1st Grow- Brainstorm ScrOG- 5 months in. Need Input please!

I'd like to start this thread thanking everyone's online posts from many different forum sites, especially Rollitup.org. It has been an invaluable source of information over the past couple years and inspired me to start some plants of my own. I am also happy to say this is my first thread/post.

After TONS of research I decided a scrog grow was the best method for me due to space limitations of a closet.

Materials Purchased:
x2 T-5 Fluorescents
Mini grow tray/w humidity dome
600watt MH/HPS Lumatec Ballast
Air Cooled Reflective Hood (Pebble Finish)
x2 4 inch In-Line Fans 125 CFM (Intake/Exhaust)
Can Carbon Filter (150 CFM I think)
Flexible 4" ducting (insulated and non-insulated)
4'W,3'L,7'H Grow Tent
2 stage grow table I made from wood-painted white
Steel Cage Fan
Vick's Cold-Mist Humidifier
EcoPen PH tester
x2 dual socket Light timers
x3 3-5 gallon buckets (forgot size lol)

Nutes:
Roots Organic Budda Grow and Budda Bloom
pH up and down
Ready-Gro Air Mix Soil (1.5 Cubic Feet)

Seed Strains:
Brainstorm Dutch Passion
Mystery seeds from a good bag of Nug I bought

I set up all of the equipment and started germination in early summer. I planted seeds in rockwool cubes and immediately had problems keeping them moist even under a humidity dome. Seedlings started wilting and dying left and right. I planted the rockwool cubes in a small cup of ReadyGro soil to help keep in moisture. The brainstorm is the only original plant still holding out. All the other seeds had to be replaced and restarted. seedling stage lasted at least 2-3 months.

I am now five months into my grow with four plants and I still have stunted growth. Pics will show everything. Once I hit Flowering period I moved them to the HPS light and scrOG table. I started feeding them Nutes everyday using 2TBLS of budda grow in one gallon bucket split between the three of them. Plants didn't take to the feeding schedule and started to turn yellow and necrotic. I associated it to Nutrient burn and cut back two weeks ago. I flushed all my plants with mild nutrient solution (water pH is always around 6.8 when introduced) I now feed nutes every 3 days. Plants perked up a bit but still yellow and necrotic some places. I pruned all dead leaves and waiting on some new growth to really decide. GangaGuerrilla.net was useful at diagnosing a potential pH problem as well. Going to flush them tomorrow with 5.5 pH water (hard to flush these plants with my set up).

Heat is another issue I am still battling. To start I was averaging about 87 degrees Fahrenheit with highs all the way up to 90+. I bought a second inline fan and now I hover around 79.6 degrees Fahrenheit but I have extended periods of time where it hovers around 86 degrees! I have the light 24" from my net and about 40" from the table. The extra fan is also causing my tent to balloon out which means my carbon filter will be useless at when it comes time for odors.

Humidity is my third enemy. I am in vegetative stage and only get about 30% humidity with a humidifier on full blast.

I need help/ideas on the following things:
Heat, Humidity, and overall Schematics of my setup.
Any thoughts on problems I might run into with my
setup/table? I will let my pictures due the rest of the talking....
Ohh what would be the best way of testing my soil ph with the digital pH Pen tester I have?
Keep on toking guys!

these plants are 5 mnths old.. wth lol keep the heat below 90 and do whatever you got to do idk what your doin but its not workin whats the light schedule for these poor babies lol?

newb101 said:

these plants are 5 mnths old.. wth lol keep the heat below 90 and do whatever you got to do idk what your doin but its not workin whats the light schedule for these poor babies lol?

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i gotta agree, my plants are bigger at 2 weeks
lol you changed the whole post, but welcome!

The light schedule is 18/6... These plants have given me trouble since day one. Correction lol I have given them hell from day one. Temperature has always been an issue. My first major mistake that I corrected and won't continue in the next grow was over watering and over fertilizing. that more than anything stunted there growth.

My plans for this grow are to let them flower another 3 weeks (to correct over nuting and give me a chance to adjust humidity) and them put them to flower and see what I get out of it.

Any tips?

kusunam1 said:

The light schedule is 18/6... These plants have given me trouble since day one. Correction lol I have given them hell from day one. Temperature has always been an issue. My first major mistake that I corrected and won't continue in the next grow was over watering and over fertilizing. that more than anything stunted there growth.

My plans for this grow are to let them flower another 3 weeks (to correct over nuting and give me a chance to adjust humidity) and them put them to flower and see what I get out of it.

Any tips?

