First grow log - 2-3 weeks into veg, need advice (pics)

[PatSajak]

Hi, my first time indoor grow! I've been vegging under 4 fluros and 4 cfl's for a few weeks, they haven't been growing too fast, but I am happy with the way its going so far. I just transplanted most of my smaller plants into bigger pots, and switched it to a 400w HPS, with the 2 fluros on the sides. I'm able to maintain decent temperatures and have been keeping the lights on 24/7.

I've been using FoxFarm Ocean Forest® Potting Soil (which has earthworm castings/guana/fish/crab meal), and they seem to be liking so far, but I have not fertilized yet, which I'm asking all you experts out there if you think now is a good time? The 4 bigger plants have been vegging for about 3 weeks (the smaller ones about 2 weeks) and I just purchased some FoxFarm BigBloom, and FoxFarm TigerBloom from reading recommendation posts. I think I still have a ways to go on vegging on all my plants, and I'm not sure if I should begin the BigBloom and TigerBloom fertilizer yet. the BigBloom directions say to use it in the final stages of vegging and throughout flowering.

When do you guys think a good time to start fertilizing will be for my babies? How are they looking so far?

I'm expecting and hoping for some rapid growth in the next few weeks, especially with the HPS now turned on, and I will keep this thread updated with pictures.

Thanks in advance, love this forum.

[mPk]

:thumbsup: looking great so far

[CYRAX]

nice nice, keep them going.

Don't furt yet.

[BONG0]

yet another reason i grow in hydro systems and not Soil. i would kill myself wateing for that to grow into anything. but it looks good, just takes way 2 long

[PatSajak]

Hey guys, thanks for the comments! I'll continue to wait on the furt, and I'll update the thread with progress/pics.

BONG0: i hear ya, I'm for sure doing a hydro grow next time, I'm going to start to price the systems soon. I just figured my first grow in pots would be easier, but it is taking a while. I heard fluros or MH was the best for veg but I couldn't take the slow growth so I had to turn on my HPS and I'm hoping that increases the growth speed a bit. We'll see what happens!

Thx for the encouragement

[santacruz_organic]

give them time on feeding. i burnt my plants by feeding them two soon. your soil already has nutrients in it wo i would wait for a couple of weeks till those nutrients are used up. looking good so far!

[Splifted]

I've been using FoxFarm Ocean Forest® Potting Soil (which has earthworm castings/guana/fish/crab meal), and they seem to be liking so far, but I have not fertilized yet, which I'm asking all you experts out there if you think now is a good time? The 4 bigger plants have been vegging for about 3 weeks (the smaller ones about 2 weeks) and I just purchased some FoxFarm BigBloom, and FoxFarm TigerBloom from reading recommendation posts. I think I still have a ways to go on vegging on all my plants, and I'm not sure if I should begin the BigBloom and TigerBloom fertilizer yet. the BigBloom directions say to use it in the final stages of vegging and throughout flowering.


I personally use fox farms stuff and I love it. But you have the wrong fertilizer for veg. The fox farms fertilizer system consists of Grow Big, Big Bloom, and Tiger Bloom. Grow Big is for veg, Tiger Bloom is for flowering, and big bloom is used throught the whole process. Check out this chart.

Also, be careful with the ocean forest soil. It is sometimes too hot for seedlings under a couple weeks, but older plants love it. Make sure to start off in soil that has no nutrients, like seed starting mix, for at least the first 2 weeks, then transplant to the ocean forest(it says that on the bag if you look, that is is used for transplanting). I burned up a whole batch of exceptionally sensitive seedlings starting them straight in ocean forest.

As for when to start feeding, your plants will tell you. You can get away with not feeding for probably most of their lives during veg if you are using ocean forest, it is a very good soil and has a lot of nutes in it. I'd definitely recommend not feeding for at least 2 weeks after transplanting into it to let the plants use of some of the nutrients already available in the soil. I also mix some extra perlite into the ocean forest soil, but thats just personal preference. I use a 4:1 soil to perlite ratio while mixing it up, just for extra drainage and what not.

Also, check out my girls, <3 teh fox farm :)
http://boards.cannabis.com/showthread.php?t=90199

[Splifted]

Hey guys, thanks for the comments! I'll continue to wait on the furt, and I'll update the thread with progress/pics.

