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Enclosure build, DWC, and germination
First off, I want to say “Thank You” to Seedsman. I won a Newbie contest here and this grow will be with some of the seeds from my winnings.
It's been 2 months since my last grow and I wanted to move on from my tent as I felt it was limiting me in my first 2 grows. The space I have available doesn’t really fit most tent sizes so a custom “closet” was just what the doctor ordered. I built my enclosure out of wood and it now fits my space (detached building) perfectly. The enclosure is 33” D x 72” H x 48” W and is made from 3/4” plywood and 2x4’s. The inside is painted with mildew resistant gloss white paint. The enclosure is airtight with the exception of the filtered intake.
I also wanted to try a RDWC setup to grow in and this is my first attempt at that as well. I ordered a 4 bucket kit (without buckets) from PA Hydroponics. I used square 5 gallon buckets instead of round but I’m only using 3 buckets - 1 as a reservoir and 2 for plants. Like all my grows, this will be a learning experience.
I purchased a used Bluelab Guardian for ease of use and I also purchased an AC Ininity 6” fan, filter, and controller for this setup. I knew the 4” I had just wasn’t going to cut it plus their controller is really nice. I definitely like the vpd reading and logging. Additionally I built a 2 stage filter for the water I’ll use throughout the build. The filter setup is portable and much cheaper than anything I could purchase pre-made. I’ve also purchased a Bluelab pH controller that will be installed tomorrow. I’m using 2 lights although my pictures here only show one.
Germination went off without a hitch - although it seemed to take a couple days longer due to the Rapid Rooters but I know it will pay off in the end. I'm using a pretty lean mix the first week but will up this soon. I just want to ensure everything is working properly my first week. 😎
Wow, I’ve been really lax this time around with updating my diary on a daily basis. I’ll fix that in the next week. Big news this week was that I changed out all the water in my containers as I found a lot of sediment in the bottom of my reservoir. I know where it came from - hydroton. Even though I had rinsed this off - apparently I didn’t do it well enough.
I took this opportunity to install my new Bluelab pH controller. This thing works really well so far. During the first week I haven’t seen the pH drift at all. Now it was tricky figuring out the on-time and off-time, but once that’s sorted it’s set and forget. Great device so far. I switched my nutes to the “mild vegetation formula”.
I also found this week that one of my 2 lights was not plugged into my timer. This was simply due to me putting it in the grow box too quickly and not double checking I had everything set. So my plants got 24 hours light for a few days. I’ve fixed this now and I don’t think this is an issue, especially with these being autos.
Water temp is higher than optimal. It sits at 72 during most of the day and gets to 73 the last couple hours of lights on. I’m running Hydroguard so I don’t think it will be a problem but it is something to keep my eye on. It took me a couple days to get my humidity set right but that seems to be working great now in this new setup.
One important thing I want to mention - my PPM result is from the PPM 500 scale. I know people get confused by this reading because of the 2 different scales (500 vs. 700). On the 700 scale my PPM would be 900, and using EC it would be 1.3 EC.
Day 9
Alright, a new week! My water temp got a little hotter today so I changed the fan scheduled for lights off to drop the water temp more at night and give me more of a buffer.
Day 10
I’m running with the door to my room open today (just slightly) and the plants are doing well. There is a measurable difference every day with these things. I looked at all the harvested journals on growdiaries for this strain and noticed that they stay pretty small but produce well. I’ve got an intake fan on the way to add to my setup. EDIT - added but it just didn't change anything - in fact, it made the temp higher so I sent it back.
Day 13
I took the weekend off of updating my diary but it’s Monday so I’m back at it. The plants are growing well and I have some roots in the water now. I’m going to continue to monitor this and let adjust the water level accordingly when changing water. Temps are the same, pH the same, everything is rock-steady so far, with the understanding that I’m very early in this grow.
Day 14
Bumped my lights up from 50% to 75% today. We’ll see what this does to my grow box temps. I’ll be monitoring moving forward. Other than that, I noticed roots out of the bottom of the pots in the water yesterday. There’s not a lot here right now but I’ll continue to monitor this as well. Another observation I had was just the differences in the two plants. One is squat and wide with large leaves and the other plant’s structure is more vertical and compact with smaller leaves. Not a lot of vertical growth this week for both plants but very noticeable growth overall.
Day 15
Added some foil to the tops of the containers yesterday. I’m not sure that I’m going to keep it though as it doesn’t seem to have done much of anything to my water temps (plus it looks crappy). I think the best thing for me to do is keep changing water every 10 days and keep adding Hydroguard. The plants look healthy so far and I think I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing.
