Lighting 4 Girls 3 LED's (2 x NL & 2 x Auto Bomb. 2 x eshine DS 300 & 1 x Vipar B2X3) Arty's Dwarfing Technique

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Welcome to my first journal here at AFN

I started the grow on 1 August 2014.

2 x Northern Lights Auto (Freebies, unknown origin)

2 x Auto bomb (Green House Seeds)

My grow space dimensions are 110 cm W x 60 cm D x 200 cm H

Propagation equipment


  • Shot glasses
  • Rootit rooting sponges
  • Rootit digital thermostatic controller for propagator
  • Sankey heated propagator & cover
  • misting bottle
  • maxicrop plant growth stimulator
  • Ph'd water
  • Hygrometer


Main Equipment


  • 1 x Vipar B2X3 LED
  • 2 E-Shine DS300 LED
  • Vents KSA accoustic box fan 100mm - Thermostatic controlled 2 speed
  • Secondry accoustic box home made
  • Accoustic ducting 100mm
  • Flexible silencer
  • DIY final exhaust point silencer
  • Black orchid 100mm inline axial intake fan + Rcd (advised due to not having a thermal cut out)
  • Pots 4 x 8.5 liter autopot pots
  • Rhino Pro 100mm Carbon filter
  • 4 gang switchable surge protected electrical outlet for the LED's
  • 100cm x 60cm x 10cm catchment tray
  • Bungees for vibration dampin on intake fan
  • insulated walls
  • Blue lab truncheon EC meter
  • Ph pen + calibration powers
  • TDS pen
  • Thermometer/hygrometer
  • Remote thermometer sensor and thermometer for checking temps remotely
  • Various sundries jugs, beakers, dosing syringes, de-ionized water for rinsing meter probes.



Substrates,nutrients & amendments


  • Canna coco Pro
  • Perlite
  • Dyahydro diatomacious earth granules
  • Vitalink premium clay pebbles - EC & PH stable
  • Greenhouse powder feed
  • Hydro coco PK boost (PK13-14)
  • Epsome salts
  • Molasses - blacstrap
  • PH up
  • PH down


Now for the grow


This is my first time growing in coco, I'd seen so many awesome grows using coco I thought I really should give it a go.

Initially I was gonna do it in "auto pots" so I bought a 4 pot 11 liter kit + airdomes & then thought no, I really should get to know my new medium personally.

So I decided to hand water drain to waste and bought 4 additional 8.5 Liter auto pots instead of using the 11 liter ones i got in the kit.

My mix is very light and airy 49% Canna coco 49% Perlite & 2% Diahydro with vitalink clay pebbles at the bottom of the pots.
(2020 update, I now use 25% of either perlite/seramis & 75% coco)

With such an airy mix it does mean I water more often but I don't mind as I love seeing my girls.

The method I am using is one that I came across whilst looking at seeds online, I came across Joint doctors "Ogre" and in the blurb he recommended starting in a small pot and transfering to a larger final pot at the first signs of flower.

By doing this the plant was put in check right at the moment it was gonna start stretching as "ogre " is supposed to be a bit of a beast, I liked the idea and thought this will work with any auto and give me small yet dense little bud factories.
(Over the years I have further refined this method but the keeping it short I have kept and incorporated in to how i grow).

I have used this in a trial run on a "Massive Midget" from Heavy Weight Seeds and had a nice result but sure I can do better.

So here we are with the 4 girls 3 LED's coco dtw stunted grow.

Here is a picture of my Massive Midget grow 100% organic in soil. She was about 30cm

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The start of the grow

On the 1st August 2014 I soaked the seed in PH'd water for 12 hours.

All 4 cracked and i put them in to rootit sponges (they look almost good enough to eat- like chocolate sponge cake) being careful to make sure they weren't to saturated with water which had been PH'd.

Into a heated propagator with digital thermostatic controller set at 24[SUP]o[/SUP]C and up they popped happy as Larry.

After the first true set of leaves had developed nicely I put them in to 1 liter (18 cm tall) pots and watered with a weak feed allowing the substrate to dry out a fair bit between watering to get those roots going down.

Once the roots were at the bottom of the pot they had a good few more leaves and I kept the substrate a little moister , though still allowing for there to be a wet/dry cycle.

