I have decided to grow my own marijuana, something I have been dreaming of doing my entire adult life. I have been smoking marijuana for 25+ years, the last 20 years for "medicinal" reasons. I recently moved from Mexico to Texas. I did not attempt to grow in Texas because of the harsh penalties. I've since moved to Oregon and can now grow and smoke legally. My wife also smokes for a seizure disorder. She also has her medicinal marijuana card. It is imperative at this point that I grow my own smoke and I am now turning to the community I have learned so much from for help. I have watched "I Grow Chronic" at least five times and have read two marijuana Bibles, The Cannabis Grow Bible by Greg Green and the marijuana Medical Grower's Bible by Jorge Cervantes. I have also read numerous general hydroponics books. I have studied other growers journals and read the forums daily. Unfortunately after studying and reading I am more confused now than I was before I ever began researching. I'm sure this is common, nonetheless it is very frustrating. I have no prior growing knowledge whatsoever so it is all a little overwhelming. The devil is in the details right? I have dumped my entire savings into gathering supplies and buying quality seeds. I'm going to describe what I have done thus far as well as provided as many pictures necessary to allow for advice, criticism, suggestions and hopefully praise. Please fill free to say whatever. All comments are welcome unless you just want to slam me for not having the knowledge. In addition to growing for mine and my wife's needs, I am planning on providing clones and free quality herb donations to the medicinal community. The knowledge I gain from this grow will not only benefit me and my wife but hopefully many others. One last quick note, even though I grow and smoke for "medicinal" reasons I believe marijuana should be legalized for recreational use as well. Actually I take exception to qualifying marijuana with the word medicinal. Though I understand the obvious political reason for framing the debate in this way, I do not consider marijuana and medicine. It is a plant! Either you smoke it or you don't and you benefit from marijuana or you don't. Everyone needs to be able to enjoy this beautiful plant, not just those of us that have a medical condition. I apologize for not having the courage to grow before now but I have lived in NYC, Chihuahua Mexico and Texas. These are not places I felt were safe. Let's help each other overgrow the government. Thank you in advance for your time and interest. Now the details. I am growing the following strains for my first grow: •\tIce- feminized (2 plants) •\tWhite widow-feminized (2 plants) •\tCrystal-feminized (2 plants) •\tStrawberry Cough-non-feminized (3 plants) •\tSuper Silver haze-non-feminized (4 plants) Here is what I have done so far, I built a grow room in my basement and split it in half, one section for vegetation and one for flowering. I set up a drip system using adjustable spikes and a drip head. The drip head I am using now is 3.3gph. It is too strong to control so I ordered a new 1gph head that should be here by the first of next week. The spikes are adjustable from 0 - 10gph. This system is going to work but I cannot get the precision of water I want. But maybe I don't need it? I have five plants I started on General Hydro nutes yesterday. I have germinated another eight plants plus I have two that were just moved into rock wool. You can see them in the pics, they have not sprouted yet. I am using a 10 gallon tub for my reservoir. I am using 6 fluorescents, 3 EcoLite Sunshine and 3 EcoLite Plant. Germination rate has been 100%. All 13 seeds germinated. I will put the new babies in rock wool started cubes after the pre-soak tomorrow morning. I have included pics of the grow room for suggestions on set up. My temp is always between 70 - 75 degrees and my humidity never drops below 40 and usually measures around 55 - 60. I am running 24hr light cycle. My harvest room is empty but I use it for venting. I have an inline fan in the harvest room along with two other fans to complete my intake system. I wanted to ensure my babies would get enough air flow. I have a humidifier set up a 3x timer. My water schedule right now is 2x a day for 15 minutes. It seems to be more than enough, maybe too much? Here is the measurement I just took. I don't know what it means but maybe someone can decipher this information for me and tell me the relevance as well as the target ranges. •\tPPM 031 •\tEC 0.06 •\tCF 006 I hope the pics help. I will continue to update my actions. If you have read this far, I really appreciate it. If you feel so inclined to give me feedback, that would really fucking rock. I am sure I left out some critical data. Please tell me what other information I need to give the community. My biggest concern right now is the following: •\tI am watering with nutes on a timer 2 times a day. Does the rock wool look too wet? •\tWhat is going on with my Ice and Super Silver haze? •\tIs it possible to have too much ventilation? •\tIn general, how is everything looking? *NOTE: PICUTRES OF PLANTS WERE TAKEN RIGHT AFTER WATERING. I will grab some pictures at their driest as well to give you an idea of saturation of the rock wool. Thank each of you for your contribution. One love and Peace for now. Happy New Year!
