First Grow - Blue Dream - 4x4 Tent - 1000W Light - DWC

Howdy folks!

The girls are doing well, I think they enjoyed the 36 hour rest period before switching to 12/12. Here is a pic of them right after the lights came back on Monday morning at 5am, looking pretty perky.

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Here are the stats on temp/humidity, looks like humidity spiked yesterday but I think that is because I had the window open and it was rainy for part of yesterday. Temps are still too high for my liking (water temps are low 80s) but I figure they are used to it by now, they are tough gurls!

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Here are a couple close ups, and this is where I need input from some people with more experience. Do you think the 36 hour dark period helped speed up the flowering process, or is it too soon to tell? The growth tips definitely look.....different than they did during veg.

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Annnnddd finally, a macro shot, this was taken about 2 hrs ago right before the lights went off.

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I will start separating the main colas out into their individual squares in a few more days, I want more of that flexible new growth on top to make it easier to bend them. Also, today I started supplementing with silica at 100 ppm concentration. I wish I had done it during veg, to help them build stronger stems, but I hadn't even heard about it until I was doing some reading the other day. Now I feel like a dork, for not thinking about the fact that silica is so prevalent in the Earth's crust and soil, of course plants would have evolved to make use of it. Oh well, better late than never!

As always, questions, comments, and feedback are welcomed. I will update again at the end of the week, hopefully after I get the grid set up!
 
Oh yeah, in the last pic you can see the wide-spectrum LED's that I hung up. Once the plants are more spread out I am going to use them to get a bit more light to the outer growth, as well as providing additional wavelengths of light. I figure since they don't produce a lot of heat and they have worked well for my veggies in the past, (they are only 30w) it really can't hurt to give it a shot.
 
TheFrizz said:
Great questions. Right now the light does have a cool tube with a 400+ CFM fan (6 inch diameter) attached and my outlet is directly out into the hallway outside of the room haha. I think the problem is getting cool air into the tent, basically I need to lower the temperature of the upstairs bedroom that the tent is in. I keep a window cracked and have two fans maintaining circulation, but its still just too warm up there.

However, as of 2 hours ago I decided I am going to push for flowering anyways. This is because at the time when temperature really matters for flowering (like 5+ weeks in) it will be farther into the fall season and the room should naturally be cooler. So, I changed out the bulb to my 1000 watt HPS, dangled a few small LED lamps from the ceiling (I will turn them on later into flowering for supplemental lighting), and I will give them a 36 hour dark period. My light schedule will be 12/12, with the light coming on at 5am and off at 5pm. So, my next update should be sometime Monday and we will see how the plants respond to their "nap" and the new light!
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The closet that my tents are in gets hot. I ran the exhaust up through the ceiling into the attic. That works for me.

As for getting seeds from you autos, do a search for "Colloidal Silver".

Things are looking great!! :peace:
 
What a grow you got going on, very nice. You can spread them some. :bravo: Happy growing! :Namaste:
 
Mr Am4zin said:
Some happy flowers there. Keep it up. I did a little giggle when you said about your humidity spike, 73 is a good average for me. :laughtwo:
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Hehe, I feel a bit better now, thank you! And I mean, they are still producing vegetation so some humidity is probably good for em. I just want to keep it sub 40% when the buds start taking off.
 
Saturday morning update:

Alright so I hadn't opened the tent for a couple days (been really busy w/ school stuff) so I was a bit scared that they were going to be horribly maimed in some way (nute burn, pump failure, heat stress, etc etc) but turns out everything is fine!

Here is what they looked like before today's training

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1 hour later: Defoliated and used garden wire to bend each cola towards a separate square in the grid.

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Here are a couple perspective shots, side and top on the front two plants after being tied into the grid

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So far I would say there has been about 6 in of stretch this week since flipping the lights, and I am very happy with the node spacing and overall stem thickness. Here is a close up of the tallest stem on Queen Sativa, sorry its a bit mangled from defol but you get the idea.

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Over the next couple weeks I will continue to make sure that the stems stay evenly spaced apart as they grow up into their squares. I need to start remembering to pluck a few fan leaves off in the morning each day, rather than doing it all at once. Derpy still has a ways to go before most of her stems reach the grid, but at least she is spread out so all the colas will be getting even light distribution.

