1st Grow - 4 Strains - 2'x3' Closet - CFL Veg - Mars-Hydro Reflector Flower

[Happyjoy]

hey there everyone. im finally posting my first ever grow journal.

INDOOR closet grow


Strains:
1)Durban Poison (Dutch Passion) 100% sativa
2)Maui Waui (Nirvana) 70/30 sativa/indica
3)CBD Medi Haze (CBD Crew) mostly sativa cbd strain
4)Sour Crack Auto (Mephisto Genetics) sativa/indica hybrid auto


GAMEPLAN:
my goal is to grow these strains and keep them short so that i wont run out of room.
ill be trying to do a SCROG and FIM'ng to keep things even.
im sure itll be a challenge due to the sativa genetics,and 5' height limit, but i went for those genetics because thats what i enjoy to smoke
my overall goal here is quality, not quantity. i know it may be a bit crammed squeezing all these guys into this space, but i really wanted 1 pure sativa, 1 70/30 sativa, and 1 CbD STRAIN to have meds for each situation. the auto i threw in for the fun and to have somehting to smoke while i wait for everything else.



SOIL:
mix of: soil/cocoa/vermiculite/perlite
its a special mix from cannabis head shop based on some known mixture from holland that provides neutral PH and optimal breathability

Pots
im currently using 24 ounce pots. next transplant will be to 3 gallon pots

Nutrients
Bio Bizz Start pack. just following the instructions in the manual.
i started the nutes 1.5 weeks into grow...

Lighting
currently using 4x32W CFL 6500k.
will be changing over to a marshydro 96x3 LED as soon as it clears customs

ROOM SETUP
the closet is 2'x3'. and 5' tall.
theres a 170CFM exhaust on the ceiling. and a passive intake on the bottom wall.

current TEMPS range between 65-80 deg F. on really hot days it could get up 85F.
the average temp is around 75F. on cool days average temp is around 71F.
i have a cold steam humidifier turned on a timer that goes off every hour for a little. humidity is between 35-65% depending on when its on

different mistakes i made in the begging
i had a few mistakes in the first week and a half till i changed things around:
mistake 1:i started the seeds in a standard soil i bought in a flower store, which was way to thick and not breathable. they were in there for the first week and a half. and i needed to do an early transplant to bigger pot to allow for the special soil i bought afterwards.
mistake2: i started vegging under a 400W HPS till i realized it was too hot for the room. the room was getting to 95F plus. that went on for a few days till i switched to CFL's.
Mistake 3i didnt start giving any nutes untill week 2. i thought that the soil had everything contained till i caught onto the mistakes
im guessing that those first few days and mistakes may have stunted things a bit.....

Current Status of grow
Currently in VEG.
the Durban P, Maui Waui, and Sour C auto are 2.5 weeks since the seedling broke surface
the Medi Haze is 1 week since seedling broke surface (first seed didnt germ. so i did another one a week later)

heres some pics:
First WEEK:

TODAY (week 2.5 for Durban,Maui,and sour auto. week 1 for medi haze)

the side profiile pic is the durban.
i must say that even from such a young stage, i really see what i read in other reviews, that its super hardy. its a step ahead of all the other plants.

youll notice that the little baby medi haze has red on the leaves. im assuming that its too much nutes. i made a mistake of doing a complete watering. however i read that when a seedling is in too big of a container, its important to use a different watering technique than usual. and that in this case i should be watering less, more frequently, in order that the seedling doesnt get drowned with too much nutes because of the big pot size.

Ill keep everyone updated when i switch the lights.

i have some questions in the meantime.
being that i hope to be getting the LED soon, which will be needing to kept around 18" above the plants. and i have a room height of 5' . the final 3gallon pots are 11" tall with plate.
so taking all that in mind, when should i start LST'ng. and when should i switch to flowering?

thnks!!!!
hj

 

[Dusty Kiefers]

Thanks for the invite.
Don't forget to add the room for hanging your light that's gonna take another foot or so of height.
You can always do some lst a week or two after 12/12 begins.

 

[Happyjoy]

Thanks for the invite.
Don't forget to add the room for hanging your light that's gonna take another foot or so of height.
You can always do some lst a week or two after 12/12 begins.

ive been reading to start fim'ng after 5 nodes of leaves are grown. does that mean 5 sets of full leaves?

i know i can lst up till two weeks into 12/12, but i want to do all the topping and lst'ng correctly as early as possible, so that i get a good even cannopy, and so that i keep these sativas under control.

 

[Happyjoy]

hey there everyone!
thigns are coming along slowly but surely. its so exciting to see it happen.
im still using the CFL's as my LED from marshydro is still in customs. (over a week. but apperantly its usually not that long...)
is the growing going too slow? were almost starting week 3, and the durban (the tallest one) is only around 2.7 inches tall. and around 3.5 inches wide (if i spread the lower fan leaves out)
heres a pic:

if its running slow, i guess it could be due to the mistakes in the beggining of bad soil, and really high temps, plus ealry transplant....

the auto really took off. in the beggining it was going the slowest. now in just a few days its the second biggest plant. and its really funny, its starting to flower a little already. theres some little hairs in the top growth and its getting a nice funky smell.
heres the auto. check out the little baby hairs: (btw its only around 2.5 inches)

i still didnt get an answer to my previous post.
when should i start FIM'ng or TOPPING?
i read that the earliest the best. sometime after the third or fifth node grows. so does that mean now? i have 5 sets of growths of leaves.
but only three nodes actually stand out seperate on the stem. the other 4 and 5 are still very small and close together.
do i wait till they seperate?

also another quesiton. i knwo that its a whole discussion as far as topping or fim'ng. but what do you guys think would be best in my case. of sativa and sativa dominant strains, together in a 2'x'3 space, with 5' height. (around 3' after taking away flower pot, and space from LEDS). should i FIM them or should i TOP them?

thnks!
hj

 

[Weaselcracker]

Fimming and topping are very close to being the same thing. Yes you could start now -just pinch off the very small new growth at the top, so there is just a stem end showing in between the leaves on each side at the top. Be careful with the sativas or they will get too tall in flowering. I wouldn't veg them more than 12 inches high, especially if they are pure sativa. Mine stretch about 5x height after putting into 12/12 lighting, though I use a scrog screen to keep them down. Some stretch less. I didn't check what strains you're using.

 

[Happyjoy]

thnks for the advice.
my understanding from what i read about the difference between FIMng and TOPping is that
topping: splits into two heads, but is more stressfull on plant and can stunt growing a little bit
fim'ng: splits into four heads, is accepted much easier by plant and doesnt stunt growing as much

i figured fimm'ng would be the best ofr me, but on the other hand, being a first grow, and first time scrogger, maybe it would be more difficult to have too many budding colas coming out in which case topping might be eaiser.... however i want to do whats easiest on the plants and what will afford me the most height control in the long run.
i guess i might even need to top/fim again later on to keep things low...

btw some info on the strains:
DURBAN POISON (almost 100% sativa): says between 6-9 feet outdoors. indoors im not sure. i think i saw some reports of around 5 ft.
Maui Waui (mostly sativa): cant find anything definiate. but on the website it says TALL AND LANKY.i saw somewhere 5 FT if not topped
CBD medi haze (80/20 sativa dom): i read one indoor grow saying around 3 feet. but outdoors close to 6....

 

[Dan Ultra]

So, one thing you could think about as well is fluxing. You can just do this on a scale that works for you and your number of plants, but it keeps the canopy very low. My ceiling is 4 feet high and when subtracting all the unusable space for lights and pots, I have about 26" to work with, then take out the 12" from the light and .. well you get the point. Take a look at my journal or check out LA's Fluxing Central

You can always try and FIM and if it doesn't take just TOP it. No harm no foul.

