SmokeyMcFly's First Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush - Haze - BlueBerry - LED Mars II

[SmokeyMcFly]

Strains:
I would like to grow out one each of these on this grow however the final pick is dependent on how they look at the beginning of flowering
Kandy Kush Auto
Haze Auto
Blueberry Auto

I have these beans to choose from for this grow:
2x White Widow Auto - Feminized
2x Auto Blueberry - Feminized
2x Auto Jack Herer - Feminized
2x Auto Haze - Feminized
2x Auto Kush - Feminized
5x Candy Kush Automatic - Feminized

Since I can have up to 7 plants total as long as there not flowering I think I am going to start germ these and then pick the three best looking plants to finish (I can only have three plants showing mature flowers at a time).
2 Blueberry
1 Haze
1 Jack
1 WW
2 Candy Kush

I will also be starting a search for a non auto mom while these Autos are flowering. It will either be Azure Haze from DJ Short or TGAs Space Dawg. I only have plant limits to mess around trying to find a mom with 1 non fem strain and its down to these two at this point. I am thinking of going with the Space Dawg since I can get a fem Blue Dream that is very similar to the Azure but I don't know of anything I can get thats close to the Space Dawg. I want three moms eventually so I am thinking of a Critical Kush or Strawberry Cough for the other along with the blue dream and space dawg. I need strains that have good muscle relaxation / anti inflammatory and pain killing properties, I have a jacked up neck (triple fusion that should of been a quad) so I need pretty strong meds to keep it under control. Have been on oxycodone and oxymorphone along with muscle relaxers for years now Any advice on these strains is greatly welcome. I have been going crazy trying to find the right seeds for my moms and our plant limits make it difficult or impossible to go with something that requires growing lots of plants to find one keeper so I need strains that have a good odds.

Current Stage of growth:
Getting ready to start germinating the beans this week, hopefully tomorrow according to the tracking

Lights
MarsII LED 140x5watt Full Spectrum. Going to use throughout entire life cycle of the Autos. Will start out at 24/0 for first two weeks. Then 20/4 until they flip, then 18/6 for the rest of flowering.

This showed up today and I am very impressed with the quality of the light and the amount of light produced by it. I think all the leds were light but I couldn't look at it long enough to be sure lol. For the money I don't think you can beat these, Great job TopLED & Sara!

Environment:
This will be in a tent in a spare bedroom so the room will stay a steady ~70 degrees all year long. I live in the desert so humidity is usually very very low here.

Indoor - Tent
Gorilla Grow Tent (Still need to order but haven't decided on the size yet) I am thinking 4x4 or 5x5. I want to be able to have 3 plants at the end of bloom along with 3 just starting bloom without being too cramped. I will probably be ok with 2 x 2 plants worth of yield actually but I want my gear to at least be able to support my legal plant limits. Any advise? There isn't much price difference so I am thinking of going with the 5x5, the 3x3 is a good bit cheaper but I think it will be to cramped but maybe not. I am planing on going with Gorilla just because they seem the best built and I am hoping I can get a good long life out of it to make it worth the cost. Any one have experience with them, do they last long enough to make it worth the extra money? I have no problem paying more for quality if its gonna last but don't want to throw good money away if there not better / last longer than the others.

Grow Medium:
Pro-Mix HP, My next grow will be with Doc Buds High Brix Kit so I plan on growing these autos in normal pro-mix HP. Is there anything I should add to this or is it ok as is? I am trying to stay away from anything that will need to cook more than about a week, if I had time to wait I would just be doing these high brix.

Pots:
7 Gal equiv Air pots hold ~5gal

The beans will be germed and then put directly in the Air pots where they will live the rest of there life to avoid replanting stress.

Fertilizers:
Advanced Nutrients:
Connoisseur
Big Bud
B-52
Overdrive
Bud Candy

I have these around from my last grow I did a while back. Not sure how much / many of these I will need for autos. I plan on starting at 1/4 strength on these and upping slowly if / as they can take it. I might not use all of them either. Any one have any advice on how much or which of these to use and when? I know the normal schedule but Autos are goofy...

Next grow will be all Doc Buds High Brix. I will post my setup work for that in here as it will be going on the same time as this grow is.

Experience:
I have a few normal grows under my belt but this will be my first time growing Autos and will be my first time using LED lighting. It's been almost two years now since I have grown anything so i'm a bit rusty and certainly not an expert. I started this journal early before even germing a bean in hopes that if I was going to mess something up you all would have time to stop me so please if you see me doing something wrong or could be doing better let me know, I promise I wont take offense. I appreciate all that I have learned on here so much and cant wait to get this started!

