First Clone Grow -- HPS Indoor Soil with Drip Set up

hello, welcome to my grow journal.

im sitting at week 2.5 of my clones, they have been in a clone dome, been through hell, and they've all rooted and are ready to be transplanted into pots. ive had them under 2 150 watt CFLs, and gave them a weak mix of nute solution. 3 of the 5 look pretty great, 2 look pretty weak. i'm about to transplant them into normal 12 in pots, and put the 5 under a 400 watt hps. i plan on creating a grow room in the next week out of wood and sheet rock, i'm purchasing a a/c unit with a de-humidifying abilities because i live in a humid area.

this is my 5th grow. first in a little while... i hope everything goes well, im worried about nute issues, all 5 look relatively good, some drooping leaves and curling, and light greening. i am worried ive been overwatering because i had them on a weak nute solution which seemed to make them progressively worse, so i put them on straight distilled water, and that did very little to imporve them, thus i will leave them dry for a day.

more to come...

don't neglect your CO2. A generator is super cheap and I've noticed it to help plants maintain health through transplants and nutrient addjustments. The only time I've noticed any deterioration of the foliage is when the CO2 DIY needs change. I just switched mine to flower. Im gonna start transfering my journal from paper form to an online journal. Ill snap some pics soon to show you what im working with.

CLOAK! whattup buddy? yes do that... im always curious to see what ur working with, im about to post pictures -- and to anybody else, feel free to post in my journal, and PLEASE answer any questions i might voice throughout, or any suggestions you have... PLEASE!!! Thanks for checking it out.

Week 3 ( i think ) --

This is my first journal, so be gentle -- as i said above, EVERYONE please feel free to post comments, tips, answer questions, etc...

This is my 5th grow, I'm growing on some excellent soil that I got at a local shop, ill post my equipment later on -- but right now, I am using a 400W HPS that I have re-wired a hell of a lot of times to fit it perfectly for my set up, in fact that has been taking most of my time. I'll explain that more below.

I have 6 clones of a quality strain from a friend -- I have them in a grow box right now that I have constructed pretty much out of wood, I have a LOT of questions regarding inline/exhaust fans and I really do NOT know what i'm doing in that regard. If anyone has any suggestions or tips on how to address that situation, please feel free.

I'm gonna post these pics and then post again to comment on what the pics are and what I have been up to...

BALLAST --

Alright, so if you will notice in my pics above, the last picture is the ballast before, its a 400 watt ballast from a stadium that I purchased a bunch of for practically nothing. So first, I wired in power into the ballast by pulling out the wiring out of the end opposite the socket (the white circular object) -- so I wired up the power, but the ballast is incredibly hot, so I unscrewed the socket by unscrewing 2 screws that go into the socket itself, then I opened up the ballast itself by unscrewing 4 screws that hold the box in its 2 major pieces -- i then pulled out the socket, and extended its wiring by about 10 ft by purchasing 50 feet of 12 Gauge electrical wiring from home depot -- there were 2 yellow wires from the ballast going into a yellow thread like wire that comes out of the socket, and then there were 2 red wires from the ballast giong into a green thread like wire that comes out of of the back of the socket -- so I just extended all 4 of these wires with 12 gauge wire by about 15 feet -- then taped up those wires accordingly so they are manageable to deal with. I capped off all my wiring with big caps, and it worked!

SET UP --

So I extended that socket away from my ballast -- and mounted it on a peice of wood which I have posted hanging directly DOWNWARDS over my 6 babies -- NOTE, I have it hanging bulb DOWNWARDS towards the plant-- this is something I plan to change, but I wanted to know, does anyone know anything about this?? Should I have the bulb running horizontally over the plants or vertically downwards??

So if you will notice, I have the bulb wired up about 8 inches from the top of my plant -- right now I have basically a big wooden box, that is NOT enclosed yet, the weather where I am is still quite cool so its not a huge issue for me yet. I have the bulb mounted on a board, then that board is SLIDABLE in/out of wooden bookends on either end of my main wood beam, as you can see in the 2nd picture, I basically just cut SLATS into a thick peice of wood, and did this with about 10 peices of wood, so now I have a slidable shelf like peice on either side at varying heights so I can increase my height periodically.

PLANTS

As you can see -- my babies have improved incredibly!! I have them in solo cups of soil now, but plan to repot in 12 in pots soon. They are all about 6 to 8 inches, I have a lot of nodes running up my stalks, and all of the leaves look great -- mayyyybe some slight N deficiency but I think I can solve that when I repot.

