My first Indoor grow

Hey guys,

My first outdoor chili grow of jalapeno's and Scotch bonnets in pots is coming to an end. The days are cooling down here in Melbourne Australia so I've decided to try and grow indoors.

Growing weed in soil approximately 15 years ago and when I was just closing the grow down, I was seeing pictures of 'bubble buckets' now known as DWC. I always wanted to try it, so fast forward 15 years and now's the time; but young pot head has gotten old and not a pot head any more so he wants to grow chilies :-D


Here are the seeds I ordered and the reasoning behind them :


• Yellow Trinidad Scorpion -  Flavour, juicy, yield with big heat
• Buena Mulata - Again for flavour but not bonkers heat, they look interesting and the story behind them intrigued me
• Elephants Trunk (not shown in the picture) - Sounds like they have an interesting flavour with reasonable heat 
• Carolina Reaper - Because its a Reaper. Never had one, its become a bit of a bucket list'er for me.
• Aji Charpita - Sounds amazing flavour but due to its bushyness its not suitable for indoors so I'm sitting on those seeds until they can be sown outdoors

So there it is, 4 different strains to grow indoors and only growing one plant per strain in a limited space to find my favourite.

 

[Clueless Wanderer]

Update:

The seedlings first day in the grow tent under the manufacturers '3 days acclimation period' power settings of 40% veg / 15% bloom dimmer settings.

As the light has independent veg and bloom intensity settings, depending on the plants stage of growth the light will have a different colour. With this, I have and will continue to colour correct the images I take to show you the real world colour the light is giving off.


 

 

[Clueless Wanderer]

Nah, you can just place those rockwool cubes inside a mini greenhouse and keep mild hydroponic fertilizer in the bottom all day long without any issue after they have germinated.

I'm keeping them raised off the bottom of the container and don't want them to feed from the bottom as I'm trying to air prune them before they go into the DWC. I will be watering from above only.

 

[Chilidude]

I'm keeping them raised off the bottom of the container and don't want them to feed from the bottom, as I'm trying to air prune them before they go into the DWC. I will be watering from above only.

 

Maybe you could do it with the double cup method.

 

[Clueless Wanderer]

Maybe you could do it with the double cup method.

Those already in the net cups are the 'planned plants' for the limited space I have.

I got a better germination rate than expected and not wanting to kill them, I put the extra 4 germinated in rockwool cubes and may play around with them to keep them small and 'snack bushes' ;-) . They will probably go double cup, or Kratky; not sure yet. For now I'm concentrating on the DWC 4   

 

[chocolatescotchbonnet]

Update:

The seedlings first day in the grow tent under the manufacturers '3 days acclimation period' power settings of 40% veg / 15% bloom dimmer settings.

As the light has independent veg and bloom intensity settings, depending on the plants stage of growth the light will have a different colour. With this, I have and will continue to colour correct the images I take to show you the real world colour the light is giving off.


 

Nice and clean setup you got!

 

[Clueless Wanderer]

Nice and clean setup you got!

Thanks ..may not be so clean in 6 months time though ;-)

 

[Clueless Wanderer]

Update:
 
 
The seedlings and light spent two days of _getting to know you_ at low power, now its time to change up the lights intensity and get the job done. The manufacturer recommends the light to be 28 inches away from the plants, the Vegetative lights dimmer set at 60% power and the bloom dimmer set at 30%
 
As I'm being really power conscious ( 31 cents per kwh for power in my home town ), I set the light to what they stated, used a photographers light meter, measured the brightness to get a starting measurement, halved the dimmers numbers and kept on taking light meter readings as I raised the meter towards the light.  The numbers said that for the same intensity but half the power, the light to plant distance needs to be 18 inches, so now it is .  I also took reference photographs at both power settings to check light colour consistency and they are the same; PERFECT
 
In the power line I have a meter that tells me how many watts the system is running and the dollar amount it's costing. Doing the maths, this lower power/closer to the plants lighting is saving me 21 watts an hour, that's 1.7 kwh per week ..during the seedling stage.
 
Pic 3 ..still waiting for my adjustable light pulleys to arrive so yeah, a bit of a plastic stack to get the seedlings into the sweet zone.

 

[Clueless Wanderer]

Update:
 
I need one good Yellow Trinidad Scorpion to grow out so I put 3 into germination. One seed didn't germinate in time, one is out of the rock wool but looking weak and the other one I had to dig out of the cube and investigate why it was a no show to the party of 9.
 
Digging it out I found that the cotyledons tips AND the tap root were both trapped in the seed casing. The thing had grown but was anchored in at both ends. I delicately cut off the casing and removed it.
 
I've had no choice but to bury it in the cube with the tap root pointing up and the stem laying down. I don't hold much hope for it, but lets see how the next few days pan out.

 

[Chilidude]

No no, that is not how you put the seeds in the rockwool to germinate...Just put the seed on top of the rockwool and not inside it.

