Anonnymooses CFL & LED DIY (On The Cheap) Grow

[Anonnymoose]

Update:

Everything going swimmingly, main plant still growing fast and showing first signs of actual buds forming, not just the calyxes. Has calyxes on nearly every node now.

Master Kush and White Widow x Big Bud seeds are now both sprouted, although master kush doesn't look strong. I added some more lights because I thought it might be stretching, hopefully this helps.

However, I just found something before that has me worried. Insects Little white looking insects crawling around the soil. I cant see any on the main plant, just the seedlings in the veg closet, but the main plant is only meters away so I assume they are there as well. No sign of damage anywhere so I am hoping they are harmless. I have never had insect problems before so I will do some research and try to identify them, and look into solutions. Anyone that can point me to good advice or pictures to help identification would be appreciated. I have a microscope so I will try and catch one and see if I can possibly photograph it through the microscope - they are tiny! Otherwise I may look at investing in a microscope camera as it would be cool for taking pictures of buds once done. I usually the microscope to determine harvest time anyway.

Will upload photos each weekend, I dont think theres much point doing them now as it wont be much different to the last photos.

 

[Anonnymoose]

Ok shit, urgent help needed.

Tried to unsuccessfully look at one up close in the soil, and I couldn't think of a way to catch them without squishing them. Enter electrical tape - pushed it against the soil when I saw a few and 2 got stuck alive. Tried to taker pics but cant get a good pic through microscope and they are too small to photograph without magnification

I am pretty sure they are spider mites, they are white/almost see through, and appear to have 8 legs. The legs attach at the top of the body, they look very similar to pictures I find when I google spider mites. Oh dear They dont appear to have reached the main plant, but 2 pots with seeds are crawling with them. Because those 2 haven't sprouted yet I gave them a good dose of flyspray because I noticed that pyrethrum can kill them. I also sprayed the carpet around them so that any that try to crawl away get killed. This should help while I go and remove them from that room.

What else can I do immediately though? Is it too late to apply some treatment to the main plant to make sure they dont get to it? I dont have anything to kill them except fly spray right now

 

[Anonnymoose]

Ok so done some quick research now. Absolutely certain they are spider mites, especially after reading the statement "Closer inspection will reveal the mites body is semi transparent" which is exactly what I had noticed.

Plan of action:

Have removed 2 pots definitely infected outside. Had close inspection of other seedling pots and no sign of them. Will keep an eye on them for now, and have sprayed the room with pyrethrum based flyspray, as well as all the carpet around it. Sprayed the top of the 2 infected pots before putting outside, 2 minutes later I couldn't see any moving at all. Hopefully it wont affect the seeds that are about to sprout. I am fairly confident I can tackle these with chemicals since the plant is so young so will get some tomorrow.

The main plant has no sign of them but as a precaution I have sprayed fly spray around the base and surrounding carpet. Will start gentle treatment tomorrow anyway since no buds are really formed, looking to get Neem oil or similar and just wipe down the leaves. I might get something gentle to treat the soil, maybe some sort of pyrethrum spray. Even if the plants take in a bit, I figure it should be negligible by the time the plant is ready to harvest, so I think I should get onto it now just in case, better than fighting an infestation later. I will have to also take some other precautions to stop them coming back. I will do more research, but so far this has probably been the worst thing to ever happen to my garden

 

[paul keating]

I've never had spider mites.
But i wouldn't recommend the fly spray. that will almost certainly kill your seedlings if some gets on them, or if they soak it up.
I've had aphids and fungal gnats before, and i used the pyrethrum. Don't know how it would affect seedlings though.

Just did a quick search. Apparently neem oil is awesome for controlling many things, including, but not limited to, aphids, fungal gnats, spider mites. I've heard of it, but don't know where to obtain it. I'll have a look online, i could do with some.

In the mean time, you can temporarily slow them down, but giving them a hose with high pressure water.
A spray bottle might be enough to knock them off.

Have a look on the underside of the leaves. That's usually where they hang out.

 

[paul keating]

Here's some tips i just stumbled on online. Don't know how effective they are.

Use rubbing alcohol. Isopropyl rubbing alcohol will effectively kill spider mites. Simply pour a little of the rubbing alcohol onto a clean cloth and use it to wipe the underside of the infested plant's leaves.

Pyrethrum is a natural pesticide which is made from a plant closely related to the chrysanthemum. It is the best pesticide to start with when targeting spider mites, however some spider mite species have developed a resistance to it, so you should keep a close eye on plants even after spraying.

