Hero's Grow Quest Summer 2006

[arseface]

Hey there mister fucking hero

Looks like you've got a great grow in the makings

You seem to be all set with the equipment, and you certainly seem to know what you're doing. I'll keep an eye on this grow, and I'm especially interested in the H202 you're adding. Has anyone else tried this before? I've seen it suggested on a few grow guides but I don't think I've actually seen anyone using it before Anyway, I would just add a note of caution towards adding extras (epson salts, peroxide etc) when they're so small. They're quite delicate as seedlings, but the bigger plants you have I'm sure are large enough to handle the good stuff.

To answer a couple of your questions:

The flourescents should be ideal. They emit mainly in the blue end of the spectrum, which is exactly what you want for early seedlings and for clones (I use 4 18W flourescent bulbs like those for my seedlings in the first week). They're also great because the heat they give off is so distributed, meaning you can get your clones right up to within an inch or two of the blubs. With some kind of reflector (desk lamp should be fine) and the clones fairly close to the bulbs I'm sure there will be plenty enough light to root.

As for worrying about your plant being too bushy - don't I actually worried about the same thing during veg in our famous loft grow, but they turned out to be monsters so don't let it put you off! I find that with enough light plants don't seem to put in a vertical growth spurt until they're a good couple of weeks old. They'll come along fine, you'll see.




edit - nice cat too I'm looking after lazy stoner's cat at the moment - it's called 'mogsy' (which is basically the same thing as naming your cat 'kitty' round these parts)

[TheFxckingHero]

alright, thanks arse.

well, I wasn't going to try the H2O2 at first, but I had to flush 3 of the plants due to a little bit of nute burn, and that required me pouring a LOT of water in there. They have big drainage holes but I was still worried about the soil becoming too waterlogged, and I read up today about adding hydrogen peroxide about 30ml per gallon of water is supposed to help the roots out a lot. It kills any bacteria forming and keeps root rot from setting in, and the h2o2 breaks down into water and a single oxygen molecule.

the single oxygen molecules have a charge because they are by themselves and they get "excited" (learned this in high school chemistry a few years back lol) and bounce around, and some of them will bond with the other loose oxygen molecules... combining to make up the regular oxygen molecular structure, so the roots take it up just like normal air. I tried it more for attempting to prevent root rot than stimulating growth, but if I see good results with it I might use it more often. google some info about it if you want. I read a number of experts who had good things to say about it. there's actually a hydroponic solution called OxyPlus or something similar that is almost the exact same thing as hydrogen peroxide. so, that kinda gives it away.

as for the epsom salts and such, I didn't use them on the baby seedlings, just on the larger plants. I'm not going to do it anymore, but I read that foliar feeding with it will boost the magnesium and sulphur the plant is getting and allows it to better use the other NPK nutes. unfortunately for me, I over-fertilized 3 of the plants a little bit. haha. well, I'll let you guys know what happens when I see some changes. I'm going to go finish watching the detroit pistons vs miami heat game 5 now.

edit: mogsy, eh? hah, never heard that one

[SmknVTEC]

Yo buddy.
I rarely get over to this Grow Journals section but, since you gave the link and suggestion on your signature, I thought I would come by and check it out. The 3rd and 4th picture of your back yard shows a tree that totally looks like a gigantic marijuana plant.

Anyway, can you take some pictures of your plants for me so I can see the over-fertilizing? The trouble with taking indoor plants outside and then bringing them back in is that you can and do bring in the bugs from the outside. You also had problems with grasshoppers didn’t you? Therefore, the CFL, will be fine for rooting clones. I just root my clones in the periphery (4-5 feet) of my 400 watt HPS and it works fine. In light of the apparent over-fertilizing, I would stop all foliar feeding. It really isn’t necessary and can cause big troubles.

As for the H2O2 let me know how it works because I have never tried it. I do know that it is good to use when hydro grown plants get root rot. Maybe you can set up a side by side experiment with one plant grown with H2O2 and one without? I would be interested in seeing something like this.

All right man. I think we answered all your questions. I am now subscribed to the thread so if you have any more, I will see them.

[TheFxckingHero]

alright, I'll try to take some pictures tomorrow of the nute burn. I am not all that happy with the foliage growth rate. I think maybe I shouldn't have been a cheap ass by not getting the metal halide conversion bulb. I think that probably would have helped out a lot. Oh well, as long as the plants are alive and not in any serious trouble I've gotta keep on going.

I wish I knew which of the 6 older ones were female and male, so I could clear some space out. You see, my plants are somewhat small for their age, because the first 5 had bad heat problems when I first started. The first 5 are 31 days old... one month. The 6th is about 10 days behind and has grown much faster and almost caught up with the slower of the 5, because it was put in there after I solved the heat issues. They're all between 6 and 8 nodes.

I also need to repot atleast 2 of the biggest plants into larger pots right now, but I'm holding off because I'd like to get the new seedlings off to a good start, and I'm pretty much maxed out on space right now. I'm not sure how I would squeeze in the seedlings with bigger pots taking up more space. Maybe I'll set up some kind of box container for them and take them to an outdoor area... possibly an elevated spot so they are away from ground-level bugs and animals.

[TheFxckingHero]

I rearranged all the plants and seedlings and added two of those 26w CFL's just to get some of the blue spectrum in there to help out. So, now there's a total of 452watts of light. Of the three plants that got nute burned, one has recovered nicely and is looking good, another looks so-so, and the other is still not doing so well. That fat indica seedling I showed before is developing really quickly and needs to be transplanted into a pot or the ground outside as soon as possible. The rest of the seedlings are doing okay I guess... nothing special there. I may move them somewhere else after another week, but for now they're still packed in there with the bigger plants. Here's some new pictures.

Picture 1: All the plants under the HPS and showing the CFL's set up. Sorry for the picture coming out a little dark.

Pictures 2: All the plants in normal lighting with CFL's pushed aside to show plants. The 2 on the upper right and the 1 on the bottom left were the 3 nute burned plants. The 3 in the top left didn't seem to suffer from any burning.

Picture 3: Closer picture of the majority of the seedlings. There's a few out of the picture, but that's most of them.

Picture 4: This is one of the ones that didn't have any nute burn and, I think, looks to be very healthy. It was coming along a bit slowly before, but now it looks nice.

Picture 5: These are the other two that "weren't nute burned," although I can see a bit of yellowing on the edges of the plant on the right, so maybe that one had some slight problems.

Ok, about to make another post with more pictures.

[TheFxckingHero]

Picture 1: This is plant doing the best out of the ones that got nute burned. If you look closely at the lower leaves you can see some of the burning and crispy brown edges, but the new growth above looks good.

Picture 2: This is the Nirvana PPP. It was also one of the ones that got nute burned, but it's not doing that bad, but not very good either. It's hard to see in the picture but the leaves are yellowing quite a bit on the edges...

Picture 3: This is the worst of the nute burned plants. Most of the leaves in real bad shape are hidden below, but you can pretty clearly see the yellowing and discoloration up top, as well as really bad leaf curl problems. This is the oldest and most developed plant, but unfortunately also the one in worst condition right now. Part of the curling leaves is from the way it was tied down when I had it LST'd for a few days before releasing, because the leaves were kinda pressed down from the tie... but I don't know. It doesn't seem to be doing very well.

Picture 4: Another picture showing the worst nute burned plant and the so-so nute burned PPP.

Picture 5: Closer picture of that indica seedling. This one is developing really quickly... blowing way past the other seedlings. You can see it's already starting to push out its 4th node, but has virtually no vertical growth. Very wide and very squat... each set of leaves right on top of each other. I need to get this one into a bigger pot as soon as I get the chance/have space.

Can I have some feedback, guys? Would like to hear anything you've got to say.

[TheFxckingHero]

Oh, just wanted to mention I'm considering switching to 12/12 in about a week just so I can find out which plants are female, so I can clear out the males and make some space. Is it really that bad to do? Will it necessarily cause hermies by going 12/12 to sex and then reverting back to veg growth for a while? You can reveg plants after harvest almost the same way, and that doesn't seem to cause hermies, so... I'm not sure this would be that much of a problem, but I'd like to hear what you all have to say about it. I just know that I don't want to continue wasting valuable space growing out males, so the sooner I can get rid of them the better... My plants are still somewhat small height-wise, but they are over a month old and have a lot of nodes, so I think they would show sex fairly quickly if I put them on 12/12.

