UltraDan's First Grow - White Widow - Flux - 2015

[Dan Ultra]

What up peeps?
So, I am starting my grow journal a little early, but I can no longer hold in my excitement for my first grow. I am still about 2 weeks out from having everything ready to put seeds in the dirt, but I figured I could snag some attention while in progress.

We will start with the planned grow:
What strain is it? White Widow (fem)
Is it Indica, Sativa or Hybrid? What percentages? 30% - 70% Indica dominant
Indoor or outdoor? Indoor
Soil or Hydro? Soil
If soil... what is in your mix? Fox Farm Ocean Forest
Size of light? 400W MH/HPS
Type and strength of ferts used? Fox Farm Nutes

So as to not leave this thread completely empty, here is the grow room I will be using. It is located under my stairs and measures about 5L x 3.5W x 4H

Next week I will be covering the walls, ceiling and floor with foam board insulation.

I have been reading and studying for months, so stick around and I promise not to disappoint. It'll either be one hell of a first grow, or one hell of a disaster. Either way it'll be exciting.

 

[Dan Ultra]

So it took a little longer than I originally thought, but I finally got seeds into peet pellets last night. My lighting finally came in and I was able to finish up the grow room. Here is a pic

I do have a question for anyone who wants to stop by and chime in. My grow room is about 4 feet high, will this be an issue when it comes time to flower? I know I will need to FIM and LST, but is 4 feet to low when it comes to using MH/HPS lighting? Thanks!

 

[Dan Ultra]

Humidity is at 50% and temps in the mid to high 70's. I just put a fan in there tonight to help cool the lighting.

Since they haven't even sprouted yet, is it too early to have my lights running 18/6? If so should I just leave them all the way off, or keep them on to make sure there is light as soon as they sprout?

 

[cannilingus]

growing sativas, perhaps tight. but, my plants are 32". add a ft. if you are using a warm bulb, you need a ft from that. so yes, you can put em into flower early. also. i understand some sativas, do well in flower, when they hatch! whats above the four ft ceiling?

 

[cannilingus]

you would perhaps, be better off, if you chose floresecnt/cfl combo. i have a 8 tube 4' t-5, that is my veg light. its a totale of 432 watts. but not near as warm as the other. so, the plants could be right up close. also, a small fan, blowing on the tubes, will help to circulate, and keep the burn down. t-5 has some heat. you could bacically line the walls and top with some t-8's. plants can rest on them, and not get hurt. ihave seen many grows, that yeilded more than me. and i use a 1000, and a 600! and all they used, was feking cfls. so. i think its the proximity to the plants that means more than the huge lumens and heat. if i had to do over again, id use indigro inductive.

 

[Dan Ultra]

growing sativas, perhaps tight. but, my plants are 32". add a ft. if you are using a warm bulb, you need a ft from that. so yes, you can put em into flower early. also. i understand some sativas, do well in flower, when they hatch! whats above the four ft ceiling?

Thanks for the reply! I might be able to take the light a little higher if I remove the drywall from the ceiling. My grow room is an under the stairs closet. So directly above the area is the stairs landing area, so I can't remove that. lol

I calculated the distances for the lights, final grow pot and space between light and plant and it gives me 21" for plant growth. Is it possible to keep growth below that height by way of FIM, Topping and LST?

 

[Dan Ultra]

Here is my awesome MS Paint skills showing my measurements

 

[Fuzzy Duck]

Lo Ultra

Nice paint skills & see ya got ya distance measurements dialed in, that gives me comfort.


I see ya got a cool tube hood if that was all rigged to ducting & exhaust/extraction fan you could reduce hanging distance by 50% aprox.


Mmm a slight niggle is air flow... not sure what ya got in mind for this yet ?

As plants need air exchange around 20 times cubic volume of grow area per hour to keep em growing healthy.

Most of use get away with a passive intake/vent and active exhaust for an example.



21" or about 50cm of growing height ah, ye can be done

Might want to think about indica dominate strains most of the time... mainly for their shorter growing nature & on the plus side faster flowering times, which i'm pretty sure white widow is !


We need to think about stretch in flowering with the rule of the thumb being...

Indica - double in height.

Sativa - triple in height.

That is from final height of veg aprox, most of the stretch happens in first 2 to 3 weeks aprox - but i would like to add that is a plant grown from seed with out training !



You might like this idea & basically involves topping and lst work, i believe all of that was done with an average 3 months veg from the last time i spoke to him over a PM - Light Addict's Quick Guide To Fluxing: Featuring The Original Flux!

After LA done this post their was an increase of fluxing journals so ye that one is worth doing some forum research on



At a slightly later date/time over the week end i'll mention some stuff about topping & the hormone known as auxin.

 

[Dan Ultra]

Thanks for stopping by Fuzzy Duck!

