Unorthodoxy's Mostly orthodox first indoor grow experience.

So, I am brand new to indoor growing, and I want to document the process, to better learn from my mistakes.

First, my setup:

• Apollo 2x4 Tent
• 2x QB288 on a C2100 driver, built by me. I put on a 50k pot so I can only run up to ~120W right now. I'll have to remedy that pretty soon here. Currently running at 75W until all these sprout and have a chance to acclimate.
• Minimal extraction right now. Planning on getting an ACInfinity Cloudline 6" fan for extraction.
• Couple of small fans inside for circulation.

The first strains I'm growing here are Orange Blossom Special and Sky Dweller, both from GreenPoint Seeds here in the states (CO).

My Modus Operandi is to soak the seeds until the sink in a shot glass of distilled water. Then they go into damp paper towels.

I've had great luck in germination so far, 5 OBS and 4 SD seeds all popped. I've got them all in Rapid Rooters now, with currently one OBS getting light, with the others in the dark until they show a bit more of themselves.



Thanks for stopping by and looking! I will keep this updated as I go.

I just wanted to add that I invite any and all feedback. I'm here to learn, and while I've been doing a lot of reading and learning, there is a lot more to learn! This site has been a valuable resource to me so far, and I look forward to interacting and learning further from this community.

Nice setup! Good luck on the grow

Babies are looking a little rough this morning. I think I let the water level get a little too low and it wasn't wicking up into some of the rapid rooters.

Also I checked the PH and it was too high at ~7.2, so I drained that out and added some distilled water at ph6.4.

I wonder if I should start giving them tap water now? My tap water isn't too hard, I think I measured it at about 130 ppm. It's from a well so I don't have to worry about chrloine.

I'll be using MegaCrop nutrients for this grow, and likely in the forseeable future. From what I'm reading, people are getting very good results from just using MC, and it's cheap. I do plan on using their flowering nutes as well, when the time comes. I also ordered some Mag Cal today, which I suspect I will be needing to use as well, since I'm running LED lights.

Last night after a lot of reading, it came to my attention, that I may be drowning my babies. I had the array of Rapid Rooters sitting in a water bath. I think it was just way too much water for them. So, I had the wife drain the tray.

When I got home, I that two of the seedlings were fallen over and looking very sad. I cut open the rapid rooters, removed the seedlings, moved them lower in the plug, then folded the plug back up and replaced them in the rack.

Everyone is looking better this morning.
I gave them all their first feeding, a small amount each of (2/3)1g/G Mega Crop and (1/3)Tap Water. - PH 6.5, EC .28
The light is now @ 21"


One cool thing is this one Sky Dweller has 3 cotyledon! I haven't seen one like this before:
And of course it's the one I had already labelled #3.

I noticed that most of the seedlings have roots showing through the bottom or the side (but mostly the bottom) of the Rapid Rooters. I think it's too early to transplant them - I was planning on putting them right into their 3G final homes. Should I consider putting them in solo cups now, then transplanting them into their 3G containers when the time comes?

Thanks!

Unorthodoxy said:

I noticed that most of the seedlings have roots showing through the bottom or the side (but mostly the bottom) of the Rapid Rooters. I think it's too early to transplant them - I was planning on putting them right into their 3G final homes. Should I consider putting them in solo cups now, then transplanting them into their 3G containers when the time comes?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

I would go solo cup.

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense. I know in general you want to reduce the number of times they are transplanted, but those roots could get bound up, or worse get caught in the holes in the bottom of the tray. I think I'll be putting each that has roots showing into solo cups.

Transplanted everyone into solo cups. Using approx 1/2 FFOF with added pearlite and 1/2 Seed Starting mix. Watered thoroughly with RO water

Next morning, a couple might be getting tip burn, but they're going to have to ride it out, I think.

The seedlings got their second watering today. I forgot to check their empty weight so I mocked up a new another container with the same materials and got about 66g. The seedlings were all about 70g, so I watered them (RO with a little bit of cal mag) and weighted them at about 100g.

Looking back at the pictures, I can definitely see growth in all except the one in the back, which I think is done with.

The Orange Blossoms with the tip burn seem to be doing OK. No sign of burn on the Sky Dweller, so it seems to be more prepared for the nutes, thus far.


In other news, my auto flowering seeds came in from seedsman! I'm super stoked about these, but I think going forward I'll be growing mostly reg feminized seeds after these ones, allowing me to veg them properly and learn some HST/LST.

I thought that the small slits I cut in the bottom of the Rapid Rooters may have been a bit too much for the tiny seedlings to overcome, so I enlarged some of the holes a little, very delicately. The next afternoon, all 4 autos have sprouted!

Seedsman UK Cheese
Phoenix White Widow Auto
00 Bubble Gum Auto
00 Northern Lights Auto


The OBS and SD are all doing well. Lost one early, but they are doing great. They have only been watered twice since being put into the solo cups: once at transplant 5 days ago and once last night. The cuts I put into the sides of the solo cuts are big, so they drain pretty quickly. Last night a couple of them had just begun to droop, so I watered them all. I will plan to water in 3 days now, but keep a close eye on them.

Cool thing. I wonder how this is going to progress.

Happy 4/20! A day late - the wife and I went on a short trip for our anniversary.