Also, I added 15 minutes of darkness to the light cycle, each week I will add 15 more, to slowly maximize the time the plant is in the dark when the buds are their largest(since lights off is when plants convert starches for metabolism and rapid growth).

As always, questions, comments, feedback, are welcomed! Stay frosty my friends :cool:

~TheFrizz
 
Looks all good in there. The 1000W surely is a massive light. I've never done the continuous pruning of fan leaves, interesting. The fan leaves are important for capturing light and you can see the pots of your plants and all that area where the light shines and is not used by the plant. Also the water evaporates through the leaves and cools the plant down. They also serve as nutrient storage for the plant, when the plant absorbs the light during the day it stores some excess to the leaves and during the night it uses the stored sugars. But when you trim the leaves there should be less stretch. Is that what are you aiming for? I do suggest you leave all the leaves that do no shade buds an leave the rest as it is. That's my suggestion. Happy growing man! :Love: :Namaste:
 
Tomula said:
Looks all good in there. The 1000W surely is a massive light. I've never done the continuous pruning of fan leaves, interesting. The fan leaves are important for capturing light and you can see the pots of your plants and all that area where the light shines and is not used by the plant. Also the water evaporates through the leaves and cools the plant down. They also serve as nutrient storage for the plant, when the plant absorbs the light during the day it stores some excess to the leaves and during the night it uses the stored sugars. But when you trim the leaves there should be less stretch. Is that what are you aiming for? I do suggest you leave all the leaves that do no shade buds an leave the rest as it is. That's my suggestion. Happy growing man! :Love: :Namaste:
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When I was planning this grow I was unsure about how much to defoliate, but then I read this thread Increasing yield with defoliation indoors - What's it mean? How to do it? and decided I will do whatever it takes to get the maximum amount of light to the buds. Also by removing leaves, the inter-nodal distance will be reduced, resulting in denser colas and sturdier limbs. Basically, at the end of flowering I want to have a canopy that is a bunch of 2 foot long colas completely bathed in light because there are little to no leaves in the way.
 
TheFrizz said:
When I was planning this grow I was unsure about how much to defoliate, but then I read this thread Increasing yield with defoliation indoors - What's it mean? How to do it? and decided I will do whatever it takes to get the maximum amount of light to the buds. Also by removing leaves, the inter-nodal distance will be reduced, resulting in denser colas and sturdier limbs. Basically, at the end of flowering I want to have a canopy that is a bunch of 2 foot long colas completely bathed in light because there are little to no leaves in the way.
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Well, that's gonna be interesting to watch. Good luck!
 
Here are some pictures I took this morning. The girls seem to have responded happily to their defoliation and bending from Saturday. Some of the stems still need to reach the top of the net yet but overall I am happy with how they are filling in.

Overhead shot of front left plant, I made sure that her side with shorter stems is closest to the light source so in another few days they should even out.

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Close up of the tallest stem in the tent. Node spacing still nice and tight, and the stem is super sturdy. I don't see any pre-flowers yet.

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Macro view of the tent, very impressed w/ Queen Sativa's growth, it will be interesting to see how she yields compared to the other 3. Do you think I should LST her to even out the canopy, or just let her do her thing? She is getting plenty of light to her outer edges right now, but that might change once buds start forming.

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Topped off the nutes this morning and when I got home today there were white whispy pistils all over (This is day 10 of flowering). Also, each stem was about 2 inches taller. I plucked a few leaves that were blocking other stems and trimmed some of the undergrowth, but nothing major. The plants are so sturdy at the base, I feel like I could make them into wrist rockets/slingshots after harvest.....new business idea? :idea:
 
Nice man! Keep it up! You can even train the taller plant some if you can, some strains do stretch more than other. I'm using the stem from my first grow as a head massager. Happy growing! :thumb: :Namaste:
 
Damn you people are experts!!!
Frizz very nice to see your tent! The home made rack. the way you prune. All bad ass!
Im a Newbie, Im starting my first tent grow (please follow) and struggling to keep temps good. First off, open a tent flap. I did and way better. Ive got an Acute Rite guage and theyre crap. Temps arent correct. Ive got an old school merc. thermometer also and it says my Acute Rite is shit. Im going to invest in a better elec. one. What ever fresh air your feeding your room for the tent needs to be under 70 deg.
Tomula you got skills!!
Namaste
 
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