Mota's First Indoor Grow - White Widow, Northen Lights & Big Blue

Mota

New Member
High everyone!
I just started a closet grow not too long ago. I plan on making a grow journal, feel free to join my in my journey!

So here are the basics:

It being my 1st grow, I didn't really know what strain to get and I wanna control my budget. Good points for a mix pack, a nice variety and cheaper, negative points, I will not know the strain of the plants until they flower..

White Widow
White Widow is the unmistakable queen of the "white" family of cannabis plants. It made it's breakthrough in the mid 90's with its buds so full of resin that it looked "sugar coated" even on big parts of the fan leaves. White Widow was bred from Brazilian and Indian genetics and has become one of the most rewarded variety of recent years. Extremely high quality plant with tremendous knock-out stone. Fruity taste. Winner of various coveted cannabis trophies.

Big Blue
Big Blue is a super cross between two killer strains of the 70's: Northern Lights #5 & Blueberry. The result is an almost pure indica with amazing hybrid vigour. Huge buds on short stocky plants make this strain an excellent choice for small spaces. Killer stone! Great for sea of green. Easy to grow and clone.

Northern Lights #5
Northern Lights #5 is the state of the art hybrid in cannabis breeding with over 25 years of selected inbreeding. This strain is synonymous with ease of growth, strong hybrid vigor, high yield, low odor, fabulous taste and a superb high that has made it the #1 selling strain of all time. Northern Lights #5 is ideal for all growers especially those who prefer shorter bushy plants and is a perfect strain for smaller indoor growing spaces. Fast finishing time with highly frosted resinous buds. A super smoke!


The rest will follow once my pics get approved!
 
Re: Mota's Indoor Grow

My vegetation space is a 2'x2' closet. I have a larger space for the flowering stage.

My soil mix is:
B'Cuzz Mixx Hydro Mix
Peal and Shrimp bio compost
Perlite

For the lights, I have a 400w HPS. But I am using CFLs at the present time for the begining of my vedging cycle.

The current small closet restrains me putting up lights here and there, so I came up with a quick and easy cheap system. I got a washroom light ballast and double bulb inputs, wired it up and there you go, I can now fix 6 bulbs per ballast instead of 3. Please be careful when doing your own eletrical work, make sure that you know what you are doing..!

I am using eight 13w CFL, that give out 800 lumens each. Plus four 26w CFL that emit 1050 lumens. For a total of roughly 10 000 lumens. I've read that about 2500 lumens per square feet is reasonable. Any input on this matter?

peinture_007.jpg


peinture_008.jpg



I have the ballast hanging on chains, so I can adjust them as the plants grow.



8 seeds were put into germination on Sept 1st. On Sept 7, 4 sprouts were transfered into the soil. The others were put into jiffy pods, awaiting a possible sprout.. Sadly only one came thru on Sept 18! This one was put into soil too at that point. Out of the initial 4, one never grew more then the sprout. I'm sad to say but the seeds I got were not the best I guess.

They are currently in 24/0 light.
Should I put them in 18/6? Or should I wait for them to get bigger before?

These pictures were taken on Sept 14
peinture_010.jpg


peinture_012.jpg



Here they are six days later, on Sept 20
peinture_017.jpg

As you can see, 2 of them have plastic forks, haha. The will just get bigger and the stem was starting to lean to the side, I used forks to hold them up. I rotate them a quarter turn every day and they are doing much better, they can stand up by themselves. I think I will just keep the fork in there a little while longer until they are stronger. The one to the left is the sprout that came after nearly 2 weeks in germination, let's hope for something good to come out of it!

Here is a close up of one of them
peinture_024.jpg





I will be waiting until they are bigger and stronger before I add nutrients. Right now they are getting bottled water whenever the soil is dry, every 2-3 days or so.

I was thinking of starting the nutes after I put them in bigger pots, well after they are well settled in their new homes..

This is my 1st grow, I will need some input and help. Please feel free to give me any advice and comments!
 
Gorgeous setup. I would jump to a higher wattage CFLm personally. Very inexpensive from your local home improvement store. 42 wat CFLS run around $8 a piece. If you plan on using this now and jumping to the stronger lights when flowering, I support that even more.
 
You think I should add more lights? An other ballast?
40w CFL run about 10-15$ a piece here.. Bloody expensive when I can get a box of ten 13w for 15$ ya know.. The ballast holds max 60w, with the splitter I can get 6 bulbs and hit 26w.. The four 26w I have, I bought at a small sort of dollarstore, and paid 2$ a light about a year ago.. I'll go back and get more, with the splitter, I will get just as many watts out of it. I'll see what comes out cheaper to buy.

Yes, I will definitly be going with the 400w HPS when the flowering starts. Should I put them under the HPS while they are still in vedging?

Also, I was thinking, should I get a fan in there? Maybe a computer fan? I have one, I just need to wire it up to an adapter.. Since they are in 24/0, I just leave the closet door a little open for a couple hours here and there so they don't get to hot. The plants seem pretty delicate right now, if I get to much wind in there I am scared that the stems will bend lol.
 
You think I should add more lights? An other ballast?
40w CFL run about 10-15$ a piece here.. Bloody expensive when I can get a box of ten 13w for 15$ ya know.. The ballast holds max 60w, with the splitter I can get 6 bulbs and hit 26w.. The four 26w I have, I bought at a small sort of dollarstore, and paid 2$ a light about a year ago.. I'll go back and get more, with the splitter, I will get just as many watts out of it. I'll see what comes out cheaper to buy.

