First indoor grow: SCROG Gold Leaf and Chocolope

Coperthwhite7 · January 16, 2018, 12:59am

Here is a short list that may help. Copy anything you want.
0. Buy yourself a 600 watt LED light on ebay. I got my first one for $150.00.
1.Use Fox Farms soil and nutrients. They have great customer service help line 1-864-502-6500.
They told me exactly how to use Fox Farms products and it helped tremendously.
They have everything that has been designed to work together. It’s easier than trying all different things or, doing it yourself. My plants literally quadrupled in size when I just went to FF.soil and nutrients.
2.Use cloth pots and lift them up onto some type of drainage (2x3’s) so they can get air circulating on the bottom and sides.
You need to have them lifted up, put something under them, so you can flush them. (I always water them a little heavy so the water drains out of the bottom into the water catcher I have. Then empty that into a bucket. Then I dump the bucket into the toilet.
Eventually I’m going to have a Hot and cold water spout, sink, waterproof floor ( cement or tile) with a drain in the middle of it. Then I can just have the cloth pots lifted up on wood 2x3’s and the water can just go down the main drain.
That way I don’t have to catch the water and pour it into a bucket.
3. Buy a water meter and a temp/humidity gauge on ebay.

4. Don’t move your plants around unless moving them to the flower room or, stress them out in any way.
5. Find your designated grow (Veg and flower room) space.
6. Separate your Veg room from your Flower room.
7. Make sure your Flower room is bigger.
8. Get some type of ventilation system. Fan, whatever. I use a bathroom fan for exhaust with ABS 90’s and ABS pipe to keep it light tight… and keep the air circulating. $15.00 on ebay. ABS 90’s and ABS pipe you can get at Home Depot. Put it together with some black duct tape. You don’t have to glue it.
9. Invest in an A/C unit and a 30 pint dehumidifier.
10. Make sure the temperature stays between 68 and 75 degrees at all times (it can vary a bit,)and it is completely dark and light tight in your Flower room.
11. Don’t let it get too humid in the Flower room because of bud rot and mold. I suggest 40%.
12. Make sure your girls get 13 hours of uninterrupted sleep in a dark, light tight ventilated room.
Anyway, that’s how I did it, by 4 failures, trial and error, with a very limited budget.
Ideally, I would like to have a completely automatically controlled room, that never gets over 75 degrees and never over 45 % humidity.
PEACE.

Flyr · January 16, 2018, 3:14pm

@Coperthwhite7. Thanks for taking the time and breaking things down… Again. You’ve been a wealth of information and I appreciate it. The only thing I lack is Fox Farm Nutrients. The girls are still in the solo cup stage with Fox Farm soil and I haven’t feed them anything yet. They’re only 2 weeks old. I thought I would feed them in another couple weeks. I have everything on your list except for the A/C unit. I converted a bathroom into my flowering room so it has a water supply with drain. I’ve remove the exhaust fan and installed a filtered 710 cfm HyperFan with two 600 Watt lights hung in cool box Lil Hoods that are ducted together and plumbed outside. I suck from outside and exhaust filtered air into the attic. The girls are currently on a 16hr on / 8hr sleep schedule. Temperatures are 68/77 depending on outside conditions. I will really need that A/C unit when outside temperatures start to climb. My humidifier is able to keep things at 35% - 70% humid. Do I feed the girls before or after I transplant them into their next size container. I figure next size would be a gallon and then later a 15 gallon container. And yes, I have 15 gallon cloth pots for their last home.

nostril · January 16, 2018, 5:31pm

Horror today. Something happened with my ceramic heater and the tent temperature was at 92 overnight, with low humidity. My chocolope pot dried out and the plant underwent significant drought stress. GL is fine. I removed the dehumidifier, replaced the heater with a different one on low, and have watered repeatedly this morning. Sigh. Very sad, but hopefully she will have a reasonable recovery.

This is one challenge with my small 3G fabric pots - they don’t hold nearly as much moisture as larger ones. I probably will size up for my next grow.

