My first grow journal! Not my first grow... Forest Fruits Autofem

[Filthyhat]

Hello all! Man it’s great to be back. I’ve been super busy just trying to spend money. When you’ve got so much of it it’s kind of a full time gig…

OK joke’s over. I don’t have any money. But I am a very rich man, for I have beautiful pot plants! A plethora of beautiful pot plants. My cup of beautiful pot plants runneth over, and so forth.

As some of you may recall, when last we spoke I was off to see the wizard. The trip was an overwhelming success. In exchange for my undying gratitude and agreeing to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, I was allowed to purchase five Gorilla Glue 4 clones from a guy in a parking lot.

Now I have never purchased clones before, so I had no idea what to expect. Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised by the size and apparent healthiness of the plants. I had kind of thought that they would be fragile, barely rooted affairs with wilting leaves remarkable only in their ability to significantly lighten my wallet. Not so. As the picture would suggest these were healthy little plants, and I was overjoyed to make their acquaintance.

I wasted no time in removing these little beauties from their chili cups and plopping them into net pots under my LED light. I didn’t take any pictures of that process but I can attest that they were rooted very well.

I think the clones might have been in coco when I got them. The medium I washed off was sort of like dirt, but there were a lot of coconut hairs mixed in. As I grow in DWC, I had to rinse as much of the dirt from each plant’s roots as I could and then I put them in net pots surrounded with hydroton. The top layer of pea gravel was added as always to block light and possibly deter some of the insects.

Here they are in their new home.

It’s been ten days since they were put into their net pots, and they’re really starting to take off.

This pic is from last night.

The last of my Amsterdam seeds have been doing real well too since I started using the filtered water.

The strain is “light of jah”, it’s supposed to be strongly sativa. When I get home from work I’m gonna have to sort them out a place to live too.

[PurpNGold74]

Looking good @Filthyhat. Happy to see u still around bro. N those GG’s look damn fine. Best of luck

[DoobieNoobie]

Hey looks like a good place to start with some clones. I’m betting the clones take off fast. Was there enough roots to hit the water right away?

[Filthyhat]

Hey thanks guys yeah I’m not going anywhere I just get super busy with fifty hours a week full time job and my martial arts training. Plus my phone won’t transfer pics to my PC anymore stupid phone.

Anyway of the four that I put in net pots three of them had been rooted in rockwool cubes and one had not. Most of them had roots long enough that they could have hit the water, but getting the roots through the slots on the net pots was a different story. I managed to pull one root on a couple of them through but I didn’t want to hurt them so I ended up just basically putting down a layer of hydroton and then placing the roots on top and covering up. It took them about five days if I recall to reach the water.

[Filthyhat]

When I first set them up I raised the water level up to the bottom of the net pots and top watered for a few days. Now that they’re crazy rooted I’ve let the water fall back to about two inches below the net pots.

[Filthyhat]

I’m still here, El Guapo! Things really haven’t progressed as much as I had hoped. In all honesty everything went to heck and I’ve been scrambling to salvage as much as I can.

Things were going pretty great right up until that last post, I had sorted out some issues and the plants were looking really nice. That’s when everything took a sharp turn towards lame.

As some of you might recall I was anticipating moving my smallest plants, the Light of Jah ones from the Amsterdam seeds into a new grow space. Being short of funds and all I decided to resurrect my first ever grow cabinet to give them a nice place to stay. I ordered another ventilation fan and another air pump and for simplicity’s sake I opted to grow those plants in a thirty gallon tub instead of a recirculating system. I did that and set up my aging 400 watt metal halide light above them. Some of you may already see where this is going.

The plants loved the light, but once I set that up in my tiny grow room I started having serious temp issues, with the room reaching high eighties. The next day the root rot set in.

It hit the Light of Jah plants with a vengeance. I deigned to look at the roots and found nothing but slimy brown slimeballs where once beautiful white roots had shone like the strings of an angel’s harp. If indeed an angel’s harp strings shine like I imagine they must.

I tried Hydroguard. That seemed to help. I got Great White. That helped some too I guess. Or not. But I put it in there. I put it all in there. The root rot spread to the other plants.

Of the Gorilla Glue plants, two survive. I think they are going to be OK because the reservoir chiller finally arrived today. Surely Hydroguard, Great White and my new Active Aqua reservoir chiller should make these problems a thing of the past. On to the next set of problems.

I hope the rest of you are having better luck with your grows than I am. I’m going to keep at it. I am licensed after all. Eventually if I just keep throwing money at it maybe I can grow some pot.

If I ever get a camera that works I’ll start updating more again as I could really use some support from the community for these low times lol and maybe some of you can help me avoid some of these problems, if I’m not too thick headed. It may be that I need to postpone my efforts until I can afford to get a little better equipped. In the words of Howard Jones, things can only get better.