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I'm also on my first grow but i think it's hard for people to realize that less is more a lot of the time. I think the best thing you can do is learn from your mistakes, and make sure they don't happen again. I'm sure your second grow will be better! And Btw I had some problems with nute burn myself. You really can't expect to get throught your first grow without problems. At least they didn't all die!! Heres my grow, 2 weeks in so far.. https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/268620-1st-grow-pics-ak48-snow.html

honestly, the best possible advice I can give you is learn everything you possibly can from this site. I "studied" for a month straight before even begining to grow. Every single thing I do to my plants I research before doing, because I know 1 litle thing can have a huge effect on the outcome.

o btw feeding nutes every 3 days is WAY to often!! humidity is not necessary for growth, i just spray my plants with a light mist and they are growing fine. You may need to buy a portable ac unit, or get rid of some of those lights. From what I read it seems like your just doing WAY too much! let the plant live as it would outdoors! Thats how I treat my plants at least.

JN811 said:

honestly, the best possible advice I can give you is learn everything you possibly can from this site. I "studied" for a month straight before even begining to grow. Every single thing I do to my plants I research before doing, because I know 1 litle thing can have a huge effect on the outcome.

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I have been reading this forum a lot but i still need more lol. I am keeping these plants going for as long as I can so I can learn from it. Next batch will have much better progress I am sure. I hope to harvest anything from this grow really. I doubt it but we shall see lol.

Hmmm Th back of the bottle said otherwise lol... How often should I feed them?

lol you should NEVER listen to the bottle!! I wouldnt feed it more than once a week, and even thats pushing it. I think if you understand how plants grow, and why they need the specific nutrients at specific times of the growth cycle, it makes it easier to feed them accurately. If you are using an all in one nutrient your plant may need, for example, nitrogen, during vegatation but it may not need the other types of nutes that are in the formula. That is why giving nutrients to plants is so tricky. Also, I'd be willing to bet that to much nutes contributed to your ph problem. Most people say to give nutes once every three waterings, btw you should only be watering once every three days, that means nutes onces every 7-9 days. And never use the recommended doses either. Use 75% of what is recommended maximum, that means if the container says use 2 tablespoons per liter, use only 1 and 1/2, always better to be safe than sorry!

My advice is get good soil, Fox farm line, and dont give them any nutes at all until you see signs that they need it.

I will make it a point not to over fertilize them, once a week it is. Any ideas on my heat and humidity problem?

kusunam1 said:

I will make it a point not to over fertilize them, once a week it is. Any ideas on my heat and humidity problem?

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like i said earlier, humidity should not be a problem, I spray my plants before I go to sleep, and thats it. Also, I would imagine by solving the heat proble, it will in return help the humidity problem. You said that you have t5 and a 600 watt hps, is that correct? Are they going at the same time?

The T-5's are under the table, I use them for clones, seedlings and such. Right now I don't have them running. I am doing some experiements with the airflow design of my tent. I may end up cutting the height of my table down. Do you think the size of my exhaust fan is big enough to vent my 600w HPS light or should I have stepped it up a notch? I had an A/C plugged in earlier and it burned up pretty quick. Any ideas?

So my two biggest problems right now are regulating humidity and controlling temp more accurately.

My original set up had really high temps so my solution was to bring in an intake fan because I felt the bottom vent wasn't bringing in enough cool air. When I hooked it up, my temps dropped dramatically but so did humidity...

I soon decided that my exhaust ducting had to many bends in it which was inhibiting my airflow. Not enough airflow made my temps climb. I fixed the bends and like magic I had some serious air movement! So my recent experiment was to remove my Intake fan, reopen that bottom port and see what I my climate change would be. Tonight the results came in! 35% rH with a temperature range of 73F to 80F! I also conducted a second experiment I unplugged my exhaust fan for about 30 minutes. Temperatures climbed to 85F but rH skyrocketed to 70%!

Okay so my current fan set up is like this:
(arrows represent air current direction)
Exhaust=Carbon filter -> hood-> Fan-> Exit grow room
Intake = open flap

The light came on today when I asked myself how I could keep temps down without hurting my humidity. I decided that I was going to hook my second fan as an independent exhaust for my hood and have the other fan hook directly into my carbon filter like this:

Grow Room exhaust: Carbon Filter -> Ducting-> Fan-> exit
Hood Exhaust: Entrance -> Ducting-> Hood -> Fan ->Ducting -> Exit.

By removing my hood to its own independent exhaust I figured I could keep it running all the time without hurting my grow room climate. the grow room exhaust I will hook up to a 15minute on/off timer so it will keep air moving but keep humidity as well. I will post pictures of the changes tomorrow after I am done.

So what do you guys think? Sound logic or ramblings of a frustrated noob lol?

Ohh I almost forgot! I haven't feed the plants any water or nutes for 4 days now and they really seem to be responding. I am waiting for the soil to dry up a bit and give the roots some much needed oxygen from over watering them. Tomorrow I am going to do another flush because the pH is still a little high. The slight temperature drop is also noticeable. Tell me what you think!

guess my threads not cool enough to generate interest lol....

thanks for the rep man i lost your thread.. Anything else you need just ask!Check out my journal I just updated the pics they are only 2 and a half weeks old!!

lol my threads not coole enough either no ones posting anything

btw im suscribed now!

dude stop flushing the plants its not good for them.. use ph down instead