First Grow/Set-up, SoS for assistance!

Hey guys,

This is my first grow/setup. I planted some seeds around January in a set up discribed around here for 100% germination. So far I have a pretty good sprout (planted on Jan 1st, and one other rising which was planted about 2 days ago). I checked some rapid rooter plugs and a few more seeds are emerging, the other ones seem dead.

In any case, the sprout has been around the same size now, for about a week, is something wrong? I am only witnessing small growth (half a centimeter) around the top, however the leafs are still the same size.

Attached pics are of the unit I have been keeping them. I have been following all instructions in that post to the T. I am keeping my PH around 6.

All in all, I am looking forward to this experience. I feel that this is my calling in life!

The only thing I can come up with is that the plant is not growing because the rapid rooter plug does no help the roots grow, they are already sticking out. Could it be that the leafs stopped growin because the roots stopped growing?

Oh, I want to make one exception...sry my bad, a few days ago I read up somewhere that the sprout can be stretching because of lack of sunlight. So I put some lights on it (2 x 100 watt CFL), but that didn't help... also the rooter plugs were always drying out.

So I mounted the lights in the cover for the dome and added a CPU fan to move air out. Since I didn't have any 7 volt adapters, I hooked the fan up to the battery of my drill, it worked pretty good, but I took the dome off.

Now, I know I fucked with this a lot, which may not have been a good idea in retrospect, however in a weird way I feel like Brianin that episode of Family Guy when he found out he had a son and he because totally obsessed with him.

Anyway, the additional pics are where the plants are going to go into for veg, I am also finishing up a cool spot for the summer room, will post pics later.

Thanks in advance on the help.. if any

Also, the spring "tub" has another computer chasis fan in there, I tested it and it moves the air pretty fast, I can also move a second one in there if it needs help.

This one is actually powered by a real power adapter.

you know... cheap ventilation

alright, this is type o galore... sorry guys, new keyboard.

1 fix: Now, I know I fucked with this a lot, which may not have been a good idea in retrospect, however in a weird way I feel like Brian in that episode of Family Guy when he found out he had a son and he became totally obsessed with him.

Hey man, I have a few suggestions, some insight and some ideas. First off, I use the rapid rooter plugs too. I think that they may be too wet. I find that I get best results rooting clones and seedlings under a humidity dome without the bubbler. Just keep em moist. Moist, not soggy or siting in an inch of water. The water that I do give to them is mixed with "olivia's cloning solution" not to be confused with the rooting gel. This stuff is packed with rooting hormones, speeds up root formation, and wards off molds and other root rotting things. Once they have developed a healthy root structure, move em on in to the bub.
The one seedling looks stretchy. How far away are the CFL's? Flouro's can be hung very close to the plant because it produces such little heat. In fact, your plant tips could be touching the bulb for days with little or no effect.
If you put a fan semi close to the plant so that it's always dancin' it will help to strengthen that long stem.
If you have any other questions let me know.
Peace.

Lazer,

Thanks for the info man.

The CFL's were pretty close to the plant, I had a splitter for the bulbs, also 200 watts in that closed space, should be plenty right?

The Case fan that I have in there makes the sprout wiggle and dance.

One thing I was concerned about though when running the lights and the fan is that mosture does not build up on the inside of lid.

So, when I run the bubbler and the heater, some water evaporates and drops of it are on all the walls and the inside of the lid in the container. If I run the lights and the fan, that doesn't happen. My assumption is that, this is the whole point of the bubbler right? Thats how the water gets to the rapid rooter plugs and to the roots...

Also, what is a good time to put the seedling under the lights?

There are so many resources online on proper plant care, but there is much less information in regard to seedlings, which is a bit discouraging.

Ladies and Gents,

Attached are some more pics of the running set up. It looks like sprout 1 (the taller one) is making some improvements, it grew a little bit overnight.

Sprout 2 (the short one) is on the way as well.

Well gentlemen and ladies, #1 is no longer with us.

Unfortunately I think I drowned it, what ended up happening is I think that the roots drowned. Every once in a while, the rapid rooter plugs would become very dry and I would dip them into the water for a second or two to moisten them up. I think that it may have done it. Can someone advice if this is recommended or not?.... I guess not, but I want someone to confirm the death if possible.

#2 is growing tall, however I have a feeling I am going to run into the same issue as with #1 (not the dipping, the thin stem and lack of growth). Picture of #2 attached, need a few pointers.

Hey guys, alright, so #2 has been on her own for a few days and not doing so well, I think she is going to kick it soon. Looks like both attemps failed miserably, can anyone provide any suggestions?

Well, I planted new seeds in new rapid rooter plugs, changed the water, lets see how it goes. One thing I am trying differently now is I raised the level of water in the germiator. This should make it easier for mosture to get to the rapid rooter plugs, it is about half an inch away from the plugs.

idk about you but everything that i have learned shows that the RR plugs should NOT be used with a bubbler :detective1: i will do some looking into this but IMO you should put you seedling in a clone dome with your 2x 23w CFLs above it..
let em sit in there for a week or less and then plant into a gallon of dirt.. just my :twocents:
if you REALLY need to run a DWC hydro grow then you gotta do some reading and talking to other peeps. i am a dirty man.. :D
IMO soil is easier for a first grow.. especially if you dont have a basic idea of how to grow..
if you want more info read the FAQ section.. and btw you need 5000+ lumens / sq foot.. each 23w CFL has ~ 1600 lumens.. so you need at least 3 per sq foot of grow space.. :jointsmile:
hit me up when you r in soil and ill help you all i can
~MG

I agree, try soil instead. its nice that you have those 100 watt CFLs they will come in handy in the long run. I am doing my first grow and so far I have not run into any problems with soil, although it has only been 3 days.

Ill be sure to look back a see what you decide to do. :)

Hey guys, thanks a lot for feedback, I appreciate it.

The plan is to go for soil grow, however I am using info from this post to germinate my seeds
http://boards.cannabis.com/basic-gro...ml#post1967487

The idea was to germinate the seeds and transplant them into the soil. I did some more reading on seed germination and I think the mistake was not transpanting seedlings into soil fast enough and hitting them with lights, also the lights in the cloner/germinator were too close to the plants.

What I have done to resolve the issue, is bought a brand new dome for the germinator with no mods on it, sprayed it with the water and currently have all the seeds in there.

I am also trying something different and trying to germinate a few seeds directly in some miracle gro potting mix which looks promising.

Also, the tub that I have pictures off, would finally have about 600w of light from 6 x100 CFLs. That would just serve as a main area for transition into veg. The main grow area has a 150W HPS, reflective walls, and I am planning to install about 5 more 100w CFL bulbs around. This will be the veg/flower spot. The goal is to make sets of CFL bulbs at 200w each and move them around the grow room in varioius areas, so the light hits the plants from the sides as well. I ll check to see if there is DIY section on how to make a good light for cheap with CFLs, if there isn't I will write one as I make those lights.
The ceiling will also have hooks in various areas so I will be able to hang those lights in any spot or wall mount them. The spot is very stealthy too, I will be done with it next week and post some pics.

Again, thanks for the input guys, I ll keep you posted.

Yeah I just go with the good ol' paper towel in ziplock bag method for germination, it has never failed me. But it seems like you are good to go, just be careful with that miracle grow, a lot of their stuff isnt as good as it seems.

BooRadly,

Thanks for the info man. I tried the paper towell method, but my results weren't so good. In fact, over the whole germination process, I am only seeing like 15% germination. I think it is because I am using bag seeds that may be kind of old... I am just too paranoid to order seeds from online.

man i AM running bag seed.. and i have 95%+ germination with the ziplock bag.. you jus gotta keep the seeds WARM and moist for high % germination rate..
just my :twocents:
~MG

Yup, I tried that too a few times, but the rates were really low, I think it is in part due to these seeds being very old.

For the hard to germinate seeds what I had some success in is taking some sand paper and gently sanding the outer shell a little bit. It's hard to get right, but seeds will germinate extremely quick afterwards.

