first legit attempt- 400w hps grow room from seed to 420, ISS and Kush

Hey everyone,
im new to this sight and am loving all of the great advice and information available on here.
I have made some half hearted growing attempts in the past, i.e. throwing seeds in a ditch and seeing what happened in 3-4 months haha. we get lots of ditchweed here in the great state of nebraska

This time I've actually sacked up and bought the necessary equipment and lights and soil and blah... and i thought this would be a great (safe) way to receive input and help from knowledgeable people.

so here it goes....
For starters we are using 1 400w HPS w/ separate ballast, Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil, botanicare pure blend pro nutes (grow and bloom) along w/ liquid karma.
the tap water around here is extremely alkaline (8+) so i picked up some water neutralizer as well.

I started with 4 island sweet skunk seeds, 1 random kush seed, and 4 or 5 bag seeds from some dank that i had been saving for the right time (forgot the strain)

I germinated the seeds last week and saw the first sprout on the 7th, today is the 14th so the pics below are exactly one week into grow

I will be posting frequently and updating the progress, i hope somebody out there might have some tips and pointers to help increase yield and quality.

thanks for any help!! happy smokin to all

huskerguy

excellent i'll watch ...one thing i can tell u though is remember not to feed the seedlings the nutes until three weeks and even then start off with a 1/4 strength since u are using fox farm...the soil has so much stuff in it a full dose of the nutes will burn the kids...i learned the hard way. good luck buddy

mmm island sweet skunk!!! ill be sure to keep an eye on this.. if you need any advice hit me up.. check out my journal that i just started too.. lates

ya the guy at the local hydroponics store said the same thing about the soil, i have been using my neutralized tap water for the most part, i did however add a little bit of the liquid karma to the first bit of water i used to wet down the soil, just to give it a little boost and the karma's %'s are relatively low.

ive also mixed about 30-40 % strength of the liquid karma into a spray bottle that i give em a lil mist with now and again to make sure they know i love them

I will most likely start mixing in some nutes and ease the baby's into it at the end of this week/weekend depending, that would be about 2 weeks and thats what the dude said to do.

i appreciate the comments and will update as often as i can!!

dontpanicorganic- I will def check out ur journal and i agree, ISS is one of my favorites for sure, i was lucky enough to have found these 4 or 5 seeds in the ridiculous amount i have had over the last year, no joke, ive been savin these bad boys for a good while.

as old as some of them were i had a 100% success from germination to seedling from my ISS seeds, only about 75% of the others, theyre healthy little tikes too

but ya thanks for the post man, later

lookin good can't wait to see them grow up

just transfered them all into 3 gallon pots. maybe i jumped the gun but i figure just get it over with so theres less stress on the plants down the road.
So now I know for sure we have 1 kush, 3 ISS, 1 bag seed which i believe to be the ISS as well, and i have to choose between the two other bag seeds for the remaining floor space. i will post pics of the two little guys tomorrow and maybe we'll have a little poll as to who lives and who dies

lookin good man and dont worry about the 3 gallon pots...more space equals faster rapid growth...i put mine in three gallons after two weeks all the time rather its clone or seed.

the plants are lookin just fine, they got a tad bit stressed and limp right after i switched them over, but they perked up in no time,

heres a pic of the kush only 2 days after that first pic, day 9. i just sprayed them before i thought to take a pic so it looks a little shiny

im going to give those last two seedlings a couple days before i decide who lives, they need a bit more time to reveal anything as they are about 3-4 days younger than the kush and iss plants

thanks for the posts guys,

happy smokin

update: day 12

leaves seamed to get burnt on tips and edges. i didnt think this was an over feeding issue bc ive only been using water and a tiny bit of liquid karma... so i got a humidifier to bring the rh up a bit cuz it seemed a little dry in there.

but it seems like my ph in the soil was a little high (the tap water around here is just so harsh, like 7.8 ) even tho i used some ph neutralizer it just wasnt doin the trick, so i just picked up some ph down from the store.

i gave them a drink even though they didnt need it with some water with a ph of 6.6 ish to the point of getting some run off. i tested the ph of the runoff and it looked like it was back down to about 6.6-6.8, i hope this fixes the issue these little guys are having, ill post some pics of them in a few days, they're lookin pretty good so far aside from that burn

so i decided to pop a couple pics today, show some of the progress.

they seem to be making a turnaround after the little bit of burning that took place, i hope that they recover quickly!! just feeding them water still, nothing special. and starting to see growth at the first and second nodes which is kind of exciting i guess. I didnt think it would be this interesting watching how the plant actually grows and develops.

here are a couple pics of the closet and a few of the plants. you can see the burnt edges in a couple of the first leaves, do you think this will be an issue? i assume that these will eventually be obsolete leaves and fall anyway.

another thing i noticed, in the last picture, one of my ISS plants' latest set of leaves has some sorta cupping thing goin on, i dont think i overwatered, do they need some more water? the soil seems to stay pretty moist for a few days at a time , idk maybe im just worried about nothing

hey buddy whats up...your good it has happend to me previously alot of times...as long as you do what your doing by slowing down on the feeding, the new growth will be nice and healthy. im sure the reason the lil one is cupping like you said is because of the nute burn...just give em some time they'll be fine.

i like your weight gainer pot, i wonder if it will do any weight gaining for the plant hahaha lookin good my friend.

haha i was wondering if anyone would notice that... lol
kinda strapped for cash till friday and that little seedling was begging for more room, had to cut up my weight gainer tub. haha, i know that pots are like 2 bucks or sumthin but thats 2 double cheeseburgers i wouldnt b able to eat!!

yea, those little bastards are sleeping now, i can def tell a difference now that i lowered my soil ph a bit, the new growth all seems green and healthy (aside from that little bit of cuping) my other tall ISS is kinda showing a lil cup action as well now, but o well, im sure with water and time it will work itself out. def not feeding them anything anytime soon.

Looks good man, they will really start aking off soon!

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try a dollar tree... they have pots and saucers for 1 dollar.

good to know, all the nurseries down here want like 5 bucks for a crappy 3 gal pot

so i opened up the closet and got a facefull of skunk!

its the first time theyve actually smelled like weed, and i like it.

Im goin camping for the weekend so im settin up the timer and what not, ill be back on sunday but prob wont post anything till moday. heres a couple pics, they seem to be ready to explode w/ growth.

one thing i want some advice for... since i am working with limited height i had planned on topping at least a few of these guys (the taller ones), when is/would be, the best time to top?

heres sum pics for ya

so i came back from the little camping adventure this weekend and these little guys really took off...

so much so that i felt it was time to top a couple of them (the 3 tallest) IDK ive never done this before so i figured id see the results firsthand, Im going to leave the other 3 alone and let them do what they do best

heres a couple pics from yesterday, later on dudes

one more thing, im very excited to find out what the mystery seed is, the leafs are very broad and indica-like (bigger and fatter than my kush's leaves), but the growth seems to be more sativa-ish (tall and lanky like my ISS) Its gonna be fun to see what this guy turns into

FWIW at the moment its the bottom right plant in both pics