This is my first "real" grow. I've gotten other plants started in the past indoor and outdoor but never really seriously put effort into it. I have 5 bagseed plants in veg going but by bagseed I mean the seeds came from bags of White Widow, Blueberry, BC Skunk, etc. These babies are probably less than a month old, I forget when I planted them exactly. They had a rough start with pH issue and over-fertilization caused by my ignorance and fertilizing them too early. I'm not sure about what their sex is yet but I think pic 2 is a male based on it's lanky structure and lack of branches and leaves. I hope the bushy 2 are female and the other one I'm unsure what it looks like. One of the veg plants (pic 5) was actually a girl I started back in August, put into flower and then forced back into veg when I added the four other seedlings to the grow area. She suffered tremendously and her stems turned dark purple, almost black but I think she's recovering 2 weeks later. I took 6 clones from her and have 4 left, two of them I put into Rockwool and the other 2 will probably die cause they look weak. I took the clones from a flowering plant and it was my first time so maybe that's why they suck. Plants are in rockwool embedded in Hydroton filled net pots and the roots dangle into the buckets pretty densely. I give them Advanced Nutrients Grow/Micro/Bloom, Botanicare Aquashield, Botanicare SilicaBlast, and I was using Hydrozyme but it led to me having brown cloudy nute solution and brownish slimy roots. I added h202 yesterday which totally shocked the plants and led to leaves wilting and crispy dead leaves, I immediately flushed and they look like theyre coming back now and werent affected too badly. The lights are BadBoy t5 with a mix of the veg/flower tubes. 760 W, messed up w/ the title I know. Its all in a 6x6x10 wood frame with mylar stapled around it and an open roof where the lights hang down. I'm worried about ventilation but someone told me with the t5s i dont need to worry about heat. I just vent with fans and opening the door basically. So here's my first grow, I'll keep pics updated. Comments, criticism appreciated.
Thanks. I'm gonna upload some new pics soon, those plants have exploded! I have some problems with brown dead spots on leaves, possibly a mg deficiency I'm trying to fix right now. I have 2 clones I took from the plant in the 5th pic on there I think. She was 1-2 weeks into flower and I didn't have the space to keep her flowering and start a bunch more veg plants so I had to force her back into veg. Before I did that though I took cuttings. Those 2 in the pics are the only ones still surviving so I guess I'll be running 2 clones. Right now I have space for 9 buckets in that area total, so I can fit 4 more. I think I just want about 9 plants total. I probably won't be taking more clones for a while, at least not until these babies show their sex.
Brown spots, ehh? I literally just had that problem with mine, lost all my big fan leaves. Be sure to keep your pH in check. 5.8 is the most ideal for hydroponics, and its a bitch and a half to keep it dead at that. Also be sure to use 1/4th to half strength on your nutes, too. I was using WAYYY to much, and about nute burned the shit out of mine. Ill be checking in every few weeks or so to check things out. Happy growing.
Yeah been checking pH regularly. It's always hovering around 5.8 - 6.0. I think I broke my digital pH checker though, I dropped it or something. Everytime I switch it on it says ".1" which it never says and when I try and calibrate it, it keeps leaping around from 6.8 - 7.2 and never stays constant even though it's in water that I know is pH 7. This just happened yesterday though and not sure what I'm gonna do if it fails completely. Here's some more pics of the grow. Those plants are becoming monsters in size, also there's a pic of the browning on the leaf. I think it has to do with magnesium.
Hmm. Im going to try and send UncleNugs your way. He's...unintentionally mentoring me thru my grow. Haha.
I think you're right about it being a Mg problem. And your pH meter is fooked. If you stick your meter in calibration solution, and the number won't stabilize within 30 seconds, the probe is faulty. There are lots of things that can cause a meter to fail. The probe could dry out, a nice hard bump can break them, and they can also lose their internal calibration if you put them in clean (R/O or distilled) water. Here is some good information to know about water and pH, if you're interested.
Thanks. I have liquid indicator stuff too but I hate using it. I guess I'm stuck w/ that for now though. I have some kinda problem with the big plant now. It just started wilting for no apparent reason and really freaking me out. ABout 2-3 hrs before I had put in 30 mL of Hydrozyme and that's never caused me any problems before so I'm not sure if that's what did it. As soon as I added it, it fizzed up the res immensely and added about a million more bubbles so I figured it'd be great for the roots but guess not.
