PirateBob's First Grow Hydro DWC - 600W HPS - Sensi Shiva Skunk

[PirateBob]

Well leaves are back to being green after some ph trouble. I dropped the screen and raised the lights ready for some scrog type action.

I have to go out of town for 2 weeks but someone I can trust will be looking after them, I'm sure they will survive. I probably wont switch to flower until I get back so I might end up over-vegging somewhat.

The runt of the pack is at the front.

Screen engaged!

 

[Sphnx]

I'm really excited to see this one man, I LOVE SHIVA SKUNK. The buds are always big and juicy.

 

[PirateBob]

Well I just got back from holidays (last 2 weeks of veg) and switched over to flowering.

I left my pygmy marmoset Gustavo in charge of the scrog while I was gone.

I think he's done a pretty good job overall, I switched to 12/12 2 days before this was taken, do you guys think the stretch will be ok?

Maintenance worker.

Stems, needs some cleaning up down there.

 

[MaxYields]

Gustavo did a wonderful job!! Props to him for maintaining such a awesome grow!

Sorry I am late, but definitely subbed now, excited to see these babies flower!!!! Lookin very good Pirate Bob, I am jelly!

 

[Sphnx]

Here comes the fun part Good luck Green Cleaning that jungle

Gustavo is a little boss. He didn't munch on anything! lol

 

[PirateBob]

Well you know what they say; 'you get what you pay for' and I was only willing to pay peanuts.

I flipped to 12/12 two weeks ago so I really hope most of the stretch is over, pistils started showing about one week ago. I tried using a 36 hour night before the flip to try and speed up the change to flowering. They have also been under the HPS their whole lives so it shouldn't be as much of a shock for them.

My canopy is pretty uneven at the moment, I need to clean it up before a few get too close to the light.

I accidentally gave them too much nutrient and pushed it up to 1200 ppm but they don't seem to mind so I'm just leaving it. pH is hovering nicely between 5.8 and 6.5.

I did a bit of defol today so it looks a bit sparse at the moment, hope to only do one more then leave it alone.

Just with the 192W of CFL

With the 600W HPS running

There are at least 36 main bud sites and quite a few smaller ones.

Stems!

Thanks for stopping by!

 

[PirateBob]

Been in flower almost two weeks now.

I fear I may have created monsters! Haha I hope they stop growing soon. I moved my light an inch or so higher.

I have bent and lst'ed some stems today, did some light defoliation too for better light penetration.

ppm back down to 1000 after I let it get too high.

Next res change I am planning on adding;

Bloom Nutes
Small amount of veg nutes (for extra N)
Molasses
Beneficial bacteria/myco
Liquid kelp
Small amount of extra PK

Pics attached.

Stems are pretty thick. lots of nice sites developing.

Canopy is pretty uneven. Gustavo was a bit sloppy in the last weeks of veg. A couple of the stems are quite uneven and one is much larger than its partner. I've been tying them with twine and some garden soft ties into more of an S-shaped stem.

Well that's all for now, will post more pics in a week or so.

 

[PirateBob]

The girls are getting really tall, I definitely over-vegged them by about a week when I went on holiday.

I am having trouble keeping them low enough under the light and keeping the temp/humidity down.

I am probably going to buy a dehumidifying air-conditioner because my daytime temps are getting as high as 80-85f and humidity at 70-75% and I can't get it down with the air flow I have thanks to my new carbon filter stifling the air circulation.

Can I run a small air con/dehu outside the tent and duct the cool air in or do I need to have it inside the tent?

Looks like I am going to have height/temp problems unless I do something different.

 

[PirateBob]

Phew, crisis averted. Installed a few new centrifugal inline fans and a dehu/air con to the system. I have 4 small clip on fans inside for circulation as well.

The tent is now the most comfortable place in my house!

The positive air pressure makes the walls of the tent bulge outwards in a kinda cool way.

I am looking at seeds for my next run and think I'm going to try to fit in;

In DWC 4x Green House Seeds - The Doctor (Fem)

And in Cap'n Style Buckets;

1x Cannabis & Marijuana Seeds | BARNEYS FARM Barney's Farm - Pineapple Express (Auto Fem)

1x Green House Seeds - Big Bang (Auto Fem)

Probably being greedy but hoping to do a heap of training on the 4x DWC plants and then harvest the autos before they get too big. Ill give the autos 2 weeks head start.

 

[PirateBob]

Recovered pretty well from the latest round of defol, looking nice and green in there.

