Experienced growers advice on my current setup

[bigorange2]

Well, I'm just about 2 weeks out of rehab, and I can no longer smoke bud because I get frequent UAs, but I just love the great cannabis herb so much, I have to affiliate my life with it some how, so I decided I'd go with growing until this UA bull gets over with. I started germinating about 12 seeds in paper towels, damped it, you know the story, and after about 3-4 days, only 2 of them began to show roots, so I figured I'd just discard the shitty yellowish ones, because in my experience, I've known them to either crack when you squeeze them, or simply not germinate. I've put the seedlings root-down in to the soil, about 5cm into the soil, and misted the top thoroughly. For about 2 days I had them under a single 50w fluorescent light, and one has just popped out of the soil today, and the other seed I put in a container that I cleaned with disinfectant soap, so it hasn't sprouted out of the soil yet.

Today I went out and bought a 60w halogen lightbulb, a timer for the lighting, and a device to read temperature and humidity levels. I have doubts about the halogen lightbulb after breifly looking through google about peoples results with the halogen bulb, so if you could shed light on how well those work, please do; I can always swap back to the fluorescent bulb.

I just took some pictures of my setup, I'd like some feedback on how well you think my babies will grow.



If you were too lazy, like stoners are, to read all of what I wrote, I'll summarize:

Light: 60w halogen bulb
Soil: Serilized potting soil with miracle grow
Water: Fresh airiated rain water
Seed strain: unknown

[urgr8estfear]

Originally Posted by bigorange2

Light: 60w halogen bulb
Soil: Serilized potting soil with miracle grow
Water: Fresh airiated rain water
Seed strain: unknown

Halogen is terrible for growing MJ. It puts out WAY too much heat. Fluro's are A LOT better. If you wanna grow alot, MH&HPS are the way to go.

MG soil is not recommended for a beginner. Many people kill their plants by using this stuff in combination with a lack of knowledge. Keep it simple, get regular potting soil.

Rain water is crap. Too much stuff lives in it. Allmost all drinkable tap water is way better.

The strain is not that important. What matters is that they are female.

[bigorange2]

My suspicions were correct then, I swapped the halogen light back to the fluoro, and rinsed out my spray bottle with disinfectant soap, and rinsed throroughly, and refilled with tap water. As for the MG soil... fuck. lol.. I've grown a plant to about 6 inches tall in the stuff before, and used it with fucia plants and such. I dont know if that counts me as a beginner with MG soil or not, but I figured it would be better, seeing as it has the miracle grow in it, and I wouldnt have to add extra fertilizers. Thanks for your feedback though. Do you think I can handle the MG soil?

[bigorange2]

Also, I was wondering if I should just leave the light on 24-7 light, or maybe cut down to like 20 hours of light with my timer. I recall hearing from an experienced growing, that is now in jail... .. that it's best to leave it on 24 hour lighting throughout the whole vegetative growth stage, and swap down to 12-12 when I want it to flower. What's the best way to go?

[dudefromaz]

I have always used 24 7 lighting because it gives the plants an endless amount of light so instead of the plant, saving sun energy and build at night, it ends up growing 24 7... Also, I used a high moisture soil on my first grow so the extra light helped me with controlling the wet/dryness of it. peace

[bigorange2]

Alright, cool, that's what I thought, knowing a few things about plants, but I wasn't sure if that was the best for some good bud... Thanks

[Mister Postman]

What type of fluorescent you got in there now? Flourescents have to be kept very close to the plant to be of any use.. if not they stretch towards the light, and grow lanky.. In my recent grow I needed some supplemental lighting, and picked up a dome light with an adapter to hold two bulbs.. I picked up two 85 watt cfls which put out 4,200 lumens.. 1 cool blue spectrum-1 warm red spectrum to supply both spectrums for good veg growth, and flowering growth for a total of 8,400 lumens. This will be good light to grow you a nice canopy of buds . You can use smaller cfls to hit side growth depending ont he type of grow your going to have. With fluorescent it's good idea to tie down, and keep the canopy even as they do not penetrate as deep, and your going to want to keep them close to as many buds as possible.. A scrog grow would work good for small space fluorescent grows as well.

I can't get an idea of what type of space you got there from the pics, but getting a good hps for flowering would be ideal. once they come up make sure you got a light breeze on them to keep the stems growing strong.

With the mg soil problems arrise from over fertilization. See how your plant does once it sprouts, and just water with clean ph adjusted water.. no ferts till the plant asks for them

http://www.1000bulbs.com/products.ph...t-Fluorescents
you can see the light adapters I'm talking bout in my grow journal pics on page 1
http://forum.grasscity.com/grow-journals/98645-mr-postmans-overgrown-closet-grow.html

Edit: I was told to give 24/0 light for about two weeks.. Then I cut back to 20/4 eventually vegging in as low as 18/6 day/night cycle.. I was always told a good night cycle is of use, and that the plant during the day is burning nutrients, and going non stop.. The night provides the plant a chance to move around nutrients, store them, and growth during the night focuses on root growth which is important as well in the grand scheme of things. It's been working so far. In most cases I have gotten them to show sex in veg, and weed out the males giving the 18/6 cycle.

[senior_ganj]

With the MG soil, don't add any ferts until at least a month and a half, and then only a little at a time. The time release has attendancy to build up, so watch for yellowing while the plants are young.

Get some more flouros and keep them nice and close. They put off pratically no heat, so they can be a couple inches away without burning the plant.

and for the lighting, I always go with 18/6 because from what i've learned, the plants actually grow more in the dark than they do in the light. It also cuts down on heat and electricty. But to each his own. Experiment and find out which works better, cause you can use either one. It's more just a personal opinion kind of thing.

Good luck and get off the UA's asap so you can smoke some of the wonderful green you're gonna be growing.

[bigorange2]

Good luck and get off the UA's asap so you can smoke some of the wonderful green you're gonna be growing.

No doubt, lol.

Last night, i went out to every single hardware store in the area, and none of them had any of those adapters to put 2 bulbs in to one socket, i was pissed, and headed home... When I got home i found my first seedling with itself popped out of the seed casing, and spreaded the 2 oval leaves a bit, and was already developing small jagged leaves, and a few hours earlier it was just barely out of the soil, i wasn't so pissed anymore... haha. anyway, i have one more location to check for those adapters, and possibly some HPS lights, but those seem to be hard to find in this area, because I havent seen any so far.

I'm using puny 45w fluoros with those weird tubing structure... I plan on having asbout 8 of these all going at once to up the light, and i'll be putting them closer to my plants, i just didnt want to shock the babies.. thanks for your replies, theyve really helped

[bigorange2]

I think I'll let the plants go with 24/0 or a couple of weeks, and switch to 18/6 after that until flowering, i'll go with the infamous 12/12.

[bigorange2]

I finally found a hardware store with the adapters for 2 bulbs in one socket, and I bought 3, so I now have 4 fluoros, and I'm going to add a fan in today. I also found another germinated seed in my bunch, so now I'll have 3 plants.

[bigorange2]

Here's some updated pics of my grow