TN1G’s MicroGrow#1: 1L Hydrospiked Coco Northern Lights Auto

[TheNumber1Guy]

Hello
Trying to grow 4 little Linda Seeds NL auto’s.
0 cannabis experience, but I read a lot and have grown some pretty mean tomatoes and peppers in container gardens.
What I got goin on:
Using 6” pots filled with 80/20 coco/perlite.
Coco was washed and double buffered with 2000ppm (.5ec scale) calcium nitrate and magnesium sulfate, then rinsed with 100ppm MaxiGrow in RO/DI water.
Premixed and let the rinse sit for 24 hours and the MaxiGrow settled at 5.6ph.
Gunna feed and water with hydro spikes. Have had good luck with them in the past for flowers, herbs and veggies (assuming you keep the reservoir BELOW the pot)
Using MaxiGrow for veg, MaxiBloom for flowering.
2 of the 4 pots have 1 Tbsp each of Azomite mixed in for science.
Have a PK booster (Dry KB) on hand for giving the tomatoes a lil kick, but don’t think I will need to use it.
I have all kinds of gardening amendments should I need them.
Debating on topping the plants or not. Seems topping autos is a touchy topic. My peppers really seem to like it.... Final grow space will only be 22”x18” and 30” tall.

Progress so far:
5/27 Scuffed and started soaking 4 seeds
5/28 Moved to paper towel
5/29 All seeds cracked, transferred to pots and put under my DIY 1020 60w full spectrum seedling/clone led. Held coco level down about 1.5” to add more depending on stretch
5/30 1 seedling already out of soil
5/31 (Day 1? 0?) Other 3 seedlings are up, first one is stretching a bit, so blocked other 3 up 1” closer to the light to see if it helps. PAR meter was reading over 200, so the stretch kinda surprised me. Installed Hydrospikes and put 125ppm MaxiGrow in the reservoir. Set lights to 18/6
6/1 All cotyledons are out
Temps holding around 85 and RH around 75%

I don’t know what day is technically #1. Maybe I’ll say today is for easy math this month.
Probably going to keep them in seedling area for a week or 2 then move to growing box with 4x Nukehead 50w full spectrum COB’s.
As far as feeding, I wanna keep it simple. Probably gunna up the nute PPM by 100 a week till I hit 600-650 and run that till the end. Around week 3 or 4 I’ll transition to MaxiBloom. I’ll probably do a 0ppm flush the last 5 days or so.
Hopefully with keeping nutes under 700ppm plus the hydrospikes keeping the coco moist 24/7, I won’t get much salt build up or need much flushing.
I have calcium and magnesium on hand, but hope the significant buffering I did plus the high amount of calcium in the Maxi’s will take care of it. Also curious to see if the Azomite plants will act differently.
Guess that’s all I got right now. I’ll post an update if anything develops and/or when I get the grow box done.
Oh, I’m also thinking about trying to S1 one of the plants for science. I found a journal on another forum of someone successfully selfing a fast auto flower and the offspring coming out great with zero herms. I guess it really depends on how well my seed’s mother was stress-tested.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Nice, it looks like you've thought things through. I like that you've properly prepped your medium beforehand. I get the impression that a lot of people merely hydrate and rinse their coco coir and call it "job done." I assume it is now sodium-free .

I used to be a big fan of General Hydroponics before Larry Brooke sold the company to Scotts Miracle-Gro five years ago.

 

[TheNumber1Guy]

Nice, it looks like you've thought things through. I like that you've properly prepped your medium beforehand. I get the impression that a lot of people merely hydrate and rinse their coco coir and call it "job done." I assume it is now sodium-free .

I used to be a big fan of General Hydroponics before Larry Brooke sold the company to Scotts Miracle-Gro five years ago.

Thanks man. I was on the fence between Maxi and using Osmocote plus. I went with Maxi because I have like 7 or 8 lbs of the stuff on hand.
On the Osmocote, I really enjoyed reading all of your experiences on it you have shared. I will do an OC+ run at some point for sure.

 

[013]

Hi Number1,

For starters I would suggest LST for your autoflower plants, not topping. The low stress training should get you to a harvest, topping an auto is a bold move; done incorrectly it will stunt your plant or it may even kill your plant. Autos can be topped but it’s a pro move not recommended for new growers.

 

[TheNumber1Guy]

Hi Number1,

For starters I would suggest LST for your autoflower plants, not topping. The low stress training should get you to a harvest, topping an auto is a bold move; done incorrectly it will stunt your plant or it may even kill your plant. Autos can be topped but it’s a pro move not recommended for new growers.

