Charon187 First Serious Grow Dec 09

[Charon187]

Ok kids here it goes!

This is my first serious grow the last three were half hearted. more of experiments really. anyway heres the specifics for you guys and girls.

10 clones
7 trainwreck
3 bubba kush

home box xxl 4x4x6 grow room
sun system 600 watt hps w sunsystem II 6" air cooled hood GroLux bulb
eurogrower 40 gal 8 bucket system w/ hydroton @ rockwool cubes for medium
gh nutrients (for now)
tower fan for now hood fan ordered

Initial readings
ph at 7.0
PPM @ 460
res temp @ 65
room temp @ 80

SO my girfriend picked up the clones lastnight in L.A. and what a sorry sight indeed they are. i feel more like we rescued them from the pound lol.

Heres the Trainwreck

Heres the Bubba kush

What a sad looking bunch of girls

well what do you want for $10 a pop? i love a challenge i just havent decided what to do with the two left over. im thinking of a soil grow next to my girlfriends two seedlings and doing them LST. or maybe keep em as mothers who knows? so here's the grow room pics.

the bottom right has already gone super shock and the leaves are all droopy but im not worried yet its only been an hour. the clones came in 1" rockwoll cubes that i placed in 4" rockwool cubes that had been rinsed out a few times. the cubes are sitting on 2" of hydroton and covered with a shallow layer again.

one concern of mine is that several of the clones came with a lot of green mold (moss?) on them i think from over watering. i have my watering timer set @ 4 15 min intervals at 6 am 12 pm 6 pm and 12am. maybey overkill i can only wait and see what happens.

This pic shows more of the grow room on the left you can see the two left over clones and the 4 pots containing the last of my Bhut Jolokia peppers that i have been trying to save for 6 months. above them are some flurs that i need light hangers to lower. on the right is just the power strips fan and ballast.

this last pic shows the light on. tommorow im gonna pick up some more light hangers and put a second 600 watt light in there. from that pic i think it shows that the 2 front and 2 back plants just arent going to get enough light. so after i take my girlfriend to see her oncologist its off to the hydro store again for the hangers!

Ill recheck all my readings tomorrow after noon when i get back home and see if the system has stabilized yet.

what i think is wrong with the girls with the yellowing is salt burn or nute burn and the ones that are curled to heck i think were over watered.
if anyone has thoughts advice or questions please let em fly!
ill take all the help i can get!

cheers!!!

 

[Charon187]

update temp was at 84 and 55% when i finaly got home fan was on low and fried one of the clones not planted that i had sitting in the middle no water
well see if it will make it.

waiting on the duct booster i ordered before i add the second 600 watt hps
as hot as it was today with only one i already had to raise the light as it mildly burned two of my center plants.

anyway im going to increase the mid day watering to 30 minutes to help keep it all wet. turned the fan on high like i should have and moved it to really hit the light and the plants at the same time.

ill check it out in a few hours and see how well my damage controll is working.

 

[Charon187]

wow looks like the fried clone will live after all minus quite a few leaves ill have to baby her. wick update all looks well temp is very high @89 and humidity i way down to 29%
ill do a more in depth update tonight

 

[slosmokin]

Looks fun!
Couple questions, did you say your PH is at 7.0, if so lower it. Also, is it possible to have the ballast outside the tent, it will help on your temp a bit, and of course running ducting for your light will help your temp dramatically.
Good luck, I will be watching!

 

[Charon187]

Hi slo,
yeah i know i need to. but now i need to order a new ph tester have to do that tonight.

anyway here's the more in depth update

here is the clone that i fried yesterday

here it is right now

All things considered not bad that it even stood back up let alone is alive lol

heres the other one i fried

now like i said these were not the best clones to begin with but dang i was dumb. i need to figure out what to do with them quick before i kill them on accident lol.

Lighting update!

not the best placement for the rear fan but it works for now.

now the reason i have the duct fan not connected to the outside is that out side that tent its 62 degrees i just wanted to bring down the tent temp and provide a little circulation thru one of the bottom vents.

its worked just how i wanted it for the most part. todays temps with (2) 600 watt hps was only 82 degrees down from yesterdays 84 i belive and that was just one light. also the humidity is down @ 39%

By the way, SLO as soon as i can move some stuff around outside of the grow room i will move the ballasts when it warms up but right now they and the lights are the only heaters i got lol.

so thats it for today any ideas i welcome them all!! thanks a bunch!

cheers!!!!!

 

[Charon187]

quick morning update humidity id down to 20 % so i need to go and get a humidifier i guess the extra fan just killed it

ill have more this eveing

84o grow room
20% humidity
res temp 71.4 degrees
ph ballpark is 7 with the liquid test waiting on new meter added some ph down
PPM is 541
outside room temp is 63o

lights are 18" off the tops of the plants
running (2) 600 watt hps


cheers!