 

[Clueless Wanderer]

No no, that is not how you put the seeds in the rockwool to germinate...Just put the seed on top of the rockwool and not inside it.

They were already germinated before they went in the rockwool; earlier in this post covers that.

 

[Chilidude]

They were already germinated before they went in the rockwool; earlier in this post covers that.

 
Alright, but never put them inside the rockwool..Just place them on top of the rockwool and let the root find it's way inside the rockwool.

 

[Clueless Wanderer]

 
Alright, but never put them inside the rockwool..Just place them on top of the rockwool and let the root find it's way inside the rockwool.

In this situation it wouldn't have mattered as the problem was something wrong with the seeds casing not releasing the seedling.

 

 

[Chilidude]

In this situation it wouldn't have mattered as the problem was something wrong with the seeds casing not releasing the seedling.

 

 
Best thing is to keep the plastic lid on with some holes in it and the higher air moisture inside will keep the seed casing moist long enough for the seedling to drop it off.

 

[Clueless Wanderer]

Update:

The seedling trapped in its shell that grew all twisted and had to be planted tap root pointing up and stem lay'd down wasn't doing anything; the cotyledon leaves were still closed and it was going to die.
With nothing to loose, I jammed a piece of hydroton under its stem to force it upright and left it for the night. 24 hours later and the stem is holding its own, the leaves are open and its future seems brighter.
 
..gonna have to wait 6 months for the autopsy to find out how it fared

 

[Clueless Wanderer]

Update:
 

 
This morning I found white fur on the rockwool cubes and hydroton that are in the prepared net pots that sit in the plastic containers; the stand alone rock wool cubes were fine. I'm in the thinking that its the semi moist nutes loaded hydroton holding a moisture cloud feeding what I suspect to be mold.
 I removed the cubes, ran water through them, re weighed them and stood them on the upturned net pots to aid air pruning. 
 
A two inch long root out the bottom of a cube only took a few hours in the open air to air prune, interesting to see..

 

 

[Clueless Wanderer]

Update:

Its now been 13 days since they popped the rockwool and 11 of those days in the tent.

The roots are poking out the bottom of the cubes and some are showing side roots so its looking like they may be in the DWC by the end of the week. Only 4 DWC places are up for grabs so when the time comes to judge, only the best growers will be selected and the losers will probably be Kratky'd in small containers to keep them small, sitting on the outskirts of the light; using up any spill that the DWC'ers don't use. ..Survival of the fattest guys

The Buena Mulata (purple) and Elephants Trunk cotyledon leaves are crazy long, with the Buena Mulata being the strongest grower out of them all and following a close second is the Elephants trunk. These two grow long fruits so I'm a thinking the cotyledons length and shape is a precursor to the fruit size and shape ..just a theory.

..see that lil fella in the middle with only Cotyledons showing? That's the Trinidad Scorpion that was all twisted up; Not dying but not growing. In the race of 9 seedlings going to be eliminated down to 8, It's futures not looking good.

 

[Clueless Wanderer]

Update: (click on images for sharper versions)

Every 2 days a 10% light intensity increase to find the maximum the seedlings can take and It seems I have found their limit. Today I found purple tinge to the Reaper leaves

I've backed off 10% on the dimmers and raised the light an inch.
 



 




 




 

 

[Clueless Wanderer]

Update: (click on images for sharper versions) 

Hmm.. so... Two days after the Buena Mulata broke out of the rockwool it went in the tent and under the LED. The plant grows purple pods and first day in the tent the whole plant, stem and leaves turned purple; I thought this to be the plants naturally colour and I left it alone..

Recently the reapers leaves got LED burn so I turned down the power on the light and raised it up. A few days on and.. The Buena Mulata has put out some leaves with green on them?! Looking under the older purple leaves I also see green ..?!
Ouch! looks like the BM has been getting LED burn since day one, complete burn.

My curiosity is sparked..

How come its been the fastest grower out of all of the seedlings whilst being totally LED burned purple?
If green is chlorophyll to convert light to food, how have the purple leaves being feeding it?

 

[Clueless Wanderer]

Update:
To help with humidity in the tent I had a towel and hydroton on a plate to wick and aid the waters evaporation. The towel was drenched and plate filled with water every 3 days and placed out of the LED's growing sweet spot. Crazy how the light managed to scorch it whilst the rest remained wet ..its only a 300w running on half power too!

 

[Clueless Wanderer]

Update:
 
FINALLY! The grand design has been reached and the beast is breathing. Fans a spinning, pumps a pumping and bubbles a gurgling.
 
As I don't have the space for large plants anyway, I decided to give up on the air pruning and get the setup underway.
 
The 4 DWC's were the original plan, but after having duplicate healthy seedlings, I decided to throw the weaker ones each into 1.5 liter Kratky's. They wont get proper lighting like the DWC's and I expect them to be stretchy  but hey, it costs me virtually nothing to have them on the sidelines.