Doing it Right: My first All-Digital Grow

Hey all,

I'm restarting my indoor growing after a long hiatus, I've been growing going on five years now, now that I'm eighteen. I started growing a week after I first smoked when I was thirteen, and decided I wanted to be a ten year veteran by the time I was twenty-three. My grandpa has bought my weed for the last few years. Its a part of our family. Whilst I was just in Europe for the last month, and Amsterdam for twelve days, my father was back here in California maintaining my plants for me.

Unfortunately I do not have so many photos of the plants when they were small. To start, I topped them and pulled the branches down and left for a month, came back and the plants looked like the first photos, right after I transplanted them. Its been over a week now, I got back January 31st.

I have an all-digital setup this time:
-Autopilot digital co2 controller
-1000w Hortilux Platinum Series digital ballast
-fan speed controller
-ppm meter for water
-ph meter for water
-digital temperature gauge
-8" can lite which can accomidate 1000cfm
-8" max fan 667 cfm
-4x4 hydrohut
-20lb co2 tank and regulator
-Sunlight Supply Luxor 8" vertical reflector
-Gorilla Grow 5x9 tent with height extension
-14k btu portable dual hose air conditioner. I have not decided exactly which to buy yet.
-lots of dabs and California produce to sustain myself through the work

I started the XJ-13 clones I purchased from Harborside Health Center in 1 gallon pots, they got rootbound in those within a month, I transplanted them to 3 gallon plastic pots, I will transplant them one more time in three weeks before I flower, to seven gallon cloth/fabric pots. I am using Botanicare Readygro.

I am using Cutting Edge Solutions 3-part for nutrients plus FoxFarm bloom boosters. I am using them before I switch to all-organic compost tea based on Stinging Nettle, Comfrey, and Horsetail. For now, I am simply getting back in the groove with my chemical fertilizers I've used for so long.

I am currently maintaining all this myself now. Just having got back from Europe, repotting my plants, and training them back into alignment (because my father did not train them, he simply watered them and raised the light) takes a bit to get back into the rhythm. First, I pulled off any nasty crap lower growth, old leaves, 80% of the lower nodes I removed. Then, I pulled the branches out by bending them and using training wire, which I took off now. I topped them, and I'm bushing them out now.

I plan to veg them out for the month of February, then start flowering in March, through April, harvest in mid to late May. Ready to smoke in June.

Hortilux's BLUE bulb says it is to be used for flowering. I will try it.

I recently purchased a dehumidifier and have been maintaining humidity below 50% for the last few days. The temperature has been in the low 90s/ upper 80s, which is why I need the air conditioner, because this is the middle of winter, and I want to add another 1200 watts of lighting, so I am going to need an A/c running most of the time especially when it warms up around summer. I'm talking with my landlord about adding at least one more circuit breaker.

You have spent some major $$$ into this. I like your selections for this grow project, I hope you will update frequently so we can all see how the ladies are doing. Btw im considering buying a Super.Locker.3.0. For my grow but it costs a total of 1500 and stealth is a major key. Any suggestions on if I should do this or should I maybe take a cheaper route. Also how much did you spend exactly. Im a noob grower so im very curious lol.

Subbed...
Love it.....

Yeah my plan is start to finish, except I missed some of the start.

I probably have spent 2k on everything.

Honestly I would just get a gorilla grow tent and figure your equipment out yourself, I haven't seen any "package deals" in the hydroponics industry that have been much any good. Usually they're shitty to decent, but overpriced always. Just copy my stuff, or, buy it yourself.

Its not about "cheaper" rather its about doing it well, and doing what you can handle. I could've thrown a few thousand watters with cheapo magnetic ballasts and had a shitty big grow going here that I couldn't manage, because it would be too much work to water and train all the plants.

Plus I've never gotten more than 8 oz from 1000w, which I know is a huge issue, I am doing EVERYTHING right on this grow, temperature, humidity, genetics, watering, lighting. I am focusing more on having a perfect environment before I do anything.

Thanks for the advice it's very helpful. Unfortunately I don't have the space for a Gorilla grow tent or I would consider it immediately. Thats why I was going to get the locker since it has everything built in and is virtually ready once I get it, it also takes up hardly any space. Lets just say I could use my walk in closet. Its 8ft high, but 7ft wide by 6ft. So quite large, you cold fit 5 to 6 people in there lol. So lets say I use that. Would it be better to set up operation in there maybe build my own little grow room, but what about stealth is what im wondering.

Prices for the best indoor around the Bay area are 1600 per pound and down in LA they're not that much higher, they just want shittier weed. That sucks. Everyone is moving stuff out of state, and internationally now.

I'm going to make my own BHO soon because I love dabbing and therefore I need to make my own because I dont trust anyone else.



