Tllx99 First Grow - Indoor Stealth - Hindu Kush

Hi guys - so I started my first grow today and decided I wanted to do a grow journal to let everyone see how I am doing. So here it goes:

Day 1 - January 28, 2009 - Planted germinated seeds

So today I came home and after two days of germination I decided to plant my seeds. I chose rockwool as you can see in the pictures. From the advice I got I pre-soaked the rockwool in water for 24 hours prior to planting in order to get the alkaline levels down. I had somewhat of a problem pinching the holes in the rockwool shut after I dropped the seeds in but hopefully they will stay. I kind of just randomly decided to order Hindu Kush beans. I got them from Nirvana (which btw was a fantastic experience, very easy and highly recommended) but now that I have done some more research I kind of wish I would have gone with a sative strain. What ever though, this is my first grow and we will see how it goes and then go from there. I plan to transplant the seeds in rockwool to 70% FoxFarm's Ocean Harvast soil + 30% perilite while they are still young. Upon a lot of research I chose the BMO line of nutrients, which I will start to give the seedlings at either 1/5 or 1/4 strength in about 2 or 3 weeks. For right now they are just getting tap water. I havent yet purchased a pH tester or test kit but I should probably do that soon.

My set up:
1x2x2 stealth grow box - I like to build things and decided on this size for my first grow. It didnt turn out amazing, but it is sealed and should work well.
6x 25 watt GrowBright 1800 lumen and 6500k CFLS - For the veg state on 18/6
2x 120 cfm computer fans - for intake
1x 4" 80cfm inline duct fan - for exhaust attached to a external carbon scrubber.

I placed the seedlings about 4 inches away from the lights to start - I am having a little bit of a problem with the top fan which is blowing quite hard on the little rockwoll cubes so I angled it towards the wall. I might just unplug the top one for now, but I don't want the temp to get to high.

Hopefully we see some ground breakers tomorrow night or the next night. I am getting pretty excited! Hopefully they are girls!

If you have any hints or questions at all please PLEASE tell me.

Thanks RUI!

Day 2 - January 29. 2009 - Nothing has happened yet

It's been about 20 hours since I put the germinated seeds under the lights. So far nothing has happened. I opted to change two of the seeds over to direct FFOF soil while leaving two of them in the rockwool. I had another one that I was going to leave germinating for another day, but I just decided to pop it in some soil. I have 6 ungerminated seeds left if these one's don't work. I have a question for you guys, I watered in the seeds into both the rockwool and the soil last night and when I checked them today both the rockwool and soil were bone dry. I watered again just to get things a little more hydrated. I don't have a hydrometer, but my temps are at a steady 80-86ºF. I know this is high, but not too high right now.

The Humidity in your box is too low, that's why it dried so fast. Try putting a couple glass of water around, this will saturate the air in the box and help your RockWool stay humid.

Forget about the fans until they sprout.

Also, I had seeds in a germination device (humid towel folded over the seeds in a dish plate) and they wouldn't sprout for several days, then, when I putted it on a heat source (in my case, over my aquarium tube fluo light) it EXPLODED! so if you could get the seed container slightly warm (not hot), it will help your seeds.

TIPS: don't let the root reach the bottom, as soon as you see it peak though the bottom of the rockwool, plant it. else it will go back up, and you will end up with a weak plant that never really grows (happened to me)

Day 2 Cont. - January 29, 2009 - Better Conditions

After Cohiblunt's suggestion of putting a few cups of water in my cab I have found that the soil has stayed much more moist (+rep for Cohiblunt!). We have an old sauna in our house so I took the hydrometer out of there and put it in my cab. It looks like we are at about 37% humidity right now which is a bit low. Does anyone have any other suggestions on how I can get my humidity up in the 50's or 60's? I peeked into the rockwool cubes and the seeds are looking good. Most of them have expanded their little root tall quite a bit so far. The thing is though is that it is not going down into the cube but rather up towards the light, the little white tall that comes out of the seed is the beginning of the root system right? Or did I place my seeds wrong and that is actually the beginning of the sprout? My temp is a very consistent 80ºF so I am happy with that. I hope that they start to sprout soon!!! Pictures would be worthless right now becuase nothing has happened yet but hopefully soon.

Thanks for watching

Day 3 - January 30, 2009 - I don't like rockwool...
So my girls have been under the light now for a little over 42 hours. I had planted 2 of them in rockwool and 2 in FoxFarm's Ocean Forrest soil. From what I had read rockwool was a much better way to start a plants life, but from what I have seen I am not so sure. So far I have one seed in the soil that is just breaking ground and in both of the rockwools it looks like nothing is happening. So I transplanted one more of my little girls to soil today. So far I have 3 in soil and I left 1 in rockwool just to see what happens. Hopefully by tonight the one that is just breaking ground will be up! I will try and post again later if anything happens.

