First Experimental Grow

Alright, here we go with the first grow. Me and a friend accidently found couple of seeds and decided to do an experimental first grow. We ended up with a decent growbox that we build ourselves.

Box: 160 x 100 x 160 - that is in centimeters.
Light: One 400w HPS (+ reflector)
Vents in: 2 x 140mm comp. vents + 1 x 125mm (..if I remember right..- it actually blows more air than the 140's, or at least it feels like that)
Vents out: the same as vents in
First seed: planted on 02.06.2009.
Planted seeds: 7
Temp: sometimes gets around 32C. We've been lucky - it's rainy for the last two weeks and temps are around 28C. We'll see later - it may become a problem.. or not?
(note: we may have to disband and move the box any day now, which is when we plan on making walls reflective..)

I guess these vents are not favored by most people but they seem to do great job - intake vents are on the side and others are on top where hot air is persumed to be sucked out of the box - I really like the way we placed them in a way that there is nice air circulation in the whole thing.

As we started without planning it or anything in the beginning we only had two weak fluorescent lamps which were almost insufficient - as result the first bastard started a bit streched out, so it ended up being the second highest pant but with smaller leaves (at least at this point).

Here is picture of the two highest plants - the one with smaller leaves is planted on 02.06 and next to it is the biggest of them all - planted on 7th, which makes it almost 3 weeks old now:





And from the side:




Here are the other five plants from the top:




It all seemed like they were all behind the first two, but now they almost catch up with the champion..

We are using Dutch Formula as of this point we only have the 1 GROW component. I think two or three of them suffered a bit of nutrien burn - they had small brown burn-like spots at some of the leaves pedals. That seems to be ok now - plants kind of outgrew it.

Notice that the two plants on top right have other leaves - they seem to be of different sort (which is expected). Their leaves were both a bit strange at the start - especially one of them started out with really deformed leaves - curled down towards the stem. I mean really curled - they did not looked as weed leaves at all. Second leaves were strange too, but not so much. They suddenly started getting bigger and less curled + newer leaves are ok. I guess early 1 GROW has something to do with it..

Also perhaps just these two reacted more than the others exactly because they are different sort?

Also I am getting more concerned of when should we replant - I really count on you guys to help me out here - according to these pots for how long can I keep them there?

Also do you think that future higher temperatures can be a problem - plants will be already big and strong - I guess they'll make it?

I am also wondering what is this supposed to be (more leaves are coming out or what?):



I would really like it if you share opinions.
I may upload pix of the box itself tomorrow. It is kind of huge and not stealthy at all . I hope bad eyes won't see it.. We have a normal computer power for powering the vents - we wired it to work without a mainboard - its went blows right over the ballast and sorts of cools it off.

The box has movable top and two doors which when both open make the one 160 wide side almost completely open. It also has wheels - turned out we would never have done it without them. It's kind of heavy and that way we move it around.

The whole operation so far costs around 300 euro for anyone who may be interested.

Cheers!

Here's the box - huge and not stealthy. It's kind of temporary setup because we may have to disband and reassemble it any day now. Walls will get reflective later.

Here are some pictures of the box. It's not finished (reflective walls and cables) but we need to move it soon, so..

Looks awesome!

Although, if I may throw out a little advice - plug up some for those cracks at the top of the box and try to cover up where your fans are... just try to minimize the amount of light leaking into your box. Don't want hermies.

Other than that I would just say good luck.

Iron Lion Zion said:

Looks awesome!

Although, if I may throw out a little advice - plug up some for those cracks at the top of the box and try to cover up where your fans are... just try to minimize the amount of light leaking into your box. Don't want hermies.

Other than that I would just say good luck.

Click to expand...

Thanks!

So it may be a problem that day light is getting in at this point ? Also the lamp is 400 HPS and seems really strong - on the pic it even looks like the box is emmiting yellow light even in the day.

I didnt knew that mixing lights may cause herms. (?)

What would you guys say about replanting - for how long should I keep these plants in these pots?

Also, do you think that 32C (perhaps even higher) temperatures would be too much?

vpmd said:

Thanks!

So it may be a problem that day light is getting in at this point ? Also the lamp is 400 HPS and seems really strong - on the pic it even looks like the box is emmiting yellow light even in the day.

I didnt knew that mixing lights may cause herms. (?)

What would you guys say about replanting - for how long should I keep these plants in these pots?

Also, do you think that 32C (perhaps even higher) temperatures would be too much?

Click to expand...

I'm talking about light leaking in when its dark in there. When your lights go off in your little room and light sneaks in through those holes in can cause hermies.
I would try to keep it a little lower than 32C if you could...

Iron Lion Zion said:

I'm talking about light leaking in when its dark in there. When your lights go off in your little room and light sneaks in through those holes in can cause hermies.
I would try to keep it a little lower than 32C if you could...

Click to expand...

Well, the light cycle right now is 17 light, 7 dark, so when the lamp wents off only in the night when it's dark. We'll see later when we need to get 12/12 cycle how to prevent the light from getting in. I knew I'll have to do it, but I didn't knew that if light gets in it may cause herms.

Right now the temp is bellow 30 degrees - around 28, which I hear is the perfect. However, that is pure luck - weather out there is kind of cool right now and we expect it to get much hotter any day now. The room we have will surely get hotter and we cannot afford to leave windows open during the day - it's second floor. So perhaps the temperatures will be above 30 degrees.

We might try to use CO2 and if that fails we'll think about cooltube. We really do not want to spend any more money though..

What would be your advice about replanting? I wonder for how long these pots will be ok. I have the feeling they are already small?