Maingrower, in your experience, how long does it take for the seeds to germinate.

only 24hrs.. maybe 48 but that is a maxx..
if they take longer than 48 hrs then they wont grow so good i think so i just ditch em..
but i have the advantage of buying a TON of commercial (what maine has for shwag.. but nothing like your mexi brick.. all the pot i buy is grown in maine.. the commercial is just the outdoor that is grown.. well for profit)
this means i have an abundance of seeds.. none of em are crazy good.. and i have found that there is a tendency for em to go hermie.. but its all good :thumbsup:
give this a try.. put the seeds in a glass of water for a day.. than take em out pour em into 2 pieces a' papertowel ad leave em under a 100w incandescent light.. the heat will treat em good! i promise.. but ya gotta have enough paper towel that they think that they are underground.. a lil light slipping in is ok.. cause they will want to head for the light ya know?
then plant em in a solo cup with some dirt.. f the RR plugs.. they only help if you can make em work and idk if they are working for you so good bro..
~MG

thanks mainegrower, i will give it a shot, i still got some seeds lying around.

I just checked the set up and one of the seeds is peeking out, but still slow as hell in growth. The seeds in the solo dirt cups are also not showing yet. Going to drop about two seeds in a glass of water today, put them in some paper towell tomorrow per your advice as well.

Also,

I noticed that the water in the bubbler seems to have a PH balance that keeps going higher and higher. I check it every day and every day I have to lower it, sometimes twice a day. I mean, it would jump from like a 6 to like an 8.5, EVERY DAY, without me doing anything to the water.

I am going to flush it out, but does anyone know what could be causing this?

Ok, just a quick update. The rapid rooter plugs are sitting as is. I opened a few of them and checked... couldn't resist the curiousity... it looks like the seeds opened and have the small root sticking out that is burried in the plug. Hopefully, they will start popping out soon.

Also, one of the seeds in the plastic cups is coming out too, it still has the shell on, however it is above ground. It made a lot of progress since this morning.

I checked the seeds that were in water and out of 7 or so, about 5 are cracked with a small root sticking out, maybe just a few mm. I took them out and put them in some wet paper towells, put them in a zip lock bag and put them next to the dubbler, there is also a heater pointing towards it, keeping the temps nice and warm.

Will post any updates as soon as things start happening.

Thanks for the help so far.

Alright ladies and gents,

we are getting better every day here, I had two sprouts in the plastic cups come up and one out of the rapid rooter plug. They are only sticking out about an inch, but I think this is a pretty good start. I am going to go ahead and take the rooter plugs and just plug them into the soil.

Although soil is slower, thats the best results I had so far. Will post some pics tomorrow.

All,

I wanted to post an update, sorry about being late. In any case, the plants are doing fine! some pics attached.

Now I know that I shouldn't have put two seeds in the same cup... but I was so skeptical of even one of them germinating that I took the risk, now I have two plans in one cup.... I tried to separate one of them out to put into a different cup, but when I dug through the soil a bit the roots were very deep, so I didn't want to fuck with it. What are some of the risks I may run into?

There is also a one that is in the rapid rooter plug that is doing pretty well, the rest of them are being a bit lazy or something.

So far I have been keeping the temps at around 70-75 degrees, if it drops below that I would usually open the door and point a heater at it, its cold in the basement... winter here....

I have been watering the plants with water at PH of 6.0, no nutes added. I have been giving plants a little bit of water in the soil and spraying them down with a water bottle.

One of the issues I am running is humidity, its so fucking dry inside (thats what she said). Anyway, I had the humidity dome on, now I decided to take it off (for the reason unknown to even myself).

So far I have 4x100Watt CFLs, they are on 24/7. Starting today, they are going on a 18/6 light schedule.

Does that sound good? Let me know if I am fucking anything up...

Hi, I wanted to post an update.

So far we are in a pretty good shape.

- Temps - around 75
- Lights - 400 watt CFL - now switching to 300 w of CFL and 150 HPS. Both lights are about a foot away from the tips of the plants. (any recomendations)
- watered the plants with 1/3rd of recommended dosage some 3-10-3. (Ph coming in with 6.8, however when it came out it was 7.1( is this good? plants are in soil right now))
- I have also been using a sprayer to spray down the leafs every day or so (plan water)

Thanks for following and tune in tomorrow around the same time!

Edit: Also, currently the lights are 18/6. I had them on 24/0, but took them off it yesterday.

Hey Uncleweed, glad to see that after a rough start things are looking good once again.

Can't wait to see how your grow progresses. I'll be lurking. :rastasmoke:

thanks man... looking forward to it

YEAAAA KEEP US UPDATED ON THAT...WAT STRAIN ARE YOU GROWING?

whats a cheap way to give your plants some CO2?