Here is my plant at day 32 of flower and is only 14" from the soil

 

[Happyjoy]

hey there everyone. a weekly update. were entering into WEEK 4 for the DURBAN,MAUI,and AUTO. WEEK 3 for the MEDI HAZE
i topped two of the plants and fimmed one of them. (or partially fimmed one of them, not sure....). im leaving the auto alone

things seem to be moving forward slowly but surely. still vegging under CFL.

durban: it was origionally my fastest growing plant, but after topping it really slowed down.
the durban got some eagle claws on the edges of some of the leaves (curving downwards), and also the bottom leaf became a faded greenish yellow and not healthy looking.(not the circular leaf one. im talking about the serrated leaf that comes out in the beggining together with the circular one, but its just one leaf, not a triplet)
also i got the same yellow bottom leaf on the auto strain (again, im not talking about the rounded leaf that dries up...)
HERES A PIC OF THE DURBAN P. u can see from this pic the yellow leaf on the bottom. and the eagle claws, and even the upper leaves kind of jagged. (its really upsetting. it was doing so much better than all the others by alot, and even since topping it got really slowed down and got these problems...)
DURBAN P, yellowing bottom leaf. and jagged edges, eagle claw bottom leaves.

heres the yellowing on the auto. its the same thing on the durban P

when i saw the eagle clawing and yellow leaf, i researched a bit and decided it must be nitrogen toxicity. i dont know why as im following the instructions exactly on the BIOBIZZ nutes. i came to the conclusion that it might be because of my watering schedule. instead of doing a complete watering where water runs off each time, i would wait till the top inch is dry, and then just water enough to thouroughly wet the top inch, but not get runnoff water. (i was doing this because i was afraid to overwater..)
afterwards i read that it could be that doing this could cause salts in the soil and cause nutrient problems since the new water isnt enough to clean out the previous watering. i asked biobizz and they told me that with their nutes this cant happen, and their nutes would not leave salts in the soil... they also told me theres no need to water untill i see 20% runnoff like i read online. but to just water normally...

in any case, i did a clean water flush till i got alot of water running off in all the plants.
however theres still the lower yellow leaf problem on the durban, and now on the auto. (its just that one single leaf (not the rounded one))

i also read online that the problem might also be due to excessive heat? temps have been very very hot here this week. the grow room has been around 84F. sometimes gettting up to 86F. i raised the CFL's to about 6-7 inches hoping to make the heat lower. i have a small fan blowing across the tops. i also took out one bulb. even though having the CFL's so high up, and removing one bulb isnt the best, i figured its better to have that, than to have heat stress.

another issue u can see on this pic of the medi haze. is the sides of the leaves are kind of jagged on the edges and curled inwards. i had that problem with the durban yesterday. im assuinmg that might also be due to excessive heat. or maybe i overwatered them when i tried flushing them out?

after all is said and done. im in a bit of a problem right now.
im leaving the house for a few days and wont be able to water from thurs untill monday night. the plants are in 0.7 litre pots. i was planning on letting them dry out untill thurs and then give them a full watering before i go, but due to the problem i had, since i thought i needed to flush, i gave them a full watering two days ago. theyre still very wet and dont need to be watered. should i add some water anyways before i go? i dont want to drown them....

also being that i completely stopped any nutes since i flushed them two days ago since ive been waiting to see if things improve, when should i start using the nutes again?
the nutes are organic BIOBIZZ and are supposed to be nice and easy on the plants.


and heres a pic from the top of the lfowering auto. theyre so cute. its only a few inches tall and has been flowering a week already.

and lastly. now that ive topped/fimmed the plants, when should i start LST'ng? ive seen people starting at a month old, but i dont have any branches long enough to tie down anywhere????

thnks everyone for all the hlep!

 

[Weaselcracker]

It does look like there's a bit of heat stress going on with the cupped leaves, and possibly build up of nutrients in the soil because of improper watering (maybe). The topping up with water constantly isn't a great way to do it, because they do better with a wet-dry cycle as I mentioned before somewhere in one of your threads. Let them dry out quite a lot before watering, then ideally they should be watered to have some runoff, then let to dry out again (not to the point of wilting but almost), and so on...

You can't lst till you have some branches to tie down. That will come in time.
You are in a bit of a hard situation with the heat/ lighting problem. From what I read, cfls should be an inch or two for the plants- so they aren't going to grow very well when the lights are 6 inches away. What the situation really needs is a decent fan venting out hot air and bringing in cool air from somewhere. I don't think cfls produce much heat so moving them further away from the plants isn't going to make any difference to the overall temp of the room is it, or much difference to the temp of the plants? Perhaps best to give the plants the light they need and focus on fixing the venting system if you can.
I'm not sure what to say about the watering. I suppose the only thing you can do is water them before you leave. Just make sure to let them dry up nicely before watering again. If they aren't dry when you get back, just wait.
Do you have a ph tester and do you know the ph if your water, and water/nutrient mix? Ph problems are pretty much the number one issue with indoor growing.

