Athos' Soil White Widow Auto Journal - 2014

[littlemiss]

I Was Thinking Of Cfl's Some Reason, But There Side Lights.. Even Though They Seem Too Close Too But It Don't Seem To Be Bothering The Plant!

 

[Athos56]

I Was Thinking Of Cfl's Some Reason, But There Side Lights.. Even Though They Seem Too Close Too But It Don't Seem To Be Bothering The Plant!

Yeah I put eye bolts into the sides of the fixture and hung it sideways. I think I'm going to get two more fixtures and put eye bolts on each side and start making a wall of fixtures, one hung under the other. I'm not sure if it's the fixtures I bought but the T8 bulbs run just over room temp.

Status, I checked this morning and had to readjust the lights again! That #1 plant had grown right up to the light again! I might have to put up a screen to check its height.

Open Question: Any idea on how I should proceed if it starts over growing the tent? Screen? Tying down the top LST style??

Athos

 

[littlemiss]

Wow, Your Going To Have Alot Of Light! Already? Haha, This Ones Growing Quick! Would Prob Say a Screen At More this Stage? Tying It Will Still Vigorously Grow But Whatever Way You Bend It, Whereas Screening Makes All Brances The Same Length?

 

[Athos56]

Ok large update. Day 27 from Germination. The plants seem to be doing well, no nute burn or anything like that. The size difference is still there and the large plant still hasn't shown it's sex (edit: I did finally see some white threads, so it is a girl!). I have been watering with a tea made of 1/4 tsp of the following (Worm Castings/Jamaican Guano/Azomite/Kelp/Humic/Molasses/Blood and Bone Meal) I also add a pinch of chalk to raise the PH a bit. I also do a foliar spray every couple of days with the same tea diluted by half. So there is a lot of stuff in the tea but I haven't gone crazy with the how much of each ingredient I put in. I haven't added any lights lately. Finally, I adjusted the CO2 so it hangs above the plants.

Time for Pictures

 

[Athos56]

Three days and I still am seeing excellent growth. #1 was 15" on the 17th, now on the 20th it's 19" for a total of 4 inches in 3 days, not bad IMHO. #2 and #3 are both keeping up the size ratios they have had the whole grow.

 

[Athos56]

Finally ran out of room raising the lights so I had to do a grand rearrangement. All four of the T8 fixtures are hung sideways to get light inside the plants. Lighting on the short sides and the top are CFL. In the rehang I added a 200w, 3800 lumen, 2700k CFL and 2 100w, 5000k CFL lights for over 40K lumen of light. My hanging system is small sticks of PVC with screw hooks suspended from light chain run over the PVC frame. I hang other things from the chain with S-hooks so I can move them up and down the chain.

 

[MaPilot]

Looks Great! I'm watching!

 

[Athos56]

Thanks MaPilot

 

[b.real]

they look awesome!

 

[Athos56]

Thanks b.real!

 

[MikeTbob]

yup yup yup. looking real good buddy. All I would suggest is that you start preparing for a new grow area. Once you flip the lights they'll stretch a lot more.

 

[Athos56]

Yeah, I have to make a new tent, something 6' rather than 4' which just isn't enough if I'm not LST the plants. I think I'll add 4 new sticks of pvc to the bottom legs of the frame and then patch up the reflectix... I'm going to do a complete refab after this first grow with the lessons I learned here. Thanks for the feedbac Tbob.

 

[budstep]

subscribing and following, your widows look nice.

 

[Athos56]

subscribing and following, your widows look nice.

Thanks! and welcome aboard.

 

[budstep]

Thank

 

[Athos56]

Small update, battling heat, had to increase air flow and remove a couple of lights. Now I'm in the 80s again. My tallest plant bore the brunt of the heat and the top got a little toasty, nothing died or turned brown but the leaves are curled a bit as you can see in the pictures. They are all starting to bloom!

 

[MikeTbob]

Sweetness. Looking good my man. Keep them lights adjusted!!

 

[Athos56]

Well I dropped a light on #1 and sheered two branches off...arg. It still grew overnight so I'm not sure if I put the plant in shock or not, we'll see. What I learned from the incident is that I need to secure the whole system better, the S-hooks are too prone to being bumped off the chains.

 

[b.real]

I don't really see any heat stress, but I do see mild nitrogen stress. they look excellent.

 

[Athos56]

I don't really see any heat stress, but I do see mild nitrogen stress. they look excellent.

Ahh, I was wondering about that. I actually left the blood meal out of my next round of nutes to lower the nitrogen content. Thanks for the look and the advice.