New Grower Mephisto Genetics Blue Cush and Blue Toof (Special Pheno)

[10KBS]

Hello everyone! I introduced myself today after a while of lurking. I started a grow with 4 Fugue State by Mephisto Genetics and after 15 days although my girls were alive, they were only an inch tall with very red stems. They had been stunted horribly. I asked for advice and decided it was time to put the girls in my basement to rest and start some new ones. With advice from @AutoWonders @archie gemmill @Bailey @Archaic @Need4Weed and @LittleMT I think I am ready to begin anew. (Just wanted to tag everyone in this new thread!)
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Let's start with my setup, shall we?
A 3ft x 3ft x 6ft grow tent
2x ViparSpectra 300W Full Spectrum LED
4x 3 Gal fabric grow pots filled with Pro-Mix HP+Mycorrhizae
A 100 CFM in-line fan pushing air out at 50% power
A small ceramic heater
A cool air mist humidifier
2x 4-inch circulation fans

Nutrients in my repertoire:
CaliMagic
ArmorSi
General Hydro Grow, Micro, and Bloom
Ph up and down
Soluble B-Vitamin
Diamond Nectar (I believe)
Molasses

Environment Conditions:
In my last attempt, I was able to get temps steady and humidity high. I stayed between 67F and 82F inside the tent. RH was lower up high, maybe around 40-55%, but between 60-75% humidity at the plant level. My errors (as far as I know) include planting seedlings too early, planting seedlings too deep, pulling the tops of my seedlings above soil by hand, keeping lights a little too close, not keeping temps up early on, possibly watering too early, using nutrients too early in my watering, and not coming to Autoflower.net for advice from friends.
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Day 1: Pre-Grow

I started by laying my stunted babies to rest. I then sanitized my grow area and installed a dust filter in front of my intake window to fight the basement dust. Next, I filled up my pots with soil (listed above).

I added about 3 drops of General Hydroponics CaliMagic to each gallon of RO water I planned on using to saturate my soil. I shook them up, waited a little while, and poured them, one gallon at a time, into my watering can. I Ph'd the water to a range of 6.40 to 6.52 (Hard to get it perfect!). In all, each pot took about 1.5 gallons of water before they started to runoff, and they kept running off. Safe to say, my pots are saturated.

I put my pots and soil into my growing environment with everything running. I want to get the soil temps up, so I even put my grow lights closer to the pots.

Next, I started the germination process. I decided that if I was going to kill more plants, I might as well kill my freebies, right? I am using the paper towel method in a plastic bag, wrapped in a towel, placed on a heating pad to germinate 2x Blue Cush and 2x Blue Toof (Spec. Pheno). These were my freebies. I have more Blue Toof, but only got 2 Blue Cush so I better be more careful this time!
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Now is the time to be patient. I have also put together a little to-do list!

1. Watch for my seeds to germinate. Let the taproot get healthy before planting.
2. Get soil up to temp (I have a new thermometer to get the temp!).
3. Plant seedlings 1cm or a pinky knuckle deep.
4. Get advice and take pics!

Here are a few questions I have:
1. How big should I let the taproots get before I plant them?
2. What should I aim to keep my soil temperature at?
3. I believe I should keep my LEDs 30 inches from my babies. Is this right?
4. Can you give me any advice for the coming days and coming weeks, in that order?
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Epilogue

I know I just dumped a lot of information on you all. I also just wrote a lot of this stuff down in my new grow journal. I am very excited to get advice from everyone to make sure that I don't mess up my next batch of autos. I knew that there was trial and tribulation before I started, and I am here to brave the storm!

 

[LittleMT]

I now just plant my seeds straight into the pot, and water and allow them to bring forth life. Been lucky so far, as I have a 100% germination rate with Autoflowers. However in the past (been growing since the early 80's) I would soak the seeds in water and as soon as a tap root was showing I planted it, had great luck here also.

I have never checked soil temp in my grows, never had a need as they are always in a heated room or outdoors during growing season.

IMO 30 inches for the seedlings is too far and will cause them to stretch, and I don't like stretch in a seedling if I can avoid it. I usually have a normal desklamp with a screw in led and I put it very close to the seedling, maybe 2 - 3 inches and I watch them carefully as I don't want the light to hurt the baby but I also want to get her started young on some intense light. The screw in leds hardly put out any heat. the seedlings are always happy and adapt to the light, once they get on the 3rd or 4th true set of leaves I then add more light in my micro desk grows or the plant is taken to a grow tent and then is placed under a Optic 4 led/cob light. So this is to say I have a special nursery for my babies with individual SIL's in desk lamps for the 1st and very critical 2 weeks of life.

I think the seedling time is the most critical, if you pass this stage and have a healthy happy plant it can then be cruise control till finish...Hopefully.

For soil I mix 1 part Happy Frog, 1 Part Ocean Forrest and 1 part Coco Loco, this wont be too hot for seedlings and have enough nutrient to get you to atleast 21 - 25 days, I spend that time building up a microbes and beneficial bacteria in the rhizosphere, or root zone.

 

[10KBS]

I now just plant my seeds straight into the pot, and water and allow them to bring forth life. Been lucky so far, as I have a 100% germination rate with Autoflowers. However in the past (been growing since the early 80's) I would soak the seeds in water and as soon as a tap root was showing I planted it, had great luck here also.

