My First Grow!

Hi, this is my first grow, figured I'd post a little about it!

I started 6 clones off of two different mother plants. Three each off of a (Green Crack) x (Sour Diesel) mom and a Fruity Pebbles mom. The fruity pebbles is a special pheno that is a favorite of my friends... he says every time he grows it, it tastes exactly like turkey and gravy! That's why he calls it Gravy Train!

Any way, here is a picture of the clones sitting in my homemade aero-cloner. Its straight water from the water store (maybe 5 stage filter? not sure, pH was ~6.2 according to some aquarium pH strips). The pump is running 24/7. The girls are under 100 watt Metal Halide ~36 inches above them. And I have a weak oscillating fan blowing over them, so they can get some nice fresh air.

You might not be able to see, but the FP mom wasn't too healthy when she was cloned. That's why the clone in the top right hand corner is droopy (I hope!). Hopefully these guys will get rooted quick for me!

I'll try to stay up to stay as up to date as possible with this grow, if you have any questions ask and I'll do my best to give advice.

And any advice would be tremendously appreciated! It is my first time and I'm TERRIFIED that I'm going to do something wrong! I wish I had somebody here to walk me through every single step!!! Oh boy, I can't stop looking at them! I literally have to go check every 10 seconds! haha

Just make sure you have a good plan that realistically reflects your vision of how you want your grow to go. Then execute the plan. The best advice I can give is just get in the grow room and get some experience. You'll notice your plants will talk to you all the time. They tell you when they are hungry, thirsty, sick, and when to cut em down. And even after you cut em down they STILL will tell you when you should smoke them.

Thanks for the great advice wakin! I think I my next step is going to be getting 2 more 5 gallon buckets, some bigger netpots, and some media. I haven't decided on a media yet, I've looked at lava rock, silica stone, and LECA. LECA is what I will do if I'm not confident. But I want to try something cooler! I hear lava rock is good for beneficial bacteria, while silica sounds very beneficial for plant resistance and strength. But if I don't find more specific info I'll go with LECA. Then, I'm going to try bubbleponics kinda thing. Ill have aerated water like in DWC, but I'll try to top feed it over my media to make sure the roots have access. I would probably follow Roseman's TERRIFIC tutorial on the topic. Then I'll let them grow this way to their roots get big, but before the roots grow together, I want to make two 3 site RDWC systems. Each site will be a five gallon bucket. I haven't decided if I want this system to be recirculating. I think it would be easier to maintain a level pH in a recirculating system. But single site would just be SOOOOO much easier, not having to fuss with pipes and connections as such. If I do do recirculating I would follow some of the great tutorials on the topic, specifically snype, blazeoneup, or BigToke. They all have great tutorials on how to build recirculating systems.

More immediately, I have to buy pH and EC meters. I'd like to start giving my clones nutes in the next couple days. I've got my eye on the Hannah 98129.

http://www.amazon.com/Hanna-Instruments-Waterproof-Conductivity-Tester/dp/B002ZG8L58/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1389541287&sr=8-4&keywords=hannah+pH+meter

But the total comes out to almost $200! I'm wondering if I really need to spend this. I'd love to get cheap meters, just to get through this grow. I don't mind buying meters in the future, this is just my last semester of college and I'm extra poor lol!

So its been ~24 hours, its been hard for me to wait this long! Today I added a "Bio-Fish filter" this morning and added it to the res of my aero cloner. I'm pleased, they seem to have perked up a bit (they did before i added the filter, i've seen no response to them so far). I was inspired to get the filter from reading the thread https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=254482 I just immediately ran by walmart and grabbed myself one. Here are some pictures from day 2

You can see the one fruity pebbs is still showing that deficiency of some sort. Not sure what it is, I would like to start folliar feeding for it, but I'm just going to sit tight for a few days. I ordered a pH meter, TDS, and calibration/storage solutions like 10 minutes ago. It should be arriving by Wednesday, so I'll probably start feeding nutes then. I was going to use the formula

20 mL General Hydroponic FloraMicro
30 mL General Hydroponic FloraBloom
3 mL SuperTHRIVE
0.5 mL Clorox Bleach

For every 10 gallons of water, pH'd to 6.0. A formula that I read about in the thread https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?p=5984346
I was also thinking about adding a little silica. I ordered ProTek (potassium silicate mostly?), and I think I'll add just a touch of that. Then I'll dilute that solution even more for foliar feeding. What are your guy's thoughts? Is it to early to feed? what about foliar? any thoughts on the recipe? Thanks

Hi! Its day three here not much new development so I'll just post one boring pic... For the records!
Been reading a lot about Heisenberg tea and I'm getting pretty excited about brewing some. But I think I'm going to wait until I move them over for VEG to start the tea. Any thoughts?

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I live about an hour from the nearest big city, so I'm going up this weekend to get supplies to build my veg buckets. The thing that I'm worried about is how I can keep water temps low. I'd like to get it down as close to 70 as possible. I'm just not sure how I could do this. I've heard of using frozen water bottles, but I'm afraid I'm not very good at doing things like that regularly. Plus I'd be afraid about how well I can control temps with this method, I feel like they'd always be changing as the water bottle gives off different amounts of heat over time (Newton Cooling curve). Maybe I'm over thinking it though, and maybe I'll be alright with just some beneficial bacteria and some. I'd appreciate any advice. Thanks!

Good luck with your first grow man, what are you gonna transplant them to once they have rooted? 5 gal pals?