New Grower First Indoor Grow! T5 + COCO.

[kxvyvxw]

Hey guys!

Long time reader, short ass time poster!
I'm here for good now though

I currently have 4 seasons of outdoor grows under my belt, which I would say turned out quite average due to several circumstances.
Timing was my main issue, i was always late to get seedlings, most of my plants thrived and lived happy lives,
and usually ended up with a decent yield, but full of light, fluffy popcorn buds.

All my respect to outdoor growers(you guys do amazing things), but I thought it was time to take my operations indoors.

I didnt want to start too small, but i also didn't want to go all out for my first year or two of learning to grow indoors.
My current set up consists of the following, i will also include pictures!

5x5x7 Gro Cell tent.
1 x 432w 8 bulb t5 fixture. (I will talk about this later)
9 X Smart pots (Small brand name)
1 x Oscillating fan
2 x Digital Temp/Humidity meter
1 x humidity dome(transplanting..) (I will also talk about this later)
Exhaust/Filter set up(waiting to arrive) -
1 x 6 inch centrifugal fan (CFM:400) with speed controller.
1 x 6 inch x 500m Carbon filter (CFM : 440)

Nutes for this grow - (very simple)
Dutchfest Coco A+B
Growth Tech liquid Cal/Mag
Rhizotonic
I will be looking for something to boost during flowering, coco friendly and available locally(hardest part)

Now back to what i was saying earlier on the T5 lighting, I will be making a seperate post after this one regarding the humidity dome.
Some of you might be thinking, why does he plan to run 432W on 9 plants?, Well the answer isnt very simple aha..
Alright so i started of with the plan to start 9 girls under the 8bulb T5 fixture until flower, then throw another 8 bulb fixture in.
I really do like the idea of having a 5x5 with a 16 bulb t5 set from seed to harvest, but as of lately i've been contemplating T5's + LED's..
Ultimately, I would prefer the 2 x 8 bulb T5, and start doing some LST next grow, to try and utilize the the T5s specifically on the canopy as recommend!

Temps are running around 72-80
humidity is between 70-80% (Exhaust + filter on the way)
Anyway, This is part one out of a 2 post start to the thread!

Thank you for reading so far!
Peace

 

[kxvyvxw]

First Indoor Grow! T5 + COCO. PT2

Alright so part 2, I had written it all out, and uploaded photos, Chrome crashes.. time to start again..
Basically i'm going to have to cut things short this post.
(edit: this is almost twice as long as my original lol)

So I germinated 9 x Heavyweight Fast & Vast using the paper towel method.
Less 24 hours in 1 had popped with a tap root slightly more than 1/2 inch long, so far on day 5, 7 out of nine seeds have popped.
Even after all the reading that autoflowers dont like to be transplanted, i decided to go against, as I was shown an incredibly safe method to transplant coco seedlings.
All these seeds that have been germinated where placed directly into coco, which was inside a double styrofoam cup(I will explain briefly later)
Then they where placed in a humidity dome under 200w T5(1-2 feet away, kept changing it, I'm new!)

The first seed that I planted in soil popped in less than 24 hours again, I was really happy with that.
Day by day as more seeds popped in the paper towel, I planted them using the same method.
By day 4, I had 6 seedling popped out of the soil on they're styrofoam cups.

I will briefly explain the styrofoam cup method, which ultimately led me to transplanting my auto's which I'm not sure has effected them, no noticiable change since and its been roughly 38 hours.
So anyway, its really basic and I'm sure many of you have heard about this or something similar.
What you do is take 2 styrofoam/plastic cups, with one, you remove the bottom, as low as you can, you then make a continuous slice from bottom to top(shown in pictures)
You then place the modified/bottomless cup inside the normal one, leaving around 1-2cm gap between your cut from the bottom, to the bottom of the second outer cup.
You fill this small 1-2cm gap with straight perlite, then place your coco ontop.
When it comes time to transplant, make sure you have you're holes dug in your pot your babies will be moving into,
you then remove the outer cup, while gently holding the sliced/bottomless cup together(usually holds itself there) while slowly turning the pot/cup horizontally(so nothing falls out of the bottom!).
At this point you have your sliced styrofoam cup in your hand, which holds your coco + seedling, place your free hand where you have cut the bottom out of the cup, turn it vertical again.
You now place this inside the hole you have pre-dug realier, with the styrofoam still in place, then you slowly and gently pull out the styrofoam up(as shown in photos) and pull it upwards.
Fill in the remainder of the hole with coco.



