Steezy log #1

Hey hows it going, so Im going to attempt a grow log here...I'm already half way through but i figure its cool. This is my first grow in a good 5 years, I consider myself a novice at best. When I was younger I started off w/ a small ebb n flow and a 400 watt HPS in a telephone booth like space, then i did straight soil for awhile...i had a good couple of harvests(and by good i mean i got something out of them) but nothing ever came out "superbomb" most of it was preamy as shit...this was mostly due to the fact that i didnt know what a trichome was...let alone when its primed for the cutting -lol

So im a little older now and w/ my past experiances and all the reading ive done(medical growers bible - J.cervantes, internet) + some help (shoutout to shake) I think im ready to harvest some good quality nug.

So I guess Ill describe my setup and post pictures through the beginning to end.

So I have x2 1000 HPS(Lumitek and a Nextgen) a charcoal filter w/ a 8' ducting hole, I have a wall a/c unit in the room, I have a 8 inch vortex fan thats sucks about 675 cfm. I use 8 inch ducting in the room, then it converts to 6' then back to 8( the reason i used 6' is because i have about 150-200 extra cfm then i need for my room. My room size is 5 ft wide,9ft long, and only 6 1/2 feet high(cutting it close ,I know).I use 2 window fans that i have mounted on the wall blowing directly under each light and right above the plant canopy(I will probably add 1 more small one). I'm just sticking to my legal limit w/ 12 plants.




(below are room pics)

Im growing my "chemdog" girls in sunshine #4 soil less mix, The Nutes I use are "botiancare" CNS-Grow, bloom & ripe w/ Liquid karma.
I use a hydro logic RO filter w/ cal mag, i have a milwaukee ph pen & TDS meter(even though TDS for soil is kinda useless)
I made the mistake of starting them in 3 gallon pots, I should of started small and transplanted my way up.



I started last week of september so Im really right at the half way point, they've been flowering for about 3 weeks now.

Here are some pics from beginning to where im at now...
(week 1-2)

-I should probably mention that I received some bad advice on watering at first...i was told to give a little nuted water everyday(that would be a no no because i was not wetting the entire medium,resulting in dry spots etc...)I also gave them nutrients right away...and being that I am using sunshine#4...it has starter nutrients...so you shouldnt give them nutes for at least 5-7days(did not know that at time)...on top of that i gave them too high a dosage...so I had some leaf curl and decided to flush(half way through the 2nd week of VEG) and just start fresh...I also learned the best way to go in soil is(Nute, ph'd water, ph'd water)...so I flushed and started fresh.

-Ok the last pictures were from week 2...these pictures are from week 1

-So 9 of my 12 babies handles the flush good...but 3 of them took it a little harder then the others due to fact that the person who cut my clones butchered three of them...resulting in them being behind a couple days and more stockier then the other 9.

-I should also mention that i only used 1 gallon of water at 1st to flush...and im in 3 gallon pots...so that really wasent a flush, once i found that out i went back and flushed the proper three times amount.

-So this is the 3rd week of veg I believe.a good week after the flush
(you can see there a little pale )

-Like i said before I made the mistake of starting in 3 gallon pots, so roots grew much faster then the top...resulting in them being root bound...it took me awhile to figure this out(shout out to shake again) and I got some heavy yellowing...I wanted to transfer to 7 gallon pots but i was worried about space, so i went with the 5 gallon pots...

So these next pictures are from the last week of Veg and the first week of flowering...you can see some of the yellowing that occured.

-there are two plants in these pictures one big one smaller(nine of them are same size as big one, three same size as small)

keep working at it....5 gal is plenty

So once i transplanted they recovered nicely...all new growth nice and green...I just started to get some bud sites...here are the final pictures...

everything that happens from here I will post as it happens

man i just made 14 gallons of nuted water at one time....does it always look like this? I had to use 20 tablespoons of ph up(trying to get 6.9-7.0 ph level to balance ph in soil which is a lil low) after giving them a full flowering dose...around 1300-1400ppm i think....the water is like blue almost though...I started watering the first plant...and u can see the shit on the soil...is this normal?...shit makes me nervous sometimes

thanks weeddaddy

...its a little small to be honest,I could use another foot all the way around. I have the pots on a big Styrofoam sheet...and every time I want to get in there and do my daily things I have to slide all the pots on a sheet(2 seperate sheets) against the wall or something or move a some pots, lol. If i try to walk through i will bend branches...this being my first grow in here this is the biggest ive gotten them so far, so new stuff is coming up. I also just took the lights off the yoyos and put them on chains so i can get some extra space.My lights are nearly at the roof now...but work with what ya got right?

