First Grow! 400W HPS/440W T5 Combo: Purple Kush & Dream Star 6 Plants Tent Grow

japonicus · Oct 6, 2011

Hi all!

First of all, thank you guys for providing ton of information I was looking for. I've learned a lot from reading all those grow journals and all sorts of threads.

This is my exciting first grow! I've started flowering 3 of each of Purple Kush and Dream Star on Sept 16 after vegging the clones from Oaksterdam Nursery for 5 weeks in a 2x4x7 grow tent, and today is flowering day 19. I must say taking care of those girls and watching them grow itself has an amazingly therapeutic value. I can't imagine the day I get to smoke the bud...

I used 8 x 55w 4' T5 fluo for most of the veg phase. I heavily trained the plants using supercropping, LSTing, and modified-version of ScroG. I added a 400W cooltube just before flowering and I decided to leave the T5 fixture in the grow tent throughout the flowering.

I use soil in 5-gal pots with Foxfarm trio and SuperThrive, molasses and such. I had very light evidence of spider mites recently, so I've been treating with neem oil, but otherwise they look pretty amazing.

Here are the pictures from Veg Day 1 to Flowering Day 19 today. Comments and questions are more than welcome! Thanks for reading!

Japonicus

Vegging
Start!! Clones from Oaksterdam Nursery

Week 4

Week 5

Flowering Day 8

Day 12: Purple Kush in front, Dream Star behind.

Day 19: Purple Kush. Pretty frosty already.

Day 19: Dream Star

Setup:

How I LST/Supercrop/ScroG-ed very low.

mellokitty · Oct 6, 2011

welcome to riu!
stellar first grow, you've obviously done your homework.

japonicus · Oct 6, 2011

Thanks, mellokitty! riu rocks!!

japonicus · Oct 7, 2011

Got a magnifier today. Looking at the trichomes on Purple Kush on flowering Day 20.

Nikeforged · Oct 8, 2011

Looks amazing. Cheers man.

mellokitty · Oct 8, 2011

what kind of magnifier did you get? i'm shopping for one.

japonicus · Oct 8, 2011

Thanks, Nike! They do look amazing! Wonder how much yield I'm getting...

mellokitty, I got this from a local hydro store. I took the ppicture with the loupe and iPhone!

30x-Illuminated-Magnifier-Jewellery-Loupe-With-LED-Light-CY-014-.jpg

mellokitty · Oct 8, 2011

that's a nice loupe! (i've got a hand-held cheepie cheepie deal)

think i'm shopping more for an actual microscope though.....

your training looks BEAUTIFUL, by the way.

japonicus · Oct 8, 2011

Haha. In real life, it looks like made in china. It does the job, though. When I get home, I'll take the picture and post it along with some more pictures of the training.

I think I trained the girls too low to the soil, thinking that would cut down on veg time. I ended up having to trim off everything that was touching the soil, growing downwards and skinny suckers. I did have quite a few casualty snipping off the tips while mastering supercropping, too. Wish I started clones... I've noticed Dream Star responded to LST and supercropping much better than Purple Kush did. When I do Kush or other bushy indica again, I'd do FIM instead. Even though the Kush have much fewer bud sites, those look so dense and frosty!

simpleman420 · Oct 8, 2011

super looking dank man!!!pro fo sho

japonicus · Oct 9, 2011

My loupe ($15?)

I came home just before the light turned off, only to realize I forgot to plug the HPS back in when I rewired everything last night. These poor girls spent a day only under 8 T5s. Lame-O. They also seem less thirsty this past week. Shouldn't they be drinking more and more? I'm supposed to flush the soil at the next watering. When I checked the pH just in case for the very first time earlier this week, turns out that it was lower than 6.0 in most pots. So I picked up pH UP at the hydro store. I'm thinking about flushing the pots with pH adjusted water for the first time... I'm kind of nervous about this one. Let's see how they react.

collective gardener · Oct 9, 2011

Good job, my man!. Hard to believe this is your first grow. Kitty told me I just had to check out this guys first grow, and she was right. You have a long future ahead of you in this industry. Want a job?

kevin murphy · Oct 9, 2011

excellent job bro..subbed hear for the long haul...

japonicus · Oct 9, 2011

Thanks for your compliments, guys!

