beginner grower in need of help

dont feed them those micro-golds, they will be happy in the happy frog (good choice btw) for a month, more if theyre small and in 5 gal

only water when the soil is dry a couple inches below the surface (finger-test)

post pics and we can provide better help

 

Both of our lights are 24" fluorescents, one is 20 Watts, 875 Lumens, idk about the other one

 

what up compton, i've never heard of micro gold what is the npk? you need a good bloom fert with low nitrogen and high phosphorus and high potassium. clos3tgrow3r is correct about happy frog good stuf with plenty of food for 3-4 weeks although i would feed them some of you tomatoe/veg anyway they will love it. run at 18hrs. until plants are 2 ft. then turn lights down to 12hrs and switch over to bloom ferts. your girls will double in size to 4 ft. and most likely be done flowering in 8 weeks. enjoy

 

later. your plants need nutrients but they dont want an overdose. happy frog soil is already fertilized so it will take your plants time before they deplete the nutrients and need more, makes sense right?

....me personally i amend my soil with organic amendments and never feed them anything except occasional teas brewed primarily for the soils microorganism health, not so much for nutrient content....

as a beginner your most likely to provide you plant too much of some things (water, nutrients) and not enough of others (light, air flow)..... try to think about that when your with your ladies

 

Hey closetgrower, I'm working with the OP on this grow op. Our soil isn't happy frog, it's Cocogro coir fiber, with Happy Frog fertilizer mixed in and sprinkled at the base of the plants. They seem to be doing well, but since we're both new to this we're learning as we go. Is there any obvious signs that would show if we're overdosing them with nutrients? They're still fresh and we just today stopped the micro-gold watering system we were doing, just using normal tap water for now (Watering using the 1-2 inch dry soil test method). At what point would it be best to reintroduce the use of the Micro-Gold?

 

well figure if you used 100% happy frog youd be set for about a month. if its 50/50 and mixed evenly id say your good for roughly half that or just a bit under.

nutrient burn looks alot like a burn in general. it usually starts at the very tips and edges of leaves and works its way down. if your plants are lush green and giving off happy healthy vibes then obviously your OK


and it will start out as subtle as this


act quickly if you see this

also i think this link will help you guys out

http://forum.grasscity.com/sick-plants-problems/25983-nutrients-bugs-various-problems-guide.html

and finally this is to help you with deficiencies... there are two types of nutrients, mobile and immobile. "Mobile" means that the plant can move these nutrients from older leaves to newer ones ~ therefore the deficiency will occur in older leaves because the plant will always move them to the newer ones as needed. "Immobile" nutrients on the other hand will show deficiency in the newer leaves because the "immobile" nutrients that the plant has are already locked away in the older leaves. This is good for us because it makes determining which deficiency we are dealing with a whole lot easier.



and pics are worth a thousand words

 

Awesome info and pics, thanks closetgrower. Our 3 plants are lookin good right now, just checked on them. All have made progress and sprouted new leaves recently, 2 have a very healthy green/light green shade to them, though our 3rd plant seems kinda different from the others. It's a much darker shade of green and appears to have somewhat thicker leaves, but I'm guessing it just has something to do with the fact that it's from our original batch of clones and it's the only one that survived. The other 2 we got later on and I'm not sure if they're from the same mother plant, so could be a different strain or something. It looks healthy and seems to be growing fine.

The one thing that concerns me about the dark green plant right now is the fact that the stem is turning quite purple. Is this a problem? I also saw small signs of what I'm guessing is nutrient burn, though it was very small and only affecting a single leaf, so I just clipped off the tiny yellow tip.

Oh and just so you know for future reference, our soil is probably about 15-25% fertilizer, we forgot to mix the soil and fert before we put it in the buckets, so we made a hole in the center of each one and mixed in about a cup of Happy Frog. Not the best choice, but like the thread says, we're beginners haha. I don't think it'll be much of a problem, but do you have any thoughts or suggestions on this matter?

 

honestly i dont know how to really help you with these specifics without actually being able to see them, remember pic is worht a thousand!

but you want a dark green plant:

chlorophyll is a green pigment within the leaves of all plants and is what is responsible for absorbing light energy. the greener your leaves the more abundant your chlorophyll the healthier and more efficient your plant.

as far as soil goes seems like a pretty sloppy job , you may want to consider transplanting into those 5 gal containers soon... or are they already in them ? dont remember

 

good lucks