First Grow Log w/Pics

[Slevinkal]

Looks good so far, your learning and adjusting quickly. The new grow area looks much better without the foil reflective.

Thank you. It wouldn't be so without the help from peeps like you.

If that's a regular incandescent bulb in the hood, replace it with CFL. Better yet, get 3 "Y" splitters and 4 27w CFL bulbs!

It's not a reg incan. It's a bulb for growing aquatic plants. I used to have several aquariums and used a few of them for nothing other than growing underwater plants to routinely replace what my fish shredded, rooted, destroyed or just plain ate in their tanks. Its only a 100w bulb but their designed to provide a good mix of a red/blue spectrum and penetrate deep water, I thought it would be good for a starter here but it adds a bit too much heat. When we add another vertical 4' fluorescent next week were gonna hang another light and add CFLs to both and do away with the hot bulb I got now.

BTW, the splitter is a great idea! So simple and yet I never thought of it. This is probably what I will do.

I don't really wanna keep changing things and keep changing thing suddenly like I have been, I don't want to create more stress than needed right now.

Even if Leafy, the current growth, does not survive this week, its already very tall from what I can tell and I've heard that's a sigh of searching for more light, I still have two more going and two is the MAX I'm going to keep for this grow. I don't want a massively dank smell and want to use this as a test run to figure out what the arraignment of lighting, venting, watering, fertilizing, and so on works best for me.

I began a journal for this the day I planted Leafy. Everything, nothing is missed, get written down. I want to be able to look back and see exactly what I did wrong or right if need be.

And, ya! I named the growing plant Leafy. The other two are going to be Leafy-er, and Leafy-est. We're trying to encourage them to grow big, strong and well... leafy. LOL

Slevinkal Reviewed by Slevinkal on 08-30-2010. First Grow Log w/Pics I've tried to grow a few times when I was younger but it never worked out, I also used the cheapest stuff I could find and didn't even bother to try and learn anything about it. So this is my first real attempt. I've spent a lot of time reading and learning what I need to know. Now with that being said, I'm a retard, I didn't realize males were basically useless and since I only had one plant going I decided to plant two more. The first plant is only on day 8 so I figure the other two being Rating: 5

[Slevinkal]

SCOREBOARD ME!!!

I got to thinking bout what lights I got lying around and found something.

These things are made to produce massive amounts of natural UVA and UVB lighting at low wattage. I found one I bought to soon replace the one my bearded dragon has because all fluoresence lights loose their umph after a while. I made one last change for now. I know I know I said no more but this has got to be way better that what was hanging before. I know its better quality light and way less heat.

Anybody else ever used one of these bulbs? Their more expensive than regular CFLs but they gotta put out better light. They range from 15-20 bucks depending where you buy em. Petco and Petsmart usually have them in stock.

Is this the right wavelength of light? If not can anybody link me to a product or a pic that will help me better understand exactly what wavelength I need for my babies?


What I switched to:

[Slevinkal]

Ya. I found the answer myself...

No. The UVB bulb sucks.

It does nothing for the plants and in rare cases could burn your eyes if you're under 'em too long without protection.

This bulb is basically a tanning bed bulb. I flew out to left field and started thinking what would happen if one were to use tanning bulbs. Sounded like a good idea at first, oh well.

[Slevinkal]

W'sup all?

I changed my lighting and repotted a few days ago. My little, hopefully, girls are doing much better now. One plant never made it and had to be replaced. This is just a bag seed grow so no biggie plus, the seed it was replaced with was from some better stuff.

Sorry bout the previous pics, my wife didnt want em in her fam album so she deleted them. LOL I just made another pbucket account just for this.

They were stretching too much with bright vertical lighting and a crappy droplight. I moved em once more and now I'm using 4 32 watt T8 bulbs with a color temp of 6500k and supposedly 2800 lumens per bulb.

I buried the plants a bit when repotting so they werent so tall and stretched out, this is when I realized that plant C never sprouted.

