Mexican bag seed grow. First Grow, I have questions about flowering.

Just to be up front, this is my first grow. Not my first marijuana grow, this is the first plant I've ever grown. I'm growing a single plant hydroponically using the following setup:

Tent - Lighthouse hydroponics 4'x4' tent
Light - 400w Ultra Sun MH and HPS bulbs for each phase of the grow
Reflector - Cool Tube
Ballast - Switchable 400w magnetic ballast. I believe its a harvestmaster.
Grow setup - General Hydroponics Waterfarm, modified with extra holes in the bottom for increased waterflow. Using hydroton pellets as grow media.
Air - One 6" 440cfm inline fan pulling air through my central heat and air ducting, pushing it through the cool tube and blowing it out the other side
One 16" oscillating fan in the tent circulating air
One 4" fan blowing on the ballast to keep it cool
One 6" 160cfm inline duct booster attached to a 4" CAN carbon filter using a 4" to 6" reducer pulling air through the filter and out the tent.
Nutrients - General hydroponics Flora series and PH up and down.
Using their grow formula on the simple recirculating chart
Water - Distilled only
Light schedule - 12 on, 12 off
Watering schedule - 15 on, 30 off. Water added as needed each day(PH balanced)
PH - balanced daily as the ph raises each cycle to 6.8. Usually balance it to 6.0-6.2.

I'm on day 44 of the grow. Grow Week 6, Flowering = Day 4 of week 2. My plant is bushy, but i'm not seeing any bud formation. I'm not exactly sure what to look for. I see what looks like the pistils in between the branches and most of the stems, but nothing is "hairy". Is this where the bud forms? Also, the window to the room is covered with a blanket to keep any light from coming into the room, but as you can see, the tent isn't completely light tight. In the middle of the day, there is a slight, weak glow in the room. I don't believe that any light is getting through the tent, but I cannot be definatively positive that it isn't. Also, the plant is nice and green, but with a slight purple tint on the spine of the leaf and it runs to the smaller spine parts of the leaf. (Not a great pic on this. Sorry). I do not have any money to buy any nutrients or anything else, just trying to get to the end of the grow successfully. Any advice or positive construction would be appreciated. Any tips or help. Please remember this is the first plant I've ever grown.

......Nute Schedule
......Electronic "Hub"
......Nutes
......The plant
......Tried to get a pic of the pistils (Looks like little green spikes), they're at every crack and crevice
......Pic of the leaves
......The tent with the light on
......The tent with the light off

Patience , most Mexican strains are Sativa Dom for the most part .. It may take a bit longer to see preflowers ..

Even with hybrids it can take 2 weeks to get noticeable pistils. As long as you don't have light leaking in, you are good. Nice set up, BTW.

It seems like your setup is eerily similar to the one I'm working with....

Identical tent and a similar light setup, but my cool tube has a really big reflector attached. Also my light is 600W.

I'm growing a single mexican bagseed plant as well. Main difference besides veg time is that I super cropped my plant heavily.

I vegged for six weeks, but mine began to show pre-flowers at just before four weeks.

I'm currently a bit ahead of you at three weeks into flowering. Since mine had already shown sex, when I went to 12/12 it began flowering right away.

Total of nine weeks in but my bag seed is growing much thinner leaves. Also I have treated it rather brutally and almost all of the fan leaves have died.


I wouldn't call the tent light tight, and I personally never turn on a light in the room with the tent if it's lights out time inside the tent. I have the schedule set so that it's on during the daytime minimizing the risk of sunlight issues. If the plant is mature than I would say a light leak is probably why you're not seeing bud yet.

Here's a pic from 2 weeks into flowering. (8 total)


Edit - Also I haven't used any nutrients yet, but it's an organic soil mix. Potentially why it's eating all it's leaves.

subbed up man. i love bag seed grows. Hope you end up with some killer smoke.

I have the same tent, it's ok, but leaks light pretty bad, I also keep things dark during its night cycle, and I taped the bottom flaps shut.

justgrowing said:

View attachment 2386800......The plant

Click to expand...

Nice Beaner.....

lol growing bag seed from schwag first time too. 1 week into flowering. im testing if its woth anything and doing a hydro vs soil with it. this has been a blast... good luck doc

Thank you so much for the input. I think I'll go to the hardware store this weekend, buy some heavy black plastic and replace the blanket with the plastic. Hopefully that will take care of any possible light problems. Btw, is it too late to top/crop the plant since i'm already into flowering? Thanks everyone.

Yours at two weeks is definately showing bud production. They look awesome. I'ma be patient and see if I can get mine to "show daddy the goodies". LOL

Nice setup.. I also purchased a tent (after the DIY setup I did and am currently running in) which the reflective material probably beats the crap out of white mylar.

if your tent is leaking light that could def be whats holding you back. rule of thumb ive always gone by and had no problems is if you can hold your hand up in your space in the night cycle and see it you getting too much light into your space. Causing slow flowers to form will be the least of your worries if not resolved. Light leaks are horribly bad about stressing to the point of herming plants.

Well, we were right, well I suspected and you awesome cats confirmed it. It was a miniscule light leak keeping the plants from flowering. Went to Wally World and couldn't find any plastic, so I bought some really soft, fluffy, thick black fabric )blanket material) and covered the entire window area...works like a charm. That was two days ago on Sunday. Today's tuesday, she grew another foot (growing as fast as a fat chick eats Krispy Kremes) and I see itty bitty bud bulbs forming between the stems where the pistils are. I'm assuming their bud bulbs cause that's where normal flowers flower at and they weren't there when I made this post. Let me know if this is a correct assumption. Here's more pics.

That tent looks pretty light proof.
Small light leaks aren't really a problem in my opinion. Especially if it's indirect light.
You have to remember these plants flower beautifully outdoors with the bright moon shining on them all night.