First Proper Grow Attempt - DWC Vs Soil Testing

GlaucomaMeds

Well-Known Member
Ok well here goes nothing, my attempt at my first grow and my first journal, I'm already part way into the grow but better late than never.

Ive been lurking on the forum for a while now, decided its time to get on here myself and see what I can do. I have every intention of keeping up to date on here, but do forgive me if life gets in the way a bit here and there as I recently became a dad.

My Why:
My partner was diagnosed with Glaucoma when she was only 16-17yrs old and was already blind in one eye from it. Cannabis helps regulate the pressure in her remaining 'good' (still has very strong prescription) eye. As for me I broke my back in a car crash when I was younger (no lasting damage beyond bad back pain for life) and I also have anxiety issues so I smoke for pain and stress relief. For years we've been getting by buying from dealers and never really knowing what we've got or how clean it is.

That said, wish me luck and if anyone can offer any help or advice it will be very much appreciated!


So setup info:

Flowering space is 6ft x 4ft and I have about 5-6ft of useable height.
6inch (up to 900m/hr) Carbon filter with 6inch RVK fan (720m/hr).
600W Dual Spectrum HPS (digital dimmable) in a Cool Tube reflector.
I have a 4 inch fresh air intake fan on at all times and the extract is on 24/7 also.
Temps normally stay between 22 and 29 Celsius however can go over on very hot days (highest was 31.2). Room Humidity is good, always between 45% and 60%.
I'm using Pro XL nutes on the DWC with Great White Mycorrhizae in a 20L bucket.
For the soil BioBizz allmix and lightmix to see which i prefer with Biobizz nutes.

I also have a seperate 3ft x 3ft veg area with an LED light in that I will cover in another post at a later date.

Strain:

Ok, the plants are from Sensi Seeds Outdoor mix, they could be one of a few things. To quote their website "The 25 high-quality seeds in this assortment are a random mix of the five Indica varieties from the Sensi Seeds Outdoor collection - Early Girl, Early Skunk, Ruderalis Skunk, Ruderalis Indica and Guerrilla's Gusto - all of which can be grown together with great success."

So far:

The plants are coming up to 2 months old now, however during the first few weeks their life they had it pretty rough and got left in tiny pots for nearly a month (my bad lol). They got potted up and began to recover/break free within a few days. My DWC plant is a soil seedling that looked like it needed some love, I couldn't let it just die so I blasted the soil off with the shower and stuck it in some hydroton. Somehow despite all the abuse it made it! She suffered a lot and took her time building roots with nothing really going on above ground for about 3 more weeks, then she exploded (seriously like it was in a bucket of steroids or something) and is now BY FAR my biggest plant.
Couple of weeks after they got potted up the allmix seedlings began to go crispy from serious nute burn. I had only given plain water so my conclusion here is that all mix is just too hot. Flushed em like crazy which left me with major overwatering issues but again they amazed me and bounced back.
The plants have now been in 12/12 for 2weeks and call it beginner's luck but all 3 are female!
They are all the same age, the two in soil have 1cm diameter main stems, the DWC is close to 4cm diameter now, it is almost 3 times the size of the soil plants. :cheer:

Got to go for now will try to figure out how to upload a few pictures later today or tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by peeps.
:tokin: :allgood:
 
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Quick overview of flower room.
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The pearly white roots on my DWC, so proud of this for a first attempt!
 
so you dont like the soil? and the taste is that important to you? really like the stem on the dwc plant:adore:
also curious bout your ph meter or ppm or both:thanks:
:goodjob: and :goodluck:
 
Hey veinz, thanks for stopping by.
I do like the soil still, but I cant ignore the speed of growth in the DWC. It is borderline triple the size in the same time under the same lights and it had the roughest start of all of them.
When it comes to taste I do care a lot. However I have had great tasting weed from soil and hydro, I think the strain and grow conditions make more difference, for example a good flush. I also mix tobacco in my joints so its not going to make too much difference either way taste wise as my tastebuds are ruined from the baccy .
For my Ph and EC meters I use Essentials ones. Think they were about £40 each, The bucket itself is currently sat at 1.2 EC and I let the Ph float between 5.5 and 6.0, I only adjust it if its outside that range.

Thanks again for stopping by.
 
nice, thanks, you know i'm thinking of doing something similar but the rebuild 'again' is awaste of time says my growshop dude
your weed is super and taste like :drool: he says but i'm gonna follow you for a while and see :smokin:
btw north europe brrrrrrr and moist but still nice:)
:passitleft:
 
nice, thanks, you know i'm thinking of doing something similar but the rebuild 'again' is awaste of time says my growshop dude
your weed is super and taste like :drool: he says but i'm gonna follow you for a while and see :smokin:
btw north europe brrrrrrr and moist but still nice:)
:passitleft:
Yeah its a bit damp here sadly, not too cold as not too far North though.
Doing a rebuild can be a pain, I changed my mind half way through getting my setup together and had to take it all down get new stuff and move it all. It sucked, but I'm glad I did it or I would have major problems by now with the tiny space I had originally.
This DWC plant is growing so fast I'm getting a bit worried as I can only raise my light up by another 1ft max. She has already been severely abused, supercropped and topped a lot not sure how much more she can take.

