GandalfGreen's First Grow - Soil - LED - The Doctor & Arjan's Haze #3 - Indoor

[GandalfGreen]

Greetings fellow marijuana lovers! I've been lurking on these and other forums for a while now, trying to absorb as much information as I could before taking the plunge and actually getting started with my first ever grow. Before this I couldn't even keep a cactus plant alive, so let's hope that with my preparation this goes a lot better!

First, let me tell you about my setup, I will add pictures of it later:

Grow environment:
Secret Jardin DR120 (1.20m x 1.20m x 2m) grow tent

Lights:
Mars Hydro Reflector 192 LED panel (420W@110v; 410W@220v, PAR of 1200umol at 18 inch)

Tools:
- CO2 5 liter tank with regulator and CO2 meter (aiming for about 1500PPM)
- Lux meter
- pH meter
- EC meter
- Temperature & hygrometer

Bucket Size:
The idea is to transplant from solo-cup to 1 gallon pot to 5 gallon smart pot.
- 4 x 19 liter (5 gallon) smart pot
- 4 x 3.6 liter (1 gallon) plastic pot with four holes in the bottom for drainage.

Medium:
3 x 50 liter (13 gallon) BioBizz All-Mix

Ventilation:
- Carbonfilter with inline fan (not sure about specs since I got it secondhand)
- Small fan for inside the tent to strengthen the stem.

Nutrients:
- DutchPro Grow (soil) A+B, 5 liter
- DutchPro Bloom (soil) A+B, 5 liter
- BN Ca Calcium 15%, 1 liter
- BN MgO Magnesium, 1 liter
- Canna PH- Pro Bloom, 1 liter
- Canna PH- Pro Groei, 1 liter
- Canna PH+ 5%, 1 liter

Strains:
- 2 x The Doctor (30% sativa, 70% indica)
- 2 x Arjan's Haze #3 (70% sativa, 30% indica)

Progress so far
I have setup my growtent and everything else that's needed the previous weekend and have started germinating the seeds this sunday. So thusfar they've been germinating for about 3 days. All of the 'The Doctor' seeds have already popped open and are showing a small tap root. I'm holding off a bit before planting them as they're not long enough yet. So far the 'Arjan's Haze #3' took a bit longer to germinate but they're showing sings of life, so same story for them!

I'm hoping you guys will enjoy my growlog. I tend to be very technical by nature so I do a lot of measuring and weighing before making decisions, so you'll be seeing me reporting a lot on those I guess! I'll try to get some measurements from the lights, temperature and RH up tonight together with some pictures so you guys can tell me what you think.

 

[dirt mcgert]

Your set up sounds great. Looking forward to seeing your garden progress. There's a few helpful links in my sig to help you with your journal.

 

[GandalfGreen]

Yesterday was the day for the seeds to get to know their new home. After they grew a little taproot I planted them in the BioBizz All Mix in small plastic see through cups. The idea behind this was so that I could easily spot if the roots are starting to outgrow their solo-cup.
So far the only problem I'm running into is temperature. When I turned the lights on, both the grow and bloom switches, the temperatures rised to about 34-35 degrees celcius. (95 fahrenheit) Before I started this project I read "The Marijuana Grower's Handbook" by Ed Rosenthal (great resource of information btw!) and in one of his chapters he talks about CO2 uptake vs. light intensity in lumens. He notes that with higher temperatures the plants need higher CO2 uptake (see diagram below)

I've turned only the 'grow' light on for now and the temperatures seem to have dropped to about 30 degrees celcius (86 fahrenheit). The PPM in the room is around 1300-1500 atm, I've got no precise readings as the meter I have only gives an indication of PPM ranges.
Any advice regarding the temperature situation would be much appreciated!

Also like I promised... pictures! For this would be a boring thing without them

The Mars Hydro lights, switched off and on

A little incentive I painted so the plants have something to look up to

Nutrients, soil, tools

The inside of the tent

So excited, can't wait for the plants to start growing!

