Otto Gelato’s First Grow: Gelato, Granddaddy Black, Blueberry & Northern Lights 19/20

[Otto Gelato]

Hey All,

A couple of folks told me I should start a journal. So here goes:

This is my first attempt at growing. I am a legal personal use medical grower. I am 3 weeks into flower right now, but I’ll try to recap some highlights for background.

My setup is:

8x8 grow tent
1 Aglex Blurple/Cree COB LED (410w)
3 HollandStar cheap COB LED (250-300w ea)
1 Mars Hydro TSW 2000
1 630w CMH
Coco/Perlite 70/30 in 5 gallon final fabric pots
RTW Auto Fertigation 4x daily for 20% runoff
24/0 veg, 12/12 flower.

Germinated 16 feminized seeds. 7x Gelato (6 popped) 7x GDB (all popped) and 1 each of NL and Blueberry (free seeds, both popped)

I’m going to go back and try to use photos to recreate up until now. Hopefully it will be of interest.

 

[Otto Gelato]

We originally set up in a 10x5 tent that ended up collapsing after about 2 weeks, under the weight of an 8” in-line fan and carbon filter.

 

[Otto Gelato]

During the seedling stage everything was grown first in peat pots, then in 1 gallon fabric pots, until final transplant. I hand watered using AN Sensi CoCo A/B.

 

[Otto Gelato]

About 3wks into veg I transplanted to 5gallon pots and added the watering system.

 

[Otto Gelato]

A few days after that catastrophe struck...the tent collapsed! I came dow to find my babies getting burned by direct contact with COBs, water and electricity way too close, and some battered plants.

Luckily the local growstore had an 8x8 with much sturdier poles.

 

[Otto Gelato]

Added the cheap HollandStar lights when we switched to final pots. The Mars Hydro came a couple of weeks after that and the CMH went in when we flipped to flower in the first week of Dec.

 

[Otto Gelato]

Once the new tent was set up the vegging plants took off and “grew like weeds.”

 

[Otto Gelato]

Late in veg started to see a combination of symptoms all hit at the same time. Trial and error showed it to be PH causing other issues. Once I adjusted down to 5.8-6.0 all was well.

 

[Otto Gelato]

Once the PH was under control, the tent filled nicely. These are the girls on their last day of 24/0.

 

[Otto Gelato]

The first 3wks of flower we switched to AN CoCo Connoisseur Bloom. Turns out the Connoisseur line is more “PH perfect” than the Sensi. I usually don’t have to adjust it.

 

[Otto Gelato]

Which brings us to today. Cleared out the undergrowth on Boxing Day, looks like we have a few flowers.

 

[GHempster]

Every grow seems to come with different ups and downs. This is first time ( new ) I ran across collapsed tent. That must have sunk your heart to see.

But the result as of now has to put a smile on your face.

Great work

 

[Otto Gelato]

Every grow seems to come with different ups and downs. This is first time ( new ) I ran across collapsed tent. That must have sunk your heart to see.

But the result as of now has to put a smile on your face.

Great work

It did nearly cause me to have a stroke, but you quickly fly into crisis mode and adrenaline takes over. I think they were in the new tent within 12 hours. The only real damage (apart from the toasted tent) was that a couple of plants got burned on their tops. So I just fimmed them and they’re really nice plants now!

But yeah, I’m pretty happy with the results so far. I just don’t want to pat myself on the back too hard until harvest. Lol. Lot’s can go wrong between now and then.

 

[GHempster]

Not now you have a $#*! ton of experienced growers on your side keeping an eye on everything.

Post regularly and someone will see something. There are some here that will dissect the pics that you post, they zoom right in to inspect the plant. So when taking pics keep this in mind, if you take whole plant pics than closer ones and multiple angles it will give them more to inspect and you will get more detailed results back from them also.

I will call the big guns in if they don't automatically show up.

Happy growing

 

[Backlipslide]

sorry to hear about your mishap!!

 

[Otto Gelato]

sorry to hear about your mishap!!

No worries. It all worked out in the end.

 

[Otto Gelato]

I added Bio2 CO2 enhancer to the tent tonight. It’s basically a 5gallon bucket, sugar and yeast. It ferments in the grow space, creating CO2 that gets spread around by my oscillating fan.

Curious to hear if others are using CO2 and whether anybody has used this product.

 

[Otto Gelato]

Happy New Year! What a great way to wake up to the New Year!

 

[Otto Gelato]

One of my Gelato went crazy during stretch. It’s top kola was about to grow into my CMH, so I used an extra webbing strap to pull the whole stem over. Now it’s still at the height of the light but about eight-ten inches over from the end of it. My question is whether this is enough or do I need to bend the plant further?

 

[Backlipslide]

Super cropping is your answer sir.