Baby's First Hygrow Log

Hello ladies and gents. This is where I will be starting my very first grow log for my very first hydro grow. I gotta say, buying all the materials online and in hardware stores got me really pumped for growing, but I wasn't sure I could sack up and follow through. The more I read on this forum, the more I needed to do it. So here you all go. This is dedicated to all those whom I forum-stalked for the last few months.

I chose an upstairs closet because the downstairs gets far too cold in the winter. The upstairs will get hot in the summer but you can bet your buds I will be crankin' that AC. Since it is upstairs technically in the attic, it has a funny slanted shape so instead of covering the walls with mylar, I decided to purchase reflective half-inch thick foam board. I think it is used to help insulate, and is designed to reflect 98% of light or something similar to mylar. I went ghetto and taped it to the bottom of my highest shelf, and hung the sides.

I have a 4" inline duct fan with a home-made activated carbon filter, 2 timers (one for the lights and duct fan, one for the water pump and air stone). I decided to go with plastic tubs with a sliding drawer for easy water maintenance. I am using Botanicare Pure Bled Pro nutes (I will say NUTES instead of NUTS because my mind is forever in the gutter).

I really want to post my day-to-day log that I've kept, but it would be best to have some text, then embedded pictures, then more text... do I need to have the pictures hosted somewhere else and linked? Also, it looks like the website is SEVERELY compressing the photos as I upload them. Strange. Hope it looks OK to y'all.

I'll post the first few notes here, until I can smooth out my method of posting.

Enjoy!

(SSH = super silver haze, OB = orange bud, and I received 5 free seeds of some unknown strain)

3/4/10: One SSH seed crushed under medium pressure between my fingers and was discarded. The OB seeds are significantly larger than the SSH seeds, which leads me to think they will perform better. 2 SSH and 2 OB seeds are now in water, floating, under heat lamp in a closed dark container.

3/5/10: 2 SSH seeds showing tiny root tip, transferred to damp paper towels and left in same dark container under heat.

3/6/10: 2 SSH seeds have roots almost as long as the seed, SSH seeds placed in rockwool cubes in hydro system, flooded once a day with nutrient solution at 380ppm (140ppm well water, 240 nutrient) pH between 5 and 6. 1 OB shows white root tip starting.

3/7/10: 1 SSH seed nearly protruding from rockwool, 1 has no change. OB seeds appear not to have changed. Possible cold night made them stagnant? OB seeds transferred to paper towels. One unknown "free" seed placed in damp paper towel since I expect the OB seeds to fail. I am afraid that the one that appears to be doing well is planted upside down. After inspecing it, the root seems to be going the right way again, and both SSH seeds seem to be happy. I will continue to flood them once a day and as soon as they pop out of the cubes I will turn on my lights, 12" above the plants initially. I just put another OB seed in the paper towels, I want to try OB!

3/8/10: Concerned that the upside down seed was having trouble, root appeared to be growing up and out of the cube, so I used a tiny screw driver to push back the cube material and let the seed free. I also turned on the lights so It can have something to reach for. I will leave the light on overnight and photograph the morning results. Also, the unknown seed sprouted INSANELY fast and long. In about 18 hours the root was longer than the seed! I planted him in rockwool too. I started 1 more OB seed in a paper towel, thats 4 total. Still no results. Placed the containers with OB seeds under the lamp overnight to stay warm and happy.

3/9/10: I helped the seed skin off the tallest sprout and its first leaves are open, and I can see the central part between them that is going to keep growing! I put in all 4 23 watt daylight (5500K) bulbs and lowered them as low as possible (about 6 inches from the seedlings). I want to lower the lamps more when the plants sprout, but maybe leaving them at 6 inches is fine until they grow up to them. The other two seeds are just trying to push out and establish some sort of root system. Still no luck on the OB seeds but I am leaving them under the lamps in their containers to stay warm. I just checked, and the pH has risen to around 7, perhaps because I did not soak the rockwool long enough (24hrs?) I adjusted it back down between 5 and 6, but the PPM count is around 650. I suspect the PPM count is rising every time I feed the plants because there is still some debris left in the expanded clay pellets. It should stabilize soon.

This first pic is the free seed, I think it is Afghan something. When it gets older I hope y'all can help me figure it out! I notice its a darker, almost greyish color on the leaves, opposed to the bright green of the SSH leaves.



Here are some pics of the SSH that is doing very well. Although I'm concerned its root is too exposed. Think this is an issue?


