the first grow, trying to do it right

alright, as the title says this is my first grow ever. Before we get to the plants though, i should mention my set up:

4x4x6'7 Secret Jardin tent
1000 watt Lumatek digital ballast
Lumenaire 6 inch vented reflector, with thermal glass
2 6-inch 270cfm can fans: one pushing cold air through the light, the other attached to a can filter inside the tent pushing air out.
2 timers
1 swivel fan
6 3 gallon pots with built in saucers (cool!)
FF Ocean soil + nutes (grow n bloom)
1 thermo/hygrometer with external probe
25 feet tri-layer aluminum duct (6 inches)
25 feet insulated duct (also 6 inches)
1 spouted plant waterer

The can fan attached to the light takes in air via the aluminum duct placed near a window. after air goes thru the light, i used insulated duct, and its attached to the house's central air system. i live alone so this will not be a problem, in fact its a nice way of dispersing heat. its cold outside and i havent had to turn on my heat yet!
Inside the tent my temps average from 72-76 at night and 76-84 during the day.
the light is hung about 2.5 feet from the top of soil line. humidity is always between 40% and 60%
The tent is in the corner of a room. the rest of the room has boxes and stuff in it. many people have seen this room and think nothing of it, even with the fans on. i live next to a power station (not too close but close enough) so any humming noise is attributable to that.

Now for the fun part, the plants.
everything else is just a bunch of hardware

For this round I need to finish before christmas, so i don't have a lot of time. Definitely couldnt do a sativa, and an indica would be pushing it.

instead, i chose to go with autoflowering strains.
via 'the attitude' (very nice people, by the way) i procured 5 Lowryder II X AK-47 seeds and 7 World of Seeds Afghan Kush Ryder. All are feminized

I decided 6 plants was a good number to have at a time. maybe someday i'll expand operations. want to keep it simple for now

I germinated 3 of each of the seeds September 22nd. By the 25th they had all been planted

Two days after planting them i accidently knocked the swivel fan into one of the pots. I tried to locate the seed but could not. In defeat, I just left the pot in there, but thought the seed was gone
However, several days later it emerged (in the side of the pot). I moved it back to the center, and I also had moved the swivel fan so it cant happen again. Anyways this plant is very behind, I dont know what will come of her

The first picture (of all 6 pots) is from day 6
The others are from day 8

dtownscience said:

Two days after planting them i accidently knocked the swivel fan into one of the pots. I tried to locate the seed but could not. In defeat, I just left the pot in there, but thought the seed was gone
However, several days later it emerged (in the side of the pot). I moved it back to the center, and I also had moved the swivel fan so it cant happen again. Anyways this plant is very behind, I dont know what will come of her

Click to expand...

I haqd a couple that were stunted by hot soil I think so I transplanted to dwc after 2 weeks and they have bounced back and showing growth finally

They look ok Just strecthing a bit, is this cfl grow? if not then move the lamp a bit closer before they stretch more

sorry seeing 1000w now, that shouldnt cause stretching I thnk you will be fine

These pics are all from yesterday (the 9th)

I've been watering at or just before sunrise every other day, by the way. Today I gave them all a little less than 1/4 strength veg nutes

Also, notice I've marked the pots
grey tape is the ak47, blue tape is the afghan. the number indicates order in which they were planted

The first two pictures are the same plant

*edit: this is also all that I've got for now. I'll be posting again in a week, I suppose

Well, the plants seem to have liked the slight veg nutes i gave them. Watered them with plain water today, nice and full, about a gallon each, maybe 2/3 - 3/4 gallon for the smaller guys.
So far I've messed up 2 plants by watering and accidentally hitting the plants with water. 2 blue (the way I refer to them) has been 'fallen' for a while. today I knocked on 1 blue too. Didn't fall all the way over but wasn't straight when I was done. Anyways I braced both of them up with paperclips for now. 2 blue doesnt seem to care about layin down on the ground; the top part of the plant is at 90 degrees to the ground. I think 1 blue will stand stall on its own again just gotta let her heal.
Speaking of "HER" - 4 of them have shown sex (i'm pretty sure) and they all appear to be female. More on that with the next update
also included is a pic of my set up

Oh by the way, anyone is welcome to say whatever, comments compliments advice insults, post pics, etc etc. Peace!!

nice looking setup!
Thought I'd put my 2 cents in...
It is very unlikely that they are showing sex at this early stage.
I would hold off on the nutes for at least 2-3 weeks, the soil should have plenty of nutes already in it.
Couple of your plants look really happy, couple of them look a little stretched, not shure why if you have a 1000w light on them! I would also try and straighten out that lob-sided plant.
I'm guessing by the glow of the light that you have a MH (Metal halide) bulb in your ballast? These shouldn't really be used on autoflowering strains for more than a couple of weeks, they should be flowering by then and you'll need a HPS bulb. You should be able to fit a HPS bulb in your ballast but check first.
other than that - subscribed & good luck

Reiss said:

nice looking setup!
Thought I'd put my 2 cents in...
It is very unlikely that they are showing sex at this early stage.
I would hold off on the nutes for at least 2-3 weeks, the soil should have plenty of nutes already in it.
Couple of your plants look really happy, couple of them look a little stretched, not shure why if you have a 1000w light on them! I would also try and straighten out that lob-sided plant.
I'm guessing by the glow of the light that you have a MH (Metal halide) bulb in your ballast? These shouldn't really be used on autoflowering strains for more than a couple of weeks, they should be flowering by then and you'll need a HPS bulb. You should be able to fit a HPS bulb in your ballast but check first.
other than that - subscribed & good luck

Click to expand...

First off, thank you very much for the feedback!
I've heard around RIU of these AF strains showing sex as early as day 16. You are right though its prolly too early to tell, im just hopeful!!
I added the nutes on day 14. Its day 19 and they seem to not have rejected it terribly. It is true that FF soil comes with lots of tasty nutes, but I was recommended to add very light veg nutes at 2 weeks time.

Couple of people have said the plants look stretchy. This is because right after germ there was a problem with the main light. I had to use 6x 26 watt CFLs for the first week. Ones kinda messed up because of the fan getting knocked over (gray 1), and one is growing very very slow (but still growing) (gray 2).
I am indeed using an HPS bulb, do not worry (im not that incompetent). some of the shots were taken at sunrise though, when the bulb still has a very reddish tent. its quite awesome to watch the thing power on

Today I got some bamboo kabob sticks. You think I should try to coax 2 blue upright? like all the way? I dont want to snap the stem, or put too much stress on it. I guess thats LST for ya. I'm prolly going to lose some yeild on it either way, what do you think would be better?

I tried to take some pictures of what I believe to be hairs. I really need to get a better camera, its not fair to y'al its really not haha

-As you can see, gray 2 has some curled ass endin leaves
-blue 2 (the close-up) has some yellow on the tip of one leaf at the bottom of the plant
-and is gray 1 really worth it? it has shown some growth to be fair

listen to 'pretty lights'

I can see some pistles popping out on this one -
I would try and coax the bent ones up gently. Some air movement will help strengthen the stems.
The best thing to do is to be patient. Do you know what you PH levels are? If your PH is off they won't be able to take up nutrients very well.

Propped up the plant with some sticks. Im gunna slowly bring it back up right, like you say.

Also, couldn't help when I saw this cilantro/basil combo for $3 today at the store. I put them in 1 quart containers with some left over FF, we'll see what happens

ph is between 5 and 6. need to get a more accurate measurement, I've just used a cheapo test strip once so far on my tap water.

I've also noticed a very faint odor from several of the plants, only when I put my nose right up to them though. they smell good!

yeah, everything Reiss said!! Subscribed!

The AKRs (blue) have started developing a faint odor, nice and skunky.
Tested my water. ph is low 6's, water is good quality (other variables are also right levels)
Watered them to saturation on day 18, they needed more on day 21. Added 1/2 dose Veg nutes, watered to saturation again
The basil and cilantro aren't looking so hot! I watered them some more, but I may have lost my $3





Those pistils look orange. think she's ready to come down? I could get like a qp. thats 3 blue btw

Looking good dt,
not sure what you mean by this -
"Those pistils look orange. think she's ready to come down? I could get like a qp. thats 3 blue btw"
My AK's grew a little over 2ft and had an amazing yield, check out the grow journal in my sig.

Reiss said:

Looking good dt,
not sure what you mean by this -
"Those pistils look orange. think she's ready to come down? I could get like a qp. thats 3 blue btw"

Click to expand...

sarcasm, m8!
gunna check out your grow

Plants are bushin out nicely! Even 1 gray is flowering. They are all definitely females.
I watered a couple of them today. I'm going to be feeding them flowering nutes from now on (every other watering, starting next watering), plus 1 tbsp molasses every watering (starting the watering i just did).
Peace out y'al