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[MEGA] 2010-2011 Community Growing advice, tips, tricks, & experiences

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OH and Prelude, I am in no way bashing ya. I have had my fair share of plants that look like yours. Just learn from your mistakes and move on. Are you still using tap water? Tap water has minerals and stuff in it, which is fine when the plants are young, but then you HAVE to switch to RO water or some kind of filtered water. Tap water plus the nutes really makes the numbers jump and then over time, it builds up in the soil and the plants end up looking like yours does now. I have been there man and it just sucks when you put care and work into it, only to end up with a stressed out, suffering, low yielding and crappy tasting plants.

A good friend knows a professional grower and his stuff is like no others, soooo freaking nice and unbelievably tasty. He told me that he only give his plants nutes a total of 4-5 times through the flowering stage..ONLY 4-5 TIMES!!! That's sounds crazy to me, but you can't argue with results...so something to think about.
 
I definantly need a new medium, I just bought cheap coco last time.

Kinda confused on how I could flush twice with about 3-4 gallons of water, and it still be toxic, (haven't nuted for 2-3 weeks now, along with those flushes)

Also, If I were to go shopping for a new medium to start using for my plants, anyone have suggestions on ratios, and whats benefical, I know alot of people have been telling me seaweed kelp or, seaweed dust, something.
 
I've done the cheap coco in the past also, $9 a brick at Adams Fairacre farms...stuff is garbage compared to the B'Cuzz coco. This is my first cycle w/ the B'Cuzz coco and Roots Organic by Aurora Innovations, the Roots is Natural & Organic. I bought 2 bags of each and mixed 1 bag of each together and filled the containers til it was all used up, then mixed the other 2 bags. I have one of those Rubbermaid "strong boxes" from Home Depot that I use to mix the medium in.

My friend did a side by side comparison using just the B'Cuzz coco and just the Roots Organic and the plants in the B'Cuzz coco were nicer looking and grew faster.. but the B'Cuzz coco doesn't really have anything in it...that's why we just mix one bag of each

Here is a list of what is in the Roots Organic...exactly as it appears on the bag..in exact order

Coco Fiber, Peat Moss, Perlite, Pumice, Compost, Mulch, Worm Castings, Bat Guano, Kelp Meal, Fish Bone Meal, Soybean Meal, Prilled Rock Phosphate, Feather meal, Greensand, Leonardite, Alfalfa Meal, Oyster Shell Flour & Glacial Rock Dust.

In my experience so far with this stuff has been very good. My babies are so healthy looking and from day 1 of veg to now day 15, I just can't believe the explosive growth.

Added:
If you are only doing a few plants, you probably only need 1 bag of each and you may have left overs. With 4 bags, I was able to fill my closet and still have left overs for when I upsize the next round of clones.
In total I spent $110 on medium, but it's worth it IMO. I don't believe in cutting corners anymore, I've been disappointed in the past and only had myself to blame because I was trying to pinch pennies and it got me nowhere.
 
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Prelude2TragedyII said:
I definantly need a new medium, I just bought cheap coco last time.

Kinda confused on how I could flush twice with about 3-4 gallons of water, and it still be toxic, (haven't nuted for 2-3 weeks now, along with those flushes)

Also, If I were to go shopping for a new medium to start using for my plants, anyone have suggestions on ratios, and whats benefical, I know alot of people have been telling me seaweed kelp or, seaweed dust, something.
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I hear ya, but once the damage is done, it's difficult to turn them back around. Flushing twice isn't really all that much. I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I've made many mistakes in the past and I constantly read and read about this stuff to improve my own techniques.

Now after realizing how important it is to start off with good medium & fresh clean water and adjusting the PH and checking the PPM's with every watering, I have seen a big improvement with how healthy they are now. I used to deal with slow vegging plants, burnt tips and medicine that turned to charcoal after a few hits in a bowl.

At this point, just finish her off, enjoy what you produced and change things up for next time..and you will be good 2 go. Each time you do it, you will get better and better.
 
