First Time Hydroponics

TypsyGypsy Day 1; germination started. Day 5; all seeds successfully germinated. Bagseed #1 taproot had grown about 1" overnight. Transpalnted all germinated seeds into Rapid Rooters and soaked with same nutrient water from hydropods. Day 6; Bagseed #1 is now about an inch tall.

TypsyGypsy Disaster of a week, but could have been much worse. Day 9 and finally had 2nd seed pop at the start of the week and it lost it's shell (husk) coming out of the Rapid Rooter and I had to remove a small "skin holding the cotyledon leaves together. Seems a little weak compared to Bagseed # 1. MK Ultra and Amnesia Haze seeds have germinated but the tap root is incredibly slow to grow. Inspected the seeds by looking into the root plug and they seem to be alive and moist, but growing so slowly. Day 10. Smoke detectors went off full blast at around midnight. Holy shit.......... My humidifier that is several years old caught fire!! The smoke was intense black plastic smoke and I cannot believe that my entire grow tent did not go up. The humidifier was sitting in the corner and just fried and caught fire. Flames were about 12-18". Pulled all power and threw the bucket of nutrient water sitting in my grow tent on the fire to extinguish. My exhaust fan did an amazing job of cleaning the air. After all is said and done, it was a very scary experience. Day 11. Cleaned outer filter wrap on air extraction unit and threw out humidifier. Plant #1 was pretty much dead. Was closest to the flames and obviously got exposed to too much heat. I am watching Plant #2 for signs of growth - put a lollipop stick next to it and marked the height to monitor. Decided to put another Bagseed into a plug and start again. This grow seems doomed form the start..... Day 13. One seedling survived. It is an unknown that came fro Colorado. It was given to me by a friend who believes it to be a Sativa dominant strain - we will see. I am not 100% convinced that it will survive, seems to have a very weak root system. Also went ahead and started the germination process on 9 other seeds that came from a relative in California. Unknown strain. Decided to germinate seeds and proceed with grow from best growing healthiest 4 plants that make it. After mastering this first grow, I will try again with my remaining seeds from Amsterdam (1 x GSC, 2 x Amnesia Haze, 5 x OZ Kush and 3 x White Widow. But feel the need to perfect this before I move the the real stuff. Day 14. The Sole survivor, has a very weak root system in the Rapid Rooter plug and it is propped up by the clay pebbles of the hydro system. Seems healthy, but jury is still out on of it'll make it. Fingers crossed that there is plenty of root development going on in the next 7 days.

TypsyGypsy Day 15. It's a new week and I am feeling happy to put last week and the fire behind me. I ordered an Automatic Fire Extinguisher for the grow tent, should be here in the next couple days. Changed water today and cleaned out buckets. Sole Survivor (thats the new name for the CO bagseed), appears to be doing fine and looks like it will survive now. The original CA bagseed I planted in the Rapid Rooter sprouted this morning. Just dropped the seeds into RR that had been soaked in the PH'd Nutrient water. Day 17. 5 more CA sprouts today. #1 CA Sprout is growing quickly and is now taller than Sole Survivor. Maintaining temps and humidity at 76-78° F and 50% Love the new cool mist humidifier, runs way leaner using only 25w. Only wish I had bought the top loading filler. Day 21. Really more like Day 14 from initiating germination, but keeping same log as Sole Survivor is still going strong. Not as peppy in growth as newer sprouted CA seeds, but I think it will start to grow quicker now that fan leaves are developing. Suspected that my LED grow lights were too high as the sprouts appeared to be stretching too much and a couple fell over. They have good airflow from the fan, so that should help them develop good trunks. Light was at 42" as per the manufacturer guideline (248w LED). I lowered it to 36" above seedlings and will monitor in next 24-36 hrs. Biggest news of the week is that we all feel a lot safer in the house now that I received and installed my automatic fire extinguisher. Having experienced what could have been a devastating fire during the first week, we have all been a little uneasy. Smoke detectors going off in the early hours will have that effect on you. I read a lot about people worried about losing their crop from an AFE being triggered. Let me tell you 2 things that make that completely flawed logic; 1. Lose your crop vs lose your home....... no brainer. 2. If the grow room temperature reached the 160° F to trigger the AFE, you've already lost your crop. Stay tuned and let me know if you see things I am doing wrong or could improve on. Or just say "Hi"

TypsyGypsy Day 24. Not much to report on this week. Everything seems to begetter from the lower light. All starting to be able to stand on their own. No changes made to nutrients, temps, humidity etc. Day 28. All plants showed good growth this week. Moved the light closer again to 24" and seems to have sparked some measurable growth in new foliage.

TypsyGypsy Nutrients increased to 1 tsp per gallon. All healthy and growing nicely. Mainlining started today with topping to the 3rd node and removing all growth below the 3rd node. Leaving 3rd node fan leaves for now. Main growth tips will be trained outwards at 90° after a few days of recovery growth. 3rd node fan leaves will also be removed.

TypsyGypsy Mainlining 2nd pruning starts week 6. 2nd pruning for the mainlining stared and I chose the 2nd node on one plant and the first on Sole Survivor. All are growing well and very healthy. Will slowly increase nutrition and try to get to 3 tsp per gal. Will move from 1tsp to 2tsp this coming weekend.

TypsyGypsy Mainlining almost complete. It is for 3 of 4, but decided to let the 4th grow out an extra node before the 3rd and final topping. I'm learning that once the babies reach this stage of development with a thick sturdy stem, they are really very resilient to bending and topping/lolipopping etc. I realize that the mainlining technique adds several extra weeks to the grow - I hope that all that concentrated growing power makes the difference and we end up with 32 abundant colas!!

TypsyGypsy More of the same.

TypsyGypsy Realized that my extraction fan had been blocked and was not recirculating the air as efficiently, if at all. Washed and dried filter cover. Result was that humidity was at over 70% for at least a week which caused some white powder mold to be resting on top of lamp etc. Did not appear to be on plants but just in case gave them a 10% milk wash.

TypsyGypsy Last week of vegetation. Switching to 12/12 lighting schedule tomorrow. No reappearance of mold. No more humidifier as the humidity is sitting at 40% with just the plants and buckets. Temp reduced from 75 to 70. One of my mainlined connections broke..... hit it with my water pump when changing water - taped it up and none the worse. These plants are so hardy when they reach the mid to late veg stage.

TypsyGypsy Stretching now and everything looks great. One more week of transition nutrients and then switch to flowering blend. Smelling good, but not overpowering as yet.

TypsyGypsy After a week away we are in bud heaven! Plants have all grown tall, CA weed is about 10" taller than the CO "Sole Survivor". Smelling great inside the tent. Charcoal filter performing perfectly, no outside smell.