Have a good Friday night everyone On the next episode of How Not to Grow Pot, we’ll reveal how my adventures in cloning have been coming along. Sneak Peek: Everything keeps dying! Stay tuned for more excitement we’ll see you next time…

[Sirsmokes]

Damn sorry to hear about all this. Hope you can salvage the 2 gg4. Can you log into site to your phone then just create a short cut?

[Filthyhat]

Hey thanks man I think I was drinking last time I posted lol. Or maybe I wasn’t either way whine bitch whine.

Minor growing issues aside, growing pot is my future, and I’ve come to an epiphany. Originally I was doing something illegal and had to hide my passion, which was the reason for the cabinets. Now however things have changed and I’m completely on the level. I’ve been lamenting my lack of space for plants but then it donned on me, I haven’t even been using all the space I have…

Like a phoenix I am reborn from the ashes! Feast thine eyes upon my new grow room!

Ok, it’s really the same room but I’ve replaced the carpet with vinyl for spill resistance and I’ve removed the cabinets completely. I now have 9’2" by 9’5" to populate with plants. Slap in an ac and a cO2 and suddenly I’m running a sealed room.

It’s been a lot of work and a lot more to come but I’m excited again. We’re getting back on track.

Here’s the newest hangup. If I’m going to use this whole room, I’m gonna need a lot more lights. From all the reading I’ve been doing, my Chinese blurple light isn’t really the best option available. Let’s say I had a lot of money to work with, what lights should I choose?

I’ve been looking at the quantum boards, some cob setups, and considering diy fixtures. What I guess I really want to know is is my light really that bad? How much better off would I be with one of these much more expensive options? I want to do what’s best for the plants there’s just so much information out there and there are so many opinions that I’m overwhelmed.

Of course we’re talking about enough lights to do this entire room as a flower room I guess. How would any of you do it? Let’s just say that I was inclined to fill this room with blurple bestva LEDs like what I have now. With equivalent wattage, how much better off would I be with say quantum boards? I may have plenty of money to do this right real soon so I value any and all opinions.

[GreenJewels]

I’m glad I went with putting together my QB’s. It was easier than I thought. @dbrn32 is very knowledgeable.

[raustin]

There’s a huge difference between the blurple and a quantum board, huge!

[basementstealth]

Blruple revenge

[basementstealth]

Anybody know why my plant is doing so well so long after I drilled her?!? Honestly I know she liked it but I was so deep I thought I’d kill her. Now it seems as though she liked it

[Filthyhat]

That plant looks like a monster!

[basementstealth]

Why thank you kind sir

[PurpNGold74]

Ok. No whine bitch whine. Went thru a tough stretch. Im sure the GG’s will bounce back. N Jah is gone? Sorry .

Now!!! Congrats on the epiphany n new grow space. Smart move. Welcome to the rabbit hole. Just jump in anytime. YES diy is awesome, cobs or strips. And QBs are the beeknees (or cat’s ass) lemme just poke the important guy here. @dbrn32 n his lovely assistant (ok not really his assistant, dude is hella knowledgable too) @Aolelon

Now a few questions.
How far down the rabbit hole to go? U mentiond cash coming in and have a MASSIVE space
Do u plan on using all 9x9 of it?
Would u rather invest in one simple light to get u thru and try it out (believe me, before harvest ull make another!) or buy in bulk n try to make ur house glow?
Budget?

Alotta stuff up there. But the Dr will be in to see u shortly…

[PurpNGold74]

She does. How long has she been drilld? Watch her. Dont wanna screw up

[dbrn32]

You’re going to get about twice as much light per watt with a qb or high end cob fixture as any of the budget blurple lights. They’ll all grow weed, so becomes an issue of how much weed you want to grow and how efficiently you want to do it.

[PurpNGold74]

@dbrn32

how efficiently you want to do it.

More weed, less light bill. Damn right i wanna do it!

[Filthyhat]

Ok well the deal is I have a friend of the family that wants to get on board with my grow, and has a bunch of money to invest. It all comes down to whether I can make enough money in my 9x9 space to grow the business. I have been looking into getting a bigger space but that would eat up a chunk of my money, leaving me in the same boat where I can’t afford to get started. If I stay in this room for awhile, then I should have a few thousand to spend.

Now I know how a lot of people like to chase after the newest and bestest thing but I am not one of those people as that gets expensive real quick. That’s why the question about the blurple. I’m not saying that’s the route I want to go, but it almost seems like it’s in style to be hating on these lights and I’ve heard of people getting some good results with the blurple.

Even if I was going to outfit this room in blurple were talking about a couple of thousand in lights. I’m leaning towards something better right now given that my budget would allow.

So let’s say my budget for lights for this entire space would be around two grand, and that’s negotiable.

[Filthyhat]

I really don’t want to go the hps route cause that’s a lot of heat to deal with in a small room, and a lot of electric to pay for. I’m liking led if possible. I’m not completely opposed to hid but I’m weighing my options.