Some of the more cheaper coco peats have high salinity levels, which may be the cause for some of your problems here; the edges keep on burning because those are the signs of a K (potassium) deficiency. You might have flushed away some of the salts, but it usually takes more than one or two flushes before the stuff is usable. You still need to fertilize it though, it definitely needs a shot of K, amongst other things.
 
When your plants burn and then you flush them you go from burn to extreme nute deficiency. You should be trying to find a level of nutrients that you can give every time you water that keeps the plants looking dark green but not to dark. If it's really dark and shiny looking you are over nutriented but not quite to where it quickly kills tons of area of leaves.

When you damage your plants the damage doesn't go away. You have to get it back to growing vigorously at the right color and then the good growth will overshadow the crappy looking growth. Nobody will even notice anything happened if you get it growing fast.
 
Prelude2TragedyII said:
In September 2007, the California Air Resources Board announced a ban of in-home ozone producing air purifiers.

Still thinking of getting an air filter for my room ingeneral, would that help eleminate in the closet since most of the dust is in my room in the first place ? or would it need to be ran in the closet all the time?
Anyone know what I should look out for?
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I wasn't talking about ozone air purifiers. I'm talking about negative ion generators.

mr.muncheez said:
Here's a few shots from yesterday. Day 15 of veg. Switching to 12/12 today. I am using a standard 400w MH and I have in a 65 watt CFL 2700k just for a little extra. I'll use my RedEye Hortilux 400w hps for the first 4 or 5 days of flower and then switch to the same brand bulb but 600w.
These are in the medium that I mentioned to you. I am pretty happy so far.
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Hello mr. muncheez.

I would scrap the CFL since it won't make much difference with HID. Also, you want to try and use the MH bulb for the first two weeks of 12/12 since there is usually a massive amount of stretch during this period and the MH will attenuate this if used instead of the HPS.
 
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hmm..well, im on day 4 and since the weather is pretty cool, I was gonna throw in my new 600. I'm not getting to much stretch suprisingly, maybe cause the 400 I can keep a bit closer...idk, I just left the CFL in, cause it was already hooked up when I was vegging the clones, it just gave that area a little exta, I know I can't expect much from it.. It's taken down now. Next time around, I will probably take your advice and give that a try. Thanks man!.

I don't wanna hijack the OP's thread, so I'll shut up now. hehe. I just wanted to show him some pics of what they look like w/ the medium I suggested, there are plenty of good things out there that give great results. But what I am seeing so far...I am sticking w/ the B'Cuzz coco and Roots Organic.
 
^ Please don't worry about hijacking his thread. I think it would be good if everyone could come along with their problems for advice. I certainly don't mind and I don't think Prelude would either.

I think that during the first two weeks of switching to 12/12 it's best to, in general, consider it to be part of the vegetative stage. So, use the same light you would use for veg and also use the same nutrients you would use for vegging.

How much space are you working with mr. muncheez? If it's 100cmx100cm or 120cmx120cm (just calculate the area if your area isn't square) then a 600W light is perfect. In fact, in my space, a DR120 tent, the area is 120cmx120m and a 1kw HID is even better. You should calculate the watts per square foot and aim for 50W/sqft if you can. With modern HIDs you can grow with a bit less, like for example, in the DR120, using a 600W light would give 37.5w/sqft and will give good results (just not as good as the 1kw light). There's no need to use a less powerful light (like a 400W) during veg, unless you're worried about power consumption.

However, although the 600W light costs more to run in absolute terms, it will actually save you money in real terms because it's much more efficient than a 400W light, so I would use this all the way through if you can. If heat is a problem, I would strongly recommend getting an air cooled hood before considering a/c. The best one I am aware of is the Sunsystems Blockbuster a/c hood. This is designed using specialised photometric software to get the best light footprint. It works well in a 120cmx120cm area like I have. For non-air-cooled hoods, the best is a parabolic since it pushes heat out and gives a very good light footprint or a grostar (which is also designed using photometric software by engineers), although I have heard you can't get it quite as low as the parabolic, hence the reason some people prefer the parabolic.