I got the 5x9 gorilla grow tent, the space seems efficiently used. I cannot imagine running the 5x9 tent plus the 4x4 hydrohut, there is not enough space. I might be able to get the additional power I need to run another 1000w by using the power for the built in wall heater.

The humidity is good because I have a dehumidifier, I have a 14k BTU Whynter dual hose portable air conditioner with 3M antimicrobial filter ARC-143MX, on the way, its supposed to arrive next week. The temperatures are about 90-95 degrees which is not too bad, because I have co2, it just means I need to water a little more frequently.

I noticed some ugly shit on the leaves, leaf necrosis, I think it was because I was running the humidity too low, about 30%, now I am leaving it at 50%. I have never owned a dehumidifier or air conditioner, these are my first. I love the dehumidifier, I am sure I will love this air conditioner.

I have two stupid casement windows. I think I will build a plywood cover for each window, rise each about two inches above the window with some blocks, and leave the windows open. Maybe that will look a little suspicious, suddenly leaving two windows open ALL the time, in the middle of winter. Whatever. Its legal here.

I will cut holes for the dual vents the for the air conditioner, and vent one hose through each window. This way I will not worry about one hose sucking the exhaust of the other, they will be very separate from one another.


The extra foot of height in the Gorilla tent is amazing. Two feet would be too much for me, I do not have any more ceiling space. I wish I had more space.

My buddy who came by pointed out, the Luxor vertical reflector is great, but a traditional horizontal would be better for my setup for many reasons, they are shorter and use less space, and the air-cooling is more effective on the horizontal reflectors than on the vertical, because the vertical reflector is sealed from the air, the bulb runs brighter, and lasts longer because it does not gather as much dust, but that is a big issue for me as my buddy was pointing out, this reflector is the most efficient, but, it puts out a lot of heat, much more than a traditional horizontal one.

I think I will stick with my current reflector and consider another after this cycle.

The Gorilla tent was designed and is distributed from San Francisco. Its great living so close to all the hydroponics industry, I was missing the corners for my tent, so I called a hydro store, they called the tent company, and long story short, I took the BART to San Francisco and later that day got to see a bunch of cool shit at the Gorilla grow headquarters.

I have been hand watering my plants right now because it gives me an opportunity to fondle them individually, monitor their growth, train them, and of course water them perfectly.

Once I start flowering, or two weeks before perhaps, I will start putting up mesh white netting. I will hang 3-6 layers of it, because I do not have confidence in my buds to support themselves (I've lost many a beautiful bud to a broken branch because it grew too heavy to support). Because I will not be able to move my plants after I transplant them into 7 gallon Smartpots with Botanicare Readygro, because they will be tangled in the netting, the entire reason I have the netting there, is so the plants become tangled, so as the buds sway with weight, they simply lean against the plastic netting rather than falling to the floor. This is also why the netting must be installed in advance, so your buds can grow into it, rather than pulling it on after, oh no. You attach new layers of netting as the plants get taller, you can also use it to bend buds over, away from the light if it is too hot, or to even out growth. Overall, I have nothing but good things to say about plastic netting, you do not realize its importance if you are inexperienced, but you see soon later.

Because they will be immobile, I will need to water them with a pump and a watering wand from home depot. I will get a wet/dry vacuum to suck up all the excess water, especially when I am flushing, as I plan to run 5-6x the volume of the container, through each container. I want to flush the shit out of them.

I'm about to put up netting. I got a 14k BTU dual hose a/c. I went through a 20lb tank of co2 in like 2 days so something is wrong, something was sucking out assloads of my co2, I used to use a 20lb tank in 1.5 months. I think it is because I needed to open the window to let the excess heat and humidity out from the a/c so my co2 got sucked out with it. I am not sure if I am going to directly connect the a/c to my window vent, or if I will use a lung room style and vent into the outer room, and run another fan to vent outside.

The only reason I would not vent the a/c outside is I am afraid of odor leak, and co2 leak, but I guess the co2 leak could not be worse than it is now...we will see about the odor. Honestly, due to the location, I could pretty well get away with pumping bud smelling air out the window, but would still prefer not to.

The only question is whether my a/c's two circuits are completely closed from one another. I did buy a dual-hose model specifically for that function, but I digress I worry too much. I have the Whynter ARC-143mx. The temps seem to be good, along with the humidity. I am going to bring back in the dehumidifier, and run that when the 1000w turns off, I think I will get some timers and turn off the a/c too, just have the dehumidifier running while the light is off because it will keep the room warm and dry. I can also run the a/c in dehumidifier mode and cool the room and make it dry. I love having both the standalone dehumidifier and the portable a/c, with the two units I can do anything I want to the room, keep it warm and dry, cool and dry, whatever.

