A poor fools first grow, DWC hydro, bagseed, w/ PICS and TLC

Learninglots420 · Jul 9, 2010

Hail and well met! Please post all responses in the following thread to keep the journal tidy: https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journal-discussion/347143-discussion-thread-my-first-grow.html

This is my first grow, in my first ever grow cabinet. I would love any and all questions, feedback, or constructive critisisms since, as my name suggests, I am here to learn. While it may not seem like much to you, this has probably been the most complex thing I have ever created

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I feel I owe this journal to the RIU members as thanks for all you folks have done to expand the marijuana communities knowledge about cultivation. I will update this thread regularily with day to day stuff, interesting happenings, and plenty of pictures. Thanks for taking an interest and I hope you decide to stay for the journey! :leaf:

I am currently drafting a couple posts with some general information about my setup and to get me up to date with the grow. After that will be the day to day journal updates that you all love sooo much!

Learninglots420 · Jul 9, 2010

My grow cabinet started as a DIY home depot wooden cabinet. Catastrophe happened even on the first day, while lifting the frame up (lacking the support from internal shelves which I chose not to use) it collapsed under the strain and fell on top of me. Luckily I happened to have some brackets that would do the job to hold everything together.

You can kind of see the damage caused from the collapse in the close up picture ^_^. These are sadly the only worthwhile pictures I have of the construction. Over the next few days I worked on covering my 5 gallon buckets with aluminum tape, readying my air pumps/hoses, and buying supplies all over town. I also added a small section at the very top for my electrical cabinet.

My 250w MH (changeable to HPS) is also rigged up with the finest chainmail I could make to allow it to easily be adjusted up or down. Ok, so it technically isn’t chainmail because of the lack of discernable weave, but having the stuff around makes for a lot of quick fixes.

I currently have one 85 CFM intake PC fan powered by a phone charger, and my exhaust is a 250 CFM inline duct fan with a removable bend to hold my DIY carbon scrubber (lol if you can call it that.) On my cab to do list is to add a light proof passive air intake, but since my cab temperatures are fine I don’t have to worry about my ladies being hurt.

Learninglots420 · Jul 9, 2010

With my hydroton, rockwool, net baskets, and airstones all PHed down, and my entire cabinet and all tools sterilized; its time to start growing marijuana.

I chose only the finest in Colombian brickweed seeds for my first grow due to the uncertainty of my success. Once I have a harvest under my belt Ill be using premium seeds from one of the fine seed banks discussed on the boards. Herere the germinated beans that Im still holding onto in case of any early problems having them "take" to the DWC buckets.

Even though my rockwool is Phed properly, I still wanted to soak them in an extremely mild nutrient solution (around 90 PPM worth) to give the girls enough sustenance to reach the water. I know some people disagree even using the word nutrient and seedling in the same sentence, but I agree with the school of thought that fertile soil isnt harmful to plants so why should a drop of Fox Farms?

Learninglots420 · Jul 9, 2010

Day 2 was met with an explosion of growth in 3 out of the 4 plants. The seedling in bucket 4 had me worried though, much less growth and it had dislodged the rockwool plug exposing its roots. No matter, I whipped up three more rockwool cubes with germinated seeds and left them sitting on top of the DWC buckets (since at this stage it isnt necessary to have them in the system just yet.) Aside from checking on the plants about 100 times, the only real productive thing I did was test the PPM and PH which were still fine. I spent a lot of the day experimenting with my cab temperature too. And if you were wondering, the little reflective disk is a helmet for my thermometer to keep it out of direct light.

Learninglots420 · Jul 9, 2010

I was astonished today to already find a beautiful root creeping past the net basket in plant #1. On a side note I am already planning on names for the girls, but want to give them a few days to make the sting of loss a little less if something unfortunate were to happen. In the meantime we have the very impersonal numbers 1-4 to use. Since I managed to shave a couple degrees off my cab temperature I felt comfortable lowering my light some to help reduce stretching. Here are some close-ups:

Plant #1

Plant #2

Plant #3

Plant #4 who could use the help of any prayer circle you belong to :peace:

And last but not least the 3 replacements for if/when #4 kicks the bucket:

Learninglots420 · Jul 10, 2010

The roots on one of my backups in the rockwool cubes outside of the DWC buckets is getting even longer, so I decided to sub that one out for plant #4. To be honest #4 started to perk a little back up, but is already behind in development and the roots still arent even to the bottom of the rockwool cube. I also lowered my lights again today, added some extra hydroton to the baskets, and did more tests with my fan location to improve air circulation. The roots on plant #1 are looking even longer and she still remains to be the only plant that has reached the water. I snapped some close ups of all 4 of them and hope to continue to post daily pictures to make the journal nice and precise.

