty much fully recovered, but appear to be suffering from either overwatering or nute deficiency, and i was pretty sure it wasn't overwatering.

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So having checked that both plants had atleast 3 nodes, i decided to feed them with 1/4 strength nute solution.

I am using General Hydroponics Flora series with Hygrozyme

I also purchased 5 Jack Herer seeds while i was in the Capital ;) so decided to germinate those also
 
Re: First Time Grow - Hydro - LED - up to day 23

So i germinated 3 of the 5 of the Jack Herer seeds and moved them to rockwool and fed the FCJ and NLB with the 1/4 strength nute solution.

The next day I'm told that I'm to go away for a 3 day course away from home (for f*&k sake!).

When i came back from my trip, both of the older ladies are showing major signs of over fertilisation. 2 of the 3 Jack Herer have sprouted, one didn't sprout. A strange thing happened with one of the Jack Herer seedlings, they came out with only 1 seed leaf, however i think it was burned off by keeping the newly sprouted seedlings too close to the 6500k light. (Lesson learned)

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After a panic stricken google session, i decided to flush the FCJ and NLB with PH 5.5 for a few days and see what happens.

The good news is, that at this point my Tent had arrived and a few days later so did my 210watt LED light from BSLed (the SP111d 210w Model).

After flushing for a couple of days both FCJ and NLB perked up and I was back where i was before I added nutes.

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I found out that the GH Flora series are notoriously STRONG nutes, and i should have used a 1/4 strength of HALF the recommended dosage for seedlings.
 
Re: First Time Grow - Hydro - My LED Light

Here are some pictures of my BSLEd SP111d 210watt light

It cost me $200 + $66 delivery charge. I was also slapped with an unexpected £40 VAT charge from Fedex a week or so after it arrived which was a bit of a shitter, but ah well! So in total it cost me about £200 ($320)

All in all, i'm very happy with the light, i was very nervous to begin with having read some dodgy things about Chinese products, but it is actually a good quality product and the plants love the light it emits!

I've included the picture of m 180cfm inline fan (I havent got a carbon filter yet)
And you will also see the ducting running down the right hand side of the tent
I have also shown where the intake is (on the left hand side) with a fan directing fresh air to the air vents

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