And if you have any ideas of how to help spring back the two nute burned plants that aren't doing so well, that would be nice to hear too. Thanks.

[cantgetenough]

Now those look great!
Good example of over-fertilizing.

[tetrahydrocanna]

too much light and ferts is making your plants look like that..
rase the lights abit and give them ph adjusted water for a flush..

[TheFxckingHero]

well, I already flushed them, tetra. I am just waiting for them to recover still. Right now they are about 20-22 inches below the light. Are you sure I should get them farther away? I heard 12 inches was best, which is much closer than I have them, but I can't do that at the moment. I figured around 20 inches would be okay, but I will get them farther away if necessary. about how far away from the light do you recommend? it's a 400w hps.

[flex40]

look good bud, if you got the space, go with the 400watt HPS 2 feet from the plant.. would def. help the grow

FLEX

[TheFxckingHero]

Well, I checked and apparently the light was a bit closer than I had thought. It was more like 17 inches.. I've raised it to about 21. I suppose maybe they were getting too much light over the last month? I'm in a rush to get a shower and go pick up the girlfriend at the moment, but later tonight I will try to raise the light another 3 inches to put it at 24'' (2 feet). I hope the damaged plants are okay soon. I wasn't aware I had the light too close before. I had heard that between 12-16 inches was best, but maybe that's for later when they are larger and in flowering. I feel kinda bad for the plants. Ahh, I hope they'll be okay. I think my 400w is around 50,000 lumens.. maybe up to 55,000. How many lumens would this be at 2 feet from the bulb?

[flex40]

yeah i would never have the HPS 12-16 inches from the plant unless it was very established (ie, 12 inch+ with many node gaps and branch junctions) as well as having an established canaopy to absorb all that light. you are bombarding the poor little guys with more light then they can absorb which may be causing the problem. then again, it may be nutrient related. try and get it to 24'' and see if in a week, they are doing better. i have a strong feeling thats the problem

FLEX

[TheFxckingHero]

Well, the girlfriend had to run some errands before I go to pick her up for the night, so that gave me a little more time to dick around with the light. It's about 2 feet away from the tops of the plants now. The burned plants look terrible right now... Man, I really fucked up here. I bet if I had the light the proper distance from the beginning these month old plants would be over a foot tall and healthy now. I took the CFL's out of there as I don't need them now that the field of light got bigger from raising the light and the lamps take up too much space. I might try to just return the CFL's, because I'm not so sure they'll be that useful to me. I think a 2 foot flourescent shop light from a hardware store would be a lot more convenient for clones and seedlings later... Can you even return lightbulbs? I don't think they will be able to tell I've used them, but I'm not sure. I suppose I'll just say I got the wrong ones and maybe they'll let me since I just got them yesterday. They might make it only so I can exchange them though... I don't know...


Oh, and I'd still like somebody to answer my question about early sexing them so I can free up some space. Here, I'll quote it here:

Originally Posted by TheFxckingHero

Oh, just wanted to mention I'm considering switching to 12/12 in about a week just so I can find out which plants are female, so I can clear out the males and make some space. Is it really that bad to do? Will it necessarily cause hermies by going 12/12 to sex and then reverting back to veg growth for a while? You can reveg plants after harvest almost the same way, and that doesn't seem to cause hermies, so... I'm not sure this would be that much of a problem, but I'd like to hear what you all have to say about it. I just know that I don't want to continue wasting valuable space growing out males, so the sooner I can get rid of them the better... My plants are still somewhat small height-wise, but they are over a month old and have a lot of nodes, so I think they would show sex fairly quickly if I put them on 12/12.

[flex40]

this can induce hermies, but i wouldnt do it now with "burnt" plants. wait till they are a little healthier, then switch from 18/6 to 12/12 for 2 weeks and you should see sex signs showing. kill your males and then flip back to 18/6.. this is high stress on the plants (thats why i suggest you wait) or you could cause em to herm...which is even worse

good luck man

FLEX