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QUESTIONS I HAVE --

1) Mylar/Wood set up--
Should I get mylar? Should I basically have a wood skeleton, and then fill it in with mylar?? How does Mylar do with temperatures??

2) FANS!!! I know NOTHING about installing fans, I was thinking about just going to home depot and tryna wing it-- I have a plethora of tools and supplies so I know I can slap something together, but I would prefer to have a better understanding.

Can anyone point me in the right direction of a concentrated step by step approach to installing in and out fans for a growbox??? GROW BOX Fan systems at Home depot are really just the exhaust fans from a bathroom, I am thinking of getting one today, but would prefer to have more knowledge.... Any assistance would be great--

3) Electrical --

Will I trip a breaker in a standard home by loading 2 400 watt HPS plus fans on one surge protector??

Hey got some pics to show what I've been doing. first set up pics is for plant 1, Freddy(pic 1). Freddy is in the poorest condition and has been the first to show signs of over nuting a couple times. all in all a good plant with some minor foliar damage(pic 2) . With this plant I did a full topping as the pics show. You can see where i cut the whole main stem (pic 3), this then produced two main stems(pic 4), and interesting enough the two from the layer below actually caught up giving the end result of four "top" colas (pic 5).

Hombre numero dos es Oscar (pic 1). As you can see (pic 2) oscar has two stems fighting for apial dominace. Early is oscars growth I trimmed one of the two branching stems for two generations of growth. This gave extra energy to the sides I chose which resulted in stronger growth on that side. Pic 3 and 4 show where I did the cutting. Interesting aside, pics 5 and 6 show that the third generations which remained untrimmed still showed the same dominace established in prior generations. Stems thicker above uncut side of plant.

the final plant, Che (pic 1) is probably the strongest I have and has been very resilient to nute burn and long gaps between watering. For him I did a FIM, pics 2 and 3 get a good close up of the new foliage pattern. It made the growth up the plant alternate stems left and right instead of coming in groups of 2. I think this allows for improved growth because instead of sharing apical domiance each new stem gets its own for a few days. Not sure but the newest stems are showing the strongest growth. Ill get some more pics up in a few weeks when they start showing signs of flowering.

Cloak said:

the final plant, Che (pic 1) is probably the strongest I have and has been very resilient to nute burn and long gaps between watering. For him I did a FIM, pics 2 and 3 get a good close up of the new foliage pattern. It made the growth up the plant alternate stems left and right instead of coming in groups of 2. I think this allows for improved growth because instead of sharing apical domiance each new stem gets its own for a few days. Not sure but the newest stems are showing the strongest growth. Ill get some more pics up in a few weeks when they start showing signs of flowering.
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Cloaks,

I am quite impressed with ur lot -- very excellent. They all look good, especially considering the hell they have gone through with nutes. I wanna speak with you further because I need to brush up on my "topping & fimming" -- I have not done either with my current babies. I really dont remember what the difference is with 'fimming vs. topping' -- but i feel as though I can adequately top mine should I choose to do so. Mine are at about 4 weeks post cloning-- they have had solid root systems for 3 weeks -- and have gotten to about 8 inches at hte smallest, and 10 at the biggest... When do you think I should top/fim? I want to see some pics if you could walk me through the process again -- I can always look around on this site and find valuable info, but if you could post some pics explaining your 'procedure' for topping/fimming, that would be greatly appreciated. Anyways, shit looks great man -- and be sure to flower them bitches soon! And oh ya, DONT LET ANYONE COME OVER! I hope everything works out. Holler at me, and post those pics for me cuz I want to do it soon... I gotta add some more pics of my set up, as I have developed it quite a bit. Peace!

