1st time Grower, would appreciate any tips and comments!

Hello everyone! I've been doing all my research on this forum and after spending countless hours reading everyones posts i've finally decided to join. I hurt my back at work and am on disability now. I am in pain constantly and have found medicinal cannabis works much better for my lower back then the bottles of pills thrown at me from the workers comp. doctor. I appreciate any help!

So to break it down, I have a closet in my bedroom.

SPECS.

Space: 4'x2' inside closet
Lights: 1 400w HPS with Hortilux bulb with Sunsytems hood (has glass enclosure), Sunsystems 400w HPS/MH ballast, and 3 100 CFL's at 2100k
Medium: Happy Frog Organic soil
Pot Size: 3 gallon
Temp: daytime at 76 degrees and at night around 70-72 degrees
Nutrients: Botnicare Pro Veg, Pro Bloom, Clearex, Cal-Mag, Liquid Karma, Aqua-Shield, Blast-Off, and Silica-Blast
Water: R.O. water with a ph of 6
Ventilation: Homemade heat exhaust for HPS light...I was amazed how well it works

I have 1 Grand Daddy Purple that vegged for about a month and now is in the end of 2nd week of 12/12 lighting. I previously vegged her with 24/0 schedule, Fluorescent 4' bulbs, 4 of them. She is now at 23" tall and is bushy as hell. I never trimmed her, just did some LST training on the lower 3 sets of branches.

Next is a unknown strain, she was vegged with CFL's and Fluorescents. I vegged the same amount of time as the Grand Daddy Girl but was only 12" tall when I switched to 12/12 schedule. I am a little concerned because the CFL's made the node spacing really tight.

Then I got 4 Casey Jones teens that were in 4" square pots, soil, about 14-16" tall. I just transplanted them to 3 gallon pots today. They are very healthy and growing fast! I hope they don't get too tall! Oh yeah they were cloned on 11/20.

4 days ago I took about 4-6 clones off of the Casey Jones clones, put them in rockwool cubes under a plastic dome. Got a heat mat at 78 degrees controlled by a sunsytems thermostat for the heatmat. First time I ever cloned, hope they do good. I haven't seen any roots yet, but I know they need a few more days. Only 3 of them wilted, all still green. I spray them twice a day with water mixed with a little Pro Veg, Liquid Karma, Cal-Mag, Aqua-Shield, and Blast Off. I lift the plastic cover off once a day for about 2-3 minutes. I am using a 4 bulb 4' sunsystems T5 system for the clones.



This is my reflector with my homemade exhaust system. Luckily I had a deskfan from my last job that fits perfect inside one of the openings. Like I said, lucky because I spent a butt load of money in the last 2 months...can't complain too much because i'm sure the return will be worth it.

Maybe i'm just eager to here some feedback, i'm I checking back too soon?

Looks very nice, sounds like you have your shit together, if you asked any questions I'll read through and answer, but I'm doing 3 things at once atm.

Sounds like your doing a good job on those temps, I would expect 800 watts to really heat up a closet that size. Just out of my own curiosity, you are a first timer? Very impressive planning and research for a newbie if so.

Keep this thread updated somewhat, I'll check in, I'm interested on your results. Good Luck.

yea youve got your shit together. try to take it easy with the nutes on the youngins. but your definitely going to want a bigger light very very soon trust me. Its better to just get the 600w from the get go so you dont have to have that i need denser buds moment. But shit chea'

Thanks for the comment! I really appreciate them!

This is my first time growing, i'm really stoked to hear i'm doing alrite! I did alot of research on this forum and followed the advice in the newbie section. I learned so much from reading other peoples stories and figured the best way to learn is by talking to the people with experience and try to soak up their knowledge. I try to do things at the highest quality.

I was worried about the heat with a 600w light, that's why I got the 400w. Luckily I got a hood that can fit up to a 1000w bulb, so maybe buy a 600w for flowering and use the 400w I have for veg. stage? I could put the 400w on my rack and setup a separate area for veg. What do you guys think?

As for the clones, i'll cut back on the nutrients tomorrow morning, thanks! First time doing all of this so glad to hear i'm doing okay.

Thanks again guys! I haven't been this excited to type this much since never...I can't remember a moment.

Is that fan on the hood blowing inward or pulling air outward?

