Hi everyone! I finally decided to try my hand at this wonderful hobby. This is my first post and first grow as well. I wanted to do something small, stealth and silent. I picked a closet and went straight to wiring a 4-banger outlet inside the closet so that solves the exposed wires problem. I settled in on a Mars Hysro 24”x24”x55” tent, I liked the design with the extra flap to help with light leaks in the zipper and it only takes up half of the closet. I decided to go with a 4” AC Infinity exhaust fan with the controller 69. I piped the exhaust out through the ceiling with a back draft preventer. The carbon filter is in the tent and the fan is suspended outside of the tent. I made a 6” light tight air intake filter that I put in one of the 6” pass throughs in the top. I went with the Mars Hydro TS1000W, it should allow me to fill my whole whopping 4 square feet with greenery. I mounted the ballast outside of the tent also. I also added two 6” AC Infinity fans, both connected to the controller as well. A upper, non oscillating one to move the heat around upstairs in the tent and disperse fresh air from the intake and the second is a oscillating one to give adequate circulation for the ladies down below. I have a 2.5 liter humidifier connected to a inkbird humidistat as well.
I decided to go with a organic setup. For seeds I chose ILGM’s sour diesel autos. I am using a one 3gal fabric pot and three 1gal pots. I had this idea in my mind that I could do one big one in the center and three little ones on the corners with the center one being a month ahead of the ones in the corners, hopefully allowing me to fully utilize my small space for max yield. The humidifier lives in the 4th corner.
I started my babies in solo cups. I did the bottom half of the cups with ffof dusted with root magic then ffhf on top. I intentionally left the ffhf an inch low in the cups. I soaked my seeds in 6.5 water with a touch of kelp for 24 hours then planted directly in my cups. Once the seeds popped and stretched a bit I topped up the remaining inch with ffhf to help get a low first node. Once they had two nodes I transplanted to their forever homes into ffof. (about 10 days in cups) I did this same method with all four, even though one is a month ahead of the others.
The 3gal one I have LST the crap out of and is now in its third week of flower (7th total) and the little ones are in their 2nd week of veg. Since I’ve decided on the organic route I’m using build a soil products and so far I’ve top dressed with craft blend at the 3 week mark on all of them and am using build a flower to top dress hopefully only twice in flower. I’m using recharge every other watering and using a little dolomite lime mixed in on plain water days to help with cal/mag. I just top dressed the 3gal with the Build a flower for the first time. So far so good. The 3gal has had painted nails the whole way so far and her runoff ppms are in the low 2000’s. A little rich but she’s showing that she likes it that way. The three 1gals I decided to go another route and fimmed them and topped them once the fim showed success. They have showed no signs of stress or slowing down. They didn’t even wilt when they got topped.
I have been keeping my light at 16-18 inches off the canopy and have it currently at 100%, my fans idle up and down with temps and humidity and keep it at 80-81 degrees during the day and 74ish at night with my humidity being around 55 during the day and 65 at night. My humidifier is keeping it steady at 55 with ease. My vpd hovers around 1.5-1.6 pretty much all day. This had turned out to be a pretty rock solid little setup so far. Any constructive criticisms, tips and tricks or anyone y’all may want to tag in on this are very much appreciated. I have learned most of what I know by reading here, through youtube and listening to Mr. Grow its pod casts.this forum has been an awesome resource and I’m happy to finally be taking part in it.
I also added a few red wrigglers in the pots too to help with aeration and help break down the top dressings.
welcome to the community. theyre looking great, what are you using for nutes? if you posted and i missed it im sorry. sometimes little ones turn out to be big ones, it’s happened to me lol.
@BudzMS I’m going organic on this. I’ve used build a soils craft blend at 3 weeks and I just top dressed with build a flower at the 6 week mark on the big girl. Using dolomite lime for cal/mag. And recharge to feed the microbes. I also have the fox farms trio and cal/mag as a back up just in case.
Welcome to the community Growmie. You’re going to have issues, that 2 x 2 will be full with just the plant in the 3 gallon pot. Over crowding will have an affect on air circulation and light penetration. Realistically that light will flower 1 plant in that space. 4 square feet would require 160-200 watts to cover the space to adequately flower a plant to a good harvest 
Fresh air intake is usually on the bottom since hot air rises. If you need more head space the filter can also go outside the tent.
