First Grow DIY Grow Room

Just Switching from Seedling to Veg. Added additional LED grow Strips I had sitting around to augment 20/4 6500k Fluorescent lights. LEDs are running 24/0. So after doing all my maintenance today, I though to myself this is not put together very well. I have to reach over each time I have to do anything and these plants are small, wait until they get bigger. So I did a little rearranging and added some racks and a full size grow light to give them more space and light.

Topped 3 of the 4 plants Saturday, one of the Blueberries was getting a new set of leaves so I'll wait a couple days to top her. for the first time I could very faintly smell the plants, they really seem to be bushing out over the past week. 4/6/21 - Updated the Environment controls to keep Temp & Humidity Balanced

Plants recovering nicely from being topped. Auroras seem to be more vertical growers than the Blueberries, also filling in more as well. The blueberries seem sparser, but their lower leaves are huge. thinking maybe I should trim those to make the tops fill in more. The smell in the room is fantastic, I walk in and take a big sniff, glad I installed carbon filter or the whole house would be smelling that way soon

Decent Growth this week, topped off DWC with 3/4 Gallon each with new nutrients. Smell is getting stronger, increased filter to high from med. starting to get a bit of smell outside the grow area. Starting to look into building my ScrOG, debating on one large screen or 2 smaller screens for different strains. Any input would be appreciated

Did a complete change-out of water and nutrients, added sight water level tubes to DWC buckets, plants seem to be taking up about 1 gallon a week in water. Also did a big trim-up and defoliation while I had the girls out for change over. Added some brackets to the walls to ScrOG next week (maybe sooner) girls grew 6" last week! looking at 2-3 weeks to switch over to flower. we'll see how ScrOGing goes, want to get some support in there before switching over. The Aurora's seem to have a definite lollipop shape going with heavy/dense tops, where the Blueberry's seem to be more spread out naturally, haven't done any LST but they are low and spread out.

Turned my back on the girls and they've grown almost 3 inches, so time to add the ScrOG. Also added a fermentation Co2 generator, hoping to get a little extra growth as I ScrOG. I think I might flip the the girls to Flower in the next couple week, but we'll see how they do with the ScrOG & Co2

5/3/21 Got ScrOG in just in time for the girls to start peeking through. Each went through about a gallon of water since last check-in. Going to update nutrients next water cycle to more of a Flower feed schedule, increasing bloom and decreasing grow. Micro will stay the same. getting antsy to switch over to flower, but I will wait until all 4 girls are peeking through ScrOG more. 5/5/21 Girls have been thirsty this week, just topped of with 1 gallon each, doing switch over to flower nutrients. going to keep an eye on them to see how they respond Thinking about adding a Co2 setup with fan to see if that help growth, but they seem to be doing well as is, about 2 more inches since 5/3 keep adjusting under ScrOG to spread them out for flower!

Final Defoliation before I Flip to flower next Friday. Did a big cleanup under the ScrOG to direct all the energy to the tops. I also Reworked the Co2 Generator, let's call it 2.0 Generator. I know it might not be upping the Co2 tons, but some is better than none. Best part of the 2.0 you can see it working so you actually know there is some Co2 going in. Basically a 1 liter bottle with Sugar & Yeast with 1/4" tube that goes to second bottle with water in it. Tube is submerged so you can see it bubble about twice a second. the second bottle has another 1/4" tube that feeds through the grow room wall and connects to the back of a small fan that circulates the Co2 into the room. As I said not expecting a whole lot, but it can always be scaled up next round. The girls continue to grow at a good pace, 2" in 3 days and drinking about 1 gallon every 3 days as well.

Doing the switch over today! Ordered in a new Mars Hydro TS1000 to try and increase bud size supplementing with (4) 32w Gro-Lux Fluorescent two on each side of the TS1000. Set Lamps at 14 inches above the tops of plants, topped off dwc buckets and cranked the exhaust fan up to high. Contrary to what I've read, the LEDs put off more heat than the 6 fluorescent bulbs that I was using, room increase about 4 degrees within an hour of installing the new LED light. Next grow I'll probably move the LED driver and controller outside the room. UPDATE 5/17/21: Been battling humidity level since switching to flower, added static dehumidifier to help lower but still not where I want it. Could be that its been raining for a week with outdoor humidity at 99%. got it down to low 60's if it doesn't improve will switch to the big dehumidifier! The Girls have been loving the new lamp, just look at the growth in just 3 days, doing the flower stage stretch! looking forward to what the next few weeks will bring! 🙏 A few improvements to the grow room, * Added an extra vent to bottom for increased air flow plus I'm adding a second exhaust fan to exchange air and hopefully lower humidity. * Added a thermostat controller to exhaust fans to make sure temps don't get too low at night (currently set to 72 deg) so fans will kick on at 72 deg. * Added Proco2 bottle to help increase flower between this and my small Acid/baking soda unit hoping to get Co2 up to the 1000-1200 ppm range.

