Hi, i'm not a complete newbie to the art and science of growing, had a 'mentor' -a few years back and grew a lemon sour diesel. Kinda mild smoke tho. 
I started in august last buying my own equipment and am running a little DR60 - 2ft x 2ft x 6ft with a 300w Mars Hydro LED atm. My 1st attempt was truly awful, everything that could go wrong did, from my ph pen being rubbish and actually brought me to tears of frustration at the start, to giving them bottled water and not understanding ppm to the point the runoff was in the 3k ppm area. Poor things, they were all yellow from deficiencies, nute burn, and light burn but the buds were smokeable and ok. I've learnt since you don't have to pay hydroponics store prices for every thing you need. I bought 1ltr calmag, but a little epsom salts sorted out my deficiencies much better.
So the smoke was not very strong (my growing techniques fault) but tasted nice (blue cheese -dinafem) My 1st 300w LED was dearer than me new Mars Hydro- but the quality is so much better, the plants seem to love the difference.
Anyway, It was a huuuuge learning curve, (not to mention having to shell out a few quid-twice as much as my initial estimate) my aim is to not be handing out money for bad weed . I'm not a drinker, and the culture here- as in most western societies , is based around drinking. I just want an alternative to that.
Atm I have a 3 month (!) Carmella that i'm starting to flush after I've finished this post- a freebie from expert seeds . She is OLD for an auto, but is looking good,half milky trichs the very odd amber one. Her 1st month was blighted by bad ph levels and a brand of nutrients that I was sold as they were on special. She was germ'ed & put straight into an 11ltr pot, as i'd been transplanting the previous ones a lot! Shoulda done me homework first.
Past 8 weeks I've bought the canna range and gotten RO water in, fixed some fan issues and now I've got a 3ft 'Quick One' without a single yellow leaf or burn flowering nicely- purple pistils, also a seed I got from Big Buddha seeds, It's flying up. I shall be needing to put a bit of soft 'wire' around the 3 footer as she is a light thief. Time should be up for the 12 week old lady soon, can't wait to do it right this time- the drying & curing. Already ordered my mini hygrometers (hope they work!) for mason/ kilner jars, 2 quid & free p&p on ebay.
Anyone else autos going for 14 weeks?
I'm enjoying it as a hobby, although carrying heavy plants (2 in 11 ltr sq pots- the buddha in a 6.5ltr air pot) to the other bathroom to water in the bath is getting old. My goal is to become self -sufficient and grow some kickass strains. Also to fully understand EC, in that you can work out how much food they are taking in and all that. I hardly knew anything about strains when I started, now there are some I NEED to try
I won't be popping another seed for a while, as 3 plants in there is crazy, 2 will be ok though. Might even try photoperiod as the Caramella took just as long when you incl the flush- 14 weeks! Although the 'Quick One' has restored my faith in autos. I'd never grown anything above 16" before, my 6 week old 'baby' 2 weeks in bloom is 20" already and growing an inch a night. It would be great to have a decent result after my 2 previous subpar but smokeable results.
1 question, what servers do you prefer to upload your pics to, I'm wary of taking pics due to all this cloud technology (paranoia , paranoia!) , or which is he most anon? Cheers, and happy growing and good luck to you'se all!
Any tips and advice welcome, I know I'm gonna need to put an 'out' fan in there- any advice on a decent ebayable/ amazon brand for a small tent? I have a scrubber & ducting (unused) and a fan going in- covered with a very light sock- before i put the sock on a little cat hair and dust was getting in- see what i mean about learning curve! , right now its passive as I 'mind' them a lot, i need to use the dehumidifier a LOT! Dark humid country. Think of a helicopter parent. I learnt not to touch the buds with my last grow, I was always 'at' them and sniffing em and i'd say half the trichs came off. Now I leave well alone and just observe. I'm dreading an attack of beasties, been lucky so far thank goodness.
Sorry for the long post- I' m prone to rambling.
