Caduceo's Hydro Grow Log

[Caduceo]

Hello everyone, I am a first time grower. I am using Emily's Garden, a 6 piece wick style hydroponic garden. I got the seeds mixed up when I germinated them, so they could be white widow, or lavender kush, or shiska berry. My money is on Lavender Kush because I have the most of those seeds. I got the seeds from a dispensary, they came with the weed.

My grow room is a very small 2x2 closet with a ceiling of about 10 feet. I have a 400 watt MH, and a HPS bulb for flowering. The light is made to handle both MH and HPS bulbs. The walls are covered in matte white. I don't have any circulation yet. I germinated my seeds in tap water and rockwool, one of which exploded in growth. I put that dude into my hydro system, which was currently doing a test run with tap water.

Once it got about 3 sets of leaves, significant yellowing and burnt tips appeared on one set, and yellow tips appeared on a small new set. All other leaves appear healthy, some are a little curled with no yellowing. On Wednesday I switched out the tap water for bottled (I know it should be RO but it didn't work out that day like that) and I adjusted the PH of the bottled to about 6, added about 1 ML of 3-1.5-4 botanicare hydro nutrient solution and 1 ML of hydroguard, poured it in over the clay pellets. I made sure to pour a little of the water onto the rockwool cubes as I hear wick systems are very slow to deliver nutrients.

I rinsed everything, the pellets and the system. There are two infant seedlings with their two little baby leafies, and their is a slightly more mature guy with about 8 leaves, he is the dude I was referencing. Lets hope he is a she, as well. :stoned:

I was told that the yellowing occurred from lack of nitrogen or iron, and now that I added the ferts it should sort itself out. is this correct information?

[JackHerer]

I would be interested in finding out how you are contending with heat issues from the 400W MH. I have a closet just slightly bigger with a 250W MH and when the door is closed the temps can reach 96 at the base of the plants. With the door open during the day it is a reasonable 75. I've already cut the hole in the ceiling for an inline fan which I was going to add anyway before the flowering stage, but if I can get the temps down I would like to add another 250 to 400W light to the one I have as more lumens = more bud.

From all the reading I have done on these forums the common advice is that you shouldn't add nutes untill there is 5 sets of leaves.

[Caduceo]

yeah jack, I just hooked up the thermometer. it is 91 goddamn degrees in there. I put the apt ac for 55 and opened the door, I don't have a fan but I will get one today or tomorrow. I am not sure as to how I'm going to deal with the heat :(

[JackHerer]

I have an oscilating fan running at its max & with the door open it does alright. I have read on hear where folk feeze 2 litre bottles of water and stick that in the room but thats a fair bit of work. One of the reasons I went 18/6 instead of 24 hour was to keep the time the door is shut with the light on as short as possible. So at the moment they get pretty hot between dusk till midnight & then again from 6am until 8am when I get up and open the door. If you have a fan blowing cold air from your AC into the closet during the day it might take longer to heat up when you shut the door.

However I have also read around here that to use Co2 you need high temps so I am going to do some searching and see if it would be a bonus to increase the C02 in the closet while the door is shut and what schedule etc.. Might be able to turn a PITA into a benefit.

[Weedhound]

The only thing that will really cure your boys' ills is good ventilation or a good cooling system w/reflector. HID bulbs run HOT as I discovered when I popped a1kw in a spare bedroom and ended up with a sauna.

[JackHerer]

Hi Weedhound

Good to see you taking an interest. I defnitely take your point on the ventilation & as mentioned I have already cut the hole for an inline extractor. Although I wouldn't mind your opinion on if it would be best to have an extractor fan with passive intake or forced cool intake with a blower and passive exhaust. Wouldn't mind keepng the costs down a bit during the first grow.

My own log is here
http://boards.cannabis.com/grow-log/114440-first-time-grow-kc-brains-skunk-1-white-kc.html

However I have been looking around for info on CO2 and although I havent found a thread yet which really goes into the details. In the FAQ section he thread
http://boards.cannabis.com/grow-faqs/57928-money-heat-probs-fluo-products.html

Post 12 metions a bit about CO2 and thats its best around 96. From other snippets Ive got around here it seems to me the basic idea is to increase the CO2, let the plant breathe it and recirculate the CO2 filled air then flush the room with fresh air, repeating this process on a schedule.
Would there then be any value if my high temp schedule is between 6 am & 8am to fill the room with CO2 it would then get fresh air when the door is opened and then repeat the process at dusk when I have to close the door again or risk my neighours asking if they can borrow my sunbed.

[Weedhound]

Oh dear god you boys ask me something like that. I don't use C02 because I grow w/animals in the room but have heard that you need some pretty high numbers for it to be worth using. i remember talking about it to my hydro guy and he said the numbers are high enough that you would not want to be in the room while you are using it due to lack of 02. There are some fairly inexpensive ways to do that. The only one I looked into at one point was something called ExcelloFizz that you add to water and it creates co2. dry ice is another method. Then there are the machines etc.... That is the extent of my knowledge on that.