BONG0: i hear ya, I'm for sure doing a hydro grow next time, I'm going to start to price the systems soon. I just figured my first grow in pots would be easier, but it is taking a while. I heard fluros or MH was the best for veg but I couldn't take the slow growth so I had to turn on my HPS and I'm hoping that increases the growth speed a bit. We'll see what happens!

Thx for the encouragement

Haha, look at the very first page of my grow to see what happens once you transplant and put them under an HPS light. Kinda a time lapse thing going on there.

[PatSajak]

I personally use fox farms stuff and I love it. But you have the wrong fertilizer for veg. The fox farms fertilizer system consists of Grow Big, Big Bloom, and Tiger Bloom. Grow Big is for veg, Tiger Bloom is for flowering, and big bloom is used throught the whole process. Check out this chart.

Also, be careful with the ocean forest soil. It is sometimes too hot for seedlings under a couple weeks, but older plants love it. Make sure to start off in soil that has no nutrients, like seed starting mix, for at least the first 2 weeks, then transplant to the ocean forest(it says that on the bag if you look, that is is used for transplanting). I burned up a whole batch of exceptionally sensitive seedlings starting them straight in ocean forest.

As for when to start feeding, your plants will tell you. You can get away with not feeding for probably most of their lives during veg if you are using ocean forest, it is a very good soil and has a lot of nutes in it. I'd definitely recommend not feeding for at least 2 weeks after transplanting into it to let the plants use of some of the nutrients already available in the soil. I also mix some extra perlite into the ocean forest soil, but thats just personal preference. I use a 4:1 soil to perlite ratio while mixing it up, just for extra drainage and what not.

Also, check out my girls, <3 teh fox farm :)
http://boards.cannabis.com/showthread.php?t=90199

Hey bro, thanks to you and all for the advice! I will buy some Grow Big and use your advice and wait atleast a couple weeks before I will start to use that, and the Big Bloom. Damn I should have mixed perlite into my mix, I was planning on it but it slipped my mind, am I'm a newbie grower here. Too late for that, but I am thankful to learn. Thanks for that Chart picture.

I hear you about the soil being too nute filled for seedlings, I figured that out about 2 weeks after that I should have used starter potting soil instead of the ocean forest, luckily I think/hope my babies are going to live through it, but ugh was I upset I made that mistake! I hope they make it

I very much like your grow and low stress straining, I hope to get to that point so I can do the same! Nice peppers too lol

Thx again

[PatSajak]

give them time on feeding. i burnt my plants by feeding them two soon. your soil already has nutrients in it wo i would wait for a couple of weeks till those nutrients are used up. looking good so far!

Thank you much !!

[PatSajak]

I personally use fox farms stuff and I love it. But you have the wrong fertilizer for veg. The fox farms fertilizer system consists of Grow Big, Big Bloom, and Tiger Bloom. Grow Big is for veg, Tiger Bloom is for flowering, and big bloom is used throught the whole process. Check out this chart.



Heya again, I had a question for you about this chart/mixing fertilzer. On the right in big red on the chart it says "feed with every other watering", is that just for the solubles, or should I follow that as a rule of thumb for the liquid ferts?

Also, should I mix the Grow Big in a gallon of water, and the Big Bloom in a different gallon of water, and alternate those every day?

Let me know on that if you could, I don't want to do something stupid and mix the Grow Big and Big Bloom together in a gallon, hehe.

Regarding your HPS grow, are you using 24/7 or 18/6 ?

Thanks in advance

~ Patsajak

[Splifted]

Heya again, I had a question for you about this chart/mixing fertilzer. On the right in big red on the chart it says "feed with every other watering", is that just for the solubles, or should I follow that as a rule of thumb for the liquid ferts?

Also, should I mix the Grow Big in a gallon of water, and the Big Bloom in a different gallon of water, and alternate those every day?

Let me know on that if you could, I don't want to do something stupid and mix the Grow Big and Big Bloom together in a gallon, hehe.

Regarding your HPS grow, are you using 24/7 or 18/6 ?

Thanks in advance

~ Patsajak

I'm a noob too, btw. First grow :)

During veg, we watered about twice a week, and and fed once with both grow big and big bloom, and watered with just water and super thrive once. We used superthrive with the ferts too. We started off with about 1/4 strength fertilizer and worked up to full doseage, but found out that you don't necessarily have to feed every week. The leaves got really really dark green for awhile almost on the verge of a nitrogen overdose, but we never burned them.

Btw, big bloom isn't a fertilizer so much as it has a lot of a supplement, if you look at the N-P-K values they're all really low.

