First grow newbie

Hey guys, I have been learning from this site for awhile now and it wasn't until today that I decided to register and post my grow to hopefully get some aid from the experienced lot. I basically started out by germinating a ton of bagseeds (I know, but its my first grow), 7 sprouted and are now 3 weeks old. 6 are looking in great condition, 1 however is like some freak, it is twice is tall and looks weak (any ideas?).

I am using miracle gro organic garden soil (I meant to get the potting soil kind). I like the organic cuz of the neutral pH state and since the slow release fertilizers in it is exactly what I want for the plants in the vegetative state. I think however I still want to add 20% perlite and 10% builders sand to help the drainage and prevent root rot.

At first I was using a 75W Phillips Agro-lite flood light about 1 foot away from the plants and it seemed to work just fine (til the end of the third week). Until I saw temps of 90 degrees. So I went and bought 2 40W Phillips Plant and Aquarium Cfl lights. I am pretty sure these 2 cfl's should cover the plants in the vegetative state.

I also purchased a 250W HPS light that I have mixed purposes for. At first I heard using WITH the Cfl lights will produce best results, but I have also heard using HPS during vegetative growth makes the plant more likely to be male. Any ideas?, should I run both lights or save the HPS till flowering

I also plan to buy tiger bloom fertilizer for the plants during the flowering stage (and by then the slow release fertilizers will be drained hopefully).
I will post pics when I transpot my plants into the remade soil.

Any help/ideas is appreciated guys, thanks alot!

Edit 1: Living in a smaller city means I don't really have a hydroponics or wide variety garden store to goto, thus making perlite difficult to find (the 2 main stores, home depot and wal mart did not have it) anyone have ideas where to find this?

i dont think 2 40 watt lights are good enough,never used hps but i think i would prefer it than 80 watts, tall 1 could b male or just crap genetics,not keen on sllow release, have used miracle organic but didnt rate it, pics would b nice.dont know bout the light turning them male but dont think it does.

welcome to rui officially. you should use your hps right away if you have figured out how to handle the heat. and hps in veg will not cause a male, its just not as spectrum efficient and metal halide.

desertrat said:

welcome to rui officially. you should use your hps right away if you have figured out how to handle the heat. and hps in veg will not cause a male, its just not as spectrum efficient and metal halide.

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thanks desertrat about the info on HPS and I agree with the other person that 2 40 watt cfl lights is not enough so the 250 W HPS will cover it hopefully. I just finished building my growing room so now i have more temperature control and will hopefully keep it constantly below 80 degrees.

I also have a hydrometer to measure humidity, does anyone know the good humidity ranges (specifically for bagseed weed, I heard 40-70% is ok but seems really wide spread) and have ideas for quick methods of changing it without a humidifier.

Also any inputs on other equipment or growing techniques is much appreciated, ill post my growing room pics/plants on the next post

you should lower your lights

as you can see one of the plants is freakishly large and doesnt look healthy, my thoughts was that it was male or crappy genes like what the person in the second post said. I still decided to keep it, as I wanna see the results of all my plants in my first grow (also I am expecting mostly genetic hermaphrodites anyways). Also during transpotting when I put in perlite and sand, the plant on the far right of the first image got bent near the point where it comes out of the dirt. Im thinking this plant is going to die soon since it can no longer stand up on its own, i ended up putting more soil in to raise the level and give it support above the break.. is this still futile to even bother trying to save?

both of em? i was thinking of putting the cfl a couple inches above and having the HPS about 3 feet above.

Greens4Ever said:

both of em? i was thinking of putting the cfl a couple inches above and having the HPS about 3 feet above.

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3 ft is too far for the hps. 8" if you aircool, about 16" if not, test with your hand - if your hand can stand the heat, so can your plant

ok thanks, ended up doing around 12" for the hps and 3" for the cfl

another question i have is humidity levels. i hear different levels all the time and the confusion comes from no one clearly stating the levels for a given state. I am currently at 35% humidity and thought it was low (planning on buying a humidifier). What i think the levels should be is 40-70% for vegging and 30-60% for flowering.

Okay guys this is their first week growing in the grow room with the HPS and cfls (5th since germination). Since I feel the grow room meets adequate standards I thought I would focus the pics on the plants. I have 7 plants currently with temps at 78-85 degrees on 24/7 light with roughly 45-55% humidity. There are 2 plants im thinking about getting rid of, one is freakishly large but looks wonderful (I feel it has already been stressed to male) the other got bent during transpotting and is growing very slowly (as you will notice in the second pic). Its interesting to see the best plant is constantly changing and now one of my worst plants from the beginning currently has the most nodes. Also some of the plants like the one in the 5th picture have leaves that dont necessarily point up or down, they are more just like a wrinkle type status (ideas and help wanted plz)


the large and what I am thinking is male


The one that got bent during transpotting


I think this one is doing the best


Right along the same growth and status as the above


This one was doing fine till the leaves started bending in weird directions (genetics?)


