BlinKey's Indoor - Coco Mix - Fem White Diesel Haze Auto Grow Journal - 2014

[BlinKey]

Thanks jinn ohhh yeaaa them girls stretching now that a sight I want to see

Just have one concern thou. I will be out of country with the missus for 6 whole days on the 20th and that just seems to be right when they are stretching, growing the most and need water/attention the most. I just hope nothing happens to them while we are gone.

I have been experimenting with grow room automation for some time now, just never put enough effort to finish it. its a computer (raspberry) controlled environment will full or close to full automation that I have been fiddling with. I believe I will take the time to give that project life asap

 

[jinn]

maybe this will make your life a little easier.
Arduino based room controller

 

[BlinKey]

Thanks jinn. OG13's journal helped me out alot in getting the sensors side planned in my head. I will use the arduino mega for all sensor collection and control of relays but I am also going to implement the raspberry so that I can log all data and get real time status. So there are three totally different projects out there (OG13, yieldbuddy and dboi88) that do what I want separately and I want to combine all and actually create a full resource that all can use, open hardware and open source. I am waiting on a few pcb designs that I drew that I sent out for to arrive to actually start testing and getting community support to finish the project. I am going to make that a full journal by itself. My goal is to create a full finished project for dummies like I

 

[jinn]

That is something I very much look forward to!
I'd love to see the DIY section of the site get new blood pumped into it, as such I think Im going to start my drying box tomorrow and I'll put it up in DIY for everyone else to use as well!

(another neat thing about the raspberry pi set up, is you could theoretically enable realtime monitoring via pi/arduino camera shields)

 

[BlinKey]

Drying here has always been a problem of mine. The house is about 35 rh and this dries the buds way too fast not good for my cures. I would love to see a nice DIY drying box.

I want to implement the camera but for different reasons LOL I want to get time laps of grows... But now you have me thinking, seeing the grow room realtime would have advantages. Every time I checkup on them the grow room temp and rh fluctuate massively, this has to have some effect, negative i assume. So that would be a good solution.. Thanks!!!

 

[SBG]

I think it was Antics that shared this video from Chester Copperpot on drying it might help you with the low humidity prob.
How to properly dry cannabis for succesful curing - YouTube

I use the plastic box's now that the heat is on in the house. I seem to be able to control the humidity a bit better. You know if it helps and all.

 

[BlinKey]

Thanks SBG. Very helpful info on the video. Summertime drying here is easier with the ac on but in the winter the heater just changes everything. This time around I will do as the video pointed out Thanks again!!!

 

[jinn]

I'll say using those plastic containers for larger yields is definitely the way to go. He's got a pretty nice system for drying, but I really have to disagree with the wet trimming.
The leaking chlorophyll is a non-factor if you do Bud washing (which there's no reason NOT to) and if you're dealing with low RH, bud washing is gonna give you a lot more wiggle room in terms of the dry and cure.

 

[BlinKey]

Thanks for the info jinn. Never hurts to learn more and more but all this talk about drying has just got me too excited its weeks and weeks before harvest and I am drooling LOL

 

[Soup 01]

I know the feeling man!, personally i think it gets even worse when their in full bloom and its sticking the house up haha. Anyway got some upcoming pics blinkey?

 

[jinn]

Thanks for the info jinn. Never hurts to learn more and more but all this talk about drying has just got me too excited its weeks and weeks before harvest and I am drooling LOL

No problem man glad to help. Speaking of drying, just finished my drying box too, got it in my sig if you're interested.

 

[BlinKey]

I know the feeling man!, personally i think it gets even worse when their in full bloom and its sticking the house up haha. Anyway got some upcoming pics blinkey?

I planned on doing pic updates every Sunday, give a week of progress unless some problems arose. So Yes I will have pics tomorrow. Plus I am going to redo the grow room a bit better today get it well organized so there will be more that just the girls in the pics.

No problem man glad to help. Speaking of drying, just finished my drying box too, got it in my sig if you're interested.

Thanks jinn, saw your box on your journal before seeing your post here thanks for the project, plus reps to ya and that box is now on my to do list

 

[jinn]

Thanks man, glad you like it, hope you do a better job than i did!

