Weffalo's West Coast O.G. First Time Grow: Indoor, Soil, SIP, Auto

[Weffalo]

Hey everyone !

So finally starting my first grow, seeds are still germinating but I'm looking to plant them within the next day or so. I've done a lot of research but as this is a first time grow you can probably expect more questions than images of bud porn to start with I'm sorry <3

Strain
West Coast O.G Auto by FastBuds

Equipment, Nutes & Medium
Mars Hydro 4x2 complete grow kit using TSL2000 led
5gal Buckets + GroPots

GHE Flora Tri-Part
GHE Bio Roots/Bloom/Protect
GHE Fulvic Acid
GHE Ripen

New Horizon Plant Compost Mix
Perlite
Dynomyco
Ecothrive Charge (Frass and more)

Feed Schedule
This is from a blog post by 420 Fast Buds and is specifically for soil and autos which I'm hoping will be fairly straight forward and accurate

Initial Setup

Germination
Still waiting for them to pop but it should be today or tomorrow latest hopefully, I put the seeds in water in a dark cupboard for 18 hours and then moved them to a wet paper towel which I placed inside a ziplog bag and then again, placed into a dark cupboard.

Next steps/basic plan

Seedlings:
Plan is to get the seedlings into small nursery pots, these pots are a little bit bigger than a solo cup but they should be good enough for now until the final SIP bucket I think! Initial seedling medium will just be a small amount of perlite and the soil/compost I'm using without additions for now, the myco will be added directly to roots on transplant and I'm planning to mix a small amount of frass with the soil & around 40% perlite for the final growing medium when we get to that.

Lights + Tent:
Having being recommended SIP I should hopefully avoid some of the issues with watering that new growers often encounter, my main issues then will be ensuring the environment and ph/nutrients are kept perfect. I've no idea exactly how far to hang the grow light for each stage.
From a guide on the internet from a supposed expert who is using this light they recommend "For seedlings you’ll need this light at 28 inches AND dimmed 50%. For the vegetative phase (18 hours on/6 hours off), I’d recommend hanging at 24 inches at full power. During the flowering phase I’d recommend 18 inches at full power."

So I do have a general idea but I plan to acquaint myself with a proper tpfd guide then position my lights based on results from Photone app so I can get the perfect height for this grow.

Environment
Again, as a complete novice this is all new to me, I'm posting below some infographics I've seen for humidity/temp which I can easily check myself when I need:

To control environment I have 2 clip on fans, 1 Mars Hydro 4" extractor fan, 2 Honeywell desk fans I will place under and a demuhimidifer.

Where I am humidity is often in the 80s/90s so humidity control will be essential, the heat may be an issue too but currently I have no solution for that. My plan is to monitor the heat/humidity and if neccessary make an additional purchase of a heater as I can't see temps getting too hot even in the tent due to locale, but we will see!

Thanks for reading! I will update as and when I have updates, if anyone spots any issues with anything I am doing I'd be very grateful if you let me know, this will be a learning journey but hopefully the start of a very exciting hobby and investment which will save me wasting so much money on buying the damn stuff!

 

[Azimuth]

Another SIP grow? I'm in.

Looks like a great setup!

 

[Azimuth]

I'll tag @FastBuds so he'll see this and maybe offer advice on the nutes.

 

[Weffalo]

Cheers @Azimuth <3 Here's to hoping it's succesful

First noob question of the day, with my exhaust fan on any decent speed the negative air pressure in the tent is super high. All the ducts are closed with the tightening string so light/smell doesn't get out of it but should I maybe create an intake duct?

Does it matter?

I hear some negative air pressure is good but I don't know how much is too much!

Second noob issue is that the temps currently are way a tiny bit too low, 19 degrees at the moment but the light hasn't been on long so I'm giving it some time to settle and probably heat up by a few degrees.

Third issue is despite it being 80-90% humidity outside, it's not like that in the room (Reading 60 at the moment), so I've just opened the window for now and need to maybe think about getting a humidifier on top of the dehumidifer depending on how that reading is that day lol

 

[Azimuth]

First noob question of the day, with my exhaust fan on any decent speed the negative air pressure in the tent is super high. All the ducts are closed with the tightening string so light/smell doesn't get out of it but should I maybe create an intake duct?

Does it matter?

I hear some negative air pressure is good but I don't know how much is too much!

Some negative pressure is good to help control odors, but too much just puts more unnecessary strain on your extraction fan leading to a shorter life.

Second noob issue is that the temps currently are way a tiny bit too low, 19 degrees at the moment but the light hasn't been on long so I'm giving it some time to settle and probably heat up by a few degrees.

Yeah, if that persists you'll probably need a heater. These are warm weather plants and temps in the upper 20's is what you want to shoot for.

Third issue is despite it being 80-90% humidity outside, it's not like that in the room (Reading 60 at the moment), so I've just opened the window for now and need to maybe think about getting a humidifier on top of the dehumidifer depending on how that reading is that day lol

60% is fine. Later in flower high humidity can cause mold and bud rot issues but in veg not so much. I don't do anything about humidity though I'm not suggesting that you should follow my lead on that.

 

[Weffalo]

Cheers mate, so humidity is down to 55%, I'm just going from what I've read that 65-70% is good for seedlings, is that vital do you think or you think 55% would cut it?