 

[GandalfGreen]

So yesterday the temperatures here (I live in The Netherlands) got pretty hot, around 25-30 degrees celsius. (~86 fahrenheit) Subsequently the temperature meter I placed around canopy level (as seen in the above picture) read around 35 degrees celsius. (95 fahrenheit) I figured that the output from the van that was directly pouring into the room did not do these temperatures any good. So I went to my local construction market and got 3 meter of tubing and some duct-tape. I then proceeded to close all the little gaps that might've let hot air out of the ducting with the duct-tape. Then I installed the extra ducting guiding it to the window so that the hot air has a chance to escape outside. Pictures below:

Then as I woke up this morning to check the temperatures, they had dropped to about 30-31 degrees celsius. (86 fahrenheit) Whether this was a direct result of the outside ventilation I could not say as the weather hasn't changed much but it tends to cool down at night so that might be why. I'll keep an eye on it to today to see if it stays within the 30 degrees celsius range.

To my very happy surprise I was greeted by the first signs of life from one of the 'The Doctor' plants! I couldn't believe that after just two days I'd already get a glimpse of one the plants. I'm really ecstatic about it!
Here's a picture of this brave little soldier:

 

[GandalfGreen]

So it's been 4 days since I planted the seeds and so far 3/4 have shown signs of life, gloriously growing towards their artificial sun god. One of the 'The Doctor' seeds have not shown any life so far so I'll have to wait and see if it's a dud or not.

Something else that happened, I already used up the entire CO2 tank... :') (12 liter content) I have it on a time-schedule where it turns on every 30 minutes. I'm guessing I opened the valve too much letting out too much CO2 per 30 minutes. It's a manual valve and I don't really have any reference material as to how much CO2 is being released into the room. So what I did is I experimented with it and just slowly but surely opened the valve every time I went to check on the plants and the CO2 meter reported being anything less than between 1200-1500 PPM.
This is my first time so I'm not sure if I'm missing something obvious but I don't think it's a good thing I used an entire CO2 tank in less than 5 days. Any help would be much appreciated!

Another thing that I find odd, the small solo-cups that I use tend to be dry every morning when I check on them. So far I've been watering them every day but every morning they're dry as dust, even an inch or so in the soil itself. Any ideas on how this happens? I'm guessing it's the temperatures that make the plants really thirsty but I'm not sure.

 

[GandalfGreen]

Just to follow up on some issues from my previous post, I mentioned the CO2 tank being drained. After some research I found out the CO2 meter has relay switches which turn on/off depending on the CO2 levels. So right now I'm looking at turning it into a controller for the CO2 regulator. The idea is to have the relay switch of the CO2 meter activate when CO2 drops below 1300 PPM and deactivates when it goes above 1500 PPM. I'm currently talking to some people who know more about how I could achieve this using an Arduino or something similar. But for now I will leave the CO2 tank and regulator off since I have read that it is not really needed in my stage of growth. I'll report back on it once I find out more.

Something else I've done is poke 5 little holes in the bottom of my solo-cups, that way I know by the runoff water whether the soil is nice and moist. I watered them yesterday as the soil was bone dry again and this morning when I went to check on them the soil was still moist!

There's still one seed that hasn't shown itself yet but patience is key here I'm assuming!

 

[GandalfGreen]

It's been a while since I last posted and it's been 10 days from when the plants started growing. So far the one plant that didn't show any signs of life yet hasn't so far so I'm pretty sure it's not going to either. I'm just leaving it in the room for maybe a week more to see if anything happens.

A few days in their growth in the small plastic cups they started to outgrow them already, as the leaves were hitting the walls. I cut down some of the walls and let them in there to develop for a few more days. As you can see below.

Yesterday I've transplanted all of them in 1 gallon plastic pots with drainage holes in the bottom. While doing this one of my cats decided it would be fun to be a dick and knock over one of the pots. What a stress, haha! :') Luckily I could get it back in the pot without too much problems and it's still looking good.
Bought some watering trays today to keep the grow tent nice and tidy. Here are some pictures of them in their new homes:

The only thing that's bothering me so far is that one of the 'The Doctor' plants is showing some early signs of deficiency. There's brow-yellow like spots on some of the leaves which worries me a bit. Could someone take a look and tell me what they think?

