Step's 2nd Journal - Cheese Fem Auto

[steppedinds]

Everything is up and mounted. Chain is already setup for when the Mars II gets here tomorrow. All 3 are on seperate chains and are adjustable. I may also move the cob leds a little closer to the edge; i think they are too close to the middle as of right now. Also, got some new toys in the mail. I'll start hooking it up tonight, but I'm realizing now that I am drawing too much power...lights didn't come on this morning with the extra leds still plugged in. Either going to have to swap to a larger breaker or add another....Plants are doing great, will do an update later tonight.

 

[steppedinds]

*Update 2/4 - Day 22 * All going well. Started all other plants 1 day after the first three and extended the first nute schedule to today so now i can have them all on same schedule. Tomorrow I will increase nute strength.

Cheese 1- still oddly shaped with alot of distance between nodes. She had been falling over, but hopefully she has strengthened up now that nutes have increased. Also hoping she will fill out once i LST her
Cheese 2- My biggest girl. Going to start ponytailing soon.
Cheese 3- 2nd largest

Cheese 4- looking much better. gave her a few days of water and once I saw the healthy growth in the middle I decided to give her nutes with the rest

Cheese 5- greatly excited! looking like this girl is going to make it after all
Lemon Skunk -

 

[steppedinds]

Decided to get rid of the pull ties and bent some wire to make steaks.
Cheese 1 -

Cheese 2 -

Cheese 3 -

Cheese 4 -

Lemon Skunk -

 

[fopho]

Subbed, ill try to keep up but Im subbed to many. It gets hard to keep up with

 

[fopho]

Subbed, ill try to keep up but Im subbed to many. It gets hard to keep up with

See Im already subbed to this thread, and this makes twice haha. Hard to keep track

 

[steppedinds]

See Im already subbed to this thread, and this makes twice haha. Hard to keep track

hahaha. great stuff. there's for sure a bunch of good stuff goin on right now. preciate the sub and hope you enjoy the ride

 

[steppedinds]

IT'S HERE! and man, is it alot bigger than i imagined. couldn't wait to get home from work today

 

[steppedinds]

another pic of Cheese 2. lower branches are growing rapidly. What do you think Atrain? Wait a few more days before ponytailing? Also, do I polytail each branch or just all the top fan leaves? plant is only a few inches tall so its hard to keep tucking the fan leaves.

 

[steppedinds]

got lights all hung. i have an analog light meter, no par meter yet, but it looked like at the highest hanging point to the top of the bucket (35")(with 5-6" or so above for ventilation) light was over 500k lux. this measurement was even across my arm-reachable distance, so 3ft radius or so. as close as a few inches it went up to 1200k. the 3 stacked cob leds produce about twice as much light within the first 6 inches, but in a much narrower space. the small gaps in between the triangle of bulbs were not overlapping yet. They do not have the dept of the Mars II either, because at about 20" they were only producing 200k. I will play with their placement over the next week before I move the plants up top to try to even out the canopy the best I can without a par meter. I am really interested in Mars-Hydro's cob series now, more compact chips would have a great coverage area with superior lighting per watts. I do not know anything about the wavelengths portion of the quality, but what I do know is that they produce more light per watt. I guess what scared me off of the pro series was that the Mars II was already tested and proven and these cob lights that i purchased used the same epistar chips but less $/watt (though i now know more packed lighting is more important and i'm sure mars-hydro had a better ratio of different chips.) The cob lights were also less watts than the Mars ii, but a higher cost, though I am almost 100% sure that you get more light per watts out of those cob lights compared to the generics that i have.

Still working on hanging/installing the exhaust...the building is actually really old and the closet is lined with 6x6" studs, so I have to get a super huge hole saw to get it done. only work 3 hours tomorrow so I may try to get as much done tomorrow as I can. when i finish installing everything up top i'll give an update

 

[steppedinds]

*Update 2/10 - Day 28* - I've started pony-tailing cheese 2 and 3. Ran for 6 hours yesterday around mid day of light cycle; going to repeat tomorrow. Also have been tucking fan leaves under the branches as best I could. I think I forgot to re-tuck them last night when I pulled off the pony-tails (just noticing it in these pics), so I'll tuck those back under after this update. Increasing nutes tonight and probably moving everything up top tonight after the lights go off, or if i go to sleep early i'll do it first thing in the morning.
Really wish i would find something that had some sort of ridges or briers to keep the steaks down in this moist soil. I could make them longer and push them in the ground deeper, but the wire I bought is not shielded. This would leech the copper into the soil faster than it already is. Obviously some kind of hard plastic would be best for this.

Cheese 1 - Not doing so well. Looks like when I was LSTing her I accidentally broke the top off. I was reaching to the back of the closet, should have not been so lazy and brought them all out. I have not removed the top in this picture but I did immediately after because of the damage (that is not show).

Cheese 2 - Looking great. Alot of lower branches are forming, and getting hard to keep the head pinned down. I'll probably remove the steaks soon.

Cheese 3- Also looking good. She's a little taller because I just can't get the steak to stay in the ground.

Cheese 4 - One of the later planted/sprouted. Looking better, maybe a little slower growth than the first 3 but still doing well.

Cheese 5 - Ah yes. The little engine that could. She is tugging along. So proud of my little girl.