I don't have any experience with the product, but if you added it and the plant reacted, I'd assume it was the hydrozyme that caused it.
yeah it didnt hurt any of my other plants. really weird but shes stable now and not getting any worse at least. i changed the res, no hydrozyme this time, maybe that helped
More pics a week later, these plants are getting BIG! Down to 3 though I killed the small runt plant, it was too tiny to reach the lights plus the bucket sprang a leak and was unfixable and I didnt have a spare. also i had a feeling it was gonna be a male or hermie. I really went ghetto in creating the buckets and very much regret it at this point. So i have 3 bushy plants left in buckets and hoping for 100% female, still no signs of either sex appearing. I still have the two fem clones which are doing okay but im not expecting miracles. ill post pics of the clones soon. Also the seedlings are doing so-so but ive been neglecting them a bit. Does anyone know when to expect preflowers and will they show under 24 hrs of light? Jorge Cervantes grow bible says they usually show after 28 days of vegging and they've probably been in veg since Oct 1.
more pics, down to 3 bushy plants now. i still have 2 fem clones but they're looking kinda weird with rounded, crispy leaves, not sure what i did wrong. wondering when the preflowers will show up now.
Unless it's an autoflower strain the time it takes to start seeing preflowers is determined by light cycle. A few people disagree, but most growers don't recommend 24 hours of light. I'm one of them. Do 18 hrs on, 6 off to veg. 12 on, 12 off to flower. Constant light will keep them in veg and never gives them time off to rest. Plants do perform important biological tasks at night, and are healthier if given that darkness to do them. So if you want them to flower, keep them in the dark for 12 hours a day. And it has to be DARK. No light at all, not even a tiny little pinhole or crack of light getting in or it will stress the plants and they'll go hermi on you. Autoflowering plants will flower regardless of how much light you give them after a certain period of time determined by their own biological clocks. But bag seed probably won't be an autoflower strain.
I agree with hydrocult, I had my first batch under 24/0 HO t5's and they grew very well, but never did show preflowers, and it took them over 16 days to show sex AFTER i put them under HPS 400w 12/12. I grew my next one under 18/6 under the t5's and gave them 36-40 hours of dark before putting them on 12/12 and they showed sex in less than 8 days. same nutes, same environment. your plants look great man, nice bubble buckets!
thanks. new pics uploaded from today during the res. change. i started mild flower nutes which is 1.4 tsp each of Grow/Micro/Bloom. Also added 3 tsp of SilicaBlast and 4 tsp Aqua Shield. pH is about 5.7 in each bucket and temps are in the high 70s, humidity is 30-40%. i assume its too late to just switch to 18/6 without stressing the plants? I plan on switching to 12/12 on Dec 1, I think. How should I do the switch, should I just have it 24 hrs one day, and 12/12 the next or is it a gradual thing? Also i heard about putting the plants in 24 hours dark before switching to flowering? New pics are of the massive root system and some of the giant bushes. still no signs of sex, im hoping theyre all female, ive never seen a male be so bushy
I had given my plants 36 hr. of darkness before switching to 12/12 and they seemed to show sex faster than when I just put them directly into 12/12. but someone said that's not a good idea due to stress. it's worked for me, but there are different schools of thought on if a dark period before 12/12 is good or bad.
hmm, maybe ill try that next grow when i have more plants to experiment with. i have 5 total right now, these 3 in the pics and 2 female clones which might go hermie due to being taken during flowering. ive already stressed them enough this grow so ill prob just go into 12/12. the last time i had a plant this far along, I just put it into 12/12 and 2 weeks or so later i saw white hairs which is where i got the clones from. heres some new pics of the grow, lookin massive...
Update: Switched to Lucas Formula (8 mL Micro, 16 mL Bloom) which translated to about 5 tsp Micro and 10 tsp Bloom for the 3.5 gallons of water. I measure the nutrients for 3 gallons and always add another .5 gallon "buffer" to prevent overfeeding. I also addback pure RO water with pH of 5.7 to replace evaporated water. Midway through the week I mix up new solution in 1 gallon jugs to addback. Also I added 4-CFL clamp lights in the room to function as side lighting. It made the area probably about 25% brighter and I'm sure the plants can feel the difference too. I'm using the daylight bulbs though, so I use the more orange ones instead if I'm blooming soon? The big, giant plant (one with the giant root mass photo) is showing little white hairs FEMALE under the 24 hours of light so I guess they can eventually show sex at least sometimes. On Nov. 30 I switch the lights to 12/12. Anyone have a guess on how long I'll be flowering these bagseed Indica plants? I was thinking harvest around February.
Took some clones, also 1st pics of the clones I took about 6 wks ago from flowering plant. The flowering plant has since died from the extreme shock but at least I got 2 plants out of it. They finally resumed normal growth and stopped making weird roundish leaves. Pics 1 + 2 are the clones. I cut away probably hundreds of branches from within the plants that were all yellow and dead from not receiving light. Finally they're somewhat see-through. I made about 10 clones from the big plant which is showing female preflowers.