Thanks for the input. Seems like I would wanna get lst going pretty soon. When would you start?
Also, I have this one little fella that germinated from a jet black seed that isn’t stretching like the others. No point, really. Just an observation.

 

[TheNumber1Guy]

Small update-
Plants are looking ok except for the the leggyness.... The one little black-seed fella isn’t stretching at all though. He’s staying short and his stem is noticeably thicker than the rest. If it’s a squat pheno, he (she) might have a date with some STS (for science, of course). Kinda funny, I only wanted 3 plants, but I soaked the black seed because I didn’t think it would pop.
I did check the PPFD at leaf height where the stretch stopped and it’s right at 230. I’ll add ~25% more led density to my seedling light next go around.
My RH is getting a little low, but I think my temps are doing ok. Pictured is the the last 24 hour cycle. BTW, Grovee wireless thermometer/hygrometers are bad ass and they have a little $15 one the size of 3 poker chips that runs for about a year on 1 button cell.
So far the 4 girls have drank 1/3 gallon of water total since Saturday, or about 10oz each. Gives you a good idea of how little you would need to hand water them. 2.5oz’s of water apiece per day would be plenty.
Checked the nutrient solution. Still at 125ppm, but ph has climbed to 7.0!!! I’ll have to dose it with a little vinegar every few days till my PH down arrives I guess. It was supposed to be here yesterday, but is now delayed till Friday.
Thanks
TN1G

 

[013]

No point in bending a tiny seedling yet, let her strengthen up first. I’d wait until 4 or 5 pairs above the cotys (bottom round pair of leaves) before training, however I grow photoperiods. Autos run their own internal clock since they have much shorter lifespan. Hopefully someone with more auto flower skills will pop in soon to correct me where I lack experience.

Have you ever read 420 member Emilya’s article on How to Water a Potted Plant? It’s a great read for every new member. Go up to the search box and click search, type in the user box Emilya and the article is linked in her signature. Once seedlings are up and stabilized, instead of me trying to determine when to water - I let the plants tell me when they are thirsty based on plant appearance & leaf stance. Then I slowly begin to stretch the wet / dry cycle on the plants.

Cool deal on finding the jet black seed, hope it takes off like a rocket!

 

[TheNumber1Guy]

No point in bending a tiny seedling yet, let her strengthen up first. I’d wait until 4 or 5 pairs above the cotys (bottom round pair of leaves) before training, however I grow photoperiods. Autos run their own internal clock since they have much shorter lifespan. Hopefully someone with more auto flower skills will pop in soon to correct me where I lack experience.

Have you ever read 420 member Emilya’s article on How to Water a Potted Plant? It’s a great read for every new member. Go up to the search box and click search, type in the user box Emilya and the article is linked in her signature. Once seedlings are up and stabilized, instead of me trying to determine when to water - I let the plants tell me when they are thirsty based on plant appearance & leaf stance. Then I slowly begin to stretch the wet / dry cycle on the plants.

Cool deal on finding the jet black seed, hope it takes off like a rocket!

Just finished reading it!

The Proper Way To Water A Potted Plant

The Proper Way to Water a Potted Plant Also covered: the importance of pH and why we successively up-pot How to Water Over the last several years I have put a lot of study into this, and I feel that I can now define the proper way to water a potted plant. Keep in mind that this discussion...

www.420magazine.com

That’s quite a valuable insight. I will mark it for reference!
I do think that letting my coir dry to that point while using salt based fertilizer might cause problems, but when I grow in soil, that’s exactly how I will do it.

 

[013]

Ah great catch man, shit I forgot about the coco... totally my bad!

 

[TheNumber1Guy]

Ah great catch man, shit I forgot about the coco... totally my bad!

No worries my dude. That’s still great info!

Minor update...
Added an inch of clean coco/perlite to the 3 leggy plants. The tallest one had nearly fallen over! I went with the angle of the dangle and just filled around it with fresh coco to jumpstart LST.
My short fella is staying compact as hell.
All in all, over half a gallon of water has been sipped up since Saturday.
Checked nute ph and it’s back up to 7.00. Splashed a few drops of vinegar in to bring it down to 5.5. EC still at 125ppm. Given my TA is so low, I’m not gunna sweat ph too much until I get up to ~300 ppm and have some buffering capacity.

 

[013]

Good deal on the backfill, beg, borrow or steal just keep them standing upright!

