Carmelicious Closet Grow - pics

Okay so this grow started 8 days ago. After being germed they were potted into Premium Pro-Mix Potting Soil and put under 10 daylight 23watt CFL's inside of a cab I made. After realizing certain temp and ventilation issues the grow was forced to move from that cab into another rooms closet where its now under 4 daylight 23watt CFL's and a 250watt HPS.













Tomorrow I'm planning on dropping the light down a bit more with chains. Originally I had it so high cause I was worried about burning the babies while they were still so small. Also by next weekend I'm planning on taking a trip to pick up some Foxfarm materials including soil and fertilizers. I'll most likely be transplanting to their final 5gallons after their next set of leafs so I won't have to transplant anymore after that.

Main reason I'm posting here is to get good responses of constructive criticism since I'm a new grower so don't be shy!

Whats wrong guys? After looking through several other journals I noticed my leafs look more narrow than others and the veins through them are more creased than others...
Are they suffering?

I think it's the genetics.
To me they seem pretty healthy.

Hey 80degreez.

I saw you had a post asking for advice. I'm only half way through my first grow, but I've learned a lot so far. I made a post in my grow journal about simple stuff that I wish I knew when I started. SO here it is man...

Lessons learned.

Invest in enough equipment so you know what is going on with your plants and keep records of what you do when. It's incredibly hard (for me anyways) to remember everything I've done and when. And for people to help you online when you don't know what your PH is, temps are, humidity is, nutrients are. Also, when did you water? How much did you water? Keep track of this stuff. Write it down here in your grow journal. Put a link to it in your signature. Then people can find out about the history of your grow and give you better advice.

1. Be patient! This is at least a 6 month journey you are embarking on. You may get some great bud out of it. You may get nothing. Its the only way to learn though. It's hard to resist the temptation of mucking around with your plants every day.

2. Mylar - $13 online Don't use tinfoil. Get this stuff if you are going to grow inside for a bit. Or just stick with white walls. That works too.

3. Temps/Humidity - $10 at Target This thing will record the min/max temp and the min/max humidity of your grow area.

4. PH - $15 on Ebay I started off with nothing to test my PH, then I got something to test my water. I got this but it was a joke for testing PH, good for moisture, but can't really do PH properly. Then I got something else to test my dirt. The dirt test would have been helpful before I started to grow or transplant. But a digital meter is really the best and only way to go to see what you're feeding your plants. You should test the pH of your water, EVERY TIME YOU WATER, after you put your nutrients in. When the nutrients are in, the color of the water changes, so you can't use most other PH tests out there. Get a digital meter, get some calibration liquid. If your PH is wrong/off, then your plant may not be able to use the nutrients you are giving it. So it should be the very first step.

5. Moisture meter - $5 at hardware Does what it says. You can see how moist/dry your soil is at the bottom of your container. Not good for testing PH, like I said.

6. Nutrients - $30-40 at ? I found mine at Longs Drugs for $30. Get these, follow the chart. It makes it easy for you and takes out a lot of the guess work. Chances are you won't over fertilize them either. I started off using "regular" off the shelf stuff. The instructions on most of this stuff is ambiguous. This is probably the most important thing that I've learned. At first it sounded like a lot of money to spend when I didn't even know if I was going to enjoy growing or have any female plants. But now, regardless of what happens, I sure wish I had started out with this stuff.

7. TDS/PPM meter $15 Maybe not necessary, but it helps you get a better picture of what is going on with your water and your nutrients.

8. Misc. Get a oscillating fan (if your going for an indoor grow) to make the stems strong, cycle the air and keep away molds. Also, get big enough pots (3 to 5 gal), keep a close eye on them for pests if you are growing outside and be ready to react to pests immediately (already have your solution in hand.)

9. And read the crap out of this website. There is a lot of good info in the GrowFAQ. Make sure to look there before you post. Do a search before you post. And use your head. Don't trust or rely solely on everything everyone tells you. People mean well, but it's just hard to know when you can't see, touch, live with the plants yourself.

I'm sure not everyone will agree, but that is what I've learned so far and believe to be true. I sure wish I had started with all of this info. It would have saved me a lot of headaches at this point.

I'm still having a great time growing though. Good luck man.