A lot is going on now. I've made things unnecessarily complicated by using different medium combinations. Most pots I have used layered soil configurations. The breakdown is as follows:

Sky Dweller popped 4/3
Orange Blossom Special popped 4/2

Soils Used:
FFOF (Fox Farm Ocean Forest)
FFHG (Fox Farm Happy Frog)
Coco Loco
All soils have 20-30% perlite added

SD1- Up-potted 4/18 3G Fabric Top: FFHF, Bot: FFOF
SD2- Up-potted 4/18 3G Fabric - Top: FFHF, Bot: Coco Loco/FFHF
SD3- Plastic 2.5G? Top: FFHF, Bot: Coco Loco
SD4- Plastic 2.5G? Top: FFHF, Bot: Coco Loco

OBS1- Up-potted 4/18 3G Fabric Top: FFHF, Bot: FFOF
OBS2- Plastic 2.5G? Top: FFHF, Bot: Coco Loco
OBS3- Up-potted 4/18 3G Fabric - Top: FFHF, Bot: Coco Loco/FFHF
OBS4- Up-potted 4/16 3G Fabric - all FFOF



I wanted to compare the different setups and now I've made a huge mess, but maybe I'll learn something through this. That was the point!

The OBS 4 which was transplanted earliest, into straight FFOF, and is doing pretty well. The rest range from decent to fairly poor looking with brown spots and very droopy leaves. They may be underwatered.

I've also popped some Autos and they are looking good, except for a Northern Lights Auto which has been janky from the start. It took a long time to grow once sprouted and moved into a solo cup. These auto seeds were all popped in Rapid Rooters placed upside down, with a slit made into the bottom for the seed to sit in. I probably damaged the taproot when moving it into its solo cup. Thankfully, the others are looking pretty well!


I'm waiting to sex the OBS and SD and see how many of these I will be placing outdoors. I'm not sure yet if I want to run the photoperiods or the autos (or both) outside. I do have more seeds I can pop, but this is a lot of plants already.

Up potted the 4 autos into 3G fabric pots with FFOF.

Needed to make some room.

Moved a few of the photos out of the tent. It's currently too cold outside to put them out, so they are in a window for now.

Current state of the tent:

I've intended to keep up with this better, but here is an update finally.

I removed a male today (Orange Blossom Special 3) That plant had just been topped for 4 heads Mainlined when i noticed balls all around.
Another plant, Sky Dweller 3, has one lobster claw, so I'm keeping it in the tent and keeping an eye on it for now.

So, otherwise I've been very busy. I've decided to Mainline all of the photoperiod plants.


They will probably all be going outside at some point, while I flower the autoflowers.

The Bubblegum and the White Widow have shown pistils everywhere. The UK Cheese has nothing yet. The Northern Lights has just begun to flower . As you can see, I've decided to use some LST on these plants, and I'm happy with the effect so far!

After beng transplanted into its current 3g home, the Bubblegum has really taken off quick, very tall, very sativa.


The White Widow is the opposite - extremely short and stout, very close node spacing.


I'm having a great time working with these plants and I can't wait for the results!

I am seeing some brown spots on the lower fan leaves of one of the photoperiod plants that had just been Mainlined for 4, so I'm wondering if I have a deficiency of some kind.

Unorthodoxy said:

I am seeing some brown spots on the lower fan leaves of one of the photoperiod plants that had just been Mainlined for 4, so I'm wondering if I have a deficiency of some kind.

Click to expand...

Hi Uno,
Saw your link on Fish4Life's mainline thread. Thought I'd pop over to see what's happening. I noticed a few of my mainlined plants showed an occasional odd leaf pattern. Just on a leaf or two. All other leaves were perfect so I just figured it was a bit of stress from the training.

Noticed you do mainline to 4 colas...me too. Got several in 12/12 right now. Plants look good and yes indeed that's some tight node spacing. Makes training a little tougher...
JD

Welcome, John Dee!

I certainly am stressing each of these plants! Some more than others.

Overall, things are going very well, I think.

The Bubblegum is the largest, and the buds are starting to fatten up well:


The Northern Lights Auto is doing well, considering it's been really struggling since it was a seedling. Not sure why, but I'm pretty intent on letting it go its course and see what happens :


The White Widow has been looking great but starting yesterday began to show brown spots here and there.

I've been feeding this one tap water with Megacrop @ 6g/G with Bud Explosion @ 2g/G, with added 5ml Cal Mag. I upped it to 10ml Cal Mag:


The WW seems it's a very heavy feeder. But I think it's time to start flushing, but as this is my first indoor grow, and only second ever - I really welcome opinions.

By way of comparison, the Bubblegum gets MC@4g/G, and the NL @ only 2g/G. Any more than that and the NL would get odd growth, very dark leaves, and be stunted.

I decided, after receiving some advice on this forum, to continue to feed the beasts. Upped the feed for the WW to 6g/G with BE@2g/G, and 10ml CalMag. With my tap water, that came to a pH of 6.3 and an EC of 2.9. Runoff was pHd at 6.2 with an EC of 6 (out of curiosity). This was the first watering after top dressing with EWC.

I recently measured my leaf surface temperature. Most were pretty consistent at 75-76 but the buds on top of the Bubblegum reached 80 deg F.

The tent has the current conditions (while flowering) :
Temp: 68-83 deg F
Humid: 40-55%
Light cycle: 18/6 @full power - 240W