 

[BlinKey]

***UPDATE*** Day 28 End of week 4

Well folks, another week has passed by and its time for an update. A rather large update as a bunch has gone on this week

This is the White Haze. Not much to really say about her as she is growing great with just about no problems.
She has gotten a total of 3 liters watering in the week. Her first watering was 1lt and that just seemed very little as there was absolutely no run off water. The second watering was 2lt and there was barely any run off, maybe 10-20cc. She has doubled in height and almost doubled in width within the week.

A couple of days ago I posted the first pistil that was not so easy to see. Here you can see the pistil much clearer.

As you can see from the color, tone and general look of the leaves this girl is as happy as can be. 90% of the leaves are in this condition

These leaves got to this condition the 4-5 hours I had lowered the lights in week 2 But then again overall the plant is in great shape.

This girl has just been problematic from seedling. Between the two strains this is the one that should grow faster, mature faster, flower faster etc. but just has had problem over problem. Thou this girl has almost doubled in height and done quite ok width. Anything can be wrong with this girl and I will get into detail at the pictures.

The next two pictures show new growth. As you can see new growth is just perfect but with such an overall POOR looking plant this just does not make me feel good as I am just about sure that new growth will be negatively affected soon.

This leaf is a great shot, just about 50% of the plant is like this. When you look at the picture three thing come to mind.
PH : well no ph is at 5.8, this is as efficient as it gets in coco.
Mg : The ph would have to be off for there to be Mg def.
Mn : There would have to be Mg def to have Mn def.
The ph I tested so I know is at 5.8. The nutes should not be locked out with ph being ok. Nutes are administered to both girls from the same container. I make a batch of water with nutes for both the girls, one gets half and the other gets half of the batch. to conclude she should have enough nutes as the other plant is thriving. As I said this plant has been a pain in the ..ss from the getgo.

We have un-symmetrical nodes forming. So we are well into Veg. This is nice news....

Jinn had a mishap in his tent and this was my wake up call. Thank you Jinn. I have been delaying the organization of this room for over a year. Finally, again thanks to jinn I made up my mind to get thing sorted out Saturday and I have Its not the best grow room every but it is MUCH LESS HAZARDOUS like this

If you look at the old pics you will see that I had one plant on the toilet cover and one on a pile of ceramic tiles. I dismantled a few things, bought thick ply with white lamination and cut it out to make a good platform for grows. Now I actually have enough space to have 4 to 5 plants at the same time.

The greenhouse on the right hand corner has two new seeds. same as the grow now (DWH and WH) that I will be treating with cs for seeds. I am wondering if I should make a whole new journal for those (Auto CS treatment journal) or if I should just include them here..

Under the board acts as my storage area. All my extras and other stuff are here.

I added a Humidifier to the grow room. It is programmed at 70% rh. Works pretty well as the rh has been between 68-71 range.

I have hung a rope and chains for future use. As the plants get larger I have sometimes had the need for additional equipment but could not access the points that I could hang them.

I had a small amount of light leaking out of the grow room and I did not like that, so I spray painted the inside of the exhaust fan and hose. Now there is no light leaking out of the room.

Temp as always is 79 in the room so I am happy

Well that about wraps up the update. I would greatly appreciate all input that you folks might have.. Thanks and

 

[jinn]

Amazing update man! Your room looks absolutely pro. I dig the under platform storage too, great way to make use of all your space. Bathrooms rock for grow rooms because they're already designed to withstand high humidity, and have easily cleanable surfaces.

If you get bored, and decide to replace those tiles with a little cabinet/cubby, you can store the nutes in there, and run a little seed/clone propagation bin where all that stuff is now. a T5 would put off just enough heat to keep them at ideal germing temps.


