First ever grow..600w hps scrog + LEDs..GHS Moby Dick & Pure Kush

[Smokeythabear 988]

Hi everyone! Brand new to the site and growing..time to get my journal and some pics up! Before I start I will say that I am VERY open to all comments and suggestions, and if I sound like I have any idea what I am talking about it is purely from TONS of reading and research lol..so if I am way off on anything please correct and help me!

I started with 10 feminized seeds from GHS's..5 Moby Dick & 5 Pure Kush. I planted all 10 in jiffy started pots and all 10 popped within 72 hrs. Plan is to eventually cull down to 4 strongest plants which will go into a 4 x 4 tent with individual scrog screens for each plant. So far I'm down to 6 plants and I've decided to flower the 2 remaining plants under CFL in my veg dome that I built and get some early bud while the other 4 scrog. I've had some beginners mistakes that I am sure have slowed down growth a bit but overall I think they are doing pretty good now. They're in the 5th week and shortest is 6 inches..tallest 8 inches. I had problems with pH until pretty much my last water..my runoff was 7 - 8 pH for awhile..and I'm growing in 50/50 Pro mix soiless and Grodan rockwool growcubes..I know..ouch! It (combined with a bit of overzealous feeding) caused nute lock-out/burn and I had to get rid of some first and second leaf sets on some plants. I've been on my pH for awhile now and runoff is down too 6.5 pH when i watered last night. Also was running with a faulty hygrometer for the first 4 weeks or so..picked up an expensive digital thermo/hygro with memory..humidity was off by -18 %! So I was trying to veg plants with about 35% humidity..I even had the dehumidifier running at times thinking it was getting high for LED's [i've read a bit lower humidity is better with LED's (55% veg, 45% flower) because the reduced heat lowers evaporation and transpiration and I don't want them sitting in the same water for too long..I want oxygen to get to the roots..if I'm wrong please correct me!] So after all of that...the plants are still growing luckily

Gear:

- 50/50 mix of Promix and Grodan growcubes with hydroclay pellets on the bottom for drainage and on the top to reduce evaporation

- Dutch Nutrient Formula success in a box complete line of nutrients and additives

- Advanced Nutrients B- 52 vitamin supplement

- Cal Mag plus (using R/O water)

- T5 Sunblaster for seedlings

- Glow Panel 45 LED for VEG in the chamber, with a second LED Glow Panel being added once they enter the 4 x 4 tent and go under screen to veg and train more. The 2 Glow panels will also be used to supplement the 600W HPS during flowering.

- 600 W Hortilux Super HPS bulb with parabolic reflector

- 6 " Ostberg Ck series inline fan for exhaust with Mountain Air carbon filter

- My Hydro Home 4 x 4 x 7 tent

- Zeo2 CO2 pads

- 10 " Seabreaze internal oscillating fan

Current temperature 21-25 degrees celsius night/day temps, just purchased a digital ceramic heater that I am going to use to keep the temp up near 26-27 daytime..(using CO2 pads).

Here are some pics of the plants from seed up until 3 days ago which puts them at just over 4 weeks old, they are almost ready for me to put the screens on them and scrog em..probably do that in the next 2 days. Yesterday I transplanted 3 Moby Dicks and 1 Pure Kush (my 4 strongest plants) into 23 liter containers, transferred them into the 4 x 4 tent ready to scrog and placed them 2 feet under the 2 leds before the lights went off..unfortunately they had a 2 hour late bedtime as I wasn't able to get the transplant completed on time. I left the remaining 2 pure kush plants in the veg dome under a T5 sunblaster..going to transplant them into 12 liter containers in the next couple of days and then flower them under a CFL..I'd hate to just throw them away The 4 transplants showed no sign of transplant shock and are already growing really nicely. Gonna up the nutes a bit next watering..I have to be careful..according to my reading, both the LED's and the rockwool growcubes decrease the need for nutes, and so far I would have to say I agree with that..I'm using less than half the recommended nutes and they are definitely not showing any sign of deficiencies..if anything I've overfed them in the past.

*INDIVIDUAL PICTURES OF PLANTS #1-3 ARE PURE KUSH AND PLANTS #'S 4-6 ARE MOBY DICK*

I will take more pics tonight of them in the their new home

Peace, good health and happy growing to all!