-well things seem to be going pretty straight, I have my lights at the roof basically(hanging from triangle on reflector hoods)...
-buds seem to be getting bigger daily
-In an effort to do things right and cut down on electricity im going to redo my intake(instead of it sucking from my personal room, im going to run 8 and 6 inch ducting from a vent so it can suck directly from outside. I wish I still had 4 inch ducting otherwise I would use that, but I have a 8 inch dampener so Ill just hook up all the 8' ducting and close the dampener half way and bam...4 inch ducting

here's a updated Nug pic...

"update"
-Well lets see today is day 31 of flowering(although I do think I might have lost a good 3-4, maybe even 7 days due to the late transplant 7 days into flowering)my humidity and temps have been great, I still haven't bought a humidifier but the humidity has been a solid 45-55 for awhile now, and once I finish the new intake that sucks "directly" from outside (have everything ready just waiting for proper cutting tool to make holes through wall) I have a feeling I wont be needing the a/c at all during light on hours...in fact I want a separate thermostat for my heater(wish I could afford a controller)

"yellow tips"
-Bud sites are getting bigger, on two of the twelve plants the main colas actual bud leafs, the tips are yellow but only on the main cola tip(2 total), the rest is nice and green...and the two it happened to are under the same light.

"white fly spotting"
-also I was doing my daily inspection yesterday and I spotted a whitefly(tiny bastard)I killed him manually but couldn't find anymore and I really looked and shook too.Should I be really worried about this? I know white flies take awhile to lay eggs and hatch(30 days I think), but if I can be pro active I rather not take a chance. I have neem oil, but unsure about spraying it this late into flowering.

"size & yield estimating "
So three of the plants are spot on 44-45 inches, the other six bigger ones are in the 39-43 inches range...and the remaining three smaller bushier ones are about 28-32 inches...Ive seen first hand 1 and a half pound harvest's per 1k light from this strain, so with two lights should be about 3 pounds total. With that said I think Ill get between 2-2 and a half pounds total...anything lower would just be disappointing, anything over would be great...but to be honest I just hope the quality is top notch & I figure the rest will work itself out.

-Ill take a bunch of pictures tonight when the lights turn on and post again if I can.

"Update"
-So the pictures finally decided to show up in my email...i just gave them there last full fledged feeding yesterday i belive...from here i start to decrease the amount of "ripe" being used...

"No pruning for me"
-I should probably mention that ive decided to go with the "all natural" method of pruning...which means I basically will just ler them grow and not touch anything until after the flush and there ready for some manicuring... every harvest(years ago) ive had before this ive pruned the shit out of...so ive decicded to do the opposite and see what the results are..."maybe" my colas wont be as fat...but it seems the safest route according to the bible.

"root bound"
-I'm actually starting to think my biggest plant(just shy of 4ft) is root bound...the tips are yellowing but are not crispy...and its slowly working its way down, its only one plant so im not worried...but can you transplant this late?

-Feel free to BS

"water source"
-Ive used RO water this whole time w/ my plants but due to security/water bill issues ive decided to switch to tap for the final stretch...mainly because i got the smallest ro filter available(does 4 gallons per hour)...and when ur up to 45 gallons a week...that means the water had to be on for 12 hours a week!(and are water bills just went up)....BUT I will go back if someone thinks this is a huge mistake...does anyone know?

I don't know exactly what happens.
i'm using deionized water from store, 1 $ per gallon. I don't know how much you pay for producing and hardware. If this is not an option for you then you should keep going with your RO water IMO. Changing it to tapwater can cause some effects like it will release unused elements in the soil and as i read it right you applied high level of nutrients. So, if i were you i wouldn't change the water. Specially in this stage. +Global warming :)

So I went ahead and made the switch to tap...the deciding factor was that my tap watr has a pretty low 250-270 ppm w/ a ph of 7.5-7.8...and i think it wont matter...

