First Grow - Blue Dream - 4x4 Tent - 1000W Light - DWC

TheFrizz

Well-Known Member
Hello everyone! This is my very first grow, and my goal is to get the most efficient yield that I can from 4 plants (legal limit in my state). I selected Blue Dream because it has positive smoke reviews and also is a high yielding strain that is easy to grow. I decided to grow from seed rather than clone because I plan on using the mainlining/manifolding method and that technique works better from seed. I apologize for not starting my journal earlier but I wanted to wait to see if the plants survived the heat wave we experienced this July/August.

Equipment overview:

Feminized Blue Dream seeds (HSO)
4x4 grow tent
Phresh carbon filter (400 CFM)
Hurricane inline fan (435 CFM)
1000w MH/HPS light & ballast
4x 5 gallon bucket DWC system
GH nutes for veg
Rock Solid- Super Bud Booster for flower
4x wide spectrum 30w LED bulbs (supplement for flower)

General grow plan: Use the mainlining technique until each plant has 16 main growth tips. Divide grow tent into 64 squares, each approx 6" by 6" (looks similar to a scrog). Each plant gets 16 squares to fill out, with 1 cola forming inside each square. Flip lights when plants are close to poking through squares. End result: 64 lovely colas evenly spaced out filling up the entire grow tent.

As I am writing this, the girls have been vegging for about 5 weeks, and I will be flipping the lights quite soon. Here is a brief recap of their crazy journey so far:

We had an extremely hot summer and the grow tent is in an upstairs bedroom that faces the sun most of the day. The room was about 85-90 degrees F most days. To try and keep temps down I wrapped the buckets in mylar (they were black), kept tent open with like 4 fans in the room, added ice every day, vented top of buckets when lights were off, and always topped off with cold nute water. Despite all this, water temps were consistently from 76-86 degrees F most of veg (often spiking up to 90s if I didn't open the buckets). Luckily Hydroguard is amazzzzzing and so root rot hasn't really been an issue :)
Almost_time_for_flower_002.jpg


Here is what the plants looked like before and after being divided into 16 growth tips. I heavily defoliated them each time I topped, for several reasons: 1.) maximum light availability and visibility of structure 2.) to see what limits I can push the plants to :p and 3.) to ensure that all of the plants nutrients go directly to the new growth tips. The plants rebounded quickly after each session and this process created the overall structure that I was looking for.

Before:
Growing-_summer_of_16_0651.jpg


After:
Growing-_summer_of_16_067.jpg


After a day or so
Almost_time_for_flower_004.jpg


After a few more days
Almost_time_for_flower_016.jpg


You can see how after defoliation they spring back quickly and vigorously. In the future though, I will probably leave more fan leaves on, but it is good to know that they can handle being completely stripped. Here are images I took today, showing the screen in place over the plants, and also a close-up of the most Sativa dominant plant. Look at dem beefy gunz!

Almost_time_for_flower_025.jpg


Now just imagine each branch turning into a main cola that fills up one of those squares, like a nice tidy grid
Almost_time_for_flower_028.jpg


So yeah, essentially what I am trying to do here is create a canopy entirely composed of 64 main colas. With a 1k light, I feel like it is reasonable to expect decent quality bud along the top 2 feet of each cola.

Questions for you guys:
1.) What should I do about Derpy in the back? She has been lagging the entire time, bad seed I guess. I am thinking about putting cinder blocks under her bucket when it is time to flower so at least she is the same height as the others.
2.) What effect do you think supplementation with 30w wide spectrum LED lights will have? I am going to hang one light above each plant during flowering, in addition to the 1000w HPS because I had read that extra lighting can improve terpenes and yield.
3.) Do you think these plants are ready for flowering? I was planning on doing it within the next few days because I am happy with their structure but not sure if waiting will be good to give Derpy some more time to catch up.

Feel free to ask any questions about my setup and grow method, etc. I will start updating this journal every few days as the girls start their journey into flowering and beyond.
 