(Edit: Temp is 21.9c atm and humidity is now 50% according to to the hydrogemeter so it definitely seems like I'll need to grab a humidifier, I'm just concerned with the additional cost of getting distilled water as it says 3L lasts 24 hours lol)

I'm hoping the light will heat the tent up a few degrees more but maybe that's false hope lol, if it gets to say 24c would you still say that's on the low end? Running a heater on top of everything else is just more elec is all and we aren't doing too good with cheap energy here atm

 

[Azimuth]

Cheers mate, so humidity is down to 55%, I'm just going from what I've read that 65-70% is good for seedlings, is that vital do you think or you think 55% would cut it?

I thnk that should be fine. It's more for germinating seeds that you want higher humidity. You could always prop them up over an open bowl of water or something to get the localized humidity up but personally I'd just let them be. These plants are very adaptable and although there are ideal ranges for many of these things, being somewhat outside of them is usually fine. The plants won't be as big as they would in ideal conditions, but it's a cost/benefit anaylsis. My needs aren't that great so somewhat smaller plants is not an issue for me but I do know some like to dial everything in to a very tight degree.

But that's not my style. I like to have reasonable healthy, happy plants, but I'm not trying to max anything out.

'm hoping the light will heat the tent up a few degrees more but maybe that's false hope lol, if it gets to say 24c would you still say that's on the low end?

Yes, low end and they'll be smaller and grow slower than at higher temps so you have to decide how much that matters to you vs what you have to spend in time and resources to dial it in. I grow though the summer in an enclosed room and my temps get over 40C and my attempt to address that is to put big jugs of water to help knock out the high and low temps. In the winter in that same room, I just accept the fact that they're grow slower and be smaller plants.

It all depends on your style and personality. I'm looking for a successful grow, not a properly controlled science experiment. Your goals may be different.

 

[Weffalo]

Ok thanks a ton dude, really appreciate you taking the time out of your day to answer !!

I'm all for a successful grow but maximising my yields with limited space will definitely be a priority, but that's not something you can focus too much on when you've never even grown a plant! Healthy happy plants that yield buds is all I'm aiming for this run, in the future dialing it in will be more critical.

I'll get a heater for now and skip the humidifier, if the plants don't survive as seedlings then maybe I can look into humidity being the factor but seeing as the rest of the time rh of 40-50% is okay I think we can work with that!

Heater seems more important as it's inevitably gonna get much colder here so I'll get that sorted.

Thanks again @Azimuth

 

[Azimuth]

I grew for a season in a cold basement so I got a really small heater with a dial thermostat to keep the temps in the immediate grow space within reason both up and down. You don't want something that just is on/off because your temps could easily get too hot and fry your plants.

I got mine for a big box store.

 

[Azimuth]

Are you planning to do any training?

 

[Weffalo]

Yeah sounds good !!

I'll see what I can find, some fan heaters around for under £50 but it seems to only have 21, 24, 27c options and not fully adjustable, will find something with accurate thermostat!

 

[Weffalo]

Are you planning to do any training?

So tough one (Because I hear it's easy to mess up autos), I watch Mr Canucks on youtube, not sure if you've seen his vids.

He gets really good results with lst on autos, so I'm tempted to try it on one, maybe two plants...
The third I plan to just tip the 4th node on the advice of @Roy Growin and then I can compare both techniques on the same strain and see what's working for me and what's not.

I'm definitely cautious of causing too much stress and stunting but at the same time, if it can be done well I may as well start learning now.

 

[Azimuth]

Yep, makes sense. Going easy the first round is a good call, and LST is about as easy on the plant as it gets.

Most auto growers end up growing small plants because any stress can stunt them and there is no recovery time like you can do with photo's by just extending the time to flip to give the plant time to recover. With autos the clock is always ticking.

The most common stressor for autos is improper watering both under and over watering. With the SIP you eliminate that issue entirely and I would expect you're going to grow nice plants even on this, your first run.

 

[Weffalo]

Awesome I sure hope so mate

 

[Weffalo]

So I've just calibrated my cheap ph pen, water from the tap is currently testing at around 7.4 , I've read that I need between 6.0 and 7.2 to avoid nutrient lockout, do I need to worry about this at this stage or should the soil bring down the ph slightly to an acceptable level?

 

[Azimuth]

Organic soils will handle the pH but I don't know about how or what your nutes need.

 

[Weffalo]

Just read up and it says if 7.5 or higher you may need to use ph down after mixing nutes, so doesn't seem to be an issue. I was just worried about the tap water on it's own causing issues before nutes are added Thanks again <33

 

[Weffalo]

Using the Photone app to get the correct umols and make sure my light is the correct height and then we are potting up the germinated seeds and putting them in the tent!

I have found a guide for DLI for Autoflowers which I plan to follow from the Photone website:

 

[Weffalo]

So I've put the germinated seeds in a pot, more details and pictures coming ASAP, planted using the infamous @Bill284 method of layering my pot

The plants are getting exactly 12 DLI currently with the doors closed which is perfect and I'm going to be doing 20/4 for the full seedling/veg stage.

Could anyone offer insight on watering the seedling? I'm moving it to SIP as soon as I can so I can get away from figuring this out but for this week or two I will need to be watering.

I used the watering method described by Emilya and used a 50ml syringe per plant, is this adequate for now? The soil itself was fairly damp!


Edit:
Based on @ReservoirDog 's post on the SIP post, would it be wise to start bottom feeding straight away even in these small 1litre pots? I plan to transplant straight after 2nd node so I can maximise the growing time in a SIP instead of in a pot that will allow less growth. I am just wondering if bottom feeding from day 2 (tomorrow)/straight away will help with the moisture gradient memory?

 

[Azimuth]

The roots will reach the bottom of the pot quite quickly so bottom watering from the get go is a good idea.