Update time:

It is a little cooler today so temps are back on track at high of 26.5°c (had a bit of a heat wave for a few days it got up to 29.7°c at various times in the tent). Tested the PH of the bucket and it was at 6.3 so adjusted it back down to 5.7.

On the soil front not much to report today, they are all still moist from last watering (which was plain tap water) so just waiting on them to use it up and be ready for a feed.

The DWC plant just starting to show pistils on most nodes:
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The soil plants are really starting to form the beginnings of bud sites now:
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Side by side (Still cant believe they are the same age and I grew them!):
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Also on a side note, most people probably know this but for those of you that may be wondering (if there is anyone) my equipment isnt just hung off bungee cords to save money, it really helps cut down on vibration and therefore sound from the fans.

Finally some Super Silver Haze I'm currently smoking:
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Thanks for stopping by peeps.

Any tips, comments, questions and constructive criticism is welcome.
 
Ok I have a question if anyone can help me at all please.

I'm looking at getting a second light to put in my flowering tent and really I'd like to go with an LED rather than HPS as it will last me a lot longer and be cheaper on electricity in theory.

The space is 6ft x 4ft and Im not currently making full use of it as my 600W HPS only really covers half the space well due to the crappy cooltube its in.

Ive got a little money (under a grand) saved up and have been looking at the Budmaster COB 4 for £650. Its a lot of money for me to spend though and dont want to waste it, so any advice from LED users would be hugely appreciated.

I really would love to get 2 of them in the long run but for now run it alongside my HPS to make full use of the space. I dont want to buy too cheap as thats how you end up buying twice. However I equally don't have thousands to spend on getting two Spectrum Kings or similar so any tips or even just reassurance thats its a decent light would help haha. I should also add I have zero interest in building my own light. Maybe in a couple years, but no time soon.

Will update on plants later.

Thanks for stopping by.
 
Today's update:

I ran into two different issues today, the first was a few thrips on one of the soil plants. I sprayed the whole lot, room and all the plants with pyrethrum, hopefully this does the trick.
Secondly the DWC plant seemed to have stretched about 5-6 inches in two days, it was just getting way too big and if I had allowed it to continue unhindered it would have been up and into the light withing the next couple of weeks. Seeing as it still has 7+ weeks atleast of flowering that is a problem.
As a result I made what is probably a bad decision and defoliated, did a bit more lollipop work and then supercropped the hell out of her. Fingers crossed she makes it through without too many major issues. I figured Id rather do this now than just leave it to get too big later into flower and it be even more of a problem for me.
The PH was 6.3 so adjusted it back down to 5.8. The water level in the bucket is getting pretty low (about 1/3 full) so I will change it over tomorrow for a fresh one.
Temperatures better again today staying between 27°c and 19°c.

Nothing to really report on soil front just waiting until they need a feed.

Before:
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After:
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The trim pile:
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Questions/tips always welcome.
Thanks for stopping by.
 
Ok Update time:

In general things seem to be going ok. Temps are good, between 21°c and 26.5°c. Humidity stays around 50-55%.

The DWC plant seems to be just about bouncing back after the heavy supercropping she just had. I may have gone a bit too far with it but atleast I know for next time. She putting out more and more pistils now so hopefully the stretch will end soon. The PH seems to creep up all the time but only slowly so its easy to keep on top of. It was 6.3 today so I corrected it back down to 5.7. Seems like this one is going to take a lot longer than my soil ones.
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The two in soil are still building up bud sites steadily, they got wateted yesterday with tap water PH'd to 6.6. My tap water is really hard and has a PH of 8 out the tap so I need to adjust it, on the bright side I haven't got Cal-Mag issues so far. The plant in the all-mix still has some claw shaped leaves which I would guess is over feeding so it will be on plain water for a bit longer yet.
All-Mix:
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Light-Mix
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Now the news I'm most excited about, my order of 10x Humboldt Seeds Feminized Black Diamond OG seeds has been shipped. I have finally decided on the LED I'm ordering also. It is currently out of stock, but more expected 12th Sept so not long. I plan to add the LED to my flowering space and run it along side my HPS to increase my useable space. If all goes well I plan to make the switch to full LED in the future.

Now my veg situation.

I have a 3ft x 3ft x 5.5ft veg tent with a small 450W equivalent (180W actual draw) LED and a 6" carbon filter, fan extraction moving about 300m3/hr. I just have a passive fresh air intake that works from the negative pressure in the tent.

Currently I have 1x Barney's Farm Tangerine Dream (F) 1x Barney's Farm Red Cherry Berry (F) and 2x Unknown Bag Seed they are 1 month old now and coming along just fine.
I plan to flower these when I get my new LED for my other tent and then start on some Black Diamong OG beans so that by the time my current flowering plants are done I have something to replace them. Also due to my slightly less than legal situation I need to stay below 9 plants total. I hope to eventually get on a rotaion of 3 plants havested every 5-6-7 weeks (depending on speed of flowering on individual strain). As a result of this 9 plant limit the 2 bag seed maybe culled "for the greater good" along with a p.o.s. tiny soil plant in the corner of the flower tent thus far not mentioned in the journal as she is not worthy.
Almost forgot I also have a cutting that has just rooted, it was a gift from a friend's outdoor garden and is supposed to be Girl Scout Cookies, but he said he wasn't 100% it might be Lemon Skunk as he has a mix up with his labelling haha.

