Easy Ryder 250w CFL Grow

Hello

So, me and my mate finally decided to move up the food chain and start growing.

We're using the top of a wardrobe as our grow room, a 250w blue CFL for vegging and a 250w red CFL for flowering. We noticed only half the lights on the red cfl worked this morning so we have sent it back to the shop and hopefully the manufacturer will replace it.

Soil is John Innes No.1, the pots were 6.5 litre but we had to cut them down due to space issues (there's only about 12-14 inches for them to grow which could be a problem. The light cycle we are using is 18/6 all the way through.

Were not sure what nutes to use at the moment, but i did read something about using root stimulator after the first week so i'm gonna have a look into that.

As for water, we're not sure whether to use tap water or bottle water (i've read about ph balancing water, but it never sais how it is actually done). I've included a picture of the bottled water we brought, if anyones knows whether or not this woukld be good to use please say

Any other tips/advice/comments would be greatly appreciated

nice little set up.I did the same as u a few months back but with a 125w cfl and in a big pc case and it turned out pretty good.Im getting my new cupoard 2mor and i will be using a 125w 6400k and 300w 6400k for veg (the 300 watter is huge lol) and when shes started to flower il move the 300 watter out and put in a 125w 2700k and keep the 125w 6400k and get a few 20w 2700 k to put in ther.Il keep watching u and il start a thread for you to watch mine 2mor

Week 1 update (slightly late)

Everything seems to be ok, but we moved them down as some of the leaves seem to be curling up, especially on Dubie. Anyone know if that would be because of heat from the light?

I've taken a picture with a ruler to show the kind of distance they are, i'm worrying they are too far away though, can anyone advise?

also, if anyone knows whether tap water is ok, and/or if that bottled water i posted a picture of would be ok? (might work out expensive though)

Cheers

Week 2 Update

They all appear to be showing sex (i think) You may be able to see in the pictures early signs of the hairs (pistils i think i heard them called).

Leaves are still curled up at the edges and on one of them the bottom leaves are going yellow and drooping at the tips.

No idea what is causing it, from my research it could be; nute burn, magnesium deficiency, over watering, ph problem and a few others i forgot lol

If anyone has any idea what could be causing this please advise.

We were going to add root stim and bio grow in their watering tonight, but i'm not sure about the bio grow now, if those leaves were caused by nute burn (john innes soil has too many nutes perhaps) then this would make the situation ten times worse. Can anyone advise on the amount of root stim too add?

We realised the ph of the tap water we have been using was way off 7.6 or something i think, so we got a liquid ph testing kit (the other soil one we had was shit) and ph up and ph down. Gonna aim for a ph of between 6.5 and 6.8.

Also bought biomax root juice, bio grow, bio bloom and a 20ml syringe.

If anyone has any comments or suggestions on their growth after 2 weeks please say

Arrrgghh bad times! went to put the 250w red light in today and it fucking broke! Half of it lit up then bang, and a big crack. Second one it's happened to. But the woman at the shop barely replaced it the first time, so now we've lost out on £42.50

Gonna order another one online but that won't get here till tuesday so the plants will be under the wrong light for that time.
Bad times

Week 3 update:

Plants seem to be doing ok, unfortunately they are still under a blue spectrum light as we are waiting for a new red to be delivered.

They are all showing sex for sure now, all females by the looks of it. Got a bit too close to the light last night and a couple of the leave tips are burnt, but nothing too bad.

There are however some yellowish / light green patches forming on some of the leaves.. haven't got a clue what this could be.

Water before last we added a low amount of bio grow and root juice to pH balanced water. Last watering we just used plain pH balanced water, in case the spots on the leaves is something to do with nute burn.

Finally got the new red cfl through the post, seems to be working ok. I think i broke the blue one while putting the polystyrene in the middle! I seriously hate cfl's.. they are so god damn fragile! and 40-50 quid a piece! also, got this thread moved to grow diary section, hopefully might get some feedback

Week 4 update:

Things seem to be going ok. Last water we added bio grow, bio bloom in slightly higher doses than the first time, and a small amount of root juice.

The tallest plant Mary is about 11 inches now, not sure if they are going to end up getting too tall for the cupboard, maybe have to consider scrog/lst.

All the bottom fan leaves appear to be fucked, but i was told this is normal, and it doesn't seem to be progressing any further since we gave them the nutes.

Their also starting to smell, every time i walk in the room i can smell them, which could be a problem as it is a rented house and there are house viewing every so often. Best start working on a carbon filter asap!

That's all for now, any comments/suggestions welcome

I'm starting this strain today. Eventually will be in a PC grow box, but I'm doing it in my normal grow tent the first time. Curious to know how tall they are once they stop getting taller.

Hey buddy! I am interested to know how your grow is going to date? Check out my grows too and let me know what you think man? I am growing lowryder#2 and pakistan ryder as well as doggies nuts white widow!

https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/330998-doggies-nuts-white-widow-cfl.html
https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/330874-lowryder-2-pakistan-ryder-automatic.html

DenseBuds said:

I'm starting this strain today. Eventually will be in a PC grow box, but I'm doing it in my normal grow tent the first time. Curious to know how tall they are once they stop getting taller.

