Racer's First Grow with CFLs - Bag Seed

[racer123]

Hello fellow growers,

This is my first post, so please bare with me while I try to figure out how to use the forum and grow my first plants for personal use

I have ordered 5 Feminized Northern Light's and 5 Feminized AK-48's seeds from Nirvana Seeds and they should be getting here sometime this week. In the meantime, I will experiment with bag seeds for my first grow. Don't know the strain or gender of the plants so it should be pretty fun. I will be growing 3 plants in the following system.

I will be growing in a Hydroponics Deep Water System (6 Gallon Container) and be using CFL's for my lights.
Lights I have: 4x42W 2700K, 3x42W 6500K, 1x55W 5500K, 1x55W 2700K. I will be getting more 6500K as the plants get older.

When the fan leaves finally appear I will be using 2x42W 6500K, 1x55W 5500K and 1x42W 2700K.
Should that be enough lights for the plants in vegetative stage?? My space is roughly 1.5ftx2.5ft.


Alright so let me update you guys on what I have been doing.

4/09/13
I have put the 3 seeds in a cup of water and soaked them in distilled water for roughly 30 hours.

4/11/13
Most seeds have cracked and I transferred them to a damp paper-towel so that they could build roots before putting them in the Rockwool.

4/12/13
I planted the seeds in the Rockwool (root side up). Turned on the water-pump, including the air-pump.

4/13/13
Seedlings have not yet emerged from Rockwool.

4/14/13
2 of the Seeds have finally emerged from the Rockwool.

4/15/13
All 3 seeds have finally emerged from the Rockwool and one of them is starting to show its first couple of leaves.
Temp = 75F Humid = 35% ( been trying to get it up ) PPM = 107 (no nutes) pH = 6.7 (Fighting to get it down, my pH meter was messing up, leaving me with a high pH. I will add more pH down tonight to get it down into the 5.9 - 6.2 Range.

Here are some images of my grow and room.

 

[racer123]

Quick update:

Finally got my pH meter figured out and to my surprise the pH was right on 5.9 this morning with a PPM of 220. Light's have been turned on 1x55W 5500K and 1x42W 6500K they are both roughly 4 inches away from the plants.

 

[racer123]

Update: The seedlings are slowly coming alive. Still waiting on the last one to open up which should most likely happen tonight. I do have a couple of questions however. What day should I count as day 1 of my veg? When the last seedling opens up? What is considered day 1 of the vegetative growth?

Current conditions:

PPM - 220 (Has been steady like this for 3 days now)
pH - 5.8 at the moment (rising about .2 over night)
Temp - 75F
Res Temp - 70F
Hum - 50%

Here are a couple of pictures for you folks

This is the oldest seedling!

I have a couple questions about what is happening to my seedling! The leaves are drooping, and the stem is leaning heavily to one side. Are the leaves drooping because of over-watering? I removed the tube from the rockwool for tonight, hopefully it will perk back up. Is the stem leaning like this normal? Anything I should or need to do?

My second oldest seedling - looking good so far. It is leaning a little as well.

This seedling is about to pop, should open up any hour now / over night.

Second oldest seedling again.

 

[AudioBassiks]

subbed

 

[racer123]

Glad to have you along AudioBassiks!

 

[Psychosic]

I would assume that your seedlings are leaning in the direction of the light. Since your using CFL's you should bring them within a few inches of the plant top as long as they aren't too hot. A fan will help move the heat away and also help make the stems stronger by causing them to sway. Don't put the fan directly on the seedlings because it can suck the moisture out of them and you don't want that.

 

[racer123]

I would assume that your seedlings are leaning in the direction of the light. Since your using CFL's you should bring them within a few inches of the plant top as long as they aren't too hot. A fan will help move the heat away and also help make the stems stronger by causing them to sway. Don't put the fan directly on the seedlings because it can suck the moisture out of them and you don't want that.

Hey thanks for your input Psychosic. It's almost looking like the seedlings are moving away from my lights. Going to turn the cups around a few times throughout the day, maybe that will fix the issue. Currently I have a fan blowing from the floor up to the seedlings. Maybe I am just too worried because it is my first grow and want to do things right lol

 

[Psychosic]

Yeah man dont stress on it too much, your seedlings look healthy. As long as they continue to look that way everythings all good. I would still bring the CFL's a bit closer to minimize stretching though.

 

[racer123]

Oh I should have probably mentioned that in my last post. Lights are much closer now, about 2-3" away from my seedlings.

 

[Psychosic]

Awesome, just keep an eye on them for a little bit and if you see any signs of them not liking it adjust accordingly. CFL's usually run really cool but a few together can create some unwanted heat but since you have a fan you should be alright.

 

[KingJohnC]

subscribed

 

[racer123]

Update: Not much going at the moment. Growth is pretty slow, as it is to be expected. Water level hasn't changed much and each day I have do adjust the pH from 6.3-6.5 back to 5.8ish.

I am counting today as Day 3 of my Vegetative Cycle.

Oldest Seedling: No root visible as of yet, also it looks like one its leaves got a small little burn on it. That probably slowed the growth down as well.

The middle child: Root is visible. Growing the strongest at the moment.

The Youngest: Looking healthy and already has it's root showing (Picture below)

Here is a picture from the youngest seedlings root.