First off Welcome to 420 Frizz! I have to say from one new grower to another, your symmetry and grow op are looking choice :goodjob: I'm grabbing a seat for the remainder of this grow and can't wait to see how things turn out! As far as your questions go I'll leave them to some of the more experienced growers on here to answer. I will say however that I'd let derpy do her thing by leveling her out as you mentioned. She's made it this far so you can't count her out yet. Keep up the solid work and post updates when you can!
 
Thanks Sugar! It will be interesting to see how she performs compared to the other 3 during flowering. Your grow looks solid as well, I was actually thinking of crossing White Widow and Blue Dream eventually so I can't wait to see how your babies turn out :D
 
First Grow - Blue Dream - 4x4 Tent - 1k Light - DWC

Wow looking good so far! I'm also new to growing and trying to learn DWC. I have some northern lights autos in a small tent with a 300w LED. Unfortunately I'm in no position to give advice just yet either. Lol seems like I'm asking for it every day myself. The best I was given was to read, I have not read this much since school! Ha! Keep up the good work I'll pull my chair up too.


Sent from my iPhone using 420
 
Hello, and welcome to the forums Frizz. I see you have the hang of your environment and the plants thrive. I have been doing some manifolding/mainlining before in my first grow and now in my current one. What have you done here is a combination of manifolding and fluxing. I see you topped 4th node, then let the first pair of laterals grow and topped them after 3rd. You topped the main branch after 3rd and then again right after first node. So basically you have got 8 main stems and 8 side stems. You would have gotten 16 mains if you had topped the 8 mains again. Anyways very nice plants indeed, I'm not a fan of hydroponics as I believe in composted soil and naturally occurring nutrients and minerals from biological waste/sediments/rocks. The shit in dirt way you may say. The only difference is the place for the roots and veg time as the final results are comparable, the taste is not also soil is very forgiving. Nevertheless that's my opinion and I wish you many success with your plants and keep us all posted, subbed +reps for the training. Feel free to come by my journals and ask whatever you want. Happy growing :Namaste:
 
Thanks very much for the detailed feedback Tomula! For the training I followed the manifolding method posted by Nebula which involves saving the 1st and 3rd lateral nodes on each side after the initial split. So you go from 2 growth tips to 8 growth tips in one step. This produces a similar result but requires one less "chop" so it saves veg time. I will check out your journals and post an update within the next day or so, they are almost to the net now :)
 
Thanks very much for the detailed feedback Tomula! For the training I followed the manifolding method posted by Nebula which involves saving the 1st and 3rd lateral nodes on each side after the initial split. So you go from 2 growth tips to 8 growth tips in one step. This produces a similar result but requires one less "chop" so it saves veg time. I will check out your journals and post an update within the next day or so, they are almost to the net now :)

Yes you top less. You top 4 times for 16 mains, you get more even flow of nutrients and the plant seems to prefer terminal buds to the lateral. But still, you got even canopy, thick stems and that's what counts, you can then compare the colas maybe there won't be much of a difference. There is also this technique called ponytailing, which boosts the lateral growth, thus making the side branches bigger sooner and the plant will recover faster after topping. Or you can even top the plant while the terminal bud is very small. I dunno your light schedule but when you run 18/6 then the plant will have decent roots to survive the early topping. Pakacordova did some of that and the plant responded with great vigor! Here There is so many journals and so much knowledge here on the forums.
 
Hi guys, here are some updates from the last 5 days:

-Plants are still in veg, I have been topping off the plants with pH'd water with flowering nutes added getting stronger each day. Right now they are about 600 ppm and at a pH of 5.7-6.0 on average. They are handling the new nutes well, I don't see any super obvious signs of defiency. The roots on all 4 plants now are pearly white and massive. I haven't done a full water change for about 3 weeks, because they look and smell healthy and there is no slime or rot or problems from salts accumulation. I would surmise that the friendly bacteria from Hydroguard have multiplied exponentially since I haven't dumped out the water, and they are keeping the roots happy! Water temps are 78 to 80 degrees. Oh, I should add, I did some moderate defoliation today too (approx 1 node worth of growth per stem, and all the big light-blocking fan leaves in upper canopy. So that's why they look a bit scraggly.

