Hey everyone! I’m new to these parts and I’ve finally started my first grow. I’m so excited to share it with you and hear all of your great wisdom. Here’s the setup:
Basics:
3x Chocolope
3x Super Lemon Haze
60x60x80” grow tent
2000W Full-Spectrum LED
6-bulb T5 light w/two actinics (forget the wattage)
DWC Hydro
Housing:
As mentioned above, I have 3x Chocolope and 3x Super Lemon Haze growing in a 5x5x6.5’ grow tent. Each strain is in a 55g light-proof storage bin. Each reservoir is running two 2x4” air stones split over a 480l/h air pump, one pump and two stones per reservoir. There is a 4” inline fan pulling 190 CF/M through a 4x12” socked carbon filter. Two 6” fans are clipped to the frame, one front left corner blowing across the tops of the bins, one back right corner blowing just below the light toward the opposing corner.
Parameters:
It’s still fairly early yet (we’re only nine days in from germination), but the bins are full of ph-balanced tap water running at about 5.8. The lights are about 20” from the top of the pots. Temps right now are sitting at 75, humidity at 50%.
The seeds were rooted using paper towels and planted in Rapid Rooters. They were kept under T5 lights until the leaves popped out (about 30 hours) then we’re transferred to hydroton-filled 4” net pots suspended in the reservoirs. Currently, the water in the reservoirs is barely touching the hydroton in the pots with the bottom of the rapid rooter still being about 2” from the bottom of the pots. The bubbles are situated equidistant between the pots so water splatter should be hitting the hydroton nicely. Five of the six seedlings have their tap root shooting down into the water. I’m waiting for the root system to develop a little more, then I’ll lower the water level to not touch the pots.
I just put in round one of Humboldts Secret Nutrients and I’ll be attempting a SCROG-type grow style.
Six will get crowded in a 5x5, imo. My tent is 4.5x4.5x6.5 and five was too many… the yield was smaller from 5 than one when I had just 2 (scrogged) I’ve set a self imposed limit of 3 in my tent. I think you could do 4 without too much crowding.
It’s common to over crowd when you’re new and mine was the 3rd grow (I feel like I should have known better) It’s hard to imagine they’ll get that big when they start so small. When I first started, a friend told me the stems will need to grow to the size of my thumb. I didn’t think I could do that but sure enough, he was right.
Didn’t mean to ramble You’ve come to the right place for learning, the folks here will generously help you have a successful grow
Unless you are feeding from the top…until the roots take off…it would be best to raise the water level to the point of almost touching the plant cage. Roots will seek water but it goes faster if they don’t have to grow far to get moist. It won’t be long, the roots will take off and surprisingly fast.
good idea to start with “extra plants”…not all will be big fat healthy Ladies. Thin as growth rate dictates.
painting the lid will be a good idea…or…silver duct tape will keep out light. Any light will help algae grow. Hydroguard is one of the algae controllers that will work.
@GreenThunder I will definitely consider the overcrowding advice.
@Covertgrower I will definitely consider that. It completely passed my mind that the opaque yellow actually isn’t opaque with a full spectrum LED in play. It’s all the light I have right now. I forget the wattage of the T5. It’s 6x10k lights, 4x55k lights, 48” long. Once they veg a little more, I may swap it for another 2000w full spectrum LED.
@tanlover442 thank you. Will do. In the photo above, I had the whole lid lifted up with the potato out of the water to show the roots. As of now, they’re still touching until the roots get more established
Also, I just noticed that the largest of my Chocolope seedlings has a little yellow on the ends of its two big leaves. And they’re Turing upward a little at the ends. Temps seem fine so I don’t think it’s leaf burn, but I guess it could be? Maybe nutrient deficiency and what I added yesterday will clear it? You can kind of see it in the pic above. I’ll try to get a better one tonight.
@Sirmark I was suggesting to paint them because I have the same style of tote, but a little smaller. (27 gallon)
You’ll definitely need more lighting for a proper flowering footprint. Probably close to 4 of those larger fixtures you planned on getting.
The curling is probably just the start of a deficiency. I’m not sure how much air you’re pushing into the water, but that’s also something to consider.
Having learned the hard way…dun follow the nute mfg feeding schedule…closely.
Each strain is different and I start at 30% of feeding schedule and adjust as the plant’s health indicates.
Also, learned to check ph, ppm n ec daily as I let it go for one week and the ph dropped to 4.5. Not a good thing. Am running 5 gal black buckets and will be changing every 4 days now as plants have grown super fast with huge root growth. Really encouraging. But, have to keep daily tabs to keep within healthy growing zone.
Yep! I’ve been checking PPM and pH morning and night. pH is running around 5.9 at the moment and holding pretty steady. I’m definitely going to be painting the tops of the tubs. That’s a great point and I’ll check back in with ppm numbers in a few hours.
Here’s a pic of the one with the funky leaves. I thiiiiink I might be getting some root rot setting in. I’ll investigate further, but what roots I can see look a little dark and clumpy to me with stringier white roots out the bottom. May be stained from the new nutes, so I’ll have to look closer.
They’re not smelly and they don’t feel slimy, but they definitely look slimy, and that drop of black stuff is definitely viscous.
Part of the nutrient cycle was Golden Tree, which was black as car oil and also viscous, and Part B was dark orange and also tinted the water, so I’m wondering if that is clouding things.
Hydroponic nutrients should not do that… roots should look almost white and healthy… you might need to change up to different nutrients…
I use (general hydroponic) nutrients with no issues…
What nutrients are you using?
Also in your first pics I noticed a hole on the bottom left of both totes … you need to cover those more then painting your lids…
I bit the bullet and went out today and bought Black 5-gal buckets. I’m going to move them into them tonight. I’m pretty sure the leaf problems are due to root rot, so I’m going to separate them out and add some hydroguard. Here’s an updated pic of the babies, 13 days from germination:
For comparison of roots, smaller plant is 3 weeks old…two weeks in 5 gal black bucket. Larger plant is 8 weeks old…I couldn’t pull the root mass out further, because it has grown n tangled with the other plants roots.
Oh wow thanks for that. I’m giddy like a schoolgirl watching these guys grow.
So I resituated the air stones to be directly under the roots of the plant and it seems to have cleared a lot of the problem off the roots. The plants are growing like mad and I don’t see any new signs of ailment on any of the plants.
I do think that tomorrow I’ll be doing a flush and moving them to individual 5g buckets with individual air stones. Coming from growing reef tanks, the larger water volume seemed like a good idea to make water fluctuations slower, but I think I could use the individual care aspect of having 6 self-contained units. So tomorrow they’ll be moved into buckets with new air stones and a fresh round of hydroguard.
Transplant complete! The babies are now in their own 5gal buckets. Each has their own 2x4” air stone and situated directly below the roots. Changed the water completely and added new nutrients - this time including Hydroguard.
I added the minimum amount of nutes and hydroguard that the bottles recommend. PPM is at 725. The babies are two weeks since initial germination.
The water that I pulled out of the bins in the room smelled like algae and was dark brown (the Golden Leaf liquid was motor-oil Black, so surely that helped things). Very similar to lake water. Not sure how it got to be so gross, but hopefully this change will keep the water from being disgusting in the future.
You’ve come to the right place for learning, the folks here will generously help you have a successful grow 
