My First Grow and Journal

I am beginning my first grow, I have already started and for the first 3 weeks, hoping to keep things cheap I simply left them in front of a window. They were cracked and germinated properly and it didnt take a week for them to 'pop out' of the soil. After a week they had pretty decent growth, and by the 3 week mark they were near 7 inches and kind of viney.

I quickly realized this simple method of leaving them infront of the window wouldnt work (both for security reasons, and for obvious lighting issues)

I switched to a florescent set up, the simple two four footers hanging 6 inches above the plants got them from about 7 inches to a good 12. However, talking to some friends and doing research made me realize that these 11 plants of unknown strain and origin had no chance of greatness under a florescent set up. I converted to a MH/HPS set up from HTGsupply. There shipping and ordering was great. As soon as I received the light I hung i up, and that brings us to today- the first post, and the start of what I hope to be a great grow journal.

Today I hung the MH bulb and reflector up, suprised at how much the ballast weights (feels like 20lbs). I enclosed the area around the lights at around 3x5 with White Painters Canvases large enough to extend to the ceiling. As these canvases are already framed in, they are easy to move white walls to allow for a flexible space.

The set up is now complete and ready to continue the job that the floresent set up left off at, vegetation. I am planning to vegetate for another week or week and a half hoping that the new MH bulb creates a massive jump in size from the current 10 inches to a goal of 15-20. From here I will change the bulb and use the 400watt HPS bulb to begin flowering. After 2 weeks of flowering I am hoping I can sex them, remove the males, and use 2 plants as mothers (I am dreaming one of my sativas and one of my indicas survive to become females). These mothers will be removed from the flowering room and its HPS light and be sent back to the florsent where I will send it back to vegitate. After 2 weeks I am hoping my once starting to flower mothers will be back to vegetation where I can then take clones from them. These clones will be placed in soil and used to keep the harvest steady every 2-4 weeks. The clones will be forced to flower at 10-12 inches, (shorter than the first version with the mothers who are soon to be sent to flower at the said 15-20 inch goal). My aim is that these shorter clones can be forced to flower, kept short, and easily maintained. However these dreams of cloning are some 6 weeks away, and at this point the important part to be considered is getting these 10 inchers up to the 15-20 inch mark, and getting them off the MH bulb and on to the HPS.

Because my system is set in a basement my humidity levels have not been a problem- steadily in the 60% range. However with the basement comes cool temperatures, in the 60 degree Farenheight range. Having just instaled the MH bulb within the hour, the temperatures have risen to 82 degrees inside my 3x5 area, with the fan cranking it is stable at 77 degrees. I am hoping this will be a perfect temperature, and it seems the new lights have been great not just for increasing lumens over the shitty FL's but also in increasing temp. However that increase in temp has lowered the humidity... The humidity is now at 45% much lower than before, this is due to both fan and lamp, I will spray them for the 6 hrs in the dark they will live for veg, and as of right now I am only watering every 2-3 days, but may begin to water more with lower humidty levels and such large pots, (12 quarts I believe, just smaller than a 5 gallon, per each plant- with 11 of them!)

Well this is just the begining of a grow journal. I will post again shortly to explain more pre-liminary information about the grow- but will use this journal to document weekly progress. Because I am a first time grower I will not be posting daily temps and humiditys, just the weekly averages and highs and lows-

All the support and help is wanted, post away with your advice, concerns, coments, I would like to see this become a great grow journal for others like myself. As I stumbled around the site I was having a difficult time finding an operation set up for simplicity with the many of you using advanced nutes and crazy areoponics and hydro sets. The goal is just to see what good lights (I paid alot for that part of the setup) can do with an otherwise cheap set up.

Hope to get some interested readers, and some knowledgable advisors
OB Cron Kenobi

Ok so the plants have come a long way and its definitely worth an update. Plants are really strong, stems look great, leafs are well colored, no nute burn or serious problems. Some purple in the off stems- but i wont worry about that until flowering- I am assuming its a potassium or phosphate deficiency which will be corrected by nutrients in flowering stage.

The pics are just of the overall setup.

One is of the outside of the room, it is built out of Painters Canvases lying around the basement, and big pieces of white foam that fit right in there to make it a 4x4 space- one 400 watt MH bulb is currently doing the Veg work- at the end of this week- friday I will be going to the HPS bulb and inducing flowering.

One of the shots is from above, the ballast got in the way, the others are side shots of the plants- showing their height- between 10-12 inches. You can see the logs sitting on the pots, those have been soaked in water and are used to keep the humidity at a good level due to the high lamp heat. So far they have been keeping the humidity at 44% instead of about 35%. 35% seems to low.

Does anyone think that by the end of the week they wont be ready to flower? I think I could prly flower now- but because they had a slow start on life I wanted to get them strong at around 15-18 inches before flowering to get a bigger yeild and bigger plants. Verticle space is not too limited, the entire height of my basement.

I have noticed small tiny black bugs in the area, no serious damage to the plants- one looks like it has been chewed- I cleaned carefully and killed all- but there were no yellow on them- were they spider mites?

I should have gotten better photos of this, but there were only a few.

Please post all thoughts and comments.

Couldnt fit em all on one, heres the rest!

hi OB just an idea but do you think you have brought the bugs in on those logs?
would wet towels be better if changed daily or a towel hung with the bottom in a bowl of water to keep the towel wet by capillary action

your plant you great
good work

thats a good idea- I will give that a gander- see which one regulates humidity best- I will prly end up switching to that tho- thnx!

two things

at the bottom of my last post it was ment to read

your plants look great

and when you upload pics when you have done 4 the boxes empty you can just put another 4 in there and they will just pile up

good luck hope the towel thing works for you

Hey what's up bro? I just stumbled upon your grow journal. I'm about to go and read all this...

Looks good man. Sound like you did a bit of research before starting all this - good job!

With 5 gallon pots expect these fuckers to get real big! As for your flowering question, how big are they now? I flowered mine when they were at around 12 inches. I think on my next grow I'm going to let them get a little bigger.

they range between 10-14 inches... I am pretty sure I am going to start 36 hours of darkness tonight and flower these girls earlier than i had intended, i dont really wanna wait till there 14-18 because then they will be giants! and there gonna grow in the flower stage ne way. There growth has just been slowed to much by my humble beginnings- sitting in front of a window for two weeks gave them as much growth as 4 days under my MH so i might as well just get the veg state over with.

anyone disagree and think i should wait till 14-18, will the effect on yield be noticeable?

Thnx for the read and help GrnMan

I don't think it will be that noticeable. Maybe if you let them get 20-24 inches then flowered, yea.

BTW..

I don't think you had spider mites. I've had them before and they are a whitish color.

Sorry it took so long to post, fucking power outages at my place. That means the dudes I was leachen wireless off of had to reset their router.

Time to get internet!!??

lol i feel ya, i am leeching as we speak! and always do! its the way to go-

Sweet- well i am putting into flower tonight then! will have an update later tonight and more pix on friday after the break of darkness

36 hour darkness are you not going straight to 12-12?
and you i would say that you would get a better yield but by how much i would not like to guess but i will 20% more yeild
i would flower any time now you have 11 plants you might get 6 that are female you might get 10.
they will grow 3-4x the hight they are now and need about a foot square of grow room each, i know you have the space but your 400w light is good for maybe 6 plants and you have to remember that the light intensity dissipates over distance so the taller the plants the bottom nodes will want to stretch up to the light more putting the growth energy in to growth and not bud building

I thought before going to 12-12 it was best to give it a period of darkness, between 24 and 36 hours- I was gonna do the 36 hours.

If it gets to dense I can always put the FL's I had from the begining of my veg state on the bottom buds. Could I just attach the once hanging FL to a wall and then rotate the plants throughout the day so that more light gets given to the bottom of the plants.

if not, i will have to rig up a way to add some CFL's to get those bottom buds, i am really hoping i dont have to do that tho- thats another investment, then i gotta build stuff to set it all up lol, i am hoping the 400 is enough to do it!

i should have known you had it all work out.

good stuff OB

kulan hunter said:

36 hour darkness are you not going straight to 12-12?
and you i would say that you would get a better yield but by how much i would not like to guess but i will 20% more yeild

Click to expand...

20 percent more yield by letting them grow from 14-18 inches?

thats what I wanna know, 20% more, i'd wait if thats the case... but i need to know soon, my light cycle ends at 10- and i will either be leaving it off for 36 or leaving it on the timer to continue its cycle and wait till its 14-18 inches.

20% is a lot!

the 20 % was worked out using this formula 14 (hight) in too 100 = 7 ish per inch so 7% is 1 inch of growth growing to 18" would mean a 4" hight gain that 28% take 8ish% for extra node growth that mean a 20% bigger plant in veg so 20% bigger plant after flowering

but as i said it a guess and i am v stoned and it works in my head (will prob read this in the morning and think W T F ) LOL

ok- the light just timed out its final time in vegetation.

I started vegetation with just having them set infront of windows, that wasnt going anywhere after a week- so for two weeks I ran the FL light on for 24hrs a day- that got them going to some degree- but RIU quickly taught me FL's wont cut it for the whole deal.

So for the last week and a half they have been on the MH bulb- I started the MH bulb at 18 hrs of light a day- and after half a week went to 16 hrs a day. (this is could be seen as controversial as some types will flower with 16 hrs a day, but from what i have read, and now that its over seen- 16 hrs of light gives 8 hrs darkness where the plants really grow- i have seen tremendous growth compared to the 24 and 18 hrs cycles)

The grow room will now remain dark for 36 hours and has just received its last nitrogen rich, fish poo aquarium water blend. From here on out it will be watered with a 8-15-20 mixture (i could be wrong on those numbers but its close) mixed at half strength for the first two weeks of flowering and then increased to full strenght there after.

After the 36 hrs is up I will be taking some more pics and screwing in the HPS bulb.

A few questions for the RIU intellectuals:

When in 36 hours of darkness how often should my fan be on?
How much hotter is the HPS from the MH (400 watt)?
What will the effect on my humidity be due to the HPS?
What humidity levels do I want for the first few weeks of flowering?

Currently with the MH on the temp sits at 75 with the light about 22 inches of the tops. And 55% RH with the Wet Towels hung.

In the darkness my temps drop to 60-65 and humidity of 60-65.

Thanks for taking the time to read this- I tend to post long- but I want those giving advice (all are welcome) to be fully informed of my situation, my setup, and my goals!

When in 36 hours of darkness how often should my fan be on?
How much hotter is the HPS from the MH (400 watt)?
What will the effect on my humidity be due to the HPS?
What humidity levels do I want for the first few weeks of flowering?

Click to expand...

1. I'd keep the fan running 24/7. We want strong healthy stems!

2. The bulbs should put out the same amount of heat.

3. I've noticed that higher temps bring higher humidity levels. As long as you have a fan blowing and keep temps relatively normal, this shouldn't be an issue.

4. Keeping a lower RH during flower is wise because at this point, the plant is more susceptible to mold and fungus. If your humidity levels stay at the high 40's just keep a fan running in there and you will be fine. I shoot for 35-45 percent, but usually stays around 45-59 percent. But sometimes as high as 53.


I see that you are trying to ease your plants into 12/12. I also wondered about this as well. Should we ease the plant into 12/12 so that it is less stressful on the plant? I mean, in nature it would gradually be exposed like this correct?

Some say the plant gets stressed when putting it into 12/12. I'm not sure what exactly it goes through, but I found that mine were drooping really bad as if they had not been watered in days. This occurred the following day after being exposed to 12 hours of darkness. Maybe that's what they are talking about? If so, I wouldn't get to caught up in gradually putting it in 12/12.

great, thnx GrnMan- those numbers are easy for me to achieve in my basement- and the fan will stay running then!