Welcome. You are off to a good start. You will want more light to realize the plants’ potential. If you want to keep all three plants you may need to trim the corner dwellers down to one or two main colas.
I was starting to see yellowing in lower leaves today, I checked my runoff ppm and she was at 350. I made a fast worm casting tea and got it up to 600, hopefully that will hold her over for a day or two. I will be getting a tea brewer set up tonight and brewing up some of the build a flower with worm castings and some recharge.
I’ve gotten her up to 975ppm and she’s a happy girl again. Does the compost teas get stronger with brew time? I’m assuming it gives the microbes more time to break down the nutrients into more readily available compounds, so more brew time should equal more a nutritious tea correct?
The ones in the corners got a little bit of LST today also to spread them out along the walls more and are not shading out any of the big girl. They are already in preflower so the stretch may get interesting.
@OGIncognito , @beardless , the ts1000w is 150w at the wall so I’m hoping it will be just enough to get me through this. I’m getting 50-55 DLI in the center @18 inches and 30-35 DLI around the sides. I originally hadn’t planned on the 3 side plants but popping beans is addictive 
. My next round is going to be a single sour stomper, gonna try to spread that one out to completely fill this tent. I started LST on this girl way to early when she was 3 nodes tall. That was before I learned I could have just planted her deeper to help with her being leggy and I could have used the longer branches to spread her out more and get bigger, more substantial bud sites. Oh well…live and learn.
Well done Growmie and great numbers. It’s all about learning and for me it’s everyday. I have 2 techniques I use, a manifold and a Quadline mod version of the manifold. The manifold helps when I plant too many for the space. I try and use a 30-36” circumference from the center of the pot as a single plant grow space. Typically I’m less than that 
. Anyway the manifold helps with width constraints and the same for the quadline there’s just more growth on this technique i can tag you on my current grow if you want to check it out??
2x2 is a nice amount of space for one plant. The scrog frames I use are 2x2 and with some pruning and training a plant will fill them. With the next grow, I am thinking I will use a Qualine to shape the photo Afghan to the frames.
Quadline is when you have four branches. The upper most set comes from topping (usually above 5th node). Branches 3 & 4 come from the next lower node. All growth below this node is removed. If left alone this gives 4 colas. If you then top each branch you end up with eight colas.
This plant is not mine. It shows the basic form of the 4 branches
This grower is growing a larger plant with more nodes but the basic shape is there.
This is my lame attempt at drawing a 8 colas quadline
It can grow very strong plants with near even growth.
@beardless thank you for the explanation, I can see that is definitely a good way to boost yields and spread a plant out evenly. I’m guessing that is more of a technique for photos? It would be a challenge to get that much done with a auto before it starts going to flower. I’ll have to keep that in mind when I finally try a photo.
Yes it is. This was grown by someone I believe is no longer active on the forum. He grew 2 autos pruned to this form in a 2x2. Each plant has 6 colas. Because of the limited space he had to be diligent in pruning all additional growth tips.
If you let one more set of branches grow you can have eight colas. The bottom most growth is just not as strong as the upper ones. But using this form, one auto can fill up a 2x2 space. (I did not update the descriptions for adding the extra set)
@beardless so far I’ve somewhat gone along with the second method you just posted on my side ones except I’m not training them down, I’m training them to the corners vertically. I trimmed off the first set of branches and topped after the 4th node. I fimmed before I topped to give the lower branches time to catch up to the top ones. They each will have 6 colas. I’m hoping I can manage these according to plan. I planted them in 1gal pots in hopes that helps limit their size.
It is important to have an idea of where you want to go. If it actually ends up close to the intended results, it is very gratifying.
I use the quadline technique but don’t do a 2nd topping, I Do a 2nd topping on manifolds but the 1st topping comes once there’s just enough space to top between the 3rd and 4th. I do both PHotos and autos this way just more time in between toppings with photo periods
Tonight the big girl got a top dressing of 1 cup worm castings, 2 cups build a flower and 1/2 tsp of dolomite lime and watered in with a gallon of distilled water. Run off ph was 6.1 and ppm was 800ish. The little ones got 1/2 cup worm castings, 1 cup build a flower and 1/4 tsp of dolomite lime, watered in with 32 oz water. Did not ph or ppm them.
Big girl is frosting up nicely
