haha, oops forgot to post the pic
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haha, oops forgot to post the pic
syde, as your plants don't look over-watered, I'd go ahead and add a bit of water. I agree they look a bit droopy, and seeing as how they haven't received water since Friday, I'd say the soil at the bottom of the planters must be a bit dry - as you suggested, the surface remaining moist due to to the paper plates.
I appreciate all of the information on your lighting. It will really help me make a decision on lighting for when I move forward with that indoor dealio.
Good luck, my friend!
Syde,
Hello I have gone over your entire log and can't seem to find anything about your watering technique. It will help if you go into detail about your routine. Include how much water you use every watering, any nutes or supplements you may be using. I do think you mentioned you had them in 1 gallon pots but what is your soil mixture also.
We should be able to figure out what is happening with that info.
JG
Hey guys :)
well, I gave them some water last night ~10PM EST.
I checked in on them this morning but there seems to be no change really, they don;t really look any better, but they also don;t look any worse and they do appear to be continueing to grow at a normal pace... i suppose i could be over-analyzing here a bit, but the curl on some of those leaves seems like alot... but theres also absolutely no discolouration anywhere on them
JG - thanks for stopping in :)
the watering scheduling so far has been roughly every other day, when i had them in 4" pots (transplanted up to the 1gal pots around Day 8) they seemed to need it everyday at that point, but i kinda blamed that on the lights being so close to the soil and evaporating it quicker than normal. When i water them I basically give them just enough until i see a little bit of run-off coming out... i'd say on average about 100-250ml's of run-off comes out (sorry, not familiar enough with fluid oz and quarts to think in those terms!) I generally don;t pay a ton of attention to how much i;m putting in though... basically once i see the run-off start i stop putting more in. I know they are holding some of it though, as the weight of the pot is significantly heavier after watering like it should be.
I am not giving them any nutes at all yet, they are not even 2 weeks old just yet so there should still be lots of nutes in the soil for them to suck up... they have been getting nothing but tap water that has been sitting out for > 24 hours before being used (not sure of my chlorine content, but i figured no reason risking it on something so simple to avoid).
The soil is Hortibec Premium Nature Mix - Vegetable Garden & Herb Mix which is made up of Peat Moss, Compost, Humus and Sand... not sure on the ratios though, and i;m also unsure of its initial NPK values (might have the NPK on the package... i'll check when i get home tonight). I did however add perlite and vermiculite to hortibec soil, i mixed at a ratio of roughly 2 parts soil, 1 part perlite, 1 part vermiculite.
I kinda realize what I;m about to say is kind of like asking somebody to punch me in the face but... i do have no idea what my Ph levels are... i have been shopping around for a good test kit but have not come across a good option yet... i have found a couple soil test kits which test for a few things aside from just Ph, however the kits i have seen are either single-use or double-use kits and they cost about $10... $10 for a single-use or even double-use kit just seems like a huge scam to me... i have seen one place that sells regular ph stripes (at least i think thats what it is)... they are in a relatively small pill bottle like a small asprin bottle so i couldn't actually see what was in it, but it was a little over $20 for that, which again doesn;t seem like a great deal for litmus paper... and i also know litmus paper tests on soil run-off water is well... a little inaccurate at *best* and could be extremely inaccurate.. so again, that doesn;t seem like a wise investment... i'd much rather spend the extra money on a decent digital pen or something but i haven;t done enough research yet into figure out if i can get a decent one for say < $100 (i also don;t know what a "decent" one is yet).
i know my issue could be a slight ph issue, especially with the peat moss in the soil, as i know as it breaks down it becomes acidic, but the soil does also have humus in it which should help buffer the ph to keep it more consistent.
sorry, i know my posts can sometimes be a bit long and i can tend to blab on a bit lol... but i work in the IT field, and I know very well, that quite often big problems come from the smallest of details... so i;m kinda just throwing all my thoughts out there and seeing what sticks!
thanks for your help :smokin:
I could be wrong, considering you have sand, perlite, and vermiculite in your medium. But some spots could have been moist at one time and dried up so tightly that water runs around the most heavily rooted area. They don't seem to be having that bad of a PH issue. But getting a nice pen and dialing it in around 6.5 will definitely show improvements by gifting you with explosive growth.
http://www.plantlightinghydroponics....monitors-c-373
http://www.htgsupply.com/productsubc...?categoryID=13
besafe:jointsmile:
hrm, thats an interesting thought about dry pockets in the soil... how would one go about correcting a problem like that? the only thing i can think of would be to basically flood the crap out of them during a watering session to make sure the water stays in the pot long enough to sucked up by the dry pockets.
I did just run home during my lunch break and took a quick peak at them... they do seem to have perked up a bit since this morning... i think... its kind hard to tell, i should stop looking at them so often so i see more dramatic changes instead of small incremental changes that are harder to see :p
going to look into the whole ph testing problem when i come home from work.
what do you think is a better approach?
