Hey everybody! I mentioned in my intro I planned to start a grow journal, so here it is. My first ever attempt at sprouting beans!
Not everything is fully setup yet, but I started to germ so I decided to post anyway. Any feedback and advice is highly appreciated 
Would love to hear opinions on what’s worked best for people, or what hasn’t worked.
I’ll start with the setup. Doing an indoor organic- I’ve got 2 tents, AC Infinity Cloudlab 722- a 2x2’ (72"H) which I’ll be using for germination & seedling. I’ve also got the AC 866- a 5x5’ (80"H) that I’ll be using once they’re transplanted to their final pots for veg & flower.
I have a lil Oscillating fan in the 2x2, and for lighting a 2x2 LED board (100w). I did get the AC 69 pro controller to help monitor/control conditions as well. (I plan to stay organic, so the fewer variables I have to deal with, the better!) So my first question:
-How essential is an inline fan & carbon scrub during the seedling phase? Is it worth investing, or can I skip it? I already plan to get one for the 5x5 (just deciding on cfm for it).
AC Infinity Cloudlab 722 tent (2x2)
Speaking of, I haven’t finished outfitting the 5x5 yet, but I plan to house 4 plants in it. I’m leaning towards the following:
2x Oscillating fans
? Either a 4x4 LED board, or a 5x5 LED bar- what do people prefer? Any idea which would work better for the space/plants?
Humidifier
Inline fan with carbon scrub- min 169 cfm. Does anyone know much adding a carbon filter increases the required cfm?
AC controller/hygrometer
-If I’m forgetting any essentials, pleeease lmk!
For starter soil, I went with BuildASoil Living soil blend, with a little dolomite lime for PH control.
Light recipe for seed(lings), they have a few other products for different stages. It’s designed for organics, and my buddy said he had good results with it.
BuildASoil Living soil- light blend
Next question- aside from dolomite lime, how do y’all control pH (water AND soil) with organics? As I understand, those convenient lil pH up/down bottles are not it. I plan to get an RO system of some kind for water, but I need to do more research on this subject.
Also, as I’m just starting- it’s about as sterile of a setup as possible, and I wanna keep it that way! I’d LOVE to hear recommendations on pest & mold prevention!! I picked up some mosquito dunks to put in corners of the tents, as well as sticky aphid/whitefly traps.
I’m not sure what I’ll be doing for nutrients & such, feel free to point me towards recs for organic feed/regimens!
That’s about it as far as setup, so onto the good stuff!
For my 1st grow, I decided to do a chaos run, to see how different things turn out in my space. I selected 5 seeds:
Alien Otto (hybrid, fem auto) [Elev8 Auto x Toofless alien]
Blueberry kush (Indica, fem auto) [Blueberry x OG kush]
Sour Lime Haze (sativa, fem photo) [MMXX x Elmos army]
2x reg mystery seeds from my “Bob” bag (Best of best- about ~40 select seeds collected over 15 years of smoking, keeping only the top tier, if I found a lucky bean). I doubt most will even sprout, as some are ~15 years old. Most varieties I’ve long since forgotten, but a few stuck out in memory (Big Sur, Blue dreams, Black African queen, Permafrost, Afghani chitral, and Pineapple Express). They were kept in a temp, light, and humidity controlled environment, so there is a chance some are still viable. But we’ll see, maybe I’ll be lucky enough to get a few rare lovely ladies. Maybe it’ll be a bunch of dudes, or nothing at all, who knows 
Might make a separate thread just for the mystery seeds once I have a better grasp on the process. For now, just testing the waters with a little of everything.
To start germ (7/13/24), I put a seed each into moist paper towel, about half (3%) hydrogen peroxide, half water- gently wrapped, and put each towel into a sealed plastic bag, set them in my 2x2, lights off. Temp is steady at 74*F in the tent, with 60% hum.
As of writing, it’s about ~60 hours in, I can’t see any signs of taproot- but I’m wondering if I wrapped them too many times that I simply can’t see it thru the towel. (I haven’t unsealed the bags yet, I’ve checked it once a day by briefly holding it up to light).
Germ tek
That’s it! I know it’s a long one, so any feedback is welcome! I apologize if some of my questions were answered in other threads, just thought I’d put them here as they come up in relation to my setup. I’m still figuring out og, but I think I got this in the right place. I’m not easily offended, so if you think I’m doing anything wrong, please lmk. I’m super excited to see how this goes 
That sounds like a good suggestion for future runs! I was thinking about doing that with the mystery seeds, I’ve heard the sink/float test is a good way to determine viability. But if it helps germ i may just do that for all of em.
somewhat expected, still disappointing. I transplanted the 3 that did germ into planters & soil (3.5" sq), and started a 20/4 light cycle on lowest setting. I’ve got the light about 2’ above the plants, I’m not entirely sure on what good heights are for the different stages, so we’ll see. I put wet paper towels over them and put the osc fan on low. Been checking the towel and re-moistening as needed.
gotcha. Yeah, I haven’t added any amendments, I’ve just been using the soil as it comes in the bag