First Time Growing - Advice Welcome

[cmay]

Good day Mates.... Im doing my first grow and im starting out with AK-47 and Sour Diesel. I have a Secret Jadrin L90 and a LED 300w true 150w light with bloom and veg option running 18/6 which is 19'' from plants. I have it in a self made DWC which holds 3 gallons and has two air stones.

I germinated the seeds in wet paper towel and they where put in rapid rooter plugs. Soon after the first sign of roots came out the bottom of the plug i put them in the net pots with hydroton and drip lines to each pot at 2 gph but i closed the valve to half bc it looked like a lot at 2gph.. I was not able to get to the whole system for 2 weeks dont ask. The drip lines where clogged and who knows exatly when but the water level in the reserve dropped some and the roots where already about 1-2 feet long in the water now. I noticed that both the plants had a yellow dead leave at the first set of leafs.

I removed them but most of the other leaves arent so green. they look Like a light green almost bleeched maybe? I did a water change and bought some nutts and added them id say about 36 hours ago. My reserve hold 3 gallons but that doesnt leave much "air" space for the roots before hitting the reserve. So was i right in dropping the water level to 1.5gallons giving the roots more air room before hitting the water? Here are my super newbie questions.

I have done my research but would like to actually talk with someone who knows. I used regular tap water from the start but 36 hrs ago switched to distilled water that i made ph at 5.8 after nutts added. The ppm is low around 400-475. Oh i keep temp during day between 72-81 and humiudty around 30-50%. Night time temp doesnt go below 60-65.



1. how much distance should i keep the LED 300w true 150w Mars Light from the plants. I see mixed heights that people are stating.

2. how often do i change my reserve water. Is 7-10 days a good time which is what i have seen.

3. Does anyone have the nutt profile for each of these plants sour diesel and Ak-47? I cant find them for hydro only soil.

4. The plants look pretty small but honestly 30 days ago they where a seed. But for the first 3 weeks they didnt get any nuts to 36 hrs ago. Im using the flora-veg/bloom/micro nuts from genereal hydroponics. i added the correct dose the bottle stated per gallon

5. do i need a drip line after the plants roots hit the water reserve?

6. So if they where seeds started say mid/end jan what time frame should i let them veg for? Is it til they reach a certain height? the sour is short and bushier then the longer less flowers AK at this time.

7. How can i raise my PPM when using distilled water, my tap water is only 40ppm and the distilled is zero so i added half natural spring water and after adding nutts ppmis 450-ish.

8. Should i start with a home made CO2 booster now or wait til bloom stage, if i get there lol!

9. Is my DWC reserve big enough to sustain two plants. It holds 3gallons but im running 1.5g currently.

Thank you in advance for all the help.




ps im trying to get pics of these little ladies up

The set up
Set Up - 420 Magazine Photo Gallery

Sour Deisel 3 weeks from seed
Sour_Diesel_Week_3_from_seed - 420 Magazine Photo Gallery

The AK-47 3 weeks from seed
Ak47_week_3_from_seed - 420 Magazine Photo Gallery

 

[nuggs78]

re: First Time Growing & Could Use Some Help

Use phd water and 450 fine .I say let them get to 12"-14" inches thenflip them to 12/12 put the mars reflecter up to 24"-30" away from plants and that small reservoir for 1 plant definitely for 2 in dwc you want 5gallons per plant root space .I would invest in a 10 gallon tote .Im at day 34 with my plants and my ppm is 534 .Thats with full dose of grow nutrients I use .yes every 7 days is good to change the water best to do it when you get ready feed .Clean out the reservoir then add fresh water and nutrients back to the reservoir .watch the temperature in tour reservoir to make sure there held 68-70 degrees to prevent root rot and get the h2o they need correctly.hope this helps you out .My plants for slow start to this go around .there good now make sure that you top feed every once in awhile to it helps to let the roots get splash water every so often.

