Hello everyone! This is my first post on here. I recently joined a few weeks ago and I have to say this website has been EXTREMELY helpful. Everyone on here has some great info to share and I have been able to find some great solutions to some problems we've had with our little girls (one can only hope they are girls!!).

Ok, basically to break it all down... Right now I have One Sativa and One Indica - Orange Crush (or AKA California Orange) that turned 30 days old today. Our other 3 Orange Crush plants are 3 weeks old today. I'm waiting til they get a certain height and then I'm going to do the Dutch Method of 12/12 right away until they indicate. Then once I pull the males (if we have any) I will keep doing the 12/12 until they flower for like 9 weeks. I'm using 2 - 23 watt CFL's PER plant. They are in a 2 x 3 closet with the temps staying between 76 degrees and 84 degrees. I've been running the lights 24/7 for the entire time.

Unfortunately I didn't start staying ontop of the PH until about 2 weeks ago. I bought a General Hydroponics PH testing KIT that came with PH Up and Down for easily adjusting the PH. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND A PH KIT!! I've read it is a "Grower's Best Friend". LET ME TELL YOU - IT IS!

I wish I had paid attention to the PH from the word GO. My WHOLE point in posting this Thread is to let people know what I've learned from my mistakes.

I'm using Distilled Water. **NOTE FOR USERS OF DISTILLED WATER** The PH is EXTREMELY LOW! Everytime i've tested a new gallon of Distilled water it's tested near or below 4.0. WAY TOO LOW for our girls! From what I gather, the reverse osmosis that is used to make it DISTILLED removes what is needed in the water to properly sustain the PH for the girls. SO, basically you can raise the PH or lower it to be around 6.0 to 7.0. Then water the plants after adjusting the PH. I have also found that you need to do this EVERYTIME YOU WATER. For a reason I haven't yet discovered, the PH adjustment doesn't hold. The very next day I tested the water left over in the gallon I watered from and the water PH was back down. So you need to do this everytime. I will only use Distilled Water but just be aware IT NEEDS PH ADJUSTMENT!

Ok this is a biggie... If I knew then what I know now my medium would be COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. We chose to use the new Miracle Grow Organic... Which comes with Chicken Litter (shit) already mixed into it. It's ok but it's damp to begin with. I mixed in Perlite to help drainage. But I think I'm a a typical newbie... I watered too much in the first few weeks and now i'm dealing with a whitefly infestation... as of a few HOURS ago. I was in there checking them like i do every few hours and I was shaking up the stems a bit to make sure they are hardening up and I noticed flies starting to SWARM around the top of the soil. After running downstairs to the laptop and THIS FORUM! I realized I have a whitefly infestation!

I itch and cringe at the thought! These little bastards eating my girls roots! It makes me fiery mad to think of all the love and care and TIME put into them and these little fuckers are just treating my Kush plants as a fly buffet. GRR!! So this is what I've done...

I took about 20% of Hydrogen Peroxide and mixed it with 80% distilled water. (I adjusted the PH before and tested it directly after adding the HP and found that the HP DOES NOT affect the PH of the water.) I poured the entire gallon between the 5 plants and made sure that I didn't drench them but enough to pentrate all layers and destroy all the new eggs... I bought some 3 part fungicide/pesticide/mitecide made by Shultz (which is made from Neem Oil and safe for Ornamentals) and I sprayed it ALL OVER the girls... Stems, leaves, nodes, topside, underside, all new growth... This should do the trick. I'm going to spray again in a week. Tomorrow I'm going to get some sand and cover the top layer of soil lightly to prevent anymore fly infestations.

I will add pics for you guys soon and keep you updated on progress. I bought some 9-12-12 fertilizer to add the N-P-K they are missing out on. Also, bought some SPRAY N GROW off their website and use it with their CoCo Wet. Fantastic results thus far and next crop I'm going to use the Bill's perfect Fertilizer to boot.

