Miseria's First Grow Soil - Combo/T5 Veg - LED/HPS Flower

[Miseria]

Hey guys, as the title indicates this is my first grow. I've been at it for a few weeks now and have posted several questions to the FAQ board so I figured this would be a good way for me to have a running dialogue that may save me on some spam posts and also help future noobs

I currently have 8 ladies sitting in veg. Started from clones from a friend. He has told me the name of the strain 500 times and I always forget. Its a Haze...I think...ugh I'll update when I bug him again. Looks very Sativa to me. My goal is to do a perpetual grow so I'll take the 6 strongest plants and put them in flower when the time comes. I plan on doing a scrog.

Currently in week 3 of Veg under 8 4' HO T5s
Medium: Soil - Fox Farm Ocean Floor (used Mykos). Currently in 3 Gal Smart Pots.
Lights: T5s for Veg. 1x500w Blackstar LED 1x405W Blackstar Chrome, and 1x1000w Lumatek digital HPS for flower. The 1kw is using a cool tube and relector and has a 6" fan dedicate to keeping it cool
Room: 4x8x7 for flower with 400cfm fan and Phresh Filter. 4x4x7 for Veg with a 6" fan venting into flower room. This is in my basement with ambient temps between 60 and 70 deg F. I'm in the Denver area so typically pretty dry.

Pests: no bugs, noticed some white mold yesterday on the soil....I think I let my RH get too high. Sprinkled cinnamon on a couple to test it out (soil not plants ).

Here are some headshots:

This is a close up of my current MOLD issue, though from what I've read it might not be an issue. I've increased airflow and stopped watering till it sorts out.

I took a couple shots of the flower room (no plants yet) with one LED on but they came out iffy...will update later.

 

[Miseria]

Annnd I apologize for the couple sideways pics...won't do that again

 

[CO Finest]

Looks like it time to stop water and turn fans on them to dry out. One tbs baking soda too one gallon of water and spray when dry.

 

[budnoob2]

Nice looking plants, looking forward to seeing this journal progress.

PM

 

[SweetLeef]

I'm along for the ride! Should be a fun journal!

 

[Miseria]

Looks like it time to stop water and turn fans on them to dry out. One tbs baking soda too one gallon of water and spray when dry.

Last watered on Friday, so they're starting to dry out. I'll try the baking soda once they dry out. I wonder if I'm watering too much when at each watering. Doing about 3/4 gal per plant. That or maybe I need some better drainage, the plants are really packed in that plastic tray.

 

[Miseria]

Welcome all!

So I made a fairly funny, and irritating noob mistake last night. I have my veg room venting into the (currently unused) flower room. I have my filter and 6" inline fan in the flower room and then venting to the basement (near a window I can open if I want the air to go outside). Things were starting to get pretty skunky so I figured it was time to hook up the fan/filter. So I finished sealing the flower room with Panda Film and turned the fan on.

Then proceeded to rip about 1/3 of my Panda film off the staples due to the fan being too strong and too much negative pressure. OOOOPPS. I hooked up a fan controller and now run it at 50% power and seems to be much better

 

[Miseria]

Quick update - after watching many vids on the old Tube of You I did my first round of topping tonight. I mainly stuck to the four largest ladies. I topped the top two nodes on 3 of the plants and tried fimming 1 plant so I can keep track of the difference. I also pruned up some single blades and leafs hanging close to the soil. I read leaves by soil are more prone to disease/pests is that correct?

On the slower growing plants I only topped the first node and cleaned up a bit of the under growth to try to give em a boost.

Also rearranged the ladies in the plastic bin I have them in. Put all the smaller ones on the left so I can lower the light more on that side. We'll see how it works - I'm getting a pretty large height discrepancy.

 

[Miseria]

So I let the soil dry out for a week and then re-watered (using less water this time so not near as much run off) and didn't see the white mold come back.

2 days after topping for the first time and I'm getting good results already. I did notice one leaf today that looks a bit suspicious.

It looked like it could be pests of some kind to me so I removed the leaf. Is this the dreaded spider mites? I'm spraying with neem 1-2 times a week. This is the plant in question...most of it looks great to me.

