My First Grow!

Hey everyone,I figured that I better start my grow journal since I'm just getting started,I don't have any pics of plants yet since I have yet to order some seeds or go out and buy a clone (leaning more towards clone),I'm just throwing up a pic of my box first and was hoping to get some constructive criticism about it before I go full force and get started.



I know,I still need the mylar,lights,hydroton,ph meter,nutes,exhaust fan/carbon filter.......it's a process,I'm going with a sun systems 150 watt hps for flowering (should be here tuesday) and 3 CFL's for veg (idk what wattage to use for my cfl's,plz help!!),I'm only gonna get 1 plant in there so I'm gonna scrog it and hope I get lucky on my yields,I went with a waterfarm hydro setup because I saw someone else's grow journal and it looked like perfection.

Let me know what you think of phase 1 and I'll keep on updating as time goes on.

Thank you for your precious time.

Hey man you should be good with 100 REAL watts of CFL for that size for vegging. You can find either 5 20watt lamps or if you can find them 1 85 and 1 20watt. Make sure you get the real watts, not the "equivalent". Good luck and looking forward to seeing your grow progress.

TY for the response and the helpful advice on the CFL's,+1 rep 2 u,I picked up 2, 55 watt CFL's (the actual 55 watts and not the equivalent),they cost 12 bucks a pop at lowe's,ouch.



I also got my 150 watt HPS today,put up the mylar,finished completing my waterfarm and got some nutes.




Right now I'm doing a dry run for a temperature check to see how good or bad it is after 5 hours,preliminary temp checks have me at 72-80 degrees and 40-55 humidity,so it's lookin pretty good.



still need a couple of other little things to do and get,I need to make a drain valve for my waterfarm,get a ph/pps meter and some ph up/down stuff.

I have one major concern though....I only have 16 inches of clearance between the top of my water farm and the bottom of my light,I'm planning on using a SCROG,will I have enough room if I weave it right?,or should I scrap my current waterfarm for a smaller one?



I'm so eager to get started,can't wait to get a clone in and start it off!!!

I'm no expert by any means but you might possibly run into algae problems with your clear reservoir.

I think if you cover it with electric tape or reflective tape it should keep all the light out and therefor prevent algae growth!

Other than that it looks good, Good luck on your grow sir!

sub'd

Definitely cover it up from the light. And make sure u manage water temps... in dwc style systems you really don't wanna break 75 degrees.

Ty for your input guys,I'll just run out and get some cheap new tubs instead of having to deal with covering it up,maybe smaller ones too,I didn't even consider algae growth,+ 1 rep to both of you for helping a noobie out.

Good looking setup man. Love the mylar lined HPS room. Real sexy, should get some heavy duty lumens on your girlies. Thanks for the rep

jeez,almost 3 months have passed...I've been laggin' on updating this

So here's what's goin on,since I couldn't find any clones in oregon (odd),I went ahead and ordered a seed from attitude seedbank and got a freebie!!

I just got 1 white berry and the quasar for free so I germed the quasar first since I've never ran a waterfarm setup before and didn't want to experiment on a seed I payed good money for,lol.




2 weeks from sprout,I just switched over to the 150 watt HPS veg cycle instead of the 110 watt cfl's,it raised the temps in my box up to 85+ degrees so I mounted a small 5 inch fan on the underside of the roof to suck air out and dropped it by 6 degrees



all in all it's coming together real nice,everything has gone really smooth and there isn't much noise from the whole setup,it just sounds like one of my wife's vibrators



I'll probably post again when it's time to scrog..........like always I'm looking for constructive criticism so feel free to share your opinions.

looks good i'm doing my dwc too. You shouldn't wait to post until you have to scrog keep posting.

Mr. Goodbuds said:

looks good i'm doing my dwc too. You shouldn't wait to post until you have to scrog keep posting.

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Thank you goodbuds,guaranteed rep for your input.

I might put up more pics over time,but with this custom job it seems like this grow is taking extremely longer than most other waterfarm journals I've seen on here,I'll be at 4 weeks this friday and something already tells me I should have just bought the general hydro setup instead of trying to save a few bucks by building a custom one out of random parts.......but we'll see,I'm not gonna quit just because it's not on par with everyone else's I've seen,it's still a plant and still alive.......just growing reaaaaally slow

Well hopefully it takes off soon. were you already adding nutes when you took those pics??

Yeah,but not much..... But I just checked on it this morning and I had blacktips on the leaves so apparently it was too much.....so I just flushed my tank with fresh water and 0 nutes and let her go from there......I just got too eager is all

5 weeks from seed........



Been running on str8 tap water ever since the nute burn incident,lol,I just performed some quick surgery and amputated some toes and she blew up on me.






lesson learned nature....you win this round

daym 5 weeks and its still that small? somethings wrong

Dr. Bigbud said:

daym 5 weeks and its still that small? somethings wrong

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The problem is me,I kept fucking with it every other day like a pro and gave it some healthy scars,not to mention that I'm not Ph'ing my water since I can't afford a meter or ph up/down,so it might be a ph problem,it could also be that I switched from my CFL's to HPS then back to CFL's for a few days to see if I got different results....all I know is now she's looking strong so I'm not gonna mess with nuthin now!!

6 weeks and finally movin' right along

To be honest that is not looking good at all. If this is your first grow and you are using hydro, maybe switch to soil and see what happens. A 5 week old plant in soil, no matter what the conditions, Be it a 40w cfl or even a windowsill would still be about 5 times the size. From What I have read about hydro it requires a whole lotta precision and so a ph meter/ec meter are a must. Do yourself a favor and transplant it into soil or start a seed next to it in soil and compare. I don't wanna put you down, I just don't wanna see you waste more time without getting the results you want. Take care dude!

frankenbuds said:

To be honest that is not looking good at all. If this is your first grow and you are using hydro, maybe switch to soil and see what happens. A 5 week old plant in soil, no matter what the conditions, Be it a 40w cfl or even a windowsill would still be about 5 times the size. From What I have read about hydro it requires a whole lotta precision and so a ph meter/ec meter are a must. Do yourself a favor and transplant it into soil or start a seed next to it in soil and compare. I don't wanna put you down, I just don't wanna see you waste more time without getting the results you want. Take care dude!

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ty for the input..+rep for ya

I don't know what I'm gonna do,I think I'm just gonna ride it out,it's all trial and error for me right now...that and I changed the water yesterday and the roots were already hanging way low into the reservoir so I don't want to risk anything to shock it even more.....But I am seriously thinking of just switching to purified bottled water today,I was gonna pick up a cheap ph test kit from wally world or someplace and go from there.

Keep at it bro. It just may be a runt. TLC that girl.

cannaboy said:

Keep at it bro. It just may be a runt. TLC that girl.

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That's what a buddy was sayin to me after I showed him some pics,I don't know why but I just have this feeling that it's gonna explode on me one day that I'm not lookin' at it

next time tho I'm getting the general hydroponics pre-fab setup,there's too many factors involved with this custom crap and at the rate I'm goin it's gonna be a 4-5 month grow,lol...+rep2u