Grow 2.0 Outline
Grow Medium: Rockwool, Hydroton
Grow Style: RDWC
Nutrients: General Hydroponics Flora Series
Additives: General Hydroponics CaliMagic, Rapid Start, & pH Down
Fox Farm's Beastie Bloomz and Cha Ching
Water: Reverse Osmosis
Veg Light: 216w T5 - 6500K - 20,000 Lumens
Flower Light: 400w HPS - 2100K - 50,000 Lumens
Strain: The Doctor
Breeder: Green House Seed Company
Strain: TNT Kush
Breeder: Eva Seeds
GerminationI germinated each seed in 1.5" rockwool cubes soaked in RO water at a pH of 6.0 - I have a Sun Blaze 44 T5 light set up with two of the four bulbs in for the seedling stage. I'll put the other two bulbs in when the plants really start taking off.
April 27, 2012This is my first time using rockwool, so I kind of screwed up this next part a little bit, but it's cool. Everything is fine. A few days after germination, each cube had a nice white root coming out of the bottom of the cube, so I soaked two 4" rockwool cubes in RO water with General Hydroponics Rapid Start, a rooting enhancer. I should have waited for more roots, but I can't turn back now.
May 2, 2012 - Day 10I put the 2 bulbs back into the light. Both seedlings are looking good. They're both starting to work on the second set of bladed leaves. I think I should have waited to give the plants any of the Rapid Start. Each plant is showing [different] signs of nutrient burn. Not too thrilled about this. This is my first time with rockwool and hydro, so I blame my own ignorance.
The Doctor (left) TNT Kush (right)
May 7, 2012 - Day 15Last night I put The Doctor into the DWC with 2.5 gallons of water and 1/8th strength nutrients. The TNT Kush only got 1/4 strength Rapid Start.
The Doctor:
TNT Kush:
May 13, 2012 - Day 21My plants are 3 weeks old today, so I thought I would upload some pictures to show the progression. The pH rises every day or two, so I usually have to go in and add a half ml to 1ml pH down to get back to ~6.0, also have top top off the buckets with fresh RO water every few days to get the water level back to where it should be.
The TNT Kush has a
bunch of roots coming out of the net pot which are now floating in the nutrient solution (with air stone) The roots really blew up overnight!!! I'm guessing that's the Rapid Start doing its thing. I have about twice as many coming out of the bottom today than I did yesterday. Pretty amazing! The Doctor still doesn't have any visible roots, which is kind of strange compared to the TNT Kush. I'm guessing now that the Kush's root system is really starting to establish itself, the plant is really going to start taking off.
The Doctor:
TNT Kush:
May 16, 2012 - Day 24My plants are looking pretty good, especially the TNT Kush. It's been about a week since I put my first nutrient solution together, so I decided to go ahead and change the water out and bump up the nutrients. Before I did that though, I dumped 1 gallon of RO water through each net pot in an attempt to flush any built up salts. I'm using the
Flora Series early-veg feed schedule at half strength.
The Doctor:
TNT Kush:
My Setup:
May 18, 2012 - Day 26A day or two ago I noticed the same spotting on my 3rd set of bladed leaves on my TNT Kush. I knew I had to do something quick. I'm still not exactly 100% sure on the deficiency, but I'm guessing it's magnesium. I'm using RO water, so it only makes sense. I can't wait to have that CaliMagic in hand. As soon as I get it, I'm switching the water out and adding it in. The way I fixed it before was upping the nutrients, but I'll feel a lot more comfortable knowing I'm adding something to prevent a specific problem, while hopefully not creating a new one...
So to fix the problem today, I first made a
bigger problem! I decided to go full strength "Early Growth" and quickly saw bad results. I drained the bucket, flushed the system, then went back to half strength of the "Seedling" feed schedule. So the Kush is getting a quarter of the nutrients as The Doctor just to be safe. It hasn't shown any signs of nutrient burn or anything, but then again, the roots aren't in the water yet. I'm going to do the same thing to The Doctor as I did with the TNT Kush just to be safe. This way I can tell if the plant needs nutrients or has too much, and if it has a lockout, flushing it will fix it.
Spots start like this:
Progresses to this:
And eventually this:
May 20, 2012 - Day 28Earlier today I decided to use the FIM technique on both plants for this grow. First time trying it, so I hope I did it right! I'm 4 weeks in today.
The Doctor:
TNT Kush:
May 26, 2012 - Day 34The Doctor looks fucking beautiful!!! It's getting slightly less nutrients than the TNT Kush. That plant has been a lot more sensitive to the nutrients I'm giving it. The Doctor on the other hand looks almost perfect, in my opinion. No nutrient burn or anything. The stem is a lot thicker than on the Kush. If I can get my hands on an inline fan, I plan on putting up my 400 watt HPS and dropping the light to 12/12. I'm not trying to get too big of plants. I'm sure I'll end up with a nice harvest with the size the plants will be next week when I change the light cycle.
