My First Grow Journal - DWC - 90W LED UFO

[liquid3p]

Hi everybody! This is my first grow and I´m so excited!

Ok, before I start I have to say that I had a lot of problems germinating. F*** it was so hard! My seeds had like 2 years old and some of my them took around 30 days to germinate! I tried several methods… Long story short, finally, my babies germinated! Oh, and btw I learned that my tap water sucks! :S Anyway, I rescued 4 seeds out of 8 :S

Strains – 1 Medijuana, 2 White Widow, 1 Haze
# of Plants - 4
Grow Type - Hydro
Grow Stage - Medijuana 1 week after germinating and WW and Haze 1 day after germinated.
Setup - DWC
Light – 90w LED UFO and 65w CFL
Nutrients – Advanced Nutrients Jungle Juice
Medium - Grodan Rockwool and Peat Moss
PPM – Not measure
PH – 5.9
Room Temperature -78 to 84
Solution Temperature - Not measure
Room Square Footage – 4ft x 4ft
Pests - None Known

I must say that at this point I am a little bit confused about growing with LED. I have read too much and don’t know if this is gonna work. For what I read LED just work for veg but for flowering I´ll need a powerful light. I read that CFL would help for flowering, but still a little bit confuse.

LED and LED+CFL growers, if you could give me some advice about lighting it will help me a lot.

Thanks!
Pd. English is not my mother tongue, sorry for the grammatical mistakes.

Here are some pics.

 

[greensmurf]

Hey welcome! I too am having trouble germinating. my white rhino seed was from buydutchseeds. I decided to place
a new order with nirvana (white widow and wonder woman) and I am 100% success with germination in water and root
hormone. I just placed them in rockwool last night. check out my grow and you'll see what I'm talking about.

From what I'm told the smaller led lights are good for veg and supplemental light in flower. But I have not done the research
myself.


Good luck with your grow! I'm subbed

 

[liquid3p]

Hey welcome! I too am having trouble germinating. my white rhino seed was from buydutchseeds. I decided to place
a new order with nirvana (white widow and wonder woman) and I am 100% success with germination in water and root
hormone. I just placed them in rockwool last night. check out my grow and you'll see what I'm talking about.

From what I'm told the smaller led lights are good for veg and supplemental light in flower. But I have not done the research
myself.


Good luck with your grow! I'm subbed

Hi greensmurf I watched the pics at your journal and let me tell you that you have a great set-up there! Me too I ordered some Nirvana seed (Northern Lights, Snow White, PPP and a Mix). You are not gonna believe me, but meanwhile I was writing this post the postman drop by my order!!!

DWC is the way to go, you have a lot of control of how you plants grow, however you´ll experience a growth explosion when the roots of your plants will touch the water and the nuts. Those girls are goona grow faster.

Regarding the LED lights, I have read the same thing that they are good for veg but for flowering LED lights wont work. Actually for flowering I´m thinking of moving to HPS but still have to do some research about flowering with LED + CFL.

Good luck with your grow!

 

[greensmurf]

Love getting those envelopes in the mail. This is my first DWC and done a ton of research on it. After seeing a side
by side comparison seeds started at the same time 1 in DWC and the other in soil, I had to switch. Silly not to, in my
eyes. Speaking about growth, my 1widow & 1 wonder woman are already about to break ground and I only started
them in water on friday. I have found my seed supplier and their name is Nirvana. Looks like me & you will have
plants harvesting around the same time.

 

[KingJohnC]

subscribed

 

[liquid3p]

Greensmurf yeah, as you said looks like you & me will have plants harvesting around the same time. Lets see how it goes.

KingJohnC thanks for the subscription.

Update.
As my Nirvana seeds had arrived I want to add 2 Northern Light to my grow room and see what happen with my Medijuana, WW and Haze. These last 4 seeds seems a little bit lazy with the LED so I changed them to 65w CFL. Today I will buy a few more CFL. An as soon as my plants begin to grow I will start using the LED.

 

[liquid3p]

Update

Well, Nirvana seeds are just great! I put in total 4 NL seed to germinate, in a glass of pure water with PH 5.9-6.0. In 36 hours aprox. I move the seeds into a piece of paper napkin and used the same water. 18 hours later the seeds show their roots and the move the seed to rockwool (4 pieces) and put the rockwool into a tupperware to maintain the humidity with CFL close it. In 3 1/2 the 4 plants has sprouted and 2 out of 4 has 4 leaves.

Ok, next steps...
1. In 2 or 3 days max I´ll will move the seedlings to my DWC system. Most of my seedlings are showing 2 pairs of leaves and the roots are searching water outside the rockwool.
2. I will start with a 1/4 or 1/2 strength of the nutrients and with time i´ll increase the doses. Also, I´ll be adding Superthrive.
3. I willl start using the 90 watts LED light with 2 CFL of 20w and 1 CFL of 65w.

I will be posting more photos soon.

Note:
I should say I started using CFL because seems that the LED was to strong for this process. I´ll keep using CFL for a few more days and the add the 90 watts LED.
Seems that the first seeds (Medijuana, WW and Haze) failed growing.
I learned a lot failing with these first seeds. First If you are going to store your seeds for more than 2 years (my case) store them in the frige with a nice isolated pack. Second use pure ware instead of your tap water. Third, have patience.

 

[greensmurf]

Looking good. I haven't started nutes yet in mine only root hormone. I am going to wait until I see more growth. I don't want to burn my babies.

 

[liquid3p]

Update

Yesterday I moved my seedling to my DIY DWC system (some pics below), add nuts at a 1/4 of its strength and Superthrive. I´m not sure if it´s my imagination but today when I went to see how my little girls were doing they look a little bit bigger!

I started using my 90w LED and also 2+13w CFL and 2+20 CFL. I will keep my seedlings with this formula for about 1 or 2 weeks, then I will add 1/2 or 1/3 of nuts strength. Let´s see whats happen in the next weeks.

 

[greensmurf]

How low are your lights? Keep them low to avoid stretch.

 

[liquid3p]

How low are your lights? Keep them low to avoid stretch.

The LED is at 18" and the CFLs are at 5". Do you think the lights are too high?

 

[NekoDragon]

you can bring the LED down some more i keep mine about 8" from the tops. Oh and Subscribed

 

[liquid3p]

Update
Yesterday at noon I opened my grow tent and felt a little funky smell. But didn't put too much attention. But today I felt a strong smell. I opened the dwc system and seems that the smell come from there. I don't know if the nutrients smell bad or if its the plastic that I used to wrap top of the bucket. Anyone knows what can it be? Is this normal? Nuts smells bad?
Any advice will help. Thanks.

 

[BushyBro]

Subbed - Great setup!

 

[greensmurf]

Smell a little like cat piss?

Nutrients do have a little odd smell to them. Every time I go to my hydro store for supplies I walk in the door the smell hits me right away.

 

[ilikebike]

did u rinse/scrub all equipment before filling it up with water and adding hydrton and stuff. Also is still pretty early in the plants life dont think it needs much if any nutrients.

as for the lights id get them as close as possible to the tops of the seedlings. CFL lights are hot, but the heat they emit doesnt travel far so you can pretty much have them 1-2'' away from the seedling,

LED runs even cooler than CFL so i dont see why you couldnt have it just as close if not closer.

just my two cents tho

Good luck on your grow! stop by my journal if you have any extra time i would appreciate it thanks!

 

[liquid3p]

Sorry to answer until today but yesterday when I was writing the response to all of you guys, I was doing it from my iphone (you know how hard it is to write from that shit) when I was ready to send the reply I pressed the back arrow on the search bar and I lost all I have written. But here it goes a short version of what I wrote.

] Smell a little like cat piss?

Nutrients do have a little odd smell to them. Every time I go to my hydro store for supplies I walk in the door the smell hits me right away.

A little bit of cat piss but more like a pond! :S

did u rinse/scrub all equipment before filling it up with water and adding hydrton and stuff. Also is still pretty early in the plants life dont think it needs much if any nutrients.

as for the lights id get them as close as possible to the tops of the seedlings. CFL lights are hot, but the heat they emit doesnt travel far so you can pretty much have them 1-2'' away from the seedling,

LED runs even cooler than CFL so i dont see why you couldnt have it just as close if not closer.

just my two cents tho

Good luck on your grow! stop by my journal if you have any extra time i would appreciate it thanks!

Yes, I did rinse/scrub my buckets, hydroton and stuff but I have to say that not thoroughly enough. :S Seems that I only learned by the bad ways.

Update: Following the advices...
a. Since my reservoir smelled like a pond I cleaned all my stuff (buckets, lids, air stones, net pots, etc) with chlorine, H2O2 and water.
b. I have brought the lights closer.
c. Smoked a few "petas"
d. Used some smaller net pots meanwhile I cleaned my stuff.
e. No nuts and no Superthrive for now.

Thanks Greensmurf, Nekodragon and ilikebike for the advice! It really helps me!

Here are some photos of my set up meanwhile I cleaned my stuff.

 

[liquid3p]

By the way! I have already passed by you journal ilibike, you have a very cool setup there with all your gadgets I am Subscribed!

 

[greensmurf]

Looking good and green.

 

[Psychosic]

Looks like this is going to turn out to be a good grow! I couldn't help but be like "damnnn look at that stretch" but you moved your lights closer so everything will be fine. Subbed.

~Psycho