Nofene's Micro Garden - Autoflowers - Coco - 75W DIY LED

[nofene]

Hello everyone and welcome to the NMG a.k.a. "Nofene's Micro Garden"! ​

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After a couple of test grows I have arrived where I wanted to with my lights and grow space. It is time now to open this journal which I hope will be a perpetual journal of my adventures with our beloved plants.

-As space (or the lack of it) is a main concern I had to choose a small tent, it is 60cm by 60cm with a height of 160cm ('round 2x2x5ft). I am not using proper intake or outtake vents, but there is a 6" clip fan arranged so it can draw some fresh air in (the 'hole' where the fan is, is next to a window). I never had problems with smell, it wasn't strong enough that I couldn't manage it with some plugin air-freshener. The 6" inch fan plus the ones on the lights create a very nice airflow all around the tent, more than adequate even with the lower settings on the clip-fan.

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- Lights
I am using 2 lights, the main one is a 54W, 7 band spectrum design (more info on it here). I made a supplemental light of 19W total, (9W 660nm, 10W 3000K) I will turn this on when preflowers are showing or the number of plants warrant it. The two lights draw exactly 75W from the outlet. The whole system consumes 90W of electricity with all the lights on plus the fan running at full speed.

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Some info:

The RH is hovering around 60-65% at the moment. I have a bit of problem with the temps, during the day with the lights on it reaches round 24C but drops down to 17C (63F) during the night.


- So what's in the tent then?
I know I am pushing for space but oh well, I really want to use every little umol of light I can. So on the right-hand side you can find vegetables, a sweet green pepper strain with quite some peppers on it plus some herbs in the smaller pots, but I think we are more interested in the air pots.

• The smaller 6 litre air-pot has a Cheese Candy seed in it from Delicious Seeds (not sprouted yet, went into the coco on the 8th of Jan).
• The larger 10 litre air-pot has a Royal Jack Auto from Royal Queen Seeds in it (day 5 - sprouted on the 6th has major problems you can read about it a bit further down.

Both plants are autoflowering!

I know the pots seem a bit on the small side but with the size of lights and the expected yield it will be enough (hopefully).

I am using 90% coco (Bio Nova coco brick expanded) and 10% perlite as growing medium. For nutrients I am using the Canna Coco line, but no Rhizontonic only the bare minimum: Coco A+B, PK13/14). However I have seen it in action and it always helped me so as soon as the LST starts I am going to use the regulator from Aptus.

As of yet I have not started adding nutes.

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This is my first coco grow I have only grown in soil until now, so advice, tips are always welcome!

As I said the Cheese Candy has not shown her head yet, but here is Jaqueline and unfortunately I am already experiencing problems, major ones. She popped her head on the 6th, with the tips of the very little new leaves being yellow but sturdy. Unfortunately the yellowing did not stop.

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Now any experienced grower will have a very good laugh or will get mad at me for being impatient as I was with myself... I did not wait for the PH pen to arrive so I expanded the coco bricks in unchecked water..

What an idiot I've been, because when the pens arrived turns out I have a PH problem. I calibrated the pen properly using a 6.86PH calibration pouch, turns out my tap waters PH is way above 7, 7.3 to be exact so I need to address that ASAP (the tap water is at 30ppm so that should be fine). Not anticipating this problem I tried a DIY solution of adding lemon juice to the water (got the PH down to 5.8-5.9). Still wasn't able to get proper PH down but should be tomorrow!

Properly flushed the whole pot with this solution, but the problems got even more severe, she can't hold head, the stem became something that I could only describe as dehydrated. Now the leaves are yellowing from the inside. I fear I killed the roots with the lemon juice...

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Thanks for the tips if You've got any, but I fear I have to start all over again with her..


Thank you for dropping by!

 

[nofene]

Quick update:
I got some ph down, unfortunately no hydroponics shop in my close vicinity so I got some from a pet store. It is 9.6% sulphuric acid I know it is not the best solution but for now it will have to do.
Jacqueline passed away during the night unfortunately but I had another seed, so a new royal jack auto went into the 10l air-pot.
I flushed both pots with properly ph-d water (6.0 for now I want to go down to 5.7-5.8 but I didn't want to rush so with time...).

 

[nofene]

The Cheese Candy a.k.a. Samy has popped her little head!




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As you can see on the pictures the tip of the leaflets are quite yellowish, I believe this might be due to the PH problems I have encountered earlier. Everything's under control now though, PH is at 5.9, stable.

I am still just using PH-d plain water. If I see some proper growth over the next couple of days I am going to start her off on a very light 1/16 nutes solution.

 

[OttawaGreen]

That is a nice little setup.

