First time grower, AlphaKronik Gobstopper , soil

A quick background. I spent a bunch of time designing my own environmental controller for a DWC setup. Built everything and set it up and tried to germ my seeds. Turns out my dwc worked and by the time I knew I had spores my entire apartment building smelled like unwashed feet. Days later the landlord notified me not to have "furniture wholly or partly filled with liquids" lest I be financially responsible for any repairs. So my 6 months studying into dwc flushed and I realized with the new lease terms I could do nothing..... without written permission. So I asked. And got permission for hand watered soil based "house plants" and he never told me it couldn't be a 5 foot tall pot plant. So here I am having gotten a crash course from random hippy who taunted me with pics of nugs the size of my arm, in soil growing.

By the time I had learned about sanitizing my equipment to prevent spore outbreaks that smell like feet ...
I had murdered the first two seeds. Turns out rockwool kinda sucks first prep it with 5 or 5.5 water or you will spend all your time chasing ph and your seeds will die when you put them in the rockwool. Next you gotta seriously swing them and let centrifugal force dry them out or seeds die. I figured out I did not like rockwool and decided to try both rapid rooters and a trick my buddy told me to put hot water on the seeds to crack them. I have 100% germ rates up till trying one in dirt with hot water tonight.

First two seeds died due to failed rockwool prep raising ph and , the second batch I seem to have overwatered the first and realized i did ,so the second one i swung around till it changed color it was so dry and set it on a plate in the humidity dome so it would not be in the water. The first was sitting in the puddle and drowned . The second which i was sure was gonna die broke thru.

Its official... Ive 'grown pot' . Im great at murdering sprouts but this last one is so robust i cant kill it.

My setup:
3x3 tent
315 cmh3100 (i think 3400 might be pref) Next time i get one with the duct in the reflector
fox farms happy frog
calimagic blue world
GH tripple

Small led grow light that claims to be 900 watts (yeah its bs for sure) that cost 30 for germ/ seedlings and a 60 wat incandescent that heats , i am convinced this is what got my sprout to break ground.

I mixed 1 gal and put 2 ml of micro 4 ml of calimagic and just a bit of the other two. Mixed it good with another gallon of water .

My water is phd to 5.8 -6.2 it is chicago tap water thru britta filter resulting in ph of 7.0 and ppm of 90 .

The nute mix above after diluted 50% used on rockwool cubes. ppm was 109 combined base 90 plus nutes diluted to the point I figured i was gonna starve them but there is enough stuff to leave salts in the bottom of the pan at 109ppm when it evaps.

First one broke ground and I transplanted it to jiffy pot because it had a 1 inch root out the bottom of the cube . All of the growth happened in 12 hours today.

I have a 1 gal smart pot bag and more foxfarm happy frog incase I cant kill it before it gets 6 inches tall.

Im a total noob , Im getting good at killing em but want to get good at growing em so feel free to chime in. I kinda knew what i was doing with dwc but i pretty much know not to use nutes in the foxfarms for 3 weeks or so and thats it with soil. I had to adapt to the landlords permission.

I worried I drowned her so I stuck the fan on and elevated the jify pot to let it wic some water out till I could see the plant starting to perk up a bit. when the cotydilions started to spread and reach for the light I turned the fan off.

This might sound batshit crazy but I can see it grow when its working right. It kinda wriggles around . I have absolutely no idea what I am doing if im being totally honest but when I get things right she rewards me with a good show. When I waterlogged her after transplanting to jiffy pot She went limp. but when the fan pulled the right amount of moisture out of the pot she started perking up rapidly .

really surprised too. Each pair of seeds I take one fat striped dark one and one skinny deformed one that has less stripes. One of the best one of the worst. The one that i cant kill is the worst seed in the pack. Skinny almost white little thing. It broke ground with true leaves. Itty bitty ones that were folded like tacos telling me I over watered.

24 hours after seed broke thru rockwool, bent in half . It actually had true leaves when it broke ground.

I can still see it growing in real time. My lights are 13 inches over the plant for now. Open to advice where to put the led light I suspect about 9 inches.

