New Grower Royal Queen Seed's Sweet Skunk. PLEASE give input, thoughts and suggestions. I need the help!

[SweetSkunk]

First grow journal. I would love input, help and advise. Have gone from growing completely wrong for someone else and have taken over and adapting as I go.

My setup

• 2m * 2m (6.5ft x 6.5ft) tent
  
• 3 x 600w HPS (cool tubes with 5 inch fan)
• 12 x 15L & 4 x 10L smart pots (4 gal and 3 gal respectively)
  
• RO water - this is the first time and any tips greatly appreciate
• Sensi advanced nutrients (TaNG's easy feed schedule)
• Light mix

I have germinated and planted 16 seeds. I usually run 12 in 15L pots but my last run had 3 tiny plants and one wasn't flowering (I think it was a photo plant), so this time I have planted 4 extra and will remove the worst 4 when they start to establish.

Due to a mix up, when I bought the extra pots the for 4 extra seeds, i was sent 10L pots rather than 15L, so I am running an experiment to see which are the better.

My temps can run a bit on the high side but sit generally between 27-30C (80-86F) lights on.
My lights are 15" away from canopy (or top of soil currently)

I am also running a bit of an experiment with soil and am using 'Bio Green' light mix in 8 of the 15L pots and also in my 10L pots.

I am using Bio Bizz light mix in 4 of the 15L pots.

Day 2 after planting germinated seeds (CD/DVD case method) and I'm spraying with water ~2-3 times a day.

Any questions, thoughts or missing information please shout.

Look forward to sharing and learning with you guys.
SweetSkunk


Questions

What do you class as day 1 of a grow? From planting or when plants have sprouted above the soil?

 

[bad dragon bzzz]

hi and welcome i only ever used led....but 15" could be a bit close for 600W on a seedling.
RO can be bugger as in it has no nothing in it can be a bitch to ph.....is it really needed ? biobizz lightmix a great low low nute soil.
some people plant straight to soil day 1..some glass of water,paper towel pot,first set of true leaves day 1...whatever you feel best with.for me the day a seed sticks its head out is day 0
good luck n keep er lit.

 

[LedGuy74]

Thats a nice setup id probably raise the lights up to 22-26” for now though and a MH for veg is probably more beneficial as HPS is a better spectrum for flower or an LED thats built for veg that away you can probably use less electricity the first 2-3 months.

Thats not to say HPS wont veg plants... It definitely will but a cheap LED with a veg spectrum could probably give better results and use a fraction of the electricity at around 200-300W in veg then use the 600+ watts in flower with the HPS. Honestly quantum boards are amazing veg lights in 4000k and 5000k spectrum I like the QB120’s they are 60W each cheap and require a little assembly but nothing an average joe cant do and they are as efficient as hell is hot.


RQS is nice stable genetics I enjoy them especially considering the price point and have grown their special queen strain and enjoyed the outcome

I personally count day one when the first set of true leaves pop up (1 week in give or take) I also count my bloom cycle by the first day of 12/12 I find it easier for myself when cloning plants and growing them back to back but if you grow from seed every time its pretty irrelevant because the next seed could be different.

 

[SweetSkunk]

Thats a nice setup id probably raise the lights up to 22-26” for now though and a MH for veg is probably more beneficial as HPS is a better spectrum for flower or an LED thats built for veg that away you can probably use less electricity the first 2-3 months.

Thats not to say HPS wont veg plants... It definitely will but a cheap LED with a veg spectrum could probably give better results and use a fraction of the electricity at around 200-300W in veg then use the 600+ watts in flower with the HPS. Honestly quantum boards are amazing veg lights in 4000k and 5000k spectrum I like the QB120’s they are 60W each cheap and require a little assembly but nothing an average joe cant do and they are as efficient as hell is hot.


RQS is nice stable genetics I enjoy them especially considering the price point and have grown their special queen strain and enjoyed the outcome

I personally count day one when the first set of true leaves pop up (1 week in give or take) I also count my bloom cycle by the first day of 12/12 I find it easier for myself when cloning plants and growing them back to back but if you grow from seed every time its pretty irrelevant because the next seed could be different.

hi and welcome i only ever used led....but 15" could be a bit close for 600W on a seedling.
RO can be bugger as in it has no nothing in it can be a bitch to ph.....is it really needed ? biobizz lightmix a great low low nute soil.
some people plant straight to soil day 1..some glass of water,paper towel pot,first set of true leaves day 1...whatever you feel best with.for me the day a seed sticks its head out is day 0
good luck n keep er lit.

