as you can see, my plants are the sh¡t!

. So, as you can see my plants are the shit.

Representing sw Virginia.

Haha, OK this isn't totally a joke. I do have a question: I got my metal halide today. My plants have been growing suuuuuper slowly, but as you can see I don't even really have my room set up yet, and so there are way too many variables I either a) don't have control of or b) am completely unaware are changing.

I got my mh bulb yesterday (400w) and was wanting to get it up in hopes of accelerating growth. I'm also hoping that my growth has been slow BC the roots are developing, but I have a feeling that my changing variables and lack of correct soil and proper ventilation are keeping my babies from converting their light and co2 into food.

I started these seedlings out in the sun for a couple days, and now they have been under CFL's for about two or three days.

Should I switch to the metal halide? Someone told me the metal halide won't help with growth of the roots, only veg (?) He was talking about waiting until they are 6 or 7 inches before taking them off the CFLs.

Do you think I'll shock my babies (well, my one healthy baby anyways).

I'd like to keep Larry the bag seed going so I can have him as my scout plant-- the one who goes first so I can see what kind of problems I might face. Do you think switching to the metal halide at this small will shock them?

Lol did you say they are the shit.

Or

They're taking a shit!!

Lol


J

Your plants will hug you for the MH. Will the light fix your slow growth? Probably not unless you had crap lights to begin with.

It is correct that a light will do nothing regarding root development. "Switching soil" will certainly hinder root growth though. If you switched to a good soil from bad....and they don't die, your plants will start taking off as long as the roots were not too damaged along the way.

Transitioning from one light source to another will not stress your plant as long as you are switching from so-so lighting to better. Reversing this would indeed slow things down.

Get them leaves off of the dirt, use a toothpick if you need. Get a little fan to blow near them (not to strong) and use the CFL until the get a few (3-4) nodes. You will want to get a proper space to be able to control light/dark and have decent ventilation. And stop giving them so much water, they look drenched, the roots will not grow to find water if the soil is always soaked.

Good luck

i wouldnt yet mate, unless the mh is well above them.

For a thread entitled as you can see, there isn't much to see!

jondamon said:

Lol did you say they are the shit.

Or

They're taking a shit!!

Lol


J

Click to expand...

Ha ha, is that why the plants are hidden? To protect their modesty whilst they have a dump! lol

lilroach said:

Your plants will hug you for the MH. Will the light fix your slow growth? Probably not unless you had crap lights to begin with.

It is correct that a light will do nothing regarding root development. "Switching soil" will certainly hinder root growth though. If you switched to a good soil from bad....and they don't die, your plants will start taking off as long as the roots were not too damaged along the way.

Transitioning from one light source to another will not stress your plant as long as you are switching from so-so lighting to better. Reversing this would indeed slow things down.

Click to expand...

Okay, I figured since the plants use light to convert co2 into food that it would also help root growth. But yeah, my soil was horrible. You can see in my top pick how nulchy it became after several waterings sifted then fine particles to the bottom. I've heard mulchy soils can be too acidic.

And I have GREAT NEWS!!! There's a grow shop opening in my area (thank God!) And it isn't opened yet, but I know a guy who knows a guy and he made a phone call and I got to go check out all their inventory and pick up a few tthings. They have ffof and everything, and they had the fox farm original (like a red-colored design on the bag) which I am definitely thinking of trying out. For now tho, I picked up a bag of this
which says to mix as 25% of your total soil.

So I took my miracle grow six month feeding bs and sifted it with a screen out of the window, and it gave me a suuuuuuper fine, soft fluffy soil. I mixed it with the dark moist humus and it felt and smelled marvelous .

I also picked up a bottle of buddha grow, and wanted to give her a try so I added literally 1-2 drops to my spray bottle that I use to water, which is probably about 20 ounces (it said to use 1 1/2 teaspoons for seedlings on the directions).

I transplanted two of them (big boy went down last night, looked like his stem got chewed through just below the surface and when I woke up he was laying down) into my new soil mix, and added an inch more of the hummus for a top layer of my soil, then gave it a few squirts to moisten it up. Already kurly, the little tiny one in the first couple pictures has shown his first new growth in 4 or 5 days, just by being in the new soil with a super low level of added nutes and under the metal halide).

Tomorrow morning will be my true test when I see how Larry is doing. He's basically my only healthy seedling left after 5 seeds I germinated, and I would love to use him as a control plant with my good strains when they get here. But I had a jackass with me when I was transplanting, and while I was holding the soil clump he pushed off a big loose piece. It didn't take the main part of the roots, but god only knows how much root damage she took, and how much longer that will stunt my growth. We'll see tomorrow.

hbbum said:

Get them leaves off of the dirt, use a toothpick if you need. Get a little fan to blow near them (not to strong) and use the CFL until the get a few (3-4) nodes. You will want to get a proper space to be able to control light/dark and have decent ventilation. And stop giving them so much water, they look drenched, the roots will not grow to find water if the soil is always soaked.

Good luck

Click to expand...

Awesome tip about the roots growing to find water. I definitely started out over watering, and then switched to just a spray bottle so I could basically just get it moist. I have a buddy who gets excited and wants to keep screwing with them and spraying them and what not, so I have to stay on his ass. But during the transplant, I kept most of the old dirt but transplanted into a container about 4 times the size of it, and all of its soil was dry. I put a few squirts on top but I'll let her get nice and dry before I water again.