Woah, that took longer to write the second time that it did the first..
When I saw this method being used in person, and how little damage it did, I decided to start my autos in the double cup method, dispite everything i read about them hating being transplanted.


The past few days I've been researching alot about how fast the taproot likes to go down on autoflowers,
so yesterday(day 4)I decided to transplant the day 1 seedling into a 5 gallon pot, as i was doing the procedure mention above, I noticed, the was a tap root, just peaking out of the coco the slightest little bit, but it was there!
So in less than 4 days, this seedling grew a tap root 2-3 inches long.
Seeing this on the oldest plant made me transplant all other 6 seedlings straight away!
The transplant went down completely fine as in terms of how the soil/roots where handled, I dont think they would have even noticed.(hopefully)

Now here is another issue I have, I'm really keen on getting my tent dialed in for a 16 bulb t5 set-up with 9 plants per run,
I would definitely say i have self diagnosed OCD in one way or another, so getting 9 plants per run would be what I'm really trying to achieve,
if that means i'm germinating seeds 7-10 days within each other that doesn't really matter, i definitely don't want to waste any seeds though.

2 of the 9 Heavyweight VF's looked pretty unhealthy to begin with, they were green and dry, almost crispy.. and I dont think they are going to pop.
Today I germinated 1 x Dark devil & 1 X Black cream by Sweet Seeds, which both looked really nice and healthy, this was to fill in my 9 pots.

Here are my babies, the oldest is VF 1 which is 5 days since he popped his head out of soil for the first time today.
The 7th seed that popped has gone directly into a 5 gallon pot last night, still waiting on seeing her pretty little head.
The others are not labeled by date unfortunately, although they all popped within 1-3 days of each other.


(I'm not sure if all 6 seedlings are in these photo's, I'm pretty sure they are)

As you can see, some look a little deformed, and i would say they are(but still healthy looking in my eyes), 4/6 of these came out with helmets,
which i think have led to a little deformity of the seedling, maybe you guys can help me with this!?

Its so hard to find the right answer on the internet, for such a simple question, but.
Too me it seems like, there is not much point in the double cup method, if they're going to be in there for 4-5 days MAX..

Ultimately I would like to germinate using the paper towel method, then put those seeds straight into a 5 gallon pot.
Now you guys have seen my set up, intentions and how things are going, what would your recommendations be?

Any other information on my set up, germinating, transplanting or light distance's etc, please feel free to drop your advice in!
Any information is highly appreciated

I will be trying to keep this journal updated 2-3 times a week,
Im always on here lurking and researching though!

Peace all, and thank you once again!

 

[Wait what?]

If we're saving spots, i call this one for when I think of something witty to say

 

[kxvyvxw]

Hahaha you got me there
Nice display picutre too, Dinafem!! got a some here for the next round, hopefully everything here goes accordingly

 

[Wait what?]

I'm becoming a big dinafem fan. Good luck with grow

 

[JAYAR]

You're gonna love the Black Cream, very complex smell/taste with a knockout high Beautiful colors too. Good luck with your grow bud!!

 

[kxvyvxw]

You're gonna love the Black Cream, very complex smell/taste with a knockout high Beautiful colors too. Good luck with your grow bud!!

That sounds amazing to me! and thanks for dropping in JR, I think I've looked at most your journals

Peace!

 

[JAYAR]

Thanks K!! I've read nothing but good things about the Dark Devil and Fast and Vast too. I'm subbed cant wait to see that forest!!!

 

[officinalis]

Sounds like you've done a bit of homework kx:thumbs: I'm not familiar with your lights out growing in coco but there are plenty here that are so plenty of help available. Good luck with this one.:karma Cloud:
:Sharing One:

 

[kxvyvxw]

Thanks Officinalis

I'd hope all my homework brings in some A+, we'll see how things go as its my first indoor grow, I'll be satisfied with a B- or C+ haha

Thanks for dropping in!

Peace