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WWE GROW #1 24 January 2019 One LONG ASS POST for so little of a start... Today is a fresh start on a grow by a very novice grower near DC- the District of Cannabis. I would be very grateful for any assistance I find here since I tend to overthink things with severe OCD and PTSD. I have a history of being a terrible husbandman to plant life. I am far more successful with animals thank God! Best assume that I know absolutely nothing other than what i have read on Google but did fumble my way through one successful outdoor grow from purchased seed that I intentionally harvested seed from so I could practice- cause I evidently am going to need a lot of it! Can someone recommend a resource for learning how to have a perpetual grow that I describe below? Otherwise, with OCD I will be forever reading every source I can find trying to determine which is best when all I really want is to be able to trust someone else's opinion if possible. LOCATION: INDOOR (large DARKENED bonus room over garage) I have the entire room to use which is good but my tent is small. So I am prepared to go "beyond the tent" if necessary. In fact, I want to eventually have a perpetual grow established, keeping some mothers in the tent to take clones from that I can then plant outdoors. But I also want to be able to do full indoor grows too if needed- like now. I am in the DC area and think all this means that I would take clones and plant them outside no later than July for a harvest in November. When I had my grow that produced the seed I'm growing now, I started them from seed in April and harvested in November or December if I remember correctly... TENT: Agromax Original Short Stack 39.25"x39.25"x30.50" . I actually love this tent, but it does not fit my 4' T5 Lamp Fixture which sucks. I am making due now by stuffing the fixture into the tent as well as I can so I can close the top with the 1000 watt Lamp hanging above it. I obviously should have gone with the 2' T5 Lamp option as in the picture below... Let this be a lesson fella's... Bigger is not always better if you're a lamp. But in the case of this tent, I sure wish I wouldn't have had to throw my purchases together the way I did in hindsight... AgroMax Original Short Stack LIGHTING: IPower 1000 Watt HPS MH Digital Lamp with adjustable power settings to 50%. I have this Lamp hanging above the tent but Ipower 1000w HPS MH Lamp GrowBright 4 Foot 6 Lamp High Output T5 with Grow and Bloom lamps. Now hanging inside my tent and helping to keep the seeds warm. 4' HO T5 6-Lamp HEAT EXHAUST for the HPS MH Lamp: Someone had asked me about my setup so here is a closer picture. The exhaust fan at the top of this image is pulling the heated air from the lamp from the cold air supply vent tube at the bottom. I have not tested this particular setup yet, but it should do fine. I initially had the 1000 watt HPS rigged up INSIDE THE TENT in this fashion and it ran at 81F without the need for the fan as long as the tent was open. If I buttoned the tent up though, the fan would run continuously and the temp was steady at 91F. So in this current setup, where the Lamp is now hanging from the ceiling, I do not think it will add much heat at all to the room itself or the tent- should I need to open the top of the tent and change out the T5 Lamps with the HPS or MH. Good plan? Heat exhausted at top; Cold air supply at bottom. IRRIGATION SYSTEM: Autopot 4-Pot System with 12.4 gallon resevoir and 3.9 gallon pots. I have never used this system and hope it saves me some frustration. I will need to learn how to incorporate this system into my overall grow plan. Which, at the moment, seems to be that I now have the ability to maintain 4 mothers in my tent with the potential to expand if necessary :-) AutoPot GROW MEDIUM: SEED STARTER: BURBEE XL 16-cell Seed starter kit [8 seeds from each strain germing now on a heat pad!] Burpee XL Seed Starter VEG GROWTH: CocoTek will be used with the AutoPot System CocoTek My SOIL MIX: This soil recipe was posted in a thread here some years ago. All I know about "the Dude" who posted it is that he was eager to share his knowledge with others and was always posting pictures of some absolutely beautiful grows with the sweetest looking plants. I made a batch of this 2-3 years ago and saved what I didn't use of it in a garbage can in my barn ever since. Don't know if it's good to use, needs amending of some kind, or what. Thought I would mix it with the CocoTEK above for this grow? What do you think? It had some good stuff in it I am told. And that guy grew some magical weed from it. 3 cu/ft (21 gallons) potting soil mix (Promix) Epsom Organic Mix, 1 cu/ft (7 gallons) Aeration (Perlite/Rice Hulls), 1-1.5 cu/ft Organic Compost (Hummus Source), 6-8 cups Rock Dust (Glacial Rock, Basalt, Granite), 30lb Earthworm Castings, 3-4 cups per cu/ft nutrient mix (Alfalfa, Organic Fish, Bone, Kelp, Neem Seed and Crustacean Meal. NOTE: the image below doesn't reveal much but it is REALLY DRY after sitting all that time and it seems that no matter how much water I give it soon dries out to this state again. The soil below has not had any water in a VERY LONG TIME. But in my rush to get a grow started, I tried to use some of it to START MY SEEDS with and believe that a combination of this soil being "hot" and/or the fact that it dries out so quick and is difficult to determine for me when to water, I killed all 16 of the last attempt. I would WELCOME suggestions on ways to incorporate this soil into my grow if possible. However, if I should ditch it into my garden outside instead, I'm happy to do that too! I also have a continual supply of horse manure that I compost with bedding, etc. "The Dude's" Soil Mix Current View as of 24 January 2019: Not much to see... Please help me to make it look more better! Thank you from a veteran in need. Tent as of 24 January 2019 Why are some of my images not scaling right???