So this is what I've learned... GET A GREAT SOIL/MEDIUM. STAY AWAY FROM MIRACLE GROW.
Organic causes fly infestations so DON'T OVERWATER and keep your MEDIUM DRY. Water when the plants "Tell" you too ( when the leaves are droopy and it's completely dry.) this will PREVENT INFESTATIONS!
MAINTAIN PROPER PH!
MAKE SURE YOUR TEMPS STAY BELOW 80 Degrees - 85 is pushing it. I know it's hard but CFL's are a GREAT way to get the results of MH or HPS lamps WITHOUT THE HEAT and NOT SACRIFICING LUMENS!!!
LUMENS, LUMENS, LUMENS!!! The more lumens the better growth PERIOD. Heat kills! Lumens create LIFE!!
Watch your plants, They will tell you what they need by appearence.

OH! another important note. Whitefly infestations can mimic deficiencies so make sure your soil is dry and not filled with eggs before you start treating a deficiency. Troubleshoot as much as you can before jumping into treatment. You may block out NUTES if you are not using the right solution to the specific problem.

I'm just a beginner but I have learned alot in the last month. I've learned from here and GrassCity. Thank GOD for these websites! but MOSTLY i've learned from the Plants themselves. Best of luck to all fellow newbies and I hope this helped. I'm just trying to give back to the 420 community for all the times it's helped me! Feel free to let me know if I'm wrong about any of this or any new tips or tricks would ROCK!

So long for now and keep burnin'! MOVKushSmoker

I forgot to add another important fact about Miracle Grow... It contains Time Released Fertilizer. Which means everytime you water, you release the fertilizer. So if you are over/under watering your plants, this has the potential to cause a domino effect of bad things. If you overfertilize you can cause nute burn and it can also make your buds not burn right or not burn at all! This is very BAD! And I'm pretty sure that's where my problems are coming in... I overwatered the first few weeks and they were getting burnt and now the flies came in...

I just wanted to note that it's almost 4:30am and I just checked on the girls. 3 hours later after spraying them with the Shultz Garden Safe Fungicide3 and watering them with the Hydrogen Peroxide/Distilled Water (20%/80%) Combo with the PH adjusted to 6.5... They are doing great. Actually one of our BEST plants perked up a bit. I'm hoping the Whiteflies didn't do too much damage to the roots. I'll keep you guys posted!

Hey Man,

I have a lot of Orange Crush as well. They have been vegging 18/6 for 3 weeks under 8, 600 watt lights.All the bulbs are brand new. The lights have been gradually pulled to 6 inches above the plants. One table has 900 ppm and one table has 1200 ppm. The PH is around 6.0. I have heard that the flowering time for OC is 7 weeks. I guess that we will haveto see. I am going to vegg for 3 more weeks and then 12/12 for 7-8 weeks.

Later

Oh , and my room has been around 102 degrees, due to the heat wave for 4 days now. If you have moving air, they are fine. We have 8 fans going.

thats weird that your distilled water is so low, i get it from a cheapy grocery store, and its always 6.5

__________________

Your tests are inaccurate, distilled water will have a pH of near 7.0 (neutral)

Purified water - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Buy a pH meter when you can.

Hey Loto,
Thanks for the info on Orange Crush! We can't find much on it. Just that it's a medical hybrid. I'm going to the 18/6 in a week. Your Veg/Flower schedule sounds great. My guesses were around that time. I envy your light set up lol I had to use CFL's because of where we are at... Hopefully next crop we can upgrade our lighting system when we move. We have two small fans that I attached to the wall on either sides blowing down and one huge floor fan on them that's a few feet away. Air seems to be moving good. I appreciate your message. Our girls seem to be the same age. We should keep in touch. Be cool to see the results of both of em.

I'm not sure why it's so low either. I get it from Wal-Mart. It's their generic "Great Value" brand. I'll try buying it from another place and see if there's a difference. Thanks for your input!

Thanks for the link Tetra. I read it and I'm not sure what's going on with my PH. I'm going to try and buy it at another store and test. The PH kit is a General Hydroponic Manual test kit. I've been doing it properly, at least I'm pretty positive I am. I fill the vial halfway with the distilled water and then add 5 drops to the water, cap it off, and shake it up. Then I just match the color to the chart on the bottle. I dunno. I'll try to get a PH meter this week. Thanks alot! I really do appreciate all the input and suggestions!