Help 1st time grower - all info inside

[fuzzy911]

Hi guys, it's my 1st grow and post in the forum!
I've done some respectable amounts of reading before posting but as you all may know when you start the real deal for the first time you might get some quastions and debates, so here is my setup details below:

What Strain is it? - White Widow/Master Kush, seeds from Amsterdam probably feminized, some good quality as i was told.
Is it Indica, Sativa or Hybrid? What percentages? - Dont know the exact %, but you know the strain
How Many Plants? - 3
Is it in Vegetative or Flowering Stage? - Pre veg my guess, i planted the non-germinated seeds 16 days ago staright up in the pot with the soil, 3 days later is saw some life sings.
If in Vegetative Stage... How Long?
Indoor or Outdoor? - indoor
Soil or Hydro? - soil
If Soil... What is in your Mix? - i bought a premade mix, it has a little % of perlite i dont know the exact description, pretty much the same texture without much sticks or rocks, just some perlite. fine grains of earth too.
If Soil... What Size Pot? - Currently 3 pots, each 23CM in diameter and 19Cm height.
Size (Wattage) of Light? How Many? - 1 250W HPS light bulb
Is it Air Cooled? - i have 1 fan that pumps air, it is currently not sealed and i open it almoast every day to let the room and the cabinet breathe.
Temperature of Cabinet? - 22C-23C
RH of Cabinet? - 60%-70%
PH of Medium or Reservoir? - To be tested once the meter arrives
Any Pests? - No thank you
How Often are you Watering? - 2/3 days, as it feels
The distance between the bulb and the top of the plant? - 70CM

Type and Strength of Fertilizers used? - Didnt furtelize yet, however i have th following products all from "CANNA":
1.Terra Flores N-P-K = 2-2-4
2.Terra Vega N-P-K = 3-1-4
3.Canazym N-P-K = 0-2-1
4. CANNA PK - N-P-K = 0-13-14
5.CANNA BOOTS ECCELERATOR - NO N-P-K values it seems

Size or Square Footage of the cabinet? 80CM width by 55 CM lenght and a total of 165Cm tall.

Now that you know the details, as you can see i planted the seeds without germination 16 days ago, the photos you see below are from today, means a total of 13 days since germination.
I planted randomly a mix of Maste Kush and White Widow seeds i received form Amsterdam, i beleive they are feminized so i dont expect any surprises. I use 18/6 light setup.
I have a couple of quastions for the wise folk in this comunity:

1. As you can see from the photos, i have 3 plants, 1 of them is straight up and proud, but the other 2 started to show some horizontal growth in the past 2 days, as you see in the photos the lay down and create and angle between the stamp and the begining of the leaves. im worried the lack something or the light is some how incefisient or to far from the plant, i use some reflectors and white carboard to reflect almoast every spare wall of floor inside the cabinet. or maybe its time to fertilize, if so what mix of the ones i have shoud i use and what strenght according to their instructions of mixture.

The first laying plat:

The second:

The straight up one:

The photos were taken with the light on so the colors arent clear, i can tell that they are perfectly light green,
but the 2 "limp" plants started to show some twisted leaf syndrom, shuld i worry???

2.Can i have some guide lines or time schedule regarding the fertilizers, wich one should i use when and how much strenght from the ones i already have or if i need something different, i know im suppose to fertilize once every 2 or 3 waterings, but when to start and when to switch fertilizers according to the plant life cycle?

3.Final quastion, should i replant them at all and if so to what dimensions of a medium and when?

Thanks,
1st time grower XD

 

[Tead]

Re: Help 1st time grower- all info inside

Your not triggering on the actual issue. Your babies are way "stretched". They're stretched because your light is way too far away from your babies.
Don't overheat them, but get the light much closer. I have my lights about 6 in. from my babies... but I'm running CF so I can get much closer without the heat.
Your babies are not ready to feed yet. There's plenty in the soil already.
They're not ready from a replant yet. Wait for them to get well established.

