Organic Auto AK77

Not long ago the legalization of planting and consumption of Marijuana for personal use had been passed in my country and so my journey begins. Spending many late nights researching the growing of cannabis and addictively studying grow journals I decided to give it crack. With the craze of going organic and a low maintenance and low budget grow I decided to prepare my own soil. Over the course of 3 long months and by the decomposition of organic material (avocado, bananas, rooibos tea, cardboard, grass mulch, chicken manure etc), I had created the perfect living soil with friendly inhabitants of microbes and earth worms amongst other things. My grow box was built from one sheet of melamine wood with a masonite back. For lighting during veg, I used 13 X 5W, 6000K downlights lying around the house that I never used and mounted it onto a piece of melamine board and suspended it from the top of the box using a plastic chain. Mounted an extractor fan at the top of the back of the box and cored holes through the bottom for air vents for a passive intake. Selection of seed breeder/ strain - To be blatantly honest, online selling of cannabis seeds in my country is somewhat new so on the recommendation of a friend of a specific online store I chose Victory Seeds simply because their seeds were the cheapest. I purchased four seeds and was given the fifth (AK 77) free so decided to give that a run since it was my first grow. And now to the main event, soaked my little bean in a glass of tap water n left it sitting in a glass off water in my dvr cabinet which provided a bit of warmth. After about 12hrs I had a look and the seed was still floating, so just gave it a nudge and it settled at the bottom of the glass. Almost 12hrs later and just before I popped the seed into the soil, I added a thin layer of seedling potting mix from a local nursery to the top of the soil to start the grow. I had seen some flies around but didn't think much and popped my seed in. After watering the soil a bit, these insects started coming up through the soil and to the surface, now this got me worried. Shortly after researching, I came to the conclusion that these insects were fungus gnats which where living in the potting mix. With the thought of them feasting on roots, it absolutely tore me apart and almost brought me to my knees. I quickly dashed to the local nursery and picked up a bag of diatomaceous earth and dusted the top layer of the soil. Placed a bowl of apple cider vinegar and dishwashing liquid inside the grow box as a trap. Few hours later and the seed popped through. The DE however had no effect on the fungus gnats whilst the apple cider vinegar mix did trap some gnats, the infestation was just too much. She had a good first week I would say, growing quite large leaves although the pictures doesn't really depict that. Don't think the gnats had any effect on her growth.