First Time Grower!

Gimik

Well-Known Member
Hey yall!

First time grower here, discovered this thread after looking online for some answers about it all. I'm lucky enough to have my friend mentoring me along the way, he is a master grower for some very large cultivations in Las Vegas. Even still I wanted to make a post about my setup.

My tent size is 4x4x6.5
Currently growing 5 Girl Scout Cookies (Figured it'd be best to use all the same strain for my 1st attempt)
Light: 800 watt LED
Temps: 77-82F (day) 73-77 (Night)
Humidity: 50-60%

I picked up some clones from a dispensary nearby. They are about 2 weeks into veg.

These first pics are of my setup..
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I have my ladies propped up on some boxes because i zip tied my light to the top of the tent, I realize I'm going to have to attach the Ratchet Ropes so i can lower it eventually. It may look like the plants are really far from the light but they are only about 36" (3 feet) from light. Is that too far away?? To help raise humidity in the tent i drape a damp cloth over the white fan in the background and will raise my humidity as much as 25%.

In these next photos you'll see some of the leaves are curling up and dying and quite of few of the plants are experiencing some discoloring on the tips. I think the reason for this is because at first i was having issues controlling temp (got as high as 86F) and humidity was low (around 43%). Plus I had a huge fan blowing directly onto the clones which coupled with high temp/low humidity was drying my poor ladies out. Additionally the first time I watered them i used half dose of CloneX but didn't have the pH @ 5.8 it was closer to 5.0 so that probably shocked their systems too. I've since watered them twice with strictly 5.8pH water only, no nutes. Would appreciate some feedback!!

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Those plants are suffering from deficiencies caused by those small pots. Transplant each plant into 10 gallon grow pot. Also they do look a little stretchy, you can move them up 1/2 your current distance.
 
Hey MadScience thanks for the response.

I've been checking the bottom of the pots for roots but haven't seen any pushing out the bottom so I was going to wait another week before i transplant them to a 5 gal smart pot. What deficiencies would you guess it is based on what you can see?
 
Hi guys!

Quick update.

Last night i transplanted my plants into 5 gallon smart pots (first time transplanting before, was nervous but think i did it correctly). I also realized after trying to water the 5gal pots that i don't have a readily enough supply of distilled/purified water. Whats the best way to have plenty of water, you use explicitly tap water then pH? Or do yall have RO systems for water your plants?

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Quick update!

I just ordered two 150w HPS bulbs to supplement my LED light for the flowering phase. I figured it would be a good idea to get some HPS for flowering to help with the penetration problem LEDs have.

My lighting is as follows:

LED: 600W
150W HPS (2):
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Any thoughts would be appreciated!!
 
Hi Yall another update.

Plants are coming along pretty well although it appears that some of them are still suffering from transplant shock since moving to the 5gal smart pots. I think giving them 1/4 dose CloneX and 1/2 dose calmagic pH'ed to 5.8 should help and not overload them. Ill upload some pictures of them once they wake up so hopefully you guys can provide some feedback.

Anywho... I hung up one of the 150w HPS lights i bought. I'm not going to turn them on until flower but i figured it would be a good idea to get the light for the back of the tent hung up now while my plants are small and its easy to get in the tent. I angled it slightly but I'm now thinking that was a bad idea because I don't want to blast the middle of my tent with TOO much light right? I will eventually get it to hang flat to spread the light more evenly. I will eventually hang the 2nd 150w HPS on the otherside of the LED by the "front door" of the tent. What do you guys think?
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Hey everybody quick question...

Is it possible to purchase additional "hanging rods" for my tent? I would like to get another rod to run across the top of my tent so i can hang things from. I bought an Apollo tent and it came with 3 bars but i was hoping to add a 4th if possible. Any suggestions would be awesome!

Thanks

*EDIT*
Thanks MadScience for the response. I'm a little worried about temps once i switch to 12/12 because without running my house AC my tent gets up to 86 degrees if i fully zip it up. The issue is my electric bill will be $500+ if I leave my AC running 12+ hours a day. I'm gunna have to leave my tent unzipped and have plenty of airflow i guess...i honestly don't know i suppose i'll cross that bridge when i get there.
 
Hey everybody another update!

I'll start off by saying this thread should probably be moved to the Grow Journals section since I'll be updating this often...

It's be 10 days since I transplanted into 5gal smart pots and have noticed amazing growth.... Only a few days ago they were all about 12" tall, now they are all hovering around 18". I'm definitely going to have to top them soon. Soil was basically completely dry so I started my plants on their feeding cycle.

I watered each plant with just about 2 gallons (got decent run off). I used a half dose (4ml) of both Voodoo Juice and B-52 from Advanced Nutrients along with half dose of Calmag (2ml).

I included a couple photos of my setup. I hungup the 2nd 150w HPS light too!
Any comments or advice would be awesome!! Thanks =)

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> I watered each plant with just about 2 gallons (got decent run off).

That's too much. Try watering a half gallon at a time. Wait for the top soil to dry out in between. For better accuracy pick up a cheapo hydrometer at your local hardware store, water when the moisture level hits 50% in the morning.

Personally I test by lifting the pots to get a feel for how water logged the soil is. :)
 
Hey Madscience thanks for the input!

I want to clarify when I say I used 2 gallons I don't mean I poured 2 gallons all at once. What I did was just wet the top level of soil then slowly added water, allowing it to pool on the surface then soak into the soil. I'd wait 30 seconds then continue watering. I repeated this until I got runoff.