Neem oil is a miticide derived from the nuts of the Neem tree. It is great for targeting infestations, but also works well as a mite repellent and a treatment for powdery mildew

Use a homemade herbal tea. If you want to make your own miticide at home, you can make a herbal tea by mixing a tablespoon of ground cinnamon, a tablespoon of ground cloves and two tablespoons of Italian seasoning in a quart of water.

Bring the water to a boil, then take off the heat. Once it has cooled slightly add 2 tablespoons of crushed fresh garlic. Leave to sit until the water cools completely, then strain through a cloth or coffee filter.

Add a squirt of dish soap to the tea, then pour into a spray bottle. Spray the underside of the infested leaves with the tea every three days over a two week period. This should effectively kill the mites.


Use essential oils and organic salts. Rosemary oil, in particular, is particularly effective as an organic pesticide. Try spraying a solution of rosemary oil and water onto the leaves of an infested plant.

Luckily, the rosemary oil will kill the spider mites, but leave the beneficial, predatory species of mites alone.[1]
Fatty acids or potassium salts can be abrasive against mite bodies. Apply these late afternoon, to give the maximum time for the wetness to remain on the plants, to get to the mites.
Mist susceptible plants with water in the evening to make the environment cooler and more moist. This works well for the two-spotted spider mites which prefer warm and dry environments.

 

[Anonnymoose]

Hey mate thanks for the comments. I think I read the same page. I did consider the rubbing alcohol as I have some of this but there was no mention of it on other sites. Neem oil was the most common that is mentioned as being effective and not dangerous to health. I didn't know where to buy it either so I looked it up and it seems you can buy it at hardware and gardening shops, but I ordered some online for $10 with free delivery (delivery here is normally about $5 so this seemed cheap and saves me going to the shop). Hopefully it arrives before the weekend, but if I spot any in the meantime then I will wipe leaves down with the rubbing alcohol.

The weird thing is that every site I read mentions the mites like the underside of leaves and eating the plant. But the 2 pots they were in had no plants and they were just crawling around the soil. The pots with the sprouted seeds and cuttings dont have any that I can see, and I did check the leaves. I have no idea how they got in either, but it seems to be common so I guess its a good lesson learned and I now know to keep an eye out for them and keep the right stuff on hand to deal to them quickly if I spot them

 

[Anonnymoose]

I think I have managed to control the mites for now, I have been using diatomaceous earth for a few days now, got rid of the 2 infected pots and have been keeping a close eye for signs of them. I saw a few in other pots before using DE but have not seen any since. Have not found any on the plants and no signs of damage from them.

However I have had another disaster, dropped the top light structure on my main plant yesterday and snapped it. It was almost completely detached so I thought there was no chance to save it and cut it off. I left the top part lying on the floor while I fixed everything up thinking I would just throw it away. I went and checked on the web to see what I should do for the bottom half, having lost about half the plant and found some people saying to root the top part that broke off. This was about an hour later and I went back and grabbed the top half off the floor, it was completely limp and I thought it was dead, but stuck it in some water anyway. Amazingly over about 2 hours it slowly sucked up water and started firming up and picking itself up. Within 4 hours it looked no different than when it was attached to its other half! It now seems pretty happy in its glass of water and I am tossing up whether to transplant it to soil now or wait until it shows roots in the water first. The bottom half is looking ok, I had to tie up some branches with wire but I think it will still yield. Am going to continue on 12/12 and just see what happens

I now have far more plants than I intended, So I am unsure how to make the best use of what I have (i.e space, available lights and which plants to keep).

^^ This one was rooted in water, had a few roots and transplanted to soil yesterday. I understand the wilting is normal for a day or 2, the other one (below) did this too and has bounced back

^^ First cutting rooted directly in soil (after the hormone dip). It wilted at first and bounced back. It didnt like the flyspray the other day which I think caused the brown leaf tips but it is starting to begin new growth and I think within a week or so should be ready to move to a bigger pot

^^ WW x BB seed

^^ Main plants top half, not looking too bad considering what it went through yesterday. This might actually turn out good apart from the minor delay it brings. The bottom half will hopefully flower first and depending how it goes I might want more cuttings off this

^^ Main plant bottom half (and below)

 

[Gazzatron]

Sorry to hear bout the snapped plant moose. I don't like giving advice to growers since my knowledge is very limited BUT what I would do with the top half is either wait til it shows roots then transplant to soil or take it out and dip it into some of that rooting powder and put it into one of those Jiffy pellets. You can get both from bunnings. I can say I have had a 100% success rate using the powder and pellets when cloning.
Like I said though, I dont like giving advice but thought I'd at least let you know what I would do if I were you.
Good luck with the grow mate. I'll be cheering you on and I'm sure we will all see the the great results at the end.

