I’m new to the forums as of a week or two ago, and I’m starting my first grow this week. I’ve mostly been lurking and catching up on some of the awesome grow journals that have been active this year, and I’m blown away by what some of the people on here have been able to accomplish.
Initially, my goal was to try to grow a single Blue Dream plant using a 5 gallon DWC. My goal is still to try to get one good Blue Dream plant grown using DWC, but since I’ve germinated a few extra seeds from a local dispensary, I figured I would grow a few plants in soil–space permitting. This is entirely an experiment to learn and even if I completely kill my plant without producing anything worthwhile, it’ll be a success in my eyes if I’m that much more prepared to nail it on the second try. (I expect a few raised eyebrows at my choice of DWC for the first grow, but I’m really interested in hydroponics and want to learn how to manage that sort of set up.)
2020-09-04: Started germinating the Mojave Green and Lemon Glue from the local dispensary in a glass of tap water. (2x of each seed)
2020-09-05: Blue Dream seeds arrive (way ahead of schedule!) and I start germinating 2x in a glass of tap water.
2020-09-06: Moved all of the seeds to paper towels wet with tap water. By now, all of the seeds had cracked open.
2020-09-07: After 24 hours in the paper towel, I moved the seeds to the jiffy starters. Moistened the tray and lid, and am now leaving that in the tent under the light.
I’m using a cheap little Wyze cam to keep an eye on the temperatures. As you can see, California is going through an insane heat wave right now. This is the first day I’ve had the tent set up, but you can see the temperatures are out of control. I have no AC to provide, unfortunately.
So, we’ll see if I can get a few seedlings to pop up. I’m encouraged that 6 of 6 seeds had taproots coming out of them. The weather in California should be back to normal in the coming weeks as we look to move these plants to their permanent homes.
Please feel free to tag folks who may be able to answer some questions! I’ve seen some really awesome DWC set ups from a few folks, so I may tag some people in here in the future.
Oh your too kind… @peachfuzz he does awesome work. BTW I started in hydro with autos then dialed stuff in onwards since then. I am working on one photo period fem. I believe @peachfuzz does photo girls exclusively. Correct me if I’m wrong peachy.
@YellowHouse finished reading what’s up. You need to balance air pressure inside tent to maintain cooler temps like room temps. Using two fans one into and one out of the tent w/ variable speed controllers.
Glad to hear you also started in hydro–I’ve seen a lot of opinions that it’d be best to start in soil, but I’m willing to put in some time and make a few mistakes.
The Blue Dream seeds are feminized, but the Mojave Green and Lemon Glue F2 are not. Really hoping the Blue Dreams come through strong. From what I can tell, these seeds are photo period (since they weren’t labeled as autos), but I could be wrong there.
Regarding the temps, I think this is partially because I was inside the tent constructing it during the hottest part of the day. It has since dropped to 88F in the tent with it still being 83F outside (at 8PM–kill me.) I’ll keep the air pressure thing in mind if it stays hot through tonight and tomorrow morning. This really isn’t typical weather for where I’m at, haha. Right now, I’m just running the single fan that came with the tent, pulling air out.
Add a 25. Fan from Amazon it’ll bring you out of the 90’s in there! Are you running lights 18/6 currently? After 4 to 6 weeks see what size they’re at, as they’ll strech alot during flowering after vegging. Then you’ll wanna switch lights to shorter light cycle too. That’ll kick them into flowering.
I haven’t set up the timer on the lights yet, so I’m just leaving it on, but I’ve read that 18/6 is a good cycle to use during veg, then dropping down to 12/12 during flower. Any issue leaving them on 24/7 during veg, beyond additional power / heat?
I’ll keep an eye on this. I am playing in the dirt in my tent. But the whole hydro thing interests me - and I like your selection of seeds!
That tent you have is a bit on the small side - you will have to keep your height well under control - you have 3 Sativa dominant strains there.
I am concerned your tent is too short…
It’s worth saying again. Watch your heights - a 63" tent - 12" pot height - 24" airgap (light to canopy) - 12" (carbon filter exh.) = 12 inches to grow in. You can claw back a few inches - but enough to grow in?
