First Indoor Grow

At the moment we are under a tight budget so our setup isn't the greatest, BUT it works.

Here is our grow cabinet:


As you can see we are using four CFLs and our humidity dome is on the left.

The seeds were germinated using paper towels and there are currently seven seeds that have germinated in the humidity dome. Two of which will be ready to move out of the dome in a day or two.

We currently have one plant that has been out of the humidity dome for 4 days now, and is currently working on its second set of leaves:




We would like any feedback / suggestions that any one can give us. We plan on upgrading to a 400 watt MH / HPS light fixture soon and moving the plants to a move suitable environment (perhaps a HydroHut).

Also, is the stem of the plant supposed to be a dark red / purple color in the early stages? Or do we have some kind of nutrient deficiency?

Here is a video of our homemade hydroponics system. It is a drip feed system constructed from materials purchased at Menard's, Walmart, and netted pots from CheapHydro.com.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm5IN-kq3Zw

More pictures of the plants will come as soon as the 400 watt HPS fixture is in place.

Stay tuned and let us know you're out there!

My plant stems always start purple.

Okay, I was thinking it was okay. But, I just wanted to make sure.

stems are fine. looks perty sweet.have you decided on nutes ???? don't spend a buncha $$$$ on the plant food. move the air with some good ventilation, don't overthink it and you're gonna be a happy man come oct

Alright so I've got to catch everyone up on what has been happening, but first!

Weedski- Thanks again, and you're definitely right. I was worried at first because some of the plants are in pots that have been flushed a couple of times so I was worried maybe the nutrients had already been depleted from the soil. Stick around!

Chosuichi Inu- Thanks, we've put a lot of effort into the setup so far and we're hoping it pays off come October. Any reccomendations on CFM levels? I've heard something choosing a CFM level that can circulate all the air in 5 minutes, does that sound right? Oh and also, we have decided on Earth Juice as our nutrient line, I've heard good things, but I wish I would've looked into it more. But do you know anything about it?

I learned that Earth Juice is known to lower pH levels significantly, however we have complete control over the pH so this will not be an issue.

As far as the girls go I have some photos from 06-30-2008 and some from early this morning (07-04-2008, happy 4th!). They look better and better everyday.

06-30-2008 Photos

A groupshot.


Plant A (8 days old).


A groupshot of plants A, B, and C (the eldest plants).


07-04-2008 Photos

Plant A (12 days old).


Another shot of plant A.


Plant B.


Plant C.


Plant D.


Plant E.


Plant F.


Plants A, B, and C.


Plants D, E, and F.


Let me know how these photos look, I may try to take better quality photos soon. So far I've just been using my phone, but whatever.

Things are looking good, a few weaker plants have come and gone but have been quickly replaced by seeds that have sprouted in our humidity dome. All in all we're aiming to harvest 9 females. Thanks for stopping by and I'm sure we'll have updates soon.

The plants had been slowing turning yellow from the bottom-up and after losing E & F to the problem we quickly determined that the pH level of our water that we had been feeding them while they were still in the soil was nearly 8.0.

Since drastic times call for drastic measures we transplanted A, B, C, and D one at a time and over a period of a couple of hours into the drip feed system. We corrected the pH level of the water in the resevoir to a healthy 5.8. Since the transplant we've only since seen improvement, the leaves that were slowing yellowing and drooping have since recovered and it seems things will be okay.

I had suspicions about the pH for awhile since we were experiencing slow growth. But now that we've gotten taken care of, we added nutrients into the drip feed system.

Like I said we are growing using the full Earth Juice line, but our first feeding included 1 Tbsp of grow, 1/2 Tbsp of bloom.

We will be incrementing the nutrient concentration over the next week and hopefully we'll start to see rapid growth.

We are still awaiting the arrival of the 400 watt HPS light and we are also considering some sort of means to inject CO2 into the grow closet.

Without further adieu here are some new pictures...

The closet setup w/o the 400 watt HPS lamp.


Plant A (Day #15, you can definitely tell this one has some catching up to do).


Plant B.


Plant C (still recovering from the high pH).


Plant D.


Well I guess that's it for now, but we've seen amazing improvement since the transplant. I forgot to mention the watering is 4 times per day for 15 minutes, that equals out to about a gallon per plant each day.

Hopefully their growth accelerates again and I'll have some nice pictures in a few days.

looks sweet bro! keep it up

Thanks man, I can't wait until they start taking off.

Wow, that looks like an amazing setup! I've subscribed, and good luck to ya!

Alright so the girls have been recovering, it has been slow and their growth was stunted but they are now on their way again.

Plant A.



Plant B.



Plant C.



Plant D.



Hope this continues, the PPM is currently at 350 and I'm going to up it to 400 soon I think (is that a good idea?), the pH is at a healthy 5.8 too.