Hello everyone!
WOW What a week its been!
Ive been checking my ladies in their space 2-3 times a day to see progress and i'm happy to say...
100% germination!! I am so happy that these have sprung into life on my first attempt with POWER!... as i was scared that i had either buried them too deep into the soil or that i had messed something up through in-experience. I planted 5 and we have 5, happy and strong, (i think), females ready to beast the next couple months.
The three largest seedlings were the first to germinate after being in the soil for 72 hours. As you see them now they are on day 3.
The front right seedling, has only just dropped its husk, in fact thats what i was waiting for before posting. The open seedling is on day 2 and the open'ing seedling is on day 1.
The three at the back are larger than the front two, but the others don't look too bad. It is still early days and I am going to leave them as long as possible in the end so it will be fun to see how they differ from one another.
As soon as they had all surfaced, i lowered the light to 18 inches from the canopy and moved the pots closer together to ensure they're making use of the most intense light. This brought my canopy temp up only 0.5 of a degree! I think the heatsinks at the tops of the skyline when coupled with a small fan pretty much controls your temperature without any hassle.
I also lowered the RH to 55/65% and temperatures are stable between 22-26 degrees with my fan/filter on just under halfway + the mini fan is on low for air circulation and to dissipate heat from the heatsinks on the light. I have also removed the wet towel you probably saw in the photos, this was useful to maintain humidity at 75% if the humidifier ever ran out. So conditions are ideal for veg,i think
I figure I have breathing room to increase the fan quite a bit with the controller as it will undoubtedly get hotter as the year goes on.
I'd also like to take a moment to say I have had SO much help from my friend Muddy over at LED hydroponics so far. "Stealth be the game, cool running". For helping me create such an insane setup but also answering my daft questions and giving me all of the guidance i need...
So everything you see here, (the good stuff), is me channeling his energy, experience and expertise. I have many friends using a HPS and they get 'good' results... but DAMN every time i look at these they have grown, and i check them twice a day!! These are special.
The girls seem to love the white light given off by the Skyline mk2 and as time goes by, I can tell both this and the 600w have blessed me with probably the BEST start to growing I could have imagined. Meaning i can use my time for actually learning about the plant instead of worrying if I have sufficient light for a good quality yield in my grow room.
Sorry, went off on a tangent... But from this past week i have learnt:
- to only sew the future seeds around 10mm deep
- soil/coco that has been pre-watered
- then gently spray until the top soil is saturated. I accidentally put a dollop of water on one, which I was concerned about, but we're all good.
- A wet towel in addition to humidifier with a sensor throughout the germination process worked well for seeding sprouting humidity levels
I store all of my seeds in their packaging, in a blacked out container in the fridge.
No feeding nutes etc until week 3, currently just spraying ph 5.8, water from the tap, which has been given 12/18 hours to sit at room temp. (Sometimes in the tap water here it smells like theres more chlorine than you would like in it, pH 7.4)
Sorry this post is huge.... One last thing, i got a new grinder and it's UNREAL!
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. I am still learning so I am an open book.
I will post more progress next week, thanks for your time guys!