I still need to pick up some tiger bloom, haven't fed yet and they've been flowering for 17 days but showing no signs of deficiency yet.

As far as the hps, we had it on 24/7 at first then switched to 18/6 but just to save money cause a 1kw hps chews through power. If you can afford it, run it 24/7, cannabis doesn't need a rest period, all you do is waste 6 hours of growth a day. Plus 24/7 promotes denser growth on plants, which you want, don't worry it will stretch out quite a bit once you start flowering.


Also, I recommend LST'ing them. That allows more of the plant to get light as well, increasing how fast it grows in my opinion. We started LST'ing at the same time we transplanted them to 5gallon pots and put them under the 1kw hps. You can see what it did for my girls.:) What gets the most even canopy in my opinion is topping the plant once when it is about 4 to 6 nodes high, then LST'ing it over and then tying all the resulting tops back away from the main branch. Should give you something like this, with a few large colas instead of the 45+ small ones like on a couple of mine.

[PatSajak]

I'm a noob too, btw. First grow :)

During veg, we watered about twice a week, and and fed once with both grow big and big bloom, and watered with just water and super thrive once. We used superthrive with the ferts too. We started off with about 1/4 strength fertilizer and worked up to full doseage, but found out that you don't necessarily have to feed every week. The leaves got really really dark green for awhile almost on the verge of a nitrogen overdose, but we never burned them.

Btw, big bloom isn't a fertilizer so much as it has a lot of a supplement, if you look at the N-P-K values they're all really low.

I still need to pick up some tiger bloom, haven't fed yet and they've been flowering for 17 days but showing no signs of deficiency yet.

As far as the hps, we had it on 24/7 at first then switched to 18/6 but just to save money cause a 1kw hps chews through power. If you can afford it, run it 24/7, cannabis doesn't need a rest period, all you do is waste 6 hours of growth a day. Plus 24/7 promotes denser growth on plants, which you want, don't worry it will stretch out quite a bit once you start flowering.


Also, I recommend LST'ing them. That allows more of the plant to get light as well, increasing how fast it grows in my opinion. We started LST'ing at the same time we transplanted them to 5gallon pots and put them under the 1kw hps. You can see what it did for my girls.:) What gets the most even canopy in my opinion is topping the plant once when it is about 4 to 6 nodes high, then LST'ing it over and then tying all the resulting tops back away from the main branch. Should give you something like this, with a few large colas instead of the 45+ small ones like on a couple of mine.

Thanks again for all this info on the ferts etc! Makes sense. Wow good job for being a n00b. I Will def. start to LST and see what happens.

I added some mylar in my grow room, and some black mesh screen on the door of my closet to keep the light out of my room at night (so i can sleep!), I have to keep the door open to keep the air flow from the window in there so it doesn't get too hot, and so far I think the black mesh screen is working well. I also added some CFLs for some extra light, esp. for the smaller palnts, and I think that I will move my HPS closer to the plants tomorrow.

What temperature do you keep your girls at ? Do you do anything special to keep the temp down? I want to grow year round and I'm thinking come summer time its going to be hot as fuck out here in the desert, and I may need some type of cool air humidifier

Another thing that concerns me about my grow is that my 400 HPS + 2 fluros + 4 cfls is not enough light, I'm thinking I may need another HPS ballast for 8 plants, what do you think?

[Splifted]

I'm not for sure about the number of plants, but a 400 watt should cover a 4x4 or 5x5 space. But of course more light is almost always a good thing.

I have my HPS in a cool tube, and since we only have a really weak fan right now, the room stays around 85 during the day which is pretty high for flowering, I want to get it down below 80 so hopefully the new fan should do that. Right now I don't even have an exhaust fan per se, its just a regular round fan that is ghetto rigged on to some ducting pulling air through the tube and out the room, but it works alright. Keeps the tube cool enough I can put my hand on it comfortably when its been running all day. I dont know about summertime though, we started the HPS in october, but it was still like 90 degrees outside. So far, no matter what the temp outside, our room has stayed the same, right in that 85-83 degree range. We have a whole lot of circulation in the room with a big ass fan and a few oscilating fans, so it feels cooler to me than the thermometer reads. It felt way worse before we got the big fan to circulate air.

But yeah, I'm an official LST whore now, i recommend it to everyone simply cause I can't believe how awesome my girls turned out. Its amazing to me how simply tying a plant sideways can change the shape it grows so much.