I am however second guessing myself with the hole not pruning thing...i think i should have at least "lollipopped" them...im in day 35-36 o fflower and the plants have been growing the lower stems for awhile now...does anyone think its too late to lollipop? i probably wont because i dont want to risk shock or worse...but i am open....opinions please

hey stee, nice set up! I'm doing the natrual thing too (not pruning) this is my first grow and wanted to make sure plants pop first, even though jorge c ,I believe suggests not pruning unless 50% of the leaf is dead.... dunno, I tried topping one of my plants, tried lst on one of em too, they both ended up being boys. one of my girls in my hydro actually appears like I topped it, it has two main stems, and actually the "branch" stem off of the main stem looks better and healthier! I pluck my leaves as they die and when they easily fall off... I am looking at pruning my next girls, theyre only about 3 weeks old right now. I just wonder if that would have been a "branch" I pruned, if so, I wouldn't have that monster! anywho, got off on a little rant.... just wanted to say nice set up, I want cannas leds too.... lol, however I wouldnt sneeze at ur two 1000's!!!! i can only convince my other half of 400w (price), I'm surprised actually, I was "allowed" to get my second 400w for my veg room, lol, that used to be her spareroom/office...... who needs a office when u have a kitchen table??????

thanks purp, It has been awhile for me, but a opportunity presented itself and I took it (knew a caregiver selling the meat and potatoes of there setup real cheap and jumped) I figured I knew enough and did enough research to at least get some positive results...

-So I'm going to give the plants 15 gallons of just ph'd water tonight....Ill check the runoff(like I always do) look for pests(whiteflys) and I will also clean my room tonight(sweep & scrub floor w/ hot water & soap, clean foam padding, and possibly clean the trays...I do the cleaning once a week, I also don't wear shoes in my room and try to be self conscious of where I've been)

Ill probably just post pics once a week...so again this weekend.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PurpleRoot

just wanted to say nice set up, I want cannas leds too.... lol, however I wouldnt sneeze at ur two 1000's!!!! i can only convince my other half of 400w (price), I'm surprised actually, I was "allowed" to get my second 400w for my veg room, lol, that used to be her spareroom/office...... who needs a office when u have a kitchen table??????

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+1 :thumbsup: Setup looks nice and your girls look really happy:hippy:

For the Pruning thing,... if your gonna go natural, don't do it, let those big fans get all the light they can and circulate the juices to feed big fat BUDS! :rastasmoke: FIMing and or Topping to help supercrop the plant is fine, but leave the leaves alone. my newest AK got topped at the end of week one, to highest nodes took over as new tops, AND 3 other branches caught up and are growing at the same rate! :D It's got 5 tops!!! :pimp: I really hope it is as heavy of yield as my first one, flowered from clone and dropped this weekend.

As for the LED,... it was a fun (and expensive) experiment, I had some initial great results,... especially with my peppers, but in the long run I wound up having to hang my 400w MH back up to keep up with the needs of my patients. It couldn't do the whole 4.5x4.5 vege area with enough grunt to get the girls to flowering size in the right timeframe. :( So it's now under the table flowering some clones to see if there's a difference in quality HPS or LED. :hippy:

Purpleroot; There's nothing at all wrong with 400's for smaller grows, it's all I was running until a buddy gave me a 600w HPS to help me keep up with my patients. (Stupid "Free" light still cost about $280 to set up after getting a timer (240v) bulb, extra wood to build a new area ect, ect, ect......)

Now I'm digressing. :o

Pic: My AK Clone after trimming, thats the whole plant. It looks like about .5 oz dry, need to wait a full week and give it a second cut to get dry weight and start curing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by steezyd

"root bound"
-I'm actually starting to think my biggest plant(just shy of 4ft) is root bound...the tips are yellowing but are not crispy...and its slowly working its way down, its only one plant so im not worried...but can you transplant this late?

-Feel free to BS

---

Just noticed this,....

