New to grow

[Hyena Merica]

Welcome to the 420 Mag community!
We are all about sharing knowledge and helping spread the love.

I am an experienced indoor grower and if you want to see easy, sound methods for indoor growing,
I invite you to click this and follow my journal:

HYENA'S NEVER-ENDING ADVENTURES IN GROWING

I use hydro but even if you grow in soil or coco there is much that applies. It's all there my friend!

Best of luck,
Peace, Hyena

 

[new2grow67]

@Pennywise so I just bought a heating pad for my Plants so I can turn the lights off and not worry about them getting too cold. Can I now put them on an hour schedule?

 

[Pennywise]

If they are photo plants they should be at 18/6. 18 hours light/6 hours dark.

 

[BlackSheep138]

I'm not a serious grower, but I think this may help your scenario.

Those lights are not going to work, they arent bright enough. I built my D.I.Y. seedling box for under $50, lights included. heres a few pics.

The lights I use for starting my seedlings are Feit BR30, I got them for $14 at Home Depot. They arent terrible. At 9w, they are still too weak for anything past seedlings.

Keeping your lights too high above the plant makes them stretch more than usual. Whatever container I plant my seeds in, I only fill the container half full of dirt to start. That way you can add some soil if the plant gets too tall to support itself.

My seedlings were about 2 inches tall when they root bound themselves in a jiffy planter, so I transferred them to solo cups, and I gently packed soil around the stem so only 1/4" of the stem is above ground. If its packed down too much it can choke the plant out.

It's a learning process but one step at a time we all learn something new every day. Hope this helps!

 

[new2grow67]

I'm not a serious grower, but I think this may help your scenario.

Those lights are not going to work, they arent bright enough. I built my D.I.Y. seedling box for under $50, lights included. heres a few pics.

The lights I use for starting my seedlings are Feit BR30, I got them for $14 at Home Depot. They arent terrible. At 9w, they are still too weak for anything past seedlings.

Keeping your lights too high above the plant makes them stretch more than usual. Whatever container I plant my seeds in, I only fill the container half full of dirt to start. That way you can add some soil if the plant gets too tall to support itself.

My seedlings were about 2 inches tall when they root bound themselves in a jiffy planter, so I transferred them to solo cups, and I gently packed soil around the stem so only 1/4" of the stem is above ground. If its packed down too much it can choke the plant out.

It's a learning process but one step at a time we all learn something new every day. Hope this helps!

So this is my plant. I started with 6 but 5 died before the heating mat came in the mail. This is after I got the heating mat in. I’ve been rotating the lights and heating mat. 18hr lights on and heating mat off, 6hr lights off heating mat on. I water this plant every 4 days, I wait till the soil is dry and when I water it I wait for the water to drain out the bottom until it’s a very slow drip.

 

[Pennywise]

Need to put some soil in that cup.

 

[BlackSheep138]

So this is my plant. I started with 6 but 5 died before the heating mat came in the mail. This is after I got the heating mat in. I’ve been rotating the lights and heating mat. 18hr lights on and heating mat off, 6hr lights off heating mat on. I water this plant every 4 days, I wait till the soil is dry and when I water it I wait for the water to drain out the bottom until it’s a very slow drip.

a heat mat is a good idea as long as it's a controllable temp. You dont want it to cook your roots! I'd suggest a thermostat i with a digital probe to make sure it's not hotter than 80-ish degrees.

Did you ever replace those lights? Those are probably going to be your biggest problem.

 

[Mark Gordan Smith]

Hi new2,
Your thread is gonna be one to watch, your anomalies are akin to everything I did wrong.
Please just don't skim through the given info from the pro's, read it and digest it, that's what I had to force myself to do.
You lost 4 out of 5 of your babies, yeh.....it hurts. And I know that pain, mate.
On a low budget?......Sacrifice some beers or the new shoes or something.....I'd buy those good lights if advised.

Respectfully, Mark

 

[new2grow67]

a heat mat is a good idea as long as it's a controllable temp. You dont want it to cook your roots! I'd suggest a thermostat i with a digital probe to make sure it's not hotter than 80-ish degrees.

Did you ever replace those lights? Those are probably going to be your biggest problem.

This is my mat

 

[BlackSheep138]

This is my mat

I would bury the stalk and get a new light.

 

[new2grow67]

Hi new2,
Your thread is gonna be one to watch, your anomalies are akin to everything I did wrong.
Please just don't skim through the given info from the pro's, read it and digest it, that's what I had to force myself to do.
You lost 4 out of 5 of your babies, yeh.....it hurts. And I know that pain, mate.
On a low budget?......Sacrifice some beers or the new shoes or something.....I'd buy those good lights if advised.

Respectfully, Mark

So I water my plants every 3-4 days. I let the soil completely dry up before putting more water in. Well 4 days ago my one plant was doing great! It was growing and looking healthy and good and today I went to go water her and the leafs are all wilted and a little shriveled. Is their any way to save her?? I have her on 18 hr light and 6hr heating pad

 

[BlackSheep138]

turn off the heat mat.

 

[CannaNoob]

I was curious about rope lights ... I am no longer ... better lights is all I can suggest right now

 

[new2grow67]

I was curious about rope lights ... I am no longer ... better lights is all I can suggest right now

I think I stressed it out, I added more soil to the cup..

 

[subliminal]

Man, this thread is an interesting read.

Did you ever upgrade your light? Even walmart CFL's? Buy some 3$ table lamp replacement sockets/wiring kits and a couple CFL light bulbs and hang them over the plants with hook screws or something of that nature(that way you don't need to worry about distance to the plant, they can stay real close). They don't always have the best spectrum, but anything would improve the situation over those rope lights... they look like cloning lights to me.. or germination. Not enough there to feed a growing healthy plant.

The reason they wanted you to add more soil to the cup was because the plant stretched so far initially that it's stem is long and weak and is gonna fall over sideways and die. They weren't specific about how to do it, so I am hoping you just left the plant where it was and filled the cup up to about 1/2 inch from the top of the cup. Don't worry about the bottom leaves, either bury them or snip em off(snipping I've seen helps stimulate root growth). Try to center the stem of course. Also, grab a cheap digital thermometer so you can keep better track of the temp in the grow area. Keeping a heating pad on under the cup, all of the time is probably raising soil temps higher than you'd like them to be.

But man, I have seen people grow good looking buds with no nutrients, but I have never seen anyone grow anything without better lighting than you have going on there. That's your second step.

Your first step is to visit our links for new members forum, you can find it in most of our signatures, and do some reading about lighting and watering and drainage..just about anything you could ask for is right here. So many people can help you here, it's staggering.. but most questions have already been answered.