Prepping for and first time grow

[Tylersays]

Well, I had a productive buzz!

This was the second baby when I got her out of the cell - which were a PITA.
Totally going solo cups or straight to pot from now on.
This was taken on the tablet it has a horrible camera compared to the phone.

I’m about to group text my peeps - they gotta come get their babies >sniff<

I’m gonna transplant the tent plants tomorrow.
I’ve decided I’ll be doing 3. I should probably do 2 but I’m gonna do the Super Skunk in there and hopefully make it easier to maintain the environment and growth since it’s one strain.
I kinda have a vision of how I want to train them. I’ll post some pics LOL.

Started doing a little reading on Ph and PPM last night…that is total morning reading but obviously an important thing.
Also stumbled across an ILGM review somewhere on the site, not the forum, about Spider Farmer lights, and they liked them for the price range and said they were very good lights. That makes me feel better but I am kinda jealous of the HLG LOL! I should have started reading here before I ordered my rig.

BTW - that’s a 2 cubic ft bag of Happy Frog with 16 dry quarts of perlite mixed in.
By my math I’m a little short of 25% but it looked lite and airy.
My numbers may be off. I never was any good at English. LOL!

[OldSkool]

SkinnyB, welcome to the community and to the forum. They look good, very nice. Good luck with your grow

[Syndrix]

@dbrn32
Since you are the light person,
I bought my LED driver, the one HLG recommends which is HLG-320H-C1750A this come with a black rubber plug you can remove and adjust the built in adjustable Potentiometer

the ab model comes with the adjustable potentiometer and two wires to add a dimmer switch

and the B model does NOT include adjustable potentiometer but does have the two dimming wires to add a dimming switch

Does it matter if you dim a light via potentiometer vs dimmer? I’m no electrical engineer but don’t both these option do the exact same thing? or does one actually cause something slightly different to happen?

I am hoping to verify this information before building my might, as once I put power to the driver I can’t return it.

Thanks

[sunasun]

I also have crappy power with frequent brownouts and short duration power outages, so I use a Uninterruptible power supply with backup battery.
Oops
Forgot to add @Syndrix

[dbrn32]

Dimmer works pretty much same either way. But there are some slight differences in each of the drivers. A dimming driver will over clock current, which would likely be most powerful in terms overall consumption of the three, but will only dim to roughly 50% of nameplate current. The ab im petty sure has built in dimming pot on bottom of driver., so not as easily accessible when compared to A dimming. B dimming has none of those features, simply needs you to wire in dimming device.

[Tylersays]

This is crazy - We have aquarium chemicals, including Ph Up/Down and I was planning on using those for Ph control but after reading the instructions thoroughly, the aquariums are her thing, I discovered they’re treating much larger amounts of water than I’ll be treating at a time so I decided to order General Hydroponics from Amazon.
Ordered just before midnight on the 28th. Morning of the 29th got shipping notification and estimated delivery of Thursday. Right on time Prime.
Late last night I got notification from Amazon that it was “Delayed by Customs” and that UPS may need further information from me.
WTH? That’s insane! These are common chemicals used for many purposes, most of which are perfectly legal anywhere!
Had no problems with any other order I’ve placed that are “weed-centric” from Amazon or anywhere, including 3 separate orders from ILGM.
I’m not expecting any troubles getting it, other than the delay.
It won’t hurt me or the grow in any way but it just struck me as odd and utterly ridiculous.

Happy Growing Everyone!

ps - Outside girls are doing great! I’ll post some pics later.
Still haven’t transplanted tent growers but I’m getting it tonight.
Had a busy Tuesday.
My yard guys were just here and I saw weed-eater boy checking them out LOL.
I’ll point out the cameras to them next week when they come LOL!
Go for it, if you want to be on YouTube for stealing weed because that’s where you’re gonna be.
I might would have to actually sign up for FaceBroke and post it on their business site. LOL!
After which i would immediately quit - FaceBroke, that is. Eww Yuck!

[GrizzlyGrows]

A star nose mole can see better than him lol

[Syndrix]

Holy crap I got so many things today lmao I bought so much crap the usps guy parked his truck in my driveway to unload instead of staying in the street, and ups came to my house 3 times today lmao…

So just about everything but the ph up/down has shown up at my house today. The tent is the larger size so I am really happy about that. The third missing QB/light board showed up today, so I was able to finish building my light.

I put 4 seeds in water 60 hours ago, 1 of them has a very obvious tail and has been put in small cup with soil and water under light, 1 has a very small tail, should I go ahead and soil it with the other?
The other 2 have done nothing I guess I should wait, if no tail ever appears do I request replacement or just plant it? I am also hoping to grow 4 plants as closely to each other as possible so now I am thinking about throwing the 5th seed in water because I am worried 2 are not going to germ.

So today I built tent, built light, installed vent system, installed light system,

Planted the one with the nice tail

Small cup for now, need to order fabric pots

The tent! It’s the big one!!!

Vent system

Light working

To plant or not to plant that is the question?

[Leholf]

May have needed a dangerous good ticket ? Often ph down is classed as a hazardous chemical , same thing down here and a lot of companies don’t realise until a random inspection finds it in the postal system.