 

[nofene]

Day 2 - 14th of Jan​

Pics from this morning, she is picking up, the yellowing is receding nicely. I am hopeful that the PH problems in the beginning did not cause too much damage to the roots.
Jackie the new Auto Jack Herer did not sprout just yet.

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OttawaGreen: Thanks and welcome to the journal!

 

[Rifleman]

 

[nofene]

Daily Update, 15th of Jan

Day 3 of Samy's life she is rebounding nicely tips still a bit yellow but that might not go away. She is growing bit by bit as expected at this very early stage. She will receive some water today, 5.8 PH water with a drop of Aptus Regulator to the gallon (so very diluted).

And as an extra, the new generation of paprika have popped!


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Rifleman: Welcome!

 

[nofene]

Hope you guys won't take my frequent updates as spam

Anyways I was trying to take a better picture, so for a bit I turned on the 20W supplemental light since it has loads of warm white light in it. She received her water earlier today looks just nice. I am hoping the Royal Jack Auto in the bigger pot will show herself soon.

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Btw. is it just me or is there anyone else who enjoys the veg stage more? Everyday you can see the development only by naked eye.

 

[nofene]

Update - 17th of January, 2015

Samy - Day 5, everything's going right, new growth appearing in the middle. no yellowing on those leaves.

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Jackie - Day 1

She popped her head!
Bit of yellowing on the first leaves but if Samy is anything to go on it should not be a problem.

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Both plants only getting PHd water, still only under ~54W of LEDs. My temps are just a bit below where they should be, 22C in the day 18ish in the night. I am exploring the possibility of adding some CFLs for extra light and warmth, but I am not sure as this really should be about my LEDs and what this 75W are capable of.

 

[nofene]

Update - 18th of January, 2015

Hi everyone, today's update is here.

Everything is looking fine, I took PH readings of the water going in to the pots and of the waste as well. 5.8 going in, from Jackie comes out 6.0PH water, from underneath Samy comes 5.9PH water. Still only giving water did not even think of nutes just yet. Temps are still low-ish, RH hovers between 55-65%.

Samy - Day 6

Jackie - Day 2

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[nofene]

Update - 20th of January, 2015

Samy - Day 8 Looks like she is quite stunned because of the PH problems at the beginning, but she is starting to grow a bit quicker, new growth can be seen in the middle.

Jackie - Day 4 Now isn't she a beauty? Although 4 days behind in sprouting, but she is almost caught up with Samy in size. The new leaves in the middle are coming along as well, nicely.

I was just thinking, that until now I only grew mostly Indica plants, I know it is quite soon but Jackie's first small leaves, they look narrow-ish to me. She is a Jack Herer auto so a hybrid but mostly Sativa. Can I make any assumptions as to her being a more Sativa pheno or is it too early to even think about this? (I would be chuffed to bits if she turned out to be a more Sativa phenotype with a more "head high" )

Thank you for reading!

 

[nofene]

Update - 1st of February

Hello everyone!

So, a lot happened in the last 2 weeks since I last posted here. Not many were good things, but at least I can say, I have learnt quite a lot about Coco, its properties, how to manage pH efficiently.

I was still experiencing pH problems such as fluctuation, plus because I did my expanding in tap water and later didn't flush with enough water my Coco it still had some salt build-up which messed with my pH as well. This unfortunately resulted in the loss of Jackie. As upset as I was in some way I was expecting this, hence this being my first grow in coco.

Anyways where are we now plant-wise?

Samy - Day 20(!)

Because of said problems, she lost a lot of time she was stunned for the most part of her life. Nonetheless she is becoming my pride and joy because she pulled through!
She is getting some nutes now only 1/16 in strength though. I am watering everyday around 1l goes in 300mL comes out.
My mix is the following:
5L water (let it sit for 24 hours, then pH it to 5.9)
- 1 drop of Aptus regulator
- 5ml + 5ml Canna Coco A + B

This results in a 280ppm, 5.8pH solution.

The new growth is explosive, she is trying to make up for the lost time. Although I was planning on using LST on this plant but given the problems I encountered the beginning of the grow I gave up on this (her being an autoflowering plant). But we will see how quickly she will start producing flowers we'll see what she tells us to do.

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You can see on the lower leaves (especially in the first picture), poor sod had severe Boron deficiency (which is a result of the very high PH). This caused slow progress, but other deficiencies showed as well, very light green she was. Now she is looking much much better, dark green leaves, she is taking up nutrients (water going in ~280ppm, coming out: ~100ppm). No nute burn thankfully.

