First Grow Ever!

[sle7in]

So this is my very first grow. My mother grows, but she is a bit more traditional and just uses soil and some florescent bulbs nothing special. I decided to one up her and went out to spend a few hundred bucks and got my supplies.

I am doing a K.I.S.S. method on my nutes so any advice would help me lots.

Equipment:
Sunburst 400W HPS/MH Lighting. MH for Veg, HPS for Flower
Custom Ebb and Flow Setup
General Hydroponics Maxigrow for Veg, Maxibloom for Flower.

I am currently germinating some seeds I got from a friend (as a test, I ordered some real ones already) as a test. After germination I will put in rockwool and place under lamp. After the roots pop from the rockwool I will transplant into some coco-loco.

Veg will be 18-6 from 6AM-12AM, Flower 12-12

Watering times will be 4 times a day as I was told this coco mixture retains water fairly well. Once at 5:45AM, 11:45AM, 5:45PM and at 11:45PM.

Maxigrow is currently mixed at 1tsp per Gal in a 12Gal res. Maybe that is too strong but I will watch plant and adjust as needed. PH is kept around 5.5 as much as possible. Will prob flush res every other week not really sure on that, need to keep reading.

Looking forward to having people from this great community help me out as I learn!

PICS! Sorry for the sideways image.

 

[sle7in]

Day 2

So only one concern for today. I checked my pH in the res and it was significantly higher than when I started. After some reading, I discovered that I should probably have a carbon filter in the res so that the pH down will take easier. Anyone have any feedback on this? Although adding some pH down did bring it down. I don't want it to crash later on.

When I took the pictures earlier in the day only 1 seed had sprouted with the other one barely popping through, but now as I write, the other seed has finally popped and is looking on track.

Let me know if there's any improvements I can make! Thanks guys.

 

[OldMedUser]

High Sle7in and to 420!

Carbon filter won't do squat to pH but is used for odor control for your future buds.

What are you using for water. Tap sux, RO is best. If you are using tap then get a water report from your provider and post it here so I can have a look.

I would have started in much smaller pots then moved them into those when they were 6" tall or so. With seed the tap root will go for the bottom and the top half of the pot won't have many roots in it. Clones, not so much. Watering once a day for 20 - 30 min is lots for the media you are using and a baby plant. Multiple times/day for hydroton and maybe 4-6/day for rockwool. Unless they are autos then start them in the biggest pot that you want to use to get the biggest plant.

A buddy of mine had a 4 x 8' flood table and started clones in 1 1/2" or so rockwool cubes, then into 4" cubes leaving the side wraps on then into big slabs that he put on top of about 6" of hydroton, peeled the wrap off and buried with hydroton a few inches over the slab to keep light off. 1000W light on a 6' light mover. Went crazy on him and and was a freakin' forest. Lots of fun for me but a big hassle for him. 2nd grow he got mites then root rot and gave up. Was dealing pounds the last time I saw him. Said selling other people's pot was a heck of a lot easier and more profitable than growin it.

I am doing a K.I.S.S. method on my nutes so any advice would help me lots.

If you were really going full-on K.I.S.S. you would be using pH Perfect nutes and not fussing with pH at all even with tap water.

Your pH moving up is typical of high alkalinity/hard water. Get that water report so I can tell you how to deal with it to prevent toxic salts buildup and nutrient lockouts.

Flushing for you will be fairly painless if you have an easy way to pump water from your rez out to drain. And you will need to flush regularly if your water is how I think it is. An hour ago I finished posting instructions to another new grower with similar problems but 3 single pots not an ebb and flow. You can check out that post HERE.

What you have so far will kick mommas butt if you get it dialed in. We are here to help you do that.

L8r

 

[sle7in]

Thanks for the feedback. I will ask for a water report soon and see how that is. But when I poured the tap fresh the pH seemed spot on at 6.0 so , our water is generally good here but I will look at the report.

 

[OldMedUser]

The pH is great for tap water. More acidic than usual for potable water from a town or city. 10x acidic than 7 and harder on metal parts of the delivery system. Be interesting to see what kind of minerals etc are in it and it's alkalinity.

I grabbed this off the net about pH for tap water.

" Ideal values range from 7.5 to 8.3. The lower the pH, the more corrosive the water will be."

L8r

 

[sle7in]

Day 3

No problems today. Both babies are growing steady. Cant wait to see these get bigger

 

[OldMedUser]

Looking good so far.

L8r

 

[happydude420]

 

[sle7in]

Day 4

Babies are growing kind of slowly. I now see the error I did in putting the seeds straight into such a large pot. But they still seem rather healthy.

Something exciting. I decided to go out and buy a GH Hydrofarm to test a different growing method. I also bought the base Nutrients from Aqua Vera A+B. I will use those for this test. I am germinating a couple more seeds in the proper environment now and will transplant when the roots have developed.

 

[sle7in]

Day 6

Grow seems to be going rather slow. Probably as a result of me placing the rockwool in the big grow bags from day 1 of seed. Well, at least the color is looking good and I am seeing progress. Also the genetics and quality of seed are unknown so that could be a factor.

I purchased a small cloning, germinating tray with humidity dome to germinate a few more seeds. I am wondering though should I get the root to tap in water before I place in this tray or just put seed straight in? That is going slow also . I am thinking of getting a small T5 light just so I can germinate the seeds into seedlings faster in this dome.

 

[sle7in]

Day 7 time for an update.

So I made the mistake of starting off my first 2 babies with nutes from the seed. I now switched to plain water that has been Ph adjusted. I will slowly turn them back on to nutes in about a week maybe.

The smaller plant has been transplanted into a GH hydrofarm bucket. The other, bigger one, has been kept in the same pot but I have now shut off the ebb and flood pump and elected to hand water once every 3 days. The ebb and flood is more suitable to hydroton but not the coco loco soil type mixture I was using. I think I was drowning the plant. Hopefully they will keep growing decent and can recover from my mistakes.

I also started a few more plants in the tray as you can see.

Question: I noticed the stems getting a bit long. Is the length normal or do I have my light too low? I am using a 400 Watt MH bulb right now.

 

[OldMedUser]

The plants are stretching and that's usually from not getting enough light but not getting pushed around by a breeze contributes as well. Oscillating fans are good to wave them around or flicking with your finger to toughen up the stems. As long as they stay upright and get growing the extra stem that's looks too long now won't be noticed on a foot high plant. I like starting seedlings under CFLs. They seem to grow fairly compact and well.

How high up is that 400? A foot should be good.

L8r

 

[sle7in]

It was about 2 feet up. I just lowered it now.

 

[David Bowman]

Hope all is well in your world.

Is this grow still alive?

We would love to be updated with some pictures and info.

How about posting a 420 Strain Review?

If you need any help with posting photos, please read our Photo Gallery Tutorial.

I am moving this to Abandoned Journals until we get updates.

Sending you lots of love and positive energy.