 

[Charon187]

so ph was right back up this morning to 7 -7.5 range adjusted down.

think im going to change out res and use diff nutes.

this is frustrating

84 degrees
20 % humidity

 

[Charon187]

ok so tonight i flushed out the res and refilled it changed nutes to fox farm hydro. i also moved where i had my nute solution coming into the plants. i had it 3 inches away from the stem and moved it closed to one inch away from the stem.

so the new facts and figures are as such.

room temp 78
res temp 67
ph 6.5
ppm 1200
humidity 20%
lights are at 18 inches 18/6 cycle

watering times are 12 am 6 am 12 pm 6pm all at 15 minutes execpt noon is 30

there is some serious yellowing on a few of the trainwreck clones bottom leaves. for lack of a better discription its like the leaves changing in autum.

i hope this nute change will help stabilize the whole system.
i knew getting into these clones that they werent the best quality but dang.

just wondering if im running to much on my PPM. anyone have any ideas?

CHEERS!

 

[Charon187]

ok so seems like the new nutes helped. ph is a steady 6.5
ppm is 1150
res temp is 23.5 celcious
room temp is 84
humidity is still down at 20%
gonna try to get some video up in the next few days

cheers!

 

[Charon187]

looking decent today ph was back up to 7 ppm down to 951

room temp was up a little @ 86 and humidity was up a 27% ill get some new pics or video posted soon

 

[Tiger Balm]

Best of luck to your girlfriend. Re ppm - are you using half-strength nutes? Or even lower, perhaps, as they are young.

 

[Charon187]

Hi tiger! ummmm lol no..... i used 13 oz of foxfarm hydroponic grow big. that was per the bottles 2 teaspoons per gallon and i have my res at 40 gallons. just checked my ph again and after adjusting im at 6.4 (new meter came in the mail).

as far as the nutes that may very well explain why the clones arent doing so well. might need to water down the res more? i was thinking that my origional ppm was @ 1200 now at 951 so i figured that the clones were feeding. maybe im wrong? thanks very much in advance for your help!!!!

CHEERS!

 

[The Butcher]

Best of luck to your girlfriend. Re ppm - are you using half-strength nutes? Or even lower, perhaps, as they are young.

Great advice TIGER. This one s for you

I'm in on this grow. Love to see the trainwreck grow. Yeah I suggest starting you r nutes out at 1/4 strength. Then on your next change do half and each change up it til your at full. Then let it go til you are ready to flower. Like the set up and how your on point aboout what you need. I'll be posted and watching.

 

[The Butcher]

Oh and one more thing to add. those clones need humidity. I suggest either getting a dome or cut a 1 gallon bottle top off and use that as a dome . Spray the inside. Thats should pop those ladies back up.

 

[dahcwon]

Hey Charon187 you growroom gots all the good stuff light, hydro, and Fox Farm cant wait to see these plants get big. just maybe go light on the Fox Farm and everything should alright

 

[Tiger Balm]

Thanks, Butcher passes to Charon

 

[Charon187]

thanks guys for all the help!

here's todays update pics

the bubba kush is doing the best so far

here's the trainwreck

the third back on the right looks more like a mini palm tree lol

i added more water to try to mellow out the nutes

ok stats for today
ph 6.1
ppm right at 1000 (WTH?) thats up from yesterday.
res temp 68 degrees
room temp 86
27 %humidity
outside room temp 60

gotta find a humidifier chingadera today or tomorrow see how work stuff goes

thank you guys again for the help your swinging by my way. this is a lot different than growing peppers im starting to learn lol.

cheers!

 

[therootsofpositivity]

Hey Charon187. Grow is looken good. I agree with the others that you might be running a bit hot with the nutrients. My girls didn't like 600ppm and I had to drop my ppm to 400 for now. I also wondering you said you have them in four inch rockwool cubes under the hydroton? If so I worry this could be a problem in the future with them staying to wet and the hydroton staying to dry. Well looken forward to seeing this grow unfold. Will be watching.

Peace.

RW

 

[Charon187]

Hey Charon187. Grow is looken good. I agree with the others that you might be running a bit hot with the nutrients. My girls didn't like 600ppm and I had to drop my ppm to 400 for now. I also wondering you said you have them in four inch rockwool cubes under the hydroton? If so I worry this could be a problem in the future with them staying to wet and the hydroton staying to dry. Well looken forward to seeing this grow unfold. Will be watching.

Peace.

RW

hi root thanks for stopping by!

about the rockwool,
the clones i got came in 1 " rockwool cubes so i bought the 4" cubes that the plugs go into.

i searched all over about the easyest cleanest media to use with the eurogrower. it seemed to me that having 2 inches of hydroton in the bottom of the bucket with the rockwool cube sitting on top then covered with more hydroton was the the way to go.

my reasoning is that the siphon on the buckets is 1 1/2 inches up from the bottom so i have a half inch of hydroton seperating the cubes from standing water. i figure that the cubes will drain enough to not cause root rot and the hydroton on top is a 1/2 thick to help make sure the rockwool doesnt dry out completely.

i was also figuring on that combo being the easyest to controll ph wise.
i have spoken with people who used just hydroton and the said the had to water more frequently and for longer periods of time. i dunno.

the only other time i used just hydroton was in a DWC system. so i really dont know just playing it by ear.

other than that i bought a humidifier after work tonight and hooked it up cant wait to see what i find in the morning!

oh by the way pass to tiger

 

[Charon187]

on all your guys advice i drained most of my res and refilled now at 1/3 nutes

ph 6.8
ppm 735
res temp 68%
humidity 36%
room temp 84
outside room temp 50

later tonight im going to post pics of my diy cloner

cheers!