yet another first timer grow log

i started my first grow about 4 days ago now, im using a rubbermade grow tub, two 45 gallong tubs on top of each other(pictured below) for lights right now im running 6 100w cfl's(26 actual watts each) my temps are hanging around 78-80 degrees

for soil im using 50% fox farm ocean forest potting soil mixed with 50% perlite

for ferts i will be using general hydroponics floraMicro, floraGrow and FloraBloom

for nutrients i will be using cha ching, open sesame and beastie bloomz

on the first i put my seeds in moist paper towels, by the third i had a 100% germination rate, and put them into the soil mix, gave them a VERY VERY small dose of floraMicro and "tented" my pots by pulling saran wrap over them to increase humidity and hopefully my chances of getting some good females, i checked on them early this morning(may 5th) and they have already broken through the soil and are showing their seedling leaves, ive taken the humidity tents off now and did a second watering with just plain water

and last but not least im growing blue mystic and papaya from nirvana seeds, ive got four plants total, two of each.

looks great so far.

Ive had good results vegging my plants with cfls , was going to flower with them but I decided to get a hps. I will be watching your grow keep us updated ! lol

Lights, temps, medium, all sound good.

Nice! Good Luck!

i really like that storage bin design alot of people have been using lately, looks very effective for smaller grow ops :) nice work, ill be here watching and commenting the whole way :rasta:

yeah the grow tubs are GREAT, im using one double the size of the one in the orig. how to post so im hopping i can cram two plants in each, the papaya strain is an indica so if i put one of each in each tub i should have pleanty of room, thanks for all the help in advance, i picked up a copy of the bible about a month ago so with some luck and reading i dont anticipate running into too many problems, also forgot to mention in the first post that im running my lights on a 17/7 light schedual... now this is where im kind of conflicted, the bible said a 15 hour light period would produce more females but then like 5 pages later says that plants need 18 hours of light. what do most of you start your lights at? Ive seen that most do 18/6 so i figuer 17 is kind of between the two

Looks good man, my first grow to one thread down from you :) im only a few days further into the grow cycle than you. Cant wait to see the outcome of this.

ok, ive got one more thing im unclear about, when were talking temps are we talking soil temps or air temps? moved my therm. around today and the temp on the soil is only about 72 but the temp of the air is around 80, should i get that soil temp up to around 80? if i do that my air temp will be around 90 does that make much of a difference?

No dont worry about soil temp, keep the temperature in the box between 72 - 82 and youl be fine

yesterday was my plants birthday, its been one week since they were planted into soil, so far everything is going well, they are stretching a little but aside from that all is well... ill probably just keep updating once a week or even less since the seedling growth is a bit boring

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/IMG_2025.jpg

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/IMG_2024.jpg

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/IMG_2023.jpg

ok so its been exactly two weeks now since the seeds were planted in to soil, so far everything is going great, i water about every other day, temps have been good, from as far as i can tell it looks as if the seedling growth stage is comming to an end and were about to enter vegetative growth. when would be a good time to start LSTing them? im guessing ive got a week or two till i get to that point? how are they looking? anyone see any problems yet?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by xmk

anyone see any problems yet?

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I don't see any....and by the looks of it no one else does either, lol. You aren't ready to lst yet. Yes, you still have a week or two....
It's almost time to transplant- do it a little after that.
And remember to put the soil to the top of your container (more air flow around them= happier plants= bigger plants)

:jointsmile: Bree

thanks for the advice, im going to transplant tomorrow and ill be sure to fill the containers to the top with soil. Tonight i went out and got a couple computer fans, wired them up and added four more lights to my set up, since my tubs are so big i had gotten 5 socket light fixtures and i was only using 6 lights due to heat issues but with the stronger computer fans i was able to add four more 60 watt bulbs so now im running 6 100w and 4 60w bulbs for a total of 840w. I think the added lights will help them get through the stress of being transplanted, plus it cant ever hurt to have more lights

Just curious, no rush, but what's the total 'real' watts?

:jointsmile: Bree

good to see more use of the rubbermaid tub grow since that is what I'll probably be doing in a few months.

be sure to wet the compost before transplanting,it'll keep your plants roots and soil intact when you take them out their pots,also,your new pots,put some soil in the bottom,then take your plants and old pots and place them in the new pot so the soil in the old pot is at the top of the new pot,then fill in around old pot,lift old pot and plant out and you'll be left with a hole exactly the same size as what you're trying to fit in it
it's possible to repot without any stress at all if you're careful

the real wattage is 216 total(26 actual watts for the 100w outputs and 15 actual watts for the 60w outputs). Got all four of them transplanted tonight, had to build a second tub so now im running two tubs, both are the exact same. yesterday marked 3 weeks since being planted into soil. i think ill wait another week to a week and a half and start LSTing them. over all they are doing well i think, a little droopy but i think thats due to over watering them, im going to back down to every three days instead of every other day. also one plant is getting some weird marks on the leaves. does anyone know what might be causing it?

here are a few more pics of the weird leaves

i did some reading and im thinking that i might have spider mites, can anyone confirm that thats what this looks like? i transplanted the one with the marks on the leaves a few days ago and never thought to wash out the new palnter its in, which i got outdoors at a plant market. the marks on my leaves are turning a very yellow light rust color and it seems to be spreading but in a very random way, if anyone can confirm its spider mites im going to run out and get some neem oil to kill them

my plants have been in soil now for 4 weeks, im going to start LSTing in a few days here(after their next watering) I never found out what that yellow rusty colored stuff on my one plant was, never ended up doing anything about it because i wasnt sure if it was spider mites or not but either way it stopped spreading and getting worse and the plant is growing again and looking very good aside from the left over marks.