 

[hambone3052]

re: First Time Growing & Could Use Some Help

1. I have a 450w led and keep mine about 20-28" away during veg stage (30"-34" during early veg/seedling)...14"-20" during flower. Also, are you experiencing any wilting or deformation of your leaves showing heat stress from your lights?
2. I def clean my dwc res every 7 days. You'll notice a small slimy build up even in 7 days
3. I've never grown those strains
4. Most people I've talked to usually recommend not using what is recommend on the back of the bottle. Most recommend using half strength and adjusting up or down from there based off how the plants react.
5. I'm a newbie grower myself....what do you mean by drip line? Like top watering them as well? Only asking cause I would like to know if this is beneficial for my setup as well.
6. I base my veg stage around height. I'm usually looking for my babies to get at least to their 5th node before I think about putting into flower. But on average that allows my plants to reach around 3' by harvest (I also have topped and FIM'ed my plants in the past to allow me to lengthen grow periods)
7. Your ppm is just fine where it's at. As the plants get bigger, you'll be adding more nutes. As you do this, the nutes will bring up your ppm levels
8. I've never used co2 but it does require some adjustments to your grow. Temp, humidity, ect.
9. I would also recommend individual 5 gallon buckets. I run 5 gal and my roots wrap up on the bottom and fills my res by the time I harvest.
I would also recommend getting a humidifier if you don't have one cause your plants will do better during veg stage in 50-70% humidity. Keep it around 30-50% during flower.

 

[cmay]

The set up
Set Up

Sour Deisel 3 weeks from seed
Sour_Diesel_Week_3_from_seed

The AK-47 3 weeks from seed
Ak47_week_3_from_seed

Thanks guys im still trying to get the hang of this posting picture thing.

Ok so you think my dwc is too small for two plants? I have seen so many more set ups with more plants in the same size dwc as mine. I will check on humidity and add one if needed. It seems maybe my light was too low at 19' but i wasnt getting leaf burn or dark spots at that temp. Its now been moved to 24'' for the last few days.

After having the nuts in i can say these little guys have perked up and are looking "more alive".

 

[cmay]

How often do i feed them with a dwc?

 

[Upinsmoke535]

there should always be nutes in you nutrient solution. the amount and ratios you add to you res will change week to week as your plants move through the phases of veg and bloom. most nutes will have these ratios on the label but it is best to go a bit lighter then what they recommend on the bottle.and always watch your ph. and as you learn your plants and how they work with your system you can adjust your nutes as you see fit. the key is to have a big enough res so your plants will have enough food to last between res changes, about a week is good practice.

 

[hambone3052]

If you purchase a humidifier, be careful to buy cool mist if you have heat issues...and warm mist if your room is too cold. I know that your plants will grow in a 3 gallon bucket, but your plants will thrive more if they have more room to grow. More oxygen to each plant is only going to help them grow even bigger. And only add nutes when you do your water changes. If you need to add water to your res mid week, in between water changes, just ph your water and do not add any additional nutes. Once a week is just enough

 

[cmay]

Ok thank you for the feed back. So ill be doing a water change and feeding weekly to them. Any take on adding Co2 to the grow? I will try and find a bigger dwc for this. My tent is only 4.5 feet tall and with a 5 gallon bucket wouldn't that takes up a lot of height in this tent. Also are you guys able to see the pictures in my link. Im trying to figure that picture thing out as well. Anything else i should be adding to my nutes other then floa-veg/mirco from general hydroponics. Also what is flora micro?

 

[Upinsmoke535]

GH has 3 parts to the flora line. micro grow bloom. all three parts are used together but in different ratios for each week/stage of growth. "glow and bloom" with have you macro nutrients, and "micro" will have you micro nutes. Cannabis needs the correct combination of macro and micronutrients to live, grow and bloom properly

 

[hambone3052]

I would look into some sort of training technique. Topping, FIM'ing, LST...yada yada yada. It will allow you to maximize yield while utilizing a smaller grow space. I have topped and FIM'ed in the past and it is relatively easy to do. As to your pics, they look good and healthy. A little light green, but maybe that's a strain characteristics, and hopefully someone who has grown those particular strains can find your journal and help.