[Dust 6,284]

nice man that is a proper wau to make a grow report

What power do your 2 led panel have?

The girl seemed to hav liked them

Moby Dick has one of her pheno that is legendary for me, one of my favorite smoke! And the Kush must be really good too

Anyway i''l be following this closely

Keep the update coming

HAve a good grow

[Smokeythabear 988]

Thanks Dust! The 2 LED's use only 28 watts each but are supposed to put out the equivalent of 250 watts high pressure sodium in light output each light. Ya they seem to have really liked it..with all the mistakes I made at the start they have still done pretty well I think.

Everyone who has tried the Moby Dick has raved about it and I can't wait! I was hoping to have an equal number of plants - 2 Moby Dicks and 2 Pure Kushs in the SCROG but I felt it was best to go with the 4 strongest plants.

[mopman 985]

Nothing wrong with those plants and for a first grow spot on man will grab a seat for this one

[Bam-Bhole 1,903]

Maybe your first grow but planned like a pro..Looking good !

[Smokeythabear 988]

Thanks for all the encouragement! Coming from you guys that have been growing for years that means a ton..I have nothing but respect for all of you. I was talking to someone today who told me that when he started growing 15 years or more ago there was very little in the way of info, internet was barely there, gear and nutes were not anywhere near what they are today, and there were barely any hydro stores..so ya..you guys that started out hardcore with almost nothing..and to those who still do..nothing but respect! I've got some pretty awesome gear and I still have my issues and stress and it's still lots of work. But, I love it!

You say planned like a pro..my wife says obsessive grower But she puts up with me lol..and she even has some great ideas. Today, while I was going on about switching the two plants in my veg dome over to flower, she said "Why don't you SCROG the 2 plants in the dome?..it'll be like a practice run"..she's right..and the space is perfect..plus SCROG should equal more yield Turns out the fencing I am using for screen fits perfect in the veg dome. I also decided to skip the CFL to flower the 2 in the dome..I'm gonna pay the extra $50 and get another LED Glow panel. I look at it this way, the LED offers more light output than the CFL, the bulbs last 50,000 hrs instead of 10,000...the LED will use 28 watts per hr while the CFL about 125 watts saving in electricity..better coverage for a scrog than the CFL..I think the extra $50 is worth it.

2 mornings ago, I transplanted the 2 in the veg dome into 12 liter containers, so far so good..they look great even just under the T5 Sunblaster..I have it about 28 cm above them right now..if anyone can tell me what the ideal height for a T5 fluorescent is I would appreciate it So, they will go under the screen in the next day or two, and then will go under the LED Wednesday, (payday lol) and they will be switched to flower in the near future.

I lowered the height of the LEDS in the tent to 51 cm above the plants and did a bit of LST..I bent them to prepare them for the screen and to start to get some light to the lower and inner branches. I also added a layer of hydrotron to the top of the plants to help keep evaporation and need for watering down (the rockwool cubes dry out fairly quickly near the surface otherwise..and it helps develop a surface root system they say..it worked well in the smaller pots)...if anyone has any experience or suggestions with this particular use of the clay pellets please advise me

Room temp & humidity - Night: Min - 22.5 deg C....Max. 25 deg. C

Day: Min 24.5 deg C...Max 27 deg. C

Humidity range 48 - 58 %

Here are a few pics of them in their new homes..the last picture was taken this morning showing the recovery from the bending last night. I left the LEDS on this time in the pictures since it seems a lot of people like them taken that way.

I am having a bit of a problem with a new leaf on my 1 pure kush that is in the tent, as you will see in the pictures. I'm not too concerned since the rest of the plant looks good, but if I should be or if anyone can tell me what it might be, please let me know.

ALL COMMENTS AND ADVISE IS MORE THAN WELCOME!

[Gfarmer 1,068]

awsome man ive been dying to see a new update. normally i wouldent go with a grow tent because of the added exspense but you couldent have found a better one for your light set up. and i gotta say man for a first grow so far you are really comming at this like a pro. the tent you picked is a nice size lots of room for the plants to bush out as well as grow vertically the lights are flat and together cover the hole surface of the ceiling

the fans are positioned perfectly allowing for air circulation , coolling the lighting system without blowing directly onto the youngplants and enough lamps to keep the air circulating. on the TCC forum i remeber you asking me about the pot sizes those should be sufficent until you are ready to flower for sure then i would put them in much larger ones.

all an all tho looks like you doing a great job the only thing i might do differently is keeping the lights alittle closer if the tempuratures would allow it but i am insanly anal when it comes to light positioning but really good job man i cant wait to watch your plants mature.