As for your plants, sometimes you'll see your girls eating at different rates, so it could be causing excess salts to accumulate and mess about with each other at each feeding. MY advice, would be to hold steady and continue to monitor the new growth. The problem may have been solved, and the older leaves are just maintaining their discoloration.
But if you start to see issues with the new growth, I recommend cutting the nute strength in half in the damaged plant and slowly scale up, to see where her ideal feeding is.
Because I've seen in quite a few grows here people having 5 of the same plant from seed, and having to feed at 3 different strengths.
- I could be completely wrong though, happens a bit =p

 

[BlinKey]

hey jinn thanks for the great compliments. I think I did the best I could in the room. there still is more that I could do, but just getting it organized has made me feel 100 times better.
I do want to get rid of the tiles but I have no place to put them. They are the tiles used in the house (backups), so I do need to keep them. Hopefully I will find a place for them in the future. The two bags of the left are white rocks that my wife paints on, those will diminish soon enough and I can use that area for the cubby. I have two 65000K 65w (real 65w) cfl's as backup in emergency and that would be great for the cabinet.

Their next water cycle is a flush I do hope that helps the situation, plus I had pulled the girl a few inches back away from the direct light so the light is not at a 180 vertical but more 140 degrees a bit more horizontal and she seems to like it better. So I will be mixing and matching water, nutes and light intensity with her. At this point she is my experimental girl I dont expect much from her anymore but I still have my fingers crossed

I have one more of the same strain started today so maybe that will also give me some idea to whats going on too.

 

[jinn]

I'd say its a good thing, learning now as opposed to later on. Besides, getting all that practice on your experimental plant will make you a pro when it comes time to diagnose/fix any other new strains you happen upon in your growing adventures!
(speaking of adventures, I just found a seed in my bubbler right as i lit up, shes got a bit of fire-burn on her bum, but i threw it in a ziplock bag to germinate just in case there's a free miracle lying about =p ill let you know if it lives) [the seed is blue ak-47 from my local dispensary]

 

[Soup 01]

That is a strange leaf problem, kind of interested to see what it turns out to be. If anything. Could easily pull back from that considering its still early days and all. Plus doesnt look awfull anyway . Liking the room like jinn said its looking nice and clean/organised.

 

[BlinKey]

I'd say its a good thing, learning now as opposed to later on. Besides, getting all that practice on your experimental plant will make you a pro when it comes time to diagnose/fix any other new strains you happen upon in your growing adventures!
(speaking of adventures, I just found a seed in my bubbler right as i lit up, shes got a bit of fire-burn on her bum, but i threw it in a ziplock bag to germinate just in case there's a free miracle lying about =p ill let you know if it lives) [the seed is blue ak-47 from my local dispensary]

Well I have my hopes down on that girl, so if it does anything it will just be hitting the lottery for me
You never know, there might be. A friend starts his germination with almost boiling water (boils the water, puts it in a plate waits 10 minutes) and throws seeds in there and starts watching them very closely. In about 10 minutes or so the seed starts to swell and crack. the moment it cracks he takes it out of the water and plants. Funny enough he has got this to such a science that from seed to sprout is less than 24 hours. I would never try this as my supply of seed is not abundant at all, but if cannabis seeds can take 85-90C water for 10-15 minutes I bet your seed will germinate
Also reading/hearing "local dispensary" just tickles me to death A man can dream. The cost of any seed to me is the cost of the seed plus round trip plane tickets out of the country plus hotel expenses and such. So any seed even a burnt bum is just awesome

That is a strange leaf problem, kind of interested to see what it turns out to be. If anything. Could easily pull back from that considering its still early days and all. Plus doesnt look awfull anyway . Liking the room like jinn said its looking nice and clean/organised.

This girl has just made life miserable for herself But it is funny that it actually likes the shade LOL. I pulled her away from direct light and she is not getting worse and the leaves that were not too bad are getting back some color
Thanks about the room, its the best I could do for now but I do have a couple of other things that I want to add also.

I have the fan on the right side wall oscillating but pushing air down and I really don't like that. I would rather have a fan blowing from below and because of the changes I now have room to put a fan on the board. Just ordered one and it should arrive in a day. Best thing about this country is shipping, there is only one choice "overnight" and the prices are ridiculous low

 

[jinn]

While cheap overnight shipping does have me slightly envious, Since I live in Los Angeles, I get my amazon packages delivered on sunday.
POST ON SUNDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!