Hello this is my first post I hope this is the right section. I am attempting my first serious grow a dry run first with something I found in my last smoke. 20 days in and it's not great but does look healthy atleast. This is the first time I've ever actually formed full leafs and I'm pretty proud of that. I only just noticed the second nodes leafs now have all five leaves. Beautiful moment tbh. I have an led light 210w it's very powerful so I think it's very good but I've had moments of paranoia and put the light away and left one plant in the window and threw away three others. I only planned to grow one plant anyway. My country says I shouldn't grow but I'm pretty sure god wouldn't mind so meh. I am still pretty worried since i have kids. Getting caught would mean child services paying a visit I think but they wouldn't find bad parents so I'm ignoring that or trying to. So many people grow it these days with safe plug ins I think I could point that out. I have taken extra safety precautions too like fire door, fire blankets and extinguisher. Smoke alarms wired into the house if one trips they all trip. I've also set them on a time so that they sleep when we sleep instead of using the power when it's cheapest. If it came to it I hope this would show me in a better light. My electrical are all safety granteed and from reputable companies. Mars hydro light. Then a standard clip on fan that is all I have right now. I have a grow tent but it's too large for the area I wanted to use. I need to figure that out hopfully here. 80x80x160cm. I think I need a 120cm tall tent for my area which is behind the fire door. In a small box room which also has my houses fuse board could this be a problem? The room is about 2m long or alittle more basically under the stairs pantry type room. The side I want to use is obstructed by the stairs slope limiting the height. The other side has the fuse board on so don't want to use that side really. Or should I? Or pitch up in my bedroom which isn't ideal. Is it? Sorry this thread is all over the place I'm just rolling with it. Anyways it's PH I'm here about, I am using bio bizz soil which says is 6.8ph. My cheap soil tester is reading around 7+ it's analog so it's hard to tell for sure. I have some ph down for my 7ph tap water. But when I ph it down it goes all over the place. 3 drops no change. 2 more drops it's off the chart -4ph Idk. When I sit there adding a small drop shaking the bottle, testing until it's ticking around the 6.5ph mark. I dump it into the plant wait for just afew drops of run off then stop watering. I then test my soil ph by sticking the prongs down afew inches and it's reading the 7ish it always reads. I have just looked at my nute bottle which states 5.5-6.2ph range. This isn't going to be easy in my mind it won't work simple. Or hopfully I'm over thinking it, do I just mix up the water and nutes (when needed not yet) Then ph that solution down to 6ph ish then water my plant and it will be fine. Or does the soil need to read a ph of 5.5-6.3 for the nutes to work at all. These nutes say they are for coco coir or soil. The ph of 5.5-6.3 sounds like hydro only to my noob mind and mayb hopfully these nutes will be fine at around 6.8 since it is soil and the range is alot higher or something. My plant is currently over waterd looking alittle droopy Bcos I tried to change the soil ph but failed. More reading on soil ph has made me want to forget about ph atleast for now. But after I transplant I will want it perfect. Hopfully by then I will understand it better to. My plant is very stunted but I'm putting that down to starting it off with crap light. Then paranoia forcing it into the window for afew days. The leaves are a nice green deep but not dark. The baby leaves have turned yellow tho. I've put that down to them being used up tho. Another mistake I have provably made today is cropping it's beginning of the 4th node. If this was a bad idea it's youtube that made it seem a good idea. Today I have also noticed it's got the beginning of sex parts showing up. Very small little spikes I hope this is normal and not because of the window sill giving it less light for afew days. It's back on 16-8 now tho. Hopefully it will stay that way. Finally I've just seen a video of sexing seeds, he says a seed with a volcano looking crater is female. Seeds that are just round or football shaped could be male. If this is true why isn't it a big thing. People wouldn't need to plant another make again. I'm dubious of it but at the same time intrested. Again I'm sorry for this thread if it's hard to read. I'm new to forums just use Facebook. Peace this forum seems friendly which is why I signed.
1. If you really want to make life extremely easy on yourself and come out with a product that you won't beat in terms of smell or flavor, go organic. I know it sounds complicated if you look through the organic section, but if you look up General Organics nutrient line you can save your self a lot of time and money if you're starting out. The main convenience of using it is you just mix the different ingredients in your water, with no need for pH. I've ran it multiple times with multiple strains and I've thrown my pH meter in the trash. Best decision of your life....pH'ing gets old real fast and things can go wrong real fast with it. 2. I wouldn't be too concerned with fire hazard seeing as you're not really pulling that many amps. I run two tents in my bedroom with no worries. 600hps in each. 3. The spiky things your seeing are probably just stipules, and not reproductive parts, as unless you drop down to around 12-13 hours of light will they show, unless they are older plants. 4.when pH'ing, just add you ferts one at a time, and then test and add some up or down accordingly to get yourself to around 6.25. Don't worry about soil pH, as the lime in the soil will act as a buffer. Hope this helped a bit