Just an observation - I am a first timer myself. But I managed to catch a few of my mistakes before I made them.
Best of luck - really like the strains!!!
@Budz420 – Good call out. I mostly chose Sativas because it’s my preference for smoking, but I’ve seen a lot about how tall they can get, especially Blue Dream. My plan is to do some sort of training/topping, but I’ll have to see how manageable it is. Thanks for the heads up, brother!
@neofirebird – Thanks for the info. I’m going to make a few adjustments to the tent today, including getting the light timer set up. Will keep you posted!
All good mate. I am running Lemon Haze - which gets very leggy if allowed.
Below is a link to my grow - if you go back to Post 196, that is where I topped and started tying down hard. They respond incredibly well to heavy training.
Thanks mate - more than welcome!
My netting turned out excellent - but is also my biggest oversight so far. Be very careful that you have good access to the underside of the net for cleaning out to aid the grow and airflow. I don’t have that access. I’ll dial that in next run - but seriously kicking myself for not thinking of it in my haste to hoist the net in place.
Live n learn!
Hi Budz, I am impressed with the quality of your net. Where did you source it? I am in Adelaide. By the way, how much space would you recommend under the net? Your buds look like someone spilled icing sugar on them - awesome. Regards
@Green707Thumb – I see why! Seems like air temp is going to be difficult to manage. @neofirebird suggested that I grab a fan for intake as well, and I’m thinking I need to do that sooner rather than later.
Quick update:
Previously, I had a single ventilation flap open for air intake, but was running into extremely high temperatures due in part to this heatwave hitting California right now. Today, I added a duct that connects one of the lower portholes directly to outside air through a vent in the wall. I also closed the bottom right ventilation flap and opened the flap closer to the outside facing vent in the wall. Here’s a shitty picture of it.
With these changes, plus turning the Bloom lights off and leaving only the vegetation ones on, the temperature has dropped a bit. I’m seeing 86F in the tent and 82F outside now–yesterday, I was seeing 90F in the tent and 102F outside. ( ) I noticed that if I leave both ventilation flaps closed to attempt to force air in through the duct, I’m getting strong negative pressure on my tent. Again, neofirebird called out that I should get an intake fan as well.
I opened the tray and spritzed it down a bit to keep the humidity up. The peat starters don’t feel dry, so I’m thinking they’re still good. As expected, I haven’t seen anything pop up yet.
Prior to running into this air temperature problem, one of my main concerns was water temperature in the DWC bucket. I’ve been tracking the temp in the bucket in the tent over the last few days, and it has been hovering around 76F-78F. I would need to drop this pretty significantly before having something suitable for DWC, if I understand correctly. I’ve seen recommendations for 68F-70F reservoir temps. Need to figure something out quick!
I expect I have a bit of time before I’ll need to move the plants to either their soil or DWC homes, but in the short term, I’ll have my hands busy trying to figure out how to best keep this thing cool.
Also, if you want to get a realtime peek at my temps, I set up this stream to show some buddies what I’ve got going on. Feel free to tune in, but it will likely be boring AFK footage. haha
@neofirebird – I did pick some of that up with the nutrients. Here’s what I’ll be using. I’m not sure if this will be enough to prevent issues with the water temps I’m seeing, but I suppose we’ll see! For a moment I thought about chickening out on the DWC, but I’m just going to run it and hope for the best. Do you think 76F is still too hot with hydroguard?
Weather is significantly cooler today, and my tent dropped down to 73F during the night. Check out the California skies with all of the wildfires! Pretty wild.
Checking on the plants, there is still plenty of moisture in the container and I’m starting to see some growth! Here are the Blue Dream, Lemon Glue F2, and Mojave Green, respectively:
In terms of light, I left just the veg lights on all night trying to keep temperatures in check. Now that I’m seeing some growth, I’ve turned both the bloom and veg lights on. (Looking for opinions on this!) I’ll be monitoring the temperatures throughout the day.
currently two per.
Regards 
- following
) I noticed that if I leave both ventilation flaps closed to attempt to force air in through the duct, I’m getting strong negative pressure on my tent. Again, neofirebird called out that I should get an intake fan as well.
