2blgl's First Grow Afghani Kush - Skunk & Northern Light - Big Bud

[2BLgL]

Well now that the cabinet is built I germinated two seeds. Afghni Kush/Skunk and Northern Light/Big Bud. These were part of the free seeds I received from Herbie's with my seed purchase. I germinated them in 2" rockwool cubes. My germination process was to soak the cubes in RO water that was PH 5.5 for 1 hour they were then placed on a germination tray that was set on top of a heating pad. Once the seedlings broke through the top of the cubes I turned on my 45w LED grow light on a 18/6 schedule. Every day I would check for dryness and if they needed it I used a dropper to water them with RO water PH 5.5. Yesterday I noticed that the AK/S had a tap root sticking out the bottom of the cube so I knew it was time to get them into their final home. Started with 4 Gal of RO water with a PH of 5.5 inside my RS hooked up air stones and placed a drip hose into each net pot. I will be following Technaflora Recipe for Success. During this phase the recommend using Root 66 and Sugar Daddy 10ml per Gal so 40 ml of each for root growth. After mixing this in I re-checked the PH and had to lower it from 6.4 back to 5.5. I then placed my cubes into their pots and filled in the edged with Hydroton, plugged my big grow light into the timer started the air and the water pump. The water pump will be on 24/7 putting the root mixture to the bottom of each cube, I do not want it soaking the cube as much as delivering water and root grow just under them so the roots seek out the food and water. and so the grow begins.

What strain is it? Afghni Kush/Skunk and Northern Light/Big Bud
Is it Indica, Sativa or Hybrid? 100% Indica each
Is it in Veg or Flower stage? pre-veg
Indoor or outdoor? Indoor
Soil or Hydro? Hydro
Size of light? 300w LED
Is it aircooled? No
Temp of Room/cab? 75 F
RH of Room/cab? 45%
PH of media or res? 5.5
How often are you watering? Will change Res 1 a week
Type and strength of ferts used? Technaflora Recipe for Success

 

[2BLgL]

re: 2blgl's First Grow Afghni Kush/Skunk and Northern Light/Big Bud

So have light schedule set, light is on 18/6 with sleep time being from 12 noon till 6 PM. Exhaust fan is running as I noticed that temp went to 80 with light running, not to bad though temp with out light is normally about 75 so only a 5 degree increase. Light is set at 15" from top of reservoir. Also I found a nice free program for keeping track of my grow allows you to create schedules for feeding and other tasks very nice and price is right.

 

[stealthgrow]

re: 2blgl's First Grow Afghni Kush/Skunk and Northern Light/Big Bud

Subscribed. Great job on the cabinet, looks top notch.
Good luck with the grow.

 

[Greenthumb J]

re: 2blgl's First Grow Afghni Kush/Skunk and Northern Light/Big Bud

subscribed

 

[indica vet]

re: 2blgl's First Grow Afghni Kush/Skunk and Northern Light/Big Bud

whoop whoop .... front row subbed ,been looking forward to this ...ready...steady....GROW!! i hope i brought enough for everyone

 

[Dusty Kiefers]

re: 2blgl's First Grow Afghni Kush/Skunk and Northern Light/Big Bud

Subbed.

 

[gomab10]

re: 2blgl's First Grow Afghni Kush/Skunk and Northern Light/Big Bud

I'm IN!!

 

[2BLgL]

re: 2blgl's First Grow Afghni Kush/Skunk and Northern Light/Big Bud

Thanks everyone and welcome aboard.

Well checked on the girls tonight at lights on which is 6PM and I have made my first mistake. I had my 6" fan on and it was blowing on the Northern. This dried out the top half of rock-wool cube and caused the plant to bend over 90°. I changed direction of fan, and moistened the cube with RO water. Plant didn't look like it was dying just that it was in a Hurricane and bent over. The AK on the other hand is looking stronger and bigger. It is about 2" now and the stem is thick.

Stats:
Cabinet Temp - 80° at the bottom and 82° at the top
Res Temp - 76°
Res PH - 7.1 lowered to 5.5
Res PPM - 257
Humidity - 36.6
CO2 - 1317

Will check on the Northern in the morning hopefully she will have straightened back up. And will post another update tomorrow evening.

 

[2BLgL]

re: 2blgl's First Grow Afghni Kush/Skunk and Northern Light/Big Bud

Checked the girls tonight. AK is looking stronger and stronger each day, can actually see the next set of leaves starting to grow. The Northern is recovering from my abuse to her almost standing straight up again, noticed that rockwool cube was a bit to wet and since I moved it deeper yesterday I moved it back up to original height in the netpot. No visible roots coming out of pot's on either plant yet.

