A New Chapter: First Indoor Grow With NextLight Mega

[Kanda]

A new chapter for me as I only have one outdoor grow under my belt and am venturing into the world of indoor growing. I’m hoping some of my experience from my overgrown greenhouse will guide me through this.

The soil
This year I have gone with the most updated version of Subcool’s supersoil that I could find online. It has slightly more ingredients than the version I used last year.
I mixed:
8 x 1.5 cf bags promix organic for herb and vegetables
33 pounds earthworm castings
2.5 pounds fish bone meal
2.5 pounds bone meal
5 pounds bat guano
5 pounds blood meal
5 cups oyster shell
5 cups kelp meal
3 cups alfalfa meal
3/4 cup epsom salt
1 cup dolomite lime
2 cups azomite
2 Tablespoons powdered humid and fulvic acid
Mix all together, wet gently cover and cook for at least 30 days. In my case I used it at 30 days exactly this year.

The tent:
Viviosun 48 x 60 x 78 grow tent with removable wall for germination area

The lights:
For germination I have random amazon LED’s but......

THE STAR OF THE SHOW......
This light is unbelievable!! If you want to know how unbelievable check out my 2020 outdoor green crack adventures. I swear the plants stretched after they were forced to slum it outside in the sun after being under the NextLight Mega waiting for the weather to warm lol

The set-up:
Kudos to my amazing hubby who completed my HVAC unit. We have the Affinity ac cloud line T8 for extraction in the large side and the S4 on the germination side.
we purchased an air conditioner for the room and tent and are set up to draw from the air conditioner if needed. I had purchased an 8 inch charcoal filter but we are currently set up to vent outdoors.




The strains:
Green Crack from my own seeds from 2019 plant
Belladonna Paradise
ICED Grapefruit Female seeds
Blue Cindy. G13
Dark Devil Auto Sweetseeds
Dark Widow Auto
The photo period seeds went in the ground on April 27 and the autos May 2
I germinate directly in 2 in peat pots with this


stay tuned.......updating with pictures coming soon.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Wow, almost $3 per watt. I hope you didn't pay MSRP for that.

Good luck with your grow.

Does that soil mix allow you to "just add water" all the way through harvest, or do you have to add some kind of supplemental feed along the way? My "dirt" knowledge is pretty skimpy. I'm a bottle-boy .

 

[Kanda]

Water all the way. I used the updated version of soil just to try something new. The 2019 version seemed to work well

 

[Kanda]

Week 3 I topped the girls. Went pretty well for a first timer I think
Then after a few days to recover I potted up to a 15 gallon grow bag with supersoil in bottom half and promix organic in top half


The autoflowers will get tucked in for the time being and will likely get flowered on the side with wall taken down.
After a short recovery I went on to tie and train to get these ladies ready for a screen.
Here are the girls at 4 weeks from seed.
I am managing to keep day time temps at 79-80 and night time 69-70. The rh stays around 55-60%

5 weeks from seed today. Back row is iced grapefruit on left and green crack on right and front row is blue Cindy and belladonna. The autos are dark widow in the back and DDA in front and are 31 days
I find the growth rate astonishing! They love love love this light.
I am hoping to get my screen finished tomorrow, and am thinking maybe flip at week 6? Will see how this week plays out.

 

[HerbalDreamin]

They're looking so luscious and healthy. Are you going to keep the autos in there when you flip? Might get a little crowded lol

 

[Kanda]

I was thinking about taking down the wall and putting the autos there. The light has a flowering footprint of 5 x 5. I was a little afraid of putting the autos outdoors to flower as the bugs really seem to love this strain...I’m trying to keep some for me this year lol Last years plant outside was like a bug magnet and ended up as oil.

I am really trying to avoid getting over crowded as I had an overcrowding nightmare last year in an outdoor greenhouse.

 

[Kanda]

Day 36

I was getting a little nervous about overcrowding yesterday, so I kicked out the tomato seedlings, took down the dividing wall and rearranged the girls.
we didn’t get the screen built yesterday so fingers crossed for today.
Today is officially my first flip to 12/12
and I am soooo excited!!
I’m in the middle of a couple of 12 hour night shifts so am planning to get up early today to work on things

Day 33 Autos
DDA

Dark Widow (bottom left)

Better get my butt to bed....lights in the tent come on at 5 and I leave for work at 6:15 and it’s watering day.