 

[nuggs78]

Ya good ad ice here get bigger container fim or top your plants.tie down or scrog them feed 1 a week add ph water as needed .dealing with co2 rises your temperature very high im talking 95-100 degrees I used it in flower before did not like how high my temperature got .unless you got some way to regulate your temperature I wouldn't bother with the co2 .you only got small area grow in get the fill of growing first .then after few grows tinker with co2 .

 

[Papageno]

I saw your post in the FAQ and the nature of many of your questions was not good. So I finally found your journal and I hope you are getting some good stuff here. I am not going to double check the questions match the other thread but I will give some perspective on what you have asked here.

1. how much distance should i keep the LED 300w true 150w Mars Light from the plants. I see mixed heights that people are stating.

The distance is not fixed hence why you get mixed answers. In very early plants that are weak and don't have decent fan leafs (I am talking 1-2 week old plants ) you don't want it too close like actually 2 feet away is good or more. They don't need a lot of light. As they grow and become stronger and develop some real leaf structure you can get it closer. But do it very slowly. like drop it not more than 3 inches a day and remember the plant is growing. So make sure the total distance does not shrink more than 3 inches a day. at some point you may notice a problem and then obviously back off. The reason I say that is because it really comes down to the strain and health of the plant. If you are not using Silica then the cell walls are not as strong so that will matter. If the plant is not in a good environment temps and humidity wise then the photosynthesis is lower and it wont be happy as close to the light. there are many more factors. So if you can dial in a perfect grow situation the answer is much closer then what most people can achieve.

2. how often do i change my reserve water. Is 7-10 days a good time which is what i have seen.

This is really about your skill level I wont need to change faster than every 4 weeks...in fact I can go longer but usually choose not to. I have a buddy who has been growing nearly 30 years nd he can get through his entire grow just topping off and adjusting but he does fast grows. Many people dump it weekly for various reasons I wont go into. It comes down to your method and ability to understand what the res measurements are telling you. For example... If show me 3 days of measurements and include the top off info I can tell you usually without pictures what is happening and what is wrong. When you can understand what the res is telling you then you can just top off and keep it going and the plants see much less shock and are very happy.

3. Does anyone have the nutt profile for each of these plants sour diesel and Ak-47? I cant find them for hydro only soil.

Unless you are running their exact system with the same level of photosynthesis it is likely that the numbers you would get are not dialed in for your setup. Any answer you may get for this would be a rule of thumb at best. Much better is to follow a standard program ( I will post a hydro chart below) and learn how to read what the plant and res is telling you.

I do know the AK line is hungry for nitrogen. But that is also the most common thing for people to overdose so just watch for that.

4. The plants look pretty small but honestly 30 days ago they where a seed. But for the first 3 weeks they didnt get any nuts to 36 hrs ago. Im using the flora-veg/bloom/micro nuts from genereal hydroponics. i added the correct dose the bottle stated per gallon

I don't see a question here. I wouldn't use bloom yet you can save that for the bloom phase. What I haven't seen here is a Cal / Mag or Silica supplement which are very important. Also you haven't mentioned anything about trying to run this either Sterile or living. you must make a choice and go one way or the other. If you do not you will have issues and likely will be dumping the res often. It is a religious debate so I am not going into it just yet. I will wait until you have a problem that can't be solved by the one most people choose and then teach you how to solve it the right way. Newbs usually make the same decision and that is fine as long as they do it right and it works great until it doesn't and then either you lose your grow or you switch for a while. Go do some research on that and make a decision and jump in with both feet.

5. do i need a drip line after the plants roots hit the water reserve?

No and actually it can cause problems. not guaranteed but it can be problematic if not done correctly. best to just shut it off at that point so long as you have good air stones and air pump.

