Small Tent, Perpetual Monthly Harvest, Auto-Flower Grow Journal (canna, coco, LED)

[Beach_Town_Brit]

Hi Weed Pharma Germination bags sound cool, do you recommend a particular brand?

 

[ButtyBach]

In the beginning...

I pulled one each of Nirvana auto Blue Mystic and auto Bubbleicious seeds from my fridge stash a couple of days ago to let them warm up to room temperature.
Yesterday morning I put them in Ph'd, filtered water in shot glasses to soak. I use a Brita water filter to filter my tap-water and Ph Down to adjust my PH.
Then last night after the seeds had been soaking for about 9 hours I potted them.

I'm using a trick I learned on the internet somewhere, which is to plant your solo cup with its bottom cut off in your bigger pot. This allows your seed to sprout and grow out within the confines of the solo cup in its initial days, then you just remove the solo cup once the seedling is ready to take on the full pot. To aid in removing the solo cups later I also snipped the bottom of the solo cup twice and marked where the snips were with a marker (2 snips opposite one another). Once the seedlings are ready I'll snip the top edge of the solo at the marks and then gently tear the cup's sides downwards. Once the solo cup is in two halves it's easy to slide out and your seedling has been re-potted with the absolute minimum of trauma ... in theory ...

I'm using coco/perlite mix. I re-use my coco from previous grows. The fabric pots are 3 gallon off-brand "smart pots."

I watered the outer medium with Ph'd water plus CalMag and Cannazym. This was probably unnecessary but I wanted to prime the medium and the Cannazym is supposedly good when re-using coco.

I very lightly watered the solo cup medium with plain Ph'd water and set a couple of half water bottles on top of them to act as humidity domes.

I reset my light timer for 20/4 light cycle -- on at 6pm, off at 2pm. I left it in the off position last night so that the seeds would have nearly a full day of darkness before the lights come on.

For now I am only using my P300, at about 28" from the top of the pots, and with only the veg switch on. The idea being to start the plants off with slightly less light intensity for the first few days.

Wow! Organised be fucked. Fair Play to you

I take it you are going to be hand feeding. Do you use Cannazym throughout the grow? Interesting that you reuse the coco.
Great tip on growing the seedlings in a larger pot. I usually start mine in jiffy plugs, I suppose it will still work. Especially with autos.

Exciting times ahead for you, lokking forward to joining you on the journey.

 

[ButtyBach]

Here's my Spartan Series temperature based fan speed controller. It has two temp dials that allow you to set target temperatures for day and night, and it then adjusts your fan speeds to try and maintain those temps. It determines day and night with a light sensor which is very useful because it means it follows day and night in your tent regardless of the actual time of day. There's also a switch that allows you to adjust how sensitive it is and how much leeway the unit will give on target temperatures.

This has got to be my next investment. My temps and humidity are all over the shop.

 

[Beach_Town_Brit]

Thanks ButtyBach We'll see if I can keep it up : )

I do use Cannazym throughout. I try to follow the light feeding schedule from canna

 

[Beach_Town_Brit]

It's a new device for me so we'll see how effective it is in such a small tent and with only a 4" extractor fan. My tent is in an upstairs bedroom in SoCal so it can get really hot up there during the summer. It's rarely cold here but a couple of days ago my temp dropped to 57F, hopefully only briefly.

 

[Weed Pharma]

This is the one I use:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Seed-Germin...thable-/271911898263?var=&hash=item3f4f364c97

 

[Beach_Town_Brit]

Awesome, do you just get the smallest one?
Do you know what's in them?

 

[Weed Pharma]

I use the 4" x 5 5/58" and cut about an inch off the length (top).
When I use them for clones I keep them whole- and they go into the bottom of a cut 20oz soda bottle until I see roots.
I will be posting a pictured tutorial, hopefully next week on how I do it.

 

[ButtyBach]

Wow 57F, you must have been freezing. Have you emigrated? Just in time if you did. Trump sure is shaking things up.
Ive got the opposite problem, keeping it warm. The temps have been all over the place this year. Been really difficult keeping them right. It shows too. My babies look dreadful.

 

[Beach_Town_Brit]

Yeah my life these days occurs between 72 and 85 F
I emigrated to the US a long time ago now.
I have done weather before though, a couple of decades of rain in England, some winters in Wisconsin, Chicago, Ohio.

 

[Beach_Town_Brit]

Girls both popped yesterday, looking good, I'll do a journal update with pics and details in the week. Hope everyone had a stoney weekend.

 

[Royal Nugs]

Congrats on germination.

 

[Beach_Town_Brit]

Update time Both seeds popped over the weekend which was a relief.

1-26-17 I removed the half plastic bottles I was using for humidity domes. I misted a little water over the surface.

1-27-17 Both seeds popped. Sprayed with water again.

1-28-17 I'm calling this Day 1, Saturday. Seedlings are out in full. The Mystic seems to be stretching a bit so I moved the P300 (veg switch on only) down to 26" above the canopy. I watered a little around the rim of the solo cups. I misted in addition to watering the rim of the solo cup.

1-29-17 Day 2. I set up a light and took some pics without the LED on. Misted lightly. Added water to run-off containers to increase humidity.

1-30-17 Day 3. With the light moved down and a warmer, dryer, weekend the solo cups were pretty dry. I watered the outer rim of the solo cups thoroughly. The idea behind watering around the rim is to encourage the roots to seek out the water a bit.

Across this period I've been dialing in my Titan fan controller. I've moved the sensitivity down to +/- 2 degrees and tweaked the target temperatures. Conditions are pretty easy right now here in socal, we had a dry warm sunny weekend. I walked on the beach in a tee-shirt So far the Titan has helped keep the temps in an 8-10 degree swing. Nighttime lows have been around 64, daytime up to 81, but overall 75 is the typical temperature. I did notice my humidity got pretty low, down to 39%. To address this I poured a cup or so of water into the containers beneath my plants (plants are raised up on shelf organizer frames from Amazon). This, plus the watering helped raise the humidity back up to 50% 'ish which is fine for me. These SoCal plants need to get used to dry conditions, it's a desert out here. The environmental challenge will come later in the grow as it warms up and I begin to struggle to keep temps down.

The Bubbleicious doesn't seem as vigorous as the Blue Mystic but it's very early days so we'll see. I'll probably mist for a few days then do a very light feeding the next time the media feels dry.

Below are the pics, Bubble first, then Mystic. Then a pic of my feeding schedule and the run-off tubs I add water to to raise humidity in my tent

 

[Beach_Town_Brit]

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Bubblicious auto , first days:

 

[Beach_Town_Brit]

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Blue Mystic auto, first days:

 

[Beach_Town_Brit]

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Canna coco, light feeding schedule, pinned to the wall by my water filter and nutes station.

The 99c store tubs and pantry organizer frames I use to support my plants. I can raise humidity by just putting a cup or so of water in the tubs before lights on.

 

[Weed Pharma]

Very nice start to an auto perpetual garden.
I began mine on Sunday with 1 plant and will dial in 1-2 plants every 25 days or so.

 

[Beach_Town_Brit]

Thanks Weed Pharma Are you going to use both tents for autos now or keep doing some photo periods? What strain did you plant Sunday?

 

[Weed Pharma]

Yes, if all goes as planned (it never does). I will start 2 plants in the small tent and then rotate every 25 days-into the larger tent- which will hold 4 plants.
So every 3 weeks or so- I will have 2 plants ready for harvest.
I started with 1 purple ryder auto- as I need a small plant to begin with- logistics to dial out photo's and dial in auto's along with travel plans and timing!

 

[Tika]

Congratulations! Excellent thought with pantry shelves! Do the tubs of water raise your humidity significantly?
ive started my Canna coco with the medium feed chart...I copied yours and may use it instead of mine. Thank you for posting it.
enjoy! Nice work