Wish poor chocolope the best…

MattyBear · January 16, 2018, 6:48pm

I left my tent for 5 days while I was on vacation last summer. My buddy forgot about it and only watered my outdoor plants and I came home to the indoor plant looking worse than yours. I gave her some water and nutes and she bounced back in 48 hours.

nostril · January 16, 2018, 7:33pm

Yeah, visible recovery is already underway. But there are quite a few dead leaves at the bottom of the canopy. Oh well, never stop learning.

Flyr · January 17, 2018, 12:31am

@nostril… Hopefully you dodged a bullet. There’s still hope. I watched a video a while back from a guy called the Grow Boss or something like that and he showed how tough weed truely was as far as grabbing, twisting, pulling for training. I suspect they can handle large swings with water as well as long as they don’t cook. Good luck @nostril. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for your girls.

Bogleg · January 17, 2018, 3:58am

Weird. I had a major issue a couple days ago when a power strip failed. My fans were off for at least 5 hours. My tent had condensation in it everywhere - even dripping from the ceiling. Worst thing was I didn’t catch it until lights out so I couldn’t even rely on the lights to dry it out. I got the fans up and running and just left them at the same interval and turned the heater in the tent up to the highest setting and it was dry when I woke up.

nostril · January 17, 2018, 4:46pm

Recovery continues on Chocolope, which looks a lot better from atop:

…but upon closer inspection one can see that the canopy has thinned a bit. And some leaves are curled beyond repair. But overall, a better outcome than I could have had:

Interestingly, I am noticing some brown/orange pistils, mostly directly under the light. More on Chocolope than Gold Leaf. I’m wondering if this is related to my environmental issue yesterday. It seems quite early for me to be seeing this at all. First, Chocolope:

Next, Gold Leaf:

Thoughts on this? I’m only 23 days into flowering (counting from first signs).

Bogleg · January 17, 2018, 5:41pm

I had a handful of browning pistils on my SSH and GL at this stage. I think it’s normal.

nostril · January 18, 2018, 6:02pm

Rainy and damp here, so the humidity levels are higher in the tent. It doesn’t help that I reduced the heat significantly after my recent issue. Today I slightly raised the temperature because Chocolope is still pretty soaked. Dehumidifier back in the tent.

I am pleased with Chocolope’s recovery, though there were a lot of dead leaves under the canopy that I had to clear out. I think I’ve at least averted a complete loss, but I wonder what the impact will be on the final product, if any. Here’s Chocolope looking so much happier:

And here is the scrog with Gold Leaf in the foreground:

There is some evidence of areas where I tucked too late. That is, there are colas that are maturing with a bend in them, and the buds on the lower part of the cola are not creating their own shoot. I’ll keep that in mind as a lesson next time - stop being so overzealous with the tucking after flip.

Gilly · January 19, 2018, 6:40am

Look’in good my man! Looks like recovery is well on it’s way!! Beautiful!!! Love the pics!

Gilly

smokevera · January 19, 2018, 10:11am

Plants looks great, learned many from you. keep the great work @nostril

nostril · January 20, 2018, 5:15pm

Fed and watered today. Things look OK. Chocolope (foreground) is a little airy looking, hopefully that’s just the current stage of flowering. I haven’t seen much/any noticeable change in Gold Leaf (background) since I started increasing nute dosage. 26 days since first pistils. 36 days since flip.

nostril · January 21, 2018, 5:10pm

There are a lot of small buds tucked into the canopy. I did a little defoliation to expose those and contribute to better airflow. Environmentally the tent has been ideal at near 80F and 49% humidity. Rain expected tonight so humidity is likely to rise.

nostril · January 22, 2018, 4:58pm

nostril · January 22, 2018, 6:25pm

That last photo is Chocolope. Looks a bit airy/loose to me, but it’s possible that’s just the strain. Lots of frost all over, though, so I guess it is what it is.

Here are a couple more looks at the Chocolope buds and its canopy overall. Not sure what else I can do aside from wait and hope for the best. I’m sure my little fry-the-Chocolope day wasn’t helpful.