[Smokeythabear 988]

Thanks greenomatic..I decided on the tent because we aren't sure how long we are gonna be in the place we are in, this way I can pack it up and take my grow room with me when we move. It looks pretty but ya, it was definitely an added expense.

Thanks for the advice with the lights..I was just playing it safe with the recent transplant and light intensity, I lowered them to 16 inches (40 cm) above the smallest plant this morning. Heat is not a problem as they emit almost no heat whatsoever. I would move them even closer except I am concerned about the light footprint..I want to make sure I am getting maximum coverage for all plants.That being said, I rotate them 1/4 turn each morning (their morning...7 pm for us) so that they get even coverage.

As for the containers, I am hoping to keep them in those until they are finished..I am planning on conservatively filling the screens up, so I hope not to veg for too long. Also, the rockwool growcubes are supposed to trick the plant into putting more energy into growing above ground and a smaller root system. If anyone has experience with this could you let me know please. That said, I value your opinion greenomatic and I wanna throw the question out there to a few more growers.

QUESTIONS: Will the 23 liter containers be big enough to support the plants through another 2-4 weeks of vegging and 8-9 weeks of flower..total time grown from seed 14-17 weeks? Keeping in mind I am using promix soiless/grodan growcubes 50/50.

My second question is for anyone who has done a SCROG. I have read that the minimum size you want to use for your screen is a 2 x 2 inch pattern (5 cm x 5 cm). Does this sound about right? Has anyone used less? I want to maximize bud sites but not overcrowd or make it too difficult for the branches to grow through the screen.

[Smokeythabear 988]

Just in relation to my question about container size, I'm going to quote some info I found in "Marijuana Horticulture The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower's Bible" written by Jorges Cervantes. He says that a 5 gallon (19 liters) will do for a plant that will grow in the container for 3 - 8 months. He also says to allow 4 - 7 liters of soiless mix for each month the plant will spend in the container, and a 3 to 6 gallon container (I have 6 gallon containers..23 liters) is good for three to four months of rapid plant growth.

I am hoping that they spend a total of 4 months max in containers..another 3 weeks vegging and then 8 weeks flower. Any comments on this?

[Mykol76 645]

great job bro, I congratulate you because for your first grow you have taken care of in detail, seems like an experienced grower.

I might add that the plants are a beautiful deep green, and they look very healthy.

Then I wanted to tell you about the question pots, in my opinion it is difficult to estimate precisely if 23 liter pots

are large enough to support the power plant's lasted a period of 13 weeks, because this also depends on many other factors.

In my opinion I think that filling 1/2 or 3/4 of the pot with a specific soil for flowering you should have no great problems for the duration of flowering.

Wishing you a happy growth.

Edited June 10, 2012 by mykol76

[Bam-Bhole 1,903]

Depends on how long VEG & Flowering time take altogether. Many do with 4 gallons (me) , wished I'd taken 5 gallon pots , since the total time will be closer to 5 month than 4 - Anything below is for fast and small AUTOS only or if someone wants a crippled growth. 6 gallons is on the safe side, sure the bigger the better BUT you must still be able to properly light the whole footprint of the plants and 4 big bushy plants will definitely make your little light insufficient - so keep it up the way you run things and measure how much space can be covered in your tent.

[Bam-Bhole 1,903]

oops you got 600 watt hps 2 of them - so you can take as big pots as fit in. Just try befor you buy !