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It all depends on a number of things - pot size, light etc. On the packet it says 60 - 80 cm tall. The biggest one we have so far is about 12 inches and is growing all the time, thats half way through the grow.

What lights you gonna be using for your grow?

james2627 said:

Hey buddy! I am interested to know how your grow is going to date? Check out my grows too and let me know what you think man? I am growing lowryder#2 and pakistan ryder as well as doggies nuts white widow!

https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/330998-doggies-nuts-white-widow-cfl.html
https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/330874-lowryder-2-pakistan-ryder-automatic.html

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Your grows are lookin good man I would recommend, if it fits, to have the cfl on it's side rather than hanging, but if space is an issue i don't reckon it would matter too much. Sucks about the broken cfl, that happened to two of ours, £42 each as well! They are so bloody fragile! lol. Also, how are you managing to keep the temps at 25? Our grow room seems to get pretty hot, sometimes it's up to 86F!

Our plants are goin ok, run into a few problems though, i'll post the update below

Week 5 Update:

Had a few problems over the past week. When i went to check them mid week a lot of the fan leaves on all plants were turning yellow and cracking/dying. We had given them a low dose of bio grow and bio bloom i think, the last watering, but it looked like a nitrogen deficiency. As we didn't know if it was a pH lockout or something else we flushed them with 5 liters of pH balanced water each then gave them 1ml/L of Bio Grow, 2ml/L of Bio Bloom and 2ml/L of Root Juice (I know root juice is only supposed to be used during early stages, but my logic was - flushing them got rid of all the nutes, including the little things like Manganese etc, and root juice contained these things while bio grow and bio bloom did not)

They seem to have slowed down in their turning yellow, it still seemed to be happening but a lot slower, there was also evidence of nute burn when i checked the other day, but only a tiny bit.

It's weird, they have all had the same sort of conditions, but Mary is massive compared to the other 2, and she has branched out a lot. The second biggest is Jane, (she's the lop sided one) she is starting to branch out a bit but no where near as much as Mary.

Dubie on the other hand is the smallest and seems very compact/dense. There are side colas coming off but they are very close to the plant, it almost looks like one single cola from some angles. Got no idea what could have caused the differences though. I think Mary will definitely be the best yielder although she is getting too tall for the cupboard so we are considering lst'ing her, but it worry's me.. the stem feels so brittle and i'm terrified it will snap if we try and bend it.

Anyways that's all for now, next update on Monday

Gonna have mine under some T5s. They're just sprouting now.

Very bad times. Went over today to water them and they are fucked. 60-70% of the leaves are yellow and/or wilting/twisted/dead. We watered them with nutes thinking it was a nute deficiency, then decided to test the ph of the run off.. 7.2-7.4 I have no idea how they got to this pH as we have been pH balancing the water every time..

They have barely grown at all since monday, i'm guessing this problem has seriously affected growth and thus the final yeild

We poured through a bit of pH 6.3-6.4 water to try and balance it out... tested the run off and it was about 7. I've left my mate to finish it, but i'm praying this will work and they will start looking healthier and growing.. only time will tell.

whats up maaaaan? im late to your journal but looks like you got everything going great girls lookin short.. means you have great node spacing bud will be real tight and dense for ya, im actually growing this same exact strain, i got 5 of them going im doing a t5 grow... research mostly.. im on day 34 come by and check my journal out sometime the links in my signature. im def subbed up for your grow and will be around to have a look from time to time man.. make sure you are PH balancing that water after you put the nutes in the water and even check the run off to see how the soil is effecting it... youll really wanna get that red specturm in ASAP but they will flower under blue.. most people run dual specs on these all grow long and do just fine.

wow after i posted my last post it just now showed about 5 or 6 post that i didnt see the first time through (roll it up having problems i guess?) anyway man... as far as the plants dying goes... add a little GROW formula to the plants i would say 2 ml to your next watering and nothing else.. the nitrogen in the grow formula will help the lower vegatation survive.. (i know they say never add grow formula after a certain point but trust me.. im on day 33 and still have it in every watering and have no burn what so ever) also i may have missed it but what are you doing for ventalation? those sudden changes in in temp can cause the plant to do funny things man as well as go hermi on you later on in the grow.. plus the co2 level in that space is prolly on the low end of the PPM scale and that might be hurting as well. the best thing you can do is flush flsuh flush to save them it seems that space stays very dry (what is the humidity?) and if thats the case you wont have to worry about root rot from over watering due to the low humidity in the room thus in the soil... in the end you can save them.

dopefarmer said:

wow after i posted my last post it just now showed about 5 or 6 post that i didnt see the first time through (roll it up having problems i guess?) anyway man... as far as the plants dying goes... add a little GROW formula to the plants i would say 2 ml to your next watering and nothing else.. the nitrogen in the grow formula will help the lower vegatation survive.. (i know they say never add grow formula after a certain point but trust me.. im on day 33 and still have it in every watering and have no burn what so ever) also i may have missed it but what are you doing for ventalation? those sudden changes in in temp can cause the plant to do funny things man as well as go hermi on you later on in the grow.. plus the co2 level in that space is prolly on the low end of the PPM scale and that might be hurting as well. the best thing you can do is flush flsuh flush to save them it seems that space stays very dry (what is the humidity?) and if thats the case you wont have to worry about root rot from over watering due to the low humidity in the room thus in the soil... in the end you can save them.