Starting to get a handle on humidity and temp again, really think it mostly because of the rain and grow room near sump pump in basement. The girls really are loving the switch over no signs of stress and they have started their stretch with buds starting to form. I'll be happy when the humidity settles down and I can just watch them grow instead of constant monitoring and adjusting the room for temps and humidity! Final attempt to decrease, I'm going to switch the light cycle from daytime light to night time light, I know I should have started with that cycle, but I wanted to be able to monitor everything during the day without interrupting the light cycle. New light schedule will be Light 10pm - 10am that will give me time in the morning to water, prune or what ever these girls want.

Flowers pooping everywhere! Theses are thirsty girls third day 1.25 gallons each seem to be loving the addition of the Thrive Bloom. If it ever stops raining humidity will be well under control, the one day of no rain high RH was 55%, still hitting about 60-62% with lights out with daily rain. Made some cannabutter out of pruning leftovers, figured what the hell. So what to do with butter? Double Chocolate Chip Cookies! To my surprise, low grade buzz for a couple of hours, great for my friends that are just getting started with edibles.

Not much to say, except Yeah Buddy! Looking like a forest of buds which keep getting bigger! I've got the environment back under control, finally stop raining outside which help me get the humidity down. Added a couple extra fans to keep air moving. Working on some Burp Buckets for when it's time to harvest. anyone not familiar with them, It's a pretty cool way to auto burp your buds while curing. I'm making 2 buckets, one for each strain, total cost is about $20 ea. I'll upload pictures next week! All and all I'm happy with how things are coming along!

So the nuggets are dense and doubling in size every few days, the trichomes are cover the plants and they are sticky. The Girls are thirsty, I'm topping them off every other day with 1.5 gallons of nutes, at this point I feel like all i'm doing is mixing nutes in the reservoir. By the time I switch over season two to the grow room, i'm going to increase the size of my reservoir to 10 gallon so I can spend less time mixing. I'll be flushing out the buckets in 2 weeks to give the girls fresh water for the final 2 weeks! My Burp bucket project worked out great. Thanks to several youtube videos those videos are much appreciated! I made a few modification to what I saw online. so here's the parts list: (1) 3.5 gallon Menards Bucket (1) Gamma Bucket Lid 18" Black Irrigation drip tubing 12" Fish tank air hose (2) Fish tank check valves (1) tee for air line (1) small fish tank pump I started out modifying the input, most of the videos I saw had a hose with a check valve just poked in the lower part of the bucket with pin holes and end tied off. What I did is I took the black tubing and circled the bottom of the bucket, then I took a small drill bit and drilled holes through the tubing about every 2 inches to disburse the air all the way around the bucket then I used a tee to connect the 2 ends of the circle and connected that to the tube entering the lower portion of the bucket. the next change I made was instead of having a short hose poke through the upper portion, I drilled a small hole and hot glued the check valve inside the bucket with only the top of the valve sticking out of the bucket. After you get all the hoes and check valves in snap on the Gamma Lid, Tighten it up and turn on the pump. I added the hoses going into the water so you could actually see that its working I plugged the pump into a smart outlet and set it to run for 20 min 3 times a day, so no need to manually burp your nuggets while they are curing. You'll also need to put a 62% boneva 2 way pouch in the bucket with the nugs to keep the humidity correct and optionally have a small hydrometer to verify, I'm going to mount one on the lid to be able to check it without having to open the bucket. unless curiosity gets the best of me....

Playing the waiting game now, Buds are growing nicely. Already prepping the dry room!

Starting to back off nutes, going to half nutes for a week then down to PH'd water the next week for 3 days then dark for 2 and it will be harvest time! One of the Blueberries might be ready before the rest of the girls, pistols are turning amber and trichomes are at least 50% cloudy. We'll see if she gets harvested next week.

Final Count down... Flush on Monday, Dark period Wednesday - Friday Harvest! Dry Room is all set, environment 69 degrees, 46% Humidity (add plants it will get more humid) Planning on a 10-14 day dry time. Ok Trimming, I'm planning on dry trimming, thinking of using either a Bud Bowl Trimmer or making a rotating trimmer basket. Hand trimming seems it might be a huge task for one person. Comments?

FIRST HARVEST: * Dry room in basement bath - room temp 68 - 72 deg Rh 44-53% - 2 fans one facing floor, one facing ceiling - 6" Carbon Scrubber for smell, can still smell inside room, but no smell outside * Biggest surprise during harvest, the blueberries seemed to be dominating the Auroras on bud size and height. But during harvest the Auroras weighted much more than the Blueberries with more buds. Saturday: Harvested, going to do a dry trim. I removed most fan leafs and broke plants down to smaller branches to help dry a little faster. Tuesday: Checked on Drying progress, all the leaves have wilted but still pliable, buds are still moist. it will probably take the full 7-10 days to dry