Plant #1:

Plant #2:

Plant #3:

The freshly substituted Plant #4:

The whole gang:

suncoastgrower · Jul 11, 2010

they look goooood! sick set up too, wish I could do a grow cab that big

Learninglots420 · Jul 11, 2010

Well I woke up to the realization that I let the backups in the rockwool get a little too dry, and 2 out of the 3 (the remkaining one being the previous inhabitant of bucket #4) had flopped over in agony. This made me feel good for the ones still in my DWC buckets since they must be getting plenty of water at their base! The other big news is that plant #3 is showing a tiny bit of roots beneath the net basket and it seems that plant #1 has a second one creeping down. I watered the ones in the rock wool and even this late in the evening they still look a little grim. Lastly, plant 2 has a nice spot popping up for new growth for another set of leaves! I did however think I had my first fruit fly; it was an adult. It had red eyes and when I killed it there was red blood on my hand. Here are some pictures:

Plant #1:

Plant #2:

Plant #3:

Plant #4:

The cripples:

Learninglots420 · Jul 13, 2010

I spent most of Day 6 buying things to add another exhaust fan / carbon scrubber and 3-4 passive lightproof air intakes. I also upgraded my nutrient repertoire by buying some cal / mag and superthrive. I may be replacing the chain hanging my light to something a little more heavy duty as well, since the stuff was so cheap at home depot. Yet another thing I need to do is run another extension cord and power strip since I wont have any room to plug in my new exhaust fan. This will keep me busy while my plants happily chug along.

Learninglots420 · Jul 13, 2010

So far so good, the plants seem to be developing quite nicely and the stretch has definitely been reduced thanks to the lower lights and fan hitting them. The temperatures have been flirting close to 85 at plant level but I’m going to keep it up since they aren’t showing any signs of overheating and at this stage it should help keep the node spacing close together. If need be I can raise the lights, or crack the door to vent more heat. Still no smell coming from the girls but I anticipate it probably within the next 5 days. Hopefully my 2 DIY carbon scrubbers and emergency can of ONA gel will be enough to handle it.

There is one oddity I noticed today that I couldn’t remember ever seeing in other journals. I noticed in all my reservoirs today that there are small brown balls (more than likely just bubbles) clinging to the sides of my buckets. They really stand out because of their rusty / muddy coloration. My first reaction is that they were eggs, but after touching a few of them they disintegrated and left a rusty color on my finger. I’m going to be making a thread about this in the DWC forum just to be sure this is what I think it is. Here are some pictures of the girls as of the morning of Day 7, as well as the mysterious nutrient bubble balls.

Plant #1:

Plant #2:

Plant #3:

Plant #4:

DWC bucket oddity:

ran4it2 · Jul 13, 2010

Looking good so far. I wish I could get as many bubble buckets you got!
your not gonna notice smell for awhile! My plants are barely starting to smell but they are also their 4th week into flower

suncoastgrower · Jul 13, 2010

my room smells like a garden man... its the poo pellet fertilier in the soil... and the box is in the cupboard but the exhust is blowing into the open

WHAT CAN I DO??

Learninglots420 · Jul 14, 2010

The second set of leaves is starting to come in on all the plants. Also, as of last evening all four plants have roots visible past the net basket. Im trying my hardest to stop peeking in more than twice a day to keep light off of them ^_^. The leaves are developing rapidly, and I am getting very little (if any) vertical growth. I definitely feel this is because of the 2- 3 times I lowered the lights and the fan I keep on them.

Because of my cabinet size, bucket size, and unknown genetics of the plant Im doing everything I can to keep the plants as short as possible. I also plan to flower after I see alternating nodes more than likely. I will also hope to FIM according to uncle bens guide. Some form of LST or scrog will be needed although I havent quite decided what would work best with my bucket system. I think that a scrog will make it hard to lift the lid off my buckets for water changes, so maybe LST cord secured to the bucket lid would work best for my setup. Well enough rambling, on to the pictures!

