Please Help, Beginning of 3rd Weed Veg

[Elliesdaddy]

Tell me what you think to this idea you might think i'm thick feel free to tell me if i am

Using the white crystal's i have completely forgot what they are called :/ to remove moisture from you're soil/medium quicker it must contain chemicals which can't be very healthy for the plant.
I came across this idea yesterday when i was shopping in town for equipment for my grow LAWN SEED i am probably a spastic even thinking about this but what if you put some plant seed on the outside of you're pots so grass grow's around the edge of the pot, this shouldn't affect you're plant's and should remove unwanted water that you're roots can't reach quickly.
although will it block you're babies roots and stop them from being able to grow any bigger? i'm not sure how grass works weather they develop roots deep into the soil...
hit me up on an opinion

 

[Elliesdaddy]

a good overnight improvement for ww x bb the others not much improvement but candy kush hasn't died anymore than it was lol hopefully it will get healthier again within the next couple of days i'm a fool fed the plant's a way i like to by having the pots in what's basically a lunchbox then adding the water to it so the coco naturally suck's up the water up itself which i am assuming will stop the soil from getting too compressed for roots to easily squeeze their way through.

Started with 8 seeds
4 seeds were bastards now down to 4 plant's maybe 3
either way i think i am going to veg for about 6 weeks now before putting them under my 600w hps for 12/12 to make up in yield for lost plant's glad the seeds lost were mainly the same strain's i like to try variety now the only one i am not going to be able to try is jack herer which i have smoked a few times anyway

Next grow i might try something different like g13 haze, heard it's a government breeded strain which is extremely strong might just grow one and take a few clones off that mother, actually will probably be quicker just to get 4 seeds any other strong strains?

Does anyone think for 4 plants a carbon filter is going to be needed? what if i put a tent next to this rooms window i am on first floor (In england this means the floor one above from ground floor), my neighbour's are nice but i don't think they know i smoke i've smoked an oz in the space of one night and noone has knocked and complained? but that was "english" the let down plant's that aren't that strong but cost about 120 an oz instead of 200 so it wouldn't have been that stinky

I live in a high demand area, there is no crime and it is peaceful so glad to fulfill my dream of getting out the shitty hostle i lived in since i was made homeless at 16 and now i'm growing in a low profile area police are never here but do you think people who don't smoke cannabis (so they could pick up the scent easier than us) will smell cannabis that's a floor up seaping out of a window ? I could get a filter but i'd rather buy a vegging station and go perpetual

 

[Elliesdaddy]

View attachment 2020201View attachment 2020202 With these two chart's i identified the candy kush to have a nitrogen deficiency which seems to be the easiest to cure, any clue's on how long it will take to get better? and i see why i need that ph pen so badly now, 5.8 to get all of those lovely nutrient's

 

[Thedillestpickle]

You should probably do a bit more research before you start coming up with crazy idea's like that. The perlite is a rock, it has no chemicals in it, and can't possiby hurt your plants. All it does to "remove" water is open up the soil by creating space for water to move around, thus letting gravity pull excess water down and out of the coco. Basically it just makes little air pockets and those little air pockets help feed your roots with oxygen.

Putting grass in the pots is not a good idea, the roots will not only suck out the nutrients, but their roots will remove the oxygen from the coco. Grass has long roots and will just piss off your plants. Because the grass will use up the oxygen it will actually do the opposite of what you were trying to acheive. Also consider that the surface of your medium is where the oxygen gets in, if your smothering the suface of your medium with oxygen sucking grass, then very little oxygen will be able to get down into the coco at the bottom of the pot to feed the roots lower down.

Many people prefer to grow in 100% coco, and it works great, you don't need to add perlite, though I personally think it helps

I would seriously consider getting a carbon filter, I have 7 plants in veg right now, and when I come home the first thing I can smell when I open the door is weed. When they are in flower I will absolutely be needing a carbon filter. Do you have anyone living above you? I have noticed the smell seems to rise, I have my grow in the basement, when I open the door to the basement I get a good wiff of weed smell but then as I walk down the stairs the smell is gone, so its all rising up into the stairwell. I'm going to have to figure out something to control smell during harvest and especially during trimming as I know trimming kicks up a wicked stink. I don't think its worth taking the risk

 

[Elliesdaddy]

Okay, i don't want to risk fucking the plant's by trying to mix in perlite but i have just brought a ph pen and a digital thermometer for temperature / humidity i feel horrible about the hong kong sweat shops or whatever they are but i got this temperature /humidity control for 1pound £1.50 postage and packaging + the ph pen was 8 pound, both items distributors had 99.8 positive feedback so i will make do with this equipment for now while i am low on money, although i will test it to make sure it is not making up a temperature and humidity to me.
Okay well i will need some time to get the money for a carbon filter, ducting, and extractor fan, not sure about an inline fan... are they really needed? i don't want to be adding extra watts on to my electric meter where i don't need to

+ noone lives above me my flat is the top floor, my flat has a huge lost, my flat is huge anyway ill try and give you an idea.