To answer some of your questions/concerns.

Right now I have a 10" fan blowing from under the stairs, out into the hallway area. I'm not really sure how much air it is actually exchanging, but it keeps air circulating. I could also blow air back into the grow area with another fan in the hall. Kind of like a centrifugal effect of sorts...?/

The White Widow I am growing is indeed Indica dominant and I have tried to study up as much as I can about FIMing and LST. I really appreciate the link to Light Addicts post!! That is some skill work right there! My final grow container will be a 5 gal smart pot, so I suppose I will have to set that in something to attach the garden wire too. Milk crate maybe??

I also suppose I will need to transplant to the bigger container sooner rather than later to be able to start training the branches??

I really appreciate all the advise and help! Looking forward to a good first grow!

 

[Rifleman]

 

[Dan Ultra]

Welcome rifleman!

 

[Dan Ultra]

So I am having some cooling difficulties

I went in the room when I got home today and it is a solid 84 degrees with 45% humidity. Not sure what I can really do at this point. I cut about an 8" x 8" hole in the wall into the next room and placed a fan pulling air into the grow room from there. That will at least help to get fresh, cool air in. I also put a box fan pointing out towards the hallway to move the warm air out. So far it hasnt changed much.

And my MH light is only on 50% right now, so I imagine it is going to get much hotter. Aside from spending the money to air cool the hood, does anyone have any other ideas to help cool the room?

 

[Rifleman]

I dropped my tent temps by 8 deg F just adding a 2 gal ultrasonic humidifier. Before it my RH was in the low 30s, now I can keep it 50% easily and 60% if I crank it up. I hate to say it but I think you're going to have serious heat issues. Take a look on pg 1 of my journal for an example of thinking outside the box for cooling. Homemade a/c. Good luck.

 

[Dan Ultra]

I dropped my tent temps by 8 deg F just adding a 2 gal ultrasonic humidifier. Before it my RH was in the low 30s, now I can keep it 50% easily and 60% if I crank it up. I hate to say it but I think you're going to have serious heat issues. Take a look on pg 1 of my journal for an example of thinking outside the box for cooling. Homemade a/c. Good luck.

Yeah, I am fearful of that as well. It doesn't help that I live in FL. It's winter and its 80° outside. Lol.

I'll figure something out.

 

[Fuzzy Duck]

It's winter and its 80° outside. Lol.

That is like a very hot summers day for me...

Cooling problem ah

Well 84f that is about 30c iirc, you could work with the heat & use Co2 but ya need a source of Co2 either DIY job or other form...

 

[Dan Ultra]

More of my mad MS Paint skills...

So this is my plan. I'm just not sure if cold air blowing directly onto the bulb is okay or not. Basically the cooler has a block of ice in it, the fan blows air in and forces it out of the elbow and ducting which goes around the corner to the grow room and hooks into the hood.

What do you think? Another option is to just set the ducting in the room and have it cool the entire room instead of just the hood.

 

[gfdiesel]

i think your over complicating your cool tube. if you leave the intake side open into your grow space, put an inline fan on the exhaust side pulling air. the fan will pull the warm air out of your grow space and cool down your bulb. exhaust the hot air out of the area, maybe into the attic above your grow space? also with a 4ft ceiling, i would switch those lights too 12/12 after 2 weeks or so (from sprouting). cause them babies like to stretch out during flowering. keep the pics coming, youll get alot of help on here!!

 

[Dan Ultra]

i think your over complicating your cool tube. if you leave the intake side open into your grow space, put an inline fan on the exhaust side pulling air. the fan will pull the warm air out of your grow space and cool down your bulb. exhaust the hot air out of the area, maybe into the attic above your grow space? also with a 4ft ceiling, i would switch those lights too 12/12 after 2 weeks or so (from sprouting). cause them babies like to stretch out during flowering. keep the pics coming, youll get alot of help on here!!

So just use an exhaust fan and ducting to pull air away from the cool tube and out of the grow area? I think even without the heat from the lamp, I might still have heat issues.

I will be doing some major LST work to keep the height down.

 

[cannilingus]

the higher in the room, the intake is, the more hot air is pused out. in an ideal grow, air intake to room, is near the floor. but the intake to the carbon filter, is near the ceiling. as warm air rises, you therefore remove more of it. also, run lights on, in night time, when temps are cooler. so this way, it does not get as warm. my grow room is 11'x11'. the roof, is black torchdown. WARM! so, i invested in some white roof coating, with a 83% reflection rate, and i dropped 15 degrees!

 

[cannilingus]

last night, at the warmest, my bloom room was only 62 degrees, they like it fine. as long as they sit on the 2" styrofoam, and their little feet dont get cold. to me, for my streinds, perfect, is like high of 68. low of 58. but, not all streins are the same.