 

[GandalfGreen]

It's day 15 and the plants are really starting to bush out a lot, the leaves are looking pretty and there's even a hint of a marijuana smell starting to fill the air. I'm so stoked!

Yesterday I went out and bought some more equipment. I got a humidifer since my humidity temperatures were a bit on the low side (30-40%) and I was adviced to adjust them. Thinking on returning it as even on the lowest setting it produced a humidity of around 90%, ouch! I have my eye on one where you can set the RH percentage and it will stay on that level. Here's the chart I'm using to set the RH levels with, and a picture of the humidifier itself in my tent:

I also went and bought an air stone with a pump together with a plastic box which can hold 52 liters. (~14 gallon) I drilled some holes in the top for the tubes to go through and I placed the two airstones that came with it on the bottom. I then filled it up with water and turned on the pump. I pH'ed the water down to 6 and let it bubble away. The morning after I checked on the water and the pH levels had risen to 7.7 again. Also the EC of the water went from 0.57 mS/cm to 0.87 mS/cm (from 365 to 557 PPM) which surprised me quite a bit. There was some condensation on the lid as I kept it closed. My thoughts on this is that possibly me keeping the lid closed kept the bubbled up chemicals in the water inside the box and somehow affected the quality of it.
I'm going to experiment with it a bit and leave the lid open for now to see how that influences the water quality. I know I have hard water to begin with so I might have to invest in a reverse osmosis system. I'll see how it goes for now and report back on it later.
Here are some pictures of the setup:

 

[GandalfGreen]

So we're already on day 19 of the plant's live on this earth. Yesterday I transplanted them to their final homes, a nice 5 gallon smart pot. I wish I made some pictures of the roots because they were looking thick and a real healthy white. I watered the plants untill I saw some runoff coming out of the sides and the pot felt saturated all round. (not sure if runoff comes leaking out of the bottom with these pots)
I also replaced the humidifier with one that has its own hygrometer in it so it can automatically adjust the humidity. I've set it to around 80% since my temperatures fluctuate between 24-30 degrees celsius. (75-86 Fahrenheit)

A few days ago I also topped the plants and some new growth is already starting to show, although it's not much yet after about 4 days. The leaves are getting seriously huge and it's growing a lot horizontally but I don't see a lot of horizontal growth going on.
Here is a picture of them in their final homes:

One of the Arjan's Haze #3 plants is showing some worrying signs of I don't know what, but the leave is starting to turn brown slowly, a more severe form of what I posted a few days ago. I'm not sure what it is so any ideas would be welcome. Here's a picute of it happening:

 

[GandalfGreen]

It's been 23 days since sprouting and I'd thought I'd give you all a small update and some good pictures without the mind-melting purpleness of the LED lights. About 3-4 days ago I LST'ed the Arjan's Haze #3 plants since the massive leaves (holy fuck I did not expect them to get so big so fast) were blocking a lot of light for the lower branches trying to poke through the leave canopy. I tied them down using pipe cleaners and it worked brilliantly! Just today I removed them and the results are just as I hoped, the lower branches are now on the same height as the canopy meaning so they can receive their much needed light. I did not do this with the 'The Doctor' strain as it seemed to be coping well without any help and the branches themselves didn't give much way as I tried to pull them down.

I've got the lights on a timer as well now, with the lights being on 18 and off for 6 hours. I mainly have the lights on during the evening/early morning as to avoid any unnecessary heating up during the warmer days. This has helped immensly as I've now got both the bloom and flower switch enabled on my lights with the temperatures keeping around 26-28 degrees celsius (78-82 Fahrenheit) with the RH set at 80%.

