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Got my tent, light, fan, etc. set up. Using paper towels to germinate. Cream Caramel took two days to show a root and was put into the soil on Sunday. Tangerine Dream got planted on Monday and came up near the end of Wednesday. I'm new to growing in a tent, so it's definitely a learning curve. I had two bag seeds I germinated at the end of April and end of May. The first seed just sat in my window for a month and then was under a $15 dollar amazon light in the corner of the room. I put the second one there too. The first turned out to be male so I got rid of it (rip). The second was female, about a foot tall, and just got moved into the tent with the seedlings. I'm not too worried about it so I'm just gonna let it go through flower and have whatever yield it ends up with just because I would feel bad killing it at this point.
I'm not used to having such a powerful light so I feel like I'm being a little too cautious with the intensity. I eventually moved it a lot closer to both seedlings and turned the dimmer up so hopefully they won't stretch too much further. At this point I haven't given any nutes. I think I'm gonna wait until the end of the first week for both seedlings and then give a low dose of fox farms and calmag.
Mostly been a week of watering 1/2 times a day and manically checking on them. The seedling stage is definitely the most stressful. I finally got to lowes to get the rest of the supplies I needed to rig up my inline fan, the AC Infinity 4" . I noticed that it doesn't help with keeping the temperature down and I'm not sure if that's because the fan needs to be turned up or because my room temperature isn't too much colder than the inside of the tent. I'm also having trouble keeping my humidity at a constant %. It's been between 40%-50%. Not sure if that's too big of a range. Temperatures have been between 73 and 82 F.
I did get worried that my lights were too close/too intense towards the beginning of the veg week. Both of the seedlings have some reddish purple coloring on them. I'm not too terribly worried about it since they're still standing at this point. Have been fiddling with my light, decided on keeping intensity at around 40% during evening and early morning and around 75% in the middle of the day. Once they're bigger I'll leave it at a constant intensity and hopefully let it be 100% once they can handle it.
Cream Caramel was the first to come out and when it did it was early morning and the lights were not on a set schedule yet so it came up a little yellow and got the brunt of my light indecisiveness. Because of this it's a little taller. It's closer to the little fan so the wind can strengthen up the stem hopefully. Tangerine Dream is at a height that I'm happy with and is growing more outwards rather than upwards.
I am a little worried about Cream Caramel since it looks like it got more of a sun burn and looks somewhat yellower and like it has a sort of dappled look. I could be just paranoid but I will be keeping an eye on it.
I fed my first dose of nutrients today (8/24) as well. Before I've just been giving water daily. No clue how much, probably around a liter or less per plant per day. I bought a gallon of distilled water, measured the ppm (1) and then added 2ml cal mag, 15-20ml big bloom, and 2.5 ml grow big. Final ppm ended up being around 400. I split the gallon between the two plants and soaked them. I'm not used to watering in coco so I definitely feel like I overwatered. In coco, do you water with nutrients every watering every day? It feels excessive but that's what I've read. I'll gradually increase the nutes as the plants grow.
Entering week 3, I'll update with the rest of the pictures once the week has passed. Still dialing in the watering amount to get the right amount of run off. On the 26th they both got a half gal of water with just 2ml calmag... I might be a little paranoid but Tangerine Dream looks like it might be getting the beginning of a calmag deficiency, looking at the yellowish "stripes" on the leaves. I've done a watering every day of the first seedling week of just a little water and then I've done 3 waterings with nutes so far, the one today with 2ml calmag around 7 ml grow big and around 8 ml big bloom (misread the dosage on grow big haha).
I think I'm gonna try brewing up my fertigation water every day and feeding each a quarter gallon instead of what I've done recently which is a whole gallon (half a gal each) every other day. Is it better to water smaller amounts every day rather than larger amounts every other day? My gut feeling is to water every other day but I know that coco is supposed to be hydro without the hydro and the medium should be constantly watered. It is still a learning experience so I guess I'll be figuring out what works best!
