SmokingTurtle
New Member
Good afternoon folks. I'm about 6 weeks in on an indoor grow. The smaller plants pictured below are at the 4 week mark. I've lost a few plants, they just died off. I know I'm doing a few things wrong. I'm partnering with someone who doesn't quite know wassup, I'm taking over 100% using some of what I know. From what I've documented and researched comparing that with our grow I've identified some issues. Any insight from you fine folks would be appreciated. I hope to salvage the grow, even if it'll go longer than expected with less than stellar yields-hoping to turn this into an educational experience.
I'll try to give a brief description of the setup. I've got 6 lamps each with 65 watt equivalent LED broad spectrum bulbs; something like 450-750 nm I think, can't remember the spectrum exactly. My buddy revealed to me that the medium is actually a Miricle Grow topsoil (cringe!). I've brought the plants to my improvised grow room where its maintaing 76°F +/- 3° and a relative humidity averaging 78% +/- 4% with a low of 71% within the last 3 days. Finally I water with pH balanced distilled water provided in jugs from a different associate of mine, seemingly trustworthy of product reliability. Its mixed stock all from seed. One is a bag seed from high qual pot, I've got one Auto White Widow Feminized plant with the rest being non-feminized Strawberry Cough. I had another bag seed of differnt stock but it broke off at stem and since I've tried treating it as a clone with root hormone but I think it was too young to develop roots at this point but I'm keeping my eye on it. I have circulation fans running around the clock and am on an 18/6 light cycle. Initially I had significant light loss but within the last week have augmented the grow space with whiteboard to negate as much light loss as possible. In short the grow room was hastily put together and is too big currently but again I'm only trying to get thru this grow without stressing my plants out any more than necessary to get to harvest. Finally, I began with the lights approx 36" after they sprouted but have since dropped them to about 12" since I'm concerned about their lack of growth and inadequate wattage. I also did the needful of covering the white stem/taproot with dirt to a certain point when transplanting. My associate used a generic nitrogen fertilizer at the second week mark, unfortunately (I think he should have held off myself, when). At the same time we were only watering approx once a week as the soil simply wasn't drying out within that timeframe, we've changed it as of this week to watering every two days. Both before and now we follow the rule of seeing approx 20% of the water added to flow out drain in bottom of pots.
So now I'll go over what I think my issues might be. First and foremost I think its largely a light issue. I would like to have used 6500 120-130 equivalent watt CFLs with the lamps we had but my associate went with the afore listed bulbs he found at Wal Mart. I'd really like to swap out the LEDs for the CFLs but am fearful about MORE light stress. I've seen a rapid ibcrease in growth on my good bag seed plant once I dropped the light source to within inches of the plant, seemingly confirming my suspicions of inadequate wattage. I think we have been avle to identify some females and threw a male out presenting "balls" already. With that said, I think another possible issue is with watering. I felt as if we were underwatering but the soil simply wasn't drying out and I doubted the plants need for so much water considering the small plant size. With that said I am increasing the watering frequency for now and look for results.
Obviously I'm lost AND at a loss as to how exactly to proceed. I feel as if mistakes were made but like I said id like to salvage what I can and treat this as a learning experience and do better next time around. I plan on trying to flower my non autos at about the same time as my auto begins to flower but keeping the auto on the 18/6 cycle via segregation, I'm not sure how feasible that will be-I reckon it'll depend on the non autos progress when that time comes. I'm going to upload some on the fly picture that were taken approx 1 week ago, prior to addressing the light loss, etc. I plan on getting new pictures later this evening with some more specific info regarding age and strain to go with the updated pictures. Hopefully this first round of pics will give y'all a general feel for my plight. If anyone would like any more specific pics of anything please don't hesitate to ask. I need help I think, lol.
I'll try to give a brief description of the setup. I've got 6 lamps each with 65 watt equivalent LED broad spectrum bulbs; something like 450-750 nm I think, can't remember the spectrum exactly. My buddy revealed to me that the medium is actually a Miricle Grow topsoil (cringe!). I've brought the plants to my improvised grow room where its maintaing 76°F +/- 3° and a relative humidity averaging 78% +/- 4% with a low of 71% within the last 3 days. Finally I water with pH balanced distilled water provided in jugs from a different associate of mine, seemingly trustworthy of product reliability. Its mixed stock all from seed. One is a bag seed from high qual pot, I've got one Auto White Widow Feminized plant with the rest being non-feminized Strawberry Cough. I had another bag seed of differnt stock but it broke off at stem and since I've tried treating it as a clone with root hormone but I think it was too young to develop roots at this point but I'm keeping my eye on it. I have circulation fans running around the clock and am on an 18/6 light cycle. Initially I had significant light loss but within the last week have augmented the grow space with whiteboard to negate as much light loss as possible. In short the grow room was hastily put together and is too big currently but again I'm only trying to get thru this grow without stressing my plants out any more than necessary to get to harvest. Finally, I began with the lights approx 36" after they sprouted but have since dropped them to about 12" since I'm concerned about their lack of growth and inadequate wattage. I also did the needful of covering the white stem/taproot with dirt to a certain point when transplanting. My associate used a generic nitrogen fertilizer at the second week mark, unfortunately (I think he should have held off myself, when). At the same time we were only watering approx once a week as the soil simply wasn't drying out within that timeframe, we've changed it as of this week to watering every two days. Both before and now we follow the rule of seeing approx 20% of the water added to flow out drain in bottom of pots.
So now I'll go over what I think my issues might be. First and foremost I think its largely a light issue. I would like to have used 6500 120-130 equivalent watt CFLs with the lamps we had but my associate went with the afore listed bulbs he found at Wal Mart. I'd really like to swap out the LEDs for the CFLs but am fearful about MORE light stress. I've seen a rapid ibcrease in growth on my good bag seed plant once I dropped the light source to within inches of the plant, seemingly confirming my suspicions of inadequate wattage. I think we have been avle to identify some females and threw a male out presenting "balls" already. With that said, I think another possible issue is with watering. I felt as if we were underwatering but the soil simply wasn't drying out and I doubted the plants need for so much water considering the small plant size. With that said I am increasing the watering frequency for now and look for results.
Obviously I'm lost AND at a loss as to how exactly to proceed. I feel as if mistakes were made but like I said id like to salvage what I can and treat this as a learning experience and do better next time around. I plan on trying to flower my non autos at about the same time as my auto begins to flower but keeping the auto on the 18/6 cycle via segregation, I'm not sure how feasible that will be-I reckon it'll depend on the non autos progress when that time comes. I'm going to upload some on the fly picture that were taken approx 1 week ago, prior to addressing the light loss, etc. I plan on getting new pictures later this evening with some more specific info regarding age and strain to go with the updated pictures. Hopefully this first round of pics will give y'all a general feel for my plight. If anyone would like any more specific pics of anything please don't hesitate to ask. I need help I think, lol.