rock wool looks good I think it has to do with ph or your nutes. no nutes at this time, they are to small and tender at this stage. also, did you thoroughly soak and ph the rockwool. that stuff can have a major effect on seedlings if you didn't. nope, not unless your bringing in cold(or in the summer hot) air. I would seal up that res so the light wouldn't get in and grow algae, flush the rockwool really well and fill up the res with nute free water.
jzchillin I really appreciate your time and advise. Yes I soak my rock wool. In fact I am soaking at 5.5 now for the new plants. I have read to soak for 30 mins and then others say soak for 24hrs. I am using logic to conclude if I soak at 24hrs I cannot hurt anything. I am going to purchase a 10 gallon opaque res tomorrow. I will put in ph balanced nute free water in the new res. This brings me to the next question I am struggling with, when do I give the babies nutes? I am getting ready to have set up and additional drip head and res because I have new babies I am getting ready to put in rock wool. This will allow me to start half the plants on ph water and half on nutes. Are any of the babies ready for nutes? Once again, thanks for the advice. Happy New Year jzchillin!
I also use Rockwool, and have found that just soaking it in 5.5ph water alone doesn't do the trick and can cause problems for seedlings. There is alot of lime residue in rockwool from the manufacturing process. I Flush all my Rockwool repeatedly in the bathtub until the water runs clear, THEN I soak it for 12+ hours in 5.5ph water. Watering your plants will flush them it justs takes longer and the plants can suffer, In you situation with them already planted I would make sure they have good drainage and water them pretty heavy for a week or so to bring the PH down. Just remember to flush your new Rockwool in the future And you need to make some covers for your rookwool cubes, direct light hiting the tops of moist rockwool causes a knarly green algee, just cut some black plastic squares out of garbage bags. The water readings you posted are for disolved solids/electrical condutivity, it shows the puriity of the water and is also how you measure the amount of nutes in the water. 31 parts per million is pretty pure and is a good starting point. Once your on your 3rd or 4th set of leaves mix your veg formula to about 300-400ppm and gradually increase them to around 1000ppm at full veg. When you switch the lights change to a flowering formula with less nitrogen and run the ppm's up to 1300-1600 When roots start showing on the bottom of your cubes, it time to either set them on rockwool slabs or put them in bubble buckets. I set them on 12" x 3ft slabs in trays, this works well for clones as you don't have to worry about males or hermis. But if you are starting from regular seed, bubble buckets would be better because you can easily remove or isolate plants during sexing
After much debate and worry I rearranged my set up. I replaced the clear res with two 10 gal opaque ones. Now I have two res to feed from. I and just watering the 10 babies on the left with ph balanced distilled and the 3 babies on the right on their fist week of nutes. I have two new drip heads arriving this week. They are 1gph heads as opposed to the 3.3gph head I am using. I am hopeful this will give me more control over the flow. The stakes can drip from 0-10gph. I am testing them now for reliability and consistency. I am hopeful I can dial this fucking drip system in. So far I am not too happy with the setup. This brings to my first serious problem. Have I planted too many plants and/ or too many strains? How the fuck do I feed all these hungry babies being that they vary so much in their size and nute readiness How many reservoirs am I going to need? I suppose I can hand water all of them if need be. I mean I am committed and shit but am hoping to figure this out. I moved all the started rock wool into 3†cubes. Now I have 13 3†cubes with the ability for 24 drips off the two 12 cap heads. Btw, what is the best way to hand water these 3†rock wool cubes? I have been either dipping them for a few seconds, letting excess run off and then put back in tray. I have also used a turkey baster to water the cubes. Suggestion would be useful. I dont know what is going with the Silver Haze. It is back on a distilled water drip. I am worried it is going to die. Here are some pics of the changes and the current set up. Thanks beautiful people. One love!
