First grow. Any tips or advice is appreciated.

So I've decided to run my very first Marijuana grow. I have some experience growing vegetables but never mj and never indoors. I'm using a space of 42 inches high, 18 deep and 32 wide with a 600 watt Philzon led I got off of amazon. Currently growing masterkush, wonder woman, super skunk, and ak-48 from nirvana all femenized. The reason I'm making this post is to help document my first grow and for an open discussion on my setup to help teach myself how to improve. The super skunk is the biggest one which I just topped and lst since I'm going for shorter bushy plants. im aiming to only grow them to about 18 inches tall. I understand my 4 plants might get a little crammed but I'm trying to get the most out of my limited space. Temps are ranging between 65-75 and humidity is at 50-60%. Im using fox farm ocean soil and probably will start fox farm tiger bloom or big bloom for flowering. Not too worried about veg nutes since the soil should be able to provide enough until I start flowering since I don't plan on vegging for a long time. This first post was mostly be me rambling on about my goals and my environment just to get the info out there but I will be updating every few weeks.

one thing i am concerned about is my led not putting off enough light for big dense buds. i have more watts being put out then what is recomended in my size but i did cheap out on the light just because its my first grow and wasnt willing to put forth hundreds on a single light. im considering putting side lighting when the plants go into flower. what would be the best type of light to mix with led to get those denser buds. hps or cfl?

upon further reading the light i purchased can replace a 400 watt led so i guess its more around 400 watts. apparently LED dont put off the actual wattage that is advertised so i will be pumping up the wattage for flowering for sure. been looking at the 200 watt 2700k cfls to put in for flowering. im a little confused on the lighting now so if anyone can tell me if i should have enough wattage after this that would be appreciated. im working with about 4 square feet.

Bro good.luck and CFl of ya wanna add light a hps with the led be way to hot maybe think about a cooltube in there get rid the led jus what I'd do

rolla012 said:

View attachment 4160827 View attachment 4160828 So I've decided to run my very first Marijuana grow. I have some experience growing vegetables but never mj and never indoors. I'm using a space of 42 inches high, 18 deep and 32 wide with a 600 watt Philzon led I got off of amazon. Currently growing masterkush, wonder woman, super skunk, and ak-48 from nirvana all femenized. The reason I'm making this post is to help document my first grow and for an open discussion on my setup to help teach myself how to improve. The super skunk is the biggest one which I just topped and lst since I'm going for shorter bushy plants. im aiming to only grow them to about 18 inches tall. I understand my 4 plants might get a little crammed but I'm trying to get the most out of my limited space. Temps are ranging between 65-75 and humidity is at 50-60%. Im using fox farm ocean soil and probably will start fox farm tiger bloom or big bloom for flowering. Not too worried about veg nutes since the soil should be able to provide enough until I start flowering since I don't plan on vegging for a long time. This first post was mostly be me rambling on about my goals and my environment just to get the info out there but I will be updating every few weeks.

Click to expand...

don't water too frequently, ph to 7.0 in soil 6.0 in coco and dont over feed most directions on nutes requires more than your plants want

Blakey said:

Bro good.luck and CFl of ya wanna add light a hps with the led be way to hot maybe think about a cooltube in there get rid the led jus what I'd do

Click to expand...

I don't have problems with heat at all so I was considering hps to heat it up because it stays around 70 which i know is good but was willing to make sacrifice of heat for quality light. Think I'll just do cfls since my lights will be pretty close to plants

I<3Cannabis said:

don't water too frequently, ph to 7.0 in soil 6.0 in coco and dont over feed most directions on nutes requires more than your plants want

Click to expand...

been making sure my ph is good and I read start off with half the nutes of what's recommended. Appreciate the help

noticed a few orange spots on my super skunk plant. im thinking it could possibly be from pest like aphids. ive been spraying my grow room with fans off with pepperment oil and soap diluted in water. to attempt to fix this problem im going to put DE on my soil and a little on the plant, spray the walls with homemade pepperment oil and look into possibly more ways to keep pest at bay. I dont think this could be a soil issue becuase i am using ff ocean soil and all my other plants are fine. None of my other plants have these spots but they are alot smaller, working on their third nodes. id assume pest would still attack the smaller plants but ill just keep a close eye on the problem. heres a few bad quality pics of the problem. my humidity stays around 40-50% and ive seen temps as low as 65 and as high as 77 which usually by then i turn air back on specifically to keep it on colder side to avoid problems with pest. Anybody who thinks it could be something else or could even confirm it then go ahead drop a comment. besides this small problem all plants are growing strong and quick

rolla012 said:

noticed a few orange spots on my super skunk plant. im thinking it could possibly be from pest like aphids. ive been spraying my grow room with fans off with pepperment oil and soap diluted in water. to attempt to fix this problem im going to put DE on my soil and a little on the plant, spray the walls with homemade pepperment oil and look into possibly more ways to keep pest at bay. I dont think this could be a soil issue becuase i am using ff ocean soil and all my other plants are fine. None of my other plants have these spots but they are alot smaller, working on their third nodes. id assume pest would still attack the smaller plants but ill just keep a close eye on the problem. heres a few bad quality pics of the problem. my humidity stays around 40-50% and ive seen temps as low as 65 and as high as 77 which usually by then i turn air back on specifically to keep it on colder side to avoid problems with pest. Anybody who thinks it could be something else or could even confirm it then go ahead drop a comment. besides this small problem all plants are growing strong and quickView attachment 4162799 View attachment 4162801

Click to expand...

looking into it even more it doesnt look like aphids are the cause. had one website to a sign is orange spots but when google imaging infestations it doesnt look simiar. maybe its from PH or cal/mag? thats the only other 2 i could find correlation with my symptoms

update on first grow. I did my first feeding of fox farm big bloom yesterday and plants seem to be responding well so far. IT seems long overdue since its looking like i had a nitrogen deficiency going on but hopefully that wont be a problem anymore.

the smallest one is the wonder woman and its just a few days younger than the super skunk which is the biggest one. the seed itsself took about a week to pop above ground in same conditions as all the other ones which took about 3 days, so since day 1 this seed has been a little off and the growth is super slow on it, if any at all. the yellowing of the leaves happened not too long ago even after i noticed its slow growth so maybe its just one those seeds.