First off for any manicuring the rule of thumb I go with is dont do anything to a set of branches unless there are 2 sets beneath it. Also, I try to avoide manicure successive sets of branches as it can reduce structural strength especially with topping and fimming. Judging by your size you gave you are ready to manicure if you choose. If you are gonna flower your guys around this heigh i would suggest to fim, it produces the most imediate top cola increase without any size reduction. Topping will give two strong independent top colas but only if the plants have veg time to grow a few more branch levels further up. So for the pictures first up is Pic 1. This is the normal FIM cut. if you look at the underside of what will grow to be a fan leaf, it will look kinda like fingers, the goal is to cut those fingers in half. This is the most unpredictable cut as it can produce anywhere from 1 to upwards of 5 or 6 branches. Its really tricky to predict. I FIMMED Che above and he didnt really develop 2 top colas but a weird pattern of branching that is still beneficial. PIC 2 is the topping cut. If FIM wants to cut the fingers, topping wants to cut the wrist. Basically go below any foliage and snip the stem just above the lower set of branches. With time to veg this will split the main stem and create two equalish sized top colas. PIC 3 doesnt really have a name but its something I read about and wated to try. If done right this will preserve the original main stem and generate a second branch that will be much closer to the size of the stem. The pic shows a small set of branches above the set which I am cutting one of the two branches. This is alittle late for this cut and should be done just before the newest layer begins to develop. cutting one branch gives nutrient dominace to the other at that level. This makes it possible for the isolated branches to catch up with the main stem occassionally. Not 100% but of the 4 cuts I made, all 4 have passed branches from layers above their own. Thought this third approach could have good effect if used in combination of branch training.

Cloak said:

First off for any manicuring the rule of thumb I go with is dont do anything to a set of branches unless there are 2 sets beneath it. Also, I try to avoide manicure successive sets of branches as it can reduce structural strength especially with topping and fimming. Judging by your size you gave you are ready to manicure if you choose. If you are gonna flower your guys around this heigh i would suggest to fim, it produces the most imediate top cola increase without any size reduction. Topping will give two strong independent top colas but only if the plants have veg time to grow a few more branch levels further up. So for the pictures first up is Pic 1. This is the normal FIM cut. if you look at the underside of what will grow to be a fan leaf, it will look kinda like fingers, the goal is to cut those fingers in half. This is the most unpredictable cut as it can produce anywhere from 1 to upwards of 5 or 6 branches. Its really tricky to predict. I FIMMED Che above and he didnt really develop 2 top colas but a weird pattern of branching that is still beneficial. PIC 2 is the topping cut. If FIM wants to cut the fingers, topping wants to cut the wrist. Basically go below any foliage and snip the stem just above the lower set of branches. With time to veg this will split the main stem and create two equalish sized top colas. PIC 3 doesnt really have a name but its something I read about and wated to try. If done right this will preserve the original main stem and generate a second branch that will be much closer to the size of the stem. The pic shows a small set of branches above the set which I am cutting one of the two branches. This is alittle late for this cut and should be done just before the newest layer begins to develop. cutting one branch gives nutrient dominace to the other at that level. This makes it possible for the isolated branches to catch up with the main stem occassionally. Not 100% but of the 4 cuts I made, all 4 have passed branches from layers above their own. Thought this third approach could have good effect if used in combination of branch training.
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Cloaks --

just to be clear, pic 1 = fim, 2 = topping, and 3 = whatever --
now i know on our previous works together, we had topped/fimmed, to great success. when did we start such processes? i am just looking at my babies now, and their sitting all around 8 inches, i think i may let them go a lil longer before i fuck with them... i am planning to let them get up to around 2 ft avg, so would you agree this is sufficient time to regenerate secondary colas? i'm thinking, fim/top at 10 inches (when all are at least 10), and then let them go longer til about 2 ft (around this height)... what u think?

i will post some more pics shortly so you can get a better idea of my set up.

I repotted yesterday into larger pots, and today I gave them their first batch of Veg Nutes from the TechnaFlora starter kit -- I started with 1/2 strength.
I also foliar fed them with a 1/6 or so strength blend, anyone have an opinion on this?? Should I be foliar feeding with these nutes?? It doesnt say anything on the box about it.

I posted some more pics of my grow box:
#1 = HPS bulb with my homemade hood out of a broiler trey
#2 = grow box w/ HPS off -- panda film, CFLs.
etc...

its still kind of cool out so I havent needed to install my exhaust fan or inline fan yet, I just have a fan in the corner that pumps cooler air in from the garage. I have some pretty cool ideas on my set up where it will finally lay, but I am kind of biding my time til then.

Check out pics -- panda film, 400 watt HPS, and I got a few 150 watt CFLs in there too.

go on the order. For the third style you can do that early if you want but I wouldn't top until about 1 ft and don't go more than 2 toppings. i.e. 1 split is 2 branches, 2 splits is 4 branches. This could lead the plant to be unstable and collapse. The FIM I would save until you only have 2-3 inches of growth left to go. A good FIM will create a strong top cluster but would likely be very weak if in the middle of a 2 foot plant. My suggestion for a 2 ft plant would be to top around 12 inches and FIM the tops at around 20-22 inches. basically just a short growth before you are ready to flip the plant to flower.