Day 17
Still cruising along here, no changes other than more growth. They’re getting visibly bigger every day. I’ll be changing the water out shortly but everything looks good.
Day 20
Well I took the weekend off of updates as per usual but these things are still growing. Finally seeing my PPM dropping although it is a small drop. I checked and there are many more roots in the pot. I will most likely change the water tomorrow. I had some other items to work on today.
Day 21
Alright we’re at 3 weeks old as of today. The plants look super healthy so far and I hope to keep them that way. Trying to decide if I will do any LST on them or not.
I took the opportunity to change the water out on the plants and below are the particulars after the water change:
Water PPM (before nutes): 150 ppm
Water PPM (after nutes): 1290 - 150 = 1140
Water temp: 69 after change, 71 typical daily average
pH: 5.8
Height: 6”
Distance from lamp: 25”
Lamp intensity: 75%
VPD: 1.1kPa average for the last week
Air Temp: 72.1 average for the last week
Week Summary: LOTS of growth this week. Performed some LST and Defoliation as well. The plants are really filling out. Daily summaries below.
Day 22
So far my hydro experiment is going well. I hope to end the week with a lot of growth. I think I’m going to remove some lower leaves this week and possibly some training. We’ll see how it goes.
Day 23
Well I went ahead and performed some LST and light defoliation yesterday to expose some more bud sites and hopefully encourage more colas. The plants still look good this morning, just a little shorter. I’ll continue training this as it grows but I think the major work has been done.
Day 24
I had a slight increase in PPM yesterday and opened my reservoir to take a peek. The level was a little lower meaning that they were drinking a bit more than usual. Obviously they’re growing, but I’m going to chalk it up to the following two things.
1) I performed some defoliation the day before
2) I changed the nute/water ratio to a more aggressive mix and they are taking up water faster than nutes.
I topped it off with the last bit of solution I had from the prior mix and today the level is back to where I initially mixed it. I’m going to continue to monitor but I believe this will work itself out. If not, we’ll adjust.
Day 27
Another weekend off of diary entries. Everything looks great - they’re growing in leaps and bounds each day. I’ve been doing a lot of leaf tucking to give the bud sites plenty of light. All readings are stable and this is the healthiest looking grow I’ve had up to this point.
Day 28
Today wraps up 4 weeks old. These plants are looking nice and starting to spread out a bit with training.
Week Summary: Big week, we moved into pre-flower this week and had a huge amount of growth even with some heavy defoliation. We had a water change this week and the roots look good. I'm changing water around every 10 days even though I know this is wasting some nutes. I'm doing this as my reservoir temps are a little higher than I like and I get new Hydroguard with the water change. So far, so good with my first hydro grow. Daily details below:
Day 29
I’ll probably cut some lower leaves this week and just keep tucking leaves as we go here. The plants are growing like crazy and are starting to drink quite a bit.
Day 30
Water levels are great, plants look incredible - another great day.
Day 31
So I’m pretty sure that I’m going to need a water change tomorrow or the next day as we’re 9 days out from my last change. But everything looks so good right now.
Day 33
Today I changed water. I also defoliated but you won’t see that until tomorrow’s pictures. In addition, the lights were turned up as the plants are going into flower (really quick) and I re-calibrated my pH controller and monitor. Here’s the particulars.
PPM: 1420
pH: 5.8
Water Temp: 69
FloraGrow: 10 mlGal
FloraMicro: 10 mlGal
FloraBloom: 10 mlGal
CalMag: 5 mlGal
HydroGuard: 2 mlGal
Target VPD: 1.2-1.6
Light %: 100
Day 35
Wow we’re at 5 weeks. My pics today will look like the plant is a little smaller due to the defoliation I performed last week. I did add some water this morning, around 1.2 gallons. They’re drinking a little over a half gallon a day (collectively).
PPM after water addition was 1290 (1440-150). This lowered EC but it appears it is drinking more than it is feeding.
Another great week - my healthiest grow thus far. Hopefully the output is the greatest as well. Both my grow box and my hydro system are working as designed at this point and I'm happy with the results so far. These plants drink a LOT of water and feed a lot as well, the growth obviously comes with it.
Day 36
Nothing new just another day of growth. These are the healthiest looking plants I’ve grown at all stages so far. I’ve had issues in soil that I’ve overcome but these have been great thus far (fingers crossed).
Day 37
Added around .8 gallons of water this morning. This has been their intake over the past 2 days.
Day 38
I know it sounds like Groundhog Day, but these things exploded with growth overnight. I’m ready to see some bugs start developing.