Enough talk, here are some pictures:

The Doctor:

Arjan's Haze #3 - first plant:

Arjan's Haze #3 - second plant:

 

[dirt mcgert]

looking good over here. The spots look like water splashed on them and we're burned by the light(kinda like a magnifying glass in the sun) plants are looking nice and healthy keep up the good work

 

[GandalfGreen]

looking good over here. The spots look like water splashed on them and we're burned by the light(kinda like a magnifying glass in the sun) plants are looking nice and healthy keep up the good work

If it isn't my biggest fan, haha! Thanks for your support
Some of the leaves on the second 'Arjan's Haze #3' plant don't look very nice because of it but it doesn't seem to hinder them in any way so it's just a reminder of a lesson learned there haha :')

What do you make of the 'The Doctor' plant's new canopy growth? Is the slight yellowing of the leaves a sign of Nitorgen deficiency? I haven't fed them any nutes yet waiting for them to actually ask for them.

 

[dirt mcgert]

What type of water are you using? tap,Ro, distilled?

 

[GandalfGreen]

I'm using tap water, see a few posts up how I store it. The pH without adjusting is around 8.0 and the EC is around 0.8 so I've got quite hard water. I adjust it down to about 6.0, last time I measured runoff it was at about 6.5.

 

[dirt mcgert]

Give her a feed and see how she reponds.

 

[David Bowman]

Hope all is well in your world.

Is this grow still alive?

We would love to be updated with some pictures and info.

How about posting a 420 Strain Review?

If you need any help with posting photos, please read our Photo Gallery Tutorial.

I am moving this to Abandoned Journals until we get updates.

Sending you lots of love and positive energy.

 

[GandalfGreen]

Yep it's still alive, I'll post an update today or tomorrow with some more pics

 

[GandalfGreen]

It's been a while (enough time for the mods to notice inactivity at least ) since I posted an update and it's long due seeing the difference between my last post and now.

So what's happened since?
- I topped all the plants one more time. So right now they're topped 4-way.
- I installed a SCROG net which I received with my grow tent.
- The plants are being trained for about a week now under the SCROG net.
- I now water the plants every ~3 days. This includes the "DutchPro Grow A+B Soil" nutrients at around 1.5 EC with pH around 6.3-6.5. (Last runoff I measured was 6.5)

With the SCROG net installed and the plants being fed nutrients they are responding very well and growing very fast. Although a lot of the lower leaves are withering and eventually falling off once they're completely brown. It's about a hand of leaves in total everytime I water them. I'm rationalising this by thinking that this is bound to happen to growth that's in the shade completely.
Something I'm currently planning on is trimming the plants before I switch them to flower. I've read that this will help the plants focus all their energy on creating the buds above the SCROG net and not lose any on maintaining a branch that isn't going to yield (significantly enough) anyway.

I will update with pictures as soon as I can. I'm currently without the possibility to make pictures since my phone is being repaired.

 

[GandalfGreen]

Just a quick update to let you know that I switched the lighting to 12/12 to induce flowering. Exciting times!

 

[GandalfGreen]

Back with a quick update! I've got my smartphone back so I'll upload some pictures of the progress soon. They've been flipped to flowering for 11 days now and the plants are growing really quick. I gave them all a a haircut by trimming the undergrowth that wasn't gonna make it up to the SCROG net. I carefully left the leaves on and only cut away the branches with new growth. The days after that the leaves that were close to the cut branches started falling off, in fact there's a lot of defoliation going on. I think every 2 days or so I get a good hand full of dead leaves.The new growth above the scrog is looking really healthy though and is stretching very quick! Every day I have to LST them down or else they get too close to the lights.

A thing I've noticed is that one of the sativa "Arjan's Haze #3" plants needs about double as much water as the other one. (exact same strain) I water it about two times every one time I'm watering the other one. I make sure that they really need the water (I watch for some leaves to start drooping) before I feed them too. Since I flipped them I have been feeding them with just pH'ed tap water to flush out the feed from the growth stage. I'm thinking of giving them some bloom nutrients on the next time I water them.