However, for the seedlings or cuttings during the propagation period, nothing beats linear fluorescents (NOT CFLs) since wavelength of cool white is perfect and they really are quite efficient (especially in comparison to CFLs which are quite less efficient than linears). The ones you want use very little power and are hence really very cool. The ones I'm using at the moment (T5s which are the best for our purposes) are so cool the seedlings can actually touch the bulbs without getting burnt. Because of the inverse square law, the light intensity is quite high when you are able to get the plants so close when they're cool like linear fluorescent T5s. In fact, using a light meter, I found the light intensity under my T5s to be MUCH higher than it was outside at midday where I live when I tested it. For linear T5s I would recommend the Lightwave verson since it reflects the light really well and is of an amazingly high quality. I would compare the quality to those flashy apple mac computers i.e. it's really nice to look at! Apart from my Blockbuster a/c hood, it's the best purchase I've made so far (I got the 2x24W = a total of 48W for propagation).
 
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Bought new buckets , 5 gals, and 8gals, and smaller ones for when I start my new seeds.

Bought two bags of Fox Farms organic medium.
Bought a bag of seaweed kelp, organic.




As for my plant in the closet, pretty sure everything was due to heat stress, the past 4 days , it has cooled down quite a bit here, and the tops of the buds actually started to take off, which suprised me.

So, Im sure with fall coming, it'll be MUCH easier to manage temperatures.


Should I tear the plant out and just hang what it did produce, or should I let it grow until its completely finished and start my new crop?


Don't worry about Hijacking the thread, it's here for everyone.
Any information you can add, or anything you can put in here that someone may find useful later , hey , its a good thing.

Anyways, My Outdoor NL is looking MUCH better than my indoor, Ive only nuted my outdoor twice, and its buds are looking prettier than the indoor plant, hah, but its nodes are VERY spread out as I picked a poor area to plant it (not full light)

Anyways, Temps in my closet have been about 76-80 the past few days.
Hope they stay this way for a while,
Im thinking I should germinate my seeds and start my new crop before it gets too cold you know?
 
Prelude2TragedyII said:
Bought new buckets , 5 gals, and 8gals, and smaller ones for when I start my new seeds.

Bought two bags of Fox Farms organic medium.
Bought a bag of seaweed kelp, organic.




As for my plant in the closet, pretty sure everything was due to heat stress, the past 4 days , it has cooled down quite a bit here, and the tops of the buds actually started to take off, which suprised me.

So, Im sure with fall coming, it'll be MUCH easier to manage temperatures.


Should I tear the plant out and just hang what it did produce, or should I let it grow until its completely finished and start my new crop?


Don't worry about Hijacking the thread, it's here for everyone.
Any information you can add, or anything you can put in here that someone may find useful later , hey , its a good thing.

Anyways, My Outdoor NL is looking MUCH better than my indoor, Ive only nuted my outdoor twice, and its buds are looking prettier than the indoor plant, hah, but its nodes are VERY spread out as I picked a poor area to plant it (not full light)

Anyways, Temps in my closet have been about 76-80 the past few days.
Hope they stay this way for a while,
Im thinking I should germinate my seeds and start my new crop before it gets too cold you know?
Click to expand...

At this point, you should just let her finish and then chop her down. No reason to cut early even though she isn't as healthy as she can be, might as well cut her when the resin heads are atleast mostly cloudy/amber. It also depends on how you like your medicine..harvesting on the early side it gives ya more of a heady/uplifting high, when you let them go longer, it is supposed to be more of a body/couch lock type of high. Hard to tell though, every strain is different.

The FoxFarm is good stuff, you should see better results this time and also just the fact that you will do things a little differently being it's your 2nd time around. Those are pretty big pots man..5gal & 8 gal..HOLY COW.. How much space do you have? How many plants are you planning on using the next cycle?
I'm just sayin that you are gonna use alot more dirt than necessary using such big pots. I guess though, if your only gonna do like 2 or 3 plants, then yeah, get them babies as BIG as possible. I find that using 3gal pots are the perfect size, you can fit more plants in your space and you don't go through as much dirt. 3 Gal pots are plenty to get the plants big and healthy. Different strokes for different folks I guess, either way, your gonna have bigger healthier plants this time. Good luck bro!
 
