First Time Grow!

[LHighChief]

Girls looking great. Pic number three is my favorite, looks amazing.

Yeah, I've had other people tell me that - it used to look a lot worse, very skinny and mutated, so I was warned it could be a hermie. Too bad since it's been fun to LST it and watch it grow like a, well, weed.

As long as one ends up being a lady I'll be happy

 

[Psychedelic Breakfast]

Yeah, I've had other people tell me that - it used to look a lot worse, very skinny and mutated, so I was warned it could be a hermie. Too bad since it's been fun to LST it and watch it grow like a, well, weed.

As long as one ends up being a lady I'll be happy

Yeah, she looks a little burned but still looks healthy despite it. IMO anyways. I love how bushy she is.

I have a girl going right now started out pretty bad too. While it was a sprout it was completely purple/yellow with no green and it came back and is growing like crazy. About to flip them into flower on Monday.

I'm sure your plants will be okay. It seems they're the most sensitive once they're in flower, so we lucked out on that

 

[steeZz]

They should be fine... i'm assuming you have a PH meter correct?

what type of light are you going to be flowering with?

 

[LHighChief]

I'm going to change the T4 bulbs to a red spectrum and change the spectrum of the CFLs. I'm still not sure how I'm going to control the temp of the room with the doors closed. When closed with the lights on, the temp can get up to 93. Doors open, it goes down to 84. So I'm real concerned about flowering. I don't really have a good spot for a grow tent, and I really don't want to shell out much more cash on this grow. I have three fans in the room, two 4" box fans blowing up and out and a 14" oscillating tower fan blowing in on the plants.

I dont know if more fans will do the trick considering how bad it gets in there. Any suggestions?

Oh, and my PH is a bit high, around 7.

 

[steeZz]

In my opinion you need to seal off your grow area and create an air circulation of some sort that involves exhaust and intake.. it'll be a lot easier to control your grow if its in a controllable environment.
nows the time to set this shit up though man, you don't want to even think about flowering until you get this under control cause you don't want to do this all in vain.

can you take some pics of like your grow area?
plants don't matter at the mom

 

[LHighChief]

Steezz,

Here are some pics. Thanks for taking a look. The plants are now at the end of the closet, which is about 9-feet long. At that end, the ceiling is 4 feet tall, but behind me the ceiling gets up to 6 feet.

 

[alotaball]

when the closet is closed.. is it for stealth or because the light is toooo bright in the room.. I ask because like steez said... we need a fresh air exchange.. the temps are one problem .. the other will be not enough fresh co2 entering the closet.. mostly your just recycling the air ...if its just the light bothering you .. I can help you layout a intake and exhaust setup in that space..

Here's another question.. could you leave the closet open if the light wasnt pouring out? basically just wanna know why the closet needs to be closed at time and we can find a way to work around it

 

[LHighChief]

Hi Alataball,
Thanks for the help. It's not really stealth. It's in the bedroom so I've been closing it halfway as a compromise between me and the plants at night.
But when I go into flowering and need 12 hours of darkness, that door will need to be closed. So that's what I'm trying to figure out.

 

[alotaball]

this is what I would do since it is a large closet and your not using all of it.. I would get some panda film.. or black and white poly.. its cheap.. should be less then 20 bucks..

You can create a false wall in your closet about half way in.. you can cut a hole through the plastic on the top and stick one of your fans in the opening to pull the hot air out the top of the room.. cut another hole at the bottom of the poly to pump fresh air in.... try to leave the closet open as much as possible.. with possibly some kind of fan on the side your not growing in to encourage air exchange between the bedroom and into the closet.. that way the plants arent getting the same air over and over. If you did this you would have near NO light coming out the closet and could leave it cracked at all times.. keeping temps down ...

Let me know if I didnt explain what I meant clearly

if you put the exhaust fan up on the self toward the top.. and cut the hole for the intake fan on the left side of the closet by the wall.. you should still have plenty of room to open the fake wall and work in there.. then close it when your done. Between the closet doors being only cracked and the fake wall in there.. shouldnt be too hard to keep it dark in flowering

 

[steeZz]

What alotaball said would be the easier thing to do... first of all your area in itself is rather large for the amount of plants you're growing so it's pretty much hurting you when it comes to stabilizing temperatures and air circulation.
You wouldnt even need to get panda film if you're hurtin, posterboards or some shit would work lol.
and I think you would need to do this anyways since your door really doesn't block all the light, and when you're flowering you should STRICTLY guard your plants against light during lights off.
I have a pretty top quality tent and checked it for light leaks with all my lights on and everything was fine, and I still put a 2 inch thick black comforter over the top of it just to make sure.

but all in all your grow looks good man thus far.
in my opinion you need little kinks and fuck ups in your set up to keep things interesting lol.
cause watching 3-4 plants grow is kindof boring not gonna lie.

 

[alotaball]

liking that avatar pic.. which baby is that steez.. lemme guess

 

[LHighChief]

Thanks Alotaball and Steezz for the help.

I think the fake wall is a really good idea. Would I need to add tubes/ducting to the fans to block light?
The small fans I have right now are not that great - they were probably 15 bucks at Walgreens. Should I splurge on stronger inline fans?

The challenge with this closet is that the ceiling is angled. So at the back wall it's pretty low. I guess I can always move the flowering room, if/when I need more height, towards the closet door and put the panda film on the door-frame.

Based on the size of my plants, how much longer do you think I should wait until I begin to flower?

 

[steeZz]

Thats what I was going to tell you to do initially is just to open your door all the way and make a new door and just keep your plants next to that, and you can probably just cut out an exhaust on the top of it, if you catch my drift.
theres not really great area for air circulation to begin with cause theres only one place for the air to come in and go out and i'm sure half the time your room is just getting stagnant air blown around.
I think your plants are suppose to have fresh air exchange like atleast once a minute, but I run my exhaust 24/7 cause I dont fuck around with uncertainties.

but yea, you're on the right track man.. one thing i've lived by so far aswell is, it's better to have something you need and have it be a total piece of shit than not have it at all.
so don't worry about 15$ fans or anything or the sort lol, always room for improvement! keep it up!

 

[steeZz]

How are things going so far man?

 

[LHighChief]

Hey,
I've been a bit busy with work, so haven't touched the grow room change yet - hoping to get to it this weekend. I've got a tough week coming up, so that room isn't going to get the time this week unfortunately. I'll post once changes have been made.
Thanks for checking in!

 

[LHighChief]

So...I have fixed some things up in this room, making it light-proof (still have a few spots to tape up) and hopefully I've at least begun to tackle the temp problem.

I have made a fake wall halfway into the closet as someone on this board suggested. I used gorilla film (I think that's what it's called) and added a zipper in the middle. I just used duct tape to secure this.

As far as ventilation, I have added a 9" box fan that sits on top of the fluros blowing air out of the room. I also bought a 171 CFM from Valueline. Hydro store guy suggested it. It's connected to a 4" duct at the bottom. Next to it is a passive intake 4" duct.

So I have a ton of negative pressure. The first time I turned on the fan, the fake wall was sucked in and I had to quickly retape it to keep it from ripping off.

The temp as of now is 87.... Before the wall, with the doors open the temp was around 84...with the door closed, the temp could get as high as 94. So I guess it's better, but not perfect.

I know the exhaust should be higher, but I don't have any shelves up there right now...wanted to see if this would work first.

Any suggestions on how this is looking?


As far as the plants...they are doing pretty good. I was out of town for three days, watered them the night before, and they looked like skeletons when I came back! But popped right up after a quick water. Kinda nervous for my upcoming vacation...


I've been giving them nutes still at a pretty conservative rate...using General Hydroponics. 5ml of Grow, and 2.5ml of Bloom and Micro.
For this last feeding I added 30 mL of VermiT Solution - the plants seemed to love it as they had sprouted some leaves nice and quick in the 12 hours after that feeding.

So, no close-ups of the plants today. The one on the front left is about 16" inches right now.
Once I figure out if this temp situation is ok, I'm going to start changing up the light cycle - will go to 18-6 for a week and then 12-12. Got the new bulbs and am ready to go!

 

[alotaball]

gotta rig the exhaust somewhere uptop.. and its always better to have the exhaust pulling then the intake pushing imo... I wouldnt go to 18/6 for a week .. the purpose of 12/12 is to shock them into flower.. if you taper you will just delay the plants reaction.. and cause additional stress because it will have to adjust twice.. Just go 12/12 once your ready. But I would get your temps down first.. whats the air temp in the room that the closet is in ?

 

[LHighChief]

Right now it's at 86. Before...it was around 84. So it only went up 2 degrees since sealing up the whole room as a result of thee additional fan and inline.

I just put one more fan in there - another 9" box fan. It's sitting with its back to the intake duct, blowing toward the plants.

I know that exhaust should be higher - I'm going to figure out how to raise it up tomorrow.

The exhaust is at least creative negative pressure in there, and probably helping somewhat with the temp...if it's raised, how much of an impact do you think it's going to have?

 

[alotaball]

depends.. whats your ambient room temp? ( bedroom temp) not in the grow area .. but in the room the grow is in

 

[LHighChief]

I'm in a 1 bedroom apartment. The bedroom is on a lofted second floor, so the apt is essentially one real big, two-story room.
I have central AC which is set at 73. Upstairs it is warmer ( dont have an actual temp reading for the bedroom) but it must be at least 80 upstairs.

Kinda weird, but since I have added that last fan, the temp has jumped up 3 degrees to 89