6. So if they where seeds started say mid/end jan what time frame should i let them veg for? Is it til they reach a certain height? the sour is short and bushier then the longer less flowers AK at this time.

Cannabis should not be flowered before it is at least 1 month old. That said the time to flower is any time after 1 month but not before they reach the right height. If you do everything right the plant can triple in size during bloom. It will likely at least double. So measure out your space, figure out how high you can place the light and then back off at least 12 inches from there and measure that height to the top of the system. Then do the math to find out your veg height. If it is too short you must do some training of the plant.

7. How can i raise my PPM when using distilled water, my tap water is only 40ppm and the distilled is zero so i added half natural spring water and after adding nutts ppmis 450-ish.

First off distilled water is not good for DWC. If you have 40PPM from the tap, unless your water district uses chlorimate and or fluoride you don't have anything to worry about just dechlorinate the water by leaving it in a bucket overnight. Go check out the water districts website and all the info will be there. If they use flouride you will want to get a filter to get that out. Chlorimate is something you want to get out if you use a living res. If you go sterile then it is fine to leave in there. In fact the most common thing people go buy to fix pythium (root rot) is to add chlorimate back to the res to try and kill it. there are many trace minerals in most tap water that are good for the plant.

With the water you are using if you do not ad Cal/Mag to the system you will soon have a deficiency with one or both of those which will be real bad long term.

The way to raise PPM is to ad more fertilizer and that is not the point nor desired. I don't understand the nature of this question. in general you want to run with as low a ppm as the plant is hapy with. running close to the top end of the good range is begging for trouble. you really want to run in the middle. Early in the growth 450 is pleanty. Most people don't ever need to go over 800. I have gone up to 1300 before but you really need to know what you are doing to push it that hard and have a big light and lots of fan leaves.

Higher nutes don't make better plants. The fertilizers are there to support the plant growth which is a function of photosynthesis. The more photosynthesis going on the more nutes you need. So the more lights and fan leaves you have the more nutes you need. If you run less than optimal lighting and temps and humidity and air flow conditions you wont want higher levels of nutes otherwise you will burn the plants. The recommended dosage on the bottles is for ideal conditions (like a 1000W HID light) which most people fail to achieve.

8. Should i start with a home made CO2 booster now or wait til bloom stage, if i get there lol!

Not at all. CO2 is an advanced technique that requires a lot of things be done differently to work. the room must be much hotter and you must recirculate the air and you must vent and clear it out at night. The minimum level of PPM to get actual benefit is so high that it can not be achieved in a small grow space because of the ventilation requirements. DO not go there until you have a good opperation working and understand what you are doing.

9. Is my DWC reserve big enough to sustain two plants. It holds 3gallons but im running 1.5g currently.

No. The rule of thumb is 5 gallons per plant. It is fine to go less and many people do around 3-3.5 per plant but the less you do the harder it is to control. At 5 gallons a plant it is real easy to control. Over 5 gallons a plant and you are not making it any easier on yourself unless you really don't know what you are doing. The lower you go the harder it is and the more work you will do.

Just think about this. when my plants really get going I have a common res setup and I have 4 plants running and will top off with 4-5 gallons a day. So my plants are drinking a gallon or more a day. So if you could somehow manage to keep it that healthy and only had 1.5 gallons in there your plant would use it all up each day. Now that can't happen, the plant wont use it all up and will actually stunt and eventually die. At 1.5 gallons as it drinks up the water, unless it is balanced right, the nut concentration goes up and it becomes toxic in there. Almost no one can manage the total concentration so tightly that the plant can drink up all the water in there. Hence you want 5 gallons in there so that when it drinks 1.5 and is down to 3.5 what is left is not a toxic mess.

Good Luck!

 

[cmay]

Thank you for the insite. Ham I have been watching videos on how to top the plants and even clip clones. The whole taking off the top part of the plant freaks me out lol.

Villiage I thank you for the advice and I dont know what sterlie or living means. Why is Distilled water bad and my local water is really high is chlorine and fluoride. I heard RO is best but dont know where to get that.

