1st post, 1st grow, 1st question :)

Hello new friends :)

Just found this board and seems a great place....

This is my 1st grow and would welcome some advice.

The story begins when a friend gave me a single White Rhino clone. I didn't plan on growing seriously but just thought i'd see how i got on with it.

It grew in clay pebbles under 4 cf's (18w each from local supermarket) for around 5 weeeks. Growth was pretty good and soon outgrew my small cupboard. I didnt have anywhere else indoors i could keep it at the time, so decided to take my own clones from it and then chuck it in a pot in the garden.

All went pretty well, clones grew and mother survived (just... damned miracle grow). [mother-plant.jpg]


I started to get the buzz for it so went out and bought some kit.

NFT tray
250W HPS
250W MH (retro fit for HPS ballast)
125W Blue Spectrum Envirolite
Small Osc fan
Mylar
PH meter
Canna A+B Vega
Oxy Plus

I now have a mini grow room for clones running under the envirolite. [clone_room.jpg]


Once they outgrew this room i put them into my larger grow room and ran them under the MH for about 2 weeks. [grow_room.jpg]


All was great until a few days ago when i noticed the leaves were slightly wilting and had a somewhat shrivelled look to the newer growth leaves.

A little worried i went out a bought a nutra-wand as this was something i felt might help diagnose the prob. Turns out my EC reading was 2.9. Higher than expected but this must have been down to nutes remaining in the tank and mat when changing the water.

I flushed the plants and ran water for only 36 hours and got the EC down to 0.6. I remade some solution with EC of 1.4 to ease it back into the nutrients.

PH levels have always been around 5.75-5.9, something i check daily.
Temps have been up and down and have been pretty hot (upto 33c during the heat we've had recently). Ironicly, since my grow room has returned to 24/25 C the problems have occured (coincidence)?

Although harder to see in the photo (check leaves in front) you'll see the drooping and shrivelled look i'm worried about. [problem.jpg]

As i've corrected the EC and its been a few days now i'm wondering if the plants are getting too much water. I run my pump 24/7. I thinking of maybe switching the pump to 15on/15 off...

Sorry about the essay but didnt just wanna say "help my plants are getting sick" :)

Appreciate any help.

Cheers, Dazzle

P.S Today was the planned date to put them into flower.

Maybe the lights are too intense? They look pretty good to me (probably the quality of the pics are makin them look ok lol) but the only problem I see is drooping. I can only suggest a cut back or increase in watering, thats the only reason I hear plants droop over.

Hey Orangeman, thanks for the sugestion. If they hadn't improved so quickly i would've tried moving the light further away but being only a 250w HPS i'd have been worried if the plants couldn't have taken that much light at their size of growth.

Well, I changed the water cycle to 15 min on/15 min off and they seem to have perked up a little (post pics later). Still a little shrivelled but def improvement.

I'll post some pics as time passes so anyone who's interested what a cheap 250w HPS bulb is going to do on 4 plants can see for themselves.

Just for info:

250w Ballast
250w Retro fit MH bulb
250w HPS bulb
125W Blue envirolite
Reflector
NFT tray + pump
Canna A+B veg nutes
Hessi flowering nutes
Liquid Silicon
PH down
Oxyplus
Mylar
Digital PH meter
Nutra-wand

£235

i have no idea on that style of growing but looks good

As promised, heres a couple of more pics 12 days after last post.

Plants grew about 8 inches since putting into flower and are already too large for my grow space. It's turned into a bit of a jungle. I've taken to bending the tips over already...!

My next batch of clones are coming along nicely inder the 125w envirolite.

How big is your space and how many plants you got growing in there?? Looks good! :smokin:

Now 18 days into flower and plants are doing good. Some flowers forming and looking nice.

So much bending and moving going on though. Listened to a podcast the other day and learnt i should have kept the MH going for the 1st week into flowering to prevent excessive stretching.

Anyway, no nute burn or heat damage so far, so cant complain yet.

My grow space is about 1.4m high x 1m wide x 0.8m deep. I have 4 plants in there. Not enormous but i was restricted to the size of my car as its a custom built space.

My next lot of clones are going nicely as well. Moved them under the MH light yesterday.

Here's the pics.

lol quite the first grow. all that started from 1 seed.

It all started from 1 clone a friend gave me. It was quite a test of will power to let that grow into a mother before taking cuttings to start the proper grow.

I bought another cheap ballast, reflector and bulb the other day to accomodate my 2nd grow space.

I've got another few cuttings to mature and then that'll be my lot for the year. I've already destroyed the mother so as to avoid temptation.

I'm pretty pleased with the progress so far.

After reading this board and listening to a friend i'm glad i took the advice of 1/ having a decnt PH meter and 2/ having a nutrawand. To be this far along with no nute burn or other ailments is great.

Its 3 weeks to the day of putting into flower so i'll chuck some more pics up later.