Plants are dieing, please help!

[sum1cull911]

at the 4th-5th set of branches inspect the tops for signs of pre-flowers,they will show before you put in 12/12,but its difficult for some people to see them,white hairs are female and a stalk n ball are male...and indoor they will stretch out so you can put then in flower now but it may not kick in for a week or 2,start feeding them higher p-k and cut back on nitrogen,this will trigger the plant to start flowering as some say...

good luck

Will the "signs of pre-flowers" show this early? They are only 3 weeks old.

[redaaron]

plants generally grow about 3x their size after flipping the light cycle to 12/12. So a 6" plant would grow to about 1.5 ft if not more. You can even hold off switching the nutes any until you see pistils emerge. When you do flip to flower expect to see fast growth results then they will continue to grow slowly while getting fatter in the buds. The key really is the light change. Takes give or take a week or more and you'll see the pre-flowers and then the flowers will start to fill-in.

What kind of lights are you going to run for flowering?

[sum1cull911]

Figured I'd just keep the ones I have. They seem to do a good job. Plus I'm out of dough.

[redaaron]

You can flower for a bit on those flourescents, a few weeks even, but if you want thick dense fat buds I'd definitely think about adding a HPS system. It's gonna give your plants the perfect amount of light energy while penetrating deeper in the canopy as well.

I've seen a 400w hps system for about 150 w/ shipping. A 250w might get you by but I say why spend a third of your money when you can just go ahead and save that towards something twice as effecient.

So not knowing whether you have 1-3 females, if any at all, you MIGHT be able to get away with a 250w rig. I'm a bit out of advice though seeing as your tank dimensions because generally HPS lights aren't long like your tubes and put out a centered light emission. I've seen some people go T-5 and do pretty darn well. Since, I don't have much exp. or read knowledge I really couldn't say. Also, I don't know how the plants will react or not react towards just blue light. They tend to favor red colors for flowering but also that's something I need to take a look at and get back with you about since light energy is light energy but I'm no scientist just an informed observer.

Also, on another note at this stage (flowering) your plants will begin to uptake a LOT of water. So you'll want to keep a constant eye on water levels or decide to maybe go for a trough like bucket system. It really your call. Your plants your call. You might also want to throw some mylar around either the inside of your tank or the outside. Being that your using a glass tank it will convect heat. Putting it on the outside will keep that heat and lose SOME reflectivity and on the inside your blocking the light from heating the glass. That will help if you decide to stick with the flourecent lighting. If you go hps, then no worries rock on.

Nice pics btw, everything is looking very good!

[sum1cull911]

Ive got 2 36inch vho t5s sitting around, but no fixture for them. If i see them start to suffer, ill add those. But ive put enough money into everything. With my luck theyll all be males anyway. Ive noticed that they suck up a ton of water already. Thanks for the heads up though, im sure ill be filling them up twice as much by the time they flower.

Aside from the change in nutes, and length of daylight vs nite... is there anything else i need to know about starting to flower?

[redaaron]

Have you thought about LST? Doing this and changing the light cycle now is going to be the saving factor in keeping them short as possible.

Once the plants go into flower, it means they need uninterrupted sleep. Which means NO light can get in your flowering room when the grow lights are off. It's been said that low amounts of light, like moonlight, or even green light will not affect them., but light interference in the dark period will cause the plants to go hermie. So I guess what I need to ask is how do you plan to keep the plants in the dark at "night?"

[polishpollack]

Switching your light cycle to 12 on/ 12 off is what causes them to flower and bud. Did you do anything about the 90 degree temp? Knowing that and looking at your photos, I'd say heat stress is causing the brown spotting. Too hot there. Can't remember if you wrote anything about getting the temp down.

[sum1cull911]

I found out that the high ph was causing nute lock out and thats why the plants were getting brown spots. The temp stays around 90, usually a little under. But the plants are doing great with the added co2 and the high temps. During flowering, I'm going to lower the temps just a little.

[sum1cull911]

I started flowering yesterday, well see how it goes. Here's hoping!:jointsmile:

[redaaron]

good luck! if i had to guess i'd say you have two females. the one on the left and the one on the right. im looking at the purple stems but that's a myth i haven't busted yet. i've only had a few grows so again good luck!