Day 41
Wow, big weekend and I mean big. I know I’ve said how much growth I’ve had before but this was a huge amount of growth. The water intake is up as well, yesterday I added 2 gallons to the reservoir. They’re some thirsty girls. This has been the biggest growth yet.
Day 42
We’re at 6 weeks today. I added another 2 gallons to the reservoir today but this addition had nutrients as I noticed PPM was lower. Once that has depleted, I’m going to change the water as I think I’m at 8 days since the last change. Below are some particulars:
PPM at end of week: 1180
Water temp: 71
Air temp: 73
pH: 5.7
Height: 17”
Distance from lamp: 16” (will need to raise in the coming week)
Moved into flower this week. The plants are super healthy and producing lots of bud sites. I still trim daily and they are drinking a LOT.
Day 43
Week 7 has started. I believe this week we will move from pre-flower to flower but we’ll see. This strain is supposed to be 75 days seed to harvest but it feels like these guidelines are never met. I’m giving as close to optimal conditions possible and it still looks like this will be a long haul here. But the only way to know is to grow.
Day 44
The first thing I did was a water change today. Th pH and the water were falling which indicated I needed a water change. We were about due anyway so it worked out well. I noticed a couple spots started flowering today so I switched the ratio of nutrients to flower mix. PPM is at 1270.
Day 45
Light defoliation continues to expose bud sites to more light. I had to raise the lights today as the plants were growing too close.
Day 48
Wow busy weekend here. Saturday the girls needed a gallon of water added and this morning it was over 1.5 gallons. They are very thirsty. As always, I’m pruning fan leaves out of he way on these plants and know this will continue.
Day 49
Well we’re at 7 weeks and we’re flowering. I’m glad as I don’t know how much larger these plants could get in this cabinet. This cabinet is much larger than my last tent it’s just the hydro grow is so prolific. It’s hot as hell and humid outside also, I think I’m going to have to start running a dehumidifier in the room. Particulars for the week are as follows:
PPM at end of week: 1240
Water temp: 71
Air temp: 74
pH: 5.8
Height: 25”
Distance from lamp: 14 (will need to raise again in the coming week)
Week Summary: I was in Mexico half the week so I had someone looking after my container water level for me. This was much appreciated. Like every previous week, we had a a lot of growth. I had a LOT of work to do after I returned but that will be in the next week update. We hit the stretch and on top of that much of the week was triple digits outside.
Day 50
Today I gave another gallon and a half of fluids to the reservoir for the plants. I also looked back to day 50 of my other grows. These plants are bigger, healthier, and just overall more prolific. I’m still taking leaves off of it on a daily basis.
Day 52
Water change today, going on vacation for a week so updates will be sparse. I have someone coming every other day to check fluid levels. I’m expecting big growth while I’m gone.
Day 54
Two days since my last update - I’m in Mexico, but as you can see the circulation fan on the left side is completely covered. So we’re moving right along.
Day 55
We’re almost at 8 weeks old today and I’m still on vacation. Everything is moving along which is nice. More to come. I’ll be adding my 8 week stats as I have no pictures from that day. We’ve been hitting triple digits in outside temps so my AC is working overtime which is keeping my humidity slightly higher than I like. There’s been a lot of vertical growth this week so we’re definitely in the stretch.
PPM at end of week: 1280
Water temp: 71
Air temp: 72
pH: 5.8
Height: 31.5”
Distance from lamp: 8”
Week Summary
Well I came back from vacation this week and had to do some maintenance. My only worry at this point is that I may grow into my lights. I may have to improvise my light mounting a bit to accommodate. We'll see what happens.
Day 57
Still out of town, buds still building. But it’s a new week and I have high hopes for this week. Still triple digits outside, AC working overtime and humidity higher that I like.
Day 60
Last day before I return from Mexico. Things appear to be moving along nicely without me.
Day 62
Okay, I’m back and there is a TON of work to do. These plants have absolutely grown like crazy while I was gone. Before I started this, I built a cabinet which was larger in every dimension than my tent I used the last two grows. With that tent, I had two grows with 2 plants and never completely filled the area. This grow however is in week 9 and I’ve exhausted every bit of space with 2 plants. I’m certain this can be directly attributed to this being hydro (RDWC) instead of soil.
So today there was a lot of trimming done. I also raised the light and it just can’t go any higher than it is now. If I’m going to have results like this moving forward, I may only grow a single plant using RDWC. I’ve SOG’d my enclosure with 2 plants.