There are a few small holes ive noticed that appear to be some type of pest so ive been spraying my plants thoroughly with peppermint oil and soap diluted in water. it hasnt completely eliminated the problem but there isnt an infestation because i can never find any actual bugs, even with a microscope. this leads me to be it could be a cal/mag or ph problem because i do remember someone on one of these threads claiming holes could be because of one of those 2 things, cant remember which but ive ordered calmag and been making sure to ph my water.

recently added 6 23 watt cfls (4 6500k and 2 2700k) because upon further research i realized i fell for the wattage scheme a lot of these LED manufacturers pull off and realized actual wattage is what needs to be looked at. So the LED puts off 110 watts with veg and bloom switch on, i just have veg so aiming low its putting off 50 watts and i need about 200 for my 4 square foot area so i used cfls to accumulate just about what i needed even tho the math comes out to 188 watts. I plan on adding even more cfls when they get bigger. HPS is out of the question since my area is so small and the fact they're known for producing heat immediately turns me off from them since i suffered a fire that took everything a few months back so i refuse to go with the ones known for heat even if they produce the best. not worth the risk in my eyes and yes i know proper ventilation and all that will keep heat under control but anyone whose suffered a fire im sure will understand my concern. Ill make the switch when i have the space and im comfortable with it.

Im a little under a month in on my super skunk and wonder woman while the master kush and ak-48 are id say about 2-3 weeks. i started the WW and SS at the same time because my original plan was to do 2 plants but after the WW wasn't growing i decided id go ahead and throw the other 2 in there just in case the WW dies or even one of the other ones. Basically im aware this is my first grow and i probably wont get smoke able buds off all 4 of these plants so i prepared for loss but we will see what happens. The SS is topped and doing LST on it while i plan on only LST the master kush and ak-48 so i can try to get them to catch up in height to the SS. Will let the wonder woman go naturally since its so far behind. Next update will probably be after i tie those 2 down. heres some pics. oh and the white powder on the super skunk is diatomaceous earth to help with the possibility of pest. the SS is the only one with holes so only one i put DE on but i still spray them all for extra prevention.

You got more connectors wires ect now a hps will reduce your chance.ov fire one ballast one.connector makes sense don't ya think as appose to what u have now

Blakey said:

You got more connectors wires ect now a hps will reduce your chance.ov fire one ballast one.connector makes sense don't ya think as appose to what u have now

Click to expand...

i didnt even think about that. I did make sure to not over do the wattage for my power strips and y adapters so im using all the electrical stuff properly and didnt do anything fancy with the wires. but yeah one hps wouldve been simpler but when i first started i was thinking this one LED would work through the whole grow but since its not im just rolling with the punches now. A hps still wouldnt work with the space i have unless i wanted really small plants. Ive been looking into quantum boards for my next grow since they are actually efficient for growing and heat isnt as big of a problem so that will probably happen. Ive learned its best to not cheap out on a light for many reasons so ill probably put up the money for a QB since they last so long as well. And yeah all my wires in the box look pretty messy but i actually have it organized outside the box where i have everything hooked up. Split into 2 different wall sockets and super sensitive smoke alarm right above it just for the extra safeness. never can be too safe

Oscillating tower fans may save you a bit of room. I only run one small fan in my 4x2 tent and it seems to do the job well. I rotate the plants up until they're just too big to do it to avoid wind burn. The fan I use is Seville Classics Ultra Slimline Oscillating Personal fan. I got it on Amazon for $25 and It has lasted over a year now and still seems to have the same power as it did on day one.

As for the spots, I got the same ones when I used FF Ocean Forrest soil. I've since switched to Roots Organic although not solely because of the spots. It only happened on 2 out of 3 plants, which just means that certain strains are more resilient than others. To fix the issue I PH'd some water to 6.8 and flushed the soil with about 5 gallons per pot. With just a few spots like you have now it could resolve on its own, but if it keeps progressing I'd flush with PH'd water. Don't expect the damaged leaves to clear up either. They'll stay the same and you know it's fixed once you don't see any progression or new growth developing the issue.

Good luck with this, on end of my first now. Are you checking the ppm/ec of your feed? I did not check any pH or ppm of run off for entire grow and have not had probs. I did ppm/ec all feed given. are you using pH meter? Worth spending more on that than your ppm/ec meter. Start a data sheet(a4) for each. Dates feed adjustments reading. swot up over Coming weeks existing grows on each strain. plan for the best, prepare for the worst. DO NOT BUY ANY EXPENSIVE SEEDS UNTIL THIS GROW IS OVER. I blew quite a bit dreaming of next grow when I needed sheet for this grow! Good luck!!

Skidmarx said:

Good luck with this, on end of my first now. Are you checking the ppm/ec of your feed? I did not check any pH or ppm of run off for entire grow and have not had probs. I did ppm/ec all feed given. are you using pH meter? Worth spending more on that than your ppm/ec meter. Start a data sheet(a4) for each. Dates feed adjustments reading. swot up over Coming weeks existing grows on each strain. plan for the best, prepare for the worst. DO NOT BUY ANY EXPENSIVE SEEDS UNTIL THIS GROW IS OVER. I blew quite a bit dreaming of