There is a small fan on the end that blows fresh air between the plants and the lights plus there is another larger fan on the floor that blows air around the top of the lights.

I also bought a soil, light and pH tester combo thingy. The water I'm using is 3 day old tap water with a 5.5pH and the soil is closer to 5.

These pics kinda suck but I'm still waiting for my friend to bring back my good camera. I'll post more in a few days.

[Slevinkal]

Got a couple better pics.

[camoxnhx]

welcome man! now for nutrients i use B'Cuzz products along with Neptunes Fish and Kelp (stay away from Mirical Grow Products). now just got a quick question for you. what kinda soil are you using for your little ones? but im pulling up a seat and im watching this grow. keep that thumb green!

[Slevinkal]

what kinda soil are you using for your little ones?

LOLOLOL the stuff you said to stay away from...

I used MG Organic Choice to repot them in. Ya, I know, a lot of peeps says its bad, but a lot of peeps say its good too.

Most of what I've read about MG is that peeps have a lot of bad luck with it cause it burns their plants. I don't buy that at all. I have a small little garded that I grow Tomatoes, Peas, Cucumbers, and from time to time, radishes in, I've always used MG on them and never had a problem.

Since my soil supposedly feeds for up to three months I'm gonna wait for 4 weeks then slooooooooowly intoduce some additional nutes. Its what I've been doing with all my vegies for years, hopefully it works out here too.

It cant be too bad though, I threw a couple un-germed seeds in about 2 inches of soil less than three days ago and check out what I woke up to this morn.

Plant C
I'm gonna try and snap several pics of C today, just for grins and giggles...

[headshake]

you should ammend your soil with something like perlite. cannabis, likes loose, airy soil. not compact soil that holds too much water. this will suffocate the roots and not give you optimal performance. there is nothing wrong with your choice of soil (although it's far from ideal, it will work. it's where i started.). you should be able to find a good organic soil at a local hydroponics store, or actual gardening store. i found roots organics soil in my area for $13 per 1.5 cu. ft. bag.

nice pics by the way!


-shake

[Slevinkal]

you should ammend your soil with something like perlite. cannabis, likes loose, airy soil. not compact soil that holds too much water. this will suffocate the roots and not give you optimal performance. there is nothing wrong with your choice of soil (although it's far from ideal, it will work. it's where i started.). you should be able to find a good organic soil at a local hydroponics store, or actual gardening store. i found roots organics soil in my area for $13 per 1.5 cu. ft. bag.

nice pics by the way!


-shake

Thanks. The soil is supposedly Organic. Its not a very compact soil, either. Its mainly a bunch of larger items with soil mixed in. When I noticed that the first plant had roots coming out of the starter pod it was all I had on hand. I used it for the other two because I didn't want much to differ in what I was using, its only three plants.

I use it with a lot of my veggies as starters and my wife plants houseplants in it. It is pretty light a mix and does hold water well enough, it just dries quickly in the top two inches.

Thanks for all the info though. I mainly dropped in to post a pic. When I noticed that the third plants seed never germed I threw in a couple of other stuff's seeds and used the bigger pot with the same mix as the other two. I figured atleast one seed would sprout with being germed. This morning I though one plant was starting but this is what I found about 20 minutes ago.

I guess I'll wait till tomorrow and see which is showing stronger then clip the weaker plant. I really dont want a fourth plant now and dont wanna disturb the young roots of them anyways.

[Slevinkal]

How hard should a fan be blowing on them at this point?

Its pretty cool in the closet. Theres a little 5" fan at the end blowing between the plants and the lights, then theres a 10" fan on the floor blowing up around the lights.

The plants wiggle around a little at the top, maybe they sway 1/2" from side to side at the most but mainly just wiggle a little bit.

Everything I've read says to keep a fan on them to fatten up the stems and make a stronger plant but exactly how hard should the fan be blowing on them?