New log, six plants, first time vegging w/HID [Archive] - Green Grass Forums

4x5

06-01-2006, 03:43 PM

All my previous grows were done with cfls and floro tubes, However this time my seedlings are under my 2 175w coated MV lamps and cfls, I finished the remote ballasts and re-oriented the bulbs in their reflectors this week.
I must say I am quite impressed, all six seedlings cracked the surface last week under 6 cfls at 18/6; after that week my new hid setup was ready, within 2 days under these lights, all six have a first set of internodes, this never happened to me on previous grows with cfls and floro tubes. Even my last grow (just finnished) had very little internodal growth before flowering, and the MV lamps really showed me what decent flowering looks like (I flowered my last grow with the mv lamps, cfls for veg), I firmly believe in floros being more than adequate for good grows, but holy crap, these plants under the MV's are blowing up, they should be six inches tall by this time next week.

HARDDON

06-01-2006, 05:41 PM

MV???

Are you serious?

If I am not mistaken, MV is the second worst light source from an efficiency standpoint next to halogen lights.

Sorry, but there is no way you will find that MV is better than MH for vegging...or good CFLs for that matter.

4x5

06-01-2006, 06:00 PM

the coated bulbs I am using are 8400lumens/per @ 4000k vs 5900k for the crappy clear mv bulbs, they made my tiny plants from the last grow flower BIG for their size, and the growth of these new plants is quite impressive vs my last grow with just floros for veg. as far as i know the mv works fine, it just isn't nearly as efficient as even floro, but these two 8400lumen lights replace quite a few cfls and floro tubes (I use the cfls in my house to offset the cost of power). Of course I still have 4 26w cfls and 2 2ft warm white sets for side and rear lighting, this area is cast with some 24,000 lumens over a 3x1.5 area, the bulbs are 10" from top of soil in reflector hoods and I now have some 5ft vertical to play in, my last grow I only had like 20" max vertical (tops were bent) so my plants were like lolipops, I learned a lot.
I certainly would like to upgrade to hps, but 150w hps setup costs $120 retail here, my mv setup cost $40 for two fixtures, and $26 for two coated bulbs, I will get an hps soon, but money is tight and I already had 1 mv in possesion, so for now, the mv works just fine.

SeedlessOne

06-01-2006, 07:58 PM

dion

06-01-2006, 09:59 PM

whatever makes you happy is the route to take.
by all means is you find these lights to perform better than cfls and tube go ahead and use em. thats the cool thing to do.

i just find the energy cost to be repulsive on anything but flouros myself, maybe my yield of tommy toes will suffer. BUT IM CHILLIN. :)

happy growin bud
Dion

4x5

06-02-2006, 01:35 AM

mercury vapor lamps are basicaly floros, floros are filled with mercury vapor and coated for spectrum accordingly, the mv lamps run quite cool, after posting earlier I dropped my lights to 6" and when I got back from work, obiously no problems. I found during the course of my last grow, I was able to get the plants no closer than 1" from them(yep one inch, 2 intake fans, three fans for movement and a ceiling exhaust, even buds suffered no ill effect to being that close to the bulb, I will update this thread often to log this grow. tomorrow I'll post pics of the setup... probably....
As for efficiency, yeah they do suck, but my dual-headed sparc ultra10 uses way more juice, so I use my laptop more and installed those "12 leftover cfls" and actually made up for the cost of running my whole set-up, plus some.

What a rant... cough.. cough...

4x5

06-04-2006, 11:28 PM

Ok, so I broke down and got that 150w hps to add to the mix, up and running, I'll post pics soon, but I have to go rotate the plants around the "spectrum".

dion

06-05-2006, 01:06 AM

you'll enjoy that better with better results for a small personal garden.

cool deal dude
Dion

4x5

06-05-2006, 03:50 PM

Ok here's the 2 175w mercury with the 150w HPS, floros in the back and I removed the cfls from the sides, may put them back later. All 3 ballasts are outside this room cords going in and out discreetly of course, I have a light-proof ceiling exhaust, floor intake of two 80mm pc fans, two fans blowing upwards (at plants)from either side and another fan above the hoods for room movement, temps between 70-85 night/day just watered and misted with 250ml plain water w/25ml h2o2 and I rotate them once per day, this setup is 35k lumens (without cfls) and average 7700 lumens per sq ft. This is only my third grow (1 years ago, last one just finnished) and this will surely be the best. Plant pics are just the two most robust, (just watered and misted, so they are droopy).