Finally, I'm amazed at what a proper set up and good genetics do for my grow. My first bag seed just sat on my window sill and these two autos have grown more in a week than my first seed grew in a month lol. I know I'm not supposed to pick favorites, but Tangerine Dream is growing beautifully and looking like something out of a magazine. I put together a couple comparison photos to show just a week of growth. Updates incoming as I go.
EDIT:
Long time no see haha, been a busy couple of weeks for me. Started LST this week on CC since it's been taking off a little more than TD. I underfilled the pots for both but since Cream stretched for a day before I moved the light in the first couple days, I was able to fill in the soil. Tangerine Dream has stayed very short and is too wide for the pot now. (As of typing this, 9/13, I've folded the sides down on both so no leaves are getting crushed or sitting on soil.) I left for a couple days starting Saturday morning, so I gave a larger feed to both of 3ml CalMag, 15ml Big Bloom, 5ml Grow Big, with ppm close to 1100 and the ph 6.8.
Ripped a stem on Cream Caramel a little bit LST this week but taped it up and supported the stem and it's pretty much fine at this point. The leaf wilted a little bit before recovering nicely. Flushed with CalMag on 9/7. On 9/10 I gave half a gal water with 3.5 ml Cal Mag with 15ml of Big Bloom. Both plants have started preflowering at this point which is pretty cool to see. Cream Caramel showed pistils on the 7th and Tangerine Dream showed hers on Friday. No major malfunctions. Installed my carbon filter which is working like a charm. I ended up putting both of them on cardboard boxes so I could move the light up since I felt like the light was burning my other plant, which is taller and in flower. She's from a bagseed and from my first grow attempt and is kind of a red-headed step child. I've had more problems with her than I can count but I feel like its too late to give up now haha.
I've also started using mosquito bits in my water, mostly for my girl in flower since she seems to have gnats the worst. I like the progress I've seen with them so far.
Growing like weeds. Been leaf-tucking a little every day and I've folded down the sides of the pots and re-tied down everything. I'm tempted to start some defoliation but I'm a little hesitant. The preflowers are pretty evident on CC which is cool to see even at just the 3rd/4th week. Took them off their cardboard boxes since they're pretty tall at this point and dropped the light back down. I've been giving roughly the same amount of water to start but noticed that the pots are drying out faster and I'm getting a lot less run off so I end up adding a lot more water. They're probably both getting about a half gallon each every other day. (I mix up a full gallon and water them both with it.)
EDIT: Still doing a little LST every day, just tying down a couple branches here and there. Cream is a LOT more receptive to the LST than Tangerine. I think that it's mostly because TD has so many large leaves that take up space the branches could be going instead. Cream Caramel is starting to have a really pleasant sweet candy smell. Very subtle but makes me excited to see what will come.
I'll admit, I'm not sure when pre-flower starts being actual flower but it's week ~5 so I'll just call it flower haha. Cream Caramel's candy smell developing still and it's very nice. Stems are also turning reddish which I'm not sure is strain dependent or just my lighting/growing situation. CC seems a lot further into development than TD which I guess makes sense because of the indica/sativa ratios between them.
Done some light defoliation on them both, just pulling off leaves that block bud sites and leaves that cram up against other leaves. Just to try to avoid mold or stale air etc.
I've also started doing a different nute ratio for each of them.
TD: ~96oz water per feed (every two days since I've been busy lately)
- 5ml CalMag (seems to always be calmag deficient)
- 3ml grow big
- 4 ml big bloom
CC: ~96oz
- 4 ml CalMag
- 2 ml grow big
- 2ml Tiger bloom
both between 5.8-6.8 ph (but who really knows since I think my pen is busted lol) and between 800-1000 ppm
Watered a gallon between them on 9/22, with mosquito bits and 10 ml calmag. Kind of as a flush and also just to help with fungus gnats. Taking off a leaf here and there.