The Doctor:
TNT Kush:
May 31, 2012 - Day 39A few days ago, I took my T5s down and put up my 400w HPS. Tomorrow is day 40 and I'm flipping the light to 12/12 to start flowering.
FloweringJune 1, 2012 - Day 40 - Flowering Day 1I finally got the replacement glass for my reflector today. So happy!!! I put the glass in and lowered the reflector to about 18" or so from the top of the plants. Super fuckin excited to see how the Doctor shoots up over the next couple weeks.
June 7, 2012 - Day 46 - Flowering Day 7I changed the nutrient solution, and decided to try out the Lucas Formula. I added 20mL of Micro and 40mL of Bloom to each bucket. The plants have been having some nutrient deficiencies this last week, so I hope this fixes it. Also hoping this doesn't cause a problem... I measured The Doctor before flowering, and today, and it appears it grew about 7 inches over the first week, so about 1 inch a day. Not bad if you ask me!
June 13, 2012 - Day 52 - Flowering Day 13Changed nutrient solution. Sticking with the Lucas Formula since it seems to be doing the job pretty well. I have pistils on both plants so I decided to start giving both plants some Beastie Bloomz to make the buds start to blow up. After mixing all my nutrients up, I went to check the pH and it ended up being dead on, exactly 5.5 so I didn't have to touch it after mixing everything! I love it. I have a good feeling about this.
June 14, 2012 - Day 53 - Flowering Day 14June 21, 2012 - Day 60 - Flowering Day 21I bought a Bluelab Truncheon today, so now I can get a way better idea of what's going on in my nutrient solution. Now I'm learning all about PPM and EC. Going from the Green House Seed grow videos, at this point in flowering their solution is pH 5.5 and EC 1.8.
The EC is 2.5 in the Doctor and about 2.7 in the TNT Kush. So, yea, I'm going to do the obvious and make new solutions for both plants. Shooting for the same 1.8 as the grow videos. Glad I decided to pick it up!
June 28, 2012 - Day 67 - Flowering Day 28So I found a bunch of pollen sacks growing on The Doctor a couple days ago. I was pretty pissed off since I only have 2 plants, and it happened on the bigger one of the two. I went through the plant and picked off every single pollen sack that I could find, then went through it again the next day and picked off a few more. I did what I could!
The Doctor
TNT Kush
Tent Shot
July 5, 2012 - Day 74 - Flowering Day 35Today is the end of the 5th week of flowering
The Doctor
TNT Kush
July 10, 2012 - Day 79 - Flowering Day 40I flushed both plants with pH 6.0 RO water and then mixed up a new nutrient solution. I cut Flora Gro out of the solution in both plants and switched from Beastie Bloomz to Cha Ching. Using a little bit more Flora Micro and Bloom, and also using CaliMagic for both plants. I'm keeping it at pH 5.8 and EC 1.7. Both plants are sucking up nutrients pretty quick. The Doctor is definitely starting to smell good. Very citrusy and fruity. The TNT Kush is somewhat piney and peppery. I'm sure the smell will become much more apparent in the next week.
July 12, 2012 - Day 81 - Flowering Day 42Today is the end of week 6, start of week 7!!! No talk, just some pictures.
The Doctor:
TNT Kush:
July 19, 2012 - Day 88 - Flowering Day 49Today is end of the 7th week. I changed my mind and I'm going to run both plants for 8 weeks and then harvest. I looked at the trichomes last night and The Doctor has about half cloudy half clear, and the TNT Kush is pretty much all cloudy. I'm going to harvest next Thursday or Friday when I have time. Today I started flushing the plants with Advanced Nutritens Final Phase. I'll switch to plain RO in a couple days when I change the nutrient solution.
HarvestJuly 24, 2012 - Day 93 - Flowering Day 54After 6 days of flushing, I harvested the TNT Kush today. I'm guessing it's going to be anywhere from 1-2 ounces.
July 25, 2012 - Day 94 - Flowering Day 55After 55 days of flowering The Doctor, and 7 days of flushing, I finally harvested her. The trichomes were mostly cloudy, I would have let it go another week or 2 if I could have, but I needed to break the grow down sooner than I thought. I had to trim the plant by hand, and it took me from 7:20 PM to 4AM to get the entire plant trimmed with a few breaks in between. My help bitched out, so I did it all by myself, just like the entire grow! Pretty proud of what I was able to pull off.
Here's a few pictures I took while trimming and whatnot the other night. I almost forgot to say, this plant smelled like straight up dank Skittles/Trix while I was trimming it. I'd say I did a pretty good job for my first hydro grow.
The front row is TNT Kush, the middle and back row are The Doctor.
Will update with dry weight and pictures in a few days.
July 27, 2012The TNT Kush is dry and ready to start curing. I cut all the buds off the stems, weighed, and split up into 2 mason jars.
Total weight: 57.9 grams