Doc’s First Grow: Soil, Autos, 4x4, QB’s

A little bit about my grow:

I am using a 4x4x80ish tent. I have (2) Mars Hydro 600W lights (newest version, presently at around 24”). The Mars Hydro are getting returned, and I will have 2 260 HLG QB kits arriving Tuesday! Growing 6 pots (autoflower), 5 in FF Happy Frog/Perlite in 5 gallon fabric pots, and 1 Coco/Perlite in a 3 gallon pot. Tent equipment includes timers (21-3 light cycle), hygrometers, a humidifier (and dehumidifier for flower), 6” Vivosun exhaust fan with insulated ducting (for noise), XL Exhale CO2 bag (mycelium) a couple of small fans, a space heater, and a temp-controlled outlet (set at 80 with the heater kicking on at 78.5 and the exhaust fan at 80.2 - which helps keep my temp perfect, humidity at around 65% with exhaust coming on roughly every 4-5 min for 30 seconds or so). I pH my water (filtered tap) to around 6-6.5.

I am growing Sweetberry Cough Automatic from Garden of Green and Super Skunk Automatic from White Label Seeds.

So far, everything is going great. All 6 plants are doing very well as of today (day 9 going into day 10).

I have Azomite and mycorrhizae on the way. Things I’m using is the GH Gro, Micro, and Bloom series, SCD Bio Ag probiotic, cal/mag. So far that’s about it.

I’m going to post some pics from today. 4 of the 5 in soil look great, but something happened to the other one. Assuming possibly it was some kind of pest, I sprayed some Organocide at the start of lights off today.

Let me know what you guys think. The second one is the one with the issue. All else seem healthy and this one plant does seem to be attempting to recover.

Good morning! Will upload some day 10 photos here shortly. Several of my plants are really starting to put in work!

The coco plant has recovered somewhat, though I’m still worried about it overall as it’s definitely dealing with nutrient issues, though it seems to have gotten past its stunting. 4 of the soil plants are looking good, with maybe a tinge of excess nitrogen being evident on the first set of fan leaves towards the tips. I’ve been hardly using any ferts at all, dosing at 1/8th to 1/4th the recommended dosage.

Tomorrow, I’ll be receiving my myco and azo.

While the 5th soil plant is still living and growing, I’m still trying to figure out what caused the deformation of its leaves. My guess is still some sort of pest, so yesterday before lights out, I sprayed down the plants lightly with some organocide. If anyone has any insight into this issue, it would be much appreciated.

My HLG QB 260 V1 x2 are arriving on Tuesday. I can’t wait to return these burple lights and see what these QBs can do for me. I’ve been debating possibly adding a UV/Far red supplement for lighting, though it’s lower on my priority list for now.

Pictures to come shortly!

Here are pictures from day 10!



And here is my mangled one:



And a couple of (not the best looking) pics of my setup. Once I get my QBs in, I’ll have better pics for you!

Forgot to mention. I tested the runoff of my soil last night, which came in around 6.7. I water with pH corrected filtered water between 6.0-6.5.

Decided to order the same lights as you !

Ranthavandross said:

Decided to order the same lights as you !

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Very nice! Yeah I nabbed them while they were on sale (since the new V2s are out). V1s or not, it’s gonna be miles better than my burples I’m sure! Let me know what you think and how your babies react.

DocofRock said:

Very nice! Yeah I nabbed them while they were on sale (since the new V2s are out). V1s or not, it’s gonna be miles better than my burples I’m sure! Let me know what you think and how your babies react.

Click to expand...

Sure thing ! Im in the research phase right now, i just want to have all the right equipment for my first grow

So I’ve noticed, one one plant in particular, some signs of initial nitrogen toxicity. The new growth is coming in fine, and she’s one of the bigger ones. That said, I’m going to be using simply plain RO water with SCD Bio Ag (probiotics in molasses at pH of 3.5, so total pH around 6.2) for the next week. I technically shouldn’t have added any nutes to the soil grow. Luckily, I knew it was risky, so I only have been using some extremely weak ratios of my nutes (like 1/8th to 1/5th recommenced dose). That tells me she has all the nitrogen she needs for now so I’ll be focusing on watering without nutes and focusing on adding my probiotics and good fungi into the soil medium to help keep these guys healthy.

Day 12

Alright! Sorry for the delay in my update, it has been a busy/slightly frustrating couple of days!

So first the bad (but not terrible) news. I decided to scrap the plant in coco for several reasons. Number 1: I’m still learning ALL of this, so while I learned a valuable lesson about mediums, poor preparation, and watering/nutes (including the difference in need between hydro and soil), ultimately I’m not ready to maintain plants in varying phases with varying needs just yet. I would look at that plant and know it just was not likely going to get the attention it deserved. Due to lack of airflow in the coco (not enough perlite for my liking), the nutrient deficiencies, and the stunted growth, I decided that I didn’t want to risk introducing illness to the rest of the tent because of my unwillingness to care for specifically one seedling.

