New Grower My first solo and experiment grow.

[Necrowpharaoh]

Okay, so I will be periodically coming back to expand upon this. If there's anything that you would add or any piece of advice you have pertaining to what I have going on, please leave a reply- I am interested in hearing all points of view (as long as it stays civil lol)
Hello everyone of AF, I made a quick introduction over in the intro section earlier today but I decided that I would give you guys real-time updates of this grow rather than feed you everything all at once at the end.

So, here we go..

The idea of this grow is to get the highest yield as quickly as possible while experimenting with a couple of often shunned ideas. Keep an open mind up through the end and let's actually see what happens. This is a very small start-- 3 plants in a 2Wx4Lx5H mylar grow tent-- but to attempt to make up for that I have bought "XTRM" White Widow Auto Fem seeds from AMS which are supposedly reported to yeild 300+ grams... We'll see lol.


I will not be using any grow medium beyond the rock wool germination cubes and a "custom" foam stem support system to help hold the plants up at the bottom later on. I will also be using an LED Light that has both a flowering and bloom setting.


As this is my first grow I kept buying parts to a minimal- instead I bought kits that I will work off of later. For now, I am running a Faster Farmer 3 plant Aeroponics system with a cycle timer (5sec on, 2 minutes off). I have set two of the three buckets up with the root misting system and the last one with a drip ring (I have more faith in the misting system than the drip ring as of right now) this is because I want to experiment a little on my first solo grow and find out what works for me.


In each of the three grow buckets I have 2 6in air diffusers (I live in the desert- the idea is to help try to keep the root growth area in a decent temp) running off of a 576gph air pump. The Faster Farmer system came with a submersible water pump- to which will have to work until after my first harvest. The waterpump is in a filter bag and next to it there is yet another air diffuser.


I nabbed a MARS Hydro Reflector series LED light for a decent price to which I'll be running 24/7 because every study that I have read has shown that plants grow on average of 33% faster doing so and unfortunately I am pressed for time. That said, the last 48 hours before harvest will be all lights off as the final step to the grow


For the plant's nutrients, I have the Cyco Pro Starter Kit + Cyco Suga Rush + Cyco Supa with AN Voodoo Juice and AN Final Phase starting at 30% strength and work my way up and just seeing how the plants react (I've never worked with this strain). At the end of every week I will run straight water to flush the system for roughly 6 hours. Again I will be reading the plants to see how they react to certain things.


For C02, I have to keep it simple and cheap, I will be making gallon batches of Yeast and Sugar water to hang above the plants. There will also be 2 6-8 inch fans to help move the air- haven't pick those up yet. I'm also not in the position to do anything for ventilation right now due to finances but one day that will happen as well (I know I know... vent is important but I'm broke).

Here is what The setup looks like for now-
The Reservoir is on the outside of the tent in the darker corner of the pic lol.

As far as pricing goes-
Tent- $80
MARS Hydro LED- $200
Faster Farmer Aeroponics bucket system- $160
6 6in Air diffusers- $8
TDS tester- $40
Nutrients all together $260
Jeweler's loop- $4
Recycle timer-$70
Seeds- $170 (10 WW XTRM auto Fem, 10 super skunk + 20 mystery seeds)
Temp and humidity monitor- $12
PH Kit $14
576gph air pump- $25
Extra Air Line- $10
Measuring syringe $5
Water pump filter bag $13
Rock Wool cubes $8/40 pack
coming to a total of $1079... assuming that I didn't miss anything...

 

[Necrowpharaoh]

This post is my grow journal-

Day 1-
Started Germination of three AMS White Widow Auto-Flowering Feminized seeds at 8:45am March 27th in 2in Rock wool cubes soaked in filtered water in a grow tent with a temp at 82°F under a dome with an LED light on.

Week 2-
**Under construction**

 

[Necrowpharaoh]

My tent's temp ranges from 90 degrees in the middle of the day and dips to 60 in the middle of the night- is this too much fluctuation in temps?

 

[DABaracuss]

My tent's temp ranges from 90 degrees in the middle of the day and dips to 60 in the middle of the night- is this too much fluctuation in temps?

Yes that is a big jump ..you want to keep the root zone at 75-80 you need a fan with temp control to help regulate the heat or an ac and a heater that doesnt give off light when lights are out...but imo too cold is worse then a little too hot ..feel the leaf should fell a bit colder then the room..if it is then its doing its thing.

 

[9bear]

My tent's temp ranges from 90 degrees in the middle of the day and dips to 60 in the middle of the night- is this too much fluctuation in temps?

I grew indoors under the same circumstances because it's winter here . My tent would is the same size except that mine is taller ( 6' ) .Temp fluctuated between 85 and 63 degrees with no ill effects imo. When the lights were on I simply opened the flap slightly and when the temp dropped I closed it . If there were any negative effects it simply slowed the plants growth rate slightly but nothing serious .

 

[Necrowpharaoh]

The root zone temps are easier for me to manage than the then rest of the tent because the system is sealed, I have 2 air stones per bucket and the res is outside the tent-I wanted to be able to completely control the root zone first and foremost. I also will be running a 24 hour light cycle with only the last 48 hours in darkness before harvest. Hopefully the tent's temp doesn't stunt their growth too much- hopefully I don't even notice =d

 

[DABaracuss]

Fresh Air calculation is very important to bring in co2 and push out o2 the plants make..plus strong stems and stalks...My plants only got about a foot tall compared to 4 or 5 in 5gal pots due to temps..could be my strains I had.

 

[Necrowpharaoh]

I will make up for the C02 the best I can with a sugar, yeast, water combo- I've personally had great success with it in the past for a lower budget approach on a much larger scale... Hopefully this compensates because other than opening vents, which currently I am during during parts of the day, I cannot afford (financially) to put much more into this adventure.

On an interesting twist a bag seed, defying all odds, has not only sprouted but was thriving in some very harsh conditions. Considering the bud that this seed came from, it has more than my own interest. Since I saw the little sprout, I have transplanted it- I'm 80% positive that it is a photoperiod plant so, regardless of gender I can keep it in Veg state as long as I want... because of the quality of bud that it produced while still producing very viable and strong, healthy seeds, I have decided to see what exactly it turns out to be- and hell if one of my other three seeds don't sprout, it will have a wonderful home in my aeroponics system until I decide to push it into blooming

The one with the grow light on was right after I trasnplanted it into the rock wool. The second darker pic was this morning.

 

[Necrowpharaoh]

Day 4- one of the AMS WW plants have not only surfaced but it is barely a mm shorter than the other seedling that has been going for a good week (The random one that I was talking about earlier).

Upon closer examination I noticed that the seedling was growing so intensely last night that it actually tore the rock wool cube a little lol.

 

[Necrowpharaoh]

Also, the tent's temp hasn't dropped below 70 since a few days ago (things are starting to warm up around here).