Day 63
Plants are 9 weeks old today. Buds are building and after returning from vacation I had a LOT of work to do. Plants were trimmed yesterday and water was changed today. I’ve not grown an auto flower with as many buds as this one has. We’ll see if that is a good thing or not.
I’m not sure how much more growth I can stand as we’re going to hit the lights if we go any higher with the plant on the right. Pics and weekly stats below:
PPM at end of week: 1280
Water temp: 70
Air temp: 72
pH: 5.8
Height: 38.5”
Distance from lamp: 9”
The big news this week is that I thinned the top out and hopefully everything will stay healthy as we finish the grow. I've got more humidity than I like but it's hard fighting summer time, even indoors. I'll hook up my dehumidifier as we start to build more buds.
Day 64
Nothing of note today, which is a good thing after the defoliation of the lower part of the plant. Things seem to be going well.
Day 65
Added 2 gallons of liquid to the reservoir today, other than that the plant seems to be doing well.
Day 69
Big holiday weekend so the updates haven’t been as often. Added 3 gallons of water/food mix today. The plants have recovered nicely and buds are forming nicely.
Day 70
Ten weeks old today. Today we took another big step in getting the plant foliage under control and I cleaned up the top of the plant. I couldn’t do this when I did the bottom last week as it may have been too stressful on the plant from taking so much. I will probably do a water change tomorrow and keep my eye on the plants to ensure they stay healthy.
PPM at end of week: 1170
Water temp: 71
Air temp: 72
pH: 5.8
Height: 43
Distance from lamp: 8
Good week, just building bud and trying to make sure the tops don't get burned.
PPM at end of week: 1380
Water temp: 71
Air temp: 72
pH: 5.8
Height: 44
Distance from lamp: 8
Day 71
New week and we’ve started it off with a water change. Everything looking good so far.
Day 73
Had to add some solution today, added 1.5 gallons. Everything looking good except it looks like one of my plants may grow into the lights.
Day 75
Added 2 gallons of mix today into the reservoir. I’ve also added a dehumidifier in the room, trying to keep up with summer and an AC unit is tough. The plants have filled out again and look great.
Day 76
Added another gallon today, that makes 4 over the last 6 days. At this rate I will probably change water on Friday (3 days from now).
Day 77
Eleven weeks old! Added one more gallon to the reservoir. Bud formation is continuing, everything looking healthy.
Well I'm moving to weekly updates for the remainder. Everything is going well but I wish I could keep the humidity lower. I've got a dehumidifier in the room I empty twice a day. Towards the end of the week I went on vacation and have someone taking care of the plants. The smell has definitely kicked in and they are very smelly now.
Well I was out at the beginning of the week. These things are coming along and will be ready for harvest soon. The branches starting bending over in places but this is okay since it keeps them from being burned by the light. Again humidity is too high but we're keeping the fans going.
So this was my first hydro grow and I believe I spent too much time on training as these plants took off and never looked back. They were prolific, to say the least. I had to thin them out twice and next time will stick to the natural structure when I grow this strain again. 😃Because of the way I did this, I set myself up for a LOT of trimming but it was definitely worth it. These plants will provide me with medicine for a while to come and I look forward to growing it again.
Really enjoyed growing this as a first hydro grow. These really took off and I couldn't be happier with the results. I learned so much about growing hydro and look forward to other grows in the future.
@sandspur, I truly love growing these weeds and I'm stuck at home because of my health so my fun is online talking about these beautiful plants. Happy growing my friend 😁🌱🍻
@Cyrusdavirus,please don't apologize. I appreciate your input and typos happen all the time. Either way, I'm looking forward to it for a lot of reasons and I'm going to enjoy it sativa or indica dominant. Thanks again for the time you give others.
@sandspur, just went over there to double check and you are right it does say it's a sativa dominant strain. I haven't grown Seedsman's zkittles and actually can't remember who the breeders were but it was a little indica plant I remember because it was such a mix of pretty colored buds. Maybe what they crossed it with to make it autoflower is what makes it more sativa from the ones I grew 🤔 don't know sorry for the confusion 🤷
@GmansGarden, thank you. It was but I've stripped it a bit this week. I want to keep it healthy but thin it out for the last part of the grow to give the buds max light. My update today will show it thinned out.
@sandspur, a great man once said " if your not killing plants , your not growing; if you don't push yourself past the limits you will never know how far you can go"
That being said it's always nice to try a new method and make it work !!!
@Cyrusdavirus, thank you. They are doing really well. The pictures just don't do it justice. This is my best grow to date. Not high on style points but substance is really good here.
sandspur
