AK48 Auto In Coco Loco - CFL - 2nd Grow By Paintedbudman

[paintedbudman]

Started my new Grow. Placed 4 AK48 autos in a paper towel to germinate. Planning on doing 4Coco Loco soilless grown with FoxFarm Nutes. I will take pictures of the new and improved grow chamber later and post them . That is mainly what is new in this grow. I am planning on getting an LED grow light later. Anyone have any suggestions? The grow area is ~ 3'x3'. Thanks on advance.

 

[420Guardian]

Mars hydro do some great lights. They a sponsor here too so you get a good price.

Mars Hydro LED Grow Light ,Led grow light , Mars Hydro

 

[paintedbudman]

Thanks for the input 420gardian. I sort of have my eye on a mars hydro II 700. But have to sAVE my $$ to buy it. It may take a couple months.

 

[paintedbudman]

 

[paintedbudman]

All 4 AK 48 have germinated. Placed them in rapid rooter plugs and placed these in FF Coco Loco in 5 gallon grow bags. Added about a gallon of water pH'd to ~6.1. Will water them lightly over the next few days to get the coco loco good and moist and watch them grow. This is officially day zero of this grow!!! Now lets get this party started!!!


New grow chamber hieght to plexi heat shield is ~62" (~1.5m). This is an increase of 22".

The grow bags with the newly sprouted seeds under their humidity domes.

And finally a close up of my humidity dome (a clear plastic disposable 16 oz cup).

 

[paintedbudman]

Continuing to water around the humidity domes,not directly on the baby girls. Have been giving them 1 gallon of pH 6 water in the morning and evening. I will continue this until I start getting runoff from my containers. The coco loco will be saturated at that point and I will start twice weekly light watering with some nutes in it. The little seedlings are all up and starting to point at the sky.3 look good one looks a little sickly. Pictures to come later today. It is always so exciting starting a new project like this.

 

[paintedbudman]

Here are pictures of the little ones just out of the soil.

 

[paintedbudman]

Day 3: Finally got a little runnoff from the smartpots. Measured the pH it was 6.1-6.2. Not bad. Then i measured the TDS, it was off the charts (out range for my meter). I decided to flush the coco loco. I started with 1 gallon of pH ~6.0 water. I then measured the pH and TDS of the effluent. It ranged from 3500 right at the start when the maximum flow of water through the smart pots occurred. As the effluent stream began to subside I checked the ph and TDS again, pH was 6.1-6.2 and the tds was down to ~2500. Flushed with a second gallonof water, this time with 1/2 level BigBloom from ff, calmag+ at the recommended level and pH adjusted to ~6. Effluent as flow was stopping measured pH of 6.01 and a TDS of 1900. I stopped there and put the girl back into the grow chamber. I repeated this process for the other 3 and got very similar results (TDS ranged at the end from 1800-2050ppm) The TDS is a little higher than I would like, but as I add more water I should flush the system a bit, plus, in a couple of weeks the nute solution will be up in the 1800 range itself. SO we will see where this goes. Nothing to do but watch and learn, but i think I am good for now.

 

[paintedbudman]

Watered the little darlings with ~1/2 strength Nutes. pH is 6-6.1 > they are growing well. Here are pictures of them at 1 week from germination.

 

[paintedbudman]

Day 11 from germination. Well, it is Sunday and time to take pictures and water and feed the little darlings. Still battling a high TDS reading from the Coco Loco. When I first checked they were off the scale on my TDS meter (stupid me, didn't check before I put my seeds and rapid rooter plugs in the ground). Ever since then when I have watered I have flushed a couple gallons of fresh pHd water through the system. Have brought the TDS down to below 1000 ( the current nute solution with cal mag+ and somewhat hard water measures 720ppm). So I think that is well under its way to being under control. The pH of the runoff is 6.1-6.2. I'd like it to be 5.8-6.0. but I''ll get it there soon (adjusting the pH down a little on the next watering/feedings). The girls look like they are growing well. I noticed some burnt leaf tips and edges on the first set of leaves after the dicot leaves, but nothing additional since then. I'm guessing some of that is from the high TDS initially. Pictures are attached below.

Love the early life of these plants, they can change in the blink of an eye it seems.

