First Grow - 5 Strains - 5x5x7 Tent - 1100W MH/HPS

[Greeley]

Hello all. This is the first grow I will be doing and I am just looking for feedback.

Strains:
-Strawberry Blue x1 (Fem)
-CBD Critical Mass x4 (Fem)
-Afghan x3 (Reg)
-Fruit Punch x2 (Fem)
-Critical Sensi Star x2 (Fem)

Medium: 70% Pro-Mix BX - 30% Perlite - Handful Worm Castings

Light Cycle: Was doing 18/6, but after learning about C3 Carbon Fixation I figured 24/7 is actually better

Pics:

 

[Greeley]

Thanks for the likes guys. They seem to be handling the high wattage at 24/7 just fine. Soil is drying faster, but I think thats good because I lost 2 seedlings to what I suspect was over watering. I still have the 12 in these pictures, but I had 15 in total prior to posting.

Over watering seems so easy at this stage, I can't wait till these ladies are thirsty and have a decent stem. the worrying and waiting is killing me, lol. First time is probably the worst for feeling this way eh?

 

[Greeley]

This is my largest seedling, grown a little since yesterday

Edit: CBD Critical Mass by Dinafem

 

[Alienpus]

What's that bag hanging over the reflector?

 

[Greeley]

What's that bag hanging over the reflector?

Its a Co2 producing bag. from these people ExHale CO2

I know it should be hanging right over the plants but it doesn't fit well under the reflector right now

 

[Greeley]

The third prongs on those leaves are coming in! I'm so excited!

 

[Greeley]

Finally getting my next node!

 

[Greeley]

So the seedling I've been taking pictures of is my biggest one, she just grew the fastest. I'm loving how fast its growing in just about a week.

But I just noticed this, it seems the plant is growing new branches on the first node! I have never seen this before, well not without cutting the plant first. I've grown bagseed out back one year and didn't do anything to take care of it but miracle grow along with rest of garden, it never made branches like this unless I cut the plant somewhere. So this is a surprise for me! can't wait to see it grow more!

EDIT:
Most recently I started turning the light off for an hour or two every 24-48 hours just to cool all my equipment, and my basement. I don't have the means to keep the environment just right, it gets too hot after 48 hours straight. The tent, cool tube, floor, fan, filter, the ceiling, everything could use a nice cool down. So I've been running at like 46/2 lol. plants don't seem to mind it, they seem to appreciate the cool off, and get right back to growing once the lights are back on. I can take pictures every 8 hours and see a difference, even if its very slight. Very happy.

 

[Greeley]

 

[Greeley]

This is the same plant as above, CBD Critical Mass. She was growing all these new branches, and it was exciting me, this plant is extremely healthy looking in comparison to what I've seen. But something was eating me, I was going to main-line these plants, and its wasting energy growing branches I am going to cut off. So the main-lining began early. Within 48 hours, very noticeable new tops begin to grow. SO HAPPY!

 

[Greeley]

I still haven't given them a full label dose of nutrients yet. the most they've gotten was 250ML of water with 66% recommended nutes. Next week they are going to get a full dose. I'll snap some photos in about a week if they don't show any big changes before then.

 

[Alienpus]

This is the same plant as above, CBD Critical Mass. She was growing all these new branches, and it was exciting me, this plant is extremely healthy looking in comparison to what I've seen. But something was eating me, I was going to main-line these plants, and its wasting energy growing branches I am going to cut off. So the main-lining began early. Within 48 hours, very noticeable new tops begin to grow. SO HAPPY!

The edges of the leaves curling up are a sign of heat stress. Maybe try a 20/4 cool down cycle instead of the 46/2 and back off the lights a little. I also think your ventilation might not be setup right looks like you are venting the heat into the room that contains the tent.

 

[chuck1718]

First off these are just suggestions buddy. Id agree on the heat if its above 80 in there. Also I wouldnt waste money put nute on to them until atleast their thrid set of leaves atleast. Also would not remove leaves unless topping until they are blocking something like your sugar or the singles and I would also suggest lst at this size for some extra tops I do not top or fim my plants.

All and all they are nice green and seem to be doing good Im subbed up.

 

[Greeley]

Thanks for the info people!

I actually just got a job at the the local hydro store and my new boss has his own government grow I eventually will get to work at. Between him and his wife, they have so much to teach me. I've shown him all the pictures and I told him about how I've been doing about 21/3 now to let everything cool off and he said that was good, but generally he uses 18/6 regardless of cannabis being a C3 Plant. So I did switch it up from before, forgot to mention is all.