1. a ph meter designed for soil that goes right into the soil
2. a ph meter that designed for testing liquids, and then testing the run-off water Ph?
(1) seems like its kind of more what i care about... but it seems the meters designed to go right into soil do not work at all for testing liquids, so i still wouldn;t have a way of testing my tap water ph... which ultimately makes it impossible for me to actually correct a ph problem since i'd have no way of knowing if i am flushing with correctly ph'd water... i could get some cheap litmus papers for this i suppose...
i kinda prefer option (2) even though i know testing run-off water isn;t as good as the soil itself... but option 2 just seems more versatile, and not to mention, the digital soil meters seem a tad expensive... though the analog ones are pretty reasonably priced, but i also suspect their quality and accurance is not nearly as good
i;m also assuming that when it comes to the digital meters... Hanna is the way to go? i see the Milwaukee ones look a little cheaper, but i;ve only ever heard people mention Hanna meters on these boards.
Syde,
Thanks that helped.
I have an opinion of what is happening now. Please keep in mind I am giving you some constructive criticism so do not take anything wrong, I am only trying to help. I did the same mistakes my first grow.
I feel your droopy leaves are caused by a couple of things, but mainly over watering. Watering every couple days is way to often for a plant that size in one gallon pots. The good thing is you are watering correctly by watering until it flows from the bottom. Again I use the keep it simple rule of thumb. I water the same way but when done I lift the pot to judge its weight. Then every day I lift the pot to check its weight again. I do this until I feel the pot weighs 1/3 of the weight just after watering. For a plant that size in 1 gallon pots should take around 5 days or more. The MJ plant likes slightly dry soil not saturated, plus letting the soil slightly drying out makes the roots grow to all areas of the pot looking for moisture therefore a bigger root structure =bigger buds.
Next I think you transplanted to early and is contributing to your problems also. I wait until roots are coming out the drain holes before I transplant. For a plant to get root-bound would take around a month in the first pots you used. Also by waiting longer the root structure holds everything together nicely and make transplanting a simple process. But the reason this may be adding to your problem roots may have been damaged during your transplant if it did not go smoothly and is still in the recovery phase.
What I remember about my first grow was that I could not leave the plant alone for a minute, and was always in danger of loving them to death. Now that I have the experience I may only check them for 20 min a day other than that I just let them do their thing and grow.
Hope this helps you out and Keep Growin
JG
JG,
that totally makes sense and i appreciate the feedback, i wouldn;t of started the thread if i was going to throw a fit when somebody was going to give me criticism... i;m new to this and i know it... i feel i have a bit of knowledge based reading a ton of stuff here, but i;m also smart enough to know that i don;t know even close to everything :cool:
the overwatering makes sense, and it was on my list of possible causes, so i'm glad to see i wasn;t way out in left field with that one :D I just feel horrible now that i gave them more water yesterday! haha
watering does seem to be a little bit of a tricky one... i mean, its a really simple thing, but at the same time it seems so different for everybody and there are alot of variables that come into play... it seems to be one of those things that no matter how much you read about it (of which there is actually rather little info on these boards... except for "check the soil moisture about an inch or so down" and "the biggest problem with newbies is over-watering"). nobody can really tell you exactly what the soil should feel like since its all relative to so many other variables - your soil mix being the most obvious one... my soil being dry might feel completely different than the next guys..so not having a reference point to begin with makes it a little tricky... so kinda learn by doing i guess :)
as for when i transplant before... i actually did have roots at the bottom of the pots at the drainage holes poking their way out a little bit, and i had read that when you see roots growing out the bottom it means they are becoming root bound, so thats why i transplanted them before, but admititly, it did seem very early to be doing it at the time. The root ball did hold together fairly well when i did the transplant, but once i did pull them out of the previous pots i didn;t think they were as root bound as i had initialy thought at the time... there was lots of visible root structure at the bottom of the root ball, but it certainly wasn;t as filled out as i had thought it would be... again, just one of those things i think i need to learn by doing.
i;m kind of big on the whole trial and error thing when it comes to most problems in life, so i;m not worried at all about making mistakes and i;m really glad theres a big support community like this one to help people like me learn the basics :)
again, much appreciated! i'll let them chill out on their own for a few days and we'll see what happens
syde00, it looks like I gave you some bad advice - my sincere apologies, and my sincere thanks to JG for spotting the issue and providing much better, experienced advice. I've learned something here as well - ask more questions before providing advice and if I am unsure of an answer, ensure I provide my advice with a grain of salt.
Best of luck in your continued grow, my friend!
i would have to agree with JG on this one.....underwatering usually shows a wilting effect along with droopy leafs....the pictures look like overwatering......i would of said as well as distance to the light but 2 inches is fine....id not water those puppies for like 4-6 days you should see a noticable improvement! Good Luck! Oh yeah and mixing the CFL works good but i tend to mix them according to stretch....if its a indica...i add more 2700k to my veg...closer to 60/40...opposite for sativas 80/20....helps control plant size in small areas..