Mickymac's Coco Big Bang CFL Grow Journal 2014

[mickymac101]

HI Everyone,

This is my first grow, I am using "Big Bang" seeds from Green House Seed Company.

Because this is my first grow I thought I would try to make it as easy on my wallet as possible, I'm sure I will make lots of rookie mistakes and hopefully you guys will help me learn from them!

Currently I have one germinated seed in a mixture of Coco Coir and a water retaining Crystals. The seed is under a 20watt CFL bulb for the moment as I am awaiting my grow tent in the post. my setup will be as follows:

Grow Tent: 80cm X 80cm X 160cm.
300w Dual Spectrum CFL: With BLUE 6400K & RED 2700K filaments .
125mm/5in Fan & Carbon Filter Combo.

I will be Growing 2 Plants side by side by Ive only started one until my kit comes.

I am currently germinating the other seed using thee paper towel & plate method!

Any help welcome!!

 

[mickymac101]

Anyone fancy guessing how much I will yield?

 

[smokeytimez]

Good luck man. Keep updating. I looked at the 300w dual spectrum CFL. So be interesting to see the groeth. I went with a 250 mh/hps light. Good luck mate

 

[mickymac101]

Got my grow tent setup in the post this morning! cant believe the size of the 300watt dual spectrum CFL!!!

I will get it put together tonight and upload another few pics!

 

[smokeytimez]

Them cfl bulbs are massive when I first see one I thought it was a chandelier lol, but yeah mate keep updating. I wanna see how the 300 does. Cheers and G L MATE

 

[Gfcollective]

Im Subbed!! very nice to see you got your journal up! and nice to see the tent came!

if your wanting to upload an image onto 420magazine you will have to be logged into your account, then at the top left of the page you will see a button called 'gallery' once you click on that you will see a 'Upload' button. from there is should be a pretty easy process they have set up for you.

when back in your journal, inside your comment box you will see a camera on the tool bar right next to a film reel. clicking on that will give you access to your storage of photos. hope this helps

I&i

 

[mickymac101]

Thanks GF, Got the tent up last night, looks well!

Anyone know if I should have the extractor fan with carbon filter on for the duration of the grow? would it be best just to turn it on during flowering stage to keep moisture levels up during veg? trying to keep electricity to a minimum or my missus will kill me! lol

Noticed this morning the first leaves coming through the soil! they look a bit lop-sided and are not in the center of the pot, will this matter much?

 

[Gfcollective]

you will not want your carbon filter in your grow room when vegging. i say this for two reasons

1) there wont be a heavy smell to worry about in veg
2) the heavy humidity will clog up the carbon and prevent the carbon from filtering during flower stage.

i for instance in my veg tent have 4 fans in a 5x5x8 tent. 3 are on the bottom 2 are oscillating blowing air around and strengthening my ladys while the third pulls air in from outside. the 4th is a lil bigger "vornado" that sucks the air out of my veg tent and throws it into the next room.

when i get my new setup put together in a couple weeks when ladys are ready to be moved around i will be adding a 4" inline fan into my grow that sits outside the tent right now. once flower time has come i will set my carbon filter up inside the tent (i have 360 access so it may be easier for me something for you to think ahead about)

As far as your plant, its looking great. they dont always come up where u expect but you will be transplanting it so you can center it up then to make it as ideal as you would like. hope this all helps! happy grows

I&i

 

[mickymac101]

Thanks for the Advice Gf,

Do you know how many plants would be best in my tent? I have 5 seeds germinating atm but I doubt I could fit them all into an 80cm X 80cm base and my 300watt bulb would produce enough light. I was thinking 3 but could i stretch to 4? Also I think I need to increase humdity, I was thinking maybe a wet towel on the floor would help things a bit?

What sort of yield do you think is possible in this set up?...ballpark I want something to aim for!

 

[mickymac101]

ALL 5 SEEDS HAVE GERMINATED AND BROKE THROUGH THE SOIL!!

I have turned the CFL so that the light from the blue spectrum is directly over the plants and the red spectrum is shooting up into the reflector. I will switch this for Flowering.