Upinsmoke- Im using the Flora-Micro and Flora-Veg together currently. I know not to use the bloom at this point. Iam i correct in using the bloom later during the flowering phase?

 

[hambone3052]

Worse thing that happens when u mess up a top is you just fimmed your plant lol (fck I missed)

 

[Papageno]

I figured you hadn't stumbled onto sterile vs living.

It is a messy thing because so many people don't know about it. Many totally mess it up and do both at the same time and are just wasting money. those who do know what they are doing have strong opinions and it turns into a real battle over who is correct. But the facts are if you don't do one or the other you are fighting nature the whole way through and it can and inevitably will kill a grow at some point. Maybe not this one or you next one but at some point you will loose a grow because you let something go too long not realizing this is happening.

It is a very simple concept and I will leave it to you to do research. You can either try to fight nature and keep the res solution"sterile" and try to make it so no living microorganisms can survive in there OR you can try to work with nature and fill it full of symbiotic microorganisms like the plant sees in the real world and when done correctly they will win and kill off all the bad ones and aid the plant in many ways. Both ways work. But what you don't want to do is run a sterile system and dump in beneficial bacteria ("benies" as most people call them) as that is flushing money down the drain. Nor do you want to not run sterile and not put in benies and let bad stuff flourish creating slim and rot and other problems that can be catastrophic.

Most people choose one or the other and make it work well...both have their place. I am very biased so I don't want to give you too much here I would rather you do some reading then come ask me why this and that. I have saved many grows on here converting people from one to the other because when the one fails you have to do the other. They never go back. You can easily alternate back and forth so nothing says you can fix the problem then go back to how you were just the benefits of what I do out weigh the other so people never go back.

Every company making fertilizer products sells their own line of beneficial bacteria and fungi so what happens is people go ahead and buy the whole line and start using it as directed but also the store clerks convince them to buy all the equipment and chemicals and they start running a water chiller and dumping in H2O2 and the later add bacteria and are just flushing money down the drain.

AS for water... There is a lot of misinformation out there. RO filters are great and do the best job at filtering water but we don't actually need that. It is great if you want to start at a very clean state for counting purposes (much easier to add up the ppm when the starting point is 0 then 200). But the facts are many of the trace minerals in the water are beneficial to the plant. Some are actually necessary and when removed must be added back in (Calcium and Magnesium come to mind). What needs to be removed is the fluoride which doesn't really need to be removed if it is low does but in general is very good to remove. There are many cheap filters on the market for removing fluoride. You can make you r own bug filter by connecting a few buckets together with a good filter and that will remove the fluoride. Do a search for Prepers water filter and you will find many but the 2 bucket method is easy and cheap and works great.

The second thing in water that matters is the Chlorine or Chlorimate. Many water districts have switched to chlorimate as it is cheaper. you have one or the other. Chlorine is simple it evaporates in a few hours in a 5 gallon bucket with some air stones or you can let it just sit for like 12 hours and it is fine. I have a bunch of 5 gallon buckets and when I use the water I immediately refill them and set them aside with a breathable cover and I always have chlorine free water hanging around. If you have chlorimate you have to filter that out and I recommend the same thing as for flouride and just get a reasonable filter. The 1 caveat is you don't need to get rid of chlorine or chlorimate if you are running sterile. in fact chlorimate is packaged and can be bought at the hydro store and is like the second thing they will recommend you add to the system if you have a problem. so removing it and running sterile is kind of a waste.

By the way I will post a link to a journal below where I walk this guy through DWC. he is just about to harvest. at some point in his journal I explain everything you need to know. if you take the time to read through his journal and understand it you will have all the info you need to grow a DWC successfully. He followed my every direction step by step and has a wonderful result. the few things that didn't work were where he didn't do what I recommend and he knows it. he even did some major things wrong but because he followed my advice for everything it all worked out.