4x5

06-05-2006, 03:58 PM

they are in first day of week two since sprouting

4x5

06-08-2006, 04:10 PM

here's the latest pics, if you dare to care. Coming along nicely.

LimpBizkitRMV04

06-11-2006, 03:09 PM

The smallest leaves that are at the bottom of the plant in the left pic. Are these leaves at all important to the plant as it grows because one of mine has a small orange patch that seems to be getting bigger and taking up more of the leaf and i do not want it to make it to the stem and kill the plant or anything. should i try to cut the leave where it ends so it cannot spread ? or will that kill the plant. any tips would be helpful.

Winks

06-11-2006, 03:56 PM

I find that being firm with the plants won't hurt them.

Just try and make sure your canopy (or just the foliage) equals the same amount of roots you have going.

So if you only take one leaf you will be fine. Better to err on the side of caution. I've been through alot of rust and mites and sometimes the leaf just has to go.

Good luck I'll be following your thread.

Winks

4x5

06-12-2006, 02:17 PM

First is a pic of my old sativa now flowering into week 12, it is starting to die, getting yellow spots on leaves, i'll cut it by the end of the week, It looks like a brontosaurus!(thanks to the training) the other two pics are the biggest vegging plants, from this new grow, tallest is 5.25 in and 10"across. And I know, they look overwatered, it's been 2 days since I watered them, and they are getting full waterings of 48oz water with h2o2 and 200ml of full strength 20-30-20 shultz.

bob bobbinson

06-13-2006, 03:22 PM

keep it up man. looking good.

4x5

06-16-2006, 05:31 PM

Here's some updated pics of the plants, they had trouble with PH (one was low as 5) so I had to re-pot them with a different soil mix & lots of perlite. PH probelms have been fixed, it was caused by the vermiculite I used in the origional mix, not enough drainage. These pics are from the day after.. BTW this week I put the 2 MV and the 1 HPS in one custom hood, added a dual 4ft floro tube set in the back and made the hood much easier to lift and lower.

4x5

06-17-2006, 05:17 PM

Having trouble, 1 of my MV lamps goes out intermittently (turns off, waits the 2min then comes back up), they are remotely ballasted (inside gutted PC power supp. cases and cooled via adapted pc fans) my amp draw hasn't changed, maybe my a/c in the house? (it is on a diff circuit.) What else could it be? its not the plugs, or wiring distances, even switched outlet strips, can't figure it out. HELP

4x5

06-18-2006, 11:32 PM

these are some pics of the fan leaf size on my biggest plant (9" atm) bigger than my hand! Still having an issue with mv, the problem "jumped" to the second one, after I switched back to clear bulbs for now..

4x5

06-20-2006, 04:59 PM

power problems are from the draw of my 2 window a/c units in my house, must be just enough to reset the mv ballast. no big deal, don't need the a/c right now anyways.

Garden Knowm

06-20-2006, 06:04 PM

I see residue on your leaves .. from foilar feeding?

spraying leaves is unneccessary...

nice plant!

: )

4x5

06-20-2006, 06:09 PM

Yes I spray with just water, but I've been modding the rooms intake and exhaust, so I have some drywall dust and the like finely coating the leaves, anything I can do to get it off, soap in water mist maybe? I only spray when the temps get close to 90f but the room holds between 72f and 86f but on a hot day, Its gone up to 90 once or twice, so I spray em' down.

BTW is 48oz watering enough for 2.5 gallon pots?(every 5-6 days)

4x5

06-22-2006, 04:41 PM

Doing well, average height 8in, plant #2 is 11in. I do rotate them once perday counterclockwise.

4x5

06-24-2006, 03:19 PM

I am amazed at the rate of growth, never had this on any previous 4 grows, 3/4" - 1" per day in vertical growth and nodal growth 5-6" long(total), shame I don't have room to try cloning. I did notice on 3 of the plants they have a pronounced globular growth near fan leaf stem and internode(where they meet at the main stem), I've seen it before, but only 3 of the 6 have this growth at all nodes, and they are quite pronounced. I was wondering what it is? I had it on a 4 of my plants last grow, that's how I remembered; I have some 11 (front/back) pages of notes on this grow, first time I have kept a journal, very pleasing to go back and compare data. :rasta:

4x5

06-27-2006, 06:37 PM

Day 31 of veg, The tallest is 15" (trained to 12") and the shortest is 11" I will be switching to 12/12 tonight; Probably... I'll be glad to find the sexes, since six plants fill up my space a little too much, but if they are all janes, still ok I guess. :)
They are all on or near their 10th node and have tons of internodal growth. Last watering they got 32oz water with peroxide, and 16oz (1/2 strength)bloom fert. Next watering they'll get 16oz water and 32oz (1/2 strength) bloom fert. The one in the upper left-hand (#4) got some root damage during transplant and is behind in growth compared to the other 5.