It's blowing inwards and on the other side I attached a exhaust tube. The temp. went down from 82 to 77 in the closet. I felt I got lucky with that because I didn't have enough money to buy a real fan to attach to the hood. Hopefully by the end of next week I'll be able to get a fan and a carbon filter. Starting to smell a little ripe in my room..."Stings the nostrils"

I hope I'm not damaging the bulb by my setup. It's just a temp. setup until I buy the fan and filter. Please let me know if I should change it!

Thanks everyone for the replies!

The Casey Jones teens started flowering last night!

It must have been the transplant to the 3 gallon containers. Last night about an hour before lights out, I decided to transplant the teens.

I watered them with:

(Botnicare) only used 1/4 recommended
Pro Bloom
Liquid Karma
Cal-Mag
Blast-Off
Aqua-Shield
Silica Blast

Water pH at 6 at 77 degrees

The next pictures are from the unknown strain. She's so compact from the CFL's during Veg. stage I decided to cut the lowest 4 fan leaves off. They were barely getting any light and were yellowing over time. I used a disposable scapel and cut straight down an inch from the stem. I hope this doesn't stress her too much. You can see from the pictures below the tight node spacing.



This is the Grand Daddy Girl...she is by far the biggest as you can see...really bushy, should I cut some fan leaves off as well? Some of them are 8-9" wide!


Look at the size difference! I know she's next to a clone but for my first time it brings me a smile. I want to give her a hug.

Here are the Casey Jones Cuttings, now at day 5.


Here is a overhead shot, and my guard dog...


Lazy dog, but I love him.

Let me know how i'm doing so far. All comments and tips greatly appreciated. Have a great Sunday everyone!

She is gona be huge bro. do you have enough room for all of them? All of your girls look really healthy. The clones look a little spindly, but they should take root. I like to get them a little bigger and woodier. But you have a very good OP there. good job!

Right on! Yeah I didn't expect her to get that big originally, I only vegged her for 1 month and started 12/12 when she was 12-13" tall. My closet is 10' high so hopefully that's enough. I wasn't planning on using the full height of the closet.

The next set of clones I get I will definately veg. them longer. I will be LST training and FIM the tops on the next grow so hopefully that will help me with the height. Thanks again Guerilla! I really appreciate the feedback!

Whats Up dude! Found your grow throught GG's current journal, lookin awesome, congrats. I'm gonna sub this and watch for sure, I've heard good thinga about botanicare, I'm running CANNA right now but def like what I've heard about botanicare.

I wanted to chime in about something I read in the beginning of the thread where you were concerned about short node spacing. anyone correct me if I'm wrong, but I am pretty sure that the more tightly your nodes stack, the better. Seems like it is the opposite of "stretching", which is undesirable, and would will result in bigger denser buds.

Looking forward to watching I am on my 1st grow as well, link is in my sub, feel free to stop by!

I really appreciate you checking out my 1st grow. So far the Botnicare is working good, I can't really compare since this is my 1st grow. The owner of the hydroponic store I go to recommended Botnicare. I figured I couldn't go wrong with the owner's advice so I got it.

Through my research on this forum I read that tight nodes are better as well. My concern is the fan leaves are pretty big and I'm not sure the lower leaves are getting enough light. She looks like she's doing good so I'll see how she goes. I'm about to check out your thread. Thanks again for viewing my grow! I'm about to check yours now!

One thing I have learned about fan leaves, is that they ARE sucking up light and producing sugars, etc...big fan leaves are doin exactly what they should. Sure removing a few to expose more plant to light seems like a good thing, but really you are removing the plants MAIN tool for light absorption. The fan leaves main purpose is just to catch all that light, so if they are, I'd leave em be. I will try to show you a pic of my lower parts on my plants, but I cut off everything from the dirt and 8" up. Dont even let your plant waste energy on those lower branches. You will see when you harvest that most of those lower branches produce stuff that is shwappy anyway, and its not worth your plants energy to try to feed and grow them. SOOO if you really wanna get scissor happy, I'd remove the some of the stuff NOT getting light on the bottom of the plant b4 you cut off the big fat healthy fan leaves. Just clean off the bottom 6-8 inches of the plants and leave nothing but stalk. Its funny, after I got that idea in my head, now all the trees out in my town I can see were pruned the same way, your ganj will look similar to other trees you see on your day to day

As usual, keep in mind Im no pro, so anyone feel free to correct me if i'm wrong, but It seems to be working out fine for me, lol

I cut off a couple of leaves from the bottom, unfortunately the lower branches are already pretty thick and strong. I read that the fan leaves should stay on as well as long as they are healthy and not blocking too much light. On my next grow i'm definately trimming the lower 6-8" on the next girls. When I cut the lower branches on the 4 teens to make clones, the next day they grew a inch and a half and didn't seemed stressed at all.

