2nd Grow - Astro Boy & White Widow in Coco

[Nepisiguit]

Greetings GWE community,

I guess I'm a bit late with this but I thought I'd toss up some pics of my girls and I'll try to keep this somewhat updated. This site and forum has been a fantastic resource and I still have plenty to learn. Always open to suggestions and feedback

5'x5x80" Vivosun Grow Tent
2 x 1000W Phlizon LED COBs (actual draw ~255w each)
6" Vivosun exhaust fan
5 Gallon Fabric Pots
Coco Coir and Perlite mix (75/25 ratio)
General Hydroponics Flora Series Performance pack + CaliMagic. Following Nebula's Coco Nutrient schedule for the most part.
Seeds from Highgarden Marijuana (Canada)


Seeds were germinated via paper towel method starting on October 27.
They were germinating within a day or two and were put into Rapid rooters with a bit of Coco in Solo cups for about a week before going into their final home.

Plants were topped on November 22 (around week 4) and have been super cropped and LST'd to try to get a wide and flat canopy. I've been running the lights around 16" above the canopy on an 18-6 schedule.
Defoliating the sucker leaves and lower leaves periodically. Plants are quite compact and dense and appear to be quite healthy. Learning how and when to train really seems to be the key to maximizing your space and light coverage and getting nice shaped and healthy plants. I had intended on doing a scrog setup but I was too late in getting to it.

Watering has been as required at approximately 2-3 day intervals. Defintely notice the Coco seems to grow faster than 1st grow in soil but requires more frequent watering. My water pHs at around 7.3 prior to nutrients. I've been pH ing my solution to 6.0, the runoff is slowly creeping up (6.5 this week) and I intend to try to bring it down on my next mixes. Mixing 5 gallons at a time gives me about 2 waterings and makes the mix and pH process alot easier. A syringe makes measuring the nutes so much easier and faster.

Switched to 12-12 for flower on January 5 (around week #10).

Here they are today(around week #11.5). Budlets and forming and the flower stretch has really started to take off in the last day or two.

2 White Widow on the left and 2 Astro Boy on the right.

[SoOrbudgal]

Beautiful set up, great entry to the GWE forum. Welcome Nepisiguit. The grow looks great. What is the Astro Boy what strain?

[Nepisiguit]

SoOrbudgal Astro Boy is one of if not my favorite strain. Its a high powered Sativa.

Astroboy Marijuana Strain Information | Leafly

[SoOrbudgal]

Thank you for reply. Believe i watched a cartoon 50+yrs ago called Astro Boy LOL OMG

[Canuck147]

Everything looks great - except for one thing I read from above - not a good practice pre-mixing your nutes in water and leaving half until your next watering. I'm sure if you read on your labels of the nutes it will tell you the same thing.

[Nepisiguit]

I haven't found any specific instructions on pre-mixing on the labels or from General Hydroponics. Nebula's guide on GWE indicates most nutrient solutions will last at least a week after having been mixed, with those that are solely inorganic being ok for 2-3 weeks. The Flora trio is inorganic, however I think the Florablend which I'm using a bit of contains organic ingredients.

But I noticed today that my 3 day old left over solution pH'd at 6.9 today when it was at 6.0 when fresh.

[quirk]

Well done. I'm envious.

[Jjpaul]

Philizon brands have done me good. Caught a lot off flack at first. But my results proved otherwise. I’m upgrading to cobs next run.

great grow! Just throwing it out there. That light can get much closer. You’ll bud a will love it, the end result will be heavier. (Don’t burn with that cob though)

[Nepisiguit]

I really have no complaints about the Phlizons, especially considering the price. I started my first grow with 2 of their "900w" non-COB blurples which drew around 165w each. and had no complaints. My buddy is using those now with good results.

These "1000w" COBs only draw 255w each. But they have quite a bit more power than the blurples. They seems to be a Chinese knock-off of the Optic series, with these being the Optic 2 comparable for less than half the price. They have two switches a "Veg/Bloom" on/off switch for the blurple and a "Stronger" on/off switch for the COBs. I run both on.

On my first grow I ran into some issues, which I suspect was probably nutrient and pH related. But I'm a bit gun shy with running the lights too close just to rule out that possibility. I do intend to run them progressively closer, but I'm also trying to get wide enough coverage for around 4x4.

I've been drooling over HLG's QB stuff for several months now. I was thinking of investing in either 2 x HLG300RSpec or the HLG600RSpec. But now I'm really drooling over the HLG Scorpion which seems to be the cat's ass for a 5x5, but of course its even more money.

[crunchyfrog]

Nice work. You are going to love some white widow. I had a 4 plant white widow grow in a set up very similar to yours, though I used Coco Loco and 1/3 perlite, over 1.5 lbs dried and cured. I have not been the same since ha ha .

[Nepisiguit]

Both strains were specifically chosen based on what I like to smoke. Glad to hear of your results, I'm sure things will be pretty hazy for awhile after harvest and cure. I managed around 1.5 lbs on my first grow out of 2 Blue Diesel Autos and 2 Acapulco Gold Photos, but I think I'm doing a much better job (knock on wood) this time around and I hope my genetics and quality work out to be as awesome as I'm hoping.

[Nepisiguit]

Good evening GWE,

Thought I'd post a little update on the kids.

Here they are at Week #15, 5 weeks into flower.

Still mostly following Nebula's GH Flora series Coco schedule.
I am using the GH Flora series performance pack so I also have had some Floralicious Plus, Rapid Start and Liquid Kool Bloom in the mix, at 50% or less of what GH recommends.

pH has continued to want to slowly drift upwards, so I am now pHing my solution to 5.5 to keep the RO below 6.5. If anyone has an explanation why the pH continues to want to drift upwards I'd love to hear it, is it possible they aren't using all the CaliMagic?

Noticed a significant increase in bud size, fragrance and "sparkle" over the last 24 hours. Sh*t looks and smells delicious. Hopefully that trend continues for another few weeks and I'm pretty stoked to get into two strains that I usually enjoy.

Overall I'm pretty happy with how things are going and feel I'm learning and improving over my first grow. Still have plenty to learn for sure and proper and early training is something I want to focus on for next grow. I'm also debating on investing in better lighting for next time, but I'll create a separate thread to get feedback on that.

As always I'm open to comments and suggestions.