Advice and Comments appreciated.

Hey Folks. Semi-Noob grower here. On my 4th grow, 1st one was a 'success', i.e. I harvested 18oz of dried, albeit seedy herb, that wasn't very potent, but starting from scratch, I was pleased. Talk about a learning experience. Holy cow. 2nd and 3rd grows we're failures because I didn't have my seedling/clone cabinet dialed in right. No biggie. Onto grow 4. This one is doing great so far. Here is my set-up:
1. Total grow space for flowering is about 100sf. I've got 3 1000w HPS, 2 older style magnetic ballasts and one newer quantum digital. I don't have all 3 on right now been turning them on as needed. I'm on day 50 from initial germ and will most likely spread them out again in a couple days and turn the 3rd light on. Again, any advice on this would be great. The clone cabinet is 4 t12's, and 4 t8's.
2. Soil grow - Started with Black Gold Seedling mix in red solo cups till they we're about 4-5" high, then transplanted into 1g black plastic pots with 2" of pea gravel and Fox Farms Ocean Forest soil. Just transplanted into 5 Gallon "Smart Pots' for 20 of them (holy fuck those use alot of soil!) and they other 25 plants into 3 gallon black plastic, 2" of pea gravel, most we're Fox Farms Ocean forest but after the 5 bags I bought ran out I had to use up the 2 bales of Sunshine Mix #4 I had left over from my earlier grow. Anybody have any comments on the soils?
3. Nutes - I'm running Advanced Nutrients Grow/Micro/Bloom at 80% strength, according to the feeding schedule on the bottles. Also some compost tea from the grow store and Subcultures -M and -B for the roots. Started with Root 66 but ran out and they aren't carrying it anymore. I dial my PH in at 5.9 to 6.1 before I water, with a good PH meter. (Hanna $125, and double check with a Hanna $70.00 meter) Learned about PH importance the hard way on the first grow. Thoughts on this section?
4. I've got 5 "Re-breathe" Mycelium CO2 bags for ...CO2
5. Charcoal filter routed out beneath the building running constantly at about 20% strength. Keeps the room at a negative air pressure so the odor leakage is minimized.
6. Grow Time - I've got 45 plants growing from seeds that we're taken from some really good smoke, no clue what it was though. I'm on day 50 of the grow, average height of the plants are about 20". I've got them in some good size pots so I'd like to let them get to about 30" before I go 12/12, thoughts on this? I trimmed the bottom 4" of each plant (this was a first...hate cutting the plants) in a half-assed attempt at 'lollypopping'. I'm not sure if this is a good technique for me cause everytime I came to a nice branch...I couldn't bring myself to cut it, thus failing in the whole 'bottom trimming technique' department. Learned some good stuff about LST on here but I'm a bit past that at this point. Fimmed 18 of the plants too (after watching a couple decent youtube videos). I'm pretty sure I did it right but they don't seem to be branch sprouting at the top as fast as I thought they would...or at all on some of them. Can you stunt the top growth of a plant by Fimming wrong?
7. Environment settings - My temps run about 75-80F most of the time, RH is 40-55, only bug problems I've ever had are fungal gnats and I took care of them, that was the first grow too, this one has been clean so far. I've got a boxfan running and a oscillating fan running also.
8. Problems - On this one, there has been only 1 problem that I've seen so far and that is on maybe 8 out of the 45 plants there is a little 'end-leaf' curling down. I've done some searching and this could be a few things..heat stress, nute lockout or nute burn, not too sure, and it's not too bad, I just need to keep a eye on it. One person said Cal-Mag would fix it up, another said water with 1/4 TSP epsom salts per gallon. Haven't tried any of these yet. Thoughts??
9. 1st grow had a couple light leaks, 1 from my heater and 1 from a power strip light, also there was 2 nights w/o heaters and they became wilted (temp stress). I'm pretty sure this is why they sprouted male flowers towards the end and ended up seeding the stock. It had been 4-5 months since that grow, I washed 80% of the walls with bleach and water. What are my chances of there still being some pollen in that room?

Crap Shoot question - 5 gallon pots, 30-36" plants (60-70 days veg) unknown strain, 3000k HPS, Advanced nutes 3 part system, flowered to perfection.....guesses on yield per plant?

In conclusion - Thanks for staying with me this long Take a look at my few pics and PLEASE give me some comments, advice, criticism. I'd love some feedback. This is a great site. Thanks for all the posting.

P.S. After rolling soil a few times, I'm starting to think I'd LOVE to go hydro, so much less work. I'm going to grow a couple more times with soil to get a good stock set up then I'm going to switch over to hydro. Any thoughts on what the preferred systems out there are? I haven't found much real clear cut information on basic hydro, it's all kind of a hodge-podge of posts. Anyways, just a after thought. Thanks again.

post is too long for me to read sorry

Anyone? I think I need to change the topic name to FREE SEX!!

Hey man, not much to really say. Your plants and setup look great. Couple things though...

1. If you are running Co2 then you really want your temps at around 80-86. At these temps Co2 is absorbed better by the plants. I don't know how well those bags work but maybe in the future look into a generator or a bottle and a controller/sensor. Much easier to keep the Co2 in that 1500-1800ppm range that is optimal.

2. It's hard to say what could be causing the curling on those 8 plants. If you could post pics of the actual leaves then it would be a lot more helpful.