Resisting urge to water , instead used spray bottle with rockwool nutes and put half a squirtright around the stem to soak the rockwool with nutes .

Currently 18 hour light , on at 5 am, first watering as soon as i wake up usually within 30 mins of lights on, and i water to emulate morrning dew.

I figure I should be watering every 2 or 3 days , with maintenance sprays at the rockwool to maintain a happy plant inbetweenwhile i have her in too big of a pot. I have 1 cm of wet jiffy pot at the bottom so Im spot watering the rock wool till i see the plant using some measure of water.

Observing minor reduction in green hue of cotydillions right where they and the true leaves meet. Lime green , maybe yellowish in the very center.

Unsure if this is first signs of nute od , or if this is new growth?

Mentor says "looks healthy, dark usually means too much nutes that might be hungry. "

I was spinning it hourly to get the stem pointing up, it was ignoring the led and leaning to the incandescent so per mentor turned off led, and applied personal incandescents to give them what they want.

Didnt mention it , but I noticed the plant grew , when my meat thermometer stuck in the rockwool hovered between 72 and 82. This is substantially warmer than ambient. It was on heat pad, had hot water dripped into the center hole, , and had both the led and the incandescent on it , for air temp of 99degrees when I got it to go. This time I have it using the incandescent and distance to moderate to ~78 but suspect need the dome back up so #2 will germ. Not getting desired humidity to mimic natural environment. I think I had 68% humidity.

Today , switched from rockwool nute mix listed above to 25ml bloom , 15 ml calmag, 5 gal water. I put a fan on in the room indirectly and kept checking it , once I picked it up and it was super light so.... I watered the shit out of it being careful to tip the pot and NOT water directly the rockwool and just make sure the soil soaked it up slowly .

She didn't do much today. Maybe the leaves doubled in size and she got a little taller. About 3/4 inch now. She kept flopping over one side, then the other. After a while turning her to straighten her back up it dawned on me this was result of her growing mad roots so I stopped turning it (making it search again for light wasting time) and just started gently poking the cotydillions to ever so gently stress the stem a bit and help it set its roots . The first time I poked it it straightened right up

After some thought and research I realized the led light is working but needs about 4 inches from the plant to track to it instead of the incandescent. Day two completed. Clearly shes working on roots.

Day three woke up and made sure everything was moist. Shes liking the new nute juice. I think Ive made an important realization. Its not the watering the plant likes, its chasing the water as the dirt slowly dries out. Mentor says water every 2 / 3 days. Problem is im trying to keep the temp between 78 and 80 and have a fan on to do so. It makes the growth faster so i can see it wiggle . This is making my jiffy pot dry out rapidly. I am not happy with how large the rockwool cube is in the jiffy pot. Watering the dirt below the rockwool is difficult with out soaking the rockwool too much. Hopefully the roots grow enough i dont need to worry about it and can get into a more normal watering schedule.

mentor was not joking that bigger is better. end up in a 10 gal pot , it makes watering easy as compared to what im dealing with now, but you have to work your way to it dont just start in 10gal . Make big nute mixes , 5 gals is nice if you scale up just add a zero to make 55 gals . when you make 5 gals nute juice at a time measuring is substantially less important to be exact. Bigger is better. Turns out you can measure with shot glass and do away with that stupid dropper the gh stuff comes with when you do 5 gals.

Best advice ever..... get a mentor whos done it as much as you researched it. I really cant understate how much he has saved my ass.

Day 3 after it broke ground. You can tell the true leaves are starting to grow up from the cotillions . I dont think this is stretch, but what we are here for. half a mm between them currently.
The cotillions are noticeably perky today. I suspect the overwatering is resolved with root growth now. Checking pot weight hourly as the fan really dries it fast.

Doing quick research on how the leaves perked up to make sure this is good.

She’s doubled size of the true leaves and it looks like it’s about to grow again. It is not streatching

Nute juice smelled like the feet stink. I had it just sitting in the bucket below the stand the plant is on. I realize now the holes i put in the lid to let air out , and the air tube hole are letting light in because i didnt have an airstone in it. Its either revenge of the spores or an anaerobic bacteria . This doesnt jive because it was in the dome , and both buckets, and my nute bucket all with aeration last time. Might put some h202 in when i water next. Not sure what this would do to foxfarms happy frog.

