1st Grow! Dutch Passion Auto Orange Bud

Setup: Grow Equipment: Tent - VIPARSPECTRA 2-in-1 4'x3' with a 3'x3'x6' primary grow space Primary Lights - Homemade welded aluminum LED fixture featuring HLG QB132 V1 3500k (x4) wired in series and run by a Mean Well HLG-240H-C1750A Power Supply Seedling Lights - HTGSupply GrowBright 2" 2 Lamp HO T5 with 6500k GE bulbs Lighting Control - STITCH Wireless Smart Plug with Energy Monitoring & Reporting Fans - VIVOSUN 6 Inch Clip on Oscillating Fan (x2) & 140mm Case Fan (x2) Primary Exhaust - VIVOSUN 6 Inch Air Carbon Filter & 6 Inch Inline Duct Fan with Variable Speed Controller Seedling/Drying Exhaust - VIVOSUN 4 Inch Air Carbon Filter & 4 Inch Inline Duct Fan with Variable Speed Controller Humidification - Cool Mist 6L Humidifier Dehumidification - Frigidaire 50-Pint Dehumidifier Heater - Lasko 200-Watt Personal Ceramic Heater Controllers - Inkbird ITC-308 Temperature Controller & IHC-200 Humidity Controller Seedling Heat Mat - VIVOSUN 10"x20.75" Seedling Heat Mat and Digital Thermostat Seedling Starter - Jiffy Windowsill Greenhouse Water Supply - Aquatic Life RO Buddie Three Stage Reverse Osmosis, 50-Gallon Test Equipment: Etekcity Lasergrip 630 Dual Laser Digital Infrared Thermometer Digital pH Meter Digital TDS Meter Dr.Meter LX1330B Digital Light Meter Digital Kitchen Scale 10kg ThermoPro TP50 Hygrometer & Thermometer (x2) Besmon Soil Moisture Meter 3-on-1 Needed: Digital Microscope Grow Supplies: Containers - 3 & 5 gal. non-woven fabric Soil - Top Half: Fox Farm Happy Frog, Bottom Half: Fox Farm Ocean Forest, both with 15-20% additional Perlite Nuts - Fox Farm Big Bloom, Grow Big and Tiger Bloom, Botanicare Cal-Mag Plus, General Hydroponics pH Up Seedling Starter - Jiffy Peat Pellets High everyone! I started this grow about two weeks ago and recently found this site. I'm calling this my first grow, as the only other time I tried growing was 10+ years ago in what was a very small gorilla setup in in 3'x2'x3' cabinet. I don't really count that one cause the 1/4 oz wet that came out of that grow was garbage. Wow how things have changed with the grow technology/tools in the past few years! Developing the concept for this setup took about 10 hours or so of research. The most challenging part of putting the setup together was building the frame for the lighting. I used 3/4"x3/4"x1/16" aluminum angle stock from the local hardware store to build the frame that supports the lights, power supply and a set of fans the push air upwards. For this setup, it took 3 different plantings to get past the seedling stage. The first planting was 4 fem. autoflower seeds (don't recall strain/breeder at the moment) that have been stored for 5+ years in a damp, cool basement. Not the best conditions which caused germination challenges. One of the 4 seedlings popped and made it to soil, but growth quickly stopped and she began producing abnormal growth. I've narrowed it down to two things that could have caused this: problems from storage or exposure to excessive light intensity. Light fixture was left at 100% (250 watts) and I did not have a proper light meter at the time. After 4 weeks stuck as a seedling, I killed her off and tried another 4 seeds from the same batch. No luck with any of those. Time for a selection from Dutch Passion's Fruity Autoflower Mix. I chose 2x Auto Blueberry and 2x Auto Orange Bud for this grow, and I would not have any issues like before. Unfortunately I did not take pictures during the first 2 weeks, but I did document many data points during that time. Planting: In the morning I put seeds directly into expanded Jiffy pellets and placed inside a humidity dome. I put the dome in the side compartment of the grow tent that has just the right amount of space for the seedling stage. That evening I went to check on my ladies only two find two holes in the Jiffy pellets where seeds should have been 😱. Thankfully the seeds were still sitting on the counter where I left and they were promptly put into there home in the peat pods. This resulted in about a 12 hour difference in planting time between the BB and OB. Heating pad set to 76F, seedling lights on 20/4 schedule. Day 1: 72/60 Hours after planting, I had 3 of 4 seedlings have emerged, left under humility dome Day 2: Last seeding immersed in the morning. First 3 seedlings were almost touching top of humidity dome and tap roots had all emerged from pods, so that afternoon they were moved to there forever home. I choose to use two type of Fox Farm soils for this grow and put Ocean Forest in the bottom half of the container and Happy Frog in the top half. During my research, there seem to be a consensus that 3 gal containers are at least the smallest container that one should use to maximize returns with an autoflower, but I also see many people using 5 and 7 gal. ones as well. I figured I'd do a test and plant one of each strain in a 3 and 5 gallon and see if there is any difference is harvest quantity or root mass between each of the different container sized which will inform future grows of mine. This now gives us identification for each lady based on strain and container size: BB3, BB5, OB3 & OB5. Dry weights were taken on each pot. I did not flush the soil prior to planting and gave each contain 1 cup water per gallon of size for there initial watering. Starting Conditions: Lights at 15k lux at soil & 20/4, 71F, 72%RH Day 3: Growth begins immediately, 1cm x 1cm growth on every plant. OB5 is a little smaller as this was the last one to emerge, but it is keep pace with the rest. Day 4-7: Growth continues at similar daily pace. Watering based on weight of the containers and watered when about 25% of prior watering weight was left. I'll have more pics from here on out!