2Bedroom flat, 1 living room/ dining room, kitchen, bathroom, toilet, dryer room. that's 8 rooms it really is huge and my loft where i had my first attempt at growing cannabis which was 3 early widows that got roasted by my 600w hps being to close lol, the loft covers the area of my whole flat and where police helicopter flir cameras detect cannabis farms from a lot of hot air rushing out of a small gap (when people's extractor fans are put into a wall leading straight outside) my loft has an air flow from all parts of the roof so if i was to set the ducting to go up there without a carbon filter (saving me about 40pound) as it would spread the smell around the whole area of my roof even if it doesn't stop smelling as it spreads through the inside of my roof it will be a very small parts of smell coming out of each part of the roof.
you will probably think what the hell is this guy going on about i am finding this extremely difficult to describe

 

[Thedillestpickle]

I see what your saying, I think its fine to dump the air into the attic, thats a good idea, but it would still be needing a filter to prevent smell. One other option is the ozone generators that some growers use, you could run an ozone generator in the attic and that would help neatralize the smell before it leaves through the vents. i have no idea how much those cost and Ive heard they can be dangerous(Ozone can be toxic to humans). I also suspect that it wouldnt be quite as effective as filtering, and also heard that they give off a certain smell of their own which can be recognized by people who know what it smells like.
Youll have a bit of time anyways to save up some cash for the filter, your plants wont be oozing resin for a little while yet. If your just going with two smaller plants you might be alright to risk it, but I dont think thats a good idea personally

You should not try mixing perlite into the soil that the plants are already in, but you could definately mix it into the next batch of coco for when you transplant into a larger pot. Youll want to get the plants into a 5 gallon pot before your ready to flower

 

[Elliesdaddy]

Yeah i would use my loft but i would need to put a hole in my roof and i'm assuming i can't connect the ducting to a smaller tube, i don't want a 5inch circle in my ceiling, 1 its a hole in my sexy flats damn ceiling lol and 2 it will probably make my flat freezing especially if i take the tube out, really do not fancy having charges of over a few hundred quid for the big hole, will probably have the ducting leading to the area near my bedroom window, don't use i anyway when people turn up unexpectedly i like to be able to get out the spare double bed in my living room and if they try going into my bedroom, ooh i can't find the key for my bedroom lol

a 5 gallon pot? that sounds huge dude i guess i am planning on vegging for a while though, i think the pot's i am currently using are about 6-8l ( i never did the plastic bag trick ) i think i will keep vegging them till the roots are at the point where they can't grow anymore hopefully that way they will be solid enough for me to transplant the plant without ruining it all, i would hate to make all this progress and then be trying to transfer the currently soil into another pot and the soil all just crumbles ruining the plant's it was easy doing it from petit pots into these pots, i am going to have to be really careful getting them into 5gallon pots (might consider putting the extra soil in the 5gallon pot then putting the plant in , still in the other pot then attempt to cut the pot with scissors)

Do you have a link to pictures of you're current grow?

 

[Thedillestpickle]

Your right, you dont want to transplant too early, because there will be nothing holding on to the soil and it will fall apart. You can carefully check by tipping the pot and sliding out the root ball and taking a peak without hurting it too much. If you dont see many roots then just slide it back in and wait another week. You'll want to take that peak so youll have an idea how long to wait, I waited to long before transplanting(I needed to get some money together to buy more coco/perlite/pots/trays) and when I finally got around to it my plants were pretty close to rootbound, Im hoping I didnt hurt them by waiting so long. 5 gallons is quite big, But it will also make it easier for you as for watering because you will not have to water as often. more medium=more plant, its always a good idea to give them as much medium as you can especially if your not doing a SOG and your not going to have a large number of plants.

I have the link in my signature, you should be able to see it?

 

[Elliesdaddy]

Just checked on them, they look very happy i don't know if you remember the old pictures but i had a flat inspection of which i took my whole tent down timed it right so as they would have started their dark period i moved them hidden into my loft, then after the inspection i put everything up but the cfl is now about 1ft - 1.5ft away from them so alot closer under the cfl with the fan blowing they look like they are loving life, candy kush is looking alot better in colour already, faster growth than before only slightly but a good improvement from when they werent growing at all just sat there looking healthy -.-

Will they start growing quicker as they get use to always having nutes in their feed?