3 weeks into flower and finally lots of bud sites appearing!

 

[Jimmy6000]

Hey Pirate.
2 pages in 2 month's.Your journal move's about as fast as mine does.
Anyway I see ya around and you know stuff.
I would have loved to see her trained a little earlier but I think you'll be very happy with those donkey's.
Looking good man.

 

[PirateBob]

Hey Jimmy, thanks for stopping by.

There isn't a great deal going on at the moment with the girls, I am just kicking back and watching them flower now. If I've learnt anything it is only because of the contribution of helpful individuals on this forum.
Most of the useful stuff I picked up on my year or so of reading, before setting sail on this journey, wasn't from the 'underground cannabis bibles' or medical marijuana literature, but was from this forum.

I should have done just about everything earlier with these girls, I was too easy on them. Since it's my first grow I added an extra couple of days in the training and let them get bigger before topping in case anything went wrong. In hindsight I could have quickly finished all the stripping/training and cut a week or two off veg.

I'm in week 4 of flower now and all the stems from the last photo now look like this;

Still got at least 5 weeks to go, maybe more. I'm going to get a proper (non cell-phone) camera and take some more pics soon.

 

[Jimmy6000]

Awesome man. Nice little teaser..
Can't wait to see some full shot's.

 

[PirateBob]

Bit of a flowering update, these shots are from a couple of days ago, end of wk 4.

Still no decent camera but you can see things are starting to fill out a bit.

On we grow!

Slightly over-crowded!

 

[Jimmy6000]

Maybe over crowded ,just a bit,lol....but they look healthy and Happy.
Just realized you only have 46 post.That would explain why you didn't get my Pm.
No worries,I think it will still be there once you hit 50 post.

 

[PirateBob]

Just started week 6 of flower. Only 3-4 weeks to go!

Kinda messy and crowded but it will do for this first run. This is the view from the front, can't really get any shots of the stuff at the back.

I did some bud backbuilding today as per Light Addict's thread. This seemed to be about the right time/cola size to do it. Hopefully will help to fatten the buds up a bit.

 

[PirateBob]

Hi 420 Mag,

Things have been progressing slowly but steadily towards the finish line. I am a few days into Week 10 of flower, I will be flushing very soon and getting ready to harvest. I have secured a decent camera which I'll use for the harvest to get some nice bud shots for you guys, in the meantime here is a quick progress update with the camera phone and my first attempt at a macro shot!

It's kind of hard to get into my space and get some great shots but here is the field upon which we finally have flowers. Sorry about the fluro in the way, it's just so I can take shots with the HPS off.

Some of the other tops around the side of the tent. The leaves don't look too happy but I've been feeding these girls really hard and giving them large amounts of stress formula so I think overall they are fine.

This lady is threatening to climb right out of my space!

Some more of the family. My entire grow is suspended carefully with twine and hanging cables.

Hey look at that we have trichomes!

The trichomes are looking more mature on this section, I only really want 10% amber so I think I'll start flushing tomorrow and harvest in about 5 days.

Thanks for stopping by! Will update with pics and results from harvest, now I have to go read about drying and curing.

 

[PirateBob]

Started the flush today, I was pushing my nutrient regime pretty high towards the end, up to EC 1.8, so I want to give the girls at least 4-5 days (doesn't sound like much but I'm told for DWC that's really all you need).

I've heard mixed things about molasses in hydro it but who cares, all sorts of other weird things have worked so I am flushing in;

30 Gal R/O water
Molasses at 5ml/gallon (pre-diluted in warm water)
pH 5.5

I've been looking around and like Kyle Kushman's method of drying and curing, so I'll be giving that a go this time.

Next step will be chopping down some trees! I'll leave you guys with a crap photo of a small tester branch I dried out today that may have found it's way into a joint Tastes awful and it smells like lawn clippings but it's dry and I am still stoned 4 hours later.

 

[NateToke]

Some people say roots only grow when the lights are off.... I dunno

If roots only grew with the lights off, us 24 hour guys wouldn't havetoo many plants, would we?

 

[MaxYields]

If roots only grew with the lights off, us 24 hour guys wouldn't havetoo many plants, would we?

My guess is the people who say that, actually mean that roots only grow if they are in the dark (e.g. Buried under soil / in a light tight reservoir, etc.) it is bad for roots to be exposed to light and they certainly won't grow if constantly exposed to light... Or so it is said.