 

[racer123]

Update Time: Alright, these last couple of days since I added nutrients have been a nightmare. Last Sunday I did a complete drain and refilled the res with Aquashield and SH Nutrients Grow and Micro I believe at 1/4 dose. Made sure that the pH was around 5.8 and called it a day. The next morning I woke up to a lot of foam in my res and the pH had skyrocketed to 7.7 over night. The res didn't have a particular odor so I was a little bit confused as to what was going on. Of course, the retard I am, my first reaction was to add more Aquashield because I thought bad stuff was growing. The Aquashield didn't help, in fact it added more foam the next day..... After doing some research, foam isn't always a bad thing, it could be the good bacteria doing its thing, as long as it doesn't smell bad I should be in the clear. pH still was going all the way up to 7.7. The res temperatures have been between 70F and 73F, a little too high for my liking. I now have added a 32oz Gatorade bottle with frozen water inside to the res. Temperatures have now been 66F and below, I am happy with that, the foam is also slowly disappearing (I am guessing it was the high temperatures). The pH is slowly getting back to normal, this morning it was at 6.6 and tonight at 6 P.M. it was around 6.4 - I can live with that (Added some pH down too).

Alright here are some pictures of my current grow, the plants are suffering because of the pH in balance and high reservoir temperatures.

Here is the youngest seedling

And here is the middle child

And last but not least, the oldest. (For some reason does not want to grow towards the light)

Alright, so here is a picture of my youngest seedling. It has been growing the strongest but these last couple of days have taking its toll on the little guy. Leaves are curling up and there are some brown spots in the very middle. Can anyone identify what the problem is? Could it be just the pH inbalance and nutrients lockout?

 

[KingJohnC]

i believe it is the pH swing that has your plants looking like that.

 

[racer123]

i believe it is the pH swing that has your plants looking like that.

Hey thanks for your input KingJohnC. Hopefully it is the pH swing because I honestly have no idea what else it could be. Going to check the pH again when I get back from school/work tonight.

 

[racer123]

Well I finally figured out was wrong with my reservoir. There was algae on the bottom, I don't know how it got there (obviously through light and res temps). It was pretty damn slimy on the bottom of the res. Took everything out and tried to clean it as quick as possible before the plants would die being out of the water. Re-filled the res with plain pH'd water and the pH was consistent again over night. Today I introduced 1/4 strength nutes again so we will see how it goes from here. Really disappointing all the problems I am having with this first grow. I guess it is a great learning experience, just a pain in the ass tho.

If algae grows again, I will have to most likely abandon this current grow and really clean out my res to ensure this won't happen again. I will post more pictures this weekend. The grow is going really really slow at the moment.

 

[racer123]

Update: Well the algae came back again. I caught it very very early so I didn't have to clean the res hardcore again. I just drained it and refilled with 1/4 nutes and 2 tbsp of h202. So far the water hasn't been cloudy but the pH once again spiked to 7.7 over night (6.4 the night before). It's frustrating because I completely insulated my tank from light, put reflective tape everywhere and covered the holes that the air pumps are coming in. I feel like it slowed the algae growth down tremendously but I am at a lose, what is causing this? I feel like every time I add nutes the algae comes right back. Anythings I can try.

On a side note, the plants are recovering quite nicely and are starting to grow pretty quickly now.

Here are a couple of updates pictures.

 

[racer123]

Update: This grow has been going so slow. Of course I have been having numerous problems left and right but I think I have finally gotten a hold of what is causing all of this. After sealing everything off including my air lines, I have come to the conclusion that it can only be 1 thing, my NUTES. The second I add nutrients to my water it becomes a nightmare, pH spikes up to 8.0-8.5 and everything is getting gunked up. I don't know if it is supposed to happen or if there is something wrong with my nutes but I am switching over to GH nutes and they should be arriving tomorrow.

I will go ahead and post picture this weekend of my plants, it's been going so slow. Today marks day 16 of my veg cycle and the plants are as tiny as they can be. They are growing leaves, one is almost up to it's 4th node but the plants isn't getting much taller or bigger, just tiny leaves on top of tiny leaves. Hopefully with the new nutes things should be picking up.

Also: I just ordered a whole bunch of stuff for my grow. 4x4x7 Growing tent, carbon scrubber, fan, ducting, air cooled hood and 600w HID light.

I have a quick question about the set-up let me know if I got the right idea.

Carbon Scrubber -----> Air-Cooled Hood -----> 400CFM Fan Pulling Air (Fan Controller) -----> Duct Exhaust outside of window. Of course there is some ducting in between all of the components if needed.

 

[KingJohnC]

your equipment setup is correct for the high intensity light system.

 

[racer123]

Well it is time for a long needed update. After taking out the lead fishing weights and switching to purified water, I am no longer experiencing any problems with my pH or cloudy water. Currently I am running 1/2 strength nutes from GH and the plants have adopted to them quite well. I still have a small runt and feeding anything over 1/2 strength makes her very unhappy! Today marks day 23 of my vegging cycle and the plants are very very small still but growing very fast since the environment is finally suitable for them to grow in. I have switched to my new tent and 600 watt HID light. Installed a Carbon Filter and have it venting outside my window. Can't wait for these puppies to get bigger.

Here are some pictures

This is my runt, still a little unhealthy but growing nice looking new leaves already.

The roots are all healthy and white, this picture is a little bit misleading with the light being on.