 

[Anonnymoose]

Thanks Gazza, I decided to put it in soil after letting it soak for a few days, it seems to be fine so I gave it another quick dip in hormones and transplanted it to soil. I think it should go great considering how resilient the plant seems to be

I expected a period of slow growth from shock after being snapped in half, but the bottom half didn't stop at all. It has 3 main colas now growing at an incredible rate and still needing the lights adjusted daily. I plan on adding safety chains to the light rig to ensure it cant fall far if it gets dropped again, will sort that this weekend.

Looking at the soil moisture graph the plant seemed to slow its water uptake on saturday and sunday after being snapped, but then it went back to normal and today it sucked through the water quicker than ever before which I am using as a sign of plant health. Because I also know the temperature and humidity, I can see a clear difference between the rate of the soil drying out in a small vs large plant. So I have a good idea of what the plant is taking vs what would naturally evaporate, and this plant is just powering through it. I am not sure if I should decrease the nutrients to account for this, or whether the plant is using more water in an attempt to get the nutrients? Would anyone perhaps know, if I increase the nutrients would the plant slow its water uptake?

In the veg closet, the BB x WW seed is still doing very well, master kush seedling I think will die soon or else have very stunted growth. I think it was a bad seed. The cutting is also doing extremely well and beginning to show rapid growth, i.e it grew a new set of leaves in the last day. I think this will be interesting when I put up more photos next weekend to see how its gone for the week, within 2 days it has grown noticeably from the picture above. It is also now reaching for the light which I also consider to be a good sign of a healthy plant - this definitely isn't caused by light being too far away as they do it when just an inch from a CFL.

I was pretty annoyed with myself for letting the plant get damaged on Saturday, but now I am not too bothered as I think I will end up better off in the long run.

 

[Anonnymoose]

Weekend update:

All going very well again, I am very pleased. Main plant is still growing very quickly, back to its original height, about 5ft tall (including pot, so plant is about 4 foot). I want it to stop about now so I have replaced one of the top 2700k bulbs with a 4000k bulb to help stop stretching. I can handle another foot or so and from experience it shouldn't get too much bigger.

First cutting from main plant has been transplanted to a bigger pot and had a huge rootball, this unknown strain grows very quickly. I will give it another few days of veg and then move it to 12/12, I am going to try and keep them smaller to make it easier to have plants of different heights under 12/12 at the same time. Second cutting is picking up and I am expecting growth to take off any day now. I gave up on rooting the top half of the main plant as it couldn't support its own weight and I have plenty enough anyway. WW x BB seed is doing ok, a bit slower than expected but I can't be certain of the cause as it is in a different soil to the others. I think it will still do well, its still quadrupled in size in the last week so maybe my expectations are too high.

^^ Second cutting from main plant. Taken at the same time as the first cutting but rooted in water before transplanting to soil. This is much slower than putting straight into soil.

^^ BB x WW Seedling

^^ First cutting, transplanted into larger pot yesterday

^^ Same plant again I think

^^ Close up of flowers forming on main plant

^^ Main plant

^^ Main plant again

^^ and again, isn't she beautiful?

 

[Gazzatron]

Everything seems to be going well Moose!! It's amazing how resilient these plants are, you snapped one in half and it's cranking!! Keep up the good work man, you'll be enjoying your homegrown before you know it

 

[Anonnymoose]

Hey thank Gazza,

They are still going very well. The main plant is still growing which is worrying, within a week I will be out of room above it and will have to devise some way to hang the lights higher! I will think of something though. I now have all plants in under flowering in various stages. The 3 smaller ones have no flowers yet, ones been in there for a week and the other 2 went in yesterday.