Check this out. It is a highly rated highly followed journal.
ClosetCase420's - RDWC - 600W MH/HPS - Wonder Woman - Grow Journal - 2015

 

[Upinsmoke535]

Thank you for the insite. Ham I have been watching videos on how to top the plants and even clip clones. The whole taking off the top part of the plant freaks me out lol.

Villiage I thank you for the advice and I dont know what sterlie or living means. Why is Distilled water bad and my local water is really high is chlorine and fluoride. I heard RO is best but dont know where to get that.

Upinsmoke- Im using the Flora-Micro and Flora-Veg together currently. I know not to use the bloom at this point. Iam i correct in using the bloom later during the flowering phase?

yes use bloom during flower

 

[cmay]

HAM Im very scared about topping but i think with the crew here and the pictures i post, ill get the right guidance in doing it correctly. Villiage i'll check that out and study it which is what i been doing for the last few months before i started this. what about the Silica and when do i add that? from the start or only during a certain phase that the plant is in.

 

[Papageno]

I want to be clear that running a living res doesn't mean you don't have a sterile grow space. All the same rules apply. You need to keep things clean.

There are a lot of ways to top and just about everything works. the plant is very robust and if you don't train or top you are substantially reducing yield. Most people do some sort of both. Not topping is jut amateurish. Don't be afraid just wait until there are 3 sets of good nodes below for the first one minimum. After that you can go a bit crazy. Never trim more than 15% of the plant off in 1 week.

Silica I use as my pH up as it is very alkaline and you can't overdoes it really. It comes with some Potassium mixed in which is nice. You should do it not less than every 2 weeks but that is if you are running a good res and letting it all be taken up. If you are dumping the res all the time you need to be adding it all the time. Well you don't need to just that without it you have a weaker plant that wont hold up to heavy flowers and may be more susceptible to various problems. Only newbs don't use it. the bottle has directions for dose and you will be fine. If you use it for you up when adjusting it gets a little all the time and you are fine.

 

[cmay]

Ok more reading for me to do. I have see how people are using gold fish in there DWC for similar purpose are you stated above.


UPDATE: I now have had the girls in some nutes for the last 3 days and have adjusted the the Ph to 5.6 and my pph is now at 420, yeah i know what are the odds i laughed when i say that. I have also added a cool misting humidifer thats bringing the text to a range of 50-78% depending time of day. These girls have been very happy with these adjustments. I will be getting each into a DWC that will devote either 3.5g per plant or 5g each. Not sure which im going with as of yet but i have time to get that done. Here are some updated pics from a few days ago.

Lights been at 26'' dropped it this afternoon to 22''.....the Sour Dee is getting bushy and the AK-47 looks like she wants to grow tall. That AK i have a feeling from what i hear will need to be topped.

Oh how often do i top feed and should misting only be done with LED off or LED wont burn if leafs get wet when lights on. Do mist with nutues solution?

The Tent Set Up
First time Growing 300wLED DWC Sour Dee Ak-47

Sour Dee
First time Growing 300wLED DWC Sour Dee Ak-47

AK-47
First time Growing 300wLED DWC Sour Dee Ak-47

 

[Papageno]

ouch...

No, no and no...

Superthrive is for transplanting. Not really needed for cannabis. Many people use it and it is a waste of money for a cannabis grow unless you make some big time mistakes.

Miracle grow has time released nutes that make it near impossible to under feed. Most people have nut burn issues with it. In general (Miracle grow aside) if you find you have multiple deficiencies it is very likley a pH problem causing nutes to be immobile or completely locked out.

Most people using Miracle grow have real problems at the end because you can't flush due to time released nutes. Cannabis is an 8 to 12 week bloom with a 4 -6 week grow. So max 4 months depending on strain. Miracle grow will release nutes minimum of 6 months and usually longer so you cannot control or flush the soil near the end like you need to.

So likely there is an issue but the diagnosis needs some work. I would recommend you start your own thread with pictures and explain the situation clearly.