New Grower First Grow - Autopots - Fastbuds Gorilla Cookies

[warnd]

Hey everyone! Been lurking through these forums for the past few days trying to find some ideas for my first grow and someone suggested I document my grow on here to get more advice and help. I thought I was off to a pretty good start, but my plants seem to have slowed down a lot in the past few days and I am looking for some guidance.

First some info on the grow:

Indoors
AC Infinity 3x3 Grow Tent Kit
AC Infinity S33 Ion light
3x - 5 Gallong Spring pots set up on auto pots

Nutrients:

Medium (This came recommended by my local hydro shop. I had originally planned to use soil, but he said this would be better with the autopots)

The tent is on the ground level of my house and the temps pretty comfortably stay in the 70-75 range during the day and might drop down to as low as 65 when the lights are off. Humidity has been more of a struggle. House is forced hot air and it sucks the humidity right out of the room. Added a humidifier but cant get the room above 50 percent. That should be it for the setup and what I am working with. Next post I will detail my progress so far.

 

[warnd]

Ok so keep in mind, I have no idea what I am doing lol. I tried to read as much as I could to get myself the right type of setup, but as far as the intricate details of water and caring for these plants...im in the dark, but more than willing to learn. Anyways, here we go:

Ordered 3 Gorilla Cookies seeds from Fastbuds and decided to soak them overnight before going with the paper towel method. Here they are after 24 hours in the papertowels...not quite ready yet:

Another 24 hours later...thats more like it. I was so happy I didn't screw this part up LOL:

Next, I decided it was time to put them into their Spring Pots. After seeing many different opinions, I decided to plant directly into their final container. I know there seems to be a lot of debate about best practice here. My thought is always the less I give myself a chance to mess up, the better. This also might have been my first mis-step. When I put the Bioblend in the pots, I didnt really pack it down or even get it wet. I just lightly filled the pots with the medium and got ready to plant: (also to note, these spring pots have the air base and air domes in the bottoms of them)

I made a little divot for the seed and placed it in the hole with the tap root down and covered it up ever so slightly...Just a pic of that process...not the final resting place:

And then I added 300 ML of regular tap water. This is just something I pulled off the Fastbuds website. Probably also another mistake here. I have not PHd any of the water that these have been fed. I bought a PH pen, but I am stupid and have not figured out how to use it yet:

Sure enough, I came back the next day and all of the seeds had managed to push their way above the medium. Here are the 3 plants. Last one had a hard time shedding its seed casing. Looking back, I should have done something sooner, this one is stunted as a result:

I would say this puts us at the end of day 2. Few more pics in the next post to get us up to speed.

 

[PeaceLove&Buds]

Welcome officially to AFN! A small one gallon type humidifier might work great inside the tent. You’d really only need it in the beginning stages and I keep my outtake air low to keep it in the tent. I’ve put my 4 gallon on low in the tent before and that worked good too. I look forward to your grow!

 

[warnd]

Ok so after the end of day 3 or 4 I cant remember, this is what they look like. So far up until this point, they have gotten the same 300-500 ML of plain tap water every day. Notice the stunted one at the end...this is the one that didn't want to lose its seed shell:

Fast foward another few days...this is probably the end of the first week...maybe day 7...not much change:

Quick update to wrap up to this point. Plants are watered 300-500ML every day plain tap water. Tent has been 70-75 degrees with about 40-50 percent humidity. This is after 7 days...In my mind I feel something is wrong because growth is so slow, but excited that they at least sprouted. Light was 100 percent at 36 inches as per manufacturers recommendation. Next post will have pics from this week and bring us current.

 

[warnd]

Ok so at the start of week 2, I decided it would probably be a good time to start feeding these guys. Again, according to Fastbuds advice, I started out with 1/8th of the recommended feeding schedule from advanced nutrients. However, at this point I am still only giving the plants the same 500ML of water. At this point, I decided something was definitely wrong. Comparing my plants to others, it seemed like mine were falling behind in growth and the color is starting to change...probably for the worse. The following pics are from today ( Day 12). I notice the new leaves developing in the middle of all the plants, but it still seems so slow:

Ok so this brings us to today. It is day 12 of the grow, and the plants do not look happy lol. Obviously I am doing something wrong, but I am so confused if I am over watering or underwatering. I recently lowered the light to 24 inches and last time I watered (yesterday) I poured in a lot more than usual (about 25 ounces per plant). The inner leaves seemed to grow more over last night with the increased watering, but I am really not sure if I am going in the wrong direction.

Should I be watering these to run off every day?

Should I water to run off and then let them sit for a few days until they dry out again?

The bottom of the spring pots is absolutely bone dry (because I never added any water when potting) and I feel like this can't be good for the roots, but im ignorant about it to be honest. My goal for tonight is to figure out my PH pen so that I can at least make sure the water I am giving them is proper. Really just want to get to the point where I can turn the autopots on, but I know I am still quite far away from that. The whole reason I wanted the autopots in the first place was so that I didn't mess up the over/under watering dilema lol. Let me know what you guys think! Looking for any and all advice here. Hoping that they are saveable!

 

[warnd]

Welcome officially to AFN! A small one gallon type humidifier might work great inside the tent. You’d really only need it in the beginning stages and I keep my outtake air low to keep it in the tent. I’ve put my 4 gallon on low in the tent before and that worked good too. I look forward to your grow!

Thanks for all of your help! And thanks for kicking me in the ass to post here lol.

I did buy a small humidifier and had it running in the tent, but it kept building up this white film on everything inside the tent pretty hardcore. From the limited research I did, it seems like it was calcium buildup from the hard water that we have in NY. I since moved it right outside the tent and have not had the same issues, but unfortunately it is not as effective. Maybe I need to run better water through it?

 

[PeaceLove&Buds]

Makes sense but I’m not sure to be honest. I don’t know how they work I just plug em in

 

[Zaaboot]

Hey @warnd and welcome to AFN - the good people who run similar set ups will pop in and sure to help. I am in a totally different set up so would nto be able to advise much, but off the top of my head @St. Tom is a master with the autopots

Good luck with your first grow!

 

[Bill.de.Cat]

Welcome to AFN .......Looking pretty good, don't worry so much...right now the work is being done under the soil building a good root system to support growth above later. I run 6 4 gal auto pots and it's always slow at first.

 

[St. Tom]

Hi bro welcome to afn and a few pointers I'm not a big soil grower coco is my main medium but with your girls they do not need feeding everyday especially not to run off at that age so I think from the beginning this may have slowed your progress by keeping your medium a little wet . and I will offer you a solution to help with future plants I start every plant I grow in solo cups as they make overwatering impossible and I still use them with coco or soil plants and repot them later with no ill effect