[Splifted]

Also, how high do you have your light above your plants? We started off really high, but now its only like 2 feet maybe. The closer the better, cause you lose like 1/4 of the lumens for each foot. Like a 1kw at 1 foot is 135,000 lumens, at 2 ft is like 45,000 lumens. They had a nice little chart in the grow bible showing how much intensity drops with distance, its crazy.

Light intenstiy = Total Light Emitted / ((4 x pi) x (radius^2))

And light intensity decreases by 1/x^2 where

So like if you have 135,000 lumens at 1 foot, you increase that to 2 ft, you it would be 135,000 x 1/2^2 which is 1/4 so basically one fourth of 135,000 = 33,750. Crazy huh? Thats why the top bud always is so big and the bottom ones are smaller, cause they get a lot less light. LST'ing takes that problem away, preventing you from having like 5 feet from the top to the bottom of the plant.

So thats the science behind bigger buds lol.

[PatSajak]

Also, how high do you have your light above your plants? We started off really high, but now its only like 2 feet maybe. The closer the better, cause you lose like 1/4 of the lumens for each foot. Like a 1kw at 1 foot is 135,000 lumens, at 2 ft is like 45,000 lumens. They had a nice little chart in the grow bible showing how much intensity drops with distance, its crazy.

Light intenstiy = Total Light Emitted / ((4 x pi) x (radius^2))

And light intensity decreases by 1/x^2 where

So like if you have 135,000 lumens at 1 foot, you increase that to 2 ft, you it would be 135,000 x 1/2^2 which is 1/4 so basically one fourth of 135,000 = 33,750. Crazy huh? Thats why the top bud always is so big and the bottom ones are smaller, cause they get a lot less light. LST'ing takes that problem away, preventing you from having like 5 feet from the top to the bottom of the plant.

So thats the science behind bigger buds lol.

hey bro, just moved my light to 2 ft from the plants! it was probably about 3.5 feet before, hopefully they enjoy the extra lumens! Gonna start to LST train probably tomorrow or next day! I think a few of my plants are ready, I want to see how they respond to the closer distance HPS first.

What type of air ionizer do you have, are you using active charcoal at all? Thats the next thing on my list to do, odor control!

[Splifted]

All we have is one of those febreeze air scrubbers with a charcoal filter you can pick up at lowes for 12.99. It works pretty good until we start touching the girls(haha sounds dirty) but then the room stinks. It gets the smell out after a little bit though. It used to smell outside the house, but now it doesn't. As soon as we get a proper exhaust for that cool tube we're gonna put a real carbon filter on it. Already have all the stuff to make one.

[PatSajak]

Hey firstly just want to say thanks to Splifted and others, have really helped me to get to the point where I'm at, otherwise I would have for sure screwed something up!

OK Now I'm at about 1.5 months into veg, most plants being around 2ft tall, or slighty bigger, up to 28". I'm running low on room in my 5x4 grow closet. But it is 10 ft high which is good..

6 out of 8 of my plants are in 5 gallon buckets, the other 2 are in 3 gallons, they seem to be loving the Foxfarm soil. 4 out of 8 of these are LST'd! I had no room to LST anymore :( For a couple weeks now I've been using Big Bloom supplement, and Grow Big Fertilizer. Yesterday was the 2nd time I used GB fert, and all the plants responded unbelivable! Except one, which seems to be dieing, again. My two oldest plants (a couple weeks older) in the 3 gallon buckets at one point were dieing from nute deficiency, and within a few hours after I gave them BigBloom they came shooting back to life. It has now happened again to one of the two, after yesterdays fertilize session (unless I completely spaced out and forgot to fertilize it, which is possible since it was pretty dry...). I just got done watering my plants and I decided to give the two older plants in smaller 3gall pots some BB instead of regular water according to my schedule. I'm going to take pics and post them again in a few hours to see if my dieing girl comes back to life again after the BB, but I hope its not an over-fertting issue, which I don't see how it could be. But again, this is the 2nd time I fertilized.

For a long time I was just watering, until my 2 oldest plants started to die as I mentioned, and then I started this schedule, for 2 weeks now everyday 24 ounces goes to the 3 gallons, and 36 ounces to the 5 gallon buckets.

day1 - Big Bloom
day2- water
day3- Big Bloom
day4 water
day5 - Fertilize GB
day6 - water
day7 - water
end repeat..