Yeah, I've always had a great green thumb - probably from watching my mom growing beautiful veg/flower garden and my dad spending the whole afternoons taking care of and staring at his bonsai collections. I also have molecular-biology background. My front porch is one big beautiful jungle... I just moved to place where I can grow legally, so I thought "Why not?" I was going to go T5 all the way through the flowering at the beginning just because the idea of having HPS in my bedroom was simply intimidating, but after reading you guys' posts, I was convinced to buy one (maybe I should have gone for 600W as the guy at hydro store said...), but decided to keep the T5 along with HPS. I do rotate the pots every day so they get the even amount of red light and cool white in every side.

As you may able to see from the first few pictures, I had somewhat rough start in veg period. I think I was afraid of over-watering them, so they were under-watered and under-fed with too much light? The leaves used to be lime-green and "ridgy." After switching to 12/12, I got the hang of it and I feel like I finally understand their language, wants and dislikes, just like any other plants or pets...

Again, growing cannabis has been a very very special experience for me so far. I can't describe it. It's like nothing I've grown before. Let's keep picking each others brains here.

P.S. Hey collective gardener, I seriously consider doing this for a living!

japonicus · Oct 10, 2011

So I checked the run-off pH and it was about 6.0 or just below. Instead of using pH UP, I just flushed the soil until it went up to 6.5 at least, drained, and watered them with full dose of Big Bloom, Tiger Bloom, Grow Big, molasses, drop of SuperThrive. They seem happy except the buds don't look much bigger than a few days ago. Maybe I'm looking at them too often... They are definitely becoming more and more frosty with trichomes. I've noticed some buds have more brown and receded pistols while most of them have almost 100% fresh white pistols. They'd better not have seeds... Here are pictures from late night watering and some of the training pictures.

Purple Kush

Dream Star

Training

Watering done!

kevin murphy · Oct 10, 2011

looking great mate...nice work....

collective gardener · Oct 10, 2011

Based on the trichomes showing at this stage, it looks like you got your hands on some decent genetics. I understand your frustration about plants seemingly not growing at times. There are just time periods in the blooming cycle when they just seem to hold still for around 10 days. One of those times is after all bus sites are clearly defined, and a nice cluster of white hairs resides on every site...the stage you are at right now. The next growth phase will require serious amounts of K. Whenever I use big K boosters I always add some extra magnesium, as well.

I am semi serious about the job. Check out my thread in my sig. I have a 20,000 watt grow op and lost my helper a couple months ago. I've been looking for someone with some raw talent, but very little experience...this way I don't have to spend too much time breaking bad habits. The last thing I want is someone with 10 years growing experience. The op is located in Ventura County

japonicus · Oct 10, 2011

collective gardener said:
Based on the trichomes showing at this stage, it looks like you got your hands on some decent genetics. I understand your frustration about plants seemingly not growing at times. There are just time periods in the blooming cycle when they just seem to hold still for around 10 days. One of those times is after all bus sites are clearly defined, and a nice cluster of white hairs resides on every site...the stage you are at right now. The next growth phase will require serious amounts of K. Whenever I use big K boosters I always add some extra magnesium, as well.

I am semi serious about the job. Check out my thread in my sig. I have a 20,000 watt grow op and lost my helper a couple months ago. I've been looking for someone with some raw talent, but very little experience...this way I don't have to spend too much time breaking bad habits. The last thing I want is someone with 10 years growing experience. The op is located in Ventura County

GC, thank you for the info on budding and additional need for K and Mg. I feel better. I was giving them Beastie Bloomz (0-50-30) and about to switch to Cha Ching (9-50-10) soon. Maybe I should stick with Beastie Bloomz for a little longer on top of other nutes that I've been giving. These girls can take lots of nutes!

I read LOTS of pages on your thread. Impressive. I would totally jump in if it was closer! I'll PM you later about it, though. It would be amazing to learn all those know-hows hands on from you! And I get to take care of those plants for living?? Drool... Did I mention I have an experience in carpentry and electrical wiring, too? :hump:

japonicus · Oct 10, 2011

These six girls aren't much of drama queens. They don't really complain all that much. They seem extra happy from last night's intense flushing of the soil and fresh nutes.

How six plants are crammed in 2'x4' space under 400W HPS CoolTube and 8 T5s

Purple Kush

Dream Star

Enjoy!

kevin murphy · Oct 11, 2011

nice shots bro...

First Grow! 400W HPS/440W T5 Combo: Purple Kush & Dream Star 6 Plants Tent Grow

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