first two pics are of my tallest plant, its a blue mystic

next two pics are of my second tallest, this is the same one with the marks on the leaves, this one is a Papaya

couldnt fit all the pics in so here are the other two plants

first two are of my other papaya and last two are of my other blue mystic,

not sure whats wrong with the blue mystic, it doesnt want to seem to grow upward, it seems to just want to grow a lot of leaves instead of getting tall like my other 3, its very compact as well, almost no space at all between branches

if it was spider mites you'd have noticed loads of bits of like fine web all over the leaves,probably just a bit nute burn or something

yeah im thinking it probably was just a burn of some sorts, all the leaves are now i nice healthy dark green and its my largest plant by quite a bit now, so whatever it was it was self limitting and shes recovered VERY well, started LSTing them yesterday so ill post some pics of that tonight or tomorrow

another week down, this is week 2 of vegatative growth, 5 weeks since they were planted into soil, and just under 6 weeks from seed. I started LSTing them about 5 or 6 days ago and that seems to be working out very well. Next week i make the big switch to 12/12 and the real fun can begin. As you can see from the pics the blue mystic dwarf still isnt really growing, its been pretty sensative to my ferts as well. At a full dose bottom leaves were completly burned so im babying it for now with a half strength mixture, its also being super sensative to watering, doesnt take much at all to over water it, for now im going to keep it around for the first few weeks of flowering and see if i can get it to spring to life, if its not doing anything by then im going to just toss it

first pic is my biggest which is a papaya,

second pic is my dwarf which is a blue mystic

third pic is the biggest next to the dwarf so you can see the size difference

fourth pic is the big papaya next to a lighter so you can get an idea of size

heres pics of the other two plants

first pic is a blue mystic

second is a papaya

and third is the two together w/ a lighter for size comparison

another week down, not to much going on, ive just been working on LSTing them here and there and that seems to be working AMAZINGLY, they seem to have grown a lot this week and tonight the lights go out early and the 12/12 starts....cant wait to see how many females i get... a week or two left and theyll start showing sex

first pic is the largest plant - a papaya
second pic is the runt - a blue mystic
third pic is a blue mystic
fourth pic is a papaya
and the fifth pic is a buddha of good fortune which sits on top of my tubs

so theyve only been on 12/12 since thursday, and i think ive already got some female pre flowers showing. can anyone confirm for me that this is a female pre flower?!

Both of my papayas have these growing at either the 5th or 6th branch internode

Looks like a female to me! nice job on the plants so far

thanks, the papaya genetics are really kicking in, their an early maturing strain and both are female, and they have just exploded with growth since switching to 12/12. still waiting on the blue mystics though but they are a slower growing strain so it might be a week or so still. i hit my goal of getting at least two females but im still really hoping i can get some blue mystic to smoke as well

xmk they look great.

wate I for got which grower this one was. but after going back and looking at page 1. I now see that it is the 1 with the rubber tub as a grow box.

so hell yah. damm do thay look much bigger now.

so your useing the clf lights right. well they look damm good for clf lights.

:D:stoned::stoned::rastasmoke:

yep, i am just using CFL's, i decided to put most my money into good ferts and nutes rather than expensive lighting, i do have a LOT of bulbs in each tub though, 10 per tub. Im running 6 100w general puprose CFL's and 4 60w soft blue CFL's (26w and 15w actual). Im thinking about getting an HPS for my next grow since this one is going so well but if i get decent yields why fix something thats not broken?

yeah man looking great,not a fan of cfls personally but like you say,if it works for you and it aint broke...

will be watching this one,see how it yeilds,who knows,i may be converted to cfl by the end of it

i just checked on them, and i think both of my blue mystics are males :(. Ive got my two females in their own tub though so im going to give it another day or two but im almost positive they're males. On the bright side my papayas now have female pistols EVERYWHERE and are growing like mad

any verdict on what this is? im almost positive its a male, my dwarf blue mystic had some pretty prominent balls today so it was destroyed but im still holding off on this one, though it looks just like the dwarf did before it's balls really started comming out

yah to me its kind of hard to tell.

my plants have now been on 12/12 for one week and its becoming obvious that these girls are going to be big, on my two female papayas ive got white pistols between just about every branch internode on the plants.

here are some pics of my two papaya girls

hate to end on a bad note but my biggest plant, the remaining blue mystic is for sure a male. on the good side though once i destroy it tonight each of my papaya girls get their own tub with tons of growing room

first pics is of some balls(i guess you cant see them as clearly as i would like but they are there) and second pic is of how big the plant is overall

while it does really suck that you got a male.

It is cool that your 2 girls will have there own tub.


I wish I could wire up 1 of my pc fans to put in my tub. but a few weeks ago I tryed to and got a little bit of a shock.
so I just stuck to regular fans.

yeah first time i tried to wire the computer fans i connected them wrong and they started going then all this smoke started comming out but the second attempt was succesfull. Destroyed my male last night and both the girls are now happily in their own "rooms". Now i just have to think of names for them :jointsmile: