So here's the deal. I did a bunch of research and decided to grow some weed indoors. I chose my attic because it seemed like the best spot for it. I found a spot, built a little grow area, set up the lights, etc. The equipment I bought was: 4 75Watt HPS flood lights from Home Depot Soil of course-cannot remember but got what was recommended from a site 20 Half gallon pots Plenty of reflectors to keep light in So the plants started growing very quickly. They were growing straight up and pretty fast. I had a 18 light cycle going. I tried to water about every 3 days but it almost didn't seem like it was enough. It was hotter than hell in the attic so I had a couple fans to try and keep some cool air flowing around the area to bring the humidity and temperature down a little. The soil was always really hard when I went to water and the water would just sit on top of the soil for about 20 seconds and then absorb slowly and then it would soak up an assload more quickly after that. They kept growing so I thought I was doing everything right. I decided it was time to flower the plants. I could tell they were not looking that healthy. They were very tall and had hardly any thickness to them whatsoever. Being a newbie I wasn't sure what the hell to really expect. I thought it was that strain. Anyways, I know different know. It appears I just cooked the God damn plants. I am going to give it another try. I moved into a new house and have a great closet. I bought a double tube fixture at home depot and they have 40 watt plant lights specifically for growing plants so I bought 2 of those and I plan to buy another fixture and 2 more lights. It will not be near as hot where they will be growing so that should help. I know I need to get a ph checker and I plan to. I also need to research some seed banks and figure out who to buy from. I really don't know how to choose between the ones I have researched so any recommendations would be great. I plan to try and grow about 15-20 again and I am hoping I am moving in the right direction. Any input for a successful round this time? Am I moving in the right direction? New user so take it easy on me and I did read the forum rules and have searched some of the site already(it's a big damn site). I just wanna grow some killer varieties so I can smoke it. I am so tired of paying 600 or 700 dollars for good stuff. Thanks for any input.
Hi MJ_Connoisseur, Welcome to the City. Interesting first grow. Heat and cold is the biggest problem with growing in an attic. Both are very hard to control because most attics are not climate controlled. Do you know what strain it was. Maybe they were so tall and skinny because you had too many plants for the 300 watts (unless you were doing a SOG. For this grow all sounds good except the fact you will be growing too many plants for such a small amount of light again. How many watts you plan to use this time around? Figure a bare bare minimum of 15 watts per square foot for veg, 30 watts per square foot for flower. Of course 50 watts per square foot is better. Oh and those "plant lights" are really not meant for growing MJ but, if they are CFL's they will work. For seeds try these two trusty sites that I have used for years. They both mail to the US. http://www.drchronic.com/ http://www.seedboutique.com/store/ Anyway, I would be interested in following this grow so send me a link or start the journal under this thread. Good luck.
Another issue from the lighting and the lack of girth of your plants could be because you had the light source too far away from the plants. In my first attempt i had the light too far away. 2-3 inches off the top of the plant is what i have found for the veg stage. Also with the heat, did the leaves turn yellow and falll off or did they shrivel up to conserve water? The last thing is that i have read taht 3-4 plants is the max for each 400 watts of light. each should have 150 or so to get them nice and beefy
They did turn yellow and fall off on their own or were so weak a light wind would of knocked them off. However, they kept on growing straight up and the leaves growing on top were green but the leaves below would yellow and dry up. When it was time to flower them they were about a foot tall but I never got them to bud. It looked like they were trying to and I was able to see the male pistils and get rid of the male plants which was exactly 50% of them. I gave them 4 or 5 weeks on flowering stage and never got anything so I just threw them out. They were really weak. Oh well. Practice makes perfect.
If i'm get this correct you have 80watts of tubes and are planning on adding another 80watt making 160watt. Your planning on growing 15-20 plants? That 160 watt should be ok for about 4sqft, i'd say 4 plants max and you wanna keep em short. Use lst to max light coverage.
If they were not flowering then the attic was not 100% dark. Even a sativa which could take 10-14 weeks to finish budding, should start to at least show some flowers/buds by week 4-6. Maybe the browning lower leaves were from under watering or under/over fert. What did you feed them? As the others said your light will only allow for 3-4 small to medium sized plants if you are in fact using 160 watts. At 50 watts per square foot, you would need 800 watts to light a 4' x 4' space. Check it out http://cheaphydroponics.com/Merchant2/wattcalc.htm If you have a 2'x 2' area, to get 50 watts per square foot, you need a 200 watt light. Under that, you could do 4 small plants grown in an 8 inch to one gallon pots which will keep each plant including the pot about one square foot each. Since you have 160 watts, they will be under 50 watts per square foot but, it will be over the bare minimum of 30 watts per square foot. Grown like that you will get some smoke.
