First Grow, 400W Closet Setup

I was wondering if you could give me some advise on trimming?

I would look around at what others have done and see what you feel comfortable with.

Things to keep in mind are that with a dense canopy and a 400W light only top 12 inches or so will have significant yield, and if production leafs are cut off the normally smaller bud leafs will grow larger.

Camel09 said:

I was wondering if you could give me some advise on trimming?

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Well I don't know about advice, but I can tell you how I go about it and you can take from it what you will

When I first go through, I check and see if there are any fan leaves obviously getting in the way of light getting to colas, or if it is in the way in general. These are the first to go, and it is usually only 1-3 (total, for the five plants) of the big fan leaves that I take out. Next I see if there are any up-and-coming colas that would benefit (and benefit me, ultimately ) from me clearing the way for themFinally I look for smaller interior leaves and especially stems that are not getting much, if any, direct light. I don't go crazy, keeping in mind the plant needs some leaves, but I definitely thin them out so the energy can be focused elsewhere. My plants are all about 24" tall and there are no leaves or stems on the bottom 8".

My thinking while doing it is to make sure the light gets to where it will be most useful while not shocking the plant so bad it slows or stops growth. If you are ever in doubt, err on the side of caution... those leaves will still be there to chop later

If you want practice, I suggest getting some bushy houseplants and go to town... you will be amazed at how much you can hack away at a plant and still have it regrow, often better than before.

I hope that helps a bit!

Week 4: Halfway Home

Things continue to look good. I picked up a couple Purple Kush clones (well rooted in RW) and started them in soil under my newly acquired 24" T5. After a solid 24 hours under the light, they have already perked up. A MH flood from Home Depot would have been a better value for a light I think, but I'm already having heat issues with the new setup so I'm glad I went with the cooler option. The temperatures in what is now the flowering area were sitting nicely in the 70s. As you can see in the pics, I added a new grow box to isolate the mothers and (future) clones. You also see the first and only (for some time) pics of the new clones. The cardboard box is temporary, to be used for the remainder of the current crop only, I will be building something proper (and setting up ventilation) after harvest. Anyway... the temperatures now shoot up to mid 90s for an hour or so between when I leave in the morning and when the light switches off. A short period of time, but not good. I think I'm going to be setting up the cooltube and ducting sooner than planned.

Things are getting a bit stinky, it is time for a filter. That will be happening next week. More playing with the manual focus, it is getting a bit easier Last feeding I gave a double dose of Tiger Bloom (20mL/gal), the "Heavy Feeding" recommendation on the bottle. It didn't appear to have any negative effects, so I'll be doing that once a week from here on out.

It has been interesting watching the plants develop, even though they all came from the same bag (assuming the same genetics) they are exhibiting very different characteristics. Some have nice hairy colas, others have leafy and scraggly colas, others are somewhere between. In the future, I'm going to have to buy seeds, grow them all, flower the females and then pick the best one of the bunch for use as parents.

Anyhow, pics!

dude, this shit looks da bomb! Cheers!

yeah, you are my hero cause' i'm about to start the same op., pretty much exactly (even same nutes). then I found this thread, iz gonna help me a lot. tnx

cheetah2007 said:

dude, this shit looks da bomb! Cheers!

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Thanks cheetah I'm pretty pleased with it. The plants seem to have stopped getting taller (still at 24" from the last update) and are now working on the good stuff. Even so, I'm spending more time planning for the future than I am worrying about the current crop. This shit is so damn fun

lol i hear that. im gettin ready to start my first grow in about 2 weeks(gotta wait for the seeds to get back to me) and im building my box(gonna be a big ass box) this weekend. I pretty much have everything situated mentally besides the ventalation completely and the first stage of lighting. I too will be using the fox farm soil and nutes. i'v researched a ton on LST and i plan to use it on 2, possibly 3 plants, because i plan, and hope, to be getting around 4-7 oz a plant. The one thing that id suggest for a lil girth on the plants is Bush Master. it also increases flowering time by 7-10 days, but not always that long of time. Alot of people highly reccomend it and some dont, but iv done enough research to conclude that a low dose will be benefitial. I was wondering if there was anything minor that you could give me a heads up on, mainly the lighting, i plan to use some clf's for starting the plant out, then switching to a 600w hps, any suggestions about anything? thanks

phreakygoat said:

yeah, you are my hero cause' i'm about to start the same op., pretty much exactly (even same nutes). then I found this thread, iz gonna help me a lot. tnx

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Haha, thanks man Good luck with your grow! If I can help in any way, let me know.

swishatwista said:

I was wondering if there was anything minor that you could give me a heads up on, mainly the lighting, i plan to use some clf's for starting the plant out, then switching to a 600w hps, any suggestions about anything? thanks

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A couple suggestions: as far as lighting, use the HPS for the vegging as well, the plants are going to get tons more light with that. I know lots of people have gotten good results with just CFLs, but if you have the 600W HPS available, I'd suggest using that.

The other suggestion (for both of ya) is to make sure you have good ventilation and temperature control. Temperatures were (and remain) my biggest issue. When I first started, they would sometimes hit 100F (!!) for an hour or so in the mornings when I sealed to keep the light out. I got that all sorted out with some intake/exhaust fans, but now that I added that bigass box I'm having issues again. My next purchase is going to be a cooltube and ducting, for sure.

I haven't heard anything about Bush Master before, thanks for the tip! I'll have to do some more reading.

i'll build the ultimate grow room for two 4 ft tall plants for my third grow. im goin pro! yeah baby lmao!

could i put my new born sprouts under 400w mh, i mean will they be ok and if i can how far away from them should it be.

atleast 2 feet imo!

I was wondering how big is ur growing space? Only few plants?? Coz i want to start growing 4-5 plants whick would be around 2 square feet and here... Lighting... i read that its should be around 30-60 watts per square foot. Is that enough?

ElGrimReefer said:

could i put my new born sprouts under 400w mh, i mean will they be ok and if i can how far away from them should it be.

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What cheetah said. You can do it, just make sure the light is far enough away. My girls were sitting on a sunny windowsill for about 2 weeks before getting hit with the MH.

Laze said:

I was wondering how big is ur growing space? Only few plants?? Coz i want to start growing 4-5 plants whick would be around 2 square feet and here... Lighting... i read that its should be around 30-60 watts per square foot. Is that enough?

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My grow space is 3' x 2', five plants that are all about 24" tall. If you want 5 plants in that space, they would probably have to be lollipop. You might be better off with a ScrOG setup, and one big plant.

consider me a late subscriber.

I've been thinking a lot about how to take Al's scenario and produce every two weeks in dirt. I would like to follow that one when you get around to it. It will be at least 1 month away before i start making the setup happen.


looks yummy!!!

I'm more so just an observer in this operation, but DoobyDoo is my brother...and I must say...the plants are looking goooood!

I've been lurching around this thread, reading everybody comments/posts...so it's nice to meet you all!

What were you talking about the focus on the pics?? They look really sharp to me....

I have a 400watt mh/hps lamp in a 3x8x6 growing area. One problem I’m having is the temp. Daytime it stays around 84-91, I’m sure that’s not good. I’m trying to get them around 70-75. I have a 4inch exhaust fan and a 4inch in, think I should go with 6 inch? Does anyone have any tips on how to keep the room cooler? Well I hope yall can help me out. Any tips or advise would really help this is my first time growing. I’m just going off of what I read online and books. Thanks for your time.

here are some pics https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/120609-need-tips-hot-400watts.html#post1474177

wellcome to the forum man! its not so cool to jack other ppl threads btw

your right! my bad, didnt even think of it.

lol >>>>