25th-1st. Running into my first bit of trouble here. Fed on Tuesday (9/28)
CC: 96 oz water, ph 5.8, ppm 560
- 4ml CalMag
-2ml Grow Big
-2ml Tiger Bloom
TD: 96 oz water, ph 6.00, ppm 600
- 6ml CalMag
-2ml Grow Big
-1ml Tiger Bloom
-3ml Big Bloom
The next day when I woke up and checked on them, both plants had brown striping on some of the newer/top leaves. Tangerine Dream has been having calcium problems for a little while but I wasn't worried since it seemed like it wasn't getting worse but yesterday both plants started having brown rust spots. TD having them the worst and CC only having them on a few leaves. So on Wednesday. (9/29) I flushed them both with around 3 liters each of water straight from the tap and then gave them 64 oz water (pH 6.5) with 6.5 ml Tiger Bloom and 5ml CalMag (so both got 32 oz of this mixture.) It hasn't gotten better and the brown striping has become more pronounced on TD. Not sure if it's something I have to wait to see an improvement on or if it's just not getting better at the moment.
My idea was that it was a pH/salt build up/calcium/phosphorous issue, hence the flush added Tiger Bloom. Was this the right move? Is there anything I should have done/ should do to help my plants along? Thanks for the feedback etc.
What is my problem with the rust spots on my leaves? Is this related to pH, salt build up, or nutrient def? Was a flush the right thing to do? What should my next steps be to prevent this/stop it from getting worse? Nutrient details in my journal.
Ola amigo tudo bem ?
A meu ver parece me que foi regas com ph desregulado. A dose de nutriente que das pode não estar correta.
Deves fazer flush sim, fazer uma rega com ph regulado, atenção para não adicionares nutrientes a mais.
Pois também parece que ela esta com um pouco de queima de nutrientes.
Boa sorte no resto do teu cultivo e abraço
Looks like nutrient burn. But also looks like phosphorus deficiency. A flush was the right thing to do. After that use half the nutrients your using. Its better to starve a plant then to over feed. Its easier to fix and not as stressful for the plant. Make sure your feeding according to the manufactures guideline( ration wise. ml/l is dependent on what your plants eating ). From what I see your adding way to much "Tiger bloom" it should be half as much as the grow big you add.
Happy growing
According to your feeding chart, you are using 6 ml of calmag. If so, please flush once, then keep it at 1ml per litre. Otherwise it locks out the other important nutrients and it won´t matter the nutrient quantity. Remember, sometimes less is more.
Cream Caramel sailing along, Tangerine Dream fighting with me every step of the way. Both have had some pH and cal issues but Tangerine Dream is extra extra sensitive to them and isn't bouncing back nicely. Cream Caramel is smelling up the whole tent but Tangerine Dream really doesn't have a smell which is pretty disappointing. (that or I'm nose blind to it!) Doing light defoliation on each plant. Just a few leaves here and there every other day or so. They both have different nutrient ratios.
Thought I had TD's cal issues under control for about a day and a half, then when I flushed on the 7th I noticed the pH on both plants was around the ~8 range which was shocking. After some thorough flushing I thought I had it fixed but the next day (yesterday as of the time reading this) TD started tanking pretty bad and the leaves were curling in and turning black (pics on next weeks post). Very worried about her and it's bad since she definitely has a while to go until harvest. Oh well. I guess I'll have to see what happens.
Bit of a bummer for Tangerine Dream. Starting to have some real trouble with her. I hope she can pull through to harvest, even if it's a diminished harvest. Started having some trouble after reading a relaly high pH (~8) and trying to fix it by flushing then feeding a low pH (~4.5) until the run off read around 6.5. The next day (10/8) started having some bad browning and black spots on the middle and top leaves that progressed rapidly throughout the day. Didn't help that my pH pen decided to act wonky right as I went to try to fix it.
My guess is that the pH is off and she's not able to get her P and Cal, so the leaves are going. I tried flushing and re-feeding to the best of my abilities yesterday. Need to get a new better pH pen but don't have the funds right now to drop 80 or so dollars on one of the really good ones. I hope she can hold on until harvest/I get a new pen. Wish me luck fellas.
Not much to say for this week. I have flushed and re-worked my nutrients and it seemed like Tangerine Dream is not doing any worse. Not a lot of major defoliation, maybe a couple leaves off a week. Cream Caramel is chunking up nicely, as of the time writing this (10/20) she still has many white pistils still but has about 80% cloudy, 2% amber, the rest clearish or half cloudy. I would like to do a partial harvest Sunday (10/24) but we'll see how much more amber there is then. Tangerine Dream seems like it's gonna be a lot longer, perhaps 80-90 days (today being 64 days).
