First Grow ever 5x5

All,

Been a lurker for awhile and have gained lots of great info from the people here. Thank you all.

Wife gave me the go ahead to grow a few months ago, but they only way we could really do it was outside in a shed, so that was huge undertaking.

My good friend use to grow alot and gave me alot of his old gear, so I am setup way beyond my experience, but it saved me a ton of money.


Setup:

• Built a 10x10 Shed (Home Depot)
• Built a 5x5 Grow closet in the shed
• 400W light (MH and HPS depending on cycle)
• Moving light bar for the light to move and cover more area.
• Ebb and Flow with bucket set-up (6) Buckets
• 30 Gallon Reserve
• 4inch In-line CanFan with a DIY Carbon scrubber
• (4) CPU fans to help bring air in
• White paint on the walls
• Pura Vida Grow and Bloom Organic
• Water from tap went through Mr. Clean filter. Start EC was .2

Light Cycle 18/6 for Veg and will be 12/12 for Flower
Strain - Betsy (that's our strain we have had around here for years) and some Blue Dream Haze.

Day 1
Temps are staying between 70 (early morning) to 88 (Peak heat of day).
PH is a steady 5.9 after 24 hours
EC is 1.8 (900PPM) after 24 hours
Humidity was around 46% a little low so I added a bowl of water and now its 50%

The clones sat for a few days in a cooler with out much TLC. I was able to re-soak the cubes once.


Issues and Questions:

1. I did notice some discolouration on some of the leaves like Potassium decency, was hoping that being in the Ebb and Flow it would elevate this.
2. Any good suggestions on plugging light leaks on where cords pass through a hole in wall?
3. Any comments or suggestions would be much appreciated and welcome.

Will add more pics tomorrow of room. Battery died on camera

What do you experts think. See pics attached.

Here are more pics of my closet grow.

My carbon scrubber is in a box so I can have it scrub from Grow room, dry room, and from light. Works like a charm so far.

Any suggestions or comments would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Good job. Looks like you're trying to do it right the first time. I usually recommend starting with soil the first couple grows. Hydro can be easy to screw up till you get to knowing what you're doing.

Thanks.. Things are going pretty good..
PH is a little low now so I will adjust in the morning.

temp of 88 as a high is starting to push things a lil I think, by the time middle of summer gets here your prob gonna be thinking a/c. I still stand by my t-shirt method for light leaks. I use the method to control how much air intake I have and which intake holes I use in my cab.

Well I ended up going with the T-shirt with some black thick paper stapled around it. Seems to be working fine. thank you..

The strain we have called "Betsy" is a hardy girl. It grows just fine up into the 90's.

I increased some air flow and now my temps are down below 85 all day, I want to grow other strains also :)

Had some Thripes but took care of them and I think I got them pretty early so it looks good.

Getting ready to switch to Flowering this weekend. So the fun part begins!

This is just the engineer in me coming out, but that flex duct that you have coming out of your reflector shouldn't be at that severe of an angle. You're probably losing a lot of your air flow with a 90 degree angle. What's happening right now is your duct fan is trying to pull that hot air out of the reflector, and it's only getting a very small portion of it due to the severe angle. Kind of like putting a kink in a garden hose- you lose a great deal of your flow. Do a 45 degree angle at most & try to minimize the amount of bends in the ductwork. Just had to do this with a grocery store I remodeled with a fireplace. Had to put a few duct fans in the fireplace venting because of all the 45s to get it out from under a mezzanine above. Looks like you're on the right track!

Good eye.. The Light is on a moving bar so that angle is only there for a min or less before it becomes less of an angle to more of something like a 45 to 30 degrees. Hard to keep it the same all the time since it moves :)

Switches to Flower last Sunday so we are now on a 12/12 cycle with a 400w HPS light.

Issues and lessons learned:

1. Been battling Thripes (hate those things) - Spray plants well every couple of days. Used Mosquitto dunks into my reserve also. Seems to have helped alot.
   
2. RH% is a little high in the mornings now that I have switched to Flower.. My understanding is that during Flower you want 50-60% RH and it can get into the 65 68 range for an hour or so in the mornings. Not sure what to do or if I should since its such a short amount of time.
   
3. WASH, WASH, WASH, and PH your Hydrotron before use.. Don't ask :wtf:

All in all things look pretty good. The girls are growing quick. See updated pics.

Oh.. Do they look female to you? I am thinking so.

If someone wants to move this thread to the grow log area that would be great, I can not seem to do it myself and I made the mistake and started this in the wrong area.. :stoned: