Grow Room JD's Coco Micro SoG.

[Mr.Sparkle]

Fabric pots of such small dimensions (0.5l) will break my spirit during flowering when my plants will ask for a few waterings a daily.

I need to take the time and properly read your growjournal too. I read it diagonally and I realize we have pretty much the same type of grow. I, no doubt, have a lot to learn from you. Thanks for pitching in, mate, it is highly appreciated.

Hmmm could be due to the pure coco if watering in that style but how much are you watering them amount wise per time and per day, i presume not till saturation because then they become water logged and thus the previous over watering situations. I'm just curious as my small pots are about 0.4 Liters but they only get watered once every two - three days depending on how things are running, and they get fed 1-2 Liters divided by how ever many pots there are in each box.

As for my thread I tend to ramble on, so they are pretty wordy lol, but hey we are all here to learn from each other i know that's why i'm here, as i only know as much as i've done personally and there is so much more to learn its just how far in you want to go.

 

[Jimmy McGill]

Hey guys. Feeding today, 0.9ec in, 1.5ec out, 20/30% runoff, still no new signs of overfeeding/overwatering/deficiencies. Both STB and all 3 SS#1 have grown pistols. Still waiting on the KVS and the guillotine. I took a page out of Mr Sparkle's book and lst-ed the guillotine in "Z" to lower her a bit as she kept growing faster and higher than her little friends. I have seen a few gnats but couldn't manage to kill the tiny flying ninjas by hand, I hate those little buggers, I need to find a solution soon.

Couple of pics:

LST-ed Guillotine now lower than her STB neighbor.

Overall healthy and good looking bunch, hoping for a nice flowering stage with at least a male.

JD out.

 

[Jimmy McGill]

Hmmm could be due to the pure coco if watering in that style but how much are you watering them amount wise per time and per day, i presume not till saturation because then they become water logged and thus the previous over watering situations. I'm just curious as my small pots are about 0.4 Liters but they only get watered once every two - three days depending on how things are running, and they get fed 1-2 Liters divided by how ever many pots there are in each box.

Right now, my plants get 20 to 25cl every 3 to 4 days, but in my case it's not the coco that is the problem, it's the geotextile. From what I've seen in your thread you have a geotextile that seems close to the one used in smartpots, nice and thick. The one I have for the moment is a very thin one (50gr/sqm, you can see pretty clearly through it) it's all I could find so far. Thin as it is, it lets the coco dry pretty fast which is great when the plant is small but will be a serious problem during flowering. If I manage to find a nice geotextile like yours, I will reconsider for sure.
Nevertheless, I have good hope that the biochemical filter will help greatly at the bottom of the grow bags I have. If I manage to find good geotextile I may make a side by side comparison and see what works best than settle with the best option.

 

[Jimmy McGill]

Howdy people. We are now entering flowering stage, woohoo! All plants, apart from the two KVS, have shown sex, all female, all healthy and stretching. I hope above hopes to have at least a male, otherwise it will be a seedless round which wouldn't make me too happy. But hey, I still have a 50/50 chance to have a male this round and I have other seeds with strains that I am more interested in for 2 more rounds, so everything is good overall.
I received the calmag and I gave them some for good measure with today's watering. still 0.9ec in, 1.5ec out. Vigor is good, plants seem happy with this watering regime. The guillotine took the lst very well and is back in business like nothing happened.

Pictures:
Happy plants.

This STB is the most advanced and starts budding.

JD out.

 

[Jimmy McGill]

Hey folks. My plants are in full blown stretch. The guillotine is trying to grow into the lamps, the STB next to her is not far behind, I expect some more lst in a very near future. I watered them today and they always respond with a growth spurt so I'll probably have to bend them tomorrow. It is clear that my leds are not powerful enough for the plants as they stretch a lot, even with 24/7 light. This will be fixed within weeks when I receive the CREE XPL I ordered. 4 of them, 10w neutral white each to which I'll add some 3w red and blue CREE that I have from an old blackstar that died two years ago.

One of my KVS showed pistols today so there is just one last chance to have a male, the other KVS, but given that males usually show sex before females, I have very low hopes, this round will probably be a seedless one, pretty sad.

Overall, vigor is now excellent, they are all happy and entering flowering stage pretty quickly. The most advanced STB showed a little magnesium deff so I upped the calmag in the mix as well as the pH. The box is pretty full now, flowering 8 plants (assuming the last one is also a female) will be sporty to say the least.

I spent a couple of hours yesterday making some small, proper, fabric pots for the next round. I cut to pieces my old 15l sweetpot and managed to make 10 0.5l pots out of it and a piece of PP bag with some hot glue. The pots look and feel pretty good, I expect them to do a nice job with the coco.

Pictures:

Welcome to the (tiny) jungle.

Fighting for the light.

Guillotine going crazy once more.

Family portrait.

Fabric pot waiting for next round.

Bottom of said pot.

JD out.