[dirtydave]

The clear cup is a no no as the roots develop and get to the outside of the cup the light will kill them also after 48 hours you should move the seeds out of the water and into a damp paper towel I personally just use the paper towel

[Syndrix]

Morning update,
So I originally put 4 seeds in water, seeds 1 and 2 grew tails within 48 hours and have been planted in small clear cups. With the intention of being moved to 5 gal fabric pots soon after sprouting.

This morning marks 72 hours for the other two, after reading here I have transferred them to paper towel and placed under light, upon closer inspection during transfer, seed three has popped, but I am still going to leave sit on paper towel for probably 24 hours to let tail grow.

I have also ordered the 5gal fabric pots that will be permanent homes for these girls. So I may wait until they get here tomorrow and just go from towel to final fabric pot.

I also placed 5th backup seed in water yesterday, over-reacting to possibility of seed duds lol, if I end up with a 5th I have friends/family members that could take it, or I could end up with an outdoor plant I don’t know about, or take the first 4 to 12 inches and off the 5th… this decision can be made later.

The lights are turned down pretty far and at this distance my t6 fan is constantly running at level 3 to keep temps right around 78/79… I ordered and waiting for clip on fan which should really help with air movement in tent. I let the light run all night, this morning I installed the timer and put it on an 18/6 schedule. I guess I don’t need a timer for my vent stuff but I guess I could use the other timer for the small clip on fan coming.
seed 3

seed 4

bowl water seed 5, seed 1 and 2 planted, paper towel with 3and4

Catching up on replies below------------------------------------------------

SkinnyB, Thanks for the information, it is a lot of information, and there seems to be a lot of ways to get the same job done which adds to the complexity of decision making lol

Tyler, our soil matches, I ended up mixing mine in a large Tupperware storage container inside though. Your plants are looking great, I am jealous of your head start lmao… I need to figure out what I need to get for training and which technique I want to go with. will need a net for sure now that I know tent size. The spider farmer lights, the ones in the current sf2000/1000 use the same diodes that I have from what I can tell.
I am also still waiting on my ph up/down longest wait so far lol my tap water is reading 7.3 and my distilled water was reading 7.8

Dbrn, thanks for the info they are up and working

Sunasun, yeah I have a battery backup on my network equipment currently, our power used to flicker all the time during storms, but in the last two years it has gotten better unless it is a really bad storm. I went with mechanical timers to help with this issue, I may end up doing battery backup as well though

Dirtydave, I had no idea about the clear cups, thanks, I will get these moved over to fabric pots after they sprout? yeah it ended up being 72 hrs before the move to paper towel so far so good though, except for me panicking, but I think it was a good learning experience lmao

Thanks again everyone for the help and support, happy growing!

[skippyisnohippy]

@Syndrix , I just started some seeds a couple of weeks ago in clear cups. I inserted mine through some round holes I cut in a cardboard box to block the light from reaching the roots. I have seen many just cut holes in the bottom of non-clear solo cups and slide the clear cups inside for the same reason. Good luck!

[Syndrix]

Oh smart, I have some red solo cups so I can just drop it in one of those, why the holes in the bottom?

I checked on seed 3 and 4 a few hours after putting them in tent under light, the paper towel on top started to dry out from the light so I pulled the plate out and got the paper towel damp again, seed 5 cracked open so I moved it to the plate on the paper towel as well.

[skippyisnohippy]

Holes in the bottom are for drainage, if you don’t have holes in your clear ones you should also. I didn’t do any of that presoak or paper towel thing, or I only soaked seeds for the hour or 2 that I was preparing the cups. I had everything germinate. I have been reading as many grow journals here as I can figuring someone else has already asked every possible question. I put a thermometer/hygrometer at the top of the cups and set my light above it aiming for 76-78 degrees. Lot’s of people would probably not do it the way I did.

[Syndrix]

I figured it was for drainage, yeah the clear ones have holes, I’m going to leave the solo cups solid for now, that way it will catch any run off I have.

I was trying to follow what the website here says for germination with 72 hours, mainly because if they didn’t grow I wanted them replaced lol

Yes I have been reading through a lot of grow journals as well, and I see a lot of people that do the same thing different ways lmao

I have my temp/humidity probe sitting at the top of my cups, my light keeps it constantly heated up to 78 so my exhaust fan is constantly running at about 40% to manage the temp, I am hoping this gets a little better once I have the small fan in there as well. I have one hole and one screen section open to allow air in.

I found a grow journal on this site that I really like so far, so I am linking it.

Hellraiser grows Gorilla Glue and other stuff

This will be a walk through of my growing methods from seed to harvest

After reading more and the general message being 24 hour soak max all my seeds have been planted, 5 did crack open and looked like seed 3, seed 4 still never cracked before planting so I don’t think it is going to make it. It seems like the best thing to do now is wait till Monday and see if they have grown, and spray them with water a couple times a day to keep the dirt moist since the light is trying to dry it out.

I guess this is what it will look like over the weekend and I am going to try and not mess with them…

[Tylersays]

Hello guys been a rough couple of days but I finally got my seedlings in their forever homes and into the tent today.