I promise to get pics up as soon as I have something interesting enough to take a pic of

Thanks Everyone!


Disclaimer - I am a legal medical marijuana patient and this grow follows all state and local laws.

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

Here is a link to my water results. Is there anything that looks like its gonna be a problem? We have a water softener at our house and without it the water does seem to be a little hard. Its the kind that you have to keep putting salt in every so often. Is that salt going into the water a problem? Trying to figure out if my tap water is ok, once the chlorine is evaporated of course or if I will need a filter.

Water Report Linky

Thanks

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

Damn I guess you can't edit posts on here after a certain amount of time. If any mods see this could you please delete posts 2,3,4 since I wont be able to go back and add the photos to it. The seeds showed up today. I think there is gonna be a slight change in the lineup. I got a free AK49 from Vision that I am gonna try instead of the Haze. The Haze is from a company that I have not been able to find out much info on so I don't wanna mess with it. Here is what they look like.

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

So I ran out and grabbed some rockwool cubes a tray and a heating mat along with some bottled spring water since I didn't have any tap water out and ready. When I was trying to recalibrate my ph tester I dropped it into the solution bottle. Hopefully once it dries out it will be ok again but right now its fried. Do I need to worry about the PH of the spring water to germ or is it ok? I assume its fine but don't want to kill all my beans.

Thanks

All setup and ready for the beans.

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

So i did some searching and everyone is saying to drop the ph to 5.5 and then soak the rockwool in that. I ran back across the street and grabbed a cheap ph probe and the water was close to 7 so I dropped it down with ph down and the new cubes are soaking now. Im gonna put the seeds in later tonight once its up to temp and ready for them.

 

[Dresney]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

Hi, SmokeyMcFly

Welcome to and journaling!

Great first journal post - concise and informative.

I'm not too sure about the water softener question. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will come along and enlighten us. I'm curious about that too, as we have a water softener, but haven't been using it. I use plain old tap water on my plants (after letting the chlorine evaporate), and I know our water is a little hard (it discolors the tub around the drain).

I'll be following along with your journal.

Happy growing!

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

Hey Dresney Thanks for stoping by. Glad to have someone to share this stuff with

I picked up a couple more things for this today. A few bags of Fox Farm Ocean and some 7 gal equivalent air pots. I plan on putting the Fox Farm lower in the pots and using the pro mix on the top and right around where the seedlings will get planted. I don't want to stunt the babies with the hotter soil right away. I have seen other grow journals where people planted right into FFOF and had problems.

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

So I ended up starting these seeds last night. Hopefully I get at least one of each type to germ although I will only be able to finish 3 of them through flowering. I really want one candy kush and one blueberry and not sure which of the other two would be better for me. Anyone out there with experience growing any of these strains feel free to chime in and let me know how they worked out for you

3 x Candy Kush by Auto
2 x White Widow by Vision
2 x Blueberry by G13 Labs
1 x AK49 by Vision

I think I finally settled on the strain for my first mother attempt. Gonna go with Plush Berry from TGA Subcool. It has 3 or 4 types but they all sound fantastic. Since I will only be able to grow out 4 of them up to flower and then 3 in flower I need something that has good types so I can get at least something worthwhile to get going. I have been going back and forth over this querkle and space dawg but the berry is sounding like a major winner.

 

[Tibs]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

I have a 900 watt mars II and 2 180watt ufo in a 5x5 and side lighting isnt that good, a 4x4 would be better for my 900 watt mars II.

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

I have a 900 watt mars II and 2 180watt ufo in a 5x5 and side lighting isnt that good, a 4x4 would be better for my 900 watt mars II.

Thanks for stoping by and the input. I agree the light I have is not going to be enough to fill out a 4x4 or 5x5 properly. When I bought it I was planing on going with a 3x3 tent only. The most I will ever have in it at once is 3 mature plants just finishing up with 3 plants just entering for their first two weeks of flower. Depending on what light I end up going with in my veg room they might not want full light the very first two weeks of flower either and after that the others would get harvested so the new ones could move right under the light.

I am still trying to figure out what to do long term on my lights and tents. I wish I would of got the 900w model instead already though. If I end up going with the a 4x4 or 5x5 I will most likely end up needing to add one more of the 700s or 900 even in my flowering tent and then get the 96x3w reflector series for my veg tent.