Day 3 Cont. - January 30, 2009 - Broke ground!
So I went back to peak at my little girls before I went to bed and to my surprise one of them had broken ground! It was one that was originally planted in soil and appears to be doing well, apart from the fact that its stem isn't completely straight yet. I took a bunch of pictures of the little girl (hopefully). The rest are looking good as well. I am having a problem with heat though. When I went in the cab was at 95ºF - WAY TOO HOT!! I don't know why it isn't recycling the air faster. I am thinking about buying a more powerful in-line duct fan for the exhaust, or maybe running another segment of ducting out of the cupboard much like the intake is run. The room temp is a constant 70ºF so I just don't know why my two intake and one exhaust fan isn't enough to keep the cab that cool. I put some plastic baggies over the red dixie cups to keep moisture in and it seems to be working well. Other than that nothing else is new, I am just sitting here waiting for some more action!

Day 4 - January 31, 2009 - Getting Bigger!
So my little girl that has broken the surface ahead of everyone else is getting a good amount bigger. She straighten out which is good an has those 4 initial leaves going. The other girls are looking good as well. One of them had there root go up and is now finally going back down which I hope isn't too much work before she starts to sprout, I have faith in her. I opened the door to the room where they are staying and got the temp down to 66º in there, which in turn dropped the temp in my cab to about 82ºF which is much better than the 95º I was experiencing yesterday. All this growing stuff is new to me, but its been pretty fun so far. I can't wait to see these girls really start to grow!!! I attached some pics of the one that has broken ground. Two of the bigger leafs are somewhat dropping, I think this is just from size but does anyone see anything wrong?? Thanks for looking!

Day 5 - February 1, 2009 - Nothing new
One of the seeds died today, it was the one in the rockwool. I think it was just too hard to use that rockwoll with the low humidity environment that I have. So now I am down to 3 soil plants. The one that has sprouted is looking great, the more jagged leafs are much bigger than they were yesterday which I am quite happy about! There apears to be no stretching either which is great. I popped two more seeds onto a paper towel today to germinate and then they are going straight into soil instead of the rockwool. Hopefully my other two sprout, but if not then I should be fine with the two extra germed seeds. I am still having some temp problems with temps in the 85-88 range, I have to leave the door to the room where they are growing open the entire time which leads to the temp dropping to about 68º when the lights are off. I hope this huge amount of temp change every day wont affect my little girls. I only have about 20 inches of grow room after the pots and the lights are acounted for so I am comtemplating waiting for the other two to sprout and then just putting them on 12/12. Again I am growing indica Hindu Kush which is a shorter plant, but still If I veg to like 10" and then put them on 12/12 would that be fine? Any suggestions on short grows would be great! Also any comments at all would be great, ha I seem to have no interest from anyone out there

Also one last thing, anyone have any GREAT ways to get the humidity up? I am still at about 35-37% all day and would love to get it up to 60%. I have 3 full dixie cups of water in there all the time to evaporate and help but I am still not getting much higher humidty... any suggestions??

about the 12/12, wait until your plant has reached half of the size you want it. Then switch. It will still grow another half while flowering.

About ur humid problem... dunno, maybe put a larger container so it evaporates faster (more surface, more evaporation.) put a cheap BUT SECURE heat source like a lamp over the water container, so it keeps it warm, again more evaporation.

good luck. make sure the soil drains well but dont let it dry out.

Day 6 - February 3, 2009 - Still growin'
My one little sprout is still the only action I have had so far. Hopefully the seed in the other cup will sprout soon, but just in case I have two more seeds germinating and should be ready to be planted tomorrow. My little girl is looking good so far; she is a darker shade of green but everything looks to be in order. My temp is at 85º now, which I guess I can live with. I added a bunch of macro pics which make my baby look great. As far as the humidity goes I have added 3 more full dixie cups worth of water but nothing much has changed. I looked online and found this small travel humidifier that is 3"x3"x5" and was wondering if anyone had every used something like this in their cab? Here is the link. Thanks for the help again CohiBlunt!