 

[CO Finest]

I think you are on the right track spraying to be on the safe side. Other then that your pants look awesome. One thing to look at is around the bottom of your plants looking for growth that is touching the soil. Now your plant is big enough you might want to trim lower growth if it is on the soil. I can not really see with the pic but just some info.

 

[Miseria]

I think you are on the right track spraying to be on the safe side. Other then that your pants look awesome. One thing to look at is around the bottom of your plants looking for growth that is touching the soil. Now your plant is big enough you might want to trim lower growth if it is on the soil. I can not really see with the pic but just some info.

Thanks Co Finest

Here is a pic of how I'm my larger plants (4 of them are significantly larger than the other 4) look at the soil level. I'm trying to keep the low leaves pruned, but youi can see the middle around the stem is still a bit off a mess. I think she hasn't totally sorted herself out of coming from flowering to a being a clone

What would you suggest on this one? This is my smallest lady. She's bushing out a bit now but has a lot of growth VERY close to the soil...would you take that off?

 

[CO Finest]

I would take off any small little growth by the stump that close to soil. That one is small and bushy. Nice plant. Your plant looks good from them pic.

 

[SweetLeef]

Spider mites aren't too bad, especially if you catch them early.

Alternate the neem oil with another spider mite killer. Ultimate Wash (used to be Mighty Wash) is pretty good, and I have heard good things about the SNS stuff too!

Get yourself a jewelers loope or a usb microscope, and search your plant, especially the underside of the leaves as that is where they tend to hang out. If you have a green light so you can see during lights out look then otherwise try to look right when the lights come on.

That's what I think I know about that

Plants look great! Keep it up bud!

 

[Miseria]

Update for today - I'm pretty sure I've identified the minor pest issue as thrips (with help from the pest forum ) I can't actually find any bugs, even with a magnifier so I'm pretty sure I must have killed them with neem before I noticed the damage. I bought some Capt Jacks Bug Juice in case they spring up but for now I think I'll just take a monitoring approach.

I did a bit more LST today since some of the plants were getting tall and I don't want to move the lights too far from the straglers. I also added two bottles of DIY CO2

And just for fun - this is my grow area in a panoramic shot:
On the left is a 8x4 flower area with a nice window for exhaust. The middle is 4x4 veg and the table on the right is for clones/working.

 

[SweetLeef]

Cool setup! I cant wait to not live in an apartment someday so I can have a flower and veg room and go perpetual!!!!

 

[budnoob2]

Awesome setup, and the plants are looking good. Glad you nipped the bug issue in the bud

 

[Miseria]

Awesome setup, and the plants are looking good. Glad you nipped the bug issue in the bud

Thanks man! Me to, I sooo didn't want to deal with an infestation my first time out.


Update for this morning: Watered the girls and checked the run off. Run off PH seems a bit acidic to me - around 5.2. I've read that run off readings with ffof can be wrong so want to do some more research before I mess with adding anything. A couple lower leaves do have a rust spot or two so it is something I'll keep an eye on.

 

[Miseria]

My friend got back in town today so I was able to confirm the strain. It's FLO 60% Sativa 40% Indica. Supposedly grows in a way that allows for a second harvest or something like that. Sounds confusing....I think I'll keep it simple and go for one harvest.

I also confirmed that these clones were made from flowering plants so that explains the large amount of shoots.

 

[Miseria]

Howdy all - been a week or since my last update so I figured I'd post some pics to show the ladies progress. I didn't think I had great growth but comparing the pics below to what I posted 8 days or so ago it seems pretty decent!

Only change since last update is I added a half inch or so more soil (ffof) just to give some more food. I read that ffof has nutes that last 4-6 weeks so just wanted to make sure they weren't hungry. I need to figure out what nutes to start adding and when. I went and asked the dude at the grow shop but he sorta just said vaguely said it depends.

So here we are - update at week 6 of veg. Looks like some really nice tops starting (I did top all of them two times in one session)

 

[SweetLeef]

Looking great, my man!

Plants look super stoked to be in your grow room

I don't really know too much about nutes. For my hydro girls I am using maxibloom powder all the way through. I would check out Cultivator and see what he uses. He's a truly amazing grower, and very generous with his knowledge. check out this page. Cultivators 7200w Build And Grow Perpetual Another grower posts his proposed nute schedule and Cultivator suggests where he would do it different. He's a very good resource. Hope it's helpful!