I am noticing on the main plant that the buds that are closest to the 4000k bulbs seem to be doing better, so I swapped out a couple of 2700k bulbs for more of the 4000k ones. I also seem to have a minor problem on the BBxWW plant, 2 of the leaves show what would appear to me to be signs of insects. However it is not widespread and I have looked very closely for insects and cannot find any. Close up pics below

For the main plant, this is day 29 since switching to 12/12, but I would say more like day 21 since flowering actually began, I'm not sure when you count it from

 

[DanJewl]

Good reading

 

[bonsaicanfe]

I think it's to close the light and burn your leaf but maybe not

 

[Anonnymoose]

Hey guys cheers for the comments,

I am certain the bbxww plant isn't too close to lights, this will normally cause a burn on the leaf and for CFL bulbs I find this only happens when the leaf is touching the bulb. This plant hasn't been as close as the others, I am thinking it is an insect of some sort eating a layer of the leaves

 

[Gazzatron]

Hey Moose!!
My first thought when looking at those leaves was heat stress... how hot is it in there? The other thing I thought was they seem quite yellow but from my research it doesn't seem like a lack of nitrogen altho it could be but from what I've read it seems like a calmag issue. It seems to be the common theme when it comes to led lights that they need more calmag so maybe thats the issue? But if you're using soil and have nutrients/lime etc already added then maybe not haha
I was gonna go soil for my first crack but I decided that coco+perlite was the simplest and easiest method. Simple nutes (Canna coco A+B) some epsom salts and a little P/K during flower and done!! Lol
Sorry I can't be more helpful man but that's to be expected when you have more experience than me and I'm the one trying to help lmao
I'll be here for moral support til the end if that males any difference lol
Take it easy Moose and keep on truckin!!

 

[Gazzatron]

Hmm now I'm not sure if the led is being used right now cos I re read your last post and you said that the funky leaf plant wasn't as close to the CFLs as the others.... It could quite simply be a lack of light causing the issue...
Geez I wish I had some idea of what I'm actually talking about sometimes....

 

[Anonnymoose]

Hey Gazza,

Only the main plant was under the LEDs, the plant in question just had CFLS. However...

Last weekend I was shopping for air filters because I was beginning to need one. After shopping round I settled on a good brand 150x500mm filter with mixed flow fan. The shop had some nice grow tents and I decided to splurge, it had so many cool features and just looked awesome. Its bigger than I thought too, 1.2m x 1.2m x 2m. But then the shop also had a special on a 600w HPS bulb, ballast shade etc so I got that too. So now I have a completely new setup!

I am stoked, it was well worth it. From outside there is no light, no smell and just the sound of the fan. Inside, the plants have more light than ever before and a much easier setup. The light, fan and filter are hung from the ceiling of the tent which is nice and sturdy. I can adjust the height of the light easier and no longer need to constantly adjust heaps of CFLS, plus no more CFL breakages to worry about. I still have a couple of CFLs in there with 6500k bulbs to help fill in some blue spectrum which the HPS lacks in.

The tent is very well built with easy access from 3 sides, and heaps of holes for ducting which seal shut with a drawstring so you can adjust to different size duct etc. After reading about HPS bulbs (which I should have done before buying) I have decided I will upgrade soon to a cooltube with closed loop ventilation, i.e a separate fan will pull air from outside and push it through the cooltube and back outside so it doesn't mix with the smelly air. This should help keep temps down which are a bit high. I would fully recommend these tents, I dont know why I didn't do this sooner. It just makes everything so neat and tidy, you cant really tell from the outside whats going on lol.

I also bought some nutes from the shop, canna terra flores so will gradually switch to those although the main plant wont have too much longer to go. Its stopped growing upwards thankfully and the buds are fattening.

I will post some pics later

 

[Anonnymoose]

Hi all,

Sorry for the lack of updates, I have been very busy lately.

I tried to take photos earlier, but the new light causes the camera to go funny, so I will have to try take some just after lights out tomorrow.

Main plant going well, buds are nice and big. Had another disaster - dropped another light on it and snapped one branch. tied the branch up and it doesn't seem to have affected it. I have stopped with the side lighting for now until I come up with a more stable method of mounting them. 2 clones are also going very well, buds are forming nicely and they are growing at an insane rate of about 2 inches per day, much faster than under the CFLs. This has me a bit worried about how tall they will get, time will tell. If I'm too worried I might chop the top off as the main plant seems to have turned out well after losing its top, it has 3 main colas instead of one. I would say it has increased yield but since it is the first plant I have ever moved under HPS I cant really say. I am pretty excited about the results here though, its not too frosty but looks to be decent. BBxWW is also doing well, nowhere near as well as the others but I put that down to the soil rather than strain.

Bought some more stuff the other day - some treatment for Fungus Gnats because I suspect the little flies I sometimes see are those. I did a drench as soon as I got it about a week ago and seems to have taken care of them. I should do another but dont want to this close to harvest even though its meant to be safe. I also got some additives, cargo boost and some other one to match it. Dunno how well they will help at this stage but worth a try.

 

[Johnny 5spot8]

Keep using that diatomaceous earth. Rooting for ya.