 

[Happyjoy]

hey there everyone! finally got my LED! yayayayaY!.
so as an overall update.
i flushed out the soil really well. and let things dry out till they plants were wilting (by mistake). then i repotted to bigger pots, after which i watered them with half the amount of nutes suggested in biobizz instructions.
BTW MY PH OF WATER IS 6, after the nutes are added.


ive repotted everything to 3 gallon pots. and put up the LED. the room looks much nicer now.
Temps have become much more stable. i had no need to put a fan on the intake. the led seems to be much cooler than the CFL even though the actaul draw is higher. must be because it has built in fans, and is closer to the exhaust...

STATUS:
week 5 of veg for all plants except medi haze (medi haze is week 4)

medi haze is growing much taller and nicer than the others....

ive had some intresting reactions to the topping.
i topped the maui and durban at week 4. and the medi haze at week 3.

MAUI WAUI, and DURBAN: bushed out and became rounded with alot of compressed growing squashed together.

Medi Haze: looks so good. it looks exactly like the pictures online of a topped plant. eveyrthing is spaced out, and very symetrical. could it just be because its 1 week younger than the others?

is it something i did wrong, or do the plants just react differently? heres some pics:
DURBAN POISON, and MAUI WAUI, 1 WEEK AFTER TOPPING:

HERES THE MEDI HAZE 1 WEEK AFTER TOPPING. its also a week younger than the other two:

and a profile pic:

ANOTHER ISSUE. TWISTING LEAVES ON THE DURBAN
did you notice the twisting leaves on the durban? some leaves seem to be twisting upwards.

as far as the yellowing bottom leaves. they are still yellow. the yellowed single leave (not the rounded one) on the durban already fell off, and now the lowest bottom fan leaf is also yellowing on the durban....
im hoping it will work itself out now after ive transplanted and theyre under good light.


lastly heres a pic of everyone together: (yes humidity is actually below 30. ive been trying my best with the humidfier but were going through a serious dryspell. the lows are below 30, and highs get closer to 65. but its not steady since the humidifier is on a timer)
(the little steel pot in the middle is a pot with water i put there hoping ill help a little with the humidity as it evaporates)

 

[Happyjoy]

so the plants just got their first full watering untill runuff comes through the holes, since their transplant beggining of thsi week.
runuff PH was around 6.5

i have a question:
when the runuff fills up the tray under the plant, do i need to pour the water out, or just leave it in the tray? its a nice little puddle around the sides of the pot, inside the tray.

 

[Dan Ultra]

Pour it out. It will suck it back up if you leave and might start to build up salts and minerals. The reason for runoff is so it pushes some of the buildup out of the medium.

 

[Antics]

Ok I'm here! I see Dan's already here though, you didn't need me bud! Dan knows his shit.

If you wanted to check out my journal as well, here's a link to the last page: Antics Perpetual Learning Experience

I'm trying a perpetual grow. I have 1 plant from seed flowering, 1 clone flowering both for 13 days. And just added a small clone, under 12/12 for only 1 day, and I have another plant that was nicknamed Big Bitch (Strain is Big Bang) still in Veg due to constant problems.

And I'll be doing some more cloning in a few weeks, along with a new seed planted.

 

[Antics]

You can also take that runoff and pour it into a container near a fan, if your humidity is too low, but you definitely don't want the plants absorbing it, it will contain a large quantity of salts like Dan said.

 

[Dan Ultra]

You can also take that runoff and pour it into a container near a fan, if your humidity is too low, but you definitely don't want the plants absorbing it, it will contain a large quantity of salts like Dan said.

I pour my runoff into my geraniums and hibiscus plants outside. They seem to like the extra food a lot

 

[Happyjoy]

thnks everyone!
should i top the medi haze again? shes really stretching out much more than all the others. her branches are all about 3 inches now. i wonder if she needs a new topping?

also. just out of curiosity. how much buds would i get if i switched them into flowering now on average? i know it depends on alot of factors, but just about average?