4x5

06-30-2006, 02:46 PM

Here's some pics from this morning, they are all doing well except the front right, a few sun leaves are curling downward and drooping, I still believe its from the root loss during transplant. Otherwise they are doing really well.
btw notice the size of my feet in the second pic compared to the plant.

4x5

07-03-2006, 03:25 PM

New pics from today, growing good; 3 of 6 plants are trained (just for an even canopy). They are slowly starting to get their pre-flowers, and all are growing only .5 inch/day. Second pic is of my reflector hood with lights mounted, the hood was made by me from an old highway sign (I used to know a guy....) You can see the difference in bulbs from left to right: coated phillips 175w MV 4000k, 150w Sylvania HPS 2000k, clear caster 175w MV 5900k. I must admit, with this being my 5th grow, I have not grown mj this big before, first 3 grows ended up popcorn-sticks, learned a lot; last grow was good, but plants were quite small. This time I got my &hit together with the hids and proper ventilation, I'm not over thinking their problems, and really do require very little attention (I still find myself going in there 10 times a day just to look :smokin: ). Anyways here's the pics :stoned: :stoned:

4x5

07-05-2006, 02:57 PM

hmmm.. 5 females out of 6, my #4 (one with mangled roots, explained farther up) is the only male, I haven't cut it yet, I'll wait till its fully realized (right now it's the only one without pistils) it has 3 little footballs (at diff. nodes) so I'll watch it till tomorrow or the next day, they all got a full 48oz of 3/4 mix 10-52-10 shultz and are growing between .5-.75 inches per day (still in the stretch). I am thankfull #4 is male, it was stunted for a whole week after its root damage and is behind in node growth (has plenty, but nothing like the others) tallest plant (trained) is 19" shortest is 16.5"; gotta raise my hood every other day!

4x5

07-06-2006, 01:58 AM

Going over my logs, I noticed in the last 24 hours the plants stretched/grew an average 1.5 inches, the high temp today in the area was only 77.2. Yesterday, They only grew .5 inches on average, the temp high was 86.4 (never gets hotter than 88 in the room) Now, dont get me wrong I did water them last night, but how much correlation does growth have on room temps? I take temps and measurements in the same hour everyday and trying to fill any "gaps" in my data. :stoned:

4x5

07-07-2006, 01:37 AM

High temperature 78.2, 1 1/8" avg. growth (per plant, 6 total), low temp (last night) 65.2 (lowest in a week and a half) I'll post pics tomorrow.

4x5

07-07-2006, 03:18 PM

I have been reduced to 4 plants, the male #4, and #3 went hermie for some reason, the remaining four are all female.

E Man

07-09-2006, 10:44 PM

Hey 4x5,

How many days into your grow did you start 12 & 12 when you were using just fluoros. I'm using 8 x 48" cool white tubes for veg. for now. I got 4 GE Plant & Aquarium tubes and I was going to get 4 more and use them for flowering but they're 1900 lumens and I can't find the temp anywhere on the packaging. If warm white tubes have more lumens I might try 4 of them along with the GEs for flowering. Did you change light temps with fluoros?

4x5

07-10-2006, 01:06 AM

I only used just floros for the first 7 days or so (24/7 light till they sprouted), then they went under the 2 mv's ( I am using 1 mv lamp at 4000k, 1 hps at 2100k and one mv at 5900k, the only bulbs I switched for flower was the 4' floro tubes, went from 4000k cool whites to 3000k warm whites) with 1 hps and 2 4' floro tubes. you should use cool white (or DX cool type) for veg and warm white (or kitchen and bath) tubes for flower. mind you my plants were only vegged for 33 days (under hid lights), i'm now 10 days into flowering, my total lumens are 45,800 (what they're under now) all four remaining plants I have are passing the 23" mark by tomorrow. you should definately get as much light as possible to those plants of yours btw.

4x5

07-10-2006, 04:57 PM

They are nearing the end of their stretch, they should stop "the stretch" in a week, flowering starting to pick up pace.

4x5

07-17-2006, 03:36 PM

My daughters have passed 29" and buds are-a-comin' second pic is just a closeup for better viewing.