 

[Tead]

Re: Help 1st time grower- all info inside

hmmm.... that sure looks like Miracle Grow soil. Soils like miracle grow have slow release nutrients in them. This is bad and will screw you. If you must use soil with slow release nutrients in them, keep your canna nutrients in the cupboard.... you'll burn them right up.
Get some non-slow release soil when you replant. Cut the soil to about 25% perlite. The perlite is very important. It will allow your soil to drain much better. You current soil mix is way too thick.

 

[fuzzy911]

Re: Help 1st time grower- all info inside

Thank for the quick reply, I will lower the light right away atleast half way down from the current height.
The soil is a little thick, I will check if it has nutes inside maybe i will be able to find the old bag i threw away or ask a friend who bought the same.
What concerened me was the fact that the plants start to grow sideways and develop angles at the top vefore the leaves appear and 1 also down just at the begining of the stamp, should i sue soem wire to straighten them and fix to the medium just to keep them staright?

 

[Tead]

Re: Help 1st time grower- all info inside

They'll perk right up when they get more light, but you might want to support them temporarily with a stick or a wire.
Your soil is way thick. As soon as they get a little healthier, put them in a new mix with the perlite added.
MJ likes it's roots to dry out quite a bit between waterings. They also like to get some air to them. The lighter soil mix will help with these two things.

 

[lushgreen]

Re: Help 1st time grower- all info inside

Lower your lights. apart from that, they're doing well. Stake them up with a chopstick or similar.
You can bury most of that excess stem right up to the first node next time you re-pot them so they're not too tall.

 

[fuzzy911]

Re: Help 1st time grower- all info inside

I've lowered the lights and as expected the tepm spiked up, what is the highest temp i can afford to maintain during day time (the 16 hours of light im currently running)?
Also i've found the bag of the soil mix, it does say it contains coco,perlite,tuff and some fertilizer (doesnt spec amounts, what kind or slow/fast release).
When its time to report (how long is it???), what size should the last medium be according to my tent size, what soil mix should i buy so i dont f**k up the 2nd time, and should i try to remove any spare soil from around the plant so there is as less "bad soil" in the new mediums?

 

[Tead]

Temps - when you get over 80f, you're getting dangerous. I see light burns at about 90f. Your experience in your grow area will vary. I try to maintain my temps at 80f.

It seems like your soil might not be optimal. In a perfect world, you should use soil without any fertilizers in it, and cut it with about 25% perlite to give you good drainage.
When you re-plant, just let the soil fall from the root ball. Don't try to poke around inside the roots as they can break pretty easily.

Most folks growing in soil use 5 gal containers. This gives enough room for the roots. I've gone smaller and it really effects plant size. The larger your roots, the larger your plant can grow.

 

[fuzzy911]

Thanks for the advise Tead, I guess ill find that sweet spot to put the lamp just at the right height.
Regarding the re-poting and fertelizing, when is a good time to replace my babies, 2nd 3rd node or later?
And when should i start feeding them nutes exxcept the ones i got prepacked in the soil, i've written down a list of nutes i got from a grower friend can you pelase advise when should i use each product and how?

 

[Tead]

I'm not going to address your nutrient questions except to say that I would start at 1/4 the strength directed by the manufacturer... especially since you're not sure of your soil nutrients.
If it were my garden, I'd give them another week where they are, then move them to larger containers. Also, as lushgreen mentioned, you can put them deeper when you replant them and put most of that stretched stem under the soil.

 

[fuzzy911]

From my advantures across the forum and the many growing posts i saw i can say that my growing is a bit slow,
that caused me to beleive that its due to the great distance between the light and the plants for the 1st period before i changed it.
After i lowered the light to the maximun point before its overheating my plants i still cosider adding a couple of CFL's to the setup.
Maybe 2 or 3 lights to come straight down close by to the plants(where is the best location to place them?).
Is there any recomendation to what wattage should i use or just buy what ever in the range of 30-50, and what should i do with the HPS ligh for now if i add 3 CFL bulbs?
Later i will upload updated pics of the kids for the profesionals inspectors out here.