Thanks for the tips. One thing I don't have is a humidity reader. Is humidity less or more crucial during vegetative or flowering stages? Cause I have a window ac unit keeping the surrounding room cool...but AC units also dry out the air so I can imagine my humidity being super low. I do mist the plants while i water though..to add a little extra humidity and I'll leave the cap off my water so that some can disperse through the air...not sure how effective this has been though!

Also I'm plannin on gettin some Foxfarm soils and ferts today. Can somebody recommend the best soils they've got for vegetative growth and flower? I was planning on using Ocean Forest the whole way through but somebody told me it was for flowering only; which if it is the case I'll still use it for flowering, I just don't know what I'll use till then cause the Premium Pro-Mix right now I'm using I think is only good for seedlings..

As for watering up until the last feeding I had been giving them each around 1-2 capful's of water which would moisten the area around the stem the most. Last feeding I kicked it up a bit with about 4 capful's each. I havn't noticed any drooping from that watering either so I guess they are able to handle it!

Does low humidity during the vegetative phase stunt growth? I've added a bowl with water to the grow room to hopefully increase humidity... any other tips would be helpful!
Growth seems slow the past couple days

FF Ocean is fine all the way through (not to mention, as you x-pant, it will be consitant.)

For temp humidity, I use a dual reader meant for indoor and out door. This way I can keep it n the coffee table and know what the room is doing.(Plan on putting the base unit in the flowering room and the remote in veg and have it in the sweep of the webcam. the 2 birds with one stone type thing)

Less humid during flowering. buds seem to like to grow mold easier (less air circulation in them) I've heard a bunch of different numbers, so Ill let others go there.

Alright I'm going to pick up some FF Ocean Forest and use that all the way thru vegetative with no additional nutes. Then for flowering I'll be using Foxfarms Big Bloom and Tiger Bloom since most of the nutes from the Ocean Forest soil will be done by then.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, newbie (me) might be jumping to conclusions here!

80degreez said:

Alright I'm going to pick up some FF Ocean Forest and use that all the way thru vegetative with no additional nutes. Then for flowering I'll be using Foxfarms Big Bloom and Tiger Bloom since most of the nutes from the Ocean Forest soil will be done by then.

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Sounds like a plan! But be forewarned. I just started using the FF BB and TB. That lowered the pH a TON! Like from 6.4 down to 4.3. (was a 5gal bucket, but doubt that mattered)

I'm very new to this so adjusting pH is a bit iffy for me. I have a soil tester which reads around 7 in the soil and I have pH testers for my water though I'm a bit fuzzy on how and when to check pH. I check initially as it comes out of the tap and adjust it with lemon juice and vinegar (havn't been using any nutes as of yet) but when I do add the nutes to the water do I pH test the water again after adding the nutes and hit it with more lemon juice or vinegar after that again?

Many thanks!

Another thing I just noticed that I wanted to ask about is getting the water your are using to water the plants with on the leafs. I've done so a few times and I've also used a little spray bottle with the same water to mist the plants but after it dries it leaves some water mark residue on the leafs which make them look a little strange. Is this a bad practice or is it fine? Thanks!

Hey,

i'm no expert, but from what I read, check your dirt before you plant. I've read that the dirt even if its off will adjust to match what you are putting into it when you water/feed your plants. The seedlings will care though.

The little two prong, non electronic tester sucks. It's insufficient to get a good reading.

You want to check and adjust your pH after you add your nutes in to your water. AND you want to check and adjust your pH every time you water without nutes. EVERY TIME. I learned this lesson the hard way. My tap water inexplicably jumped a point from 6.5 to 7.5 on me and I didn't catch it for a couple of weeks. If your pH is off, your plant may not absorb nutes from your soil or what you feed it.

Get a bottle of General Hydroponics pH up and down. They will cost you $20 -25. A few drops should do the trick. I've read that lemon juice and that other stuff isn't stable as the G.H. stuff. I assume this means that it may go in to your dirt at the right pH, but it may not stay that way. Sometimes the organic pH up and down causes slime problems. People seem to like the G.H. stuff.

80degreez said:

Another thing I just noticed that I wanted to ask about is getting the water your are using to water the plants with on the leafs. I've done so a few times and I've also used a little spray bottle with the same water to mist the plants but after it dries it leaves some water mark residue on the leafs which make them look a little strange. Is this a bad practice or is it fine? Thanks!