(edit: I just realized all my weeks were listing my nutrients as ml/l rather than ml/gal. its been fixed now! i have NOT been giving my plants 30ml of each nute per gal lol)
Chugging along. Not a lot of change, just riding out the final week of flower for Cream Caramel. I wanted to harvest this past Sunday but held off due to a lot of pistils still being white and the lower bud sites being pretty underdeveloped. I'll probably do a partial harvest and see if I can't get the lower buds to fatten up a bit.
Tangerine Dream looks like it could feasibly go until the end of November at the least so I'm just gonna let her do her thing. Not planning a flush or anything like that but I have been giving less nutes to CC since I don't want to waste nutrients that ultimately won't get used by the plants. Might wake up super early to harvest Cream Caramel before the dark period end because I have personally noticed a difference in smell after being in the light so long. Something about the terps burning off, not sure how it works but I don't think it really matters lol.
I think no matter what the pistils look like on CC by Sunday I'll do a partial harvest just because of the amount of trichs going amber. Not a huge fan of the super couch-locky strains (though I have some buddies who do!) Cheers folks.
Took down all the most developed nugs from Cream Caramel, did a 24 hr dark period beforehand and just plain water the week of. Took me all day long to trim and it wasn't even the whole plant haha. A few pics of the larger nugs, not all of them shown. Sorry for no wet weight lol I dont have a scale. (waiting for one in the mail currently) will update with an official "harvest" week once I get the dry weight of the whole plant.
TD is still looking very immature but ALL cloudy and many amber trichs. I had to chop the topmost budsite on her because of mold sadly. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, I'm gonna have to break my grow down so I'll be harvesting everything I have left sometime this weekend.
I'm very very happy with my harvest of CC already, I quick dried a bud smaller than a dime with my computer fan to try, no cure or anything, and wow. Completely knocked out immediately. There really is not better feeling than smoking something you put so much time and work into :) makes me feel not as bad for having to take down the smaller buds before they can get a little more developed.
I also got a LOT of trim from her, so I'll be making some edibles in the future. The trim was dried for about a day and I put it in a jar just because I don't have anything else to do with it and the smell of it has almost immediately changed, and is getting a very very strong caramel smell that wasn't there before.
Will update with final harvest soon hopefully.
Only thing I wish for with this strain is that it produced more! The smell after cure is super citrussy and floral and so is the taste. Very "hybrid" feeling, night strain for sure but has some of the sativa heady feeling. My favorite out of the two. Smell and taste are my favorite parts, very fruity and sweet.
Didn't think to take wet weight unfortunately, but the dry weight ended up being 44 grams. That's what I put for the wet weight since I didn't see an option for the dry. As I'm posting this almost a year later I don't remember the details too clearly but Tangerine Dream ended up being super airy. Could be due to it needing a few more weeks or just the pheno or even just the strain. It was kind of a pain to trim because of how light and airy it was.
Easy strain to grow, basically grew itself. Grew VERY fast and big. Very strong but the thick dense nugs and internodal spacing makes it prone to budrot and mold if not properly ventilated.
There was so much of this plant. I had to do staggered harvest to let the little buds fatten up a tad more since the tops were getting a little more amber than I was wanting. Super super sticky and a real pain to trim because the scissors were getting gummed up every other minute. Got lots and lots of finger/scissor hash from this trim. Once again I didn't get wet weight so I listed the dry weight.
You might want to invest in a humidifier. From what I’ve learned recently you want to have higher humidity with those temperatures at this point of the grow, like maybe 60% minimum. Look into VPD (vapor pressure deficit) and if you’re like me, ignore the complicated science, lol. It boils down to aiming for the right balance of temperature and humidity at the different growth stages. There’s VPD charts and calculators and apps out there, I like the charts myself. These guys have a chart I really like:
https://www.dimluxlighting.com/knowledge/blog/vapor-pressure-deficit-the-ultimate-guide-to-vpd/
And a nice little humidifier is the Pure Enrichment Mistaire. I actually just bought a second one, $40 on Amazon.