I know my plants have been looking a little stressed, but they have been growing incredibly fast and haven't been burning at all whatsoever. any plant that looks too stressed out I move them further from the centre of the reflector, and within 12 hours they begin to get back to normal. But I will be moving the reflector up as time goes on. New growers do tend to overdo things more often than not, so I guess thats just my inner newbie not wanting the plants to stretch.

It is pretty warm in my tent around 84, but I am supplementing with CO2 so the temperatures begin to rise much faster(Based on what i've read), I've been keeping humidity at about strict 60-65 to combat this (since water holds more heat energy than air) I do have my carbon filter right outside the tent, this is true, but one of the things I do to combat this (which is currently not enough, but helps a lot) is I use the circulation fan on my new furnace, We just bought a brand new furnace which is so much better than our 15 year old one we just got rid of, it has a setting to circulate the house air and it sucks a lot of the heat out of the basement. When we start with the air conditioner soon, its going to be a a big help as well. We are working on finding a new solution to this problem, but for now temperatures are only a little bit higher than I'd like. I'm going to see what my new boss says as well. I have a lot of options at my disposal, just going to trial and error my way to what works best for me.

I am going for the Main-Line method this grow, my plants aren't growing a single branch anywhere unless I want it to. 8 tops per plant exactly no more, no less. Thats just what I'm going for this time, I've looked through many methods and this one appealed to me most as a control freak growing in a smaller space. I love plants and I love how they can be guided to grow certain way, Its fascinating to me and I'm really enjoying my time with it so far.

I have a new picture to share as well I will post it soon! thanks for the replies and I promise to finish this journal, and I could use more suggestions in the future so I hope to hear from you again. Have a good one!

 

[Greeley]

 

[Greeley]

Here is a different view of the larger top

 

[chuck1718]

Main line method ey never heard of it will do some research about it.

 

[Greeley]

I was trying to look for all the methods before I chose one, I know I didn't find all of them, but when I found this method that was explained by this dude nugbuckets on a website I won't link here (google search for 'nugbuckets main-lining' should work), the pictures made sense to me and it looked like you can really control your plant with main-lining. A little more so than some other methods I've seen like "lollipoping"

Its the idea of building your plant of a single node. The theory behind its success, as explained by that dude nugbuckets, is that the plant can create more efficient pathways for nutrients with this method. He theorizes that it worked so well because the plant has one major nutrient highway that splits into two, then four, then eight, or however many tops you have size for. Its efficient and creates an even production of colas.

I am trying this method out as my experimental first grow, not sure if its going to work as well as I hope. But its apparently been increasing yield and working well for nugbuckets and I am definitely intrigued by this method and just had to try it.

I have seen some really awesome LST/HST methods too, I've seen some massive plants with crazy tops come from those. Scrog method looks like a good choice for someone in my position as well. I think scrog is what I will try next.

 

[chuck1718]

Make sense to me if it works that I have no clue how you could tell. In real scrogs they also take everything off so there is no "wasted energy". But once my photo's grow out and show sex I will be attempting a multi plant scrog I have 5 in soil at the moment so wish me luck on girls!

 

[Greeley]

Here is an overall shot of the 9 plants I have left from this grow. I lost a few to trial and error, learning how to bend, how to train, how to control humidity, waterings, and keeping temperature. I learned so much in this short time. I can't wait to see what other curve balls are thrown my way. Like this next picture.

This Picture shows a plant that grew 4 tops after being topped once. I think some people call this a FIM cut. This put a little dent in my plan to main-line all my plants as perfectly as I wanted to, so I'm going to be more calm about it now, I am going to let the 4 topped plants grow. I have some plants with 4, some with 2, and 1 with a single top (second died from bending), and one with 3 (4th one died from bending). I know I should be more careful but I wanted to get a lot of the mistakes to be made out this grow, and learn hands on what I am doing is wrong. Anyways hope you enjoy this picture.

This is an example of one of my plants I experimented with bending until I unfortunately snapped the branches, they stressed for a short time and wilted, then healed and kicked back into gear full power, has been, and still is my largest plant from the get go.

I will keep you guys posted, you can also check out my side grows although they are very early in, seedlings have just barely poked through the sphagnum. I have 8 in soil coming up in my two side grows (7 are autos to be going in the back yard in about a week in the 2x2x4.5, 1 is in my 1x1x1 mini grow), 9 in the pots for this grow here, and 7 more Fruit Punch are Germing in a glass of water which are taking the place of the Autos once they are ready for transplant.