 

[TheNumber1Guy]

Little update-
Made some headway with setting up a grow space. It ended up being 22”x22”x 45” tall. I don’t have to be “stealthy” but I figured it would be a fun project, and it never hurts to be inconspicuous. Plus it will be nice to get the seedlings out of the middle of my office floor.
Still gotta rig up ventilation with a thermostat and humidistat, circulation fans, apply fire-proofing, install arc-fault GFCI plug, hang lights and line it with Mylar.

 

[TheNumber1Guy]

Day 5- I have upped the nutes to 225ppm plus my PH down came so adjusted to 5.6 since it seems to keep climbing.
The plants seem happy in their 60w led home for now. I did check my data log for temps and adjusted my 6 hours of dark to the hottest part of the day.
I’ve been doing some more DIY stuff. I drilled and tapped 4 of my Nukehead 50W cobs to some new heat sinks with fresh thermal paste and installed some 50mm ball bearing fans. I was worried they might be too small... The are very quiet and stay cool enough to comfortably hold in my hand. Wrapped up my carbon filter and am super happy with how well the linear pwm thermostat is working.
All in all, things keep moving along.

 

[TheNumber1Guy]

Little Day 6 update-
Added a splash of nutes to the res and took it to about 240ppm. PH creeped up a bit so a few drops of PH down had it back to 5.4.
Everything seems to be going fine with the girls. They appear healthy. The little one from the small black seed is noticeably smaller than the rest. One of the others does have a small funky deformed leaf. Is that some Rudaralis showing through maybe?
The leaves and stems look healthy so I’m not going to worry too much. The HydroSpikes are doing a fine job with keeping the soil damp to the touch. I like using them on other plants for water, but I’ve never used them to fertigate before. In 6 days they have given the plants almost 1liter of nutrient solution each. The rate they are drinking it up has noticeably increased. I guess this is technically a passive self-regulating wicking DTW hydroponic grow with 0% runoff?

 

[TheNumber1Guy]

Day 7- Decided to move the girls to their new home. Since they are going from 60w to 200w of LED, I decided to cut the nutes down a bit to ~190ppm in case they start drinking more water with the bigger lights. I also raised the light to where I got similar PPFD readings to what they came from. I’ll gradually drop the light closer and up the nutes over the next few days. The good news is I have my exhaust fan thermostat dialed to where I seem to be holding under 83 degrees.
Now I need to improve light proofing, install a small shelf to get the plants above the res and throw in some circulation fans.

 

[TheNumber1Guy]

Day 7.5 - DISASTER
I accidentally dropped my carbon filter on my biggest seedling!!!
It knocked the pot over and nearly crushed her! I think she will be ok though.
Despite being on it’s side, Very little coco spilled... maybe a few tablespoons at the most. I peeked into the pot a bit and am impressed with how damp the Hydrospikes are keeping the coco. There is no saturation anywhere, but it is moist right up to the top. The pots feel nice and heavy like they had just been watered a few hours ago.
I did rig up a shelf to get the pots above the res. Now I can slide it out easily for maintenance.
When I checked PH today, my meter just started going haywire. It was jumping from 5 to 10 and everywhere in between. I tested it in some calibration solution and it was all over the place. I ordered a replacement, and have titration drops to use for now.
The other seedlings look ok to my untrained eye outside of my little black seed runt. She seems to be loosing ground to the others by the day. I did put them all about 4 inches closer to the lights.
Debating on if I should begin to lst now or wait a while. Any input is appreciated.
Thanks

 

[kruton]

i learned last year i should have started lst early but i wait until i have 3 to four sets of fan leafs then start my lst. i did that with my grow this year and now i have 11 branches that will be tops when they flower last year i waited to long and my auto went into flower and made it tough to lst

 

[TheNumber1Guy]

i learned last year i should have started lst early but i wait until i have 3 to four sets of fan leafs then start my lst. i did that with my grow this year and now i have 11 branches that will be tops when they flower last year i waited to long and my auto went into flower and made it tough to lst

Thanks for the feedback! When did you start lst on the grow that was too late?

 

[TheNumber1Guy]

Day 8-
Noticed leaf burn on one of the gals. Hopefully it won’t stunt her for long. Moved light up a bit, and adjusted nutes to 250ppm (0.5ec).
I rigged up a very slow 120mm fan to circulate air. It’s blowing down on the plants with just enough force to barely keep the stems shaking.

 

[TheNumber1Guy]

So I bit the bullet and lst’d the 3 bigger plants. I’ll let the runt be for now.
It’s surprisingly nerve racking.
I think everything came out ok for my first try except for one cotyledon that I cracked in half.