2 on the left are New York City Diesel on the 2 on the right is Super Skunk.
The two little floaters are Granddaddy Purple. I think I’m taking them to my moms house lol
She laughed when I told her I was growing weed this year. She’s 93 LOL!
I mixed 5ml of CalMag to a gallon of distilled water, 6.1ph, 130ppm.
Ph in range and ppm low but after transplant I didn’t want to shock with nutes. They’re in Happy Frog, except for front right. I filled 2 huge pots for outside and these are 4 gallon pots. The front right is the MiracleGro Performance organics. Read about it in another post and it showed really great results. Plus I was out of FF and no local sellers that I can find.
I didn’t feel like waiting for Amazon so we’ll see.
I think next grow I’m gonna use FFOF for the seedlings. I’m kinda disappointed at the root development, but to be honest when I transplanted the first thing I thought was I was under-watering after reading so many over-watering horror stories. If there’s no water in the bottom of the soil they have no reason to go there. Maybe my spray bottle is just weak…

@Syndrix I like the larger tent. I could tell the difference immediately when I saw it.
And I’m super jealous of the filter. It looks so much cooler than my ShopVac filter lookalike LOL!
I originally had everything sealed up tight with a bottom vent open for air intake. I ended up opening the top vent and just left it open and kinda half closed the bottom flap. According to my app my weekly average on temp is 73.8 and humidity at 67%.
You definitely don’t want the paper towel to dry out!

Obviously the humidity will keep dropping over the course of the “season”, and that’s great. The humidifier I have in there now has a huge footprint and I should be able to use the smaller one and give the pots room to spread out. Hopefully around the time the scrogging starts.
My problem is she controls the thermostat and I think she uses the “Cold As Hell” setting, but luckily maintains a 50% humidity level which I think makes it a little easier to control the tent if the lung is pretty consistent. I have the meter that came with the tent in the lung room and it pretty much matches what the system is set for in the house. The door is kept closed so it’s less subject to activity in the house that may cause fluctuations.

And I hear you on waiting for them seeds to pop. I’m pretty sure Tom Petty was waiting for seeds to sprout when he wrote “The Waiting” LOL!

The outside girls are trucking along.

I carried the newly transplanted NYCD into the solarium for the afternoon and night. Showers moving through and I didn’t want to flush my Happy Frog before the grow gets going. They rebounded nicely after the transplant on the 28th. They’re in full sun from sun up till 330-4ish and went to the solarium around 1 this afternoon. Mostly overcast, muted sunshine till then with occasional breaks in the clouds.

Still haven’t done enough reading on PPM and TDS it seems kinda daunting lol

Also been thinking about one of the grow tracker apps on the Play Store. I wonder if they’re actually any good? Seems easier than writing…not sure if I can still do that anymore! LOL!
I keep telling the chick at the bank I’m gonna roll in one day and just make my mark, like Festus from Gunsmoke, and I expect her to cash my check because I forgot how to actually write.

Have you checked out any of the organic or living soil grows on the site?
Some of these guys are growing incredible plants and doing nothing but watering.
All their work goes into building the soil and the grow is just water, humidity and temperature control.
It really looks like something I’d enjoy trying at some point. Give me an excuse to dig out my old compost bins and start over.

You’re on your way man! I can’t wait to follow the progress and learn and share as you go.
Started chatting in a Virginia-centric outdoor grow thread too. Those guys are a hoot!
Been getting some great tips for my sun-fed ladies!

[Tylersays]

Forgot to mention - out of the ph’ed gallon they each got a liter in the prescribed circle. Although a glug or two did splash to the stem on a couple of plants. Might have to reconsider my watering apparatus.

[Syndrix]

Morning update, Holy crap that one seed is determined and OMG I have a plant!!! But why is the leaf brown? is it okay? did my light cook it a little?

So I have my exhaust fan set to start running at 78F
the first night, cups on ground light super close, fan constant run 40% to maintain 78-80
Last night put cups on top of dirt container, fan ran constant 50% and it maintained 80-82F
Today during watering I removed the container and placed cups back on the ground, I didn’t lower the light so it is probably to far away, but my fan is not even constantly running it is kicking on for a very short amount of time only 20% and it is maintaining 76-78F.

Conclusion, my light was to close before and was trying to cook the top of the soil/plant
I think every couple of hours that I see these nice temps that the exhaust is maintaining so much easier, I should lower the light an inch, until I start seeing the exhaust struggle to keep up and then I will know much closer to where my light should be?

I know this is a learning process and I need to learn my equipment and environment

Would love some input on light distance and if I am thinking correctly.

[dirtydave]

You can just adjust the dimmer up or down the brown is the seed shell still on if it says on you may have to remove it in a day or two

[Syndrix]

yeah ,I had the dimmer all the way down and was still having those temp issues
I see the seed shell, where the stalk turns into leaf, but on the upper leaf, out near the edge, it is brown, where the inside middle of the two leaves is much greener
I honestly think the light was too close, everything I am reading about HLG lights recommends 18-24 inches from the top
I could be worried about nothing, the brown spot, but I do need to get the temp in check which is working much better at the farther distance