Well, had my uncle come over today and look at my plant, he said from the way it looks, I should probably just chop it, harevst whats there and start new. ( The heads of the buds still wont develop , and the buds that did devolop, never grew in size, and the plant seems to be stunted.

I bought larger pots, because I had a 4 gal, and Im almost postitive my plants roots hit bottom and have no where else to go.
The plant literally only grew 1 inch when I went from CFL (200watt) to my HPS , 400watt.
Growth is so incredibly slow now...
Plus, My medium was just a mix of cheapo mediums, Im hoping that putting out some cash on these mediums will help out a bit....

And I will be doing either 4 , or 6 plant, haven't quite decided yet.
I will be growing another Crop of Northern Lights No#5, from Nirvana seeds Co. , and Im pretty sure we will see a HUGE difference when I finish my future plants compared to the plant I have now....
(I plan on either buying a PPM pen or borrowing one from a friend I know...also, Ill be purchasing pH up, pH down, rather than using Limes/lemons to alter my water. Along with a real pH testing kit, no more of these 9$ meters , lol)


Im so torn between ripping this plant out and starting a new crop, or just letting it finish, I mean, the plants buds are so small, Im 100% sure Im going to get less than an oz off the plant. maybe even less than a half oz.

Im just gonna start germinating my seeds with the paper towel method and just plant them...


Once they germinate , should I stick them in a small pot of fox farms soil, or should I just stick the seed in a little rock wool cube?

Or maybe just stick them in a cup with peat moss? idk...

Most of the trichs are cloudy/clear , I personally like to wait until their amber, as I smoke for insomnia/anxiety, helps me sleep better, and calm down.
But Im beggining to think this plant is costing me more time than its worth..

I just find it odd that the plant never really grew buds on top, they just grew buds on the stem, and the top was just , leaf, with 2 little hairs sticking out...
though, the past few days, as the temps have dropped, the tops started to develop, but I think its a bit late. I think it's been 1 month and 10 days into flower. Bah.


Also, about the pot size, 5 and 8 gals, well, I've read that your plant can only grow if it has the root space to do so, and I believe my last plant just didn't get enough space to root, Idk, We will find out when ever the new batch is ready to go in...

(also, I can't find any MH bulbs larger than 400watts, Would I be better off vegging with the 400 watt MH or a 600 watt HPS?)
 
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Also, just wanna say thanks again to everyone in this thread who's helped out, contributed, asked questions, answered questions, I really do appreciate it.
I'd be lost without everyone's help.

Hopefully people who've been here helping me from the beggining will see the fruits of their labor when my next crop comes out pretty, and not all dead at the end ;) , hah, thanks guys, I kinda slacked off at the end there a bit, so, probably my fault for the plant not doing too well.
 
Prelude2TragedyII said:
Well, had my uncle come over today and look at my plant, he said from the way it looks, I should probably just chop it, harevst whats there and start new. ( The heads of the buds still wont develop , and the buds that did devolop, never grew in size, and the plant seems to be stunted.

I bought larger pots, because I had a 4 gal, and Im almost postitive my plants roots hit bottom and have no where else to go.
The plant literally only grew 1 inch when I went from CFL (200watt) to my HPS , 400watt.
Growth is so incredibly slow now...
Plus, My medium was just a mix of cheapo mediums, Im hoping that putting out some cash on these mediums will help out a bit....

And I will be doing either 4 , or 6 plant, haven't quite decided yet.
I will be growing another Crop of Northern Lights No#5, from Nirvana seeds Co. , and Im pretty sure we will see a HUGE difference when I finish my future plants compared to the plant I have now....
(I plan on either buying a PPM pen or borrowing one from a friend I know...also, Ill be purchasing pH up, pH down, rather than using Limes/lemons to alter my water. Along with a real pH testing kit, no more of these 9$ meters , lol)


Im so torn between ripping this plant out and starting a new crop, or just letting it finish, I mean, the plants buds are so small, Im 100% sure Im going to get less than an oz off the plant. maybe even less than a half oz.

