Big bang (first grow)

Hey fellas.
I'm just about to start my first grow. I've got a wardrobe about 2m tall, bought some big bang seeds and a pile of equipment from my local grow shop. I've got a

• 250w hps lamp with a "powerplant" ballast box,
• 100a extractor fan with a carbon filter and 5m of tubing
• a few small pots
• a bag of soil
• a few nute bottles: bio-bloom, bio-grow and top max

I'm going to cut a hole in the cupboard for the piping to blow out and cables to come in. I've covered the inside of the cupboard with tin-foil, and I'm thinking about making a device to allow the lamp to move up and down, so I can change the distance between it and the plants as time goes on.
I need to get a timer, put a plug on the fan, cut the hole and then I should be more or less set. I'm going to germinate the seeds tonight and probably plant them tomorrow. Any advice would be appreciated. I'll probably post some pics when I get some results.
I was thinking about making an additional hole in the cupboard to allow some incoming airflow, perhaps supported by a PC fan or something. Any advice in general would be appreciated.

Got four sprouts. Feeding them with Bio-Grow... didn't quite measure it, but poured a tiny bit (less than a capful) into a 2L bottle, then sprayed it on. Getting concerned that the top layer of soil gets pretty dry. Using a squirty bottle to feed them. They're not really strong enough to need it yet. Humidity is usually around 40%ish. Using my carbon filter with fan sometimes already, but I think that's probably not really needed to it starts flowering? Temp is usually around 65f-70f. Pics to follow shortly. Named them all after after far left greats - Bakunin, Marx, Chomsky and Connolly.

my 2 cents.
-replace the tin foil with something better like mylar or paint the walls white.
-don't need filter until u can actually smell them
-u need some type of c02 so if this is in your room and u spend alot of time n there u will b ok with a pc fan blowin air in.
-get 2 hooks mount them on top of ur grow structure buy chain so u can adjust accordingly.

Thanks for the tips dude, I've been leaning towards doing those things you mentioned already so I'll take a look into them this week or weekend. Here's some pics from near the start of my grow - week one or twoish:

Noticed Marx was starting to curl up a bit, did a bit of reading up, and realised I wasn't supposed to be feeding with nutes every time I fed, so cutting back on that, and it's starting to look healthier. Also have the glaringly obvious problem that all my feminised plants are named after men. Next grow will have to be different. Got a bowl of water with nutes in there to raise the humidity, but it never really goes above 35%. Sometimes up to 40ish, once up to 50. Temperature is pretty good though.

Edit: When they say big bang is 8-10 week strain, is that the whole grow or just the vegging? I'm not really that sure when to start flowing (obviously not for weeks yet though).

Hello there matey, thanks for popping in to my journal to say hello - thought it would only be right for me to repay the compliment and pop into your journal. Now since this is also my first grow i will not pretend to know the best way to grow this strain but along the way i have learnt shed loads and as a result will try to do my best to help you too.

Now if you have read my thread you will know that i have had troubles to begin with but now am starting to see results - dont stress, dont try and fix everything that goes wrong without researching the possible solution thoroughly first and most of all enjoy the hobby - someone gave me this advice when i first started trying to grow the Big Bang and i have took it on board, before that i was a bag of nerves wondering why this? why that? etc.

Now the plant -
some people have had great results using a water ph of 5.5 which is what the boys at GHS use on there grow DVD but they are in rockwool (aka Hydro) where the ph is meant to be lower than in soil and i am in soil (as are you) now i have been watering at between 6.2ph and 6.8ph for the last 5 weeks now - just plain old tap water fed through a brita filter and im happy. Do you have a ph meter?
You got the best organic nutes there bro - lovely tasting bud on the way!! What is your soil?
If you have been watering with nutes already its probably too soon for em - use a really low dose if you do keep using but depending on your soil you shouldn't need them for a good few weeks. for example look at my biggest plants in my cabinet - they have only had one watering with nutes and they are both 5 weeks old!
Now to answer your question the bloke who flowered for 11.5 weeks also vegged for 23 days which is very little veg time and he still yielded 4.6oz dry!!! His journal is on here 'grow4joe' i have had amazing help from him in growing my plants - check it out. Now he also had another BB plant that got chopped at 9 weeks - yielded less with not as potent product so that is what the longer flowering time will give you - better / more weed!
You can veg a plant until its 6" tall switch it to 12/12 and chop after 8 weeks but your not going to have as big a harvest as a plant you vegged until it was 24" and flowered for 10 weeks - horses for courses mate.

Damm i have waffled on for ages and its not even my thread!!! Sorry bro. I hope this has been of some use to you, please feel free to ask me anything.

Cheers.

EA.

PS. Here is my Big Bang - 10.5 weeks old (7 weeks of veg and 3.5 of flowering) - mine would be bigger if it wasn't started under cfl's for the first month of its life.

Hey Zibjio...

EA =]

Also growin BB no journal as yet though, only advice i will give is to transplant the plant in the clear tub, light gettin to your roots isnt healthy, also height at this point in your grow isnt what you want, short plants with close nodes is where u should be heading.
I also veged with CFL's like EA, i think they best for vegin, make take longer but u can have the CFL's closer to the plant which stops the stretchin, then maybe throw ur 250w in for a week of veg then into flower... as for vegin im currently on 28 days veg and i plan on at least another 12, bare in mind your plant will pretty much double or tripple in size once you put it into flower, so take that into account with the height of ur grow room.

Other than that welcome to RIU and enjoy your grow and your stay... Pics in my Gallary if u wanna nosey at how they lookin.

Peace

**Subbed**

Cheers for the tips guys. Quick point to make, I miscalculated the dates, the plants are really only two weeks old.

EA - As I say, I read your thread start to finish, and it was a big help to me. Really interesting seeing you trying out all those different techniques and stuff too.I'm just using tap water, I boil then leave sitting out for a couple of days. I realise that's not so deadly though, so I'm gonna get a ph meter soon. As for soil, I'm using some bio-buzz stuff I got at my grow shop. As for nutes, yeah, I've been trying to use a really low measure of them anytime I'm feeding the plants. Been reading grow4joe's thread too, it's pretty good reading!

Hey SM4RT3 - I saw your posts in EA's thread too - thanks for the tip on the clear pot, I hadn't even thought about that. Would this be an opportunity to take to replant them all, or are they still too small? I'll defo take a look at your plants in the next day or two, gotta run here now though!

Thanks guys.

Zibjio said:

Cheers for the tips guys. Quick point to make, I miscalculated the dates, the plants are really only two weeks old.

EA - As I say, I read your thread start to finish, and it was a big help to me. Really interesting seeing you trying out all those different techniques and stuff too.I'm just using tap water, I boil then leave sitting out for a couple of days. I realise that's not so deadly though, so I'm gonna get a ph meter soon. As for soil, I'm using some bio-buzz stuff I got at my grow shop. As for nutes, yeah, I've been trying to use a really low measure of them anytime I'm feeding the plants. Been reading grow4joe's thread too, it's pretty good reading!

Hey SM4RT3 - I saw your posts in EA's thread too - thanks for the tip on the clear pot, I hadn't even thought about that. Would this be an opportunity to take to replant them all, or are they still too small? I'll defo take a look at your plants in the next day or two, gotta run here now though!

Thanks guys.

Click to expand...

Hey Zib

Yeah i think u should be able to transplant them to much bigger pots now, i started mine from seed in 10ltr pots n they doin ok for themselves.

https://www.rollitup.org/members/sm4rt3-213589/albums/wardrobe-grow-ghs-bigbang-10917/

My grow pics

Take it easy mate

Cool photos dude - yours seems to be coming out a lot bushier than mine around the same time in. I guess that's cause my light's too high, and they're stretching, so I've dropped it down a bit. We'll see how it is in a week or so. I'll order a few pots and transplant them when they come. Thanks for the advice.

Getting a lot of yellowing in some of the leaves, I suspect it's because I don't check for ph levels in my water, so I've ordered stuff to do that. Any thoughts? I've moved the light down to try to stop some of the stretching and hopefully promote some of the plants to get a bit bushier. The two younger plants, I've put a book under them to try to make them that bit closer to the light.

Hey Zib

Ive got yellowing of the lower leaves aswell mate, i think its nitrogen deficiancy with mine though... get yourself a PH pen and check the water PH that u use and then check the water that runs off once u have watered them... this will tell u what ur soil PH is... couple of sites that will show you what ur plants need and what deficiancys they have

http://www.ganjagrowguide.com/guides/nutrient-deficiencies.html
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=11688&page=1 <<< has some clear pictures will all types of deficiancy's so you can easly tell what is up with them...

Hope those help mate.

Those leaves are still showing classic signs of nute burn my friend. Just use water for a while, then cute your nute strength to 1/2 or 1/4 until your plants get a bit bigger.

Thanks guys.

sup Zib, plants coming along nicely bro - just a tip for you if your waiting for pots (ie. haven't got more to hand) you could just use some duct tape and cover up your clear plastic pot -and then transplant when its properly ready, when you see roots at the drainage holes.

as for the yellowing - you say your soil is Biobizz but is it the light mix or the allmix? Reason for nute burn could be from your soil if its allmix and not necessarily the nutes you have been feeding, especially if you have only been giving small amounts of grow - just a thought, all of my plants started in biobizz allmix had nute burn and they had no nutes before the burn appeared.

EA.

Hey EA
Yeah, it's the allmix stuff. I had a container in there with water and nutes to add to humidity, but I've taken it out now. I guess I'll try to run some water through them to rinse out the soil a bit, and really back off the nutes. Did you take yours out of allmix EA?

Hey there bro - what i did is transplant them into a pot with a seedling compost around it - i got some westlands multi purpose seedling compost from my local garden centre and transplanted into a bigger pot with that around it - cleared up the nute burn and then once the plant outgrew that size pot i transplanted into the final pot using allmix again.

dont worry - your plants will pull through - just growth will be a bit delayed and the burnt leaves wont recover.

My BB smells of green apples!!!!

They're getting more yellow, and more crispy. I was talking to the fella in my local grow shop, and he reckoned it was a lack of nitro, which makes sense considering I haven't fed it nutes for a while. Put some more in yesterday, but here's how they're all looking now anyway.

the yellowing is from overwatering them and the brownness is necrosis from to much nutrients, only water them when the soil is dry for about an inch down and when u start a plant you want to use gentle nutrients like a 12-12-12