Click to expand...

Yeah, don't do that. The water magnifies the light of the lamps or sun and the leaves burn. So I don't think it's residue, I think your leaves are cooking. Search for 'foliar feeding' on the forums. You don't have any need to be doing that. I could be wrong.

Thanks for the tips GrowBig! The marks on the leafs I was talking about are like the same marks you would see on a glass cup after washing it and leaving drops of water behind, the whitish outline of where the water droplets were. Theres no discoloration that I can see so I don't think they are burning, hopefully.

What pH should I be shooting for ideally? Both water and soil that I've been using check out at 7 which is neutral but I've heard its better to keep it a bit lower.
I'm looking for specifics! Thanks again! Rep++

pH'ing I'm far from any expert. but this is what I have gathered from reading (probably too many posts)

Let the tap water sit for overnight, 24 hours, 48hours to let the chlorine evaporate off. This is for city water. If you have a private well, well then things are different. It probably rather hard water. I haven't see hard water addressed here (but haven't looked either)

pH the water. (I gave up on the fish tank kit. Maybe I'm a bit colorblind, but the longer I looked at it, the more I saw what I wanted to.) I bought a Milwaukee pH, TDS and EC meter Was about $150. This tri-meter will also let me go hydro if I want.

pH the water after the evap and nutes added.

You should also pH the water running out the bottom of the pot right after watering (I have yet to do this, plants seem fine, ot perfect, but no alarms)

Those ferry Morse soil pH meters? They always say 7.0 from what I've seen. Waste of money in my eyes. (might make some rancid soil and test it to know for sure)

if the pH is too high or too low, the nutes are wasted. It keeps the plant from absorbing them.

Hey,

Again, I don't have experience, I'm only telling you what I've read on this site. But I've read 6.2 - 6.6, somewhere in there if you're growing in soil.

Here's an update as of 14 days since put into the soil after germination.













Looking for comments from experienced growers to try and spot any problems early

I was planning on transplanting within the next week to their final 3gallon bags. Is it okay to wait until next weekend to do it or given by their size should they be transplanted as soon as possible? Thanks

I might hold off a bit on x-planting. The bigger the plant, the easier it is to deal with the stress of the x-plant.

They look nice! squat and fat! Hope they are all girls. (Though I just planted a seed hoping for a male. I want seeds)

You under HPS? The color tone makes me think that. If you can adjust the color temp of the camera or in a program to about 2700K and it will 'green up' nicely. You can also just take them out of the room to take the pics. This is also handy for inspection, the 'yellow' light may hide some things.

Oh depending on how long you veg, you might want to add nutes during veg. But thats if you are going to veg for a while. FF Big Grow is nice since you are on the FF program.

80degreez said:

I'm very new to this so adjusting pH is a bit iffy for me. I have a soil tester which reads around 7 in the soil and I have pH testers for my water though I'm a bit fuzzy on how and when to check pH. I check initially as it comes out of the tap and adjust it with lemon juice and vinegar (havn't been using any nutes as of yet) but when I do add the nutes to the water do I pH test the water again after adding the nutes and hit it with more lemon juice or vinegar after that again?

Many thanks!

Click to expand...

I like to mix the solution in 1 gallon jugs... and yes check ph after... then every day... about every 12 hrs...check the reservoir with the ph.. remember that ph goes up and down during time....

Now i have it down to where i just mix the whole thing in the res... but like i said... it would be good to practice in a one gallon so you see exactly how many drops or whatever...

Also... Im not sure how long the natural lemon and backing soda works for .. not sure if it holds it all day.. I went to walmart and bought the ph up and down for the pools... Its granules and i bought the big canisters... I literally use just a wet finger to grab how much ph down i need... you have to be very careful and i would recommend practicing with a 1/4 teaspoon measuring spoon.... like i said... check it as often as you can... make sure the ph is between 5.2 and 5.8 if your doing hydro.... and 6 if your doing dirt..... Good luck with your grow... check out my journal and im sure you'll learn allot

also ... i recommend to top as early as you can.....and then every 1 or 2 internodes... depending if they stretch allot or not. Search fim technique or topping. you want the more branches the better cause those will be tops... good luck