This one had great growth in the start and it seems stunted now but looks lively


Great foliage it seems but a node behind


Also, out of curiosity which plant do you guys think is doing the best.

another update

The seeds of the fem Pure Power Plant strain will be arriving very soon and I will germinate hopefully 3 of them and add them to the grow room with an extra 75w blue flood light and begin the 12/12 cycle in the grow room for 12/12 from seed to finish of the ppp seeds and the 12/12 cycle of the bagseed after 24/0 5 week veg growth. This will allow me to see which method is better and will maybe aid me in my choice as to whether I should make a small additional room to host a mother and start clones.

nice grow dude! I only 3 plants going now On my first try. You should definetly lower your light to avoid streching. I killed my first plant ever due to keeping the light way to high and it caused the seedling to strech and fell over and i couldent save it . If your gonna use your floro's or the cfl's keep it like 2 inches or maybe as close as you can with out burning them up. I did it and you saw my results earlier. Good luck!

Thanks thunder, ya the fluoro tubes are above my smallest plants currently 3 inches above I will lower em even more when I germinate my PPP seeds and place em under.

Ok guys this is end of week 2 since being put in the grow room (6 weeks old total) in the grow room and I have 2 new members of the family! one most likely to die soon but the other is healthy! I have decided to hold off on the 12/12 cycle until i am ready since i will be leaving town alot. There are only 2 signs of abnormalities in my plants that i can see. One is the droopyness which seems like overwatering but I cannot see how I am overwatering (i'll cut back even more water). The other is the cupping of the plants where they start bending upwards or in weird directions. I really havent gone into this too much and dont bother recommending the grow faq because even then it is still hard to determine. Mostly because they are still young and every plant problem/solution shown in the faq is referring to a flowering plant (doesnt mean it doesnt apply to vegetative plants but still these are 2 different phases of growth with very different chemical compositions running through em. You cannot just assume its the same). I have also constructed a 2x2x6 room to be the mother room so i can clone my plants.

ok and here are the pics

The second best


The average plant


This is the plant I bent the stem during transpotting (doubled its size in 3 days after 5 weeks of growth!)


This plant looks like a severe case of underwatering but the truth is, it looks like it is righteously messed up and retarded


This plant has a weird cupping where the sides of the leaves point upwards almost making a bowl? other than that great shape


This is the tall plant, sorry about the bad pic with another plant behind


This is kurt named after kurt warner, he is in prime shape. Maybe unlike warner


This is the result of the germination of the biggest PPP seed I had (and hopefully my first mother plant!)


This is the result of the first seed to crack and germinate (however some grow problems occured and it has been like that for 2 days)


I have decided to keep all my plants to really learn from trial and error so I can start maintaining some good strains like my PPP. The only time i will get rid of em is if they are rotting, diseased, dead, or male. Normally i planned to keep even hermies but with fem ppp seeds i'll prob end up just planting the hermies in some random location with a gps.

hey greens, i have a couple seedlings that have sprouted but are abnormally tall. They have four little leaves and about 2-2 1/2" tall. I've had them in 24/0 for about a week and a half and they just get longer but the leaves dont grow and they're stretching is this cool or should i worry.

piffy1 said:

hey greens, i have a couple seedlings that have sprouted but are abnormally tall. They have four little leaves and about 2-2 1/2" tall. I've had them in 24/0 for about a week and a half and they just get longer but the leaves dont grow and they're stretching is this cool or should i worry.

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Well it is hard to say my abnormally tall one (and do mean he was tall) seemed like he was going to grow so tall till he fell over and died. When it got to the point where he started tipping too far the stems got thick enough to support it and it looks beautiful now. To give you a comparison of my tall plant, the first 2 baby leaves are 1.8 inches above the soil. I have 2 plants with baby leaves around .3 inches above. So there is definite variation in my plants. The reason I worried about my tall plant is I thought it would be bad genetics (bad bud) or heavy stress issues that can also cause a plant to change its sex to male (or become asexual/hermie in some cases). I decided to let it grow as like I said it is a trial and error thing. Maybe letting the plant grow really tall did not actually stress it much and maybe it is still female. I think the cause of the growth could have been low lighting but again its hard to say because I have 6 other plants that were in a circle next to it and for some reason just that one is the only one that squirted out (also if it helps, it was the first germinated bagseed).

Also change your lighting to include night, it is pivotal plants have night, very important chemical processes take place in lower temps and no light.
To change my plants from 24/0 to 18/6 without much shock I started by introducing 1 hour of night every other night. Do this until you reach the number of hours your plant gets. I would, from the changes I have seen in my plants, recommend 4 - 6 hours of night. Hope this helps

And one more thing if you look at the pics of my tall plant you will also see the leaves were bad too, they looked like it was going to wilt and die. The only reason it looks ok is cuz the new leaves have come out and are in good condition (maybe wait until your plants start to expand which might be around this time for you)

there isn nothing better than aircooled mh during veg, and aircooled hps for flowering.. mh is blue spectrum and creates many shoots.. hps is red spectrum which is very beneficial for blooming.. get rid of the cfls, stick to fluorescent for clones/seedlings and use your hps, just vent it and use a blower to pull the heat off stay 8 in from your plants and your cherry.