When I transplanted into the 5 gal smart pots i didn't water them enough I hardly got any runoff at all. So this time I around I wanted to make sure I saturated the soil so I wouldn't form air pockets.

I just topped my plants to other night too. When I get home from work I'll upload some photos =)
 
I use tapwater and add my nutes into it. Never had any problems and no defiencys (Except on my first grow but that was my fault, not the tapwater) so I doubt you will have any problems if you just use tap water without changing the PH. I think the lime green colour is a sign of Nitrogen or MG defiency, but it seems you got it under control already. Just google "Cannabis Defiency" and go to image search, you will find a few great pictures that show mostly all defiency/abundance types and how to treat them.

About your temperatures, maybe try purchasing Cool tubes so you can add ventilation throught the lamps and put the output end thru a window or something. I have a 80x80x160(cm) tent in an about 100x100x250(cm) room, and I can close the door and zip up the tent with no problems if I leave a small window open in the room and aim my ventilation output at the window.

Also, the plants still seem a little strechy so if you can, try getting them closer to the lamps. I know with HPS the ideal spot is somewhere where you can hold your hand directly above the plant without getting uncomfortably warm from the lamp. Not sure how it works with LED since they produce less heat.
 
About your temperatures, maybe try purchasing Cool tubes so you can add ventilation throught the lamps and put the output end thru a window or something.

Also, the plants still seem a little strechy so if you can, try getting them closer to the lamps. I know with HPS the ideal spot is somewhere where you can hold your hand directly above the plant without getting uncomfortably warm from the lamp. Not sure how it works with LED since they produce less heat.

Yeah I've been debating about whether getting an exhaust fan and using some ducting to blow the air out my window it's just a little tricky because I'm in an apartment complex and my window directly faces other apartments. So I think having a ducting tube showing from my window is a little suspect. The LED doesn't' put off much heat but once i fire up the 150W HPS bulbs temps are sure to rise but I don't think it's possible to use cooltubes with the HPS's that I have. I'll have to do my research.

As for my light distance for the LED, on the user manual it says to keep LED 24" from top of plants. I've been adjusting light height as the plants grow to keep it at the desired distance. It's probably just the angle of the picture that makes them look stretchy because they are actually quite bushy now =)

Here are a few photos of after topping the plants.
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I am also a novice with all this but I think you might want to read up on PH for growing in soil. The range I have seen is 6.2-6.8. The 5.8 area is for hydroponic growing if I am not mistaken. I am using 6.3-6.5 in soil and it seems to be doing pretty well. Like I said though do your own research hear and post what you come up with. Hopefully since this is the soil forum someone with more experience can answer this. Good luck with your grow.
 
It gets a little confusing sometimes because of how different people label "soils"
It would really depend on what your medium is, 5.8 is good for hydro/coco/soilless soil I believe
 
Hey thanks for the replies!

I'm not too informed about pH and soil mediums, I'm just going off the directions my friend is giving me. He says pH at 5.8 and so far I've yet to see any issues, in fact my plants are very healthy and growing sooo fast!!

I'm using a 50/50 mix of Sunshine Mix #4 and Fox Farms Ocean Forest =)
 
> I watered each plant with just about 2 gallons (got decent run off).

That's too much. Try watering a half gallon at a time. Wait for the top soil to dry out in between. For better accuracy pick up a cheapo hydrometer at your local hardware store, water when the moisture level hits 50% in the morning.

Personally I test by lifting the pots to get a feel for how water logged the soil is. :)
When i do bi weekly feedings i tyipcaly see them fully dry using the bountea bio activator and 4 gallons of water using alaskan humisoil its muddy like so it drys faster even in 10 gallon pots you only need 1 gallon 2 if they look this big
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Took me 5 months to get to this point and bi weekly watering helped ive fed her 3 and had it dry you have the lighting

So my suggestion if you want to overfeed on purpose you can use
A dehumidifier
 
Using smart pots I've heard it's kind of tough to over feed them, as long as you're finding a way to remove the run off and have good drainage in your medium
I have a lot of perlite in my medium and using smart pots so I doubt personally I can over water them, I feed them every 2-3 days
I believe we're basically the same medium Gimik, our grows set ups are very similar, I just started with seeds around the same time so you're a few weeks ahead of me on timeline
Will be watching, I got a journal going too if you wanna check it out ..

I didn't notice but are you planning to SCROG?
 
Using smart pots I've heard it's kind of tough to over feed them, as long as you're finding a way to remove the run off and have good drainage in your medium
I have a lot of perlite in my medium and using smart pots so I doubt personally I can over water them, I feed them every 2-3 days
I believe we're basically the same medium Gimik, our grows set ups are very similar, I just started with seeds around the same time so you're a few weeks ahead of me on timeline
Will be watching, I got a journal going too if you wanna check it out ..

I didn't notice but are you planning to SCROG?

I'll definitely check out your journal!

I don't feel like I'm over-feeding them because i wait until the soil is nearly completely dry (the pot is super light) until i feed. I get kind of a lot of runoff because i rush the process, i need to get it dialed in a little bit better. I have my plants sitting on a cooling rack over a saucer. I collect water in saucer and my plants don't sit in stagnant water either. It works for now but i do plan on SCROG'ing them so I won't be able to pick up plants to pour out saucer. I've decided I'm going to build a drain table to solve this problem.
 
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