3. I've done both hydro and soil and I can tell you that hydro is NOT easier or less time consuming. Hydro can be a real pain in the ass man. Algae in reservoirs, plumbing leaks, reservoir heat issues; nutrient burns; etc... With hydro you have to be on top of everything. Plus you can so easily mess you plants up in a heartbeat. You mix too much of 1 nute by accident and BOOM all your girls are on the floor. Or your pump goes out overnight and your girls are friend by the morning. If you really want to switch to hydro then a lot depends on your budget and the types of plants you are growing. If you want something cheap to grow plants under 4' then do flood tables. Over 4' then look into Ebb & Grow setups or at least the mesh ebb and flow buckets on flood tables. If you have a little extra coin then look at Under Current systems. I'm gonna be trying one out after researching them for a while and seeing my friends system in action. These in my opnion are the best systems on the market when dialed in. You can grow anywhere from 3' - 9' plants in them.

Good luck man. Keep us posted. Plants look fantastic.

Thanks alot for posting. Nice to see a opinion on my grow set-up. Any thoughts on the possible remaining male spores?

I'd get your soil pH up to 6.3-6.6 if you can. Soil likes to be in that range. Could be the cause of the slight curling on some of your leaves.

Definitely no pollen left in that room. Don't worry.

If you messed up the FIM then it wouldn't stunt your top growth. You'll be fine.

I am on my 4 grow also. I like how you put your plan together, it well thought out. I am doing a perpetual grow 12/12 from seed. I did the long veg and then flower last grow I had to pull three up. Man, I can't take the crying.lol Plus I have a plant limit, got MME, so that was a big waste of time and money. I doing mine way simpler, but as I learn more and get more grows under my belt I may add some of that stuff.
Hopefully you killed the male pollen. Does your soil drain well? On the yellowing leaves if they are at the top of plant it probably Cal-mg, when that happened to me I add cal-mag and that problem was gone.
11.23lb. I will watch this since we are fellow 4th grower...rw

@Phillipchristian - Thanks for putting my fears to rest about the pollen problem. I'm going to shoot for 6.3 on the next watering. I switched them to 12/12 this evening, day 50 from germ. Average height is around 20". After doing a lot of forum surfing I think I'm going to go for a quicker batch of smaller plants instead of longer batches of bigger plants.
@Roofwayne - Right on man. I would like to run a 12/12 auto strain but I hear they are a bitch to clone, and I'm going to start my clone/mother cycle with this grow. I need to be semi-self sufficient up here. What is MME? As far as soil draining well - I assume so, I put 2" of pea gravel in all my buckets, and whenever I transplant my roots always look healthy, haven't 'seemed' to have a drainage problem yet. Yellowing leaves - Don't have that problem, they're beautiful, only problem this grow is a slight downward curl of the leaves, but I'm thinking when I up my PH a hair it will cure that. Watering tomorrow or the next day, we'll see. Do you currently have a grow going?

I heard cloning could be done in to flowering. I do a lot of clones, my friend who has his grow went with mothers with his half of the seeds we bought, I grew mine. I don't seem to have a problem getting seeds, the pot gods bless me with seed.lol I have another friend who grows in N. Cal. who seeded his crop last year and gifted me 50 seeds that so far 10 out 12 are female and waiting on 5. MME is a Medical Marijuana Evaluation which mean I can smoke legally and grow 12 plants. I let a friend son move in and he has one,plus my friend has one, so part of the deal was I got to use them, so I can grow 36 plants. I have thirty plant at different ages, half clones and three germing. I was thinking of adding pea gravel, but I was asking on here and everyone said it made it to hard to transplant. Other types of grower always put gravel in the bottom of their pots, but not mj growers. I mentioned the water because I found if I didn't add something to FFOB it wouldn't dry out and I would water a little instead of a lot and raise the PH causing nute lockout. My mistake on the yellow leaves that another guy deal. You know we join the same month. There a long post for you. Talk to you later. Grow journal link in my signature, the stuff at the bottom of the posts...rw

Transplanting has always seemed real easy to me, I just wait till they're dryer, tip the pot sideways, press on the bottom, and slide it out sideways or a little closer to top down. I do it over a tray so the loose peagravel collects, then I just set them into the bigger pot. Haven't ever seen what I would call 'transplant stress' yet. All my FFoF dried out pretty well, just like the other soil, prolly was the pea gravel. One thing though...when I transplanted 1/2 of my last batch into 5g smart pots I didn't add pea gravel, thinking that the entire pot was made of cloth it wouldn't have any problem draining...then I read a few posts saying people still put crushed ceramics, or pea gravel in smart pots too...DOH. Hope this doesn't get me. I'm in the great state of Alaska so getting seeds is fairly easy, I'm just tired of growing all from seed, not too mention sexing half my plants everytime. Thanks for the conversation.

Get any thunder fuck? I think I will put gravel in next time, I could not get any info,saying it was any good. When you say how you transplant it sound easier then with out. I have about 14 clones, they are easier than seed. I think seed the more natural way. I do 12/12 from seed and you can sex them at 3 to 5 weeks and that saves all the crying.
I was headed to Alaska when I was 19, but didn't have the money and came here to the mountains in S Cal instead and never left for 35 years. Have fun...rw

Anyone else?

I would grow yourself 1-2 strong moms and after a while cloning is really easy. Just takes a little practice in the beginning but once you do it a few times you will only get seeds every 2-3 years when you want to try something new out or change out your moms. Guaranteed females everytime and much faster growth periods as well.

Thanks for the optimism Philip What is your favorite method of cloning?

Anyone else?

Mannheim said:

Thanks for the optimism Philip What is your favorite method of cloning?

Click to expand...

I clone in rockwool with a tray and humidity dome. For me it's the easiest way. I never really got into the cloners or any of those systems. I'm sure they work but rockwool, tray, humidity dome, heat mat, and some superthrive and you are good to go.

Looks like u got it goin on perdy nice, my man!... I'd say yer WELL on yer way to some arthritis/carpel tunnel-inducing trim-parties! lol!

Yeah boy, loving that attitude Ganja!

Only way to roll Mannheim, only way to roll...

Anyone else?