Holy crap! I didn't realize I was so off on my lighting. I am going to try about 6 plants under 2 double tube fixtures(4 lamp tubes total) which will be a total of 160 watts. I just don't know where to get a 200 or 400hps lamps and fixtures at. I heard that Gro-lux tubes were the best but I am a little paranoid about ordering grow supplies off the net and I can't find anyone that sells that shit here. When I had the 4 70w HPS flood lamps I bought at Home depot it seemed like it was just way to hot for the plants. Maybe the light spectrum just wasn't correct. This time, I bought the phillips plant and aquariam 40 watt light tubes. I hope these will work. I looked on the box to see if it said cfl but it didn't clarify. I am getting the hang of things. I never was the type to get things right the first time anyways. ha. Too impatient.
If i were you i would go back to the 4-70 watt HPS floodlights, depending on how many plants you have... or at least two of them along with the cfls you have. Do you have any ventilation for the closet or is it basically sealed? Thats your heat issue, you need a fan inside with them if you can fit it, and an extractor fan to keep the air moving and not makin it into an oven. Im working on building an extrator fan with a carbon filter to keep the exhaust fresh, search for carbon filter in the search box to find out what im talkin bout if you dont know already. How many plants do you think you are gonna go with??? I have 9 growing but my magic number is 6, once they get bigger and i transplant them i want to keep the 6 healthies lookin ones.
Id second the idea of keepin the HPS lights. Id also use the new lights with the HPS's. That is, if you fix your ventialtion problems. Get a thermometer and check to see that the temp doesnt exceed 90 F while the lights are on(85f to be safe). Attics usually are the hottest part of a house during summer. Lucky you moved. Still your main problem is ventilation, those floods are probly sealed so the heat just radiates outwards. Youll need a couple good fans for internal air circulation coupled with at least another fan that removes air from your grow area totally. You might need another fan to actively intake air also. The internal fans will keep the air from just sitting on your plants stagnant. They will also strengthen the stems. This is almost a doublepost of DeafeningSilence's post, but it really is the most important thing for you to solve right now. Really, i wouldnt exceed 4 plants with the wattage you got. One plant per HPS with those other lights used as suppementals. The plants will grow to fill in the space around them, especially if you train them to do so.
Got 6 to sprout out of 8 so I planted those six. See what happens. I will try and get some pics so you can see the growth process and give me suggestions/hints. Got the seeds from some mids so won't be fire but still some homegrown. lol.
Morning MJ The tubes your using are fluorescent tubes, cfl's are just compact fluorescent. I didn't see you mention how close you keep the lights? flouro's should be kept between an 1 and 2 inch away from top of plants. This is a ww i grew using 180w of cfl's (had 2 plants under so say 90w each), It's in a 1 gallon pot and tied down like made, notice all the tops are roughly the same height!!! this is a must when growing with cfl's imo. When growing with cfl's theres no point growing big plants as the light coverage isn't good enough. Good luck with the sprouts and keep us posted
Man, I had no idea you could get them to bud so short like that. Do you flower them early or do they just not really grow because the light is so close? Anyways, here is a pic of my setup. I didn't have a chain long enough to get the 2 light fixtures down near the plants. Anyways, I put the seeds in a papertowel and got them to sprout and then planted them in soil. The pictures below are the very next day after I planted them. Been about a week now. I have 2 light fixtures hovering above the plants. They hold 2 40 watt plant and aquarium lights so a total of 160 watts there. I also have 2 HPS flood light that are 70 watts a piece. I have them set up on a timer for 18/6. I have no fan on since it is a pretty big closet. I have a sheet on the outside of the closet to help keep the light in. Here are the pics. Give me some suggestions or let me know if I am doing anything wrong. Here is a shot of the closet from a distance: Here is a closer shot of the closet: Shot of all the plants inside closet(actually the right side of the closet/the other side I have closed off and my surge protectors over there-I will probably do a sea of green on the other side as soon as I read up on how to do it). Right side: Left side: Upclose shot of two plants. This is the second day. So neato...lol Shot of plants and 2 light fixtures: Shot of part of left side of closet where there is a shelf that I put the timers. So, am I doing anything wrong here or everything look good? What height should I start flowering them or is it a matter of time more than size.
Looks good mate I would use some string or something strong enough to extend the chains (it'll pay off ) Whats your temps like??? Add the fan when there above ground to help strengthen them baby stems up. Whats the strain?
I just got some more chain today so the fixtures are sitting couple inches above now. They have obviously started sprouting up. I am hoping they grow out this time. The last attempt they grew but they just kept growing straight up and never out. Couldn't really figure out why. I was growing in alot different conditions now though. I picked the seeds out of some mids. Once I get a successful grow then I will go ahead and order some from the seedbanks. I am a little hesitant because of the po but reading on here has made me feel a little better ordering. I will try and keep the grow updated. How long before you flower yours busted? After 2 months do you think I could prematurely flower them and get buds or will the plant just die off?
Morning MJ, The ww in the pic was vegged for 4 weeks exactly, day 1 was the day they sprouted out the soil. Then 8 weeks flowering. 8 weeks vegging will probably be too long and the plants will be too big When they get to the 6/7th set of leaves i start tying the down to help bush em out. keep us posted on how things progress
I got some experince..Do you want my input??? Thirst thing..KISS is something thats been mentioned a few times on GC and that means keep it simple silly if you didnt know already..1 400w mh would be good way to go..would you like me to carry on or are you alright??????