Intermediate Grower in Need of Advice

Hello Everyone,
I have been lurking on the rollitup forums for several months now and I have learned a lot of valuable information from the community. This is my first post. I have had five complete harvests since I started growing, but my skills seem to have hit a plateau. Every harvest has had a relatively low yield (less than one ounce per plant with a four week veg) and the buds haven't been impressive. They are light, fluffy and unlike any weed I've have ever seen in appearance. I am going to post images of my set-up below. If anyone has advice, recommendations, constructive criticism, comments or any ideas on how to improve my garden, please feel free to post.

SET-UP

Lighting-600 watt HPS/MH for flowering, 400 watt HPS/MH for flowering, 250 HPS for vegetating

Nutrients-General Hydroponics Grow, Bloom, Micro

Soil-Miracle Grow Gardening Soil

Genetics-Bag seed collected from the dankest weed smoked over a period of a year

Here are some pictures of the set-up.


Here are the plants.


Additional notes:
The plants are watered when the pots feel light. Nutrients are mixed directly into tap water. The leaves look a little disfigured, I'm not sure what is causing it.
Once again, please feel free to post anything you see that could be holding the garden back. I would not be where I am today without this forum, so thank you to the rollitup community!

me personally, here is what i would do...

lose the miracle gro. i used organic choice before, its not ph balanced and is just ground up bark, some peat and that's it. use a different base soil. try happy frog i've had better results. it has worm castings, bat guano, and more. read labels on soil to check ingredients and to see if it's ph balanced.

direct tap water has chlorine, dissolved solids and such. try getting a big bucket or barrel and "aerate" your water. water preparation is CORNERSTONE of growing. clean aerated water with a ph between 6 and 7. if you add nutrients ph your water AFTER adding nutrients. if your feed water is not between a ph of 5.8 and 6.8 you are just wasting it because the roots can't absorb it.

let your plants veg longer, bigger plants means bigger yields but watch how big, your lighting is not that powerful

use 6500 kelvin or blue light for veg, and 2700 kelvin for flower.

i run 3000 watts of hps flowering and 1000 for veg, i grow mine to 2 feet before flower and they get to 4 to 6 feet tall during flower and my yields are 8 oz plant good luck

Do you check your ph of your medium, what you are introducing to your ladies, and ph of your runoff. I ask that because you stated your leaves are disfigured. Foliage tends to twist in erratic patterns when your ph is off. Your yield is acceptable for only having several cycles under your belt and considering your vegetation time. Your number 17 picture looks like you trained it into a bush and actually looks good. Never used miracle grow anything I have read some negative comments about that brand. I myself use fox farm happy frog and light warrior for seedlings. What is your feeding/watering cycle like? Do you w/f/w or f/w/f and follow the GH feeding schedule? You'll hear different opinions about HID in vegetation and flowering. I myself use fluoroscents for seedlings and when they have become established then I use my 400 W MH. For flowering I use 2 600 W HPS. When using tap water do you let it sit 1-2 days before using it?

Definetly lose the miracle gro. I use these large bales of susnshine mix #4 or promix. Each bale is like 40 bucks and will last your size of growing for a long time. Also, invest in a hydrologic stealth RO100 system. It costs like 100 bucks and hooks right up to a basement sink with threads. This brought my water from 270ppm to 6ppm.

Thanks for the advice. I am going to pick up some happy frog soil tomorrow. The seedlings in the picture are from a plant that was stressed into a hermie and pollinated the whole garden in a previous cycle. I will transplant those into the happy frog soil. Hopefully that will give better results. From what I understand, the seedlings should be all female. Is this correct? The other plants are starting their third week of 12/12 and they are bag seed.

Normally I don't ever check my ph, but I think your advice will help get me to the next level so i will start checking the ph on a regular basis. I have a general hydroponics ph test kit that i bought a while back but i never used it. Hopefully the leaves will stop twisting.

I mix the nutrients according to the ratio on the bottle. The plants get watered every few days. I will keep posting updates as these plants go through flower.

Get urself a ph and ppm meter that can help.plant may look healthy but knowing exact measurements ensures ur plants is in tip top health...also have u tried putting them in the cornor so the light is directed a lil more on the plants to.make denser buds also try using some extra nutes in flower like big bud or those bud enhancers ive never used em(doing first grow) im sure theres threads here recomending ways to make stanky danky bud
Hope i helped

Some damn good advice on here already! I'd agree certainly with changing the miracle gro too - MJ deserves better soil than that! And letting tap water sit for 24/36 hours is very good recommendation too.

Also, i was thinking what does the temperature do in that garage space thru day & night? Is it heated and/or warm during lights out/night, as cold nights can potentially slow growth. And be aware also that its not always the actual temperature (high or low) that screws them up; often, an excessively high temperature difference between day & night periods (even within comfortably acceptable temp ranges) can slow or stress them too.

Secondly, i dunno if the plants grow where u photographed them or thats just how u displayed them for pics, but if that is ur exact grow set-up, i'd also very definitely recommend building a simple, budget screen that can stand around the plants & have reflective walls. Even if its just 3 cheap bits of 5ft high MDF/plyboard/thick cardboard, etc painted bright matt white or mylared covered & standing in L-shape around plants, it would reflect alot of light back onto plants that ur currently losing to the rest of the garage space. The ideal one would be if u could make a 4 sided enclosure with 1 side able to swing open as door & it reached from floor up to edge of reflector level. As i say, apologies if i read the pictures wrong anyway!

hey buddy i know exactly why your leaves are warped and mutated not olnly are you using miracle grow, but thats garden soil not potting soil ive experimented with what happens when you use that exact soil in pots and it kills my plants mutates the leaves and makes them all retarded so definitely lose that soil asap

But also wanted to say, they don't look too bad overall so i'd still feel proud they grew to fruitation each time!

And i think only a few small tweaks would have u running sweet as that light set-up alone should pump out hefty buds when u running at full steam!

agree with redwhite , get plants and light into smaller confined area.... will help with yield also.

also perhaps get some top of the line genetics... as genetics is key. Seeing you found the seeds in some bags you bought.. could indicate it was not that great to start.