our first grow

[reefresco]

so me and my roomate are trying to grow some plants with a very basic setup in our closet. we got two sprouts about a week ago. our plants look healthy as far as we know but we are worried because they grew very fast at first but are now barely growing from day to day. we just dont know if this is regular or not and i couldnt find anything about the regular grow cycles. also any suggestions or comments on our amateur setup are greatly appreciated. i attached a picture of our setup and then 2 pictures of one of our plants.

*edit*
also a little background on our operation, we do an 18 and 6 light cycle with cfl's. water it with tap water we let sit out for a day or 2. planted in miracle gro soil (realize this is a bad idea now but its too late now) no other nutes.

reefresco Reviewed by reefresco on 09-15-2008. our first grow so me and my roomate are trying to grow some plants with a very basic setup in our closet. we got two sprouts about a week ago. our plants look healthy as far as we know but we are worried because they grew very fast at first but are now barely growing from day to day. we just dont know if this is regular or not and i couldnt find anything about the regular grow cycles. also any suggestions or comments on our amateur setup are greatly appreciated. i attached a picture of our setup and then Rating: 5

[TheWhiteRider]

Welcome to the forum!

Some suggestions:

-Move the lamps closer to the plants. If you are using CFL's then the possibility of burning them is quite low. People suggest 2"-4" away from actual plant. A good test is to put your hand in between the plant and the lamp and see if the heat from the lamp burns your hand. If it does, too close. If not, move it away.

-What kind of CFL's are your running? You should run 6500K (daylight) for vegging. A good amount of light is ~5000 lumens per square foot..

-I am also new and started growing in MG Moisture Control (big mistake). So I would suggest you transplant soon to new soil with right pH levels.

-Pots are way too big for starting. You should start much smaller.

This are just some preliminary comments.

Got to go, I'll stay updated.

[dragula05]

I would double check your PH. Runoff too. Then again you haven't posted since so they are either growing great or dead.

[LifeSaver23]

hey white rider.... i used moisture control too.. big mistake. did your plants not get like any water underneath at firsT? then u poked around n realized what was goin on...? thats what happened to me, its hard to keep the moisture spread out evenly and consistently... what did you do? i need to transfer it asap i fucked up by usin that shit.. it did the opposite of what i thought itd do

[TheWhiteRider]

Sorry for replying so late.

I realized that MG was the wrong thing to use (especially the Moisture Control) because my plant starting getting worst and worst. It started like yours, some leaves getting yellow and eventually died off. This type of soil stays VERY moist and becomes quite soggy. What I tried to do to at first to prevent the permanent moisture of the bottom soil is to poke holes from the top with a thin screw driver. I gathered maybe the plants needed some oxygen. But this ended up not working; I kept getting new growth, but the plant continued to look sick.

The best advice I can give you is to go to my thread where I've encountered the same problem as you. Read it and you'll see what I did to get rid of the problem. The name is "Help me! My baby is drooping" or some gay name like that, I think I was high when I wrote that. :stoned:

But I am absolutely certain that a bad thing you got going is the big pots. The big pot will have bigger problems since the moisture at the bottom of the pot is very unlikely to dissipate. The big pots will also cause the plant to become root bound and at least for me this caused very very slow growth. You'll be amazed at what speed a healthy plant grows.

Now the plant is doing quite well and the new leaves have a very healthy green tone and growing speed.