Now, the good news: all 5 soil plants are doing quite nicely, including the plant that was mangled looking. They are all putting on new and healthy growth. Pics will be coming in the next few hours.

I got my QBs yesterday. After a frustrating evening of failure, I finally got them ready today. I know, I know... it’s easy! Well, with the knowledge I have now, it certainly will be in the future. I will preface this by saying yes, I know I am an idiot. I had never really done much electrical work before yesterday, so in my ignorance, I didn’t realize that the AC connections needed to be made in a specific way. I figured that it didn’t matter, due to the fact that all of the individual wires didn’t match exactly their corresponding mate. For instance, the blue cord on one side properly connects to the white on the other side of the connection. Hopefully, anyone reading over this can get that info here before hours of frustration.

The plants have been receiving only probiotic water (SCD Bio Ag) and pH balanced R.O. Water since about day 7-8 due to the concern for early toxicity, even with extremely light feeding. As has been stated, it seems that FFHF indeed has enough nutes to last at least the first couple of weeks. Now that they don’t really show any signs of deficiency or toxicity, I’m going to return to giving them cal-mag with the probiotic R.O. water, as I just switched to R.O. and there will be no trace minerals in my water.

I also added a small amount of Azo and myco to the next week.

The HLG QB’s have been hung just about an hour ago when my plants flipped over to their 4 hour dark cycle. The boards are each pulling about 200 true watts (400 total) for a rough estimate of 25 watts/sq foot. They are hanging at around 2 feet (4x4 tent). Let me know if you have any better suggestions for light intensity/coverage.

I’ll have pics up shortly! Happy growing!

Here are the pics! P.S. the white on the leaves is NOT PM/mold. I sprinkled a little bit of mycorrhizae powder into the top of the soil last night and my fans were still going, and blew some onto the fan leaves.

One thing I notice, even though it’s growing, one of the plants is a bit droopy/shinier/darker. See if that is normal or concerning. FYI, the plants are in dark cycle right now (and in the pictures).

Just got rid of all the drip pans, put all pots on 2” wire racks, and moved a fan to the bottom of the tent pointed towards the tent floor (so that air constantly circulates underneath the pots). I’m hoping for some faster drying, as I’m still in quite large pots for the size of the plants. I’ve been careful not to overwater, keeping the top two inches nearly dry (except for when watering obviously), with all else merely moist (but still light and airy). In other words, there’s some retained moisture, but it’s by no means swamped out or overwatered. Of note, there is no foul smell or anything under the pots, but I just felt a little uneasy so I’m trying to be proactive with my circulation. Also, I’m using smart pots, so with being lifted off the ground + air moving underneath, I’m hoping to ward off any potential issues.

Waiting on my lights to cycle back on so I can snap you all a picture, sans burples!

And here are some more pics on day 12 under the new QB’s! Once again, not PM, it’s mycorrhizae powder on the leaves.

Today is day 13, and wow! The plants really seem to like the QB’s. My soil indeed dries much quicker being up on those wire racks, so mission accomplished in that regard! My droopy plant picked right up this morning, and all plants are looking great.

Yesterday I gave a feeding with SCD Bio Ag (probiotics), 1 tsp mycorrhizae powder, 1 tbs of Azomite, 2.5 mL of cal/mag, and 2 mL of GH Gro per gallon of R.O. water, pH’d to 6.3. Plants seem to be enjoying it! I know it’s not a ton of nutrients, but this is a soil grow.

In other news, I purchased a couple of 660nm red and 460nm blue LEDs (about 25W per light) for some supplemental blue and red. I don’t know how necessary it really is, but it’ll be nice to have around.

Pictures to come this evening. If anyone has any feedback or suggestions on this Grow, would love to hear from you!

Pictures from Day 13:

So I’ve been doing some reading and I’ve come to the following conclusions:

1) My plants seem to start dropping a little bit right before/around lights out. That said, the one that gets the droopiest is one of the fastest growing plants. I think it’s getting tired and needs the lights out period.

2) I think lights out is CRITICAL for both efficiency and plant development... even with auto flowers. I am running them about 21/3, and I get a sense that they may appreciate just a little more dark.

3) I absolutely want to grow photoperiods next time, and I want to start them out in MUCH smaller containers. That is one of my bigger regrets, as trying to maintain proper moisture without overwatering is a challenge for plants these small. I’ve definitely learned from this experience.

Nice setup, love those qbs, your plants will love them

I think losing the 6th plant wont hurt you at all, 5 plants in a 4x4 can get crowed pretty quick once they start hitting growth spurts

All of the plants from my first run have done the droop before lights out, it was weird and concerning at first, until i realized what was going on, then it was neat lol.

