Indoor 1sr Grow! Auto-Bomb Fem Organic Hydro stealth closet.

[mmstickybuds]

Hey All!

As I mentioned in my intro post, this is my very first auto or indoor or hydro grow. I have grown a few crops outdoors but nothing of major significance. Anyway after deciding a few months ago I want to finally explore hydro for purely personal use I discovered autos and began the journey to creating my closet. Well, today I finally finished the closet and here are the specs:

1 x 1.8m tall steel cabinet
1 x 15cm outlet fan
1 x 10cm inlet fan
1 x 250w Halide light
1 x Passive hydro pot system
1 x 20L reservoir bucket
Silver sheeting for interior
1 x root oxygen pump
Kelpak germinating nutrient
1 x Bottle of BIO GRO vegetative nutrient
1 x Bottle of FISH MIX nutrient
1 x Bottle of Fulvic Acid
1 x Bottle of BIO BLOOM flowering nutrient
1 x 250w HPS bulb for flowering
I have also used Bio Mix organic medium and hydroton pellets as the two mediums.

I will post the pics in a day or two of the outside and inside of the closet, it looks pretty great to me but it is my first one and I'm not amazing at DIY. The only problems I have so far is the one fan I got, the bigger outlet fan is made of plastic and although it works very well it is very loud, which is not ideal for a stealth grow, so for this I am going to try return it and get a larger version of my inlet which is very quiet but way more expensive.
The other issue I have (unsurprisingly) is quite a lot of light leakage, around the doors frames it shines out like a horror film, but I am going to try foam sealant strips so that's not too much of a problem, but I have a lot of light that's coming out the inlet and mainly the outlet holes at the back. I need to make some sort of light trap box but have no idea where to start, tried googling it but thought I would get way better advice here.

If anyone has any good ideas or advice regarding both the light boxes or leaks in general, and also any advice on making things quieter, I would greatly appreciate it. I will post pics as I say in a day or two and will also keep the thread going with regular updates on my first crop. Just waiting for the seeds to germinate at the moment.

Thanks in advance and look forward to creating this journal!

 

[autowidow]

May the marijuana god bless your crop.

 

[KUDO]

:howdy:bro it sound nice look forward to see you set up, and to you fist Auto grow and big welcom, enjoy the ride i well ,

 

[mmstickybuds]

Thanks guys! I appreciate it!
My first seed has sprouted, woke up this morning to her popping out the soil ever so slightly. Though after watching her through the day so far it seems like her first leaves have been burned! I can't understand why this happened, though I assume it must be the lights, but was also concerned it was possibly the Kelpak nutrient. It's just the oval leaves but the center of the plant seems fine, and green...Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance!

 

[mawc]

gl

 

[mmstickybuds]

Please Help!!

Hey everyone

So my 2 seeds germinated, though as I suspected the one was burned by the light, I think it sprouted too early and subsequently died before ever living..
Anyway the second sprout is growing well and on day 5 at the moment, looking strong and green, and growing pretty quickly.
Something I wanted to check though, is I read somewhere that you shouldn't sprout in a smaller container and then transplant which is what I have done, unfortunately. Rookie mistake from a rookie, but this is how I learn right? What I want to check if firstly is this true? Will it significantly affect my yield? And secondly should I do the transplant into its final pot now, while it is still small and not root-bound? In my mind that would hopefully reduce the amount of trauma as the roots won't be so affected...though this is just my logic so I would really appreciate some help here...

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, I will post pictures of both the closet and the plant later tonight when I have access to a camera.

 

[mmstickybuds]

Thanks Thai Buddha Man,
Yeah where I read it was on a seed bank, Herbies, here's what they said "As in all autoflowering strains we recommend sowing in the final pot to avoid the need to transplant which results in a higher yield with larger buds,"
So obviously I thought I would rather check what everyone on here says as it's a very knowledgeable forum...so thanks for your input!
It is pretty small, it has it's first serrated leaves and new ones but it's like an inch tall, it is feminised though so it should be female. So even so you think I should wait til it starts flowering?
Thanks again for your help!

 

[mmstickybuds]

Thanks a lot!
That all makes perfect sense, I will do the transplant in a week from now. I think it makes sense to make sure the roots are at least more established. Very worried about harming my little gal.
I just realised something else, and am not sure if you know hydro grows well or not, but I have a system called 'AutoPot' passive hydro systems, so I have the Hydroton (clay pebbles) at the bottom of the pot, and at the top half will have the organic bio mix grow medium. The thing I wanted to check though is the woman at the store told me I should use a pump inside the hydroton to circulate the air to the roots, constantly giving the plants fresh oxygen and that it will significantly increase my yield. The problem is she was not talking about weed, so it may be true for vegetables but I know bud has sensitive roots so I worry this will actually affect this negatively (as it is a little plastic dome at the bottom of the pot that pumps air out), also I have read on here that too much air can cause the plant to try out and also that generally autos need all the room in the pot for the roots. I read that in a forum not about hydro though so it's hard to get an answer for exactly my system.
Anyway thanks again for your help TBM! Appreciate it!

 

[fraggle]

Hi there mmstickybuds. I'm new to autos too, but have been growing indoors for a while. I made the rookie error of sowing into little pots as i would with photos, and like you quickly realised i'd made a mistake. I potted on at day 7, and was surprised at how much root growth had happened already. If your pots have plenty of depth they should b ok for a while, but if you're using shallow ones i'd pot on. Mine looked a bit stressed for a day, but they're looking fine now, and surprise me every morning how FAST they grow. Also, be careful with nutes on babies. Happy growing.

 

[mmstickybuds]

Oh cool, for some reason I thought Hydroton was just the name used here in South Africa. Sorry if I didn't explain it properly I will try be more thorough here. Well the system uses a reservoir and the water goes into a automated pump that regulates the amount of water let in to the tray that holds the pots, but the bottom layer of hydroton will effectively be in water constantly, and the pump has a little 'cage' kinda thing that goes into the pot at the very bottom with the hydroton all around it, so I don't think the entire pump will be submerged in water but the air comes out the bottom of the 'cage thing' so I imagine the air will go into the water? Also wanted to make sure this being in the hydroton won't affect the taproot negatively?
Thanks for all the help and sorry for all the noob questions...but I just want to make sure and make as few mistakes as possible.

---------- Post added 09-06-2011 at 12:53 PM ----------

Thanks Fraggie!
Nice looking crop you got there! That's why I was also worried as the baby of mine that died already had a pretty big taproot, so that's also what caused my initial concern.
I have a pretty small pot that she is in at the moment, so after this comment I will consider doing it earlier.
Yeah I have only been using germination/transplant nutes as I think the joint Doctor had said you should do for 2 weeks or so, all organic also and she seems to be reacting well to that and her environment so far. Thanks for the help!