Bigby said:

For a thread entitled as you can see, there isn't much to see!

Click to expand...

Well I can at least show you my new setup.
Homemade hood, but I got a 435 cfm hurricane inline fan. For the time being I just have the window open in the room and a 20" fan about four feet in front of the closet for stem conditioning. I have the hurricane just sitting there blowing the bulb for now, did a great job today of keeping temps around 75 in there. Tomorrow I'm gonna work on closing my hood up and running duct from a port i made for the window to blow fresh air into the closet.

I've still got a little time, my good seeds should be here in a couple days and then its back to germination, but now I know what to expect in the beginning. And I'm starting to get more variables under control. O have big plans for a closed vent system to push air through the hood and out, plus another intake + exhaust for fresh air from outside. I was also eyeballing the co2 valve regulators at the grow shop, and I actually own a tank so it wouldn't be too hard to set that up once I have complete control over the air in my space.

I know it isn't quite cleaned up, but its getting there

Also, what do you guys think on my light height so far? Should I take it up more? I put mt hand right above the plant for about 45 seconds and it definitely didn't seem to be getting hot, but definitely warm.

Also, the space is misleading. The closet is actually five feet long by about 30 inches wide. I'm hoping it'll be a decent sized space for a veg room. After I go to my first flower, I'm buying a 1000w hps (or two if I can afford it) and setting up (probably a tent) in a whole room. But I'll fork over all that cheddar for that equipment when I get there.

Looking much better, though I imagine the first set up made it easier to add your own fertilizer

Over-watering is every new grower's mistake....along with every other mistake. If this grow doesn't pan out, don't get discouraged. Take the knowledge you've gained from this and order some more seeds.

hbbum said:

Looking much better, though I imagine the first set up made it easier to add your own fertilizer

Click to expand...

Oh yeah! Why waste good nitrogen?

lilroach said:

Over-watering is every new grower's mistake....along with every other mistake. If this grow doesn't pan out, don't get discouraged. Take the knowledge you've gained from this and order some more seeds.

Click to expand...

So what do you think about me spritzing them with the water sprayer? Its harder for me to know how much they are getting, but it definitely keeps me from over watering as much. I definitely want my roots to grow ( to try and reach for water) so should I switch to a system where I just pour in a certain amount every other day or something?

Spritzing the soil is fine, I would stay away from spraying the leaves, if you want them wet use dome for humidity for a couple weeks. Since you are using the MH, you need to be careful because spraying the leaves with the lights on can cause them to burn. If you have good holes in your cups, just dont water until the top inch or two is dried out. Also, plants will recover easier from under watering than over watering, so just keep an eye on them and water when either they look thirsty (google images for this if you need) or until the top couple inches are dry.

Less is more is the best advice, every time I wanted to do something to my plant, I waited first and tried to avoid knee jerk reactions and over-(watering/feeding/analyzing/...).

hbbum said:

Spritzing the soil is fine, I would stay away from spraying the leaves, if you want them wet use dome for humidity for a couple weeks. Since you are using the MH, you need to be careful because spraying the leaves with the lights on can cause them to burn. If you have good holes in your cups, just dont water until the top inch or two is dried out. Also, plants will recover easier from under watering than over watering, so just keep an eye on them and water when either they look thirsty (google images for this if you need) or until the top couple inches are dry.

Less is more is the best advice, every time I wanted to do something to my plant, I waited first and tried to avoid knee jerk reactions and over-(watering/feeding/analyzing/...).

Click to expand...

Awesome, thanks, good advice. Yeah, I'm definitely learning the more I leave them alone the better they do. I was just so excited yesterday from getting my stuff from the store, and my plants did desperately need to get into the right kind of soil, so since they were bag seed anyways and basically are my experiment for my good seeds I figured it would be good transplant practice.

But my friend did knock that big clump of dirt off during transplant, so right now I'm just hoping that the roots weren't too damaged and he'll pick back up. He still seems fairly alright today, but I am noticing some yellowing on the very center of the plant when you look straight down on it.

Get some perlite in the soil and you will be happy. Makes taking care of your plants sooo much easier. Good luck on the grow

hbbum said:

Get some perlite in the soil and you will be happy. Makes taking care of your plants sooo much easier. Good luck on the grow

Click to expand...

Okay, great. Are you saying it makes it easier BC of its moisture holding properties? I'm literally like 1 week into this whole thing and I'm trying to figure everything out. The humus I added into my soil holds moisture really well, but I'll probably add some perlite into the mix when I start my good seeds.

Quick update on Larry: after the end of today's light cycle, he isn't looking so good. If a plant dies from transplant, how long does it generally take? I'm not sure if its too much water, shock from the transplant, or too many nutrients (the leaves seem more wilted, not burnt so I'm thinking its not the latter).

The top of the soil I'd almost completely dry, and I pressed my finger to the bottom on the side way away from the plant to see how my new soil is holding water and it seemed fairly dry so I'm gonna let it keep drying until sometime tomorrow and give it straight water.

Also, should have my digital pH reader come in tom which should really help me out.

What do you guys think might be getting him down, transplant shock?

Perlite doesn't hold water, it helps it dry out faster.