I'm not sure at what point I should be flowering. Right now I have 2 400 watt lights. The Left side being an MH and the right side being a HPS. I ordered another conversion bulb to make the whole thing MH, and I ordered another 400 watt hps/mh which I planned to take out 2 plants and put them in a different closet on their own 400 watt so that I have more room in my original grow space so I can put up side lights and shit, and I planned to veg them all another month, but I'm not so sure, right now I just want to make that one plant come back, and maybe start to flower sooner?

Here are pics. The 2nd plant from the right in the green 3 gallon bucket is the one I am concerned with. Drooping :( 2nd pic is a closeup. 3rd is the plant nex to it on the right which is my tallest one. 5th pic is the MH plants looking nice!! and 4th pic is generic pic

Anyway let me know what y'all think! I'll post updated pics in a few hours and hope that BB helps. I really hope it was me forgetting to fert that one plant yesterday! Could it be over-fert?

thanks for all the past and any future help

[PatSajak]

indeed i do think i forgot to to fert the other day

she's looking better from BB supp, and today i'll give her fert, should hopefully make her happier/non droopy!

[smokin dope]

I personally use fox farms stuff and I love it. But you have the wrong fertilizer for veg. The fox farms fertilizer system consists of Grow Big, Big Bloom, and Tiger Bloom. Grow Big is for veg, Tiger Bloom is for flowering, and big bloom is used throught the whole process. Check out this chart.

Also, be careful with the ocean forest soil. It is sometimes too hot for seedlings under a couple weeks, but older plants love it. Make sure to start off in soil that has no nutrients, like seed starting mix, for at least the first 2 weeks, then transplant to the ocean forest(it says that on the bag if you look, that is is used for transplanting). I burned up a whole batch of exceptionally sensitive seedlings starting them straight in ocean forest.

As for when to start feeding, your plants will tell you. You can get away with not feeding for probably most of their lives during veg if you are using ocean forest, it is a very good soil and has a lot of nutes in it. I'd definitely recommend not feeding for at least 2 weeks after transplanting into it to let the plants use of some of the nutrients already available in the soil. I also mix some extra perlite into the ocean forest soil, but thats just personal preference. I use a 4:1 soil to perlite ratio while mixing it up, just for extra drainage and what not.

Also, check out my girls, <3 teh fox farm :)
http://boards.cannabis.com/showthread.php?t=90199

quick question about the fox farm chart.

im about to start my flowering and i have both big bloom and tiger bloom.

so on my first feeding, does this mean, 2tsp/gal and 1tbl/gal, both nutrients in the same water?

[Splifted]

quick question about the fox farm chart.

im about to start my flowering and i have both big bloom and tiger bloom.

so on my first feeding, does this mean, 2tsp/gal and 1tbl/gal, both nutrients in the same water?

Yah, I believe so.

[PatSajak]

Ugh my one girl is looking shitty again, just the one.. even after the GB fert. BB supp was the only thing that makes her happy. I even adjusted the light so she gets moer.. I guess I will just BB her today and everyday! Thinking about a heavy BB feeding. :confused: :confused:

[kindprincess]

what is your ph? just wondering, i know that my blueberry strain did the same thing to me, like one was just never happy. funny though, that was the most potent one....

love, kp:p

hey splift, where've you been babe?

[PatSajak]

what is your ph? just wondering, i know that my blueberry strain did the same thing to me, like one was just never happy. funny though, that was the most potent one....

love, kp:p

hey splift, where've you been babe?

Interesting about that one strain. I would luv some blueberry! the PH is 6.4. I've given it some BB supp today because soil looked very very dry, i usually dont water for another 6-8 hours so i might give it a lil more later this afternoon too.. Maybe I never compensated properly with water for the day when I accdinetally skipped feeding, which was a few days ago. Cuz it has been going back and fourth, getting more happy after i feed it, and then droopy again 10 hours later and extremely dry. I'm monitor it all day and make sure its not getting dried out. I'm hoping I can make her happy again

[PatSajak]

My girl is looking a lot better now! Was just really dried out!

I'm considering BigBloom more often, on the back it says "safe every watering" and 4 tables spoons per gallon, as opposed to 2 on that chart, I wonder why its different? I started off with 2tbl according o the chart, and increased it to 4tbl in the last couple weeks, and they seem to be loving it.

Not sure how much I should use during flowering, between 1-2 i guess!

It also says only 1 teaspoon of GrowBig per fert for every watering as opposed to 2-3 on the chart, hmm!