Plants not growing?

[Straight Sativa]

Hello,

Three and a half weeks ago some friends and I started our first grow(lowryder). We started out in 5 gallon buckets using typical top soil found at home depot. Three out of four of the seeds were germinated, the other was planted immediatly without any sort of germination. Light schedual is 18/6 using 3 75watt incandecent bulbs. The first two weeks, we were watering once every day but then decided it was too much and started watering once every other day. Started to feed them three weeks in but none of the plants are more than 5 inches tall.

Keeping in mind that this is a closet grow, originally the only ventalation we had was opening the door for a couple hours at a time. We recently decided to put a fan in the closet with them because it was hotboxing so much.

We know that they are supposed to grow somewhat short, but from the pics online that we've seen, the leaves are MUCH bigger and the plants are just larger in general. Right now it doesn't look like our plants will even be able to grow big enough to support and buds at all.

Here are some pics:

At the bottom of this plant the two leaves are also turning quite yellow. It got to the point the other day that they looked like they could wither up and die. The strings are there to hold up the plants because after a week they were beggining to fall over and limp out.

Any help would be much appreciated!

 

[litljohn]

Hello,

Three and a half weeks ago some friends and I started our first grow(lowryder). We started out in 5 gallon buckets using typical top soil found at home depot. Three out of four of the seeds were germinated, the other was planted immediatly without any sort of germination. Light schedual is 18/6 using 3 75watt incandecent bulbs. The first two weeks, we were watering once every day but then decided it was too much and started watering once every other day. Started to feed them three weeks in but none of the plants are more than 5 inches tall.

Keeping in mind that this is a closet grow, originally the only ventalation we had was opening the door for a couple hours at a time. We recently decided to put a fan in the closet with them because it was hotboxing so much.

We know that they are supposed to grow somewhat short, but from the pics online that we've seen, the leaves are MUCH bigger and the plants are just larger in general. Right now it doesn't look like our plants will even be able to grow big enough to support and buds at all.

Here are some pics:

At the bottom of this plant the two leaves are also turning quite yellow. It got to the point the other day that they looked like they could wither up and die. The strings are there to hold up the plants because after a week they were beggining to fall over and limp out.

Any help would be much appreciated!

you shouldnt use incandesent bulbs.theyre to hot and they dont have the right light spectrum.if your not gonna use hps lights then use cfl's.theyre cheap and they do great for growing plants.you can get them in 6700k for veg and 2700k for budding.

 

[Straight Sativa]

Sorry about the pics, here:

 

[Mentalchild]

Go with Cfl's cheap and better.

 

[heyitssix]

so from the info given you guys pretty sure its our lights? I'm one of straight sativa's buddy's growing with him by the way. it's almost been 4 weeks now and the website we got the seeds from said they're suppose to flower within 44 days, is it worth switching up the lighting fixtures this far in?

 

[Mysticlown150]

Go with Cfl's cheap and better.

Good idea, I gotta say you look like Michael Jackson though. Anyway why can't you and your friends just chip in and buy a 150 watt hps? It's 70 dollars and will put out twice the amount of lumens that the equivalent amount of money of cfl's will get you. Also try and upgrade from that home depot soil, I bet the roots are having a hard time in there and they need more perlite as well. Good luck

 

[Mysticlown150]

so from the info given you guys pretty sure its our lights? I'm one of straight sativa's buddy's growing with him by the way. it's almost been 4 weeks now and the website we got the seeds from said they're suppose to flower within 44 days, is it worth switching up the lighting fixtures this far in?

44 days from seed? I'm guessing it's an autoflowering strain then. That's bad news because you probably won't get more than a gram. It's never to late to change lighting fixtures though.

 

[heyitssix]

yea they're low riders which are autoflowering. some one suggested putting tin foil in the closet, does anybody know what this does?

 

[doobnVA]

Incandescent lights simply don't work for growing cannabis. At 3 and a half weeks, your plants look like they just sprouted. I've got 5 plants under CFLs that are just barely 3 weeks and are already up to their 7 bladed leaves and 5-6 nodes high.

Get some CFLs or any other lights meant for growing.

 

[DRGreyMind]

if you cant afford to get any other lights i would suggest putting them on a windowsill, even that would be better for them compared to your current light setup, sorry man

 

["SmokinForever"]

NO TIN FOIL!!! Use flat white paint it is way better cause it reflects more light and won't burn your plants!!! Get New Lights like the CFL's that are cheap or spend the extra money and get a MH/HPS set up you will be pleased dude!!!

 

[litljohn]

[QUOTE="SmokinForever";2748904]NO TIN FOIL!!! Use flat white paint it is way better cause it reflects more light and won't burn your plants!!! Get New Lights like the CFL's that are cheap or spend the extra money and get a MH/HPS set up you will be pleased dude!!![/QUOTE]
i agree,use flat white paint and if you really want to use something else,get the mylar,tin foil creates hot spots and will burn parts of your plants.

 

[Leetneo]

use white paint....foil will retain heat too from the lights!

 

[litljohn]

use white paint....foil will retain heat too from the lights!

ther is a mylar like gift rapping paper that works awesome and its only 2-3 bucks a roll.i got some from my local dollar store and it works great with no hot spots.

 

[heyitssix]

thanks for your input guys. we would more inclined to go spend money on whatever we need, but two of the 3 of us are going back to college soon so i'm not sure how much more time/money/effort were going to invest in this grow if we are this far in and not expecting good results. next time we will most definitely get the right lights (should have researched this more in the first place!), but for now i think we are going to use what we have available to us. we switched from incandescent to fluorescent bulbs we found around the house last night, good or bad idea??

and i just realized how cheap CFL's were on home depot website so i might go pick some up...how many watts would you guys suggest I get at this point in our grow?

 

[litljohn]

thanks for your input guys. we would more inclined to go spend money on whatever we need, but two of the 3 of us are going back to college soon so i'm not sure how much more time/money/effort were going to invest in this grow if we are this far in and not expecting good results. next time we will most definitely get the right lights (should have researched this more in the first place!), but for now i think we are going to use what we have available to us. we switched from incandescent to fluorescent bulbs we found around the house last night, good or bad idea??

and i just realized how cheap CFL's were on home depot website so i might go pick some up...how many watts would you guys suggest I get at this point in our grow?

the bigger the better.i would get the 30 watt(150 eq.)get atleast 4-6 of them and you should do just fine.then on your next grow you can start the plants under the cfl's and get a hps for the budding,youll love those results alot better.

 

[kennydom]

Okay can't remember which forum it was on but somebody had bought dr hemp feminized hash power plant seeds from potseeds.co.uk and said all the seeds they bought where dead, I just bought some of exact same seeds and my first one has just germinated, the seeds from potseeds.co.uk are good.

 

[Straight Sativa]

Okay can't remember which forum it was on but somebody had bought dr hemp feminized hash power plant seeds from potseeds.co.uk and said all the seeds they bought where dead, I just bought some of exact same seeds and my first one has just germinated, the seeds from potseeds.co.uk are good.

And your point is...?

 

[doobnVA]

I'd go with 26W or 42W. You can usually find those in 3-packs for like $7 or $8. Get one pack of daylight (6500K) bulbs and one pack of soft white (2700K) bulbs. Look around while you're there for some Y splitters. they screw into the light bulb socket and allow you to put two bulbs in one fixture. $2-$3 each. Now you've got around 250W (if you went with the 42W bulbs) for like, $30. Once your ladies start flowering, I'd go pick up another 3-pack of 2700K bulbs and switch those out with the 6500K.

 

[kronica420]

how close are your lights? it looks like your plants are stretching.