For you fan....much more effective to pull hot air out than push cool air in if you go with one fan only. I have one for my reflector and it is on the exhaust side pulling rather than pushing. For my 1kw I have an inline 177cfm and it does the job beautifully. I can put my hand on the glass of the reflector while it is running.

When i first bought my light I needed the central a/c PLUS a room a/c to keep the temps down to livable (about a 12 x 16 room) and I kicked and screamed about adding a cooling fan. It has solved my problem completely and worth every penny. :thumbsup:

[Caduceo]

Ok, I haven't gotten any ventiliation yet, but I changed the lighting schedule to 18/6, which I think made a huge difference, as there are 4 big lovely green leaves with no yellowing on the top, looking healthy. my other seedling is doing ok as well. I can't post pictures as my fiance is paranoid, so I am kinda screwed in that regard.

[mobay]

with rockwool you have to condition them the night before. ph in them are really high.

[Caduceo]

Still no ventilation, however my plant problems have ceased. One of them has some bad browning on one set of leaves, the other leaves are ok. The main one is doing well now, no sign of any problem whatsoever, anywhere on the plant at any point. I got a humidifer which bumps the humidity to about 50% and lowers the temp to 88, so just a few more degrees and I will be decent. They have been growing, say...3 weeks? maybe 4. They are growing slowly for a hydro and MH setup, however it is a wick hydro system, also the temperature was consistenly 90+ when they were younger, which would definitly stunt growth I reckon. I am currently freezing some gallons of water, going to place them in the grow room to dethaw. The plants have access to everything they need that I know of, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, iron, NPK. I only added 4 drops of nutrient solution to a gallon and a half of water, and they are doing well. I don't have an exact ML measure, only a 5 ML measure. In a week I will try 8 drops of nutrient solution. The plant has about 4 nodes and has begun on lateral branching.

[JackHerer]

Good to see its still going for you. I seem to be growing through the heat problem as well & like you have increased the humidity. I also tried a CO2 microbe & activator mix which also seemed to reduce temps maybe a dense CO2 environment takes more energy to heat, school was to long ago for me to remember. It smelled gawd awful though.

Dusto & Weedhound were syaing in my log that the humidity is only any good during the veg phase during flowering the humidity should be kept down to prevent mould.

JH

[Caduceo]

yeah, the temperature is 85ish nowadays, which is good! only issue I have is that one plant exploded in growth and is at about 4-5 internodes and the rest are just baby seedlings with only two leaves total, except for one which has 3 leaf sets. That one looks like an indica cuz of its cute round lil' leafers and its short stature :p

[Caduceo]

hmm, the two biggest fan leaves I had were looking in perfect health for the past 3-4 days, but now they are developing small yellow spots. I haven't changed the water in over 7 days, its been about 9, because I didn't want to rock the boat.

[Caduceo]

I put in two gallons of water, with about 6 drops and an additional half dropper full of nutrient solution, and my plants are definitly responding. I think I even spot a tiny bit of burning, there are some darker green patches. They are growing faster and healthier, they liked the food I gave. Right now I'm a little confused about my MH light, its taking awhile to power up and I don't know why.Its been about a half hour, it hasn't powered up yet.

also, is it possible for a 5 internode plant with aobut 10 sets of leaves to be burned by 6 drops of nutrient solution plus and an additional half dropper full? I mean, I see that as like, 1 ml... I am getting a tds meter very soon.

[Bree1978]

Probably should turn that light off and figure it out why, like right now.....
My MH takes just a bit to fire up...

:jointsmile: Bree

[Caduceo]

but I dunno why bree :(

[Bree1978]

I'd turn it off let it cool and inspect. It may have blown....Or something else could be wrong. Did you buy the bulb with the switable ballast?

[Caduceo]

do you mean switchable? it has an external ballast.

[Bree1978]

so it is a dual ballast or switchable, I am confused by your first post....

If it is dual, the bulb probably blew, or is about to. My MH had some kind of weird thing happen to it that made the light change.....I should have taken a pic, I replaced it before it blew up! I don't know if it would have blown up, I was saying that for effect.

If it is switchable, I would ck to see if you have the switch on the right bulb, which I know is obvious......

Also, do you have a back up bulb, and have you tried it?

If not, maybe your ballast/wiring is no good........I don't know. Anyone?

:jointsmile: Bree

[Caduceo]

its a bad bulb. my HPS bulb works fine. I need to get another MH bulb but for now this will do.

[atsar]

no need to worry too much about the mh bulb,the hps will be just fine
what you could consider is dual spectrum hps bulbs,i use them from start to finish and they're great,no lanky plants

[JackHerer]

Hi Caduceo

I'm no expert on nutes but when my beanlings were struggling to move on from weedling stage I used this FAQ on nutes and identified what could have been an N deficiency. When I checked the distilled water I was using it had no N & was high on potassium which is better during flowering. Like you I added a low dose of my nutes to the resovoir and next day they really started to take off.

http://boards.cannabis.com/grow-faqs/83846-nutrients.html

[Caduceo]

I am being exceptionally careful with nutes as most of my plants are just tiny babies, only one of them is past the seedling stage. Once I get a TDS meter, I will be more bold.

[JackHerer]

How's the grow going Caduceo? Any pics of that Emily's Garden yet?