The only issue!! is I do not have enough circuits. I need more power!!! the bane of us indoor growers. I met a grower who knows an electrician, and I have decided since to seek the employment of a professional. I currently CANNOT run my refrigerator because everything else draws too much power and trips the 2x 20 amp breakers. I was thinking, I would like one more 20 amp 240 volt breaker to run all my lighting, along with one more 20 amp 120 volt breaker to run any additional a/c or fans I will need when I upgrade the lighting wattage soon, or when summer comes.

I have been running the temperature at 70 degrees because I do not want to encourage vertical growth in the plants so much. I decided to let the temperature rise to 75 because I am starting flowering, and I want to run it at the proper temperature, but I am not sure exactly what would constitute proper right now. Only experience will tell I suppose. I am only worried about height because I can only raise my reflector about six more inches and my plants are already huge and about to go into flowering. I think I will need to put up netting and aggressively train them into the net to prevent them from getting burned as they get taller. That is the only reason I would want to run them at a cooler-than normal temperature is to make them shorter, but I know that will also make buds smaller in general, too. I am normally running co2 supplementation, I am trying to do a sealed grow. I know some say you can run higher temperatures when you run co2, but I do not think I am going to run them over 75.

I kept clearing off crappy lower growth, bending them over, and since I stopped topping them and encouraging bushing out, I have started focusing on individual branch development, I have removed all side nodes from all branches of all plants, I have done this so the branches thicken and become denser, rather than having too many small little undeveloped branches, I am getting nice big meaty branches by pulling off all offshoots of the main branches that the plants currently have, whilst I continue to bend the branches over.

Last time I watered, I pulled out the root ball, cleared off about half of the bottom mass which on most of them was unused, filled the pots with extra coco to make them fill the pots to the top, and put the root ball back on top then watered in. I was thinking of transplanting to 7 gallon pots, but now I actually think that is excessive. I am fine with these pots, especially after having transplanted and re-potted them into the same pots the way I just did. it will take them probably two weeks to fully colonize the new bottom few inches of coco I gave each plant.

I am going to board up the windows, I need to replace the shades to one that will be less restrictive on my a/c, in addition to the fact that I need absolute light blockage, because like most indoor growers I am running my light at night to keep temperatures constant. I am building a large fiberboard box to enclose both windows, one for intake, one for exhaust.

Hey man i know this is a little late but I have the superflower LED 3.0 from supercloset. I have a bunch of pics on another forum if you wanted to see how they looked. They are on day 2 of flowering, I can't seem to post good pics on this forum but i hope you look at them.

http://forum.grasscity.com/blog/9665/entry-12505-super-flower-led-30/

I got the fiberboard installed over the windows. Things seem more stable, the co2 doesn't seem to vary as wildly. There are less random air currents flowing around. Temps seem more stable, also because the hot air that is produced is being vented directly outside, and the intake for the exhaust fan is on the roof of the tent near the ceiling, it sucks the hot air conditioner exhaust directly through the reflector and outside. Great. All treated for smell too.

The buds are starting to produce small hairs. I started thinking of this grow six months ago and planning it three months ago. I love making my dreams come true. I wonder what I'll be up to in a year.

I am so excited. I cannot imagine smoking my own XJ-13 again that I grew again after so many years (I grew it four years ago and have wanted to grow it since) I loved the smell always. I find it amazing that after years and everything, I can go to the store, and get the clones, and they REALLY are the same, I can tell because I recognized the smell as soon as I rubbed my current plants.

Everybody is moving to warehouse growing here. Everything is scaling up.

I think they're drinking less water because I've been keeping the temps low, when it was high in the 90s I watered every other day, but now at 72 exactly, in the beginning of flower, they've gone at least three days and seem to have a lot of water left.

It sucks not having proper equipment. I need two new thermometers because the cheap shitty ones before broke. Time to buy more cheap shitty ones.

I'm hoping to get at LEAST 1lb up to 4. This is my first grow with an air conditioner.

I think the temps have gone up in our area because the a/c can't get the tent temp below 72 even though I have it set at 68. A few days ago it was easily holding at 68. 72 is cool though.

Its so great having everything in my life work together so well, because I'm doing everything as perfect as possible, even though some minor shit goes wrong with some weird plastic in my water reservoir, not having a thermometer, whatever, because I am doing everything 90% perfect, the plants are doing well. I am trying hard, so they are working hard. I am not really trying that hard now, I am somewhat coasting, riding on the coattails of my five years experience.

I've been checking out lots of photos of plants in flower, and the only ones I've found that show a similar amount of hairs and bud size are plants in the 5th week of flower. Mine are in the 3rd week. Great, I can't imagine how insanely large they will be by the end of flower, or even by week 5.

Nice!