 

[Gfcollective]

my honest opinion, i would go with one plant in that tent, and do what we call Scrog. if your training on your one plant was done well then i would say you could get from 1oz to a lb inside that tent. depends on many factors to be able to tell but worst case scenario i could see 1oz being yielded out of that (pays for the tent and equipment, second grow is money not spent on smoke)

best part of having your 5 seeds started is you can see which grows the "best" in your opinion. once you see a grow style that you like that the plant is giving you, that will be your baby. another great thing about starting from seeds is that the node points are almost perfectly equal with each other instead of being offset by a 1/4 inch or so. this will make for some of the best training (some around here refer to as Fluxing) my journal i refer to it as Hubbing.

with one plant you can fill that entire tent with a see of green style grow, allowing for the most effect use out of that space in my opinion. if you grow 2 plants (most i would recommend) they will be pressing into each other or the tent and will be covering each other making it hard for the CFL's to penetrate. but if pruned correctly (all the inside nodes and bottom fan leafs/branches) then you could get a nice sea of green out of two plants as well.

i fill a glass bowl 3/4 full of water and place it on the bottom of my grow tent for added humidity.
to take humidity away,
either buy a dehumidifier or google one of the ways to make your own silica bags (desiccant bag)

I&i

 

[mickymac101]

Ok, So I have been reading up on the scrog method and it looks the business!! Thanks GF! I will make my screen over the next few days and upload some photos.

I think I will try 2 plants, not being greedy but with this being my first grow I just want some sort of back up plan in case one gets sick! lol

I have access to CO2 tanks canisters at work, would it be a good idea to get some and open the valves to release co2 into the air very slowly? I would only be able to this about once a week so would it be worth the effort?

 

[Gfcollective]

if you want to introduce co2 into your tent i would recommend buying a co2 bag since your tent is small you wont need alot of co2 being added to your tent and this will last around 3-4 months. its what i have in my small room and its been going on its 3rd month now. a tank would most likely add to much into your room im guessing.

your idea on 2 plants is solid, never hurts to have a back up. if possible look at some of the DIY tents and closets on 420mag and i would contemplate making one if possible for you to have a place to store your other plants. this will help as you mentioned keep them from sharing diseases or pests. also you can get them set on two different cycles which may be an interest of yours down the road.


when it comes to scrog the best ive seen to date is CoFinest most recent monster scrog. he put some time, energy and training into that lady. many others have done very well themselves, another good one to look at is LightAddicts FLUXING grow, all very great techniques.
hope this all helps

I&i

 

[mickymac101]

Starting to get a bit worried about 4 out of 5 ofmy seedlings! they have all broke through the soil, but only one seems to be doing well, the other 4 are not showing any real growth and although I know its what's going on under the ground that counts at the minute compared to the one good one they look pretty dead. Their leaves are very thin and almost rolled up looking. see the picture below.

on the left is the good one and on the right is one of the 4 bad ones, not sure whats going on? the one on the right was actually planted a few days before the one on the left.

 

[Gfcollective]

your soil looks like it could have perlite added to it to help the roots maneuver and breath as well as help water flow. main issue i can see if your soil just looks like the roots are struggling to grow. what type of fertilizer are u using? you dont want your soil to have alot of nutrients in it while they are young. think of it as setting a 12oz steak in front of a 2 year old and expecting them to eat it all without leaving the table. not going to happen healthy.

I&i

 

[mickymac101]

HI Gf, I have Perlite here, but I was gonna wait until i am transferring it, I havent added any nutes yet just water.should I carefully remove the seedling from the soild and add it to new soil with perlite?

 

[mickymac101]

Thanks GF, I have no nutes on them yet, I took 2 from the coco and put them in a coco-perlite mix. I know this is a risky job but I think they would have died otherwise. I will give them a few days in the new mix and compare growth to those still in coco only medium. In the meantime I still have one good seedling.

 

[ionize]

nice clean tent. those babies are going to go great!

 

[Gfcollective]

i recommend doing whatever it takes to save your lil babys. we all make mistakes even i just recently had a garden get planted with mostly peatmoss as the helper didnt know perlite should be added to the mix so half the plants got planted in peatmoss.. luckily they were just starts so within a week i moved them to better soil (i didnt want to stress them by moving them twice in two days) the soil fell apart easily as the roots had not formed a structure yet, was real careful at placing the roots in new soil while trying to not tangle them. some will live some will die, this comes down to the weak and the strong. the good thing is you attempted it which shows your not afraid to do what it takes to make a healthy plant. many are nervous when it comes to pruning as well as transplanting. you took it by the horns!

I&i

 

[Tamir]

Subbed... Nice set up.