Plant #1:

Plant #2:

Plant #3:

Plant #4:

greenthumbtwins · Jul 14, 2010

you got kush growin it will taste like ice-cream.

Learninglots420 · Jul 15, 2010

Well since I’ve seen a total of about 3 adult fungus gnats, and plant #1 seemed a tad droopy, I decided to start an all out war against the gnats to get them in check before things become worse. I read that one of the best ways to combat them in DWC is to use the product Gnatrol, conveniently stocked by my local hydro store. I mixed up little “shots” of the stuff to bring all my buckets’ levels to the low infestation level listed on the container. I also mixed together a weaker solution and poured a small amount at the base of the plant stem to soak the rockwool which from what I have read is like a magnet for fungus gnat eggs.

Although this should indeed kill the larva, it really won’t prevent future infestations unless I’m constantly using it. What worries me the most is how hard it is to detect the larva, which really do the most damage to the plant (unless you consider that the adults lay the eggs in the first place.) I decided I would also use the trick where you cover the medium in sand to essentially seal their entry point and make the medium not even register as a good egg-laying region because of how dry it is. I couldn’t resist buying the pink play sand though, so now I’m growing in style! The coup de grace will be yellow sticky pads on the wall that draw them in. I also figure now would be a good time to give them all a tiny dose of superthrive to encourage root growth in the event that any were damaged by the gnats. 3 drops per bucket should be good. So today may have been kind of stressful for my plants but I think the superthrive combined with the awesomeness of the pink sand should make up for those damn gnats. Here are some new pictures:

Plant #1:

Plant #2:

Plant #3:

Plant #4:

The whole gang:

Learninglots420 · Jul 16, 2010

The eradication of the fungus gnats was a success, nearly a full day and not a single adult has been trapped in the yellow paper. Hell, Id expect a couple kills from foreign bugs at least by now ^_^.

So the concern to me now is the tips of the leaves slightly curling in. It doesnt seem to match the behavior of a MJ plant with a nitrogen deficiency (and besides isnt it a bit early for the plant to be crying for nutes?) To me it is likely a result of the splash attack of gnatrol on the rockwool that is creating a bit of an over watering effect. My other hypothesis is that it is a reaction to the heat. I raised the lights by a few inches today and also installed a new inline duct fan for exhaust. I have the parts to add my passive intake and hope to be doing that soon. Im very confident the girls will pull through though, just biding my time for now and watching them closely. Here are the pictures of the day:

Plant #1:

Plant #2 (Turning into a real beast! Better not be a male >.<):

Plant #3:

Plant #4:

Learninglots420 · Jul 16, 2010

suncoastgrower said:
they look goooood! sick set up too, wish I could do a grow cab that big

Thanks for the response! The grow cabinet was pretty cheap really, and down the road if I can ever increase my setup it’ll be a nice veg chamber for some mothers!

ran4it2 said:
Looking good so far. I wish I could get as many bubble buckets you got!
your not gonna notice smell for awhile! My plants are barely starting to smell but they are also their 4th week into flower

Woooo, I’d love if my plants have as little odor as yours. Four buckets is kind of tight for my setup but since I’m rolling the dice so to speak on the female / male ratio this will let me chop the guys out of the equation and have plenty of room for the ladies.

greenthumbtwins said:
you got kush growin it will taste like ice-cream.

I hope it tastes like weed flavored ice cream! :hump:

S.O.G. · Jul 16, 2010

nice grow op

samtheham420 · Jul 18, 2010

Nice, they are lookin good

Learninglots420 · Jul 20, 2010

I installed four 2-inch diameter PVC pipes today for some light proof passive intakes, although I can still tell by the negative pressure that it is not enough. I hope to go and buy the air-cooled hood attachment for my lighting soon and hook it up to get the heat out of my cab before it even leaves the hood. The bottom two leaves on plant 3 are acting kind of weird and I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up dying early. I also think that the gnatrol is tinting the roots slightly and I am pretty confident it isnt root rot. I'd like to use my H202 but it would kill my gnatrol. My yellow sticky pads have caught a few fungus gnats and I did see a couple fly out when I opened the bucket. Im hoping that the gnatrol is working and that those were just larva too old to be killed with it.

Plant #1:

Plant #2:

Plant #3:

Plant #4:

A poor fools first grow, DWC hydro, bagseed, w/ PICS and TLC

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A poor fools first grow, DWC hydro, bagseed, w/ PICS and TLC