I think the 700 should be ok to get me through this 3 plant autoflower grow. How many plants do you have in your room and how full is it if you don't mind me asking?

It would be awesome if I could get away with a 3x3 tent for flowering. I could even keep it to three plants at a time I guess if I couldn't fit all 6. I was just trying to trim as much time off of each harvest as possible due to our restrictive amount limits. Im not sure a couple weeks each cycle is really worth it if its going to require a bigger tent especially if that will then require additional lighting.

I will most likely start with a 3x3 and my 700 watt and use that for this autoflower grow. If I think its big enough to fit all 6 or I decide to not bother with the overlap I will keep it as the flower tent and pick up a tent and the reflector series light for my veg. If its not big enough I can just get the bigger tent and light at that point and make the 3x3 my veg tent. I think BID had good result vegging with the 80x5 marsII as well so I could either use it in my veg tent or pair it up with another one for flowering.

 

[Tibs]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

I have 3 about to be chopped 3 1 month in and 6 starting there first week of 12/12 all but 2 are 5 gallon fabric pot or #5 plastic pots.
all plants topped and slightly lst'd medium sized plants it's cramped for another week.
I think 4 of the 80x5 mars II would be best. but I got my 900 for $400 and already had the 2 ufo

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

Thanks

Thats the thing. I think the 3x3 will work for me but maybe be to tight to do exactly what I want to do but it would work and my light would fit it best. The 4x4 would fit my needs best I think but its about 75 bucks more than the 3x3 and my light is a little small for it. The 5x5 is only 35 bucks more than the 4x4 though so I feel like if I am going to get the 4x4 that I need to get the 5x5 just because of the way they have them priced. Then my light is even more undersized. Uggggg

 

[Perfect Sun LED]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

I wouldn't worry about the light being oversized for the tent. You will want room to work with. Besides, LED lights don't have much penetration, so it's not like you will get much light from reflecting on the edges of the tent, even in a 3x3. In fact, even with a 600w hps, in a 3x3 tent, the amount of light reflected off the side walls isn't much. As you can see in my room, I don't even use reflective anything.

There is just open space all around my plants.

I used to grow in tents to get the side reflection until I started taking measurements of the bounce light. It is like maybe 3,000 lux if you are lucky, and that is with a 600w hps, which has way more penetration than any LED.

You could always supplement the outside buds with cfls, just the 60w ones. Put two in a v splitter, and place that close to the bud. Works great.

Pre-soaking rockwool is good, but I only soak it in 5.8, personally, just in case my meter is a bit off. I don't want them to be lower than 5.5. Say my meter reads a bit high, and I soak it at 5.5, but really it is 5.3 or 5.4. That would suck. Besides, I found 5.8 to work great.

Also, I have several times used just bottled water for my seeds and clones, no ph down at all, just drinking water right out of the bottle and never had any issues. Once they get a few inches tall, then I started to use ph water, in coco about 6.0

Keep in mind that soil usually always has ph buffers in it, so it will correct itself. Also, every so often, check the runoff water, just to be sure it isn't too different in ph from what you put in. If your meter says the water you put in is 6.0 and the runoff is 5.3, there is a big issue. You then need to just use regular water, no ph for a while to bring the ph of the soil or coco back up.

Salt build up is often responsible for a low ph runoff. So just flush well with florakleen if that happens.

When autos tend to like lots of NPK, but higher PK is around day 60. The buds just take off at that point. The plants then suck up lots of nutes.

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

Thanks for the input LEDRF. I totally agree trying to pack plants in to get every last bit out of a light is more pain then it is worth in the end if it can be avoided at all. Now you have me thinking I might just pick up a cheapy 4x4 for now. I plan on buying a house within the next 6 months so I prolly will just be using an empty bedroom like you are and not need a tent after that. I do like the idea of a little bit extra stealth and env control a tent can provide but not sure its really worth it once i'm not renting anymore. For now I NEED at least a cheap tent until I can move since I am still renting and its going in a carpeted bedroom lol.

