My First Grow Room - Seed to Bud

drybiedog · #1 10-07-2008, 06:25 PM

In the past few weeks I have been totally inspired by all the great journals here so I thought I'd start my own.

The room: (diagram attached)
Basement crawl space that has been dug out to a height of 6.5 feet. One room is veg with a counter to grow on and the flowering room is 3 feet by 4. I insulated the two outside walls and drywalled. The room was incredibly humid (I started to see some mold!!!) so I ran a dehumidifier until I realized the problem --- dirt floor! The humidity was rising from the floor. I laid down 4 sheets of foamy underlay for laminate floors covered by a thick plastic sheet. So far so good. Humidity around 45% (was 85%)

Lighting:
Veg room - 2 florescent fixtures with 2 (40 watt) bulbs each. 2 cool white and 2 aquarium grow lights. 18 hours light / 6 hours dark. I also have some cfls to strategically place as I need them.
Flowering room. One HPS 600watt bulb and ballast that I bought on ebay. It comes with a MH bulb but I don't think I'll use it.

Ventilation:
Two 2-inch holes to the outside for passive intake, currently plugged up until flowering is up and running. A HEPA air purifier is running all the time to get rid of any spores and it creates a bit of circulation in the air. Finally I have a bathroom fan 80CFM pulling air from the outdoor vents via the flowering room and venting to another basement crawlspace. Not going to turn it on until I need it. When do I need to start major air circulation?

Electrical:
I am running a separate circuit for my lights straight from the box and running everything else from a heavy duty extension cord with power-bars.

Seeds:
20 kush from BCseedKing - Arrived on time. 10 for $50 and they threw in 10 extra!! 1 bagseed from a friends bad pot.

Clones:
Not really a clone but a friend of mine gave me a bud from a flowering plant that I'm trying to convert back to veg. (see attached pic) Not looking good, lots of brown leaves but I've got my fingers crossed. See the picture. There is a very good chance I am wasting my time. Any bets?

Soil:
PROMIX Triple mix Link here and a bag of worm castings that I will mix 15% worm, 85% soil.

Water:
Have been using mineral but I may switch to tap (pretty good here) or I can also use dehumidifier water. (any advice?) I am ph balancing with phdown as the water starts at ph 7.5 and i'm trying to get it to 5.5
QUESTION: I have a water bubbler and airstone...do i need this running in my water supply all the time?

Nutes:
DNF bottles of A & B of both grow and bloom.

Environment:
It is going to be a cold winter here so it gets pretty cold outside so I'm not sure how regulating temperature and humidity is going to be but I feel confident and capable of making the necessary adjustments.

Germination:
My first attempt at germinating was disappointing.
I soaked 8 seeds for 36 hours in water. Half cracked with a taproot just visible inside - I planted them all in darkness - half to rockwool soaked in a super weak (2 drops of liquid plant food per litre) ph-balanced mineral water. The other 4 went into soil. The next day I turned the florescents on 30 cm above the plants. Only 2 rockwool seedlings came up. the rest of the seeds all looked cracked and in some the taproot is visible but they never progressed. The ones that still hadn't cracked I transferred to paper towel to soak more and pray.

I know I made a mess of my first germination effort but I've read a bunch and am trying the paper towel method now.

8 more kush seeds and 1 bag seed I snatched from a friend.

This time I will try to keep a constant temperature by leaving them on the computer monitor. I will wait for the taproot to clearly emerge before transferring to rockwool. Also I ph balanced the water with lemon the first time and now I have phdown. So far they have been in the paper towel for 16 hours with no visible change.

The single bagseed which I started a day earlier has cracked with the smallest visible taproot inside but I will wait until the taproot actually exits the seed before planting (although it has been like this for 24 hours now with no change). I live pretty far north and the temperature inside fluctuates quite a bit at night so I'm not sure if that is what is causing my seeds' lack of growth. Anyone want to weigh in?

Hope you enjoy the pics. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Also, if there are noobies like myself that want to know more about my set-up - I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Fingers crossed and filled with eager anticipation for the project ahead.

Lots more pics to follow.

drybiedog · #2 10-08-2008, 07:29 AM

I had a feeling the original seedlings looked a bit stretched. I think it is because I didn't have the lights low enough. Now they are at 1 inch. Is that a good distance? Any more advice is welcome.

I have 3 more batches of seeds germinating (slightly different mediums and wetness to provide variety). The thumbnail of the lone seed is my bagseed. The two in red are kush. The saucer seeds are also kush and only 1 of the 4 so far look like the taproot is thriving. It has been 40 hours.