Anywho, pictures of the vegging plants:
Tangerine Dream (topped 1 week ago and LST - tied down to side of the pot)
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Red Cherry Berry (topped yesterday)
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Bag Seed (both in same pot)
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The probably GSC cutting
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And finally, my tomato plant
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Thanks for checking in peeps.
 
Subbed in for the ride. :) Wow your DWC is crazy big. Hope you got some clones. Definitely a candidate for supercropping or scrog next time.
Keep up the good work!
Yeah don't underestimate DWC like I did haha that was only 12-14 inches tall and maybe 16 wide when I flowered it 3 weeks or so ago. Its doubled/almost tripled in size.

It was really slow to get going while it was building roots then its like it just exploded, you could visibly see a size difference every day! Hopefully its slowing down height wise now as I'm pretty much out of space. I can only lift my light another 8 inches.

I have a couple clones just sat in a glass of water in the windowsill, but I'm not sure I'll keep them as its so much slower to flower than my others and I got some new seeds I really want to try put too.

Thanks for the sub.
 
Bit of a disaster any help appreciated. I accidentaly knocked a switch on my timer last night so my flowering light stayed on 7hrs longer than it should have. This means they will only get 5 hrs darkness, do I just suck it up and move on or do I leave my light off until its back to normal (so they get a really long dark period)?
 
You asked about advice on LED. I can not say much about the Budmaster or the perfect sun or many brands at all. I can however tell you I am very pleased with my Mars-Hydro's. I run their pro-series.

The reason I like them is of course because of how they grow plants, but that's an aspect where I believe most LED lights made after 2015 will do very well so the real reason I like the Mars-Hydro lights so much is how the company treats you when a light dies.

They have offered me multiple options - to send my lights away to get them fixed or to fix them myself. Fixing them yourself is a great time saving option and they will help you all the way. They have made me personalized videos on how to repair my specific problem in my lamp and they have really tried their best to help me out the best they can.

And that is the reason I would recommend their lights - they don't ditch you when you get in trouble
 
Bit of a disaster any help appreciated. I accidentaly knocked a switch on my timer last night so my flowering light stayed on 7hrs longer than it should have. This means they will only get 5 hrs darkness, do I just suck it up and move on or do I leave my light off until its back to normal (so they get a really long dark period)?


What did you end up doing with the lighting?
 
What did you end up doing with the lighting?
I just put the switch back and it only had 5hrs darkness. Not ideal, but i'll get over it. Need to pay more attention in the future, lesson learned.

Small setup update:

On the bright side the LED I ordered came back in stock early so I should be getting it in the next 24hrs. I went for an Advanced Platinum LED P450 in the end. It was just so much cheaper than the budmaster and I've seen some good grows done with them so thought why not. It has a 5 year warranty and 90 day money back guarantee so not too worried about it, what with the minefield that is buying LEDs (plan to use 3 eventually for a 6' x 4' space). The money I saved meant I could also get myself a full bubble hash kit consisting of 3L camping washing machine (electric), 220micron pyramid bag to go in machine and a set of 8x 4L bubble bags from 220-25 micron and still saved £230 on the cost of one Budmaster God 4. All I need now is to address my drying situation and I should be pretty well set (unless I switch to a full hydro setup). Hopefully I can bodge something together to dry my upcoming harvest in my veg tent as funds are now stretched pretty thin after the light and everything. Curing is no problem I've been saving glass jars since the day I ordered my seeds.
 
I just put the switch back and it only had 5hrs darkness. Not ideal, but i'll get over it. Need to pay more attention in the future, lesson learned.

Small setup update:

On the bright side the LED I ordered came back in stock early so I should be getting it in the next 24hrs. I went for an Advanced Platinum LED P450 in the end. It was just so much cheaper than the budmaster and I've seen some good grows done with them so thought why not. It has a 5 year warranty and 90 day money back guarantee so not too worried about it, what with the minefield that is buying LEDs (plan to use 3 eventually for a 6' x 4' space). The money I saved meant I could also get myself a full bubble hash kit consisting of 3L camping washing machine (electric), 220micron pyramid bag to go in machine and a set of 8x 4L bubble bags from 220-25 micron and still saved £230 on the cost of one Budmaster God 4. All I need now is to address my drying situation and I should be pretty well set (unless I switch to a full hydro setup). Hopefully I can bodge something together to dry my upcoming harvest in my veg tent as funds are now stretched pretty thin after the light and everything. Curing is no problem I've been saving glass jars since the day I ordered my seeds.

Nice! Those are really solid lights from everything I've read plus you got all the other goodies to have fun with. Win win!
 
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