 

[Mr.Sparkle]

JD that fabric doesn't look much different than the stuff i use, mines pretty lightweight and is somewhat see through when looking through it, it was just some cheap polyester non-woven fabric, mine don't dry out as quick mainly because i have multiple pots really close together in a tall walled tray, so evaporation is slower, where as if i had a singular pot in a shallow tray, it would dry out quickly.

Oh And they are looking nice and healthy

 

[Jimmy McGill]

Hey, mate. Yes, that fabric is just right, it is from an old sweetpot I had, so it is good fabric compared to that other crap I was telling you about earlier. See the difference:

The weed barrier fabric on the left is too darn thin.

Before I decide if I go full on fabric pots or do a side by side for next grow, I need to finish this one and I am already in the phase in witch I need to go back to daily waterings because I started having salt buildup with some lockouts problems.

See ya around, mate.

Cue update.

 

[Jimmy McGill]

Let me start by saying that, if there is one thing that I've learned so far, during this grow, it's that growing in coco in such small pots is much less forgiving than in your average 1 to 5 gl pots. Since last update the surface of the coco started showing salt buildup and half of my plants started showing deficiencies most certainly due to lockout because of the salts. 2 show magnesium def, 2 show phosphorus def. Therefor, I doubled the amount of Ataclean in today's watering and tripled the runoff volume. Ec 1.0 in, 1.2 out, pH around 6.0.

I think that the wet/dry cycle I've been using lately is mostly responsible for it as my plants drink a lot more and dry their pots in just 2 days. The root balls are now very well developed and they feel solid through the bags. I will switch to daily waterings with normal 10/30% runoff starting tomorrow.

I had to quite heavily nip and tuck most of my plants as 6 of them, in full stretch, were growing into the leds. With all 8 plants being females I anticipate some more hardship during flowering as my box is crammed and most still show eagerness to grow some more. Hopefully my new leds and radiator will be there soon, I clearly need more/better light in there.

pics:

JD out.

 

[Jimmy McGill]

Hey guys. Since today it's been exactly one month since I put the seeds to germinate, I thought I would make a birthday update.

First, turned out that what I thought was a deficiency on some plants is, actually, led burn. The salt accumulation on top of the coco with the marks on the leafs are misguiding but it is clear now that the leds are responsible for the leaf deterioration as it only occurs on the top of the plants in the middle of the box where the light is at it's more concentrated point. Silly me.

My plants are quite happy and healthy overall if we don't mind the extreme cramming inside the box and the light burns. I expect my next grow to be much better than this one as I am learning from my mistakes and I am adapting to these very tight conditions. I'll have some more dialing in to do when the new lights arrive, as well as with the testing of the fabric pots, but I have no doubt this box will be dialed in within 2 more grows.

Talking about the lights. I think that these leds(that are not too bad after all as my plants grow well under them) have too much red in them witch causes the exaggerated stretching. The fact that the plant get light burn when close seems to indicate that intensity is good but the spectrum balance is wrong for such a limited height grow. The XPL I ordered are in the 5000kv range which means much more blue spectrum, that should fix this aspect of my light problem.

The nutrient level is quite dialed in now, last feeding was 1.0ec in and 1.2ec out. The light nutrient burn at the bottom of the plants is certainly due to the wet/dry cycle that I kept going for too long as it hasn't increased since I switched to a wet/wet cycle. Intermediary and new growth look good and healthy (led burn aside) with a proper shade of green.

Let's take a look at the ladies, one by one this time.

Kush Van Stitch 1.
Both KVS are slowly entering flowering stage, I expect some more stretching on those.

Short Stuff [HASHTAG]#1[/HASHTAG] 1.
lst-ed and light burned, she suffered but is strong.

Light burn on top. Pretty nasty.

Sin Tra Bajo 1.

Short Stuff [HASHTAG]#1[/HASHTAG] 2.

Kush Van Stitch 2.

Guillotine.
I had to lst her 3 times and I'm still not sure that this will be enough as she just doesn't seem to care and keeps on stretching. Too bad I don't have more space, it's a very interesting strain with a nice smell.

Short Stuff [HASHTAG]#1[/HASHTAG] 3.

Sin Tra Bajo 2.
This is the fastest flowering one, not even a month overground and already budding nicely, I'll have to buy some more seeds of this one.

Led burn on the STB2.
We can clearly see here that it is not a heat burn (my leds are barely warm to the touch) but a proper light burn as she is loosing color between the leaf veins only on the top, intermediary growth looks very nice.

JD out.

 

[nhdtjq]

Mate do you know what that lens is on the lights? Also are they single die cobs or a bunch of separate leds?

If theyre separate leds you should probably take the lenses off, it will create very diffuse light that mixes just below the fixture...

I use multiple 13w screw ins with the diffuser off right above my canopy and do not suffer from light burn, those bulbs are much brighter than yours.

Also removing the lens will increase UV, which can be a good thing. Certainly i havent seen any issues.