First time grow starts tomorrow!

[TMGrow]

I've spent the last 9 months building a custom grow room from the ground up with my two roommates. We've tried, failed and perfected every little (and large) imperfection. Our grow setup is exquisite!

-8'x12'x10' Practically air tight room (minus input/output ventilation(when activated))

-(2) 1000W Halide(grow) and 1000W High Pressure Sodium(bloom) Bulbs
(we will use one of each during grow and rotate plants accordingly)

-Vented hoods with Activated Carbon filter on back end... 8" inline duct fan at wall sucking out.

-50lb CO2 tank w/ regulator attached to oscillating fan to distribute

-Separate in wall AC unit

-Isolated watering system including heater, circulation and main hose pumps

-9'x3' bed made of particle board with 1" insulated styrofoam base with (18) 12L potters = 9 plants per light

-Work station, radio and all the other amenities



We are using Fox Farms "Happy Frog" plus mixing in a portion of Perlite and Garden Lime for PH regulation. We are also using the Hesi Soil Nutrient Sytem. We'll see how that works. I've heard good things.

We ordered 20 clones of Skywalker to do our first grow. I've read a lot and it seems to be at home in soil, and not only a high yielder but very potent too! Best of both worlds!

We'll start our little ladies at 18 hours of light & 6 hours of night. Watering 200ml every day (depending on it's needs tho). Don't want to over water!

Tomorrow is the big day! I will include pictures when i update tomorrow after planting! Wish us luck!

TMGrow Reviewed by TMGrow on 10-21-2009. First time grow starts tomorrow! I've spent the last 9 months building a custom grow room from the ground up with my two roommates. We've tried, failed and perfected every little (and large) imperfection. Our grow setup is exquisite! -8'x12'x10' Practically air tight room (minus input/output ventilation(when activated)) -(2) 1000W Halide(grow) and 1000W High Pressure Sodium(bloom) Bulbs (we will use one of each during grow and rotate plants accordingly) -Vented hoods with Activated Carbon filter on back Rating: 5

[Loafyboy]

Sounds like you have invested plenty of time and effort (not to mention cash!). I'll be following this, sounds great! Looking forward to pics of the grow room setup. :thumbsup:

:hippy:

[TMGrow]

So today was the day! The shop i got our clones from kinda blew it by not having all 20 Skywalker ready like they said they did, so... we went with 17 Skywalker, and 1 of each Platinum Bubba, Old School Og and 5656 OG! 16 SW are in Fox Farms "Happy Frog" with Perlite and Dolomitic Lime (for PH regulation). One SW and the others are in Miracle Grow Potting Soil with Lime and Perlite. Got our water going, using the HESI Soil System! 200ml right after planting. We've decided to use MH one day and HPS the other to maximize potential! Planing on rotating every couple of days. I'll put up more when they start to take!

[TMGrow]

So i went in this morning to find the two weakest of my girls wilting even more and where ever there were already burn marks, it spread; on all of them! It's not catastrophic, but it did get me searching the net! I kinda of narrowed it down to a few things. First i added a humidifier! We were around 45-55% range, and with the humidifier, we jumped (depending whether the ac kicked in or not) between 55-75%! Then I realized at the distance i had my MH 1000W about the girls, it wasn't reaching the other end of the flower bed adequately (only having one on at a time). I was previously planning to use MH and HPS on alternating days, but there is a big-enough-to-matter difference in the lumen output between the two. So, i went back to using both MH and at the same time. They are about 3' 1/2 above foliage. I had to mess around with the ac and placement of humidifier to get it consistent. Now the only problem i had was the relentless wilting of two Skywalkers! I read up, and used a little common sense, and came to the conclusion that they are in shock. I'm sure it's got to be a big change going from their nice little humi-dome under some fluorescents, to a large room, with (temporarily) low humidity, different lighting, etc etc. So I read a bit about using a clear plastic cup with holes in it over the plant to recreate the environment and humidity. I put them on the worst ones, and it seemed to work on the worst one! The middle, newest, growth, had come back to life! Pretty Excited! So, i will leave them like that overnight, leaving lights off for 6 hrs tonight and on til flower. Let the room get moist and turn everything off. Ac on standby, to catch the lights turning on in a.m. Alright, I'll post again when i see some results!