Day 34 in that post, so 5 weeks in :(


Yes, if you do it carefully you could transplant her, wait till the soil is "mostly" dry, (not completely dry, but not soaking, 40-50% wet) and do it right before lights off to allow any damaged roots to heal overnight before the plant starts demanding nute flow from them.

The downfall of course is that by up potting in conventional soil like FFOF your giving an additional boost of N as well as all the other nutes, so it could effect the flavor of the finished product at this time.


Good luck either way you go with it. Keep us posted.

Pic 1: What a healthy root ball should look like at up pot.
Pic 2: What I mean about just the right moisture,... I'm holding the root ball by the STEM!

Thanks cannis, I dont know how to do the quote box thing, but thats too bad about the LED...I have about a week before I go get a Veg light and start my veg box...I guess its back to the quantum T5 BB for me, I was thinking 4ft 6 lamp would be good for"12" 1 and a 1/2-2ft plants...im sure i need the 8 lamp...but not sure if i can swing it, i figure if there not big enough Ill just pump them up for a week in the flower room.

as for the transplant, I use sunshine#4 soil less so nitrogen wont be a problem thankfully...and i have plenty left sealed up(double bagged it and taped up)....its wierd that it only happened to one plant, at first I was like eh, if only one cola is slightly yellow Ill take that nug i guess, but ill probably transplant just because can. at least the yellow wont spread.

-Gave them 15 gallons of nuted water tonight, checked the runoff and was at a nice 6.3-6.4...Nugs are getting bigger and starting to fill in...

Will post pictures in the morning.

plants are looking real nice. :thumbsup:

@shove - thanks, Im doing my darndest..

Here are some updated pics from today...there does appear to be some sort of heat stress/curling going on(even though temps are perfect) ...
I mean my ladies are far from perfect but a solid grow I think...

Starting to to really stink it up too...I figure I'll start flushing somewhere between the 7th-10th

don't rush them, they will fatten up quite a bit more, I'm sure. :thumbsup:

-well today is about day 38-42 of flower and its a 8 week flowering strain, (somewhere between tomorrow & Friday) would be the start of the 7th week...
now I "thought" this was about the proper time to start flushing? and i figured by the time the two weeks are up they would be about ready maybe?

Or do you think i should go another week of nutes?(I would feed them on friday)I know the buds are still very white(still not done) but if i remember right they should amber up soon and then i figure the milky trichs come after that...

-on a side note this is probably the stage ive had the most trouble w/ in the past, I learned the hard way how critical proper harvest time is. Now that I have a magnifying tool and know about "milky trichomes" and have this log I'm hoping i can overcome all that and produce some solid B+ buds...
(guess i was the kid who was happy w/ 2nd place lol)

2-3 weeks it looks too me. hit them with nutes again and let them keep going:thumbsup: like shovel said they need to fatten up. patience and it will swell upp

Just wanted to say "weed3" looks burning. Maybe you can pass her for last shot.
Pretty ladies you have out there. Good luck with them :thumbsup:

Well I was going to give them just ph'd water last night but they really didnt need it...soil was still pretty moist so i let them go a extra day...I thought the longer they went in flower the "more" water they used,...

"Intake story"
So I fixed my intake a couple of days ago, I realized how flawed my whole intake was so I redid it. Basically I have a 18ft long room, 9ft wide, half of it is 8ft ceiling other half is 6 1/2 ft ceiling ...this is the room I live in...an inside that room is my grow room(all walls identical in personal room, just open up the closet door and holy shit!)...so for some dumbass reason I decided to have my intake sucking from my personal room, so I'm turning on the heater trying to stay warm at night(which was hard to do because of the negative pressure) and its sucking the hot air from my heater causing the a/c to turn on and racking up even more power...which also makes it pointless to have "lights on" during the night. So now the intake ducting(w/ a couple of twist and turns along the way) sucks directly from the outside...and I really haven't heard the a/c come on since...I just hope it stays relatively warm during the day(although my little tiny space heater doesn't use nearly as much power as the a/c)

I think I will post pictures tonight, it seems like some of the nugs are getting fatter then other ones,they all look pretty ok though...