Thanks guys,

I've lifted the lights to 22" and may raise them a few more " due to heat.

RO is pretty essential. I have e just done a run and come into some serious lockup/defficiency issues. I have really hard water here.
I will be able to take a pH reading when I add nutes though won't I?

I will look inyo a different veg light for my next run, cheers! I definitely want to save some money on electricity.

I have grown many RQS seeds and have always enjoyed them

Cheers
SweetSkunk

 

[LedGuy74]

You can pH like normal yes the other poster was just saying how RO water doesn't contain all the macro nutrients tap water contains so you may need to take that into consideration when feeding. RO is def popular with hydro and Coco because of the extra control in it all of knowing what exactly yours plants are getting. I've always just used tap water myself though and I don't feed often.

 

[Need4Weed]

Good luck with your grow!

 

[SweetSkunk]

You can pH like normal yes the other poster was just saying how RO water doesn't contain all the macro nutrients tap water contains so you may need to take that into consideration when feeding. RO is def popular with hydro and Coco because of the extra control in it all of knowing what exactly yours plants are getting. I've always just used tap water myself though and I don't feed often.

This was exactly my issue. InIn anoth thread I posted here, no one was certain of a serious lockout/defficiency I was having. When I was asked about how hard my water was, I had a look at my water suppliers website and it revealed I had seriously hard water. I thought RO would be nothing but venafibene


Yesterday I took as day 1.
I increased the watering from spray too approx 400ml water. I have given them more than I usually would at this stage due to having a bit of a heatwave here at the minute

 

[Daipot]

Very nice setup man. Loads of space too play with and adequate lighting. As ledguy said, your lights are way too close, glad you've raised them. There's nothing wrong with vegging with hps, you may even have quicker growth with it, I used too run my whole grow from seeds too chop with a 600w hps and didn't have any troubles. What I would suggest though is investing in a 300w blue spectrum CFL bulb for the veg period, that's what I currently use for vegging and a Hps for flowering. CFL kits are very cheap too buy also. Ideally you would need two of them and keep the plants too one side of the tent to optimise light intensity on the plants. My setup is two CFL bulbs in one tent for veg and 2 600w in my bloom tent. It works ok for me and I average around the 30 oz mark every 8-10 weeks. If you need help with anything I'll be glad too help

 

[SweetSkunk]

Thanks ma

Very nice setup man. Loads of space too play with and adequate lighting. As ledguy said, your lights are way too close, glad you've raised them. There's nothing wrong with vegging with hps, you may even have quicker growth with it, I used too run my whole grow from seeds too chop with a 600w hps and didn't have any troubles. What I would suggest though is investing in a 300w blue spectrum CFL bulb for the veg period, that's what I currently use for vegging and a Hps for flowering. CFL kits are very cheap too buy also. Ideally you would need two of them and keep the plants too one side of the tent to optimise light intensity on the plants. My setup is two CFL bulbs in one tent for veg and 2 600w in my bloom tent. It works ok for me and I average around the 30 oz mark every 8-10 weeks. If you need help with anything I'll be glad too help

Thanks mate this is fantastic. I will make a proper reply and update tomorrow, sorry I can't update more regularly. Busy busy man

 

[SweetSkunk]

Day 4 update

One of the seedlings didn't make it so Im down to 15 plants.

Whitefly (I'm 90% sure these are the pests I have) is an issue I regularly suffer with. I have always been able to controll it with neem oil.

Yesterday (day 3), I noticed that the the tiny plants were smothered in the pests so I turned the lights off and gave them a good neem spray. When I woke up this morning and checked on them, they were still crawling around but in much lower numbers. I will give them another spray again today.

CFL/LED for vegging is on my radar. I think CFL will be my route as I know LEDs can be quite a science and need a fair amount of research. Can I assume most CFL bulbs are made about equal?

Pictures to follow