I started in august last buying my own equipment and am running a little DR60 - 2ft x 2ft x 6ft with a 300w Mars Hydro LED atm. My 1st attempt was truly awful, everything that could go wrong did, from my ph pen being rubbish and actually brought me to tears of frustration at the start, to giving them bottled water and not understanding ppm to the point the runoff was in the 3k ppm area. Poor things, they were all yellow from deficiencies, nute burn, and light burn but the buds were smokeable and ok. I've learnt since you don't have to pay hydroponics store prices for every thing you need. I bought 1ltr calmag, but a little epsom salts sorted out my deficiencies much better.
So the smoke was not very strong (my growing techniques fault) but tasted nice (blue cheese -dinafem) My 1st 300w LED was dearer than me new Mars Hydro- but the quality is so much better, the plants seem to love the difference.
Anyway, It was a huuuuge learning curve, (not to mention having to shell out a few quid-twice as much as my initial estimate) my aim is to not be handing out money for bad weed . I'm not a drinker, and the culture here- as in most western societies , is based around drinking. I just want an alternative to that.
Atm I have a 3 month (!) Carmella that i'm starting to flush after I've finished this post- a freebie from expert seeds . She is OLD for an auto, but is looking good,half milky trichs the very odd amber one. Her 1st month was blighted by bad ph levels and a brand of nutrients that I was sold as they were on special. She was germ'ed & put straight into an 11ltr pot, as i'd been transplanting the previous ones a lot! Shoulda done me homework first.
Past 8 weeks I've bought the canna range and gotten RO water in, fixed some fan issues and now I've got a 3ft 'Quick One' without a single yellow leaf or burn flowering nicely- purple pistils, also a seed I got from Big Buddha seeds, It's flying up. I shall be needing to put a bit of soft 'wire' around the 3 footer as she is a light thief. Time should be up for the 12 week old lady soon, can't wait to do it right this time- the drying & curing. Already ordered my mini hygrometers (hope they work!) for mason/ kilner jars, 2 quid & free p&p on ebay.
Anyone else autos going for 14 weeks?
I'm enjoying it as a hobby, although carrying heavy plants (2 in 11 ltr sq pots- the buddha in a 6.5ltr air pot) to the other bathroom to water in the bath is getting old. My goal is to become self -sufficient and grow some kickass strains. Also to fully understand EC, in that you can work out how much food they are taking in and all that. I hardly knew anything about strains when I started, now there are some I NEED to try
I won't be popping another seed for a while, as 3 plants in there is crazy, 2 will be ok though. Might even try photoperiod as the Caramella took just as long when you incl the flush- 14 weeks! Although the 'Quick One' has restored my faith in autos. I'd never grown anything above 16" before, my 6 week old 'baby' 2 weeks in bloom is 20" already and growing an inch a night. It would be great to have a decent result after my 2 previous subpar but smokeable results.1 question, what servers do you prefer to upload your pics to, I'm wary of taking pics due to all this cloud technology (paranoia , paranoia!) , or which is he most anon? Cheers, and happy growing and good luck to you'se all!
Any tips and advice welcome, I know I'm gonna need to put an 'out' fan in there- any advice on a decent ebayable/ amazon brand for a small tent? I have a scrubber & ducting (unused) and a fan going in- covered with a very light sock- before i put the sock on a little cat hair and dust was getting in- see what i mean about learning curve! , right now its passive as I 'mind' them a lot, i need to use the dehumidifier a LOT! Dark humid country. Think of a helicopter parent. I learnt not to touch the buds with my last grow, I was always 'at' them and sniffing em and i'd say half the trichs came off. Now I leave well alone and just observe. I'm dreading an attack of beasties, been lucky so far thank goodness.
Sorry for the long post- I' m prone to rambling.
sounds like you worked your way thru a lot of problems. look around the hydro section for some top notch help and info on all your ec/ppm concerns. and as far as how long I grow autos, well depends on many things but most go 70-90 days and others ive seen 100+. look at the different sponsored seed breeders to get info on certain strains. see ya around 