whew! just finished my cleaning for the week, which is becoming more and more difficult...I'm already thinking about the future and I can't wait to get a bigger space, but one step at a time right? Im also leaning torwards expanding my room for another 1k...but in stead of buying another light I want a light mover to play with...the way I see it if I can expand my canopy coverage w/ one light and cover double the plants...I'm all for it

So here are the pics...

pic #3 is blurry, but the very tip of the main cola is slightly yellow...think my light is too close? not that theres anything I can really do about it...lol...next time ill definably top my plants(not that i have much room on the side either though, lol)

Yellowing this late in flowering is normal,... if your lights were too close, the pistils would be wilting and burning away from the light, and the leaves would be dry brown and crispy, not just yellow. ;)


Girls look great man! Looking forward to some harvest bud porn! :rastasmoke:

Well I gave them a full nuted feeding...buds are getting "dizamn" big...
just in time too...I'm so low on meds I'm smoking "schwag"elberries...(YIKES!):weedpoke:

Still no color yet though...not even a hint of orange or red...

they will turn....keep checking the trichomes....I always harvest when...all cloudy and 20% to 30% amber.......I have one plant where I just do not have any room to hang it...so it 2 weeks behind the others..and it's about 50 / 50
now....it is possible that the 3 full days of darkness at the end would speed it up.....I have never done this....

anyone have and experience here....

you plants look excellent.....love those colas....great job.

Thanks weeddaddy,
good to see you back after that BS that went down(can't keep a good man down right?)...You would probably think that hearing your story would have a opposite affect in me, but it actually made me think about starting my own delivery service...of course it was just a thought but maybe somewhere down the 2011 line...can't let people like that win.

and about the color Its just crazy there so big now but still totally white/premature...I wasn't even going to check the trichs until I got some color, but I will tonight just to see. I was thinking about doing the "36 hours" of darkness before the actual cutting...just for kicks really, and the bible said that was optimal time length & would have some type of positive affect.

So as the end draws near, my mouth waters and my eyes lear...

Well to start off i got a different camera,although not that much better i went a little crazy w/ the pics anyway...

the leafs seem to be curling slightly more on some then others, buds are getting a decent size I think...

I spotted the first white hairs to turn different color...although not many...maybe 2-3% tops

on a side note
I am really enjoying this new intake...it feels like i have my personal room back again, I dont have to use the heater at all in the grow room during the night period and the humidity has been good(40's)...not to mention my personal room holds heat again! lol...I took a pic of it just for the hell of it
(I took off the silver insulation surrounding it)

"Smell story"
So the cloth fitting filter thing on the charcoal filter stopped working just because it was so damn old...the guy I got everything from said i could probably make it through another run before having to replace it, however another grower came over who I respect looked at it and said "You should really change that"(as he kind of laughed)...buying a new one made me realize how dirty it was...I mean they come in white...and mine is dark gray/black, haha...I also changed my exhaust outing because of this too...I had the fan/exhaust just blowing into my attic...when the filter gave out the WHOLE fucking house reaked for like 2 days...some of my roomates(who dont smoke) were having some kind of allergic reaction to it...nothing serious just allergy like symptoms...so I spent some time this morning and left the fan where it was, but i put 8 inch ducting on the opposite side and directed it to a vent close by(only 2-3ft of ducting) so now the air is blowing directly outside...I also put 2 fans in the attic pointed up at exhaust vents and opened every window in the house and just tried to vent the shit out of it...which was a success.


So without any delay....the pictures, Im going to give them ph'd water tomorrow as well, I gave them nutrients last thursday(12/9)...so should that be the last feeding?maybe one more tomorrow then nothing but ph'd water for 2 weeks you think?(12/17-12/31)...you think they will finish up in those two weeks?...like I said its only a 8 week strain

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As you can see I'm maxed out on height...I blame the leaf curl on this...anyone else?http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/9995/0000025e.jpg Image Hosting

This is the new intake(Took off the silver insulation around the inside part of ducting)if you notice the piece of plywood patch behind it that's where the old intake was from
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does anyone think this a problem?I have a portable a/c im going to hook up after this run, but i was going to finish the 1st one w/ the wall a/c...w/ the portable one i can stack stuff underneath it to make it blow preety much where i want(under light,over canopy)....in stead of in just on place like this....it does seem like that plant is the farthest behind too...
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