Hey all, so this is guna be my first grow with hopefully many more to come! I am very excited to share what I have and hear what u have to say about it. Looking at other peoples threads and following others progression has really helped me learn ALOT and hopfully doing this will teach me more. So I decided I wanted to start growing and gave up half my bedroom and turn it into my grow room. The grow room is 50'' by 144'' with a ceiling that is about 8 feet tall. I lined the walls, floor and ceiling with white plastic poly so as much light can be reflected. Here is what i have for materials Raptor Hood 1 1000w MH digilux bulb 1 1000w HPS digilux bulb 1000w Lumatek electronic ballast Bcuzz coco coir Perilite 4'x4' flood bucket Aurora soul synthetic nutrients/Feeding schedule can-filters: Can 33 (i beleive can 33 is the size of it not sure, its what it says on the box tho) 2 timers pH meter Soil moisture meter Hygrometer/Thermometer Strains White Widow Ice Crystal Its been a long month, but finally my set up is complete and i believe that I am ready to begin my journy of becoming a great father to some beautiful girls(even if there are some bumps in the road)! I'm going to grow hydro, with coco coir and perilite. Planned on mixing it to about 75%coco 25% perilite. I have a bag of fox farm lite warrior seed starter soil for my seedlings. A few weeks back before my room was complete, i decided to germinate two seeds and get them started before i finished my room, but I messed them up a bit... I had them under a 24watt bulb which is not enough watts i beleive; they became stretched and pretty much stopped growing. I was afraid to give them nutrients because of how small they were. Once the room was complete about 2-3 into there stunted growth i put them under my 1000w MH bulb and reduced the watts with my digital ballast to 650w in hope to jump start there growth. Also i added some nutrients to there water 1/2 the amount said to use for seedlings. After a few days color came back to the leaves and new growth began pretty slow. Noticing that they were growing but slowly i was still nervous they were not going to make it so i germinated a new seed. The tap root came out of the seed yesterday, i planted it in a solo cup and am now waiting for it to pop through the soil ! On the other hand tho after looking at my two stunted plants even more color came back to the leaves and I noticed some signifcant growth compared to how it was growing before. I think with the right care they will come back to life so im not going to give up on them. The reason I am only growing three plants is because i dont want to over whelm my self with to many, I would rather have 3 plants that are big and healthy than a bunch that need work. btw the temperature has been ranging from 65-75 degrees F in the grow room with a RH of about 22% on average. I have been using my tap water so far to water my plants. I know that pH of my water, and medium have a huge affect on how well my plants will grow. From what i have read well water frequently causes alkalinity problems. I am using well water do you think i will run into pH problems? i'v heard that using an R.O water system can help keep water and medium at a good pH insted of tap. My pH meter i currently have seems to not work so well. Any suggestions to specific brands that are good? Also i need a conductrivity meter to measure my ppm in the water. So i dont mess up my new crystal seed i just germinated what kind of light should i have over my seedling before i can bump her up to the big one? When is the right time to start giving the plants nutes about? oh yea also i plant to use a 5gallon bucket per plant, is that big enough for when i transplant them out of their solo cups? Sorry for the long intro but i am new and very eager to get started and learn all that i can. I attatched a few picture of my room and what it looks like. I can add some pictures of the plants i currently have even though they are pretty wimpy but coming back haha. Any suggestions or comments i would greatly appreciate! Thanks alot, happy growing \t\t Attached Thumbnails \t\t \t
Haven't seen many growing in coco using Aurora nutrients...Will be nice to see some first hand results... Levels of ph occur differently in all types of water sources. When growing with chemical nutrients you will always need to adjust ph after adding nutrients. Your well water should be good. The only concern I would have is your locality in regards to environmental conditions in the area. There could be toxins in the water especially if you have shallow well. You can always spend a few bucks and get it analyzed for heavy metals and other toxins if your concerned..... As a rule of thumb if the water is good to drink and your plants show no negative signs and are healthy you should not worry. Basically what ro water dose is remove all minerals etc. This way you can control the water and add it back in the proper ratios wile removing impurities detrimental to plant health...
Yeah im pretty excited to see how aurora does with coco too. I went to the hydro store yesterday and bought some supplys. I talked to them about using coco and aurora and they said it should be good. I asked them if i should buy some coco-specific nutes and she said i shouldnt need to. The aurora nutes i have now are not good for organic growing because it contains some synthetics, but im going hydro so its fine. I got some botanicare cal-mag, a pH dropper, pH up and pH down. Also i got a 125watt CFL bulb for my seedlings. I live on wheat farm idk if that would affect my well water at all, maybe the farmer ferts could hv leeched into the water who knows i doubt it tho. For now im using distilled water from the store because my plants are still small. Last night i adjusted the pH of my water to about 5.8, thats what the AskEds guide suggested to do. I also mixed up some separate water with the cal-mag supplement. The past three times i watered my two plants i have going now, i used fertilizer, last night i flushed them with cal-mag water, they seem to be responding well. Both my plants were stunted for like a week and a half because i did not give them the proper nutes or any at all in the beggining. i had them under a insufficient light. Now that i have been giving them nutrients they are finally starting to pick up there growth one more than the other but i have faith. oh yea and my seedling that i germinated a few days ago. I was very concerned yesterday when i had not seen her come through the soil. I decided to do some surgery/digging. I must have planted the seed a little too deep. I found her with both cotyleden out underneith the soil in her death bed. The leaves were very light green almost yellow. I put her in some coco and gave her 1/4 strength nutes and put under the new 125 CFL bulb i have. When i woke up this morning the leaves were much more green and she seems to have grown a bit too! i can see the first true leaves are begining to grow as well. I gave her a little tug up to see if she got rooted and i beleive she has. I caught it just at the right time i think if i left her in the soil for any longer with out ligght would have died. I take some pics of my plants when they get a bit bigger and update the thread.
Llo...I have to wonder sometimes if hyrdo stores really know what their talking about, or just think they do... Even with coco specific I have had to use cal/mag supplement....Just be sensible, you can over due it and cause problems with to much... I would say your probably good on the well water....If it's good enough for the farmers must be good for you. When I start seeds I use all coco(cocoogro)in a solo cup. I hydrate/rinse till it looks clean with 1 tsp per gal of cal/mag and plant the seed 1/8-1/4" under the surface and put a cfl about 4" above . When she breaks ground and sprouts I start feeding. I feed with fish emulsion and when they get about 3 nodes transplant and start them on a 1/4 strength feeding. Amazing how a little light helps them pop. Some growers will swear to putting seedling in total darkness. As long as the roots see no light is all that needed...Whatever works....
Here's what I think (but my brain is all big and full of words and other nonsense) There's definitely a lot of potential here and a great learning experience on a relatively unused brand of nutrients. I hope to see this from start to finish! You're going to have to work through these initial seedling problems before that point though. Nothing wrong with that, trust me, everyone here is responsible for the death of at least a few seedlings who didn't deserve it. Getting them started: The early stages of growth winds up being, surprisingly, the easiest part of the whole grow. There's no mold or gnats or nutrients or any other bullshit to worry about. You just give them a place to root, a little moisture, and some light and the seeds do everything else just like they are designed to. Typically, its the over tending of young plants by inexperienced gardeners which is their doom. What they really need is time and your eyes off of them. Think of it like watching a pot of water boil. What I like to do is prepare a small amount of coco for rooting that can serve as their home for probably the first 3-4 weeks of life. 16 ounce party cups on the 3 week end, and I will use these 2L plastic grow bags (super cheap) and cut them down to about 1L for a wider base. Either way, this is about the right amount of coco I find to start in because it has a tendency to dry out in 3-4 days no matter what. Too much coco doesn't bode well for a developing root system and too little coco requires a bit too much finesse for a new grower. It is good to start with a denser coco mixture in the beginning, more like a 80/20 mix of coco and perlite, as this will provide a more stable root ball for transplanting down the road. The best things I have found for starting seeds, even better than pure coco, are those RootRiot and Rapid Rooter style plugs. They work great with clones and they are even good to start seeds in. Recently I took one cube and tore it up into small sections, big enough to hide a seed in and hold some moisture. I placed the seed inside and planted this about an inch into the coco. The light goes on right away to warm the top of the media and I will add some water daily to keep the top saturated. Above Ground: Once the plant is above ground it's all about waiting for the media to start to dry out before watering again. Depending on many factors this could be a few days, or it could be a week, so it's up to the gardener to lift their planters and make observations about the plant daily. Early on the plant requires very little water, most of what is added is lost to evaporation, so using nutrients early will serve to enrich the media more than feed the plant. It is smart to do this around the 2nd or 3rd watering as the need for nutrition can creep up between the safe time to water again and you want them to have access to what they need. Just error on the side of caution and use a very mild solution. When the media is nearly dry the planter will seem unusually, almost SCARY, light when it is lifted. Before the plant really starts to wilt is the right time to water her. Repeat this process of totally saturated to the point of runoff to just about nearly dry a few times and this will help provide enough oxygen and moisture to the young and developing root system. The proper environment for a seedling is warm and humid. 78 to 84 degrees and a 60-80% humidity are ideal to maintain as consistently as possible. Low humidity, like you have now, allows for too rapid of a transpiration rate and the roots simply cannot keep up with the need for water to cool the leafs. Hydroponic stores will sell seedling and cloning trays with humidity domes. I think that in your case investing in one of these and/or a humidifier will help the plants thrive. A good start also depends on plenty of light and air. This is food for your plant in the way we use food. Plant nutrients, are really more like vitamins and amino acids, and early on what the babies need is some good ol' fashion milk from mom. I like to use 23w to 27w Daylight spectrum 6500k to 7500K CFL bulbs in 6" medium sized clamp light reflectors. The bulb offers a great deal of efficiency early on as it you're only lighting a few square inches and in the reflector with the right vegetative spectrum kept just 1-2" from the top of the plant this helps them establish several nodes close together with a lot of healthy vegetation. An oscillating fan is a very useful tool once the dome can be removed and the humidity is acceptable. This will provide CO2 to the leafs and the agitation of the stems as it passes over them will force the cells to strengthen. This helps keep the plant shorter, and forces more lateral root development as the plant recognizes the need to hold itself stable. Vegetative growth: It will take a few weeks for your plants to really enter vegetative growth. You'll know it when you see it but suddenly they will really take off. Think of it like an exponential thing, the more leaf they have the more energy they make and the more they can grow. So at a certain point the exponential curve just shoots up and they begin to explode. I use as much coco as I do to try and time it so that the roots fill the container just before this stage. This allows me to transplant into their next container and for them to fill it out properly during vegetative growth. While it may seem like Veg is all about the leafs this is not true. Veg is 100% about the roots. We use the leafs above ground as insight, a barometer, into the health of the root system. Burned up leafs could mean, and usually does mean, burned up roots. Try to wrap your head around that at this point you are growing roots, because big, healthy, happy roots will grow big mfn flowers. Without an EC meter this info isn't quite useful yet but most growers have success starting with a solution of around 0.6ec to 1.0ec on their second or third watering. Around the beginning of vegetative growth this level is normally still low around 1.0ec to 1.2ec. By the end of vegetative growth the level could climb as high as 1.5 to 1.8ec on the average but it would be prudent to maintain a lower 1.2ec to 1.4ec early on until you know the plants need the additional food. Different nutrient programs, different environments, different watering schedules, different phenotypes all spell for different applications of the same stuff in each person's grow room. Keep your head on and don't over do it with this nutrient program. With complete control over the photoperiod you can enter flowering whenever is convenient. I find that 2 gallons of media is the right amount. The roots will fill it in 3-6 weeks from the transplant date depending on vigor. During this time they will develop preflowers