I just got a can of compressed air, so I have been spraying it in there, but I read that plants can go through all the CO2 around them in like 15 minutes..... i can't spray that often lol

Also, any side effects of using this? It's also nice to use it to cool down your grow set up if the ventilation is not adequate.

ladies and gents, wanted to post a few pics of my set up.

It's super stealthy, mainly because i am paranoid...... the whole set up is hard...

The first pic is the closet (gota love the american flag eh.... cuz i am such a patriot... lol, anyway I thought it was better than a bob marley poster... why incriminate myself..?). Behind the flag is a fake wall (well the wall is real, but it wasn't there before). There is a small opening about 3ft high that allows me to sneak in there.

There is a CFL galore as well as 150watt HPS bulb. Currently, two plants are outside of the humidity dome those ones are doing pretty well, everyone else is still in the dome, they are being very lazy....

There are chains holding up the HPS bulb and chains running across the walls which allows me to mount lights on them as I need.

The black garbage bags cover the light coming through the seams of drywall (i learned that I shouldn't be in construction business through this experience).

The last pic is the cieling, I ran a 14AWG wire from that lamp through the drywall into the DIG. It was a bitch as you can see the drywall isn't set up that great, but I doubt the cops or visitors would notice.

more pics....

the small plant with the reflector on it is an experiment, the growth was slow, but after I put the reflector on it for a bit, the leafs almost doubled in size over a day....

The pen in the solo cup is also an experiment, I took a plastic pen and drilled a bunch of holes through it. Hopefully it will assist in getting some air to the roots, just an experiment, I will see how it helps the growth out.

let me know what you guys think, all feedback is much appreciated.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by uncleweed

more pics....

the small plant with the reflector on it is an experiment, the growth was slow, but after I put the reflector on it for a bit, the leafs almost doubled in size over a day....

The pen in the solo cup is also an experiment, I took a plastic pen and drilled a bunch of holes through it. Hopefully it will assist in getting some air to the roots, just an experiment, I will see how it helps the growth out.

let me know what you guys think, all feedback is much appreciated.

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the growth is still very slow, any advice?

ROOM TEMP. STERALIZED WATER. AND GOOD ROOM TEMP TO KEEP YOUR NICE ND WARM

what temp would you recommend?

Crap, I am running into issues, the temps are getting too high from the HPS and the humidity is around 32%....

I spread around some wet towells on the floor hoping to moisten the air a bit and ordered an 8" inline fan from home depot. Should be here by the end of the weekend.

Soooooo........the fan didn't come yet, so I am battling heat, at one point the temps were as high as 91, so what I am doing is periodically shutting off the hps and leave the cfls on, this gives the room enough time to cool down a bit

fuck, the fan still didn't get here, but the plants are looking good except for one.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lazer420

Flouro's can be hung very close to the plant because it produces such little heat. In fact, your plant tips could be touching the bulb for days with little or no effect.

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I had been told that you cannot burn leaves with cfl`s and so I experimented on my grow. You can get them very close (1-2cm) but if you let them touch the leaves (esp fresh growth) cfl's can cause some leaf burn.

yea one small plant has some warped leafs. I will post some pics later today.

Checked on it a few min earlier and everything is going along fine. The plants are looking great, the only thing is the growth seems to be around leafs and not around height, which is ok I guess.

sorry about the lack of pics lately, but I have been having problems mounting my sd memory card to my computer.....

anyway, the plants are growing, I don't see so much length, but they are getting bushy... all the leafs are like crammed in like crazy.

I watered the plants around monday with 1/5 strength solution of 3-10-3. Wednesday night I watered them with some plain ph 6.8 water and checked the run off, for most plants it was good except for one....

This morning I checked on the plants and the soil seemed very dry, I stuck my finger in there about an inch and a half and was dry as a 80 year old nun. So I watered them again with some nutes this morning. When I came home from work today though, I noticed that the bottom fan leafs on almost all plants are yellow and withering.... one plant has the fan leafs almost entirely gone.... The set of bottom leafs are also yellower than the rest of the top leafs.... I mixed a slightly stronger solution and watered the plants again now (I only used about a 12 oz bottle for all 7 plants, so I didn't drown them)... also the weird part is that after I watered them this morning the soil seemed pretty dry as well.....


Is this a nitrogen defiency? please advice!!!!!!!!