[Gfarmer 1,068]

i dont no tho see i have heard jorge say that but i think that isent suffcient the guys from green house suggest to grow in 60L containers under 600 W hps.

i assumed green house was over killing the 60L buckets so when i bought my buckets with the GWS i went with 40L bucket and i put ruffly 35Ls of soil alll together. i started the plant in a 5 L container and vegged it for about 3 weeks then upgraded to like an 7 or 8 L bucket for the next 20 days at which time i transplanted into the 40L container the plant has only been in the new container for 39 days now and already the root mass is taking up a troubling amount of space im concerned i might have to transplant. and that is which GWS that is naturally a shorter branchy plant. so thats why i say be careful when making the desicion especially it you are planning to scrog the plants all threw 1 screen because if it gets to the point where you have to transplant again and all the plants are stuck together with the screen it will be hella difficult to do the transplant.

to me its one of those things that the more the better like giving the roots all the space they need you could never really go wrong with that while not enough could be a pretty big problem and its one of those things that is so cheap and easy to do that in my opinion its best to play it safe when the plants are still young then having to attempt a transplant will full flowering plants.or something or having root rot late in flowering. but i have a lot more knowledge with indica dominate plants maybe someone who has grown moby dick. also i meen play it slow like your gonna have time before you set up the scrog and what not to check the roots see if its becoming root bound and then decide what to do because you have them in sufficent sized pots for the moment i would just suggest keeping a very close eye right before you start the flowering and massive training and what not if the roots are starting to look crowded its a safe bet tat they are gonna need more room.

you could even at the time take a picture of the root system and post it and ask people advice then. its one of those things that as along as you moniter your plants closely you should be able to tackle most problems as the occur on my first indoor grow i had a plan from the start and as i went it changed dramatically and youll probably do the same thing for the first while until you start to get comfortable with how the plants grow and what not.

[Romeu9 491]

Just in relation to my question about container size, I'm going to quote some info I found in "Marijuana Horticulture The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower's Bible" written by Jorges Cervantes. He says that a 5 gallon (19 liters) will do for a plant that will grow in the container for 3 - 8 months. He also says to allow 4 - 7 liters of soiless mix for each month the plant will spend in the container, and a 3 to 6 gallon container (I have 6 gallon containers..23 liters) is good for three to four months of rapid plant growth.

I am hoping that they spend a total of 4 months max in containers..another 3 weeks vegging and then 8 weeks flower. Any comments on this?

Yeah Jorge is right!! I always followed that and it works! And not even telling you to stop on the root stimulants during flowering, anyway it will work, but if you wanna go bigger the plants will apreciate it aswell!

Very nice grow, keep them coming!

Take care

[Gfarmer 1,068]

o yeah man that leaf thing i wanna find out what that is as well ive had it happen to me before with another strain. it wasent like a problem really like the leaf just grew out normally but it just was missing some tips. but i wondered what it was from

[Bam-Bhole 1,903]

Those leaves do look healthy. Cannabis plants will fill up any container with their roots pretty fast BUT that does not mean it NEEDS a bigger pot. Just watch from the bottom and see how much soil is left free from roots the further you go up. The main root goes straight down to the max and rom there the root system rolls itself upwards and fills the pot and eats up the soil,so leaving a few inches for more soil will buy you half a month extra..Olly when the roots are starting to rot or take up all of the pot's soil you got no choice but transplant in a bigger pot.The rule of thump 1 gallon per month works so 4 is minimum full up, 5 is playing it safe and 6 is sufficient. You want huge bushes and 2 meter high ganja ? Then get 65 litre pots - otherwise 4 to 6 is imo the best for tents and regular sized grow rooms with no more than 600 watts (for 600 watts I suggest 6 gallon pots).

[Smokeythabear 988]

Wow! Thanks everyone for all of the great input! I've been busy cutting screen for the scrog and haven't had a chance to reply until now. Since the garden fencing I am using has holes that are too small, I get to cut out bigger holes..don't get me wrong I think the pattern is pretty cool now and all..but my hands are killing me from all the cutting! lol..I counted a total of 320 holes/possible bud sites...that gets me excited I hope to have it installed tonight or tomorrow.

Thanks for all the advice on the container size..it's great to have that much feedback! Taking everyone's comments into consideration, and the fact that the plants are soon to be locked into the screen..(I was originally going to do a screen set-up for each plant/pot..but that engineering of that is a little trickier with the garden fencing I want to use..and I would need much larger pots to plant the bamboo stakes in to get a decent sized screen..maybe in the future) I'm going to stick with the containers I have for now, they have a cool root net liner in the bottom, the price was right and they fit on the steel framed dolly's I found for wheeling them round..one of the reasons I have my medical license to cannabis is a back injury. BUT, I will start keeping my eyes out for bigger ones for the future. I do agree with all of you that suggest the more room for the plants the happier they will be

More pictures soon!