Im just gonna start germinating my seeds with the paper towel method and just plant them...


Once they germinate , should I stick them in a small pot of fox farms soil, or should I just stick the seed in a little rock wool cube?

Or maybe just stick them in a cup with peat moss? idk...

Most of the trichs are cloudy/clear , I personally like to wait until their amber, as I smoke for insomnia/anxiety, helps me sleep better, and calm down.
But Im beggining to think this plant is costing me more time than its worth..

I just find it odd that the plant never really grew buds on top, they just grew buds on the stem, and the top was just , leaf, with 2 little hairs sticking out...
though, the past few days, as the temps have dropped, the tops started to develop, but I think its a bit late. I think it's been 1 month and 10 days into flower. Bah.


Also, about the pot size, 5 and 8 gals, well, I've read that your plant can only grow if it has the root space to do so, and I believe my last plant just didn't get enough space to root, Idk, We will find out when ever the new batch is ready to go in...

(also, I can't find any MH bulbs larger than 400watts, Would I be better off vegging with the 400 watt MH or a 600 watt HPS?)
Click to expand...

Mine are in 3 gal pots and are they took off like a bat outta hell. It's more important to establish a strong healthy root ball early on when they are seedling/clones, then it is to stick them in a huge pot w/ tons of soil, if you do not have a nice root ball..the roots will just shoot to the bottom or the sides of the big pot as well and you will have tons of wasted soil in the middle.

I think vegging w/ a 400MH is just fine, they don't need massive amounts of lumens when they are young and growing, especially if your space isn't that big and 400MH is perfect and you can buy them in Lowes. BUT when it's time for 12/12, I found after I started using a 600 HPS, they loved it and the buds were much bigger...you get 50% more light, for not too much more electric consumption.

Also, just bit of advice, I started adjusting my PH w/ those kits and it was a royal pain in the ass, i had to keep putting that solution in to measure what it is..you have to match up the color on the side of the bottle...OMG what a pain. I spent the $86 dollars and purchased a real PH pen. Now all I do it turn it on, dip it in the water and I have a digital read out of what the PH is, if it is off, just add the UP or Down, dip in the pen and instantly it tells me where I am at...no more adding drops of solution and trying to match up the color...there is just to much of a window for error. Just my opinion.
 
Nice, thnx for the info, I was gonna buy one of those kits , but if it's that bad I'll just invest in a digital pH pen.

Do they have a ppm pen as well?
 
My TDS pen was cheap..$25 bucks, but it serves it's purpose, dip it in the water and it has a digital read out of your PPMs. There are definately better ones on the market..but anyway, here's the link..

http://www.sunleaves.com/detail.asp?sku=STD500#

It's not that those PH kits are BAD per se, just that they are a pain in the ass. You add your PH up, then you have to pour some water into the little container they give you...add some drops of the solution and then see what color it changes, then match up the color on the side of the bottle to get an estimate of what your PH is, it's definately not an accurate method. Plus, once you start adding nutes and the color changes, then you do the PH thing, it gets tougher to match the color. I'm telling ya, i've wasted more time adjusting the PH, then I did giving them water. The Digital PH pen, is so simple, it's ridiculous.
 
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I think the 5 gall pot is too large for an indoor grow,....it's very hard to control your water and nutes....too much room and the water and nutes can leech away... Just my 2cents....:)
 
yeah man, see if you can return the 5 & 8 gal's you bought. Get some 3 gal round nursery pots or even 3 gal grow bags worked pretty well for me. I just don't like the grow bags, because when you rotate or take em out for whatever reason, you can't just grab them with one hand..but they do work. I have some of mine in 2 gal squares and the rest are in 3gal nursery pots from a local hydro store. You use less dirt and can fit more into your space, plus you want them to dry out before watering again..if they have too much dirt for how big they are, they will just wind up sitting in their own poop! That's why I believe Hygrozyme is a MUST, that stuff is a medium cleanser, it eats any old roots and also eats their "poop" (for lack of a better word).
 
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