Jackie da II - Day 2

I still had one last more Royal Jack Automatic seed and I decided against putting her in Coco. I thought Samy is pulling through, she will be able to teach me how to grow in Coco properly, did not want to take unnecessary risks. So she went into the following mixture in the 10l air-pot:
- 6l root boosting compost (Miracle-Gro)
- 3l perlite
- 1l vermiculite
- 100g Organic Chicken Manure pellets (NPK - 4.0-2.5-2.3 + 9.3% CaO and micronutrients )
- 100g used coffee grounds (tested for pH - 6.2)

I have used this mix before, nothing too special about it, but it works well and is quite balanced.
For vegging I am using only tap water (let it sit for 24 hours before using) watering every 2-3 days as needed, plus 25 grams of used coffee grounds per week for extra nitrogen. Beginning of flowering she will receive more chicken manure pellets, and some PK 13/14. Aptus regulator at beginning of flowering and beginning of LST. CalMag as needed.

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She looks pretty Also this is a good grow to compare it to my previous grows without air-pots!
I decided I needed as much lights as I can have to help out Samy with her recovery so the main 54W one is situated close to her and the smaller 19W one is above Jackie da II.

Thank you for reading and don't forget with Coco preparing it right before usage is everything!

 

[nofene]

LST on Samy - 2nd of February

After a close examination we decided to give a try LST-ing Samy. Nothing too major she is small, but I wouldn't mind a run at this technique even though she is not the strongest seedling I have ever seen. PH and ppm are all good, we'll see where this takes us.

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[nofene]

Update - 3rd of February

Hey everyone!

Hopefully I got to the point from where my grow will get at least a bit more interesting. Done with the pH bullshit, everything should be on its way to a good grow now. (I am still aware that this is my first coco grow so I am bound to mess something up... )

Samy - Day 22​

She rebounded extremely well, she is responding to the nutes as well as it can be expected. The new growth is vigorous, healthy, deep green in colour. PH steady 5.8 going in, 5.9 coming out.
She showed such a will to live and had such a speedy recovery that in the end we decided to do LST on her.
It might seem even a bit cruel to stress her even more, when she already had such a troubled start. But then again I am not depending on this grow, obviously I want to keep her healthy and I do not plan to torture her to death, however I am _experimenting_, trying techniques I never tried before, improving my skills, broadening my knowledge.
I am aware that she is an autoflowering strain, that is one of the reasons to start tying her down this early. She lost quite a bit of time, so she can go into flowering soon I don't have much time. As soon as pistils, preflowers start showing up I will stop LST-ing her, I want to give her enough time to heal and stretch out properly as she wants.

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This is my first run at this but she responded quickly. If you look at the picture made 24 hours ago you can see how much she grew. Hopefully I am doing it right she is close to the coco some parts of the main stem only 5mm or so. However she is still young, I think she will grow quite a bit still. Nothing snapped she just positioned her "solar panels" to get the most amount of light I removed 2 small leaves they were brown and dead, they probably would have fallen off on their own but they were blocking some light so got them with a pair of sharp scissors.

I am thinking of slowly upping the nutrients, but I will give it a few days of growing before that.
Should I be fearing her turning male with all this stress?

Cheers for popping by!

P.S.: Jackie da II is feeling great she is growing nicely nothing to report there. (Which is the best thing now with the other grow being problematic.)

 

[nofene]

Update - 12nd of February

Samy - Day 31​

She is taking the low stress training nicely, three main tops showing. I pruned her here and there, getting rid of week, little growth, cleaning up the underside. Also got rid of some leaves that were in a bad way. I am easing up though, expecting pre-flowers to show up in the next couple of days, I want her to stretch and grow now as she likes.
I reckon it is time to up the dosage of the nutrients a bit. I am thinking aiming for around 500ppm. No pH or nute problems at the moment, thankfully.

Jackie II. - Day 13
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She is looking nice picking up speed now. Today she got some used coffee grounds for extra nitrogen. I am planning on LST-ing her as well, but I want to wait for her to grow more before getting into that.

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And one group-shot of the ladies with the lights.

Thanks for stopping by!

 

[nofene]

Update - 21st of February

Hey everyone,

back again, a longer update here, with more pictures. Everything is going in the right direction, every plant is thriving, hope it stays like this...

Samy - Day 40

Just as a reminder she is a Candy Cheese Automatic, she was stunned in the beginning by quite a lot, I encountered PH problems in the beginning of this Coco grow. Now she receives about a litre of water per day, I am using a 5.9 PH, 525ppm solutiton. Coming out it is 6.0 PH, 400ppm. I am upping the dosage though to 10ml/5litre of water (it should be about 600ppm like so).

In my experience (my previous two grows with very small LEDs) if an auto-flowering plant - under a limited amount of light - is stunned it will turn into flowering later, growing out properly, rather than go to flowering "in time" but remain short. These experiences coupled with seeing how she rebounded and took the low stress training allowed me to be maybe a bit heavy-handed at defoliating an training but she looks brilliant she kin of reminds me to a bonsai tree.