Thank you for all the know HappySkunk. Note made about Rock wool. I will also cover the Rock wool. But I am confused. Do I just leave a hole for the babies to grow and cover the exposed Rock wool? If so how does the water from the drip stakes (drips out holes in top of stakes) wet the Rock wool? I think I am misunderstanding you. Also, thank you for the water readings explanation. I will focus on understand this completely as I move forward. As far as the future I will look into moving these cubes to bubble buckets as you suggest. I thought bubble buckets were kinda expensive and time consuming to make? I found a how to for under $100 but that would amount $1300. Is this what you are suggesting I do? Once again, thanks for the encouraging and informative feedback. One love.
Sorry for the picture quality. I am using different cameras to see which one works the best. Here are my 3 healthiest babies. Peace.
When making the covers I just cut a square then cut a slit to the middle and cut out about a 1.5" diameter hole for the stem, and that is where I put the dripper, the stake you can just punch through the plastic. Yes, with so many plants bubble buckets can get expensive, using the slabs like I do is cheaper, I can get 6, 12" x 3ft slabs for about $90 shipped and they work very well. Just leave the plastic on the slabs (after flushing and soaking) then cut an X where you want to place the cubes and fold the plastic back. I plant 2-4 plants per slab depending on how I'm going to grow (SCROG, SOG, etc...). The drawbacks to using the slabs is that once set you can't move or rearrange them, and if you have to weed out males or hermis it can mess up the spacing in your garden. You could cut the rockwool slabs to fit individual containers that would solve the problem I mentioned above and still be much cheaper that bubble buckets. Another option would be to set the cubes in containers and surround with organic soil and use your drippers. The main reason I bring it up is when I started using rockwool I was amazed at how fast the plants outgrew the rockwool cubes and became rootbound and on my first grow I wasn't prepared to transition them to larger root space when they needed it and subsequently I ended up vegging them for almost 2 months instead of 30 days if I had allowed them to grow at their optimal rate. So which ever path you pick, be prepared to give them more space when the roots showing at the bottom of the cube number more than a few. If you wait until the bottoms are solid roots (as I did in my first grow) it will seriously slow down the growth.
I am planting 3 more Strawberry Cough in Rock wool starter plugs then putting that into a 4" Rock wool instead of the 3" I have been using. I am curious to see how the larger Rock wool will handle the heavy feeding from the drips. I am asking again for suggestions on feeding different plants at different stages of growth needing different feeding schedules. I dont mind feeding by hand but I would love some advice on how to effectively water the Rock wool by hand. Dip? As always thank you! Peace.
As always thank you for the feedback HappySkunk. I was planning on putting the 3" and 4" Rock wool into Hydroton filled pots. I am most interested in making a bubble bucket in the near future. I have my hands full at the time. I am already vegging longer than I should be. I am okay with it as long it is not hurting the plants. This next bowl is for you my brother! Thanks for taking an interest in my grow and sharing your advice with me. Peace!
Waz up Jz? I appriciate you asking my brother. Things are beautiful. I am growing 14 plants at present. I now have some beautiful, thick stalked mommiez already. I gotz me Ice, Crystal, Strawberry Cough, White Widow and Siver Haze mommiez. I will post pictures. I have also made an investment in LED setup to see what kinda of performance I get from the newest LED lights. I gotz me a red LED panel and 5 Blue 168 LED light spots. I am going to use the spots for me mommiez and the panel to supplement the ol' HPS! I am also starting a few new strains from seed, all fem. Aurora Indica, Rasberry Cough, Black Jack, Haze #1 and White Castle. I am very excited about some of these strains. I will post pics asap. Dude let me know what strains you have tried and like. I try to stick with strains that are well thought of the medical community because I donate mad clones and shit. I am blessed. I did not one plant go south on me. Every seed germd and the girls are dank sexy and smell like god's vagina. One mighty love. Look for pics. Peace my bruddha! OVERGROW THAT SHIT MANG!