Happy_roots.jpeg


-Here is a shot of the temp/humidity, I am pretty happy with humidity levels but air temps still seem too high for flowering. I had read that the ideal is under 80 degrees. Is this true? On the other hand, my plants are used to a very hot grow environment so maybe they won't mind the heat.
Early_sept_005.jpg


These are some close ups of the leaves, 3/4 of the plants (Including Derpy) have the more indica dominant phenotype, and 1 has more sativa traits. I call her Queen Sativa. Some of her leaves have 10-11 tips!
Early_sept_001.jpg

Early_sept_004.jpg


Here is a "ground view" of the canopy. I stopped LST'ing them with wire a few weeks ago, this is their natural growth pattern after being split to 16 tops. There have been casualties along the way (my boyfriend accidentally nipped off a few growth tips) so the total main colas will be more like 60, not 64. Also, I decided to wait to use the screen until they have had about 6 inches of "stretch", then it will be easier to bend them around to each square. (P.S. I gave Derpy some landscape blocks to sit on, and now she feels like one of the big kids too :))

Early_sept_003.jpg


So, what do you guys think? Should I flip to flowering even though temps are high? Any tips on how to lower room temp without having AC on all day are welcome! <3
 
Very nice indeed. The light is the main source of heat. So you should do something about that. Do you have a cool-tube? Can you intake colder air? Do you mind lowering your light's power? Can you get LED's? Can you get bigger intake? Can you vent your outtake directly outside(be careful with that though!)? There are a lot of variables. Happy growing! :Namaste:
 
Great questions. Right now the light does have a cool tube with a 400+ CFM fan (6 inch diameter) attached and my outlet is directly out into the hallway outside of the room haha. I think the problem is getting cool air into the tent, basically I need to lower the temperature of the upstairs bedroom that the tent is in. I keep a window cracked and have two fans maintaining circulation, but its still just too warm up there.

However, as of 2 hours ago I decided I am going to push for flowering anyways. This is because at the time when temperature really matters for flowering (like 5+ weeks in) it will be farther into the fall season and the room should naturally be cooler. So, I changed out the bulb to my 1000 watt HPS, dangled a few small LED lamps from the ceiling (I will turn them on later into flowering for supplemental lighting), and I will give them a 36 hour dark period. My light schedule will be 12/12, with the light coming on at 5am and off at 5pm. So, my next update should be sometime Monday and we will see how the plants respond to their "nap" and the new light!
 
Great questions. Right now the light does have a cool tube with a 400+ CFM fan (6 inch diameter) attached and my outlet is directly out into the hallway outside of the room haha. I think the problem is getting cool air into the tent, basically I need to lower the temperature of the upstairs bedroom that the tent is in. I keep a window cracked and have two fans maintaining circulation, but its still just too warm up there.

However, as of 2 hours ago I decided I am going to push for flowering anyways. This is because at the time when temperature really matters for flowering (like 5+ weeks in) it will be farther into the fall season and the room should naturally be cooler. So, I changed out the bulb to my 1000 watt HPS, dangled a few small LED lamps from the ceiling (I will turn them on later into flowering for supplemental lighting), and I will give them a 36 hour dark period. My light schedule will be 12/12, with the light coming on at 5am and off at 5pm. So, my next update should be sometime Monday and we will see how the plants respond to their "nap" and the new light!

Hi man. Do you have the cool tube on separated air circuit? And how does the nap works? U have flipped my previous plan without nap so I'm curious. Good luck. Cheers!
 
I will post a pic of the air setup when the light comes on Monday morning. The purpose of the dark period is, in layman's terms, to force the plant to build up higher levels of the hormone that triggers flowering. Then when you turn the lights on, they start flowering faster because they had that head start on their hormone levels. This is still a hot topic of debate among growers, with some saying this method does nothing useful and others who swear by it. I want to find out the truth for myself!
 
I will post a pic of the air setup when the light comes on Monday morning. The purpose of the dark period is, in layman's terms, to force the plant to build up higher levels of the hormone that triggers flowering. Then when you turn the lights on, they start flowering faster because they had that head start on their hormone levels. This is still a hot topic of debate among growers, with some saying this method does nothing useful and others who swear by it. I want to find out the truth for myself!

That's very interesting indeed. I will find more info about that before trying it. Thank you, sir!
 
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