As I expected the true leafs appear to be getting legs and starting the next stage of top growth. About 1mm between the first leaf to move and the slow leaf is now .5 mm raised . You can barely see it in the picture. Shes been doing the wriggle side to side again so im fairly sure that is root growth sideways. It makes sense because it needs to anchor itself before it shoots up again.

Also of note the fingers on the leaves are becoming more defined in their jagged edges and the fingers seem to spread. Ive read crossing is bad, these seem to be doing well. Caveman logic dictates opposite of bad.... good.

PS jiffy pot does not appear to dry out entirely to indicate moistness of soil. So if you watch the side of the pot , you will dry her out and kill her. Rather pick the pot up after watering it the first time and make mental note of the weight. Its how to tell when to water. These little pots , you really need to ignore advice like water every 3 days. You will.... in the 10 gal pot. In the rockwool it was slightly less than twice a day. The jiffy pot is once a day no fan, with fan twice a day just to be sure overnight. Mind the fan is on the other side of the room on low , indirect .

Lower lights till she stops leaning / stretching
Put fan as far away as possible to remain between 70-79 with as indirect as possible of aim. There is a magic zone you get in and she shows ya shes happy. Make sure you can control the height extremely small increments. Get a ratchet thing they sell for it . The lightdistance / temp is critical . Too little and you get sprout looking things 3 inches long , to much and it burns. I will be running to the hydro shop to get one today so when the second stage kicks off i can move the light with it

Its pouring energy into the true leaves. Center is basically yellow / new growth. Notice the proportion cotydilion vs trueleaf .

PS regret jiffy pot.

USE SOLO CUPS DONT BE DUMB LIKE MEH.

She’s not doing much , watering is normalized at a full load plus 20% runoff per day . Leafs continue to slowly surpass the cotydillon. I really regret the jiffy pot I wanna transfer it early but yielding to experience probably one more day and I’ll move it

Ps happy frog is full of bark and twigs ocean Forrest is not I think I will try the ocean next time thing the bark makes it slow to root .

Just making roots or is stunted by the large bark in the soil . Only change is a tiny hair in the center

will stress less when I get it out of this jiffy pot

More reasons to use red cups.

transplant schedule = red cup, 1 gal smart pot , 10 gal smart pot.

The redcup gives you the vertical root growth all at once and its ridiculously fast . Its about as tall as a 1 gal pot. Then the roots all grow out when it transplants.

With this jiffy pot it is only 3 inches , the red cup gives instant benefit when it comes time to go to the 1 gal, the roots will immediately shoot out where as this will have to grow down the extra few inches and then out.


So shades of green. Light is bad. Dark is too much nutes. This ... im told is perfect.

It took me 5 seeds to get the hang of it. But I have 2 babies now .
This seed was just jammed into some dirt (the happy frog ) and then stagnated so I took the seed which was basically where i take them out of the paper towel, and replanted into (the wrong 1 inch pot instead of solo cup) ocean forest which is much nicer smaller barks and such.

two days of 2.5 ml of water morning and night. Around the seed in the corners of the pot in the morning and ,let it soak in thru the bottom at night.
Then i let it dry out a bit and it did this. this isnt enough. Its drying out now that its above ground. so need to up watering.

Once its happy , it does not waste time

Number 2 is half albino. I thought she was dead but there was a tiny bit of green in between the leafs so i move the light and shes starting to move.

The new one is waking up

Per mentor growth halting how it did means tp time . Say a prayer for me I didn’t kill her

Delivery guy in house tomorrow. Need to conceal it in the tent for the day and wanted to get it over with cause transplanting is stressful. the little one slid out in one piece with ocean forest . Now she’s good till she has caught up to #1.

This is gonna be tight if they are sensimilla. I will do them diagonal if so and unzip the tent to reach .

78 at the botttom
this is bright .