PS i may have already told you but i have a ph pen on the way i want to get the ph to 5.8 everytime to enrich my babies with nutrients, i really felt i had the hang of it earlier and i think from the waters acidity starting at 7.0 i can get it to 6.0 in just 2drops i will see depending how long it takes for the pen to come then i am going to attempt to get 5.8 everytime without having to use any ph up by being patient

When i have a friend round with a half decent camera next i will take pictures of what's they all look like and get them on here

 

[Elliesdaddy]

5 gallons still seems pretty big to me, is there a calculator that will predict the size pot i should use for the height of my grow tent 2m?

although asking that height the plant will reach is dependent on strain and all of the other factors so that is a silly question for me to ask

 

[Elliesdaddy]

Just had a look at you're grow there looking very nice, i am very interested in the topping to get 4 main colas as i am not too keen on attempting super cropping, so i will have a proper read of that tomorrow as it's 10 to 12 and i'm tired as hell, i need to keep +repping people as i can't rep you again yet and you deserve my rep a million times over

 

[Thedillestpickle]

You can go with a smaller pot, I just like the idea of going big on all fronts so that the plants will be bound to produce big.

Did you say you moved your plants out from the 600watter and now have them under a CFL? Do I remember that right? I thought you were using a 600watt HID? what is the wattage of the CFL? You must keep CFL lights much much closer than HID's use your hand to guage the heat and get the plants as close as possible without burning them, HID are better, but CFL's can be a good way to save money esepcially during veg.

haha yea I think Some pictures are about due by now!

Youll be happy to have the pH pen, something you should do just to see the difference.. take some water and adjust it as close to 5.8 as you can with your drop test kit. Maybe mix up 3 different batches of pH'd water. label them what you think the pH is. Then when your pH pen shows up, test out those water samples and see just how close your pH is. I did that and my pH was 6.5 and I thought it was more like 5.8

 

[Elliesdaddy]

you must have misread, i have a 600w HPS for the budding stage it is dual spectrum.
I am using a 250w (equivalent cfl) which is at a good distance for 250watts of light that tent is bloody bright, mylar is a beauty don't know what i would do without it
oh yes i do, white paint lol
I do have the cfl closer when my fan is on to stop heat getting to the plants but i don't use the fan everyday to save electric so when i turn the fan off i adjust my ez rollers so my cfl is abit higher.

 

[Thedillestpickle]

So does the CFL burn 250watts? it sounds like its not actually burning 250watts but is considered to be "as bright" as 250 watts of incandescent lighting. Don't be fooled by that number, its probably more like a 45watt CFL, which is ok for the very start of veg, but its not that great. I would keep it about 4 inches from the top of the plant. If your ballast has the option to run MH bulbs then I would think about getting one, and maybe start using that pretty soon, Youll be there for a year trying to veg your plants under 45(actual watts) of CFL. Youll also get tighter nodes have the extra light from the MH which is really important if you want to have a good yield

you must have misread, i have a 600w HPS for the budding stage it is dual spectrum.
I am using a 250w (equivalent cfl) which is at a good distance for 250watts of light that tent is bloody bright, mylar is a beauty don't know what i would do without it
oh yes i do, white paint lol
I do have the cfl closer when my fan is on to stop heat getting to the plants but i don't use the fan everyday to save electric so when i turn the fan off i adjust my ez rollers so my cfl is abit higher.

 

[Thedillestpickle]

I just noticed you said your HPS is dual spectrum, in that case you could fire it up right now and use it for veg, but a MH would be better

 

[Elliesdaddy]

Are you sure about the hps? i don't really want to use it for the vegging period as 600watts is very expensive to run, now that being said comparing my electric bills between when i used my cfl and when i used my hps i really can't see a huge difference, i have a pre payment meter now but when i was getting monthly bills comparing using my 600w hps for 18/6 and at the time using my cfl for 24/0 the bills weren't that far off obviously i didn't monitor other stuff but now i keep everything turned off when i am not using it i am going to find out how much my modem, laptop, tv, cable etc all cost to run and see if i can calculate it because that's one hell of a bright bulb, there was no equivalent on the box that it came in but i contacted the seller who said she would find out, she then wen't on to saying it uses 250watts of light while using less wattage...

Is there an easier way for my to find out? the bulb is not branded + i will take a look at MH now what wattage do you recommend for 4 plant's in a 120 x 120 x 200 grow tent?

If for any reason i can't get a MH how much more cfl's should i add in there?

 

[Elliesdaddy]

Oooooh are metal halides self ballasting? going to be an expensive problem if they aren't

 

[Elliesdaddy]

What if i add in 1 150w MH ?

 

[Elliesdaddy]

Doesn't look like you can get 150watts in bulb form but if i was to use a 250MH without the cfl in there would that do?

I can afford a 250w MH as long as they don't need a ballast are they the same as cfls? self ballasting?

 

[codster25]

Slow start but awesome little tent you've got there, approximately how many plants can you mature in their roughly?