 

[StoneOtter]

Hi Kanda, sweet setup! Are those the ones getting scrogged? They all look happy as it gets.

 

[Kanda]

Yep. Those are the girls! I was a little worried with how tall they were getting. They really seem to love the light and new supersoil!
we are just getting ready to string up a net...pics coming soon. The girls get up at 5

 

[StoneOtter]

Yep. Those are the girls! I was a little worried with how tall they were getting. They really seem to love the light and new supersoil!
we are just getting ready to string up a net...pics coming soon. The girls get up at 5

Sweet! Bend and weave time.

 

[Emilya Green]

Hi Kanda! I want to watch and see how that new Subcool recipe works after just a month of cooking. I did something similar on my first subcool soil run years ago... I got in trouble right after the flip. Here is hoping that yours go better than mine did. By the way, after cooking a bit longer, I have ended up using that soil with great success for the last 7 years and it is still going strong, with a few more amendments along the way. Your plants look great right now! Good luck!

 

[Kanda]

Hi Kanda! I want to watch and see how that new Subcool recipe works after just a month of cooking. I did something similar on my first subcool soil run years ago... I got in trouble right after the flip. Here is hoping that yours go better than mine did. By the way, after cooking a bit longer, I have ended up using that soil with great success for the last 7 years and it is still going strong, with a few more amendments along the way. Your plants look great right now! Good luck!

Glad to have you along for the ride!
What kind of problems did you run into after flip? I’ve been three days now...is there something I should be watching out for?
Last years supersoil recipe cooked for a month before using, but plants were a month older when I transplanted and the girls were all outdoors...big difference from flowering at 5 weeks.

 

[Emilya Green]

mine hadn't cooked down enough I thought, or there was something else I did wrong, but right after stretch I started getting macronutrient deficiencies and I had to fall back on bottle feeding toward the middle of that run. Today I would just throw some RealGrower's Recharge at it and let the microbes loose to do what I should have done, but when it happened I wasn't at all ready, and really started to second guess my plan. Since you have done this before with good results, you are probably going to provide me with the clues to understand what it is that I did wrong.

 

[Kanda]

Well that was quite an ordeal lol strapping and lowering in over the plants was quite a stressful process lol but I think it went ok
Here they are....5 weeks 4 days now under the screen

what do you think? Did I do it even half way properly? I thought they looked ok and am going to love being able to get in there and touch them lol (and have a small feeling I’ll regret saying that out loud)
We were able to get the screen nice and low and am wondering if I’ll need to defoliate at some time under there or
leave it alone..

this is my handy dandy watering tool to get in and at plants...will see how this works to the end

They will need a drink today when they wake up so I’ll keep you posted how this works with the screen

we have some crazy hot weather coming out way so I’ll get to see how well my extraction/air conditioning does for maintaining temps. I do have their light cycle at night and that is working great so far. Here is a closeup of the extraction pipes

We used foil bubble wrap on the extraction hose from air conditioner so that it didn’t heat the corner by the tent. You can see the small tube to the right comes from the water condensate drain and is pumped out automatically when full (somebody doesn’t like emptying buckets lol) for summertime all air is being pushed outdoors through vent in ceiling. Not sure if we will try to recoupe warm air in the winter or not. We have taken the charcoal filter off for this reason..smell off weed blends nicely with smell of cow manure from my bovine crew aka trim leaf disposal crew...they LOVE it! We are a little late getting them out to pasture...praying they stay behind their fence and out of my outdoor girls.
Here are the autoflowers Day 35 flower day 9

with a sideshot of the DDA

Thats all for now. Hope everyone has a great Sunday! I don’t work again until Monday night so will be puffin plenty

 

[Kanda]

Hoping I do this right and my friends @Backlipslide and @greenjeans find me to follow along...

 

[Backlipslide]

Thanks for the tag!!

I’m in like Flynn!

I like your setup!! Your hubby did a great job with the hvac!!

 

[StoneOtter]

That's bringing it Kanda! nice net. Won't be long until it's full.

 

[Kanda]

Just a small update from midnight last night...the girls got a drink today and seem to be plugging along nicely

the autoflowers... day 37. Remember they had some lst and were topped at day 23 and have waaaaaay more supersoil than they “should” have.

 

[StoneOtter]

They grew overnight!

 

[Kanda]

I have a feeling I’ll be glad that I flipped them when I did!
Have lots of experience high stress training from the greenhouse last year if I need it..but I won’t go there if I don’t have to lol