I just started a grow with the same XS1500 light and I’m feeling uncertain myself. The only other lights I’ve used were CFLs (a long, long time ago… lol)
Where do you have the dimmer and height set at this point?
@elauii, Thanks, that’s helpful. I think you’re on the right track. I found this test of the XS1500 which might help us out too. If you scroll down to the four tests, they show some baseline info we can go from. For example the test at 75% and 14.5” is at the top end of what they say is the ideal range (500-700 PAR). So at 75% and 19” you’re probably right in the sweet spot.
https://www.cocoforcannabis.com/grow-light-guide/viparspectra-xs-1500-par-test-review/
@Grackle, hey there, ive been second guessing myself with my light all week haha. my lights are currently around 19 inches away from the top of the plants, and i keep the intensity on 75% during the day time. (my lighting is 18/6 from 6am to 12am, at 9pm i turn the lights down to ~40% and 9am i turn them back up. this is mostly because my tent was getting pretty hot and i was worried about burning the seedlings. i dont know if this is "good" for them but i think ill keep doing it for at least this week or until they seem more sturdy and established.)
Those crispy leaves at the top of the plant could be a combination of things. Thats the most frustrating thing about autoflowers. They are SOOO touchy with nutrients. I had a calcium deficiency on one of my plants and I doubled my Calcium dose on the next feeding, I will NEVER do that again. I ended up with a plant looking even worse than yours at the top. Same crispy, burnt looking edges. At the time, I had my Mars Hydro TSL2000 (300 watts) at 17 inches from the plant. I thought it could have possibly been from the combination of the overfeeding and the light distance from the plant. I moved the girl down an inch or so and the very next day my leaves had already responded getting some green color back into them. I should have flushed the plant as soon as that fried, crispy look started on those upper leaves. I didn't and it just got worse. It did slow down though once I moved the lights back to 18 inches away.
I've been growing now for a little over a year (indoor autoflowers only so far) and I literally just realized a week or two ago that autoflowers seem to have better results with LESS nutrients. Being a new grower, I was scared that I would underfeed them and end up with a crappy harvest and shitty quality. I'm growing in FF Ocean Forest soil which is super hot (especially for autos) and I just came across info that says when you're growing autos in that soil, that you can and should (unless you see some kind of deficiency) go to week 6 or even the beginning of week 7 before you feed it for the first time. Im trying it with Fast Buds Forbidden Runtz and Strawberry Pie. FR is at day 39 and SP is at day 38 and the only thing I've given either one was one tiny little 1/4 strength dose of Cal Mag about a week or so ago (right before I read that article about not feeding until week 6 or 7)
FR looks like its about to need a small dose of Bloom, but SP still on day 38 looks completely perfect. Not one little sign of any kind of deficiency and a lush green color. At this rate I'm only gonna feed them maybe 3 or 4 times MAX for their entire lifespan. I wish I would have found that info a year ago. Lol. I wouldn't have spent the last 12 months thinking I was underfeeding the autos when in reality the nutrient deficiencies I was getting was from nutrient lockout from over fertilizing which threw off the Ph and everything. Most auto strains (if growing in a really nutrient rich soil like Fox Farms Ocean Forest) we barely need much food at all for rhe entire grow
@JasonMichael420, oh yeah, i felt that. Started noticing calmag def on tangerine dream so i thought, add more calmag.. really didnt help the problem haha. pretty sure it was a ph issue anyway, so i was giving enough (more than enough really) nutes, but she couldnt absorb them. i think i have my ph dialed in ok atm so i hope i dont see any more severe browning or spotting but we'll see. Thinking of doing soil my next run as im getting kind of sick of the ph/ppm mad scientist shit lol. Thanks for commenting!!
I know less than zero about growing in coco. Maybe post over on Autoflower.net in the Infirmary for sick plants forum.
https://www.autoflower.net/forums/forums/autoflower-infirmary-for-sick-plants.90/
elauii
