Hey guys iv been a lurker here for a long time and finally wanted to start my own grow journal. mind i have never grown indoors before so if you see something wrong please tell me!!!!! Day 1. Bag Seed (all i can get at the moment placed straight into Styrofoam cups i used a seed starter soil pre soaked with bottle water at room temp. not sure of the actual amount of each but the soil was a mixture of peat horti-cultural vermiculite, per-lite, wetting agent and lime for ph control set a 25 watt cfl 3 inches from the plant Day 3. 1 seed sprouted out of 12. Day 4 built a small grow box as long as i can get ahold of a clone from my only plant so far my ultimate plan is to grow a screen of green setup though room isnt a problem where im at now. im not sure about the future so i opted to make the box about the size of a dresser about 4ft by 3ft by 5 foot my carpentry skills are far from good so it looks rought but im ok with that. also stoped into walmart and bought 3 flourecent tube grow lights 15w each so 45 watts total for around 30 bucks. i have two 25w cfls plus i think a 15 watt should this be enough light for a screen of green grow in my box i plan on keeping the lights pretty close to them as the lights stay really cool with a computer fan blowing on them. The Blue tint light is actually a 17 watt light by American Lights This is just a rush on the lights as well the 2 cfl lights above will be closer just ran out of time today also where the lights are mounted now is were im thinking to put the screen later any ideas? Day 5 Today Noticed roots sticking out of the first sprout's cup Drain holes transplanted them to a larger plant pot When should i start with fertilizer and what would you guys recommend.
Hey man, looks like you got yourself a good time ahead of ya! Some of my Q's would be what you plan on lighting with when it, or they, get bigger? Also, do you plan on switching the light spectrum at all after you put them in flowering? As far as nutes go, I always hear the rule of thumbe to be wait till they get their first set of leaves before giving them anything at all, they dont really need all that till some good sugar production starts happening, which would be when the leaf sets beging to appear. All in all I think you have the right thing going and will end up well if you keep it simple and take care of them. Looks fun man! Oh yeah, as far as recommendations for nutes, Ive only used Fox Farms line up and it seems to work very well with MJ at 1/2 doses at first and then full doses soon into veg. Hope that helps.
Thanks for the company to be honest i havnt thought much about adding a bigger light yet but if i had to choose this moment i would probally go with a 200watt hps. plus the original lighting i have totaling about 250 watts. how many plants do you think i could get away with the 250 watts i dont think im gonna mess with spectrum to much but i might still havent decided iv heard good things about fox farms will probally pick up some on thursday that way i have it on hand when its time.
Well with 250watts you can get maybe 3 tops. Generally we figure about 150w for 1 plant minimum, then add another 50watts for each additional plant....ballpark. I have a 250w and grew 2 really well through flower and had a nice yeild, but trying to fit 1 or 2 more in there would have been pushing it. The spectrum thing isnt difficult. Right now Im guessing youre using cfls with a spectrum of about 6500k, I think thats what it is. For veg you want daylight cfls and for flowering you want the more red/orangey color ones, I think they run about 2300K. That will help you increase your yeilds a bit. Good luck man.
ok so i should shoot for around 350-450w for 4 plants? of course more light is always better might try and pick up some hps ballast on craigslist. and if its that simple then ill probally change the spectrum. thanks and good luck with your new grow as well and hopefully you have no herms i really hope i get a few more seedlings out of these seeds
Yeah, more light is always better for sure but if youre just keeping it small, like 4 plants, then a 400w hps would do you really well. Thats What Im running not and I plan on having 4 plants and some veggies on the side. Hermies aint so bad for me, I dont mind the beans as its just personal smoke and hermied weed is still as dank as it would have ben otherwise, now I just have some free seeds :wink: Be careful buying used ballasts, if they are old or have been mistreated it might be worth the money to buy em new. They have gone down in price a lot lately and its worth the peace of mind. Just a tip though, magnetic ballasts are the old skool ones that are generally not as efficient as electronic or digital. The better the ballast the more lumen output you will have...I think.
