First Grow Ever! 9 White Widow 1000W HPS 4x4 Tent Hempy Buckets

I'm doing my first grow ever! I'm using Feminized White Widow seeds from bcseedking.com (excellent site, totally legit, they sent me 18 seeds when I bought 10).

I'm growing in 9 hempy buckets in 5 gallon buckets, and I'm using General Hydroponics Fora series nutrients. I've got a HM Digital 80 pH meter, and a HM Digital TDS-4 without the thermometer. Of course I've got all my calibration solutions and GH pH adjustment fluids for my res.

I'm using a 4x4x7 foot grow tent with a VenTec 6 inch inline fan carbon filter set. I've got a Solis Tek 1000w ballast, Hortilux 1000w HPS bulb, and a Magnum XXXL hood that is in line with the carbon filter and fan.

And you guys are very welcome to post in this thread! I love hearing from the community!

Heres the 1000w bulb next to a 23w cfl. These things are massive

The Solis Tek ballast, and everything that comes with it. Very nice ballast!

Heres the light hood and its accessories. This hood is freaking huge

And here's everything set up in the tent

Here's what my babies look right now. The bigger ones are about 1 1/2 months old, and the little ones are 2 weeks old. They had a lot of problems early on, but I got it figured out and they're growing super fast now!

I started 5 more seeds since I decided to do 9 plants total. The 4 seedlings are small enough that these new seeds shouldn't be too far behind. They're under a humidity dome lit by 1 CFL.

Here's some new pictures. And 1 seed is already poking up, and 2 have tap roots poking out the bottom already!

Feel free to post and let me know what you guys think!

Subbed. best of luck!

Quick update, all 5 seeds are now showing taproots that are sticking out the bottom of the Rapid Rooter by about 1/2 inch.

nice i grew WW once so ill stay tuned incase you need any help or advice the picture of my WW is my avatar

Here's my 5 tiny seedlings

With 5 not so tiny tap roots! And they've got the little hairs so they're nice healthy roots!


So I figured its time to give these roots something to grow into. I mixed up some perlite and coco coir in a container, which is what I should have done for my first 4 hempy cups.

Add a little bit of straight perlite to the bottom of the cups to allow for proper drainage of the hempy system. There is a hole about 1" up on each cup that you can't see in the pictures.

Add the seedlings and fill around them with the perlite coco mix, and voila!

They're all looking good! Will post pictures soon! But how can I tell when they're getting root bound and its time to transplant?

I know it's a long time away, but when I'm ready to take clones would Rapid Rooters, aeroponics, or a fog cloner be best?

Seedlings are all showing their first set of true leaves, and I had to support 4 of them with toothpicks because they were growing sideways

And here's the 4 original plants. They're looking good to me, but they also seem to be lightening up. I might need to up my nute strength a little.

Here's the plants in their solo cups, and I thought they looked large enough to transplant.

So I got 4 of my buckets ready for the seedlings.

I let the soil dry out just a bit so I could move them without causing harm to the roots.

The roots weren't quite ready after all, but I think they're gonna be fine. I'm pretty sure they suffered from the lack of perlite, so the new seedlings should root quicker.

And here's the plants in their new buckets under the HPS. I've got it turned down to 600w and I raised it all the way up to adapt the plants to the HPS light.

The seedlings are looking okay. Theyre all growing their second set of true leaves.

And here's my babies that were just transplanted. Sorry, I couldn't turn the HPS off for pictures so the color is screwed up.

And this one is scaring me... There's some spots on the leaves. What do you guys think could be causing it? The water I fed them was a little low on pH, so could that be it?

Sorry it's been so long since I posted in this thread! But my babies are growing up!

And those seedlings are getting big too! I put them under the HPS because that tent is the only one with a carbon filter, and they were getting stinky! They've been in there for 24 hours, and they're loving that light! They're far enough away that they're not gonna burn.


But there is some weird spotting on the big plants, so I'm gonna see if I can get some better pics.

Okay heres the plants without the HPS on. It doesn't show up as good without the HPS on, but the new growth is spotted with spots of light green. Do you guys have any ideas as to what is causing that?

They all look kinda like that but that's the only good pic I could get.

Hey Smerked I responded to your post at WoH and came over to see your grow.
First your plants look really good, and I couldn't pick out the spots. I did see a little yellowing in the margins on a couple of leafs. I noticed that you didn't mention using any type of cal/mag, and with most brands of coco you need to add some. Also I really like your runoff catchment system.
My real concern is your watering frequency. I didn't see any posts mentioning how often your watering or the amount of each watering. I just transplanted to 2 gal buckets a few wks back. After the transplant watering it took 6 days before I needed to watered again. If you keep feeding hard without using up the rez it will build up nutes to a very high concentration.

Best of luck with your first grow, and let me know about your feeding schedule.

WattSaver said:

Hey Smerked I responded to your post at WoH and came over to see your grow.
First your plants look really good, and I couldn't pick out the spots. I did see a little yellowing in the margins on a couple of leafs. I noticed that you didn't mention using any type of cal/mag, and with most brands of coco you need to add some. Also I really like your runoff catchment system.
My real concern is your watering frequency. I didn't see any posts mentioning how often your watering or the amount of each watering. I just transplanted to 2 gal buckets a few wks back. After the transplant watering it took 6 days before I needed to watered again. If you keep feeding hard without using up the rez it will build up nutes to a very high concentration.

Best of luck with your first grow, and let me know about your feeding schedule.

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Thanks man, the drainage system was made to be easy to empty, but since I went with 9 plants instead of 4 I'm having to change that out. You'll see it when its done.

Currently I have no CalMag. Is there any alternative? Bottles of the liquid are crazy expensive, which is why I never got any. Plus I didn't realize I need it.

I was feeding 1 gallon per plant per day but now I'm doing 1 gallon per plant every OTHER day. You think I can wait 5-6 days in between waterings?

Those look perfect man...don't worry about the minor discoloration there. These things are gunna be beasts! How long are you going to veg them?

Hot Diggity Sog said:

Those look perfect man...don't worry about the minor discoloration there. These things are gunna be beasts! How long are you going to veg them?

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Well I'm vegging until the seedlings are big enough to grow some decent buds, so probably 3 more weeks.

So if I don't do any LST or topping or anything like that, I can still get somewhat decent yields right? I wanted to SCROG but since this is my first grow maybe I should work on just completing a successful grow first....

subbed....

SmerkedOut said:

So if I don't do any LST or topping or anything like that, I can still get somewhat decent yields right? I wanted to SCROG but since this is my first grow maybe I should work on just completing a successful grow first....

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Wise call on no Scrog for first grow, wouldn't be too hard, but very time consuming to get to the eye pleasing part of a scrog when the screen is really filling up and filling out.

Plants tend to harvest more weight if left undisturbed under normal circumstances, but that generally also means lots of too small to smoke buds seen more clearly in outdoor plants. Indoor the differences in nug size tend to be less pronounced.

LST on the other hand, will produce an even canopy, meaning plant hormones "auxins" are spread evenly, resulting in uniform sized buds with uniform trich density.
in a 4x4 tent you should plan for the plants to be topped at least once sometime at like node 5-8 depending on where you want the split and the shape/height you want the plants.

Or you can SOG style it and put more plants in.