That's funny you mentioned the trees in your area, there is a park across the street from me and when I walked the dogs, I noticed the same thing! Maybe I just smoked too much before because I started looking at all the trees and bushes like they were MJ plants and how they were pruned!

I will be taking new pics today, and will update again. Thanks for the advice, going to clean the cutting tools today.

Hope your girls are doing better and better!

Hey everyone, here are some updated pics! I apologize for taking the pictures so late so the lighting isn't as great.

The stems started turning purple, I think that was because I was using too much nutrients, I started using just R.O. water with pH at 6.

These are some pics of the unknown strain. She is very tight...(smirk), and freakin wide as hell! It's like she wants to grow out sideways instead of up.


Here are some pictures of the Casey Jones, 2 days after transplant to 3 gallon pots, grown 2 inches and started flowering immediately!

These teens were from one of the Oaksterdam growers in Oakland, Ca. Very healthy, strong, and grows at least a inch a day! Good things from Oaksterdam!

Last but not least, the biggest lady around these parts, Miss. Grand Daddy Purple...I still can't believe how big she is, only 12-13" tall when I switched to 12/12. I wish I had topped her in the beginning, but I still love her.


I decided to cut off 2 more fan leaves from the bottom. I know they are healthy but I got so much more light now penetrating the middle. I don't plan on cutting anymore off for a day to let her rest.

Let me know how I'm doing everyone. All comments are appreciated and thanks again guys!

leaves build bud....they are also auxin factories and you want auxins...leave the leaves...the goal is to have alot of foliage and keep it green...if you have lotsa pretty green leaves all the way through the grow you will produce alot of bud...simple botany...remember this is a plant...you don't see apple farmers removing leaves so the flowers get more light do you?

Hope it helps

Namaste'

ps-plants look good...keep 'em green

Hey ILL, is there ever a circumstance where it is good to thin out the inside of a plant? Like if it has super thick bushy growth? I try to follow that rule about leaving as much foliage as possible....But I had an acquaintance growing out some Jilly Bean and he said that he had to thin it out almost every day! How would we know when "bushy" becomes too bushy?

Sorry I've been busy lately, found a mentor who is taking me under his wing! I took a couple of fan leaves off the bottom, unfortunately that was before I read your response. The next day she really started to flower though! I have some updated pictures. I will post in a few minutes.

Thanks again, really appreciate your comments and tips!

Grand Daddy Lady, grew 2" over night and is really starting to show her flowers now! I'[m going to bring to my new mentor's place tomorrow and have him clean her up a bit and grab a couple of clones from the bottom. She's very healthy and makes me want to grow better and better. I got some Botnicare Hydroplex to boost her flowers even more. I believe it's 0-15-5. I will add in on her next water Thursday.


Here is the unknown lady, still wide but is showing her flowers as well now. I was wondering though, some pistils have 3 hairs coming out, not 2. Is that normal? She grew an inch last night.


Casey Jones clones flowerings as well and really growing fast...I got them from a great, well knowledged fellow.


I just got another clone today! Casey Jones x Sour Diesel...sounds delicious! She's about 6 inches tall in a 1 gallon bag...bushy already! I'm going to transplant her to a 5 gallon pot tomorrow and will take pics. I got her from the same grower that supplied me with my Casey Jones clones. I'm going to veg her under 18/6 instead of 24/0 this time to see the difference and for about 1-2 months. She should be nice and big. Going to take Guerilla's advice to let her get thicker and woodier.

Thanks Guerilla!

Thanks again everyone, let me know how they look.

Have a great Tuesday everyone!

I just took some pictures anyways before I transplant tomorrow. She looks good, after I transplant I'm sure she will start growing like a champ.

The clones have leaves starting to turn yellow, I think this is good because they are finally starting the process to rooting.


I was told this will really boost my flowers, I've been using all the other Botnicare products so far and they seem to really work!


I will send more pictures of the other ladies later today.