And this last pic is the SSH that is being slow. It looks like its opening up but still under the rockwool, think this is a problem?


I am thinking about adding 1-2 teaspoons of molasses in my 5-6 gal resevoir, although it seems something of a debate for hydroponic growing. I will start small with 1-2 teaspoons and see how it goes. I'll have to boil my water first though, this tap water grows bacterial really quickly.

Well, I gotta say, the Afghan must be a superman sperm. That thing has EXPLODED. It went from a seed covered bump to a 4-leafed sprout in 24 hours. Check it out:


Now here's the whole grow:


The first SSH:


The second SSH, still stuck in the hole:


I need a 4th seed since the OB seeds wont seem to sprout (zero out of 4) so I will either do another afghan or the SSH (which get great reviews) I'm leaning towards afghan since it will sprout fast and catch up quickly apparently. That thing is a monster.

Any thoughts?

looks a touch stretched may need to move lights closer i didnt read whole shit but flouros might help to get em rocking looking good though,good luck are you femme

the tall ones stretched

Am I femme? I'm a dude, but I hope the plants are femme. The lights are as low as I can get them without modification right now, I'll see if I can move closer. They are about 6" away. I think part of the reason it looks stretched is because the root grew up out of the seed and almost left the rockwool before taking foot. So now the seed started from almost the top of the rockwool.

I'll work on the lights, thanks man.

i grew a ssh out a while ago.. one hitta type smoke. yields good for a sativa too..

hydroneer lookin great man off to a good start !!! love the setup !! keep up the good work!!! ooo yea +REP

Thanks for the responses guys, I'll keep posting and reading... want this first one to go smoothly, especially now that I know it takes MONTHS to get a smoke from it!

Well sad news... Looks like the slower SSH has passed away. Not sure if its from the nute buildup or just taking too long to root. I have put 2 OB and 2 SSH seeds in a damp paper towel again and I will chose the best 2 to give me a total of 4 plants. Really hoping to get at least 1 female of OB and SSH by the end of this fiasco. Next time I'll buy high quality fem seeds to alleviate my stress!

keep up the hard work man. I think you are taking the correct approach. I have done so much reading on this forum that if I wasnt successful it would've been my own fault.
I will tell you 1 important thing!!

for that area, I would setup a SCROG with the 1 or 2 females you get. use surface area towards your advantage in an area with limited space. What kind of light are you using for flowering?

No pics today, nothing of interest to show. However, I smelled a little "fish tank" smell from the reservoir while it was bubbling from the airstone which may indicate algae. I am going to buy some H2O2 this week to fix that. I left the airstone on all day and the pH went from around 5 to 6.5. Apparently driving off Co2 increases the pH. I turned off the stone and I'm going to measure it in the morning. I may leave the airstone on 24/7 and adjust the pH accordingly, I haven't decided.

Will running the airstone 24/7 continually increase my pH or will it stabilize?

Will running the airstone help ward off algae?

Will H2O2 fix my algae smell?

Help!!

Another problem (seems they never end) is that the temp was resting around 92F. I think it is my charcoal filter blocking air so I removed it. But I did notice a tiny bit of leaf curl. It usually stays around 85F. I hope temp isn't a huge problem in the future, since summer is just around the corner... Electric bill might skyrocket to keep this room A/C.

Hey guys. I have gotten a little nervous since I read some very thorough grow logs that end abruptly without closure. My suspicion is that these people are getting busted, or nervous near harvest time... I have been documenting my progress with photos and a journal but I am unsure if I should take the risk to post a serious and complete log here. Any thoughts? Here is a picture of my best plant so far, but I will hold off on the log till I feel more secure.

lookin good man im subscribed and following since i have a very similar set up and started very close to the same time as you keep up the good work. hope you keep posting along the way. i like to compare.

The plants all look healthy, especially the AG plant. SSH is doing well but it has some nute burn (see pix) which could be from the solution or from the white collection of nutes on the rockwool I noticed. What do you guys think? Here are the pix:

AG:



SSH:



AG and 3 SSHs:

I've heard it takes flowering to truly determine sex, but 90 degrees from the branches stemming, I noticed little things sticking out on both my large plants. Could these turn into balls or are they female??

They both look like this:



Here are the plants, I almost wish the AG would stretch, all the leaves are hitting eachother lol!

Also, is there a way to change the name of my thread? Seems nobody cares to comment/view since its a strange name. Maybe that's a good thing... LMK what you think guys.

nice little setup with good strains