Ya starting in smaller pots def helps with the overwatering situation. I have never grown an Auto before, i have heard tho, most growers do as you did, start them in their final pots.

Best of luck

Here’s a couple of pics before her 14th day. I watered with a small amount of my GH nutes today, then a small amount with my pH’d R.O. water plus mycorrhizae and small amount of cal/mag, and an almost non-existent amount of GH FloraGro. I checked the runoff water from one of the pots - 6.7 pH with PPM around 240. Not sure if PPM from runoff means anything or not, but I was glad to see it relatively low. Any nutes they have gotten have been WELL below the recommended dose.

I’m growing in FFHF, so it’s not as “hot” as FFOF, hence the (extremely light) feedings.

I noticed the tips of some of my leaves (very very tip, not very noticeable) were turning yellow and the edges of just a few fan leaves were turning up a bit. I know that it’s not overwatering, deficiency, etc. It’s not heat either, as the tent runs around 76-82 F. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s likely too much light (2x HLG 260 QB’s) that were each pulling about 200 true watts from the wall. I think that’s probably too much light for the stage of the plants, so I’ve raised up the light about 6 more inches and decreased each fixture by about 20 watts. I think I’ve decided in the future to just add a par meter to my grow tool box.

Here are a couple pics, including an attempted close up on my leaf. Btw, still not PM on those leaves. A tiny bit of Azomite powder, haha. I think I’m a fiddler....

Ok, day 14 update. Plants are doing well and are still growing. However, I still think they were getting too much light (wow those QB’s...) causing some tip burn and some (what looked to me) to be light bleaching, as the environment is perfect (soil is appropriate moisture level/pH, humidity and temps in check). I also noticed that the problem seemed to be worse on the back row of plants. I decided to dim the lights, and check into the wattage for each individual light (something I should have done properly initially, but now I know).

As it turns out, what I found confirmed my suspicion. I had made the mistake of adjusting total wattage for each driver with BOTH running. Turns out the lights in the back were at 254 watts, and the front were around 155. I’ve now decreased them both to around 135 watts and left them at the same (increased yesterday) height. I’d love to hear your feedback on the appearance of the plants from some experienced growers and see if you agree with my assessment.

In other news, having learned so much about growing (I am obsessed with reading), and having learned already from some mistakes I’ve made, I decided to start another batch of plants - 2 more of the White Label Seeds “Super Skunk Automatic” and 3 of the Seedsman freebies, the Amnesia Auto Fem. They started germ this morning at around 10am. Tomorrow morning, they’ll go to their paper towels, and then will be going into solo cups initially, and then 3 gallon smart pots. Yes, I am going to transplant the autos this time. I’m also doing a full organic grow using supersoil at the bottom of the 3 gal containers, then using Roots Organic original 66% Perlite 33% and planning to NOT add any nutes for the rest of the grow.

Hope you guys are takin ‘er easy. I’d be happy to get any feedback from more experienced growers. What do you think?

Just checked in on the girls this morning - they seem to be looking a LOT better since turning down and evening out the light intensity in the tent. Glad I did it!

My 5 new seeds went into their paper towels today after soaking for 20 hours. All 5 sank to the bottom, so they seemed adequately hydrated. Can’t wait to get this all organic supersoil grow going! I will update tonight with some new pics!

Ok, so it’s now the end of day 15 since planting, maybe around 18-19 days since seeds started germ). Plants seem to have reacted favorably to the lighting adjustments made. I’ve noticed some good growth, and especially more vertical growth in the last 24 hours (not STRETCHING, just growing up more).

The plant that I posted about looking mangled just continues to grow, in a mutated/mangled fashion. I’m wondering if perhaps the genetics are not very stable. Once again, I’ve learned so damn much in such little time that I literally wish I could have done differently from the start. But, it’s a learning experience and I’m enjoying the process. I think these will be my last autoflower for a good while (and the ones in paper towels).

I’ve also ordered some Useful Seeds photo strains for my next grow. Let’s face it... I really am getting into this hobby. I’m so excited to start my all organic grow, I’m wondering if maybe I should just plant these autos in small ass containers or even... I donno, toss them out. Let’s just say, I have 20 quality photo fem seeds on the way from DC Seed Exchange.... if they get here soonish, I’d rather save the space in the tent for them. The 2 strains I picked are Blueberries and Chocolate & Double Dipped Strawberries. STOKED. BTW, does anyone know anything about Garden of Green or White Label Seeds?

Anyway, here are some pics from today. Let me know if you can spot any issues or have any suggestions! I am always open to feedback and hope I get to learn more from the experienced members here. Do these plants look healthy, or maybe like there could be deficiencies?