First Time Growing - Mystery Bag Of Seed

noobiegrow

New Member
Hello forum! Decided to finally sign up after lurking for about 3 months, reading and collecting information to attempt my first grow.

Here is some background:

ME - Never grew anything in my life, well, aside from my kids! lol

Strain - unknown, received a box of seeds from a friend that gets regular smoke from the streets

Grow method - RDWC (6) 5 gallon buckets connected to a 11 gallon res tank (I'm thinking I can fit 2 more in the system) with 2 airstones in each bucket including 2 in the res

Lighting - As of right now, I am only using (8) 4ft t5 using pur par bulbs (6500k I believe?) currently running 18/6 cycle

Grow space - I have an empty spare bedroom that is 12x15 but as you can see in the pics, I'm only using about 3x4 of the whole room.

Water temp and PH - 76 degrees with PH ranging 5.8-6.0

Food - Just water for now

Alright, so that's the jist of it guys. As stated, I never grew anything at all in my life, I just started reading and figured I could grow this. I have no idea how old these plants are because I was experimenting so much with this grow. I figured I'd do all my mistakes now with seeds that cost me nothing than to do it after I purchase some premium seeds. But they are roughly 1.5 months old, that's from seed. Water from my tap comes out at about 9.0 ph but I recently spoke to the local hydro shop and suggested I should keep my ph around 5.8, so I have been using ph down once I received my meters. ahhhhh enough of the story of me messing up this grow but I will post up some pics, tell me what you guys think?

I finally have some extra funds to feed these girls, what do you guys suggest? I've been reading and GH, Fox Farm and Advance Nute has been the pick of most of the growers here.

In closing, I have gotten this far with the grow mainly from reading and using google. Any advice and or tips would be greatly appreciated.

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Things I have read and will purchase soon will be:

water chiller (not sure if it is needed)

Nutrients

2 osc fans

LED lights once I figure out when these can go into flowering. I'm thinking a few 1600w MarshydroII lights?
 
Thank you for uploading my pics for me.

Nothing new as of today, only thing different is they keep growing. Will these thing blow up once I start feeding it nutes?
 
lol, no use on hiding the wallet as I'm looking to purchase a few LED lights for the flowering stage.

I technically can push them into flowering right now, correct? I was thinking I will once I get some LED and some nutes.
 
How high should I have my t5 lights over the plants? I have read some people put them inches away to a foot away. I know the t5 loses it's power within a certain distance, but how far is that distance?
 
welcome to the forum, I started here last year around the same time with my first grow ever as well. You might not get a ton of responses to your thread, it seems like only the people who have hours to type stuff out and take tons of pics get a lot of hits.

I'm far from a pro, relatively new myself but I'm on my second grow and have learned a lot so I can deifintely do my best to help.

I have only grown in soil so i can't advise on nutes, but I have used both fox farms and advanced nutrients( sensei bloom). Both seem to have done the job well so you couldn't go wrong either way. Maybe try the fox farm lineup and see if you like it.

Lighting: as far as the T5's it's my understanding that you can go as close as you want with them, you won't get bleaching or get them too hot with them. What brands are you looking at for the LED's? I ran some cheepo Apollo 3x100w's and got decent results considering I messed up almost everything with the grow. That said I would spend the money and get some decent LED's the first time, perhaps check into Mars hydro, people here seem to love them and get great results and they are a sponsor here. I almost went with a set myself but went the hps route to compliment my LED's I already owned.

Any light source will lose power the farther you move it from the plant, doesn't matter if it's led, hid or CFL.

You can throw them into flower anytime you want, you could set them 12/12 from seed. No reason you couldn't switch them now. Being in an open room like that and not in a tent or closet, make sure you don't have any light leaks. I'm sure you know these things but I had just a tiny leak and it caused a plant to hermi when I thought it was no big deal.
 
Thank you for the reply Strykr.

Well, first off, I won't be one of those that types stories upon stories, I will however update when I can and note any changes or progress because I was once one of those lurkers who looked and search for answers so maybe something in one of my journals can and will help someone.

I will try the Fox Farm trio since it is available locally to me.

I was looking to get some Marshydro, but as I was looking online (ebay) I see the mars hydro (white) mars hydro II (black) and could not really tell the difference between the two aside from the price difference from the same seller (marshydro) But I would like (2) of the 1600w to get more coverage as I wish to expand and use the whole room as a grow.

I've read where there shouldn't be any light leaks but if it were in the wild, you can't block out the moon?
 
I think the original Mars hydro lights are 3w chips while the Mars 2 are 5w chips, which would get you greater penetration which LED's lack compared to hid for example.

I don't know the science behind the different rays of light reflecting off the moon or what not, but I know rays of sunlight coming through cracks in the Windows will be more intense and interrupt the flowering cycle. I personally went to Walmart and spent $20 to cover my windows with (they are curtains) "solar blocking curtain panels". If toure going to be spending the dough on all the good equipment you might as well take care of the light leaks while you're at it. Nothing it worse than getting a hermie from a light leak.

If you choose not to go for it that's fine, just my 2 cents! :)
 
oh, I have the light leak taken care of....I have the mylar stuff on my window already. I just get a little bit of light seen coming through the ac unit mounted in the window, not sure how to take care of that just yet.
 
Sorry, it's been over a week since I have updated, but I was out on vacation.

So my PH is still at 5.8ish, my PPM from the tap is 50-70 and I add Cal-mag until I get 250PPM. So far, I've only added cal-mag to my res. My res temp is 75-77 but I check the roots everyday and they are white with no signs of root rot or algae growth. I will start to give them food this week since I will flip them within 2 weeks. Room temp has been 76-78 degrees, with the humidity fluctuating from 50-70% (not quite sure why) I believe I have let them grow too big as it is. These are all "mainlined" which I guess means I only have topped and let grow, no LST or anything of that sort.

Any thoughts or comments are welcome..
 
I am just waiting to order some lights before I flip. I was thinking (2) 1600w LED Mars hydro that should give me the coverage I need and thensome.

Still haven't figured out if the one plant that I have is a male yet either, so that has been ticking me off also.
 
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