Take care and happy growing everyone!

The plants are looking great..the healthy green colour of the leaves that a few of you mentioned may have to do with the Dutch Nutrient Formula "Green" I have been using..seems to work well. I have been slowly increasing the nutes..as I said I burnt them at the start plus had my pH way off so it has been a bit slow in getting the nutes back to where they should be. Tonight they get a water+feed and I will be increasing the nutes a little again. I've been running with the lights around 12-14 inches (30- 35 cms) above the plants. I removed a lot of the hydrotron from the top of the 4 plants in the tent, decided they were locking too much moisture into the growing media. I want to be able to water+feed every 3 days right now and not have the roots sitting in the same water..if that makes sense?

I installed the screen for the 2 plants in my veg. chamber 10-12 inches (25-30 cm)..tomorrow they get a new LED Glow panel like the other ones. Unlike the plants in the tent which I'm going to veg and train in the screen for awhile, I am going to flip the 2 in the veg chamber to flower fairly soon once they touch the screen then I will continue to train them throughout flower.

[Smokeythabear 988]

You have a smart GF, scrog is fun to do and if you can have a bit of training go for it. Glad to hear everything going as it should. It sure looks beautiful with a clean grow room like yours. Keep on sharing and remember to ask if you need anything from us.

Thanks..ya the silver tent liner makes everything look pretty cool! Right now they are almost at the height of where the screen will be..do you think I should wait to install it until the plants are a little bit taller than the screen height and then pull it back through the screen bend and train? Or should I get the screen in there and then let the plants grow through it?

[Smokeythabear 988]

Those leaves do look healthy. Cannabis plants will fill up any container with their roots pretty fast BUT that does not mean it NEEDS a bigger pot. Just watch from the bottom and see how much soil is left free from roots the further you go up. The main root goes straight down to the max and rom there the root system rolls itself upwards and fills the pot and eats up the soil,so leaving a few inches for more soil will buy you half a month extra..Olly when the roots are starting to rot or take up all of the pot's soil you got no choice but transplant in a bigger pot.The rule of thump 1 gallon per month works so 4 is minimum full up, 5 is playing it safe and 6 is sufficient. You want huge bushes and 2 meter high ganja ? Then get 65 litre pots - otherwise 4 to 6 is imo the best for tents and regular sized grow rooms with no more than 600 watts (for 600 watts I suggest 6 gallon pots).

Thanks for the great info! I didn't realize that was how the root system developed. With the rockwool growcubes I'm told the roots encircle the cubes and develop little colonies around them, and then as long as they are supplied the right amount of nutes the roots don't need to grow like crazy to find food. Does this sound right?

[Smokeythabear 988]

You will do fine with 5x5cm dont worry.

23L pots will work if you know how to handle your nutes. I used to have 20L pots and that was like the lowest i would go. Just give her alot of love and a really good soil mix and she be ok. Good luck mate.

Oh ya..I wanted to ask, you say if I know how to "handle your nutes"..could you explain what you mean by this? Do you mean to watch the root stimulating additives? Thanks!

[Smokeythabear 988]

i dont no tho see i have heard jorge say that but i think that isent suffcient the guys from green house suggest to grow in 60L containers under 600 W hps.

i assumed green house was over killing the 60L buckets so when i bought my buckets with the GWS i went with 40L bucket and i put ruffly 35Ls of soil alll together. i started the plant in a 5 L container and vegged it for about 3 weeks then upgraded to like an 7 or 8 L bucket for the next 20 days at which time i transplanted into the 40L container the plant has only been in the new container for 39 days now and already the root mass is taking up a troubling amount of space im concerned i might have to transplant. and that is which GWS that is naturally a shorter branchy plant. so thats why i say be careful when making the desicion especially it you are planning to scrog the plants all threw 1 screen because if it gets to the point where you have to transplant again and all the plants are stuck together with the screen it will be hella difficult to do the transplant.

to me its one of those things that the more the better like giving the roots all the space they need you could never really go wrong with that while not enough could be a pretty big problem and its one of those things that is so cheap and easy to do that in my opinion its best to play it safe when the plants are still young then having to attempt a transplant will full flowering plants.or something or having root rot late in flowering. but i have a lot more knowledge with indica dominate plants maybe someone who has grown moby dick. also i meen play it slow like your gonna have time before you set up the scrog and what not to check the roots see if its becoming root bound and then decide what to do because you have them in sufficent sized pots for the moment i would just suggest keeping a very close eye right before you start the flowering and massive training and what not if the roots are starting to look crowded its a safe bet tat they are gonna need more room.

you could even at the time take a picture of the root system and post it and ask people advice then. its one of those things that as along as you moniter your plants closely you should be able to tackle most problems as the occur on my first indoor grow i had a plan from the start and as i went it changed dramatically and youll probably do the same thing for the first while until you start to get comfortable with how the plants grow and what not.