Lemon Skunk - Sprouted last, 2-3 days after C4. Looking good. Going to have to train her more to the middle, but that may work to some sort of advantage since I can stretch the initial main stem further across the entire pot.


I'll finish setting the lights back up, after just finishing the exhaust, and do an update on that in a few. Didn't do alot of before/after photos. Figured there is plenty of that on the net and seeing the end result is pretty self explanatory.

 

[Sparafucile00]

Dude, I love my Mars II Hydro 400 this far alone, I can only image what your gonna see from your 1200. Thought about going bigger but my 2' x 2' setup has 0 need for it. But I did think long and hard about it lol.

Your ladies are looking wonderful btw. Dying to hear the feedback and output of the lemon skunk.

Thanks for the info on your grow issues you experienced. So far so good with mine. Into day 3rd day of flower and so far no issues with the roots. I will keep an eye on them though, Thanks.

 

[steppedinds]

Dude, I love my Mars II Hydro 400 this far alone, I can only image what your gonna see from your 1200. Thought about going bigger but my 2' x 2' setup has 0 need for it. But I did think long and hard about it lol.

Your ladies are looking wonderful btw. Dying to hear the feedback and output of the lemon skunk.

Thanks for the info on your grow issues you experienced. So far so good with mine. Into day 3rd day of flower and so far no issues with the roots. I will keep an eye on them though, Thanks.

I got a freebie of the same lemon skunk on my last order and gave it to a friend. He kept it under some t5s the whole time because it stayed so short, and he wanted to keep it on 18/6....and it tasted WONDERFUL. It was some of the best tasting weed i'd smoked in a long time, maybe ever. Since this is the only one I have, she will definitely be getting full attention. I think he got 2-3oz dry total,too.
Your plants are looking good, bro. But yeh, I had that let down last grow when they just got too big for the air pump I had could support. Yours actually looks pretty similar to the one I had. You may want to look into getting a good commercial pump. I'm looking at some on ebay for around $30 that should be strong enough for you. 951 gph is smallest i see. I'm not sure what yours is, but its worth over-doing it to be sure on DWC. GL on your grow and preciate the comments

 

[steppedinds]

Lights and exhaust are hooked up and running. 400 cfm fan with Phresh 6" x 16" filter. Moved the plants up top, just finished mixing up a new batch of soil, and made 8 new pots ready for planting. This new filter works amazing compared to the last generic pos I had hooked up in the tent. I can't smell a thing until I open up the closet and pull the curtain back. Hope it keeps it up as they get the stank.

 

[STIHL LOGGER]

Lookin great Step! Ya got some serious light now my friend.

 

[steppedinds]

Lookin great Step! Ya got some serious light now my friend.

i only have the top turned on right now and its too bright...i for sure avoid looking up. when the top and bottom are both on it looks like a small star is being born in my closet gonna have to start watching to power bill too

 

[fopho]

Nice lights man, and your power bill won't change to much with those kind of lights. They don't draw that much from the wall, or at least I don't think they do. Don't wanna steer you wrong.

 

[Sparafucile00]

I got a freebie of the same lemon skunk on my last order and gave it to a friend. He kept it under some t5s the whole time because it stayed so short, and he wanted to keep it on 18/6....and it tasted WONDERFUL. It was some of the best tasting weed i'd smoked in a long time, maybe ever. Since this is the only one I have, she will definitely be getting full attention. I think he got 2-3oz dry total,too.
Your plants are looking good, bro. But yeh, I had that let down last grow when they just got too big for the air pump I had could support. Yours actually looks pretty similar to the one I had. You may want to look into getting a good commercial pump. I'm looking at some on ebay for around $30 that should be strong enough for you. 951 gph is smallest i see. I'm not sure what yours is, but its worth over-doing it to be sure on DWC. GL on your grow and preciate the comments

Awesome, thanks for the info. I have a pretty decent pump in there, but I will make sure to turn the air up a bit higher just to be safe on it. Currently running an Eco-Air 4 which puts out 253 gph. I will crank it to full and start looking for something bigger ASAP. Thanks.

 

[steppedinds]

Nice lights man, and your power bill won't change to much with those kind of lights. They don't draw that much from the wall, or at least I don't think they do. Don't wanna steer you wrong.

i'm at around 1250 watts now in lights. 54w x 6 and 23w x 8 down bottom, 32w x 6 and 550w up top.

1250w x 18 hrs/day = 22,500 wh/day = 22.5 kwh/day

22.5 kwh/day x 30 days = 675 kwh/month x $0.08 avg cost/kwh = $54 per month. edit: winter avg is .$05 and summer is $.09 after looking it up. so in the winter its ridiculously cheap

so yeh, not nearly as bad as I thought. i was thinking it would have been double that. good eye

 

[steppedinds]

 

[steppedinds]

*Update 2/15 - Day 33* - Nothing much new. Forgot to take the ponytail off saturday. the top growth didn't like it too much. seems to have recovered though. turned up nutes to week 3. planted some new seeds after 2 days of being in napkin. 4 auto blueberry, 3 auto lemon skunk, 1 auto great white shark.

Cheese 1 -

Cheese 2 -

Cheese 3 -

Cheese 4 -

Cheese 5 -

Lemon Skunk -

New girls -