Stats:
CO2 = 1019
Temp = 80° bottom 84° top
Res Temp = 84°
Humidity = 35%
PH = 7 used PH Down to 6
PPM = 311

AK Looking strong and healthy

Northern starting to recover

 

[Greenthumb J]

re: 2blgl's First Grow Afghni Kush/Skunk and Northern Light/Big Bud

Your res temps is very high and your humidity is very low for this stage of growth.

I would try to get your RH up in the cab. The water temp doesn't really matter as there wont be any roots submerged at this point. Once the roots have developed youre going to want to keep the nutrient solution chilled, or use Aquashield in your water res.

 

[2BLgL]

re: 2blgl's First Grow Afghni Kush/Skunk and Northern Light/Big Bud

Your res temps is very high and your humidity is very low for this stage of growth.

I would try to get your RH up in the cab. The water temp doesn't really matter as there wont be any roots submerged at this point. Once the roots have developed youre going to want to keep the nutrient solution chilled, or use Aquashield in your water res.

Thanks for the advice. I have 2 gel ice blocks I picked up and plan on using them on a rotation basis to keep res temp down, and I will be using cannazyme to add the bennies for the root health. I will be adding a tray of water tonight to try and get the humidity up also.

 

[Greenthumb J]

re: 2blgl's First Grow Afghni Kush/Skunk and Northern Light/Big Bud

Read up on Cannazym.. I would still suggest Aquashield as it also helps prevent dampening off of germinating seeds and young seedlings, plus does everything that Cannazym does, only a little bit more!

just my 2 bits! its worth a check out, plus Aquashield is much cheaper i think..

 

[2BLgL]

re: 2blgl's First Grow Afghni Kush/Skunk and Northern Light/Big Bud

Checked the girls tonight. Northern is standing tall once again. Ak is still looking good. Temps are to high and humidity is to low so started working on how to fix these issues before they cause me issues. For Humidity I filled one of the net pots full of clay pebbles and placed a water line from the water pump at the top to keep the clay wet which should then help raise the humidity. As for the temp's, well after some youtube research I am going to build a redneck A/C this weekend. I will post pictures of this in my cabinet build journal. Res temp is causing some slime will be cleaning and changing the res this weekend and then using gel ice blocks twice a day along with cannazyme ( and yes I know everyone uses aquashield but I had already purchased the cannazyme before I learned about aquashield so I want to use that up first, cant waste good money)

Stats:
CO2 = 1011
Temp = 86° bottom 84° top
Res Temp = 86°
Humidity = 28%
PH = 5.5
PPM = 355

 

[2BLgL]

re: 2blgl's First Grow Afghni Kush/Skunk and Northern Light/Big Bud

Well had to do a lot of regrouping. The northern died, never recovered from my wind damage and the high cabinet temp's and res temp getting way to warm.

First had to rework my room to get the ambient temp down this took changing the dampers on my A/C duct work to get the room colder.

Next I had to figure out how to keep the res water temp down and stable. Aquarium chillers are big bulky and expensive, ice packs are cumbersome and don't work all that well. After doing some research I found a guy who built a water cooler for his hydro garden using a peltier thermal chip and some computer parts. After some more research I found a small company in New York that builds these for aquariums up to 30 gallons, good price and exactly what i need.

My AK is holding on have a bunch of roots coming through the bottom of the pot and starting to show new growth, and since the northern died I have a new one sprouting.

 

[stealthgrow]

re: 2blgl's First Grow Afghni Kush/Skunk and Northern Light/Big Bud

 

[Greenthumb J]

re: 2blgl's First Grow Afghni Kush/Skunk and Northern Light/Big Bud

Can you PM me the site where you found the chiller please?

 

[HunterHunt]

re: 2blgl's First Grow Afghni Kush/Skunk and Northern Light/Big Bud

2BLgL, First issue I notice is your rockwool cubes exposed. They need to be lower in the netpot with the clay covering the rockwool cube. If they are getting to wet then you need to lower the reservoir level. The reservoir level should be around 1/2 - 1 inch below netpot once roots come out. If the rockwool stays exposed they will grow algae. You should have clay around the rockwool so its not getting soaked from the bubbles.

Also, your PPM should be 100 or below at this stage of growth. You need no nutes what so ever for seedling. I personally wouldn't start nutes until 3 or 4 true sets of leaves. I only keep aquashield in my reservoir at this point.

And i did a quick read on cannazyme. From what i read cannazyme does not contain and beneficiary bacteria (beanies). cannazyme turns dead roots into sugars but it does not prevent root rot to start with. You are still going to need to run beanies if you dont want root problems. I of course recommend aquashield

 

[J189RFC]

re: 2blgl's First Grow Afghni Kush/Skunk and Northern Light/Big Bud

Cool chiller!