Thanks for all the input man! You definitely sound a bit anal with your growing...like me! Hahaha! Glad to have someone to talk to that seems as obsessed as I am. I'm gonna conservatively fill the screen this time round, not veg for too much longer, and try and play it safe with this size pots..and like I said start keeping my eye out for some bigger ones. I want to find ones with almost the same size diameter on the bottom as the ones I have now, just taller.

[Smokeythabear 988]

Meaning that you know how to use your nutes so your plants can handle all those weeks without wanting anything. Using smaller pots means they need to get strength from somewhere other than just the soil

When i do soil grows, my soil mix last me 4-5 veg weeks before i start to dose them with nutes. If the soil is not mixed as good as it should be or that you are going for more weeks, that means you need to add more food.

I think you have a good thing going and i wish to see alot of nice flowers along the way

Thanks for explaining, that makes a lot of sense With my mix being soiless pro mix BX/Grodan growcubes rockwool I should be able to get a bit longer I would think then since they get pretty much all of their food from whatever I add to the water. The growcubes don't break down at all

[Smokeythabear 988]

Well I purchased two more lights..another LED Glowpanel (totalling 3 now) and another 2 foot Sunblaster T5. The idea being that I am going to use the LED to flower my 2 pure kushes already scrogging in my veg chamber, and then take the T5, with the other T5 and add them to the 4 x 4 tent to get more light to the 3 Moby dicks and 1 pure kush. Long story short (something I have a hard time doing by the way in case anyone hasn't noticed lol), I got the LED set up to go plugged it in and...nothing...no juice straight from the factory Oh well it happens..I popped over to my hydro store and they exchanged it no questions asked..I love my hydro store So, I ended up setting up the one new T5 I purchased in the large tent (the second one still being used to veg the other 2...it gets confusing I know ) along the outside of the LEDS and WOW! what a big difference in total light the plants are receiving..and to prove it the plants on that side grew noticeably more than the ones on the non T5 supplemented side. All for $45 with the reflector and again minimal energy used..34 watts

Tonight when the lights come on I will set up the LED and get the 2 in the veg chamber ready to flower, and then take that T5 and add it to the tent. I also really need to get the screen in there..my biggest moby dick is now about 14 inches (35 cms) with TONS of side branching.I have lots of work to do and a 3 year old to take care of as well

I will get more pictures up soon I promise. On a side note, greeno if you read this, I picked up some of the new Pineapple Bubba Kush this morning at the dispensary...HIGHLY recommended if you already haven't picked up some yourself..pun intended lol

Peace and happy growing all!

[Bam-Bhole 1,903]

if you wan the plants to grow through the net you must place it BEFORE they grow to that height, where the net is, you cannot push them through it properly ! For pots remember that good soil esp. enriched with 100 gram GUANO per 10 liters is quite costly and the grow tent is not that high, 65 litre pots are simply TOO big for a tent and good soil will cost you 20 bucks per 50 litres easily. I mean why waste good soil and money - My plants stray in 4 gallon pots this time and they are about as big as an indoor plant should grow in order to light them properly - in fact the JH closest to harvest and the Himalaya Gold are already to large to be placed directly under the COOL TUBe, which is near the maximum height position.

4 gallon pots are 12" high 8 gallon pots 24" and 65 litre pots are 48"es high.

The only reason why GHS uses these large pots is the Hydroponic plant.. Lok at those "organic no fertilizer" dwarves next to these greenish hydro beasts. No way these little plants used all the soil in those huge pots !

[Smokeythabear 988]

Thanks for the input Bam What do you use for growing media? As for the screen..working on it now..almost in..plants are bent 90 degrees and lots of secondary growth/bud sites. I will take pictures when I'm done and post.