I finished the training though very small (maybe 3-5mm long) pistils appeared at some of the bigger budsites. Also I have around 5 main tops now, the main stem being the biggest. She should start stretching and firming up slowly. But I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking:

On 18th of Feb. - Day 37

Today, 21st of Feb. - Day 40

(Click for larger images!)


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Ithink she looks just brilliant, most her leaves are small, nowhere near in size to Jackie II's biggest leaves. This is due to removing the biggest fan-leaves due to poor state (yellowing, spotting because of the nute-lockout in the beginning). Plus they did not get much light either. The leaves are bit to light in colour, could be a darker shade of green, hence the upping of nutrients. I hope we'll see a bit quicker growth from now I can't wait to see what she will grow into!



Jackie II - Day 22

So she is the auto Jack Herer in soil. She grow an awful lot in the past 9 days, but in a quite interesting manner. At least I've never seen a plant grow like this. She remained really short and stocky, still only around 12-14 inches in height, while the lower, new shoots start to stretch. Almost like a natural sort of LST.
I thought I will help her out by tying down some of the fan-leaves and tucking them underneath the now shoots, thus allowing even more light to reach the undergrowth. Also I gave a try to a technique I saw in one of the journals on this site (unfortunately, do not remember which), I tied the main shoots ever growing fan-leaves a bit closer together, so to increase light coverage. I am also turning her every 24 hours by 180 degrees.

Day - 19, 18th of Feb.

Day - 22, 21st of Feb.

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So there we are, hope more of you will join me!

 

[nofene]

Update - 24th of February

Samy - Day 43

She is growing beautifully, getting 650ppm, PH 5.9 water. No nute-burns, rapid growth, looking really nice. Planning on flushing one on the weekend, then upping the nutrients to 800ppm.

(Please click for larger pictures.)


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Some pre-flowers appeared, I am not restricting her in any way now. After stretching I plan on one more defoliation session, but that should be it.



Jackie II - Day 25

Not much to report here either. I am trying to get some of the lower branches out with tucking of fan-leaves and some minor LST, but she is still stocky and short so I am not forcing it.

And a groupshot:

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[nofene]

Update 3rd of March

Hey everyone, another update here

Everything is alright in my little world, tent.

Samy - Day 50

Over the weekend I flushed Samy, using 12litres of PH-d water (she is in a 6 litre airpot). At the end 5.9PH, 85ppm water came out so I think it worked. Since then, on Monday, I upped the nutrients (to every 5litre of water 5 drops of Aptus Regulator, 15ml Canna Coco A, 15ml Canna Coco B) the solution is 750ppm, 5.8PH. She started stretching before turning on the full blooming power. No nute burns of any kind as of yet, but she did undergo one more defoliation, where we removed quite some fan leaves and opened up the inside so light could reach som more branches.
Probably going to reach 100 days in the end, but I do not mind what she has been through I am surprised I did not end up with a dwarf hermie in the end

Jackie - Day 32

She is a bit further ahead of Samy, more pronounced bud sites, but much smaller, she is starting to show some stretch but she has fewer side branches, would be surprised if she yielded over half an ounce, but we will se how she will react to the pk13/14 when we get there. She was defoliated a bit as well, but it was kind of late, or I don't know, first I wanted to wait until she gets a couple of nodes before LST-ing her but in the end I ran out of time the stem became too thick. Anyways I expect her to stretch by quite a lot in the next couple of days.

PHOTOS

Samy

Jackie + together

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Thanks for reading!

 

[nofene]

Quick pic

I turned Jackie around and have tucked some leaves on both plants, you can see the tops forming. Hoping they will take off now properly.

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[nofene]

Update - 10th of March

Everything is going right, although I do have some concerns. My tent became a jungle tops hitting their heads up everywhere.

Samy, who is on Day 57 is looking good, nice very strong stem and branching. After flushing her the other weekend I started on a feeding routine of watering once a day alternating between PHd water and nutrient solution. I am still giving her, ph 5.8, coco a+b, 750ppm feeding.
She gives me a bit of worry though. Although she looks a happy and healthy plant stretching properly yet she is still not starting to flower properly, Jackie is waaay ahead. She is producing some very measly looking pistils as pre-flowers, but I do not know if she will turn flowering at all, with all the problems she had plus looking at her age... What do you think?

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Jackie is on Day 39 she is splendid she took on the late LST quite well, now I've got a couple of budsites under nice coverage and she is happy. Not stretching immensely thankfully but I still needed to raise the lights a bit. shooting out pistils as mad, I am not entirely sure when to start adding some pk13/14, I expect not for another 2 weeks but I am not sure. Tips?

Groupshot:

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