[midnightAK]

9 months to copy the swiss how to video?

i would cut the hps off, just run MHand get those in smaller pots for the time being (1gal tall) so they fit under light... looks like they hooked u guys up with clones that barely got rooted(another reason you wont need those pots yet.)

and frog soil is pretty heavy in nutes imo. be easy on the nutes. (hesi is great but if your following that vid there dosing at the start....)

best of luck to you guys and the investment

[TMGrow]

Well, i came in this morning and the one's i had put under cups, were stable, but one random girl wilted and curled clockwise in on itself! I rotated all plants and decided to put every girl with any sign of problems under a cup. I am not watering today, kind of worried about nute burn and over watering. I'm keeping the humidity as high as possible. Thanks MidnightAK, we definitely did take some tips and construction ideas from the video. Also the only reason we are using Hesi. But I built this room from the ground up. Laid cement, Framing, wiring, insulation, put ac through the wall, doors, drywall, paint, everything man! It's been a real pain in the ass trying to get this going with everyone's jobs and living situation. It's been trial and error and underestimating throughout, but i'm pretty sure our environment is optimal now. We're not just throwing up some lights, ducting and going. And yea, i'm not really happy NOHO 5656, it took 3 weeks to get these and i think, since my order was large, they may have given choice to all other people getting one or two, so mine got picked over. They probably had to cut others in the meantime, and their over all organization skills are ridiculous! They ended up scrambling when i came to pick up (even though they knew i was coming in) and i ended up getting only 17 skywalker, 1 plat bubba, 1 old school og and 1 5656 og. Not very please, but we'll make it work! So anyway, if i need to water tomorrow, i will use pure water. I did cut out the HPS, but with only one MH on, the other end of bed doesn't receive what i would think is enough light. So i've started to use both on, about 3' 1/2 above tops. Is there any reason why my pot size would be affecting my plants? I understand it may not need that much at this point, but why overhaul my situation if it will eventually fill out? I've attached some pics. If anyone can diagnose this or reaffirm my suspicions, i would greatly appreciate it!

[midnightAK]

hey tm, now that i look at my post it sounded kinda dick lol. (i question a bit much when im stoned.)

it sounds like u had some work cut out for you guys. it came out awesome if i could compare it to the vid and u guys built from scratch(no starting room)! no wonder it took 9 months

on the whole idea of potting.
1. smaller pots will be easier to maintain in a smaller area. (+saving on lights is a big plus for me whenever i can)
2. a oversized pot (in your case) with a small plant in it usually causes one to overwater. (water sits in most cases top gets dry u water but plant is actually Wicking water from the bottom) what happens... classic wilt. progressing to lean, or damping off/root rot.
3. smaller pots will help u learn weight technique. i use one hand to move pots around after a while u can tell when the water weights gone. with ten gallon pots u will be able to see a much bigger difference as well once u got it down.
4. all in all its saves money, teaches you about good technique to watering and event repotting skills. good basic gardening.

hope the rooms treating the clones well!

[TMGrow]

I tried a million things yesterday. I realized we're practically cloning in soil under 1000w mh. Probably not good. Humidity was 35-55. So we made a tent (greenhouse style) to trap moisture in, but it got over 90 degrees. So we scratched that. I'm back to using one light, which seems to be stopping the shriveling and helps keeping humidity up. I will consider the smaller pots. I would do it now, but i'm strapped for cash. But it makes total sense. Thanks! For now, they're in there at 82-84 degrees, 50-65% humidity and one light on about 4 ft from top. I think they are stable enough to let go for a day. They are showing new growth on all tops, i think they might be digesting the bottom large leaves for root growth. Once they establish roots, things might get better? So i'll treat them like the pseudo clones there are. haha I'll throw up some pics later today.

[TMGrow]

So today, no changes. We've exhausted all of the possible variables that could be wrong and/or changed in our environment (minus getting smaller pots), so we decided to pull the little girls up and see if any hand rooted at all. We ordered these clones on Oct. 1 2009 from NOHO 5656. We waited the 2ish weeks it usually takes to clone a cutting. I checked on them, with no result. No roots showing at all. They then told me to give them a few more days. Never got a call. Then once another week had passed, I called, and they assured me they were rooted and ready to go. When i came in the next day, after telling them i would be in then, they scrambled to find the right one's. They didn't have enough, which is odd, because when i came in the week prior, they were all in one planter bed. We ended up getting stuck with 3 other strains we didn't order. Out of 20, 1 was showing roots, but they insisted they were all ready. So we brought them back, planted. Check all variables (water, lighting, humidity, temp, ventilation, everything.) We're four days in, and everyday brought more problems and more work to try and fix them. We finally took them out of their rock wool cubes to find THEY WERE CUT WRONG, NOT BURIED DEEP ENOUGH IN THE CUBE AND DEFINITELY NOT READY TO GO!!! NO ROOTS, NO GOOD!! Is this what is to be expected? Are these what other dispensaries consider good clones??? Here are pictures, to validate.










These are just a few of them. We were practically cloning these for them. What did we pay them for? We were lucky, a couple have rooted, but we're still in the same predicament.

I want to here some feed back PLEASE!!!!

[Shovelhandle]

That is brutal. I know nothing of buying clones and I'm not too experienced with taking cuts but I have grown clones and I cut them much larger than that. That little cut doesn't look like it was ready for a party cup let alone pails as large as those. Live and learn. You have a couple taking off, right? In a while you'll be able to take your own clones from these.

think positive

Shov