You can grow a plant just fine with HPS from seed to harvest but the plants take in more blue spectrum light during veg and red/orange light during flower. Ideally you would have both but that can be expensive. When I started I bought a 250w sunleaves switchable that has the ballast built in, heavy as hell and puts out some heat, but then I grew 2 plants with it and was able to switch from metal hallide to hps when going from one cycle to the next. I love that light! Then I bought a 400w electronic ballast and a cheap reflector and I was able to veg 4 plants under the 250w and flower all 4 really well with the 400w. Looking back I wish I bought a hood that I could vent from to get some good air exchange and run into a filter. These are all things that onl matter if you need to worry about smell. If you dont then youre okay. With fans and an open door once in a while, a non-vented hood will be okay.
Great info there really appreciate it had no idea that the color of the light made a difference until now its sounds like you got a lot of time invested in your grows. i was thinking about using a few i think 60 mm fans (small computer fans) on a 12v source but was going to put them inside a heater register cover as my exaust with a carbon filter inside the exaust vent as well then put the same size register vent in the lower opposite side of the box that way it creates a negative pressure in the box keeping all the air going through the filter cause i dont really have a great place to vent at the moment unless i run it out the window and the very few neighbors i do would deff think something is up if i had a hose running out my window
Update got home and can see some soil pushing to the top on another seed. also i can see a third set of leaves now on the first seedling. i read somewhere you can switch to 12/12 lighting after the plant is about 6 inches just to sex the plant then switch back to 18/6 and let it finish growing untill your ready go 12/12 again? if so anyone have any success after doing this?
Got some new seeds yesterday planted roughly 12 more same soil mix as before used tap water instead of bottled water because the soil has lime in it already hope these rounds of seeds go better also i got a 40watt t10 bulb last night walmart had a sell on them. didnt realize that they were incadescants but installed it anyways and it keeps the box about 78 degrees will that be fine this morning it was 60deg and the box was at 76. Will this be ok?
i was thinking about rigging up a old wall thermostat to turn on a few fans if it gets to hot in there as well as maybe using the same thermostat to turn a small space heater on in the winter for a few mins if need be
picked up some Mg liquid all purpose plant food. and began foliage feeding so far it has responded really well A lot of growth quickly makes me wonder if i should have started feeding earlier. foliage is 1/4 strength Daily misted over the leaves with a spray bottle. watering is every 3-4 days does that sound right? and first root feeding was 1/4 as well. how soon should i increase the strength? Ill get pics a little later.
Can you do this ? Cus if so ill do it myself on my seedling i wouldnt want to waste the time and come out on another male :/ . Lemme know asap . Thanks btw your setup looks good . Keep it up. More light the better . And carpentry is easy . I can build a complete shed forngrowing if i had the land. Might just build a mini cab or so for mines. But on that sexing question , let me know if you can or cant do it. 420_Grow
I think this is called "Cloning for Sex". I was reading about it in Cervantes' Grow Bible. I'll quote from that book below. BTW I don't think you'd want to switch the plants to flowering early, and then switch them back to a veg cycle, because that would slow them down for weeks. The plant has to go through lots of changes in order to switch from veg to flowering and back.
I kinda noticed that . Cus i switched to flowering early on my last grow and it took forever. 420_Grow
ok guys just took a bunch of pics and have named my first indoor born Beth no im not gonna name all of them but i think my first plant inside deserves a name. anyways pics are coming gotta get them from the phone then upload them
Hey thanks for the sub Nefarmer Ok first up is Beth Bic lighter for comparison of size To me bushy plants looks like a strong trait in this seed at least The least Round of seeds are proving to be way better germ results whats the best way to save both of these seedlings? or am i to late? A recent germ less than 18 hours old Again planted 2 seeds expecting terrible germ rates again this is about 2 days old This is the 2nd seedling to emerge from the soil not sure whats up with the leave tips this seed emerged about 4 days after Beth and its first leaves stayed really small and all of a sudden it took off again. any ideas? should i watch this plant for anything later? its only about 1.5 inches tall