and alternating nodes and this is an indicator that they are sexually mature and will enter flowering with vigor. A plant that enters 12/12 before this point will take a few extra days to switch from vegetative growth than a plant which is mature and ready. Speaking of the Nutrients: SS Grow: 3-1.5-1.5 This is something I would use at 10 to 20ml per gallon. For Vegetative growth in coco it looks good to me, maybe a little low on potassium for some plants. SS Bloom: 1.5-4.5-3 As a Bloom nutrient this seems too P dominant for early bloom. During weeks 1-4 of 12/12 lighting I think a mixture of grow and bloom for a more balanced profile would be smarter. After day 30 this bloom could stand on it's own at 20ml/gal SS Amino Aid: 5-0-0 Whatever it is, I wouldn't use more than 2ml/gal of it in veg, maybe this would be good in addition to the Bloom for a N boost to that program early on at 3-5ml/gal. SS Grow N: 8-0-0.25 This is something I would only use if my plants needed additional Nitrogen but not more PK during Vegetative growth. I don't think it's necessary at all. SS Big Swell: 2-5-3 This is basically the same NPK as the Bloom but for 3x the cost... I dunno... Use sparingly I guess, and offset what you do use by removing some Bloom. Instead of 20ml Bloom it would be 18ml Bloom and 2ml Big Swell. Again, I don't think this is necessary at all. SS Infinity: 0.5-2.5-1.5 This is some straight up mystery juice. On paper it sounds a little bit like Botanicare Liquid Karma, probably some humic acid, some kelp, maybe some yucca, or b-vitamins. Standard stuff for the price, you can use as much of this as you really like to up to about 8ml on a low P formula. With higher Phosphorus usage later in bloom you will want to cut this down. SS PeaK: 0-12-7 Not bad looking stuff, similar to Botanicare Hydroplex and I like that pretty well. Again, 2ml is about tops with this stuff, and only for a short time if it is required. With all the phosphorus in this program I just don't see the need more even more of it, but the Potassium could be handy. Flowering: With the nutrient program the way I see it on paper you'll definitely want to take it easy on your plants early on. Reducing the feed strength from the Veg level during transition will help you avoid burning them just as they are gearing up to flower. Once you see they need some food give it to them, and they will chew it up and love you for it. Go too nuts with the additives too soon and the roots will burn and the yields will diminish. In flowering I prefer to start with a 1.2ec and increase it by about 0.1ec every week. Starting with a solid and healthy root mass in important, so don't transplant right before flowering. The roots will never fill the container and that will be a waste of nutrients and media. My idea is to get a plant that not only enjoys a daily watering and feeding, she pretty much needs it because 2 days is almost too long. A thirsty plant in flowering is about the best thing in the world so take care of her "straws" early on by not burning her up. There's usually enough buildup from the strong vegetative feedings to carry her for a few days at least, slow and steady wins the race. Magnesium deficiency will appear as a yellowing, then eventual whitening of the interior "meat" between the veins of the leaf. If you see this it is a good indication you have been feeding a little too heavily. Around the end of the stretch period the plant's need for Calcium and Magnesium changes, needing much less calcium and much more magnesium than before. Usually Bloom formulas are designed this way to properly accommodate this nutritional change but sometimes the ratios aren't quite right. In the event that the plant really is just hungry (no burned tips) then 1/8th of a teaspoon of Epsom Salt per gallon should be all the boost she needs. Do not add more than 1/4tsp of Epsom Salt per gallon and this is only in the event the SS Bloom just doesn't have nearly enough Magnesium listed (less than 0.5%).
To cola, yeaa i wonder to sometimes how much the guys at the store know, but my caregiver grows a bunch and he reccomends them so. I have my two plants and my seedling in coco in a black solo cup. When is a good time to transplant? Also i have my lights going 24/0 should i be giving them 18/6 or something in between? SCMC, wow thanks for your post and time! I just finished reading it, i will probly read it over to really soak up what you said. Your advice will definitly help me out, and i hope to see ya following my thread im sure its guna be an interesting grow im very excited. Im glad that u explained the nutrients i am using, i was a bit worried using them because i do not know to much about them, and doesnt seem like to many other people do either. But I am def going to give them a shot i have them now and i hv some faith too. I will take some picture of the two plants i hv going, ones growth seems to be stunted a bit compared to the other one.
Transplant when 4-6" tall and have their true leaf set.... 24/0 is ok. 18/6 gives them time to rest/recover during the dark period. In my case if the plant is a fast grower I use 18/6....Pretty much your preference...
Ok thanks for the advice, one more think when i transplant should I put them in there 5g containers? btw my seedling is doing great her first two true leaves are poking out id say by tomaro morning they will be developed il post pics tomaro
heres a few pics of what my plants are looking like now. My two older plants that were stunted are picking up their growth one more than the other and my seedling is looking great, has its first two leaves now !
Can someone tell me if this looks like a nute burn or deficiancy? a yellow spot just appeared on one of my plants here some pics. thanks!
Looking nice...I think maybe you got that spot from splashing nutrients when watering....Nothing to worry about.....
ok thanks cola i didnt think it was serious, but still wanted to make sure. There starting to pick up the pace with their growth cant wait for em to get bigger!
Just transplanted my two little girls into gallon containers. I used 75% coco and about 25% perilte. I also increased the amount of nutrients in their water. They both had big root systems that DEF needed more room to grow i think this is going the speed up their growth. Il post pics soon!
So I have been giving my plants nutes for almost 3 weeks now, they are responding well and are growing but at a pretty slow rate. My buddy is growing with soil and his plants are a week and half old and are more than double my size. He thinks i need a bit more nitrogen because my leaves are pretty light green. I am a new to growing and hydro so I was expecting some troubles. Im not killing my plants but im not allowing them to grow nearly as vigourous as i know they can be. Does anyone think I may need to be adding some more nutrients? I've seen some hydro grows on here that just boom soo much faster than mine are, so i beleive im doing something wrong, but not sure exactly what. I have been making the fertilizers pH 5.8 before i water. PPM is at about 750, my tap water comes out at about 150 ppm which i believe is a bit high. When i measure my run off pH is is normally about 7.2, if that matters at all. Here are some pics. And my little girl i have there is a week and a half old almost two weeks! nd is still that size. Oh yea and i recently transplanted into those gallon jugs, it is ok that the plastic is clear, or should i cover it so no light can reach the root zone? Thanks guys any help is appreciated
one more thing i will point out is that i have no sets of 5 leaves. all of them are only 3 not sure if that means anything.
Your plants are still looking good smokey...They have grown nicely since you last posted pictures...I think you could bump the fertilizer up a 100 ppm in small increments over the next 7-10 days and see what happens....Plants are better off with less than more in most cases and some strains want more. Just have to get them dialed in but, go slowly.... Leaves go from first leave to 3, to 5 to 7 blades....Your getting close.....
ok thanks for the input cola much appreciated. I just got my hanna pH and EC combo pen the other day which is nice and hopefully i will have my RO machine within the next few weeks aswell. I will start to up my nutrients slowly and more precisly with the my pen il post some more pics ina few days
Here are some pics of my plants day 22 for the bigger ones and day 14 for the small one. Growing slow but atleast their growing and picking up the pace! My two bigger ones finally got their first set of leaves that have 5 blades on them so im excited also there are many small new leaves popping out from all directions. The leaves on my young plant are coming out very light green almost yellowish, does anyone know why this may be?
Day 28 for the bigger plants and day 20 for the small one. I transplanted my best growing planht into a 18gal tote. i will transplant my other one tomaro into a 18gallon tote. The plant in the solo cup is growing very slow and odd. it only has new nodes underneith its 2 sets of solo leaves no new growth is coming out the top. I find this odd because on my other plants thats is where it has the most growth. I feel that my leaves are now branching out far enough, as each new leaf grows i feel like it is shading the ones beneith it. Btw i have been feeding my plant with a pH of 5.8 and runoff is about 6.8 everytime is this normal? i want my run off water to be around 6.0 correct?