Day 12 - February 8, 2009 - Growth!
After a lot of poor experiences with other grow mediums I settled on the fact that plain old soil is the easiest to work with, especially in my very dry environment. I currently have three plants growing, which are all at very different stages of early growth as you can see in the pictures attached. My original plant that has been vegging for almost two weeks now is doing fantastic (there is a little bit of nute burn on the lower leafs from the FoxFarm Ocean Forrest soil but it seems to not be causing any serious problems). The other two plants are only a few days old and are just exploding with growth. The one that is the middle child in size has just grown in leaps and bonds over the last two days. I think it might even be able to catch up to my big girl in not to long. The smallest one had a little bit of a problem getting out of its seed shell so I had to help it out a bit yesterday which led to the first leafs being a bit rinkled. Other than that everything is going great. I am still thinking about buying that humidifier I posted in my last post, if anyone has any suggestions on wether that is a good idea or not give me some ideas. Thanks, and enjoy the pics

So I decided I need to deal with my humidity level. I did some research and ended up deciding on buying this guy - Click Here - . It was the cheapest, small humidifier that had a built in hygrometer which regulates the humidity to a desired level. I will probably only be using it during my vegging cycles to get the humidity up to around 60-70%. Does anyone know if putting this in my cab with the lights directly above it would be a terrible idea. I don't really want to burn my house down because I was nit picking about my humidity ha. During flowering I will probably place this outside of the cab near the intake ducting I have to at least get the humidity up to about 40%.

Any thoughts, ideas, critizisms would be great!!
Thanks

Wanted to stop by and say hello. A few comments as per your request. Sorry I skimmed more as I'm ready for bed soon. So these things may or may not have been addressed.

Germinating in your cubes. I know your temps are high but what is the temp where that cube is? 80 - 85 is a good range to germinate and start your seedlings. Perhaps you might have been having greater success with the soil cups because of more "insulation" value of soil perhaps versus the cube. This is just a theory.

your lights look a little spaced out in the box. If you can get some time and a few extra bucks. And if you are sold on using your current setup. I would try to arrange the lights using those "Y" sockets or other method to allow you to bring all your lights in closer so you can get better use out of that light configuration. Right now I'm guessing without doing the math that you are only getting about 20-40% of the lights on the far ends. Also this is an aesthetic thing, but arrange the lights on some kind of hanger so you can move them up and down. Get those plants set on a solid surface. I promise you'll knock em off those totes on accident soon enough =)

You mention wanting the humidity to the 70s. I was wondering why? I've never seen anything save for MOLD at +60% humidity. Is there a benefit for veggin in such high levels?

Double check all your seals on the box and also on the inlet room feeding the fresh air to it. If this is in check, look at upgrading that exhaust fans. That should help your heat a good deal. It's hard to get a good visual on your setup. I know you have a box, but where is the box? Where I am going with this is this: you have 80CFM exhaust fan. This is great if your box volume is 400 cubic feet or less. However, if your box is located within another space your effectively creating a larger effective area of that fan to work with (or against depending on how you look at) if the two spaces in question aren't totally independent. IE your box isn't insulated, so the box is heating the space it's in etc.... I hope that makes sense. It goes back to making sure the other spaces around the are are sealed and taken care of so that the fan is working more efficiently.

Just my suggestions. I think the plants look really good. And I love that big fat hygrometer! Keep up the great work!

Hey flamdrags thanks for the response, I really appreciate it!!

Yeah I am not really sure what happened with the cubes, I think the humidity was just way to low to keep them moist enough and I was somewhat impatient with them so that probably didn't help either! Soil seems easier so I am just going to stick with that from now on.

As far as the lights go they are less than 1.5" apart which is quite close actually, any closer and I am pretty sure I would have some heat problems near the top of the box. I initially had the lights on the top of the box with those "y" connectors you were talking about, but with my limited 2' of height I didn't want to sacrifice any growing space so I moved the lights to the back wall as you can see which saved me about +-5", definitely worth it in my opinion. I am putting out about 3,200 lumens per square foot which is right around where you want it I believe.

Yeah I was off on my numbers in terms of humidity, I guess it needs to be somewhere around 50-60%. I bought a humidifier which should help get my 34% humidity up, and once I go onto bigger stuff that humidifier will be handy.

The seals are all great and I now have the temp around 84ºF during the day and 70-74ºF during the night which again is ideal so I am doing great in terms of that now, it just took a little bit of trial and error to get those fans working right.

Thanks for all the help man, I am going to continue to watch your grow as well, talk to you later!

Day 14 - January 10, 2009 - Two weeks!
Well I made it this far, that's an accomplishment I think . I transplanted all of the plants over to 1 gallon pots today. The biggest one definitely needed it, roots were everywhere when I changed her over. I can tell she is already happy with it, her top leafs have definitely perked up. The other two might not have been ready for transplant, but they took it well and are also liking there new homes. The smallest one is now finally starting to show some signs of growth, and the middle one just completely blasted forth with more growth after I transplanted her. The second set of fan leafs in the pics that are just starting to grow were not there before I transplanted her about 6 hours ago!!! I am going to start nutes in about 4 days on the big one and about 1.5-2 weeks on the other two. I will be using BMO nutes as so many people have had rave reviews on them and they are CHEAP!

Alright enough talk onto the supermodels!!

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updates please?