 

[paintedbudman]

My little girls are growing, already have3 sets of leaves and not even 2 weeks old. I can't wait until they get a little bigger. I'm planning on putting in side lighting as well as making a separate germination/veg cabinet using a cfl light configuration that I think will work very well. It i an array of 12 , 23Watt (1600 lumen) cfls( see picture below). This gives a total lumens for the fixture of 19200 lumens and 278 watts of power consumption. I could put as many as 3 of these in my current grow chamber on the walls (I probably will only use 2) over doubling the current light output (assuming heat doesn't limit things). This should allow all the lower buds to develop much better, thus giving me a better yield. I also think this would make an excellent light source for 30"x60" veg chamber I am planning on making in the next month or two.

 

[paintedbudman]

Its wednesday and time for new pictures of my girls. Everyone is growing well. No issues to speak of. I watered the girls today with there very light introduction to real nutes. This was the first watering without the humidity domes, and I managed to knock over one of my girls right on her side.I proped her back up and put a support in next to her but I am wondering if i did any real damage. Oh well, I guess i will find out in the next day or two. My high TDS problem is over, but the pH is still a touch too high. I will be workimh on that over the next week or so.

Well, here are the pictures I promised ----->

take care everyone!!!

 

[GrizzWald]

Just saw you in nicks journal, thought I'd sub up and watch...

 

[paintedbudman]

Join the fun GrizzWald!! The more the merrier. The girls are growing nicely, just a bit over watered at the moment but other than that they are looking good and growing like mad. Pictures tomorrow morning. I'm enjoying nicks journal as well .... great looking buds!!

 

[paintedbudman]

As promised yesterday, here are pics of my 4 little darlings as of his morning (18 days old). No sign of nute burn since the first set of leaves showed some very minor burned leaf tips. I gave them 1 pt of water and nutes this morning, nowhere near enough to get runoff so I hope to dry them out a bit over the next week or so. I am still seeing the arched leaves that is indicative of over-watered but not as severe as yesterday. I think that it took so long before the symptoms occurred is because the roots (I believe) finally reached the later of very wet coco coir at the very bottom of the pots.

BTW GrizWald I work in the world of paint as well, but more on the manufacturing end. I'm still working on my taxes, I hope to finish tonight though.

Enjoy!!!

 

[GrizzWald]

Curses to taxes... You all acrylic over there now or turps based still? Sorry for the shop talk, lol.... Plants are looking great btw...

 

[GrizzWald]

Just read your first post... Man dangerous asking for led light recommendations, lol... Double your budget and get the ones you want, not what you can afford, if that makes sense....

 

[paintedbudman]

I don't mind talking shop. Grizz most of our architectural coatings are water based (my area of expertise), many of which are acrylic, but not all. My background has mainly been in industrial coatings research and development so I see a bit broader range of coatings types than would be the norm for typical architectural coating systems.

So since you have an opinion, any suggestions other than spend more .... any particular brands to avoid, or any who stand out as good. It's gonna be 4-6 months before I even think about actual getting an LED light (besides the CFLs have been working well for me - in my first grow I harvested 9 to 10 OZ of dry smoke from 5 plants in a 3'x3' space with several newbie mistakes along the way..... can't complain about the CFLs in my book).

BTW I think my taxes are done. I just want to close them up for this evening and shut down TurboTax. Then go through them from the top tomorrow before I send them off.

Oh also BTW, my little girls appreciate the compliment!!!

 

[Nicholas Flamel]

I just saw you have another journal going budman. Looking good too. How was the Bahamas? Lol dumb question right. I have to recommend mars II 400 watt for a 3x3 if your on a budget. Thats what im using and my space is close to 3x3 also. It has worked very well for me with no problems at all. The mars reflector series are good too. Subbed

 

[paintedbudman]

Nicholas, the bahamas were great! But two of my plants died of dehydration while I was away. Not a bad thing, they self harvested and started drying themselves for me. Probably the best smoke of the lot. Looking forward to this grow, hopefully I won't make any of the same mistakes (I'll make a whole new batch i am sure . I've thoroughly enjoyed your journal. The most recent bud pictures made me drool, those were some pretty nugs!!!! Thanks for the info on the Mars II 400, i'll keep it in mind. I was thinking of the 700 simply becuase I think that will allow for a little expansion in the future (maybe a 5x5 grow tent).

Now that you are subbed, sit back with me and watch my pretty little ladies grow. Take care and have fun