I have never checked soil temp in my grows, never had a need as they are always in a heated room or outdoors during growing season.

IMO 30 inches for the seedlings is too far and will cause them to stretch, and I don't like stretch in a seedling if I can avoid it. I usually have a normal desklamp with a screw in led and I put it very close to the seedling, maybe 2 - 3 inches and I watch them carefully as I don't want the light to hurt the baby but I also want to get her started young on some intense light. The screw in leds hardly put out any heat. the seedlings are always happy and adapt to the light, once they get on the 3rd or 4th true set of leaves I then add more light in my micro desk grows or the plant is taken to a grow tent and then is placed under a Optic 4 led/cob light. So this is to say I have a special nursery for my babies with individual SIL's in desk lamps for the 1st and very critical 2 weeks of life.

I think the seedling time is the most critical, if you pass this stage and have a healthy happy plant it can then be cruise control till finish...Hopefully.

For soil I mix 1 part Happy Frog, 1 Part Ocean Forrest and 1 part Coco Loco, this wont be too hot for seedlings and have enough nutrient to get you to atleast 21 - 25 days, I spend that time building up a microbes and beneficial bacteria in the rhizosphere, or root zone.

Thanks for the reply. This is a lot of good info straight from a veteran grower! I have a follow up question for you: How do you define stretching? How far should my node spacing be? I have read in the manual for my specific lights and from some other sources that 30-34 inches is required for an acclimation period and 26-30 inches for the seedling phase. These lights aren't ideal, but they are what I have. A lot of people have burned their plants with them and a lot of people have grown some nice healthy girls, too.

 

[Archaic]

Bluetoof is may all time favorite Mephisto nighttime smoke. So much so that I'm going to burn a bowl tonight for bed time.

 

[LittleMT]

You certainly don't want to burn the plants. And what you are following might be correct for the lights you are using, I still feel its to far away, but again I have a system for my babies using simple desk lamps with a screw in led bulb for their 1st 2 weeks of life.

Prior to me coming up with my little system I had some seedlings stretch too much right after they broke ground, causes a elongated stem which snapped in half, killing them, they were stretching for the light, as it was too far away. When I talk about stretch I am referring to seedling stretch. My main focus at this point is the get a short healthy stem during the 1st and 2nd set of leaves and allowing the roots to search for water and grow.

 

[10KBS]

Bluetoof is may all time favorite Mephisto nighttime smoke. So much so that I'm going to burn a bowl tonight for bed time.

Awesome! May it carry you peacefully into your dreams

 

[10KBS]

You certainly don't want to burn the plants. And what you are following might be correct for the lights you are using, I still feel its to far away, but again I have a system for my babies using simple desk lamps with a screw in led bulb for their 1st 2 weeks of life.

Prior to me coming up with my little system I had some seedlings stretch too much right after they broke ground, causes a elongated stem which snapped in half, killing them, they were stretching for the light, as it was too far away. When I talk about stretch I am referring to seedling stretch. My main focus at this point is the get a short healthy stem during the 1st and 2nd set of leaves and allowing the roots to search for water and grow.

I may need to get a system similar to yours for a nice, healthy start without stretch. I think in the meantime I will keep something nearby to support stems in case I do get them to stretch a little too much before getting wide. This way I can hopefully keep them upright until they can hold themselves up.

 

[bad dragon bzzz]

cheers for starting a journal a handfull of soil round the base of the seedling can work wonders for a gangly one
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Here are a few questions I have:
1. How big should I let the taproots get before I plant them? hmm1-3cm
2. What should I aim to keep my soil temperature at? roughly the same as the tent 23-27 ish,not less than 17 or more than 30.
3. I believe I should keep my LEDs 30 inches from my babies. Is this right? for seedlings why not just use 1 light ? distance is different for everybody,theres a certain amount of playing about/tweeking.keep posting we will keep you between the hedges
4. Can you give me any advice for the coming days and coming weeks, in that order? 1) k.i.s.s keep it stupid simple 2) less is more 3) the less you do,the less can go wrong
4) good luck n keep er lit.

 

[Bailey]

cheers for starting a journal a handfull of soil round the base of the seedling can work wonders for a gangly one
****************************
Here are a few questions I have:
1. How big should I let the taproots get before I plant them? hmm1-3cm
2. What should I aim to keep my soil temperature at? roughly the same as the tent 23-27 ish,not less than 17 or more than 30.
3. I believe I should keep my LEDs 30 inches from my babies. Is this right? for seedlings why not just use 1 light ? distance is different for everybody,theres a certain amount of playing about/tweeking.keep posting we will keep you between the hedges
4. Can you give me any advice for the coming days and coming weeks, in that order? 1) k.i.s.s keep it stupid simple 2) less is more 3) the less you do,the less can go wrong
4) good luck n keep er lit.

everything @archie gemmill said is spot on I'll tag you in my thread to help as well as I document a lot that'll help my lights and ure lights are very similar only did mars more red spectrum than vipar which has more blue apart from that pretty similar in tech I keep my lights at around 30 for seeds if I notice there stretching I lower a cpl inch but found that's my sweet spot

 

[Need4Weed]

A clear plastic cup turned upside down makes a great humidity dome for the first few days before and after germination!