My old setup had to be super stealth. Ended up building an entire storage room inside of my garage and then a false wall inside that room to a hidden room. I had a 4x4 space that i ran 4 plants in with a 1k hps on one side of that hidden room and then a cabinet on the other side that had my moms and clones with a 200w t5 panel. I only had about 1' width of space to walk in there and it was a major major pain in the ass to do anything in the garden and getting to the back two was almost impossible. I don't want to be in that situation again

What I read about the rockwool was that it has something in it that effects the ph of the water so thats why they recommended dropping the ph to 5.5 to soak the cubes in. I doubt having the water slightly higher or lower wouldn't really have much of an effect since like you said the soil / cube is gonna buffer it anyway. I don't plan on paying much attention to my ph on this grow at all tbh. I will check it if I start having a problem we can't figure out but I wont be PHing the feed water. I am using Advanced nutes that have a safe ph as is and I never had a problem with ph in my past soil grows using it with FFOF. I don't go overboard with them either though. I would rather the plant get slightly not enough of something than to be getting to much of it.

My plan is to:
1 Making sure it gets good and dried out (not enough to damage or stunt obv) before each watering.
2 Not start ferting till at least week three and keep it very light pretty much let it show signs of needing it instead of just jamming it down its throat from the start.

This way if there is an actual problem it will be MUCH easier to diagnose. I see a lot of people over water and fert their babies. Then when stuff starts going bad its hard to tell whats really wrong and they end up thinking its a deficiency. Which to be fair it is but not one caused by not feeding it enough like most people think and then they feed it more or flush and so on lol.

Today was a good day. My Doc Buds High Brix kit showed up, my Plush Berry seeds shipped and my Airpots shipped

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

Wow so I just ground up a bud of OG kush from my dispensary and it tasted sweeter than I remember it tasting. So I open up the jar and take a big strong sniff of it too see if it still smells the same. Yup still smells the same, ahh my nose whats going on its BURNING. LOL my nose felt like it was on fire for over a minute. Has this happened to anyone before? I am kinda sick at the moment so that could be why it taste diff right now and maybe why it made my nose burn but I have never had that happen before. Of course its not very often that I stick my nose right in the jar and take that big of a wiff either but after that it will prolly be the last

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

I am going to use connoisseur for bloom base fert. Any recommendations what would be good to use for veg fert on the autos? I didn't keep what ever I was using to veg with before it was just something cheap so I didn't keep it around.

@LEDRF
Thanks for your help man I really appreciate it. I would really like to get as much off these as I can to hold me over till I can get my plush berrys finished up which is gonna be a while. Spending money at the dispensary kills me, they shouldn't be charging black market prices for legal meds what BS.

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

I got my first one starting to pop its head through the top of the rockwool I guess I better stop jerking around on the forums and figure out how to get some light ready to go on these ladies. Everything is still boxed up lol.

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

So I got kind of a lot done tonight. Went to lowes and got a couple bails of pro-mix hp, a couple CFLs, a medium smallish oscillating desk fan and a 32 gal trash can to cook the High Brix soil for the grow after these autos. I also hung up my LED in the closet for now. It will prolly stay there until I get my room cleared out better and a tent in there. The closet isn't very big but I think I have a month anyway to get everything sorted before they get to big / stinky / sticky to be having in my bare closet.

I shined a flash light down the holes of the other seeds in the rockwool and it looks like most of the seeds have at least cracked and a few are starting to work there way up. Since I never used rockwool before and there really wasn't anything above the seeds at all I took a little screw driver and carefully picked at bits of the rockwool right around the hole and covered them up a little better. Wanna make sure they actually root in and not just push out the top of the hole.

Right now I have two 2?w CFLs above them and will go with them for at least a few days to a week then I will move them under the LED. I have the fan setup to blow from the other side of the room and it cant hit them directly but should bounce enough air back on them to toughen them up.

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

 

[KingJohnC]

Re: SmokeyMcFly's first Auto Grow - Soil - Kandy Kush, Haze, BlueBerry - LED MarsII

Subscribed. Do not feed your plants water softened with a water softner, the sodium chloride and other negataive things in water softner pellets will severely damage your plants. I would feed your plants the tap water you have and pH adjust it. I would purchase the larger 5'x5' tent myself, your plans and size of plants you grow may change. You can always add another LED light panel if you need it in the larger tent. Your Pro-Mix HP is a peat moss and perlite with mycorrhizae based medium and is considered a soiless mixture.

here is the makeup of Pro-Mix HP:
Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss
(65-75% by volume)
Perlite - horticultural grade
Dolomitic and Calcitic limestone
(pH adjuster)

Wetting Agent
Mycorrhizae — endomycorrhizal innoculum
(Glomus intraradices)