What’s growin on fellow greenthumbs!
This is my first ever hydro grow, as well as being my first attempt at auto-flowers. Thus I will appreciate any criticisms that aren’t aiming to bait or troll, thank you.
I will do my best to keep this thread updated and I hope you all enjoy the ride! 
Seeds –
- ILGM Auto-flower SUPER MIX - Super Autoflower Seeds Mixpack - High THC Marijuana Seeds
Contains: 5x Gorilla Glue Auto, 5x Bruce Banner Auto and 5x GSC Extreme Auto
Materials & Misc. —
- Gavita Pro 1700e LED
- Gorilla Grow Tent 5x5
- AC Infinity 6" Inline Duct Fan (Intelligent Control) + 20ft ducting + 6" Carbon Filter
- Gold Label HydroCorn XL
- Levoit Humidifier w/ smart control
- HiSense Dehumidifier (already had for basement – it keeps it around 50% RH instead of 70%)
- Hangable heater
- Air King clip fan (x2)
- BlueDelta pH and EC pen
- 4-bucket 13-gallon Fallponic RDWC System (by Gary at PA Hydro)
- Water & Air pumps + Air stones (later will update air system for m0r O2)
- Orbit water flow meter
- Keynice digital thermometer
- Kuman wall-socket power usage meter
- Plastic Syringes (x10 60mL and x1 500mL)
- Starter cubes and 6x6" cubes to cut into octagonal cylinders
- Trifecta
- Sulfur fungicide (had problems with powdery mildew in the past and got this just incase, though I hope to never have to use it by keeping the sorrounding space and tent clean af.
Botanicare Nutes –
- Silica Blast
- Pro Grow & Bloom
- Cal-mag
- Rhizo Blast
- Liquid Karma
- Sweet
- Hydroplex
- HydroGuard **
** (soon swapping for SouthernAg GFF that has same Bacillus amyloliquefaciens strain D747* - but 98.85% concentration instead of 3% or whatever HydroGuard is.) - Later got Clearex for when flush, and now I’m debating on trying the additional Tea blend and Vitamino in the next grow, both by Botanicare.
Total Equipment + Nutes cost: ~$3,200.00
Energy Usage –
Energy Usage for 60 days = 1200kwh (1.2mwh) (x) ~$0.10 per kwh = $120.00
Another 30 Days (give or take some days) = $60.00
Total energy usage for ~90 cycle = ~$180.00
(In the coming months we’re installing a fairly massive solar system, so don’t worry about my energy usage). 
Water Usage –
Source is a well-water RO system that reads 6.5 pH and 0 EC/ppm.
I haven’t done the best with keeping track of the water usage, even though I have the gauge… (it resets every 500gallons and I think its only done it once, but I’m not 100% on that lmao).
So… Assuming that I’ve used ~800 gallons, and the RO system is a 2-3 (meaning 2 gallons good for every 3 bad), I’ve used ~2,000 gallons (including tails from RO) of water over 60 days. Thus in total I predict this cycle to use ~3,000 gallons at least…
(Later on we will be collecting all the tails from the RO system and the grow for watering lawns and garden.)
The reason for so much water is the weekly flush to get the system below 50ppm before I add the nutrient recipe, which takes 50-80gallons.
Also,
The plants at this stage (week 7or8 from seedling) are drinking ~5 gallons per day.
Feed Sheet rough guide –
The system is 45.5 gallons at 70% capacity (13gal. x 5 x .7) and I run slightly over half-strength to recipe, thus I x25 everything for simplicity. making sure to add in the extra Cal-mag because RO water
VPD - Vapor Pressure Deficit rough guide –
The Grow –
*Since I’m collecting this all now, 8-9weeks from seed, I’ll likely be a little off on some info and time-line. Next grow I’ll use a day-by-day method of logging it all on another thread here for better flow and organization.
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The seed’s tails popped April 23rd, so proceeded to place them tail down in (4) 1.5x1.5inch rockwool starter cubes. Color coded: Green = GG, Blue = BB, and Red = GSCe. Placed cubes into gallon Ziploc bag to keep the very needed relative humidity up.
First GSCe out of the two sprouted, so moved it out of bag and into a bigger cube that was cut from a 6x6" block to be more like a octagonal cylinder than a cube. This helped it fit into the 8inch net pot and allows for an even spread of Hydroton pellets around the base.
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First week of growth for the seedlings was rough… likely from low humidity and overwatering.
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Second week was pretty rough as well… some light was leaking into the reservoir through the net-pots and maybe some pellets, so I made a custom cover from carboard and tape after trying an upside down paper plate that doesn’t work so well.
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Third week was a whole lot better, so assumingly it was the light leak issue and not oxygenation or something else. At this point I was able to get the rH stable at around 65-70%
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Trunks are starting to fill out and root systems getting big.
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Really starting to bush out at this point and pistils are developing on the one GSCe. Increased exhaust fan setting to 5 and 6 the next week.
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Didn’t document much this week. Rip
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Getting huge.
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Even huger-er. To keep humidity lower and in proper zone with temp I raised exhaust fan to 7 and opened a small part of the other side of the tent’s vent-flap at the bottom middle.
Did a massive amount of defoliation and some lolli-poppin to GG and BB – and I think its still not enough… very glad I topped BB and fimmed GG earlier, otherwise they’d be way too tall for sure. -
?!? we see based off how trichomes and pistils look…
Every few days or so I spray Trifecta, I don’t keep any hard schedule to it and variate the time of day I do it as to keep the bugs guessing. Haven’t seen anything in the tent except the occasional fly or house spider!
** will add pictures and more info to the weeks as I gather and upload! 
Things I did wrong/ to learn from/ implement –
- Overwatered the seedlings the first week, especially the second GSCe.
- The water level was too high the first week or two… the water level doesn’t need to be at the net-pot, as water bubbles rising to surface will create adequate moisture for the pellets and cubes. So start at 1.5" below net-pot, then down to 2.5" over week or two while roots grow down. No top feeding once they’re in the system!
- Exhaust fan set to 4 and circulation fans on low the first few weeks, as to keep more humidity in the tent. Also it helped to raise the outside-the-tent humidity from 55% to 65%.
- Light leaks through the net-pots and pellets into the buckets and causes fungal growth that can sustain itself even with lots of HydroGuard, thus I needed to completely seal the tops off. I did this temporarily with cardboard cutouts and gorilla tape, but I don’t think I like it as a final solution.
- A top-off reservoir and water-chiller aren’t 100% necessary but they’d be great to have for less work and stress. The top-off reservoir can be implemented easily, I just have yet to order the parts and start building. The water-chiller might be acquired for the next grow, we shall see.
- More oxygen to the root zone would be a plus, so next grow will be adding another air pump and 4 more “better-er” stones.
- More meticulous canopy management is needed, I was afraid to mess with them too much while they were young and didn’t train them the best. I didn’t top the GSCe because its mostly an Indica but I did try to get better internodal spacing with some LST at first, then as they all grew up I kept bending down the leaders to get further growth around the entirety, but I didn’t keep up with it very well over time.
- {others}
