4 * Sticky Beast auto, LED (first grow)

INTRODUCTION About 22 years ago I got a 75 paged printed document from the (at time very new and modern) internet about how to grow cannabis. It was from my nephew, he downloaded it. I was still a teenager. I never used cannabis at that time, but it was extremely intriguing to me. I wanted to grow my own! I was never in the position to start a grow for various reasons, but I kept on reading on the internet. Tutorials, grow journals and later on video's. From time to time I'd study in depth, planning my future grow. I saw LED enter the market in around 2010, but it wasn't a viable option at that time. During a new period of research in 2016, I noticed LED had become a more serious option. I liked the idea of having a cooler 'plug and play' light. When we moved to the house we now live in (2 years ago), I knew I would finally start a grow, because we own the house (before, we always rented) and we have enough space. My spouse didn't object and now, 22 years after the seed was planted in my head, I finally, finally planted 5 seeds Sticky Beast Automatic. HARDWARE OVERVIEW Secret Jardin DS120W R4.0 Darkstreet 120x60x178 cm Mars Hydro TSL 2000 Vents TT 125 UnR1 inline exhaust (280 m2/hr, temperature controlled, buildin dimmer) Sonoconnect ducting (sound insulated) CAN Original Filter (200 m2/hr) Secret Jardin Monkey Fan 19 cm Secret Jardin TNEON 2 * 55 watt 6500k (for the first few days, but ,mainly bought for future motherplants and clones) 2 thermo/hygro meters EcoSavers Energy meter Still on the shopping list: Oscillating fan I'll elaborate further on some other equipment and products I use next week. GENERAL REMARKS In the evening of december 5, the 5 seeds were put in the Easy Start kit, watered with a included bacteria solution and put in a humidity dome with a 55 watt neon light above it. 80 hours later, december 9, all seeds had germinated and the young seedlings were transferred to a small 0.2 L pot filled with soil and 30% perlite. December 9 is day 1. They were no longer in the humidity dome, a small fan was blowing gently above their heads and the light (110 watt neon) was on for 24 hours. Only 4 of them will flower, so one of them will be killed brutally. Or maybe I keep her in the small cup and perform some sick experiments on her. We'll see. LIGHT On day 3, my new LED light (Mars Hydro TSL 2000) arrived. The light was hanged 75cm (30 inch) above the seedlings and dimmed as far as possible. With my energy meter I checked the usage: at full power the light pulls around 320 watt, fully dimmed it pulled 90 watt. On day 5, I lowered the light to 70 cm and intensified the light a bit, so that it is pulling 120 watt. It is something I'm struggling with. Am I being overly careful and should I intensify and/or lower the light? I've checked other growers using the same light and I found some cases of burning plants. Advice on this would be very welcome. For now, I'll keep on slowly intensifying the light. It is now on a 18/6 schedule and it will be like that until the end of the grow. HUMIDITY AND TEMPERATURE Temperature in the room with the tent is around 18c, but can go as low as 15c. With the light on, it is around 23c in the tent, but off it gets down to 18 degree. When I intensified the light (from 90 watts to 120 watts), temperature was a bit higher. I guess when the light around 150+ watts, I have to startup my exhaust fan. I leave it off for now and only have a fan blowing just over the heads of the seedlings. I tested the exhaust for 2 hours and it made the temperature lower to somewhere in the 20,5, which is a bit too low. I think, when the lights are more powerful, the temperature won't be a problem anymore when using the exhaust. Humidity is quite low in our house. Around 40 to 45%. I can get humidity up in the tent to around 55% using some wet washcloths, but it fluctuates between 40% and 55%. THE FIVE GIRLS My spouse named our 5 babies: Anna is the biggest one, but she also stretched the most. She was the first that germinated. Other than the stretch, she's looking healthy. Benthe is the second biggest and doing just fine. She is just a tad bit smaller than Anna, they're almost like twins. Ceylin also germinated fast and developed big leaves, but she stayed shorter than the others. However, her grow is vibrant, she looks strong and if I had to guess, I'd say she is the most healthy of the five girls. Dana germinated almost as fast as the former three, but when she was above the soil, I noticed her growtip (not the cotyledons) was way, way smaller than the other three. Also, when the second pair of real leaves started to show, they were again way smaller compared to the former three. Last: Elin. She germinated around 8 hours later and was never able to get rid of her shelf by her self. In fact, the shelf pulled off one of her cotyledons while growing and she had to start live with only one. However, it never looked she was having a dead struggle. The structure of her real leaves differ from the others: the veins are closer together. But remarkably enough, her second true leaves are growing faster than those from Dana. They are long and thin. Hopefully, you enjoyed reading my first entry. Let me know if you have any tips, especially advice according to how to use the light (power and distance) would be great. Thanks and see you next week!