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Alright man. Checked out your grow, their lookin good they look a lot taller and healthier than mine

What's the smell like for you? These girls are startin to stink!

We got the red light in after week 3 i think it was, ventilation is 2 pc fans 10 cm i think not 100% sure though. The temps have been stupidly high recently with the hot weather, i've seen it up to 96F, not good. I can't think of anything we can do about that though apart from buying an ac. No idea about humidity probably quite dry though.

We were considering putting in big bottle of frozen water to help cool the temps and also i guess if they were open it would help with the humidity.

The leaves stopped turning yellow after the last water (i think they had 1ml/l grow and 2ml/l of bloom)for a while but then it started again, the top of the plants are a bright green rather than dark like the leaves below, this can't be good.

Not happy with the progress at the mo, but first grow things are bound to go wrong i guess. Full update below

Week 6 Update:

The yellowing stopped for a bit after the last watering where nutes were added, but seems to have started again. Tops of the plants all seem to be a light green colour unlike the lower leaves which are dark green (apart from the shit load that are yellow that is).

My mate watered them last night and gave them 3ml/l of bio bloom and 2ml/l of bio grow. I'm hoping this larger dose of nutes will help them start to show improvements. Not sure what the pH of the run off from the watering was but i will ask him later, i told him to make sure it was between 6.5-6.8 so we shall see.

The growth seems to be very slow, mary is so much taller and bushier than the other two and i have no idea why as they all had the same conditions. Dubie is really short but very compact, there's seem to be trichomes forming on the leaves and bud and shiz, on jane there is a lot less hardly noticeable, and on mary there is even less than that with pretty much none. Dubie looks more like bud is forming than just the hairs.. it's odd, the shortest one seems to be the one that is most developed in terms of bud, and the tallest is the least.

Can't remember if i said before, but i predict Mary will be the biggest yielder and Dubie the least.

If anyone has any comments/suggestions on the grow, or the problems we've been having please feel free to say

Week 7 update:

Bad bad times

I checked them yesterday for the update and although they appear to be budding out ok, all of the top leaves are pale yellow and dying

It looks like an iron deficiency, i'm not sure what caused it (does anyone know if bio grow and bloom contain iron?)

My mate watered them sunday with nutes (2ml/l of grow, 3ml/l of bloom). They were however watered the last time with the same nutes as well - i have heard too many nutes can cause other nutes to lock out, i wish he hadn't of added nutes but oh well..

Does anyone know the best way to fix this? It's very bad, dubie has pretty much no leaves left alive! If no one responds were gonna flush them tonight unless the problem has gotten better when i go over and check later. This will be the second flush though and we only have enough containers to store 15l of water (for it to sit out and evaporate the chlorine and what not) i'm not sure if 15l is enough for a proper flush..

But if we flush them and add the nutes, grow and bloom, i don't think they contain iron somehow, so this wouldn't help. We have root juice which i think contains iron but it's only suppose3d to be used during the first few weeks..

Basically, any help or opinions would be GREATLY appreciated.

Not much to say apart from that, they are starting to fill out, jane and dubie are quite crystally while mary is not. They have totally stopped growing in height (i'm guessing this is normal).

I'm really worried that this iron (assuming it is an iron problem that is) problem is going to have a massive effect on our results, and they have already been majorly stunted by the nitrogen deficiency we had. Also, the iron deficiency (according to my mate mind) went from green leaves to very pale yellow in about 12 hours..

If you read this and have any suggestions, please do post asap

How much longer do you have till harvest? From the pics, it looked to me like it's just the bigger fan leaves that are yellowing and dying? If so, I wouldn't worry too much about it. ER is 75 days from seed I think... so you should be ok if you just let it run it's course.

those look great

DenseBuds said:

How much longer do you have till harvest? From the pics, it looked to me like it's just the bigger fan leaves that are yellowing and dying? If so, I wouldn't worry too much about it. ER is 75 days from seed I think... so you should be ok if you just let it run it's course.

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Should be 3 weeks left till harvest. My camera isn't that good (which is annoying because i got a new xperia x10 and the camera is supposed to be really good.. i'm not impressed with it) so the colours arn't very distinguishable.

A lot of the older fan leaves were turning yellow and dying but i wasn't too worried about that. This pale yellowing is effecting the top leaves, quite badly as well.looks quite like iron defiency - i read the iron can be locked out by to much phosphorus, my mate gave them nutes when they weren't supposed to have any, so i'm guessing they got a build up off to much P which is locking out the Fe. Only problem is i couldn't get hold of him last night for some odd reason, so i have no idea how they are today..