first grow, budget grow box - grow log from zero to 420

lmn8r said:

I have little gnats flying/crawling around the soil. I read they are harmless to the plants and feed of dead plant matter. I'm not sure if I want to spend a couple bucks for sand to create a barrier. All the other non cannabis plants we have in the house have them too.

They never seem to leave the confines of the grow box. Will they attract predators such as spiders?

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Buy the sand, and also some sticky traps if possible. Gnats will damage your roots if left unchecked.

Yeah some old wise guy at our local grow store told us the same thing.. those little fuckers get down into the soil and feed on the roots.. use some h2o2/ hydrogen peroxide not alot though idk the exact formula for what to what but its on this site somewhere.. then use sand on the top inch or two of soil..

pics pics!! wana see how ur flowers turned out so far

22 days into flowering...

My runt is going good, flowers are steadily growing. Skunk is showing more and more bud sites. Of course, still no signs of flowering on my two sativas. The sativas have a few organs here and there that are pistol shaped, definitely not what I would consider balls. I'm thinking maybe they're having problems? Their overall growth seems to be a lot slower then the other plants now. They seem healthy, theres new growth sprouts coming out all over the branches. It may be receiving less light, my skunk is pretty much taking over that part of the grow box.

One of the runt's branches is shooting for the stars, it's about 6 inches from hitting the top. I would tie it down somewhere, but I can't think of anywhere else it could go. It grows like it has strong sativa genes.

Two of my clones in their puny little cups are showing pistols now.

I'm gonna take a look at a pest strip to see if that can treat my gnat problem. If that doesn't work i'll do a layer of sand.

I'm moving the lights up every day now; With the fan blowing I'm just going to have to live with a few leaves getting burnt now and then from touching. Lately it's been hot as hell, 90F indoors at my computer chair. It's been tough keeping the heat down inside the box. I've been misting frequently, and I installed another 80mm computer fan that brings cool air strait to the main fan. I'm gonna have to think of something to keep my overall living space cool. This place gets zip in the way of air circulation.

nice buds! How's the gnat situation? Has anything worked?

lmn8r said:

I'm gonna take a look at a pest strip to see if that can treat my gnat problem. If that doesn't work i'll do a layer of sand.

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The pest strips alone won't work, as they only catch the adult flies. It's the larvae in the soil that cause the majority of the damage, and they can't fly at this point, so won't be caught by the strips.

Another alternative to sand is to simply allow all your pots to dry out thoroughly. This will kill the gnat larvae quicker than it will kill your plants, but it will put your plants under a bit of stress, and this approach is not as viable when you have multiple plants on different watering schedules.

You really shouldn't be misting at this point either. I understand you have heat issues, but you should try to get that sorted properly with ventilation, rather than trying to compensate with misting etc.

Will gnats be able to burrow through the sand? All the other house plants indoors have them.

It's my understanding that the sand cuts the shit out of them. It has to be sharp sand though (aka builders sand). Kids play sand won't work.

I spent my money ($15) on a large box fan to stick in the window to keep temps down and improve circulation.

I'll have to fore go any commercial gnat stuff until I can save up some money from my next few paychecks.

Anyone have any homeopathic remedies to mitigate the fungus gnats?

lmn8r said:

I spent my money ($15) on a large box fan to stick in the window to keep temps down and improve circulation.

I'll have to fore go any commercial gnat stuff until I can save up some money from my next few paychecks.

Anyone have any homeopathic remedies to mitigate the fungus gnats?

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Well this may not work, but if I remember correctly, when I was in college we had a bit of a gnat problem in my apartment and so my roommate put a little cup with some vinegar in it and within a few days all the gnats were dead in the cup....anyone else ever tried that?

Great journal by the way! I'm definately going cfls my next grow...

I moved the clones into larger pots up from their cups. Both runt clones, both skunk clones, and one of each of my sativas have more space to grow. As you can see, my "pots" are just recycled milk jugs, roughly 1/2 gallon of soil each. I'm controlling root growth as a way of slowing down their flowering until more space inside the grow box is available for me to stick them in the dirt.

I ran out of soil, I still have 4 sativa clones left. There isn't much space left in the grow box for them anyways. They're root bound already, but otherwise healthy plants. Hmm... guerrilla grow anyone?

I just watered the main plants. I was letting them get bone dry (12 days no water) to help kill off some of the gnats. It did help, i'm seeing less of them then I remember.

I am also watering a solution of 2% diflubenzuron. This should hopefully kill some of the gnat larvae.

hey lmn8r, i read about ur heat problems, to drop the temps down for a couple of hours take some pop bottles (20oz, 1ltr, 2ltr ) doesnt matter just fillem up with water freeze for about two or three days and place inside of ur cab. Put the somewhere dark so the ice inside melts slowly. should drop ur temps by like 4-6 degrees depending on how big a bottle u use.
Good Grow Going Bro!
Check me out!.

Thanks, thats a good idea. Since I bought the fan to circulate the air the temps in my whole place have gone down. It's only on really hot days over 90F that I would bust the ice out.

Excellent info for getting rid of gnats from NPR's Mike McGrath

One of the sativa clones grew balls, I chopped it. I'm kinda scratching my head... the clone showed it's sex before the main plant???

Here's what the root system looks like. It was still in a 16oz cup.

wicked grow diary, ill be following this dude. so much awesome info on this site.

i cant wait to here more. i am disappointed that its not done yet. good job man. I'LL BE BACK!

32 days into flowering.

My lights are as high as they can hang from the top. These plants are large, i'm about out of space. The runt is still flowering like crazy, skunk is looking more indica as it grows. One of the sativas started growing noticeable pistils. This is the same plant I got a male clone from, so I have to assume it has a hermie gene so i'm gonna keep a good eye on it.

The gnats are still around but only here and there. As you can see in the first picture, mosquito dunks; Good for killing mosquitoes, and gnats. They are in the seasonal section at Wal-mart, got em for $10. Dissolve for 15 minutes in warm water and then mix with your normal watering solution. I mainly got them for mosquitoes though, they are rampant around here, so i'm not going to include them in the price breakdown.

I'm going to purchase some corn syrup soon as a molasses substitute because apparently this part of nowhere eats only corn related products. I'm watering on a weekly schedule now, which the plants seem to like.

u inspired my cfl grow


heres the start

https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/183435-how-my-supplies-lookig.html

this log is awesome, im gona start growing myself soon as possible i have a solarburst 600watt coming in the post so once thats here i can get started..... ill follow every step in this log... cheers man, hopefully my weed will get me through collage hahaha