Yes, I will definitly be going with the 400w HPS when the flowering starts. Should I put them under the HPS while they are still in vedging?

Also, I was thinking, should I get a fan in there? Maybe a computer fan? I have one, I just need to wire it up to an adapter.. Since they are in 24/0, I just leave the closet door a little open for a couple hours here and there so they don't get to hot. The plants seem pretty delicate right now, if I get to much wind in there I am scared that the stems will bend lol.

Great set-up you have there Mota!

I wouldn't add anymore light. You have plenty of light for 4 plants in the vegetative stage. I veg 4 plants every grow in my 2'x1.5' grow cab under a single 105w fluoro that emits 6,000+ lumens. I veg till they are 1ft in height then place them in my larger flowering closet under a 400w HPS. So IMO, your fine no more lights are needed.

No need to veg under the HPS, the fluoros are able to be placed closer to the tops to prevent stretching.

A small fan is a good idea, it encourages stem growth and makes the plant stiffen up so it can support it self better, not to mention some airflow is always better than none, heh.

Googd luck. Hope I have answered your questions.
 
Thanks for the input beensmoking420!
After reading what you just wrote, I have couple more questions..
Since you vegetate with CFL.. How long will it take them to reach a foot?
How close can I put the light to the plants? Right now they are at about.. Woah, just went and checked, the tallest one is bout 6 inchs from the largest CFL.. I just noticed that now.. To close? Not close enough? Just perfect? With the chains, I can adjust them as I go along without any problem.
 
Also, here is an AWESOME update..!

As I had mentionned in my intro, I had germinated 8 seeds and only got 4 sprouts, one sadly passed away, so I was down to 3.. I put the remaining 4 in jiffy pods and left them in the dark and waited. On Monday 1 sprouted and has since been in the soil. I just checked on the other 3 left in the jiffys, and wouldn't you know it, 2 of the seeds cracked, so I put them in soil and they are now in the dark..

About a week ago, saddened that the seeds didn't sprout, I set 2 more seeds to germinate, 1 Skywalker and 1 Sage x Blue Rhino that a dear friend gave me a while back. I was just about to give up on them and just now, I check them out and the Skywalker and Sage x Blue Rhino cracked also!

So I have 4 more sprouted seeds.. Let's just hope that they make it!

It's 3am, I have class at 8am and I'm totally stoked!
 
Thanks for the input beensmoking420!
After reading what you just wrote, I have couple more questions..
Since you vegetate with CFL.. How long will it take them to reach a foot?
How close can I put the light to the plants? Right now they are at about.. Woah, just went and checked, the tallest one is bout 6 inchs from the largest CFL.. I just noticed that now.. To close? Not close enough? Just perfect? With the chains, I can adjust them as I go along without any problem.

For me, on average, it takes 4 weeks to reach a foot under the fluoros. Some strains will grow a bit bigger in that time frame and some will be a bit smaller than 12" after 4 weeks, just depends on the strain alot.

You can keep your cfl's very close to the tops! Thats the advantage of CFLs they put off little heat. You can have them as close as 1 inch away from the tops as long as nothing gets burned and proper temps are being maintained. On average though I keep mine about 4 inches away. Go ahead and lower your light a couple inches.

:allgood:
 
If it is possible for you to use the HPS to veg, do so. It may be a tad off spectrum, but the intensity of light on the plant more than compensates.
You can limit height soon by starting to supercrop. It will slow vertical growth and cause bushing, all the while why the food pipes get bigger.
Super cropping is a great tool to increase yield in that situation. is
 
I'm sure Urdedpal would know this. It involves the rupturing of the phloem along vertical spacings of the central stalk and all leader branches. This is done every inch or so apart. You do it by gently sqeezing the stem between 2 fingers with an increasing pressure till you feel a pop. That is the phloem rupturing. When this happens, the plant is spurred into a massive growth spurt to repair the damage. The stem thickens and the diamater of the inside of the phloem increases. Much like the healing of a broken bone. The new union is very strong.
When the phloem increases in size, it means the plant has a greater capacity to take up nutrients, because of the new and bigger food pipes.
Does that explain it.
 
So here is an update - Day 17

They are looking strong..! Two of them seem to have the same growth patern, they are about the same height and have the same amount of leaves, I think they might be the same strain. (Remember, I have a mix pack) Overall, they are nice and green, somewhat even purple here and there on the end of the bigger leaves and stem.. One might be a Big Blue, that would be #3 in the pics. They also are starting to smell just a tad bit, I'm loving it!

So the lights got lowered and tomorrow I will buy a small fan and set it up in there. The stems seem to be getting stronger too, they are no longer tilting.

So far, I have just been using plane water. When should I start with the nutes and what do you guys recommend?

Also, when should I transplant them? When the roots start to show at the bottom of the pot right?


#1
1a2.JPG


1b3.JPG




#2
2a1.JPG


2b2.JPG




#3
3a.JPG


3b.JPG



I have 1 more that doesn't seem to be growing much more then an inch, it was planted into soil about 6 days ago. I'm still waiting for it to show the first set of leaves.. No point in getting pic of it just yet.

As for the 4 other seeds that I transplanted into soil last Thursday, nothing is popping out of the soil just yet.
 
Very nice. I would start debating and purchasing a veg. fert.. In a few more days, IMO, I would start a very light fert. Get them use to the fert.
 
Back
Top Bottom