 

[Tead]

Your plants may appreciate the added wattage when they get a bit bigger. Right now, not so much. They're very small still and really have fairly low light requirements. There's no real need to add more light at this moment.
Of course, it couldn't hurt anything (unless you overheat), so you might want to hang the extra lights now anyway. More light is almost always better. I supplement my big light with 2 strings of 5x23w CF side lighting in my flower area.
Patience.... it's a tough lesson that growers are taught constantly.

 

[fuzzy911]

Hi again, i've uploaded some photos to check on the progress of my babies =]
What im currently a little worried about is the 2 twisting leaves i have on 1 of my plants.
I've done some reading and thought that the cause to this may be some spikes in temprature i had a couple of times in the last few days,
i pretty much over it right now i installed some vents and ajusted the whole setup to be less of an oven and more of a cool grow closet.

the quastion is what is the severity of this thing, and what can i do to prevent it or heal the plant.
I still dot give them nutes im waiting for them to grow a little bit bigger and replant to the final medium with new soil mix, what do you think is the idial size for the final re-potting?

 

[Tead]

Great job supporting them!
They look SO much better now.
Those lower leaves that grew when the plant wasn't getting enough light will be weak and crappy. Don't sweat it one bit. They're single finger leaves anyway. Damaged or weakened areas don't usually 'get better'. Burns will never turn green. Cupped leaves don't un-cup.
It can be hard to tell with photos under lights... but all the new growth looks very healthy and green.
I feel like it may be good to hold off on replanting for one more week. The roots are still quite young and you don't want to introduce and un-needed stress at such a sensitive time. But soon. When you do replant, lighten that soil up with perlite... it's way to rich.
Looks a bit wet in the photos. That's really the issue when you don't thin the soil. Before I thinned things up, they'd stay wet for a week at least. Roots need more air than that.

Super job recovering them!

 

[fuzzy911]

yes they are very much green, the new sets of leaves looks wonderful in my opinion thats why i try to keep them in optimal conditions so much. The soil looks wet because i watered them just the day before, usually it takes them 2-3 days before the soild starts to look dry and elss dence. In the next mix im planning to use 25% perlite, is it OK or should i add some vermiculite also?
For what its worth i would like to recommend all 1st time growers to intreduce their palnts to CFL's as well as HPS, since i added the 2 extra CFL's the plants started to grow way faster!

 

[Tead]

I never used verm in soil... but some folks do. I just can't overstate how MJ likes the wet dry root cycle. 25% might be too little... you may need a touch more. Some experience will assist you in the future. Generally you want your soil to dry out almost fully in 2 to 3 days. Local temps and humidity play a role in this too.
When you replant, bury the empty part of the stem way down. Probably covering about 1/2 of your empty stem area with soil. They might stand on their own at that point... but you may still need to support them for a bit. They should have much more weight on top when you replant them, so they still might be a bit top-heavy.

 

[fuzzy911]

The daily update:

Looking good i guess, im afraid of some more leaves getting twisted though,
it seems i cant get the temp below 80F no matter what i try, its always on 80-82F, how extreme is it for the plants on the long range? and if i get a humidifier will it down the temps a bit??
another thing is im owndering if its time to feed the yet? still no feeding done exept one 1/2 strenght by mistake.

 

[Tead]

So much nicer!!!

 

[Tead]

The heat can be a hard issue. I have to use AC. Just today I had to turn off most my lights because our temps are way up and I don't want to mount the AC yet. I think of anything over 85 being damaging in the long term. I sometime spike up to that, but I try to stay right around 80. 77 or 78 might be a safer target.
I can't really speak to your humidifier issue. I'm forced to deal with the ambient humidity.
If it were me, I might start with 1/4 strength. I'm a coward... but it's because I've burned quite a few early on.

 

[Tead]

Oh... and if you plan on xplanting them soon, now would be a good time to prep some soil by mixing it with perlite and giving it a good flush.