4x5

07-24-2006, 06:38 PM

Here's some new pics I took saturday, they are vignetted for secrecy. These are pics of two of my 4 atm, they are 30" (soil to top) and 1.5ft wide, week 4, 2nd day.

ronjohn420

07-24-2006, 07:23 PM

i agree that MV is the most shit lamp out there, and youre right 4x5 they are similar to flouro's but there is a difference, MV doesnt have a watt to lumen ratio as good as the flouroscents and the amount of heat is alot different, in small rooms this must be taken in to account... im just cant justify the expense, go to lowes (if you have one) get their 150w HPS for 99.00 (bulb incl.) and add that to your CFL/tubes and grow on........

but i have to agree, youre doing a great job with what you have...keep up the good work:stoned:

4x5

07-25-2006, 02:11 AM

my heat is 3 degrees above the room outside, my ballasts are remote. True, my MV's only do like 54 lumens per watt, but with the hps in there too, they make up for 30+ 26w cfls. (48,000 lumens in there over 4.5sq ft) I'd rather wire-up what I got. I did fight off invading thrips today, successfully with water and habenero sauce mixed. I have 2 175w mv's and a 150w hps along with 2 4ft floro tubes (mentioned way earlier in post). Jeeez, I got pretty plants and I still get bashed for my "crappy lighting".

OmegaVermelho

07-25-2006, 03:16 AM

Hey dude nice green u have there...the girls look real healthy even the lower leafs are still in a very good condition...very nice job m8...keep on growing

4x5

08-01-2006, 03:17 PM

Updated pics, outside temps to hit 100 F today, hopefully my room gets only to 92 :(
2nd pic is to show the impending doom, 3rd pic looks sativa?

4x5

08-01-2006, 05:29 PM

one more, didnt rotate

4x5

08-08-2006, 02:54 PM

Here's some updated pics if you dare to care! I ended up killing one of my four, so I can get a head-start on the drying/curing. The plant I killed had some "issues" with training and didn't fill in quite right, it yielded a meager 52g wet (destemed, trimmed) my remaining 3 will more than make up for it.

Racerx

08-08-2006, 07:45 PM

is it just my imagination or are the fan leaves on the middle plant just gigantic?

orangeman

08-08-2006, 07:56 PM

is it just my imagination or are the fan leaves on the middle plant just gigantic?

It's just you :p.

4x5

08-09-2006, 01:23 AM

is it just my imagination or are the fan leaves on the middle plant just gigantic?
not gigantic, but 10 inches across aint bad?

BLaQLiGhT

08-09-2006, 04:48 PM

Weed4Life

08-09-2006, 06:33 PM

4x5

08-10-2006, 01:12 PM

Hey 4x5, its nice to see everything is still going well with your grow man. With the 150 hps that u are using, do u have a fan pointing at it to keep the temps down or is it not producing a lot of heat. How are you keeping your heat low? temps in cab?

that HPS puts out slightly more heat than a MV bulb, havent had troubles with heat, I disasembled the ballasts and put them outside the room, that took care of my temp problems, I have a 12" exhaust (low speed) in the ceiling, 2 80mm 12v PC fans and an inline air "pump" for intake to the room, only 2 clip fans for movement to the plants and another 80mm fan mounted in the hood. My room sits 3-5 degrees higher than the room next to it (no a/c btw) temps average btw 70-85 only hit 90 a few times.

4x5

08-10-2006, 01:18 PM

Nice grow room. So your using shultz ferts for flowering. Do you think that the mylar makes a big diff? I heard it does.
4x5- do you have pics of your grow room? I am just curious to see what options I have for my next grow. I need to redesign my room and light. Thanks.
I switched to mylar after running out of white foam core board. I do think the mylar does a good job, but I usually use just plain white boards for reflectors. I do use shultz for veg and shultz bloom ferts for flower, works great, no taste from it, hardly any yellowing yet either(they are losing leaves, but from the bottom up). I cannot post pics of my whole room b/c it is a dual purpose room and is filled with incriminating chems and equipment; but once this grow is done, I might post pics of the equipment.

Weed4Life

08-12-2006, 12:59 AM

Okay sounds good. I was just curious of your setup since you are having awesome results ands thats what I want for my next grow, so I want to build a good grow room. Also, if you can tell me how you are cooling the room?

4x5

08-12-2006, 02:29 AM

plainly outside air, I rely on the temps available, the only days the room hit 90+ was when it was 98 outside (which is why it feeds from an adjacent room, with open windows); just lots and lots of fresh air. the room is 186 cu/ft, my exhaust is 400 cfm, it's slow but with the air being pumped into the room with my described intakes, I get circulation twice a mintue easily.