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.

Here's some pics... still a jungle, but buds starting to show a little growth.

Will give it a week now until next pics.

Plants are looking mighty fine! :thumbsup:

Just so you know for next time, the plant will dpouble, or triple in size from the start of flowering, to the end. So, if your plant is lets say 10inches tall when you switch to flowering, the final height will be about 20-35inches in height. You have to imagine what the finishing height will be, and always leave room for growth.

I see things are getting quite crowded in there. Check daily for mold in places that are covered by shade and leaves. When things get that crowded, with moisture, mold can grow on the buds, so just keep an eye out for it.

Keep it up. Looks great. :thumbsup:

What's your ventilation setup, do you have just the fan blowing directly on the bulb, does that take care of it ? I'm always interested in peoples ventilation. Good stuff.

I'll certainly be checking for mold, especially as it can get quite humid in my box when its hot outside. Thanks for the tip.

Ventilation is 2 pc fans drawing in air at base of grow box, a 6 inch oscilating fan that's blowing air around the top (mostly over the bulb) and another pc fan blowing air outwards above/behind the reflector.

Seems to be working ok for now, just hoping there's no extreme heat coming.

How tall should they be before they flower? I see some people have 2-feet some have 10-inches.... is there a general rule?

Also is a 1-gallon pot too small? I have mine in 1-gallon pots and my biggest one is now about 14-inches tall......

I have seen anywhere between 1-4 gallons as being acceptable....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by alienhybrid

How tall should they be before they flower? I see some people have 2-feet some have 10-inches.... is there a general rule?

Also is a 1-gallon pot too small? I have mine in 1-gallon pots and my biggest one is now about 14-inches tall......

I have seen anywhere between 1-4 gallons as being acceptable....

---

No, there is by no means a rule at all, but of course, the shorter the vegg time, than smaller plant=smaller yeild.

I have flowered plants when they were only 6inches in height. I only got about 8grams from that plant, but I grew it only in a 1-gallon container, and with enough space, I could cram 30+ plants in a 4 x 4ft space.

You might want to consider transplanting to a bigger pot if your plant is already just over a foot in height. By the time it's done flowering, it will be close, maybe even over 3ft in height.

My finishing height of my plants are usually around 2ft. I keep things short and stalky, and when the seed first pops open in paper towel, I transplant into only a 4inch x 4inch container, until about 4 weeks from seed, I then transplant into its final home in a 3 gallon container.

In your case, you might want to transplant into a 3-5 gallon container. You want to give your plant plenty of room to grow, even if it doesn't use it all up. The more space, the bigger the outcome.

Thanks,

I'm not sure I have the space for a 3 gallon, but I will try to move up to a 2 gallon.

How bad will I stunt them if they stay in the 1 gallon? Even at 14" I don't see any sign of a root bound plant. I don't want them to get too big, I think 2-feet tall would be enough to handle.

It's hard to for me to say. It may get root bound if you leave it, or it may just stunt flowering all together, or the plant will just slowly die off, or it maybe it will be just fine, but remeber, smaller room to grow=smaller buds, which=smaller yeilds.

If you're going to leave it in that container, I suggest switching to 12/12 now to force flowering. It will stretch biug time for the first 2-3 weeks of flowering, and in that time, your plants height can double. By the time flowering is done, it can be tripled. It all depends on the strain. Indicas grow shorter than Sativas, so if your plant is Indica dominant, then your plants height, at 14inches, should only double. If it's a Sativa dominant, it can easily double, and even triple.

Good luck.

Just a quick check in. Having trouble with light penetration due to the amount of leaves. I know its generally a big no to cut any fan leaves but i'm wondering if not cutting a few of them to let light through is actually gonna be any worse? Comments welome.


Well flowering is nearly 4 weeks and i'm not sure if buds should be progressing faster? This light deficiency thing is bugging me out.

I've taken extra care with my 2nd grow space (which were my small clones at start of this thread) to get what will be the flowering parts of the branches to maitain a constant height so hopefully all the buds will start growing at the same hight and i wont be caught out with light deficiency.

Here's 2 pics. One of buds which are about this size throught the plants and the other my clones which i've just put into flower.

6 weeks to the day, so i thought i'd quickly post a couple of pics i've just taken.

Not looking too bad and with some luck these last 2 weeks should see some nice final growth.

However my 2nd batch which i put into flower have gone mad (even though i vegged less) and are taller at 2 weeks of flowering than the 6 week lot. Needless to say i've started bending the stems.

Hey dazzle, looking very nice! It's a real pain in the ass when your plants grow bigger than you expect, good luck with the bending. Correct me if i'm wrong but it sounds like you've been using a different light vegging your second batch of clones which explains why they're growing so big, plus as you get more experience and your feeding, watering and temps control get better they should grow quicker and bigger, you just need to keep that in mind for your next lot of clones. It takes a while but i'd be real happy with the results your getting so far and it's gonna get even better and easier with a couple more grows under your belt.

Good luck with finishing them off!

The only difference in lighting for the second batch was that i flowered the 1st week with the MH, rather than go straight to HPS. I thought this would decrease the stretching but it didn't happen.

I'm on day 45 of flowering now and have stopped adding nutes. I'm gonna let the plants use the remainging nutes in the tank (which should take a few days) and then just go with water until they're done.

I'll do some pics at day 49.

very nice grow..
Peace