New Grower First Indoor Grow

[Gato]

Welcome to my first online grow thread. I started growing indoors almost 2 months ago and I currently have 10 plants at various stages of growth. I'm aiming for a SOG type setup when my plants are more organized, because right now the canopy seems a bit haphazard.

The setup I am running is a 3x3ft Secret Jardín grow tent with a hepa filter from walmart for intake and an active air 4" 165 cfm inline fan for exhaust. It might seem a bit backwards, but it's nice to zip up the tent and smoke in the room knowing that the plants are getting clean, smoke-free air from the hepa filter. I haven't ordered a carbon filter for the exhaust smell because there doesn't seem to be any yet. If it starts to smell pretty bad I can always get something off amazon with 2 day air. The light is a 400w Metal Halide with an Econo Wing Reflector. I also have a little veg area with a 240w Blackstar that runs 24/0. For nutes I use:
Fox Farm: Grow Big, Tiger Bloom, Big Bloom, and Kangaroots
Botanicare: Cal-Mag and Silica Blast (Pro Soil will be here wednesday)
Earth Juice: Plant Molasses

The strains I'm growing are 2 x Sour Haze (Sour D x Haze), 1 x Deadhead OG, 2 x Holland's Hope, 2 x Royal Queen Northern Lights Autos, 3 x Bag Seed seedlings that I might just trash because they are coming along pretty poorly.

First up are some shots of the largest plant in the garden, Sour Haze. It's on its 21st day of 12/12, so it's going into it's fourth week of flowering tomorrow.


Next is the Deadhead Og, which is the same age as the Sour Haze.


The other flowering photoperiod is Holland's Hope, again the same age.

I might put up some pics of the other plants later. Peace

 

[Muddy]

Welcome to AFN and to the New Growers forum. Looks like a nice setup and the plants look great. Autos do best under an 18/6 or 20/4 schedule, so your yields won't be optimum under 12/12. They would probably do better under your LED if you have room. I would suggest your order a carbon filter ASAP, before they start to smell to bad, because they will. Especially anything that has diesel in it. Diesel strains are by far the smelliest.

Couple questions. What kind of soil are you using and are you monitoring the pH of both your feeds and your run off?

 

[herbal.experience]

lovely ladies my friend.

welcome to AFN!

 

[GoidianGanja]

Keep updating the pics please so we can see how they develop sexually

 

[Gato]

To answer Muddy's question: I use black gold peat moss w/ about 40-50% perlite mixed in. I use gallon jugs to water cuz its easy to mix nutes that way and i measure the ph to about 6.4-6.8. When I first put a plant in my mix or transplant it i water more like 7.0-7.5 because I feel like all that peat moss makes the medium's ph pretty low so I try to balance it a little.

Now for some pics of the clones in veg and the 2 autos.

First a shot of what the flowering room looks like with lights on. (With the light moved for picture taking.)


This is one of the 2 Northern Lights autoflowering plants I have. It might be surprising that I planted them on June 24th, so they are currently 126 days old. That would make this ~week 18 or so. They were originally outdoors but they were kind of stunted so I brought them inside in early-mid September. This one seemed to restart it's flowering cycle when I put it on 24/0. You can see in the last pic the old preflowers.


This is the other NL Auto. It wasn't quite as stunted so it grew new flowers on top of the old buds.


Here is the first of the two clones, and I know they are probably suffering from multiple minor nutrient deficiencies but that is because I am notching up their nute strength rather slowly. Btw she's a Sour Haze clone.


This one is the Holland's Hope.

 

[Gato]

I forgot to mention that I move the autos over to the led at night, but keep them in the flowering room during the day because I got the panel for cheap cuz only on side of it lights up. Because of that it's really only good for clones or keeping the autos photosythetically active to maintain the 24/0 I had them on before I started a flowering room. And I will start looking for a carbon filter, I thought I would wait and see if it was necessary, since the only security concern is if the smell gets outdoors. But if Diesels are smelly I should probably play it safe.

 

[Muddy]

Sounds like you're a bit high on your pH. When you mix it, adjust it to 6.3 - 6.5, water them so some runs out the bottom of the pots, then capture that water and test it. If your pH is in check the run off should be about the same as what you watered. What are you using to check your pH?

 

[Gato]

Sounds like you're a bit high on your pH. When you mix it, adjust it to 6.3 - 6.5, water them so some runs out the bottom of the pots, then capture that water and test it. If your pH is in check the run off should be about the same as what you watered. What are you using to check your pH?

I use a GH ph kit with the testing solution. That's why I water in such a big range, because I can't really tell the difference between 6.5 and 6.6 or whatever. I usually adjust upwards cuz the nutes are acidic and i just shoot for 6.5, but if it's a little under (say 6.3 or 6.4ish) i usually just leave it be because it's really easy to wind up too basic when it's that close. So I did a quick runoff test of the deadhead og, because that was the only one with dry soil. The ph of the nutrient solution was about 6.6 and the runoff looks to be in the 5.6-6.0 range. I took a nice little picture, with the nutrient solution on the left and the runoff on the right. Both water samples already have ph testing solution in them and the bottle is there for color reference. So I guess I was right in assuming I have naturally acidic soil. What sort of amendments would you recommend to raise/stabilize the ph of the medium in the future? Also, what do you think I should do to the existing plants? Thanks for all your input thus far, I do appreciate it.

 

[Muddy]

Yes, it's hard to get accurate readings from those test kits. Next time, add a few more drops of solution, that should help give a more distinctive color.

In the future if you continue to use that soil you should add some dolomite lime. That will have to raise and buffer the pH. For now you could add some hydrated lime. It is a lot faster acting than dolomite but be cautious as too much can be toxic to the plants. I would suggest 1 tablespoon per gallon of feed. If you don't want to use hydrated lime, you're only other real option is to raise the pH of your feeds. If you are in the 5.5 - 6 range you need to come up about .5 to 1, so adjust your feeds to around 7 and check the run off again.

 

[Gato]

I had my first harvest ever tonight of one of the Northern Lights. I flushed her about a week and a half and I think she's on day 130 or so.

Her last day with her ladyfriends


My girl choppin' her up


The bounty


She weighed 19.88 wet and trimmed, so I'm expecting for 4-5g dry. I am very pleased with the final product based on appearance and smell. In fact I was so happy I decided to celebrate with a nice joint.