Growing medium

Discussion in 'First Time Marijuana Growers' started by RustyShakylford, Dec 12, 2008.

  1. How are you growing, soil or hydro?
     
  2. I will be growing in the soil, I hoped that was what I meant when I said "water by hand"

    Also, I plan on using a 400+ watt t5 fluoro setup. Everybody seems biased against fluoros. Won't that be enough to see them through their whole life?
     
  3. How many plants are you aiming to grow? Flouro's have been able to provide some excellent grows, just search through the grow journals and you'll come across an abundance :)

    For soil, a great organic choice is Fox Farms Ocean Forest, although just about any soil will do. Make sure you say away from soils with time-released nutes in them though, especially Miracle Grow (link).
     
  4. Would 6-8 be too much?
     
  5. 6-8 on 400w of T5 may be toeing the line. That will be fine for veg, the test will be during flowering. You could certainly give it a shot - the plants will def. grow. One thing to help would be to make sure you have a set of ~6500k dominate tubes for veg, and ~2700k dominate tubes for flowering.
     
  6. So far I planned on buying 2 cool tubes and 6 warm tubes or something to that effect. It's an eight tube fixture. Post veg I'll probably have to pull a few anyway.
     
  7. Bump as time is of the essence.
     
  8. How many lumens is the 400 W T5? Or, how many lumens are each of the 8 bulbs. That is going to be the only way for you to tell if you have enough light.

    Like the previous post said. You will probably be able to get away with it in veg. It's flowering where you may need to add more light.
     
  9. Oh yeah, forgot about the soil. The Fox Farm line is always recommended. If you are growing from seed, I would recommend Fox Farm Light Warrior. If you are growing from clone then you could use Light Warrior or Ocean Forest.

    The reason that I suggest Light Warrior for seedlings is that it doesn't have as many nutrients built into the soil. I have heard stories recently of Ocean Forest burning seedlings. Not saying it happens in every case. Not even saying it is the OF itself. Just reporting what I have seen recently.

    You really can't go wrong with Fox Farm.

    If that's too pricey, anything that isn't pre-ferted should be fine.
     
  10. I am using coco fiber with some worm castings mixed in as my grow medium and it is really easy to work with. The coco fiber is very light and allows for great drainage/oxygen to the roots. I would highly recommend it.....stuff is a bit pricey though which is the downside to using it.
     
  11. It's a 40,000 lumen fixture.
     
  12. #13 cantharis, Dec 13, 2008
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 13, 2008
    I mix my own growing compost. Basically peat, with horse manure and wormcastings for nutrition, and sand and grit to help with drainage, with some crushed eggshell (organic lime).
    I add liquid nutes, my own organic Russian comfrey fert (see link) and BioCanna - which is not available in the US. And a couple of times in the season, a spoonful per gallon of Epsom salts (for Mg).
     

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