Mystery Grow Journal

[bkakaris]

Hello everyone. I am new to this site and new to DWC and growing in general so, I have decided after much reading of the site to join and start this journal to get advice and feed back from all of you guys and gals on here.
First off this is just some junk that I slapped together here are the details.
-Buckett is a three gallon plastic tote with aluminum on the top to help reflect light out and away from the buckett and water inside.
-Grow medium I am using very small river stones that have been cleaned with filtered water.
-For the nutrients I am actually using a soil based Miracle-Gro all purpose liquid concentrate plant food. Folling mixing instructions 1/3 cap to three gallons my water ph has been around 6-6.8. So far the plant looks good.
- The light is a 75 watt halogen spot light in an all metal shroud. Had it to close at first and burnt some leafs no problem there just moved light up and solved that problem.
-Ventilation is a two speed 14in. fan that I have sitting above the plant half way between it and the light.
-The seed is an unknown strain that I kept from some good buds that passed threw. Hoping after a while someone will be able to help me identify its stain(indica/sativa).
I am currently 18 days into my grow and so far everything looks good but again I'm new to this grow thing so looking for opinions and advice no matter how harsh.
Already have one question and that is how long should I let it veg before I change it's light pattern to start flowering.
Will have pictures up as soon as I can figure it out. So keep checking in on me to see whats going on thanks and happy readings.

 

[bkakaris]

Re: Mystery Grow Journal.

Here are picks of day six will have current pics up soon thanks again

 

[bkakaris]

Well here are the most recent pics I have of my plant wich I have dubbed the Bob Villa's Special due to it's handy man grow environment.

In this pic the tips are dying on the second to bottom nodes. Is this bad or normal. Tips didn't start dying until grow shoots started.

The 14in fan for ventilation.

75 watt halogen spot lamp.

The top of the plant. Good view of some grow shoots. That was the 5th node but thats where I'm topping it due to limited grow space.

This is the grow medium(small river stones) and the dirt is left overs from the starter medium.

Pic of the stem and some grow shoots.

The bottom nodes and what appears to be some grow shoots trying to grow.

 

[bkakaris]

I am using a miracle grow food that is an all-in-one veg to flower. It has the main four nutes plus a crap load of other smaller nutes that alot of other brands don't offer. I'm personally not a fan of the miracle grow but my buddy used it a got little of half pound off of one plant so I thougt I would give it a shot. And for the cfl's does it matter how many watts, because I have a bunch of 15 watt 6500k cfl's that I use around the house.

 

[WillyBudz]

Check this out for CFL's . There are a few other posts about them on boards also, but yes halogen .... not so good, mostly due to the heat and cost of use for what you get from them.

CFL bulbs


6500k CFL for Veg and 2700k CFL for flower... how many etc depends on your room size etc... I am not a CFL user so dunno for sure.

As far as Miracle Grow goes, (IMO) it is not as bad as some people will tell you BUT, be carefull with it, most of their liquid/ granule stuff is still made to mix with water and use in soil not hydro.

Every1 has their fav nutes, mine is the 3 part General Hydroponics.... cheap, easy to use and great results. Just gotta spend an extra minute mixing the 3 different parts.... I recommend not doing this stoned or medicated.....


WillyB

 

[bkakaris]

Well I did my reading and some internet searching of my own because I cant find anything about a halogen bulb on here besides dont use them. Here's my findings.
The halogen bulb is a full spectrum bulb running from deep ultraviolet to infrared. Since it is at a higher operation temp it's lighting is slighted shifted toward the blue spectrum producing more effiecent lumens per watt(10-30). The cfl's on the other hand have to seperate lighting spectrums which in my opinion means more operating cost and time. So I'm going to give the halogen a try because it has the important things plants need to grow,red and blue light spectrums and lumens. I'm just going to have to keep an eye not to get it to close to it again.
Thanks for the advice you guys and keep it coming can never have enough info.

 

[bkakaris]

Back to the grow. I changed out my water last night and almost killed it. Made sure ppms and ph was alright but didn't let my water warm up first, ahhhhhhh!!! So I freaked out a little bit and warmed the water with a fish tank thermostat and within the hour she perked right back up.
Will be posting more pics soon but I broke my camera so it's gonna be a couple days. Be stay stoned and I'll be back shortly

 

[Tmac12]

Watch the heat from a halogen lite! They can be very hot! Did you start off with the lite down low? Might have caused the dried leaf??

 

[bkakaris]

Watch the heat from a halogen lite! They can be very hot! Did you start off with the lite down low? Might have caused the dried leaf??

Yeah I started with it about a foot above it which was way to close especially with the reflector on it. The leafs seem to be healing up pretty good lots of new growth that looks healthy.

 

[bkakaris]

Well I'm on day 24 now and I think there are some pre flowers starting to show. I cant really tell if they are male or female they look like female flowers but now pistils are showing. Does it take a few day for them to show or should you be able to see them as soon as the flowers appear?
Another question is did I mess up by topping the fifth node? Alot of threads I read say that's where the flowers first start. Obviously I didn't hurt my plant cause it's still flowering I was just more wondering if maybe I hurt my end yield or something along those lines?
Camera is still messed up cant upload them to the computer for some reason should have it fixed in the next few days and have some more pics up.
And thanks alot to all of you that have given me some advice so far it really is appreciated as I am very new to the growing.
And I have decided to do a mixed lighting with my halogen and some cfls. I figured I would point my halogen away from the plant at the walls since they are white and will reflect alot of the light. And I'm going to put a couple cfls around the plant as well. I figure with the heat and lumens from the halogen I wont need as many of the cfls. I am still open to opinions on this because I done some lighting research everything sounds like it would work but I havent found any one that has put it to practice. But being my first grow I want to be a little experimental so I know what works for me. Again thanks and always open for suggestions.

 

[bkakaris]

Well thanks to all you guys that gaveme advice but in all this planning and checking things I didn't account for my cat who had him self a tastey little snack and chewed my plant off to about one inch above the dirt But I'm going to be starting a new grow in dirt this time and eventually putting it in a grow cabinet so that don't happen again. Using some Nature scape soil with my miracle grow nutes that I already had laying around. So I keep yall posted thanks for listening.

 

[bkakaris]

Lol

 

[maze]

so hey what do you do when you get small white bugs in the soil? what are you using on top of your soil?

 

[Tmac12]

Can you discribe the bugs some?? worm like, larva, are they clear, crawling? This might be a good spot to check out.... Problems, Pests & Disease Control - 420 Magazine
Could be root aphids, fungus gnat larva......

 

[maze]

well they whit not larvas there really small live in the soil or something. there pretty fast

 

[Tmac12]

You really need to go post these questions in that link I gave you. This journal is not ongoing at this time. so probably not much traffic to answer your question.

 

[BassPlayer]

HI bkakaris

Thanks for sharing your grow with us! Sorry to hear how it ended though.

I'm moving this to Completed Journals now.

Have you started a new grow you would like to share with us?

If so, please start one here:
Journals in Progress

Hope all is well in your world.

Love and respect from all of us here at 420 Magazine!