Sorry bout your one plant

 

[Greenthumb J]

re: 2blgl's First Grow Afghni Kush/Skunk and Northern Light/Big Bud

2BLgL, First issue I notice is your rockwool cubes exposed. They need to be lower in the netpot with the clay covering the rockwool cube. If they are getting to wet then you need to lower the reservoir level. The reservoir level should be around 1/2 - 1 inch below netpot once roots come out. If the rockwool stays exposed they will grow algae. You should have clay around the rockwool so its not getting soaked from the bubbles.

Also, your PPM should be 100 or below at this stage of growth. You need no nutes what so ever for seedling. I personally wouldn't start nutes until 3 or 4 true sets of leaves. I only keep aquashield in my reservoir at this point.

And i did a quick read on cannazyme. From what i read cannazyme does not contain and beneficiary bacteria (beanies). cannazyme turns dead roots into sugars but it does not prevent root rot to start with. You are still going to need to run beanies if you dont want root problems. I of course recommend aquashield

>>> First issue I notice is your rockwool cubes exposed. They need to be lower in the netpot with the clay covering the rockwool cube

I would disagree with this. This is only a matter of preference. My rockwool cubes are exposed, and some have algae on them. These plants are my most vigorous at the moment. I've had algae buildup on rockwool, and it does not show to have any adverse affects on the plant itself, just your eyes when you look at this weird dark coloured green film on the top of the cubes/block. Hydroton at this stage in the plants fragile life, can pinch and sever stems of seedlings thus killing them, IMO

>>> If they are getting to wet then you need to lower the reservoir level

Its next to impossible to overwater rockwool. It hardly holds any moisture at all compare to any other growing medium, thus why most grows in rockwool are irrigated every day. With proper air flow, the top layer of your rockwool will dry up before any algae can form, thus also making the need to water daily, a requirement of the plant.

>>>The reservoir level should be around 1/2 - 1 inch below netpot once roots come out.

Again i'm going to disagree on this one. Roots are searching for moisture, yes, but you dont want to give them too much at the beginning. Look at Aeroponics for instance. It only uses a fine mist to promote explosive root growth. When growing in a DWC (like i am as well) your young sprouts will benefit from the rockwool being able to dry out partially. If your water level is too close to the netpots, when the bubbles from your air stone break the surface, the mist will keep the rockwool wet and slightly hinder root growth as opposed to the rockwool drying out slightly and the stem sending out more roots to search for that moisture.

With a water level of about 1.5-3 inches below the netpot, the young roots emerging from the rockwool, will be stretching towards that mist coming off the water surface, and develop a ridiculous root mass, by having some of the roots emerging from the rockwool, become air pruned. This signals the plant to send out more roots in search of water and nutrition. in about a week to 2 weeks, there should be enough roots submerged in the water that regular top feeding is no longer required, but a beneficial tea, top fed once a week should also be used to help the roots explode with growth as well as ward off the not-so beneficial bacteria, and help in prevention of problems associated with higher water temps.

>>>You are still going to need to run beanies if you dont want root problems. I of course recommend aquashield

Aquashield is not a beneficial bacteria. Yes it has bacteria in it that are good, but when you speak of beneficial bacteria, you are meaning mycorrhizae. Products like Great White, Subculture-M, Voodoo Juice and others are what you wanna look at. Aquashield is a liquid compost solution derived from composted poultry litter. It was originally created with a broad spectrum of Bacillus bacteria, but since its discontinuation, its since been re-released as Hydroguard and has actually been reforumlated to contain a specific strain of the Bacillus bacteria called Bacillus Amyloliquefaciens. This bacteria will colonize your root zone and help prevent the nasties hurting your babies, as well as allow for any mycorrhizae to inoculate the roots, and intake more water and nutrients cause they will be rather thirtsty

 

[2BLgL]

re: 2blgl's First Grow Afghni Kush/Skunk and Northern Light/Big Bud

Well took the long weekend to the big apple and came home to a nice surprise. The AK is going strong with nice long white roots sprouting all over longest at around 6 inches and 3 layer of leaves growing. And my second Northern has one long 4 inch root and 2nd layer of leaves growing. My water temp is steady at 65 degrees now with the new cooler. Cab temp is steady at 78 humidity running at 38 to 41 depending.

Hunter and greenthumb thank you for all the information. Just changed res and have water at around 2 inches below the bottom of the pot's roots are in the water anyway, have also removed the top drip system so as to encourage more root growth. I am using the Technaflora recipe for success and have started the 1st stage which isnt any nutes but their root66 and sugar daddy which are for root growth and using the cannazyme, dont have the funds to purchase any aquashield right now but now another grower who swears by cannazyme and since I already have it I might as well use it....

The AK at week 3

The new Northern at week 1