This is my first grow. It's a Cash Crop 4.0 box (no, I didn't pay that for it). It's the small DWC unit. The back three plants are Easy Cheese Auto. The front three are Dinafem Roadrunner Auto. Seeds were started on 1/9, dark box closed and opened 1/11. All six sprouted fine and looked good. Over the next few days, one of the Roadrunners is identified as having that weird 3 leaf mutation. By 1/17, five plants seem to be doing fine, growing good roots. One has shown no roots. Gave first Moon Dust nutes that came with the box. Raised plants to within 4" of lights, and replaced two of the three 13w CFLs with 23w CFLs. Next day 1/18 some leaves started turning yellow. Mostly the new leaves, but also established ones turning yellow with veins still green. I topped with tap water. Flushed with tap water on 1/19. By 1/20 tips of leaves of two plants were brown. Yesterday (1/21), I finally got some pH test strips. What I found: Filtered tap water (undersink filter): pH 6.0+ Unfiltered tap water: pH 7.5 Distilled filtered bottled water: pH 6.5+ I flushed again and gave filtered water with weak nutes. Reading a little, it sounds like this was an iron or zinc deficiency caused by pH being too high. What I think happened is I originally used the filtered water. At some point, probably when I gave them the first nutes, I switched to tap water. The pH was just too high; nute lock. By this morning, most leaves were green again on the four healthy plants. Except for the very edges where some damage may have occurred. The mutant is also still looking pretty crappy. The Runt's roots still haven't emerged from the plug so this morning I ripped gently into the plug to see if I could make it easier for the tap root to find its way out. Not sure what else I could do? Questions? Thoughts?
These are the girls this morning. Still a little yellow around the edges but perkier for sure. Anything other than using the right water and checking pH BEFORE you have problems I should do better?
I notice the Easy Cheese seems to be doing much better than the Roadrunner. Is that just probably a matter of one strain being more tolerant with a dumbass first-time grower?
Not really about this grow, but am I right on this thinking? If nute burn is an issue, you can flush and then either reduce nutes OR increase lighting? What would be an appropriate amount of light or minimum for a 16"x9.5x24" cfl micro grow? I've got 59w in there now (260w equivalent).
If you are getting nute burn it means your ppm is way off. Flushing is for soil, in DWC we simply adjust the ppm to the correct strength. 50 watts per square feet is the bare minimum for healthy growth. But 100 watts per square foot is a good figure to have. You have about 1 square foot there that equivalent figure is the equivalent amount of light that is given off by that many watts of incandescent bulbs. Incandescents are not any sort of benchmark and should be completely disregarded when discussing growing plants because they aren't suitable for growing plants at all those starter plugs hold too much water and this is probably what is hindering the root growth. you are better off using clay balls. They allow air to pass through so your roots don't suffocate. growing 6 plants in 1 square foot of grow space is likely to cause problems. 1 plant in there would be hard enough to deal with. When they are 2-3 weeks old they are going to be fighting for light
Thanks for the reply! Yeah, I'm getting some splitters to up my wattage. Maybe flush is the wrong word, but starting with fresh water in my rez? Im aware of the box's size limitations but wanted to do a grow with the equipment it came with.
I don't think it's nute burn, just residual damage from before I fixed the pH. It's not getting worse, and the leaves have all greened back up and are growing. I peeked this morning and there is new root growth visible for all except Runt. Even Mutant, which I thought was a goner, shows new root growth since yesterday.
Well my box was at about 94 degrees. That explains some things. I ripped the filters off the fan and intake to get better airflow. Later if odor is an issue, I'll just tape em back on. That got me down to about 88. Anything short of drilling more holes I can do?
You are always going to have issues with this box, it's simply not suitable for growing in. You can probably grow in there but the plant won't thrive and you will always be fighting it's shortfalls all the way through. If you want to add more light you will need to buy a proper fan. You will eventually need to buy a proper carbon filter, but a fan and filter would completely fill your grow box
Flushing is the right word but it's still for soil. Using empty water should only be used for the first week and last week. Never use empty water mid grow, always give them the same strength as what they are taking up
Day 16 from sprouting. Just an update. I seem to have gotten all my temperature and pH issues worked out. The last two days the four viable plants have grown ignificantly. Interesting the difference between these two strains. The back three are Easy Cheese Auto, the front three are Roadrunner Auto. Some strains just seem tougher or more adaptable to beginner screw ups?
I got the temps down in the 82-84 range by putting an air purifier I had in front of the intake and letting the fan run.
At 19 days from sprout. The four viable plants are definitely starting to fight for light and space. Why do they not just sell this as a 1 or 2 plant system? They're full and green and starting to really suck up the nutes.
Looks nice man I'm a first time grower my box has been shipped seeds shipped just anxious to try this out before i move into making something bigger, i was thinking doing 3 plants the first time. Any suggestions for the box you have i could use our anything extra i should go buy
If I were doing this all over, first thing I would go down to the Radio Shack and get a bigger fan to put on this box so I could run more light. Get some splitters to double your number of bulbs and up to the bigger 23w. So you're running 23x6= 138w instead of 39w. Then I'd get a splitter and run two airstones instead of just that one small one. I also raised my res box up, just set it on something, to get them closer to the lights. If I use this box for my next grow, I'll only grow one plant in a hempy cup. My plants are only three weeks, just a few inches tall, and fighting each other for light and space. If you got the Moon Dust nutes with your box, maybe a more experienced grower can correct me but the 19-8-13 is a veg nute. I'm going to look at switching to something with a lot less N for flowering?
I second this. Gold gave me quite a few tips but these were really important. Rockwool is fine and works but going straight to clay balls has been so much better. I have a similar box, I started with 9, next grow I went 6, and after failing for various reasons, Ive settled on 4. But,now that Im 4 weeks in this grow I wish I would have went 1 or 2, because the girls are growing so good I feel like 4 are too much for the box. Btw my box is 4ft tall and Im also using a much bigger air pump than what came with the box(another great tip from GG). **Edit I noticed your rockwool looks really wet, I made the same mistake. I would get some clay balls and pop them straight in there right away. ***Edit again thats not rockwool in the pics, my bad those are rapid rooters correct?
Lowered the girls a couple of inches from the lights because they've grown that much! They've got some spots that look like a nutrient deficiency of some sort, maybe phosphorus or calcium? I bumped them to full strength nutes at 3 weeks. Is this timing about right? I'm getting the too much N look too though. Thinking I should ditch these nutes.
Exactly the wrong things to do. The problem was the Moon Dust nutes 19-8-13. N toxicity was pretty clear with the clawed leaves, spots on lower leaves. Lowering them from the lights and bumping the nutes just worsened the problem. Anyway, I emptied the res and switched to some GH nutes. They're still pretty pitiful looking but a little perkier just a few hours later.