First Grow 3x3x7 Veg Room - Pics and a few Questions

Hey everyone! I've been trying to do a lot of reading and no posting so far. But now i'm a few weeks in, and I'd like to share what I have so far, and see if anyone has some friendly input. 3x3x7 tent, 2ft shop fluor bulb and 125w grow fluor bulb. 12gal nute tank, pump, drippers, in a 36x22 flood tray.

The tent is in my non-climate controlled garage. I was having issues with heat for the first couple of weeks, but it's getting to be a perfect temp outside right now to maintain 75-80 deg in the garage. I'll worry about heating it in a few months when the time comes. I use DampRid to lower humidity. I use a fan to displace the air in the tent. No filter or exhaust fan yet.

I have 4 plants (regular swag) that I planted on 8/11/12 in soil. I didn't have my setup yet, so they started out in the window sill for the first couple of weeks. No nutes, planted in whatever I could find, etc. A few of them looked good enough to keep, so I hated to yank em all. I don't know what I really expect them to turn into, but I've got some time invested in them, so I'll see it through. They have a 2ft fluorescent with multi spectrum bulbs hanging about 4 inches from the tops.


I also have several White Widow and Buddha seeds I planted 9/6/12 in rock wool. I am using different water with different nute levels for the 2 groups, mixed according to instructions on the bottles. The roots are starting to show on the bottom of the rock wool, so it's probably time to think about transplanting them. They have a 125w fluorescent grow bulb about 4 inches from their tops.



My 4 dirt seed plants are doing alright. They are getting a little bigger, and I'm trying to figure out if it's time to LST. I did a scotch tape tech, but I only saw new node growth in plant #2. I have topped them all once, but I can't tell if I'm getting the proper new growth that I should. Here's a few pics of the plants.


This is plant #1. It's the biggest and healthiest looking plant. I taped it down for a couple of days, and topped it with some scissors.



Plant #2 is not doing too bad either. It's the one I saw some new growth coming up after scotch taping a leaf to the side of the planter.


Plant #3. Very long stem, reaching out over the side of the planter. I try to rotate all the plants, but they seem to keep growing in the direction they've chosen.



Plant #4. I LST'd a little too hard, and it ended up breaking over, and I lost the bottom 2 sets of leaves. It has perked back up after staking it over night, but the bottom leaves didn't look like they were going to recover, so I plucked them.


Here's my babies...I am trying to figure out if it's too early to top or FIM them.


They are looking really nice as far as I can tell. Are they ready to top or fim? What should my next transplant be into? I have been watering manually, but I have a fully automated watering setup built. I'm just having trouble getting the spikes and the drp tips to stay in place. I think that will be remedied when they are in a bigger grow medium.


I am trying to get my flowering room built next (4x4x7), but if there are purchases I need to make, I can afford to put a couple hundred dollars more into my veg room if I need to. My plan is to have my flowering tent ready in time to clone my swag seeds and flower them to determine sex.


Any pro tips would be appreciated. I don't mind being redirected to other threads. It's become clear to me after reading hundreds of threads that you rarely get the same answer twice on a lot of subjects (topping vs. fim, scrog, lst, etc). So I'm wanting to figure out what will be ideal for my setup. I'm up to try any techs that will work well in my situation, or a combination of a few techs to figure out what I like. Money is an object, but I have a decent budget to grow/improve my setup.

I love the forum! It's been a tremendous help getting me to the point I'm at now.

looks great! don't forget to keep us updated

wait until the plant has some good root growth before toping or fiming it, but do what you want, i have seen newborn seedlings be topped and just grow, but it will bounce back faster if you have some good root growth, wait until its grown 4-6 nodes before toping down to whatever node you want it topped at, i personally top it back to the 3rd node, when it has some good growth

Thanks! Any suggestions on what to transplant the babies into from my little 2" rock wool cubes? Just a larger brick of wool? They will eventually be in an ebb/flow setup, so I want to transplant into something that I can eventually stand up and bury in rock.

I ordered some 6" rock wool cubes. Hopefully that will be big enough to handle them until bud light. I taped my swag again. I FIM'd 1 & 3 and topped 2 & 4. Noticing more node growth after 24 hours. Still interested in teks to try with my soil plants with the setup I have. Open to suggestion. Giggity.

The WW is taking off too. WW #1 is going to be a grower and a shower. I FIM'd 1 WW and 1 Buddha for now. I'll post some pics soon.

Here's some updated pics of the soil growers. #1 is looking good still. I FIM'd 1 & 3, and topped 2 & 4. I have some leaves turning down. I think I overwatered (noob mistake). I'm going to let the soil get bone dry before watering again. The scotch tape tek worked great. I have some great new growth around the nodes. I'm going to transplant a couple of them into 5 gallon Smart Pots soon. The other 2 also if I can make some room.



How about with the rock wool babies? Is there any harm in watering those more often, since it seems to drain pretty well? One of my WW babies was sagging when I checked in on them after work today. Her cube was light as a feather, so I gave her some water. I guess I just worry they are going to dry out, and all be dead when I get home one day. I know that's not logical, since in nature they can go weeks without much water. I just have to resist the temptation.

Any tips or tricks would be appreciated.

MM

Here's the babies. Some of them are getting as tall after 2 weeks as the soil plants are after almost 1.5 months. I'm proud of them. WW#1 took a nose dive overnight.

Ready for the bigger rock wool to arrive so I can transplant. The picture of the 2 small ones in the previous post are the ones I FIM'd on the 16th. It's amazing to see how superior genetics in the WW & Buddha make the plants look so much better even at this age. The growth around the nodes is beautiful.

Update: Well my babies are getting big. I started cloning them yesterday so I can sex them and clear out the boys.



It's coming along nicely!