 

[Happyjoy]

hey everyone.
i have a question. being that im using LED's now, is it nescesary for me to add CALmag?
i know that people using LED's usually do. but im wondering if its different in my case?
being that im using BIOBIZZ starter pack nutes. and my tap water is from a very good natural water source (all the water in our area is from natural underground fresh well sources). in addition i have a good carbon filter on my water.
so my tap water, together with the biobizz mixed in, comes out to around a PH of 6.
so being that all this seems optimal, would i still need to add CALmag to balance out problems with the LED's. or is it unescesary?

BTW, heres a pic of one of the leaves on my plant i noticed in the past few days. could this be because of the change to LED's and brightness?
its hard to see by the pic. but it doesnt look like those dots ive seen of mag def pics of leaves. it looks more like a scartch to me. but theres nothing in there that would scratch them though.

thnks!

 

[Antics]

Why top again when you can LST?

If you switched to 12/12 now, based on the most recent pictures, you'd probably be a little disappointed in the yield per plant.

IMO, anything under an ounce is a waste of a seed and time, and I think you'd be under an ounce. No way to really estimate/guess other than that,, I've never flowered a plant this small.

Whether or not you need calmag depends on your nutes. Can you take a picture with normal lighting? You MIGHT have something going on there, but I want to be sure, since we only see it on 1 leaf.

 

[Happyjoy]

hi everyone. heres some updated pics.
first of all. heres the pic of that scratch in regular lighting:

heres some more pics of the plants. (afterwards ill pit pics of them after just tying them down

i decided to tie down the medi haze. i tied just the branches since they were almost 4 inch long.
the durban poison though i tide it from the main stem pulled in one direction, and the top pulled in the other direction. since the actual branches werent so long. its been growing in kind of a bushy circle. ill see the difference between these two methods.
(the maui waui has been left untouched in the meantime)
MEDI HAZE:

DURBAN P

BTW the pics are taken right after tying. already today less than 24 hrs after, they look much different.

IM STILL TRYING TO FIGURE OUT IF I SHOULD BE ADDING CALMAG since im using LEDS. being that im using biobizz organic nutes, and my runuff water PH is around 6.5, maybe i dont need....
i asked biobizz (im using theyre nutes), and heres their reply..... doesnt realy give me any guidance though

Cal/Mag supplements are a hoax. There is more than enough Ca/Mg in all our products. But it is a fact, that growing under LED means plant scan take up much more nutrients in general, not just Ca/Mg. We have done some tests ourselves and some plants under LED's even took up to 20ml per liter of Biobloom! We did not like that so much. We prefer to give people advise on how they can use Biobizz at minimal dosages to have maximum results. And LED's are not so well innovated yet that they give a bigger yield for the huge amount of extra nutrients they require. So stick with HPS or sunlight is our opinion. We are old fashioned people, sorry J

 

[Antics]

First, I'll just say they lost all my business until they can learn how to change with technology.
Secondly, if CalMag products were a hoax, it would be bullshit in a bottle, and contain no calcium or magnesium.

And basically what they seem to be saying is: "We lack the ability and/or knowledge and/or desire to thoroughly test our products in mediums grown with LED lighting. So we don't care about those customers who choose to grow with LED lights. Thank you for your purchase, but you're on your own and we refuse to help you"

Horrible way to do business IMO.

CalMag seems to be an absolute necessity with LEDs and coco. When it comes to LED and soil, you may or may not need it, and that will really depend mostly on the strain. They're just like people. Some people like pizza more than others. Some strains like Calcium and Magnesium more than others.

I like pizza a lot, if anyone was wondering

Now if the problem isn't advancing, which is doesn't appear to be, I would ignore it as chalk it up to being a fluke. I had one leaf on my Cotton Candy show a nasty phosphorous deficiency. No other leaves affected, so I took no action.
But it does look like a Magnesium problem. But again, I wouldn't worry unless it keeps advancing.

Now for your LST. Good start, BUT you don't want that wire on your branches. As the plant grows the wire will cut into the branches. You can take small sections of drinking straws to slip over the wire, and give you a wider contact area with the branch.