Hey peoples,
I like this idea of a journal. Much better online than on paper because you can all see and learn and help! Please ask questions as I will do the same. I am on day 27 right now so I have some catching up to do. Here goes;
My Closet: 2.5'(w) x 4.5' (L) x 9' (H). I am growing using a 125wall full spectrum C.F.L for the first three weeks (rooting) and a 400watt H.P.S for veg. and flower. All the girls are in 1 gallon pots right now but I'm going to move them to 2 gallon grow bags next where they will stay until harvest.
Plants/Strains: I'm growing 4 clones: Mikado, Grunk (grape x skunk), N.L#5, and Shiva. Also 3 from seed: feminized grapefruit. They are all indica crosses except grapefruit which is a fast maturing sativa. They're flowering times range from 45 days (Mikado, N.L#5) to 60 days (Grunk, Grapefruit).
Widow said I could expect around four ounces total so that's what I'm shooting for.
The Plan: I'm going the start flowering at the end of the month. The plants will be between 11"-14" than and should be around 2'-2.5' come harvest.
CO2: I'm using a one gallon fermentation chamber (yeast and sugar). Seems to be working well.

Well, that's it for now. My only questions for the time is; when should I trim the bottom mast growth (the bottom 1 inch of the stem) My plants are only about 12" tall now. Should I not worry about it until they're bigger or trim them up now?

For your first grow, I'd leave the trimming. Besides, leaves are good for hash. The best hash you'll ever smoke. At least wait till they are bigger.

Don't expect too much from your first grow, that way you can only be pleasantly surprized. Good luck.

Added some pictures today. Things are lookin fine

how did you make the fermentation chamber? I spent several hundred on co2 dispenser and it keeps running out of gas.

m420 are the grapefruits from femaleseeds nl?if they are were the slow to start,say compared to the nl#5 from seed.

Mr. rhino4life
I used this article i found online. It works great but I can't remember where it's from though


Acquire some brewer's yeast if you can. The types of yeast you can use (in order of what is best) are:
-Champagne, Wine, Ale, Beer, Baker's

Rig up a simple fermentation chamber with airlock. The airlock is designed to keep the atmosphere anaerobic while releasing your good CO2. Fermentation chamber should be any airtight container with top. It could be a 2 liter Coke bottle, for example. Drill a hole in its top and glue in some plastic tubing, making sure to create a good seal. An epoxy is probably what you'll need to do it. Run that tube into a smaller, halved bottle: a water bottle works well. Place the tube at the exact bottom and glue it there such that the outlet of the tube faces the wall (not the bottom) and is not blocked (by glue, the wall, and your mouse, whatever). Fill that up with water, about an inch and a half above the bottom.

The mechanism is all set up, now set up the fermentation. Fill the bottle with about a 20% solution of glucose (dextrose) by mass and place a few tsp. of yeast in that jaunt. Placing the yeast in some warm water for half an hour prior with some sugar is a good way to jump-start the process. Using those six-carboned sugars, you get optimum results, but other sugars can be used. In general, you'll likely find the 5-carbon variety (fructose: corn syrup, eg.) or the polysaccharide (sucrose: cane sugar). In these cases, it’s ok to add a little more sugar, no more than 25%. Champagne yeast can tolerate more. Brewers yeast, you may want to shoot for less. Cap that jaunt with the tubing/cap system you rigged up.

Here's the principal, its pretty simple: The yeast use the sugar to make their energy (ATP). However, in absence of oxygen, the metabolic pathways can't be completed, and alcohol is excreted as waste. This is disadvantageous to the yeast, but hey, who cares? They also release carbon dioxide. For every equivalent of glucose or dextrose, the yeast produces two equivalents of carbon dioxide and alcohol. If other sugars are used, the process is slightly less efficient due to the early metabolics that get done to prepare it, or the inefficiency of metabolic/synthetic shunts. The carbon dioxide is good for your plants: its the objective. The alcohol is bad. It increases in concentration in the fermentation vessel and DOES NOT leave in any way. Over time, the yeast poisons itself with its own waste. Better yeasts (as per the above sheet) survive longer and make more carbon dioxide. Hence the reason for increasing the sugar, if you'd like (the difference is probably just about marginal if at all).

So what does this mean for you? A mole of glucose is around 180 grams. Thus, a 20% mass solution will produce slightly more than TWO MOLES (2.2 to be exact) of gas per liter. At standard temperature and pressure, and if you are growing, that's what you want, you will get around 50 liters of pure carbon dioxide from this method, over the time period of about 2-4 weeks.

Problems: You can tell the yeast is dying when the bubbling through the airlock subsides. No way around it, you need to whip up another fermentation mixture. Optimally you would do this every week and a half, while the yeast is at their maximum productivity. Using cane sugar and baker's yeast this is a crazy inexpensive endeavor.

Can you kill the plants with too much CO2? Most likely not. They breathe it as air, and they really only need oxygen (the only other thing they really take from the air) to run their ETC and some other minor metabolic processes. They get this from the water, believe it or not. Also they respirate as much 02 as they take in CO2. No problem, really. On the other hand, your plants would optimally have about 3 times as much carbon dioxide as would be in the atmosphere. That rings in at around 6%, so not that much, and in all likelihood, its going to be difficult to bring it up to these levels.



-Good luck!!!

Mr. Blues,
The grapefruits are from femaleseeds and they may have started a little slow but once out of the seedling stage and into veg they grow like crazy. They are almost %100 sativa so needless to say I've got a jungle in my closet. The N.L.#5 i got was a clone so I"m not sure how long it would take to really take off. Good luck!

thanks m420...the reason to ask about the nl#5 was thats all you have that i`ve had any experiance with,i gifted the gf to someone else and they are by far the slowest i seen.i know that femaleseeds tell you that up front but i had no idea that theywould be so slow.i thought something was wrong.
and to add from what the breeder says about these you won`t be able to keep them at 2.5ft,they recomend you go 12/12 after rooting to keep them between 3-4ft.
i`ll be watching your progress to see how things work out for ya.that grunk looks interesting.
thanks for the info

peace

Hey peoples,
I have been very busy with work and such, but things are looking great. I am now on day 31 of flowering and my whole apartment smells fantastic. I'm posting new pictures for anyone who cares to view my progress. If anybody has any questions, please feel free to fire away. This is my first indoor grow and I think I'm going to get a lot of buds in a small space

I'm on day 80 and the girls have been flowering for 46 days now. Needless to say, it's a pretty exciting time. I found out that my N.L#5 is actually a Black Domina plant, which I prefer anyway but it takes longer to mature. I'm updating my gallery today. Should be ready to cut in five days or so. Wish me luck.