EricCartman
New Member
Hey guys,
First time poster, long time lurker. I've been trying to grow for about 3 years with moderate success. My plants always seem to start to die around week 5 of flower, so it's been a race to save bud. Trying to learn from my mistakes to one day become a competent grower. Any suggestions you may have as I post, please let me know. I'm openly telling you guys I don't know anything, so please don't imply anything I say or do is right.
So about this grow:
3 Fem GC from CKS. Let the seeds sit in a shot glass of water over night before putting them into a damp paper towel. They each cracked and had a strong tap root in about 36 hours, so into a pot of soil they each went.
I'm using Roots organic soil. I've used FFHF and FFOF in the past, but the FFOF always burnt my seedlings and the FFHF resulted in dying plants towards the end. I'm in no way blaming these brands and use their entire nutrient line. I blame me, but the one time I took I had a great grow from seed to flower was with Roots, so I'm gonna try it again.
The first couple weeks I'm going to use a 270W Full Spectrum LED I bought from HTG. Using a 3x3x5 grow tent with a carbon scrubber (I tried to use Ona when I first was starting but nothing compares to the scrubber) with a 6 inch inline fan. I bought a 250W ballast from HTG that can use both MH and HPS 400w bulbs. Temps stay around 70 with lights off and peak around 81.
Here they are at the end of week one from sprouting:
And here they are at about 2.5 weeks:
Prior to week 3 I did normal waterings from distilled water with some CalMag added in every other feeding. No nutrients use yet. The week 6 deaths I've talked about looked like a Calcium deficiency based on photos, so I thought I could help this grow by using.
Around this time I started to realize the soil must have been contaminated with fungus gnats, so after topping them, I put in some yellow fly traps. Some of the plants looked as if a pest had eaten small holes in the leaves.
Start of week 3 under the MH light:
A little after Week 4 :
I started using neem around week 4. I still think the culprit is fungus gnats. I've inspected every leap for aphids, but couldn't find any underneath or anything else. So I mixed 2 TBS of neem into a gallon of water and sprayed it all over the tops and bottoms.
I've used FF Grow Big and Big Bloom at 1/2 strength, alternating between nutrients and straight up distilled water the past 2 weeks. No signs of nutrient burn, but lower leaves occasionally get spots. I've done a lot of trimming at the end of each week to top them and clear undergrowth, and this has gotten most of it. But I'm terrified there's something I'm missing that will result in death during flower.
End of week 5 (First week since going to 12/12) as of 8/20:
Neem'd again cause occasionally a leaf will have a hole in it, plus some discoloration on lower leaves. PHd the water and soil as a lot of reading on these forums has lead me to believe this is a culprit. The soil in all 3 plants read around 6.5 (my meter only goes in .5 increments for soil. Hangs at 7.0 and then drops to 6.5). I check the run off in their trays as soon as I water. I watered last night using distilled water PHd at 7.0, and two plants are at 6.2 or 6.3 (they jump) but one is at 5.9. I know that the 6.3 is at the low range for growing girls, but 5.9 seems too low. I'm going to PH up my next feeding to 6.8 to see if it helps. Any advice on this topic would be much appreciated.
Here's one of the lower leafs I'm talking about:
Any advice would be very much appreciated.
First time poster, long time lurker. I've been trying to grow for about 3 years with moderate success. My plants always seem to start to die around week 5 of flower, so it's been a race to save bud. Trying to learn from my mistakes to one day become a competent grower. Any suggestions you may have as I post, please let me know. I'm openly telling you guys I don't know anything, so please don't imply anything I say or do is right.
So about this grow:
3 Fem GC from CKS. Let the seeds sit in a shot glass of water over night before putting them into a damp paper towel. They each cracked and had a strong tap root in about 36 hours, so into a pot of soil they each went.
I'm using Roots organic soil. I've used FFHF and FFOF in the past, but the FFOF always burnt my seedlings and the FFHF resulted in dying plants towards the end. I'm in no way blaming these brands and use their entire nutrient line. I blame me, but the one time I took I had a great grow from seed to flower was with Roots, so I'm gonna try it again.
The first couple weeks I'm going to use a 270W Full Spectrum LED I bought from HTG. Using a 3x3x5 grow tent with a carbon scrubber (I tried to use Ona when I first was starting but nothing compares to the scrubber) with a 6 inch inline fan. I bought a 250W ballast from HTG that can use both MH and HPS 400w bulbs. Temps stay around 70 with lights off and peak around 81.
Here they are at the end of week one from sprouting:
And here they are at about 2.5 weeks:
Prior to week 3 I did normal waterings from distilled water with some CalMag added in every other feeding. No nutrients use yet. The week 6 deaths I've talked about looked like a Calcium deficiency based on photos, so I thought I could help this grow by using.
Around this time I started to realize the soil must have been contaminated with fungus gnats, so after topping them, I put in some yellow fly traps. Some of the plants looked as if a pest had eaten small holes in the leaves.
Start of week 3 under the MH light:
A little after Week 4 :
I started using neem around week 4. I still think the culprit is fungus gnats. I've inspected every leap for aphids, but couldn't find any underneath or anything else. So I mixed 2 TBS of neem into a gallon of water and sprayed it all over the tops and bottoms.
I've used FF Grow Big and Big Bloom at 1/2 strength, alternating between nutrients and straight up distilled water the past 2 weeks. No signs of nutrient burn, but lower leaves occasionally get spots. I've done a lot of trimming at the end of each week to top them and clear undergrowth, and this has gotten most of it. But I'm terrified there's something I'm missing that will result in death during flower.
End of week 5 (First week since going to 12/12) as of 8/20:
Neem'd again cause occasionally a leaf will have a hole in it, plus some discoloration on lower leaves. PHd the water and soil as a lot of reading on these forums has lead me to believe this is a culprit. The soil in all 3 plants read around 6.5 (my meter only goes in .5 increments for soil. Hangs at 7.0 and then drops to 6.5). I check the run off in their trays as soon as I water. I watered last night using distilled water PHd at 7.0, and two plants are at 6.2 or 6.3 (they jump) but one is at 5.9. I know that the 6.3 is at the low range for growing girls, but 5.9 seems too low. I'm going to PH up my next feeding to 6.8 to see if it helps. Any advice on this topic would be much appreciated.
Here's one of the lower leafs I'm talking about:
Any advice would be very much appreciated.