Hello ladies and gentlemen! Long time reader, first time poster. My roommate and I just got our first little operation under way, and I would love to share it with all of you. I am very much looking forward to criticism, comments and any help/karma anyone is willing to send our way! A little background info - My roommate and I are both long-term smokers, but have never gotten into growing before. About a week and a half ago we got our hands on a stray seed that we found in a bag. We germinated it (by pure fluke) and it happily sprouted into our first plant. Over the following days we built our little rig (see attached pictures). I had read that growing mirijuana quickly turns from an experiment or curiosity into a serious hobby, and it has. Once we had that altogether we decided to invest some money in a couple sets of nice seeds - shiskaboom, and a NLxHZxSK mix. We tried to germinate one set (2 of each seed) and had very little success, but we then used the following method - -drop the seeds you wish you germinate into a shot glass of water -wait 24 hours until they sink to the bottom -plant them directly into your lifelong growing medium -cover with a plastic bag or humidity dome and stick under your lights We've been waiting about a week for the first 4 'highgrade' seeds to sprout using our old method. With this new method, both shiskaboom seeds have sprouted within 48 hours of being transplanted into their pots. Since this all started as an experiment, we are yet to invest in some decent soil. We have been using potting soil we purchased at Dollarama, but it seems to be working. I am unfamiliar with the make-up of the soil, so am a little reluctant to add any nutes just yet. Plus, that plant is still fairly young. I feel like this is getting a little wordy, but I'm going to continue ... We are well aware that our lighting rig isn't adequate enough for any sort of flowering, but seems to be getting the job done for veg. Our project this week will be to build a CFL rig for inside our box (see atached pics), and possibly move the seedlings and sprouts into a large modified rubbermaid container with flourescents mounted on top. Our entire wattage right now is about 120 fluorescents and only 20 CFL....I know, sub-par ... we're working on it. Other short-term future projects include .... "light-tighting" our box, creating a decent soil based or soilless medium to grow in, and continue to spend countless hours reading the literature on the internet. This site has quickly become my favourite resource, which is why I was so eager to get some pictures and drop a post. One more question .... how is that seedling looking for the 8 days it's been alive? We are well aware of the little yellow spots on the first set of leaves. We think it received a little trauma one day and that was the result. I moved our light a little higher, and it looks like the spots have been repairing themselves, and like we're getting a little better light distribution. Also, I just found those two new sprouts this morning, I'll have to put pictures of them up later this week. Thank you for reading! I hope it wasn't too lengthy. If I left anything out don't hesitate to ask. So, here are my pictures!!
Hey man welcome to GC. After reading your grow I've got a few tips for you, things that I messed up on in my first couple weeks growing; - Get those 2 CFL's closer, they loose effective range after 2-4 inches. I'd lean the lamps against something to get the bulbs directly above the main plant. - Don't give it nutes until its 2 weeks old from sprout, or until it shows that it needs it. I gave my girl nutes in the first 5 days biiig mistake. And one final tip, 'L.I.F.T.A.' or, Leave It The Fuck Alone, unless it asks. A more experienced grower on here told me about the LIFTA technique, more people hurt these plants trying to help it when its sick, etc. If all else fails just leave her be and let her do what she does best. What you want to do is get her to have more leaves rather than grow taller. At this stage height is not important -- they almost triple in size during flowering. So once you get those lights within optimal range, shes probably going to stay the same height for a while and focus all her energy on leaf growth, which is what you want. Well man looks good I like your setup, goodluck I'll be following along
Your off to a good start. In that kind of grow box though make sure you get some ventilation going. Also your gonna need to transplant her soon if ur thinking lst. Other then that she is looking good.
For 8 days it looks great. Mine was a little bit smaller at 8 days of age. Now, I don't know if the little rust spots could be caused by shock or trauma but I'm also no expert. Whenever my girl is unhappy (after a transplant or something) her growth slows way down for a day or two but I've not seen those spots. Make sure your waters pH level is in check and only water her with distilled water, or let tap water sit out overnight to let the chlorine evaporate before you water her with tap. This plant likes a slightly acidic environment of 6.5ish ph, so try to correct the water (using pH up/down solutions) to around that pH. If you water her with an incorrect pH it could lock out certain nutes and/or cause damage to the plant itself. But if the spots are healing then hell yeah just let her take of it
I agree man, get some ventilation in that thing. My box is similar to yours And I havent given my plants enough ventilation - tons of good light and everything else - but without the fresh air they have become undeveloped midgets.
mcar I agree with nomel90 get the light closer to the plants it is looking just a bit stretched, but not harmed, do you have 4 plants if so try and get at least 250 watts on them and make sure this is actual watts and not the equivalent. I remember reading that you need 100w for the first plant and an average of 50w per extra plant. I am sure someone with more experience will jump in soon and offer you advice but overall not a bad set up really, plenty of time to get it ready for flowering as you say. Good luck with your grow and I will pop back in soon.
Thanks for the quick feedback and encouragement! I'm still learning how to quote others posts on this forum, so I'll try to address what's been posted so far! monday or tuesday we're going to go purchase a handful of Y sockets for our lamps and try to construct a CFL setup that covers more area and has some higher wattage. Everyday we've been coming across new articles and entirely re-writing our 'supply list #2' haha. I'm going to attach a picture of the little ventilation system we have going on top. The two new Shiskaboom seedlings are sprouting right up too! I'll take a picture in a day or two when there is actually something to take a picture of. I tend to be a perfectionist with things, so our soil composition is starting to stess me out. Better lights and proper soil is definitely on the top of my list of concerns. I feel like it's two late with the plants we already have going because I dont want to shock them too much. and as for the LIFTA method...it makes so much sense, and sounds sooo easy, but is sooo hard to just sit back hahaha. I'm sure everyone on here had the initial case of "this is soooo sweet!" that I'm going through right now. Here's the ventilation, I'll get those CFLs in closer for now until we can get a better setup altogether, and I'll check in again soon. Thanks everyone!
Hey man, if you do it right she wont have that much trouble getting used to new soil. I had my plant in just Walmart topsoil w/ Perlite. They did OK for the few days they were in there but the soil was just hard and compact and grass started growing etc... At 7 days of age I transplanted her into a 1 gallon pot with MG Organic Choice (soil-less organic mixture, HIGHLY recommend as it contains just enough nutes for a little sprout without burning it; .10-.5-.5 I think it is. I mixed in the MG Organic with perlite (50/50) with 1 tsp blood meal and 1/2 tsp bone meal mixed into the top 2-4" of . I plan on using this all organic soil mixture till shes harvested. It can all be found at your local walmart and is definitely a nice medium to grow this plant in. Heres Dankohzee's Ultimate Seed Starting Mix. He does it a bit differently than me but still uses Miracle Gro Organic Choice. Just remember try not to damage the roots when you transplant her. Try to get all the dirt around the roots and keep the 'rootball' intact when you place it in the new pot, fill with the new medium and wait about 24 hours and she will be back to normal. And give her PLENTY of water after the transplant but dont over do it. Everytime I did a transplant (3 times so far) her growth slowed down a little bit during the light cycle but the next morning she was booming again.
Alright! As of today we have constructed a tastey little potting mixture, purchased a ton of new lights and fixtures, and made our rig a little more light-tight. The gals are sleeping right now, but in 4 hours the lights come on, they're all getting transplanted, and having their photos taken. That means within 6 hours I will have some new pictures of our 3 lovely ladies up here for comments and criticism. I'll also go a little more in depth on our soil-less mix, lights, etc. yay!
cool man I need to transplant mine one last time, just to fill the soil line. How are you going about transplanting it? I might cut the pot in half lol
Update time! I know I said it would be last night, but I got stoned and fell asleep watching X-files, like every other night of my life. So here are the new stats.... our light set up consists of 3 seperate rigs, each with 4x23 or 26 (cant remember) watt cfls, making pods of 100w. You'll see what I mean in the pictures below. In each set up we have 2x2700k lights, and 2x6500k lights. So, in total we are running 6x2700k and 6x6500k. This puts as at 300CFL watts total, and like, 1200 with the conversion? I guess that doesn't really matter though. I have the feeling this will be updated and upgraded quite often. We plan on switching to all 2700 for flowering, and eventually all 6500 for veg, we're just taking it one step at a time. We also transplanted the 3 girls we have on the go right now into our new mix. The mix is pretty simple, but after 12 hours seems to be having an effect already. 2 of the plants seem to have gotten comfortable this morning, and one of the Shiskaboom gals has already continued growing. The mix is ..... One large bag of manure, 1 bag of vermiculite, and one large teaspoon of bone/blood meal mixture for every litre of soil. I know there's probably a lot that that mixture is lacking, but we plan on making it up in nutes and feeding over the next couple weeks. I think that's it for now. We are a little worried with the way our first plant is looking. The cotyledon are turning completely yellow and the first set of leaves (The singles) are looking pretty mangled. You'll be able to see in the picture. We really need to know if we should chop these off or not. I feel like they're draining alot out of the plant, and using up way to much of it's energy. one last thing .... one of the shiskaboom plants has taken off, the other is chilling a bit. We're guessing that the eager beaver is more likely a male plant. I've heard they usually have a spurt before the females (due to growing large for pollination). It's too early to matter, just thought I'd throw that out there for debate and discussion. Can't wait to get some feedback! Send your friends over here! We need all the input we can get. and check out our sweet security team ... wolverine, an ewok and a ninja. They don't live in there, just stopped by for the photos. cheers! pics... 1. light set up 2. the shiskaboom thats taking off 3.our first girl with the health issues 4. the smaller shiskaboom with our older girl in the background 5. taken from the top of the box
When you started giving it nutes did it really need it? I would cut back on the nutes if they don't look like they need them.
OMFG I really laughed out loud, then I saw the ewok in the pot and wolverine in the grow box lmfao... Anyhow yeah it's safe to trim the cotyledon/first set off. I was worried about them yellowing too but everyone told me what I'm telling you now. When the plant gets older it no longer needs the cotyledon/1st set so it cuts off nutes from going to those leaves. Naturally they will fall off and die, and will be replaced with internodal growths. My plant was a little bit bigger when I took them off though, here's a few pic for reference; Not sure if your yellowing is naturally occuring because the plant no longer needs them, or if its something else. How is the pH adjusted? And how much blood meal/bone meal did you use? and nice light setup, can never go wrong with more CFLs Also, have you looked into 24" floro tubes? I have 2 of them in my box on the sides. They help a little bit (only 20w each) but hey 40w extra is better than nothing. They were at walmart with the fixture for only like 9.96 or so
how much are you watering them? the yellow looks like overwatering.. also how much manure is in that mixture, manure is really really hot for seedlings be vary carefull, I would say more than 2 tablespoons per gallon of soil is gonna kill em
Hey all, Quick question about temperature control .... How do I control the temperature? hahaha. We have some fans right now but they are appearing to be absolutely useless. What options do I have? We speculate when we move to the rubbermaid it will be far tighter and therefore a little easier to control. Are the fans themselves enough to cool the rig on their own? We thought about incorporation one of those liquid cooling systems for PCs that use hoses and water. We got ourselves a hydrometer and are keeping an eye on that, but the temperatures are sky rocketting and are scaring us a little. Also, we LST'd 2 of the plants last night. It may have been too early for one, but the big girl is looking amazing right now. We clipped the dead parts off of her lower stem too (the cotyledon and the set of single leaves). The lights are back in about 5 hours. I'll snap some pics then and throw them up. For now, I am mainly concerned about this temperature issue
Hey man, I've got a solution for your temp problems. My buddy 'TheDankTank' was over today chillin and he came up with the idea to put ice cubes in my intake tube, and put some on the bottom of the rig. It worked wonders man, my temps were almost always 90-100f all day before I started using ice cubes. Heres a picture of my temps today (today was first day using ice method); The high's and lows represent the last 12'ish hours. It requires you to put more ice in every other hour (or however long it takes for the ice to melt and evaporate). For me, the ice evaporates and doesnt leave a mess. Not only does it cool the air in the box, but it makes it really humid when it evaptorates. Double win. I might try ice packs from now on since they will last hours longer than cubes. Lemme know if this works for ya.
We have done it! We completely scrapped our old box, took all the parts we could and build a new rubbermaid container tonight, inspired by nomel90. Here are a couple pictures of the new box, and some close ups of the plants. Our original test plant is looking pretty awesome, and has had some LST done to it. The first shiskaboom is also looking amazing, but our little runt is starting to look like it's missing a chromosome or two. haha. We're going to let it keep going and see what happens. ........... We're really happy with how the setup turned out, and are seriously thinking about making a second one (in a red container...hahaha) for flowering, with all 2700K lights in it. When the top is closed, the 4 bulbs attached to the lit fit perfectly in a grid with the 4 bulbs that are attached to the walls of the box. We spent 75 bucks on supplies tonight and build this in a couple hours. It turned out to be incredibly easy to wire all of the light sockets into one 120V wall plug. We wired them in series ... I know, if one light goes out then they all go out, but these bulbs are supposed to have a 4000 hour lifespan or something silly. We check it atleast once a day, so we'll catch it if something is up. Because of this wiring, we were able to only have one hole for the wire coming out of the side of the box. We're going to put some caulk around to hole to seal it up. The 4 little vent holes we have the fans blowing in now will have PC fans mounted to them tomorow night. 2 blowing in and two blowing out. We'll most likely keep a fan or two inside the box to keep things blowing around. We're also planning on wrapping the outside in black tape. The inside is lined in white. We ran out before we could get the floor and the entire top done. Oh well. We have the plants stacked on cds right now, so as they get larger we can remove discs. We're also planning on constructing a simple Deep Water Culture system for inside the box. I've seen links floating around the forum, but if anyone coule repost one that would be amazing. Cheers!