EC was 0.8 which was 1/2 gram approx of the powder feeding to 1 liter of water & PH'd to 5.8

At week 4 One of the Northern Lights started to show her first pistils so they all got potted up in the the 8.5 liter pots.

They were also given a foliar spray of epsome salts, where I live we have very hard water (you wouldn't want to meet it in an alley way on a dark night) so I don't worry about calcium.

1/4 tsp mixed in warm water to dissolve the the Epsom salts and then top up to 600 mll and sprayed onto the leaves once a day for 3 days to keep mag def at bay.

At the end of week 4 I was up to 1.4 EC and got very minor tip burn , so I backed it down to 1.2 EC and al was good.

Start of week five the Northern Lights that started first was starting to flower nicely and had stretched to 30 cm approx Whilst the other 3 were still looking like mop monster.

Nice tight internodes and nice and bushy.

They are all now showing their pistils at giving a little stretch, it will be interesting to see what happens as they were repotted a week before their first pistils and I wondering if they will stretch more than the Northern Lights which started a week earlier.

Up until this point they have been under 24 hour light partly to keep temps even as the greater the swing between lights on and off the greater the stretch will be so 24 hours it was.

I will change the light cycle to 20/4 when they have settled down.

up to start of week five the girls were under 1 x Vipar & 1 x E-shine, both full spectrum.

Start of week 5 Vipar is center full spectrum flanked by the two E-shines with flower spectrum and angled toward center.

So that's it up till now (I'm amazed I managed to do this journal at all after a very late night)

There are some pics in the post below that I took a few days ago & with all the best intentions in the world, meant to start the journal then lol . The girls have grown a fair bit since then pics to follow in a day or so.....
 
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The two at the back are the Northern Lights an the two at the front are the Auto Bomb
Camera used is a Nikon S3100 compact and White balance was use to take these shots under the LED
 
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I have never grown in coco before, so am very curious, and am along for the ride. The attachments do not work for me though :-(

BEAUTIFUL pic of the MM in soil!!!

MrW
 
I have never grown in coco before, so am very curious, and am along for the ride. The attachments do not work for me though :-(

BEAUTIFUL pic of the MM in soil!!!

MrW


Thanks MrWeeds . Nice to have you along , it is my first time in coco, so it will be good to see who it turns out.


Cruising along, arty. Giddyup!

Lol Nice have you on board bud. Do what I can but they do they own thing.
 
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More pics , Theses are about a week a part from first pics and shows how much the girls have grown :)
I forgot to adjust the white balance and was set for the Vipars spectrum With the E-shine in flower mode everything gone a little orange.
First pic is not good quality but does show how the lights are set up.
NL at the back AB at the front.
I'll remeber to set the white ballance next set of pics.
 

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More pics , Theses are about a week a part from first pics and shows how much the girls have grown :)
I forgot to adjust the white balance and was set for the Vipars spectrum With the E-shine in flower mode everything gone a little orange.
First pic is not good quality but does show how the lights are set up.
NL at the back AB at the front.
I'll remeber to set the white ballance next set of pics.


The colour of your grow room makes me feel all warm inside.
 
Ah yeah, red light special lol. Lookin good brother arty.
 
Quick update

Broke camera, bought new camera,still trying to work out how to use it lol.

Seeds went in to water 1/8/14 day 46 from that date

nutes PHed to 5.7-5.8 EC 1.3

Lights switch to 1 eshine full spectrum 1x eshine bloom 1x vipar full spectrum .

All now in flower, One Nl slight corkscrewing on leaf tip, the NL a little less tolerant than the Auto Bombs to higher levels of nutes but only tiny bit of tip burn when I had nutes at 1.4 EC

All have bushed out well and had a little stretch but is minimal which is what I was aiming for.

Heights


  • NL No.1 is 36cm (14")

  • NL No.2 is 30cm (12")
  • AB No.1 is 39cm (15")
  • AB No.2 is 25cm (10")

pics taken with adjusted white balance, colour rendering still needs some work as the plant are a little darker than some pic would suggest.
pics take prior to watering coco quite dry so slight droop, they soon perk up after feed.
These pica are 1 week from last pics.


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Ask any question regarding them and comment gratefully received.
 
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