Do the seeds with exposed taproots look like they should be planted now? I think I'm going to put them in soaked rockwool under 18/6 flors.

UnderPhire · #3 10-08-2008, 07:39 AM

You want to check on your seeds as little as possible when they are germing in the paper towel. Zero Light would be the optimum, but not always possible. (I checked mine often too) As for the 1 inch above your plant that is exactly where you want them to be because heat is not going to be an issue right now, as for the seedlings that are stretched already they will be fine. Just keep the light on 24/0 or 18/4 with a fan on low to build up their stem.

UnderPhire · #4 10-08-2008, 07:41 AM

Oh and those taproots are just starting to become exposed. I let that root become anywhere from .5'' - .75'' long before sowing.

drybiedog · #5 10-08-2008, 07:47 AM

Thanks, i guess i'm too eager. I will wait until tonight to check and perhaps sow.

drybiedog · #6 10-08-2008, 09:03 AM

The seeds from the red tissue had large taproots and were ready to plant although with the others I'm going to take your advice and let them grow a little longer, and afterwards compare the two.

I've just put "Laurel" and "Hardy" in rockwool cubes soaked with distilled water and then shaken a little so that they aren't saturated. I then put them in a tray with a clear lid to keep the moisture trapped inside.

Fingers crossed.

drybiedog · #7 10-08-2008, 05:52 PM

I've waited another 10 hours and now I think I've got 2 more germinated seeds. These tails are quite long. I found it difficult to get it into the rockwool with such a long taproot. When i dropped it in the hole it only went down a couple millimeters. I had to push it down with tweezers which seemed too rough but i didn't know what else to do. I read afterwards some people use a pencil to widen the hole.

I'm a bit nervous about putting them in the grow room over night. The germination seemed to work better with distilled water and a very warm (top of the monitor) spot at over 87 degrees. The room is only 77 during the day and drops down to 68 for the 6 hours when the flors go out. Could this be why the others never came up?

Thinking of running a heater for half an hour in the middle of the night.

I then put them 8 inches below my flors until i see them reach the surface then I'll go to 1 inch.

As always, any suggestions are appreciated. I'm a bit of an outsider to all this.

drybiedog · #8 10-09-2008, 08:22 PM

The two seeds I left germinating grew massive 3/4 inch tails 12 hour later. 40 hours after entering the paper towel they have been planted. One into a pot of soil (85% promix, 15% worm castings). The other went into a 1 inch rock wool cube (with the hole widened by a pencil and the top pinched closed a bit.

Also some re-jigging of the others. One seeding that was in a 1 inch rockwool cube I moved to a big cube which i soaked for 20 minutes in a 1/4 strength DNF solution with distilled water. As much as I hate to admit it I actually dropped my baby yesterday (it happens!) and there was a bit of a kink in the stem. I'm thinking it might prove fatal. I have some scaffolding with a twist-tie and toothpick and it seems to be holding itself up ok although the stem is quite purple.

Mr. Stretch was in a 1 inch cube and I also transplanted to soil to try and support the weak stem a bit better.

One seed i put in a cube yesterday is going gangbusters and has already emerged struggling to throw of the seed case. wow! That's the one to watch.

I still feel like the grow is quite slow. I figure Mr. Stretch should be bigger after 2 weeks from germ. Does anyone know a good resource to look at day-by-day pics of plant growth so i can compare?

I'm still not sure if the flors are bright enough. Mr. Green uses them but more people here seem to use CFLs. Should I switch?

Perhaps this strain is harder to grow? Does anyone know if Kush is harder than, say, AK47?

peacemane420 · #9 10-09-2008, 09:18 PM

cooool! im watchin man!!

drybiedog · #10 10-10-2008, 05:25 PM

I spent today sealing up the door to the grow room to make it easier to monitor the temperature and humidity levels. I'm worried though about the passive vents in the winter; with a 12/12 cycle in the flowering room and the vents open all night I'm thinking that the temperature might drop too low. This is a problem I'll have to look at once the HPS is up and running. I think that I'll run it for a night or two and take a few timelapse shots to see how low the room drops. Does anyone know of any cute ways of controlling the passive vents?
I have more seeds to be planted as taproots are now coming left, right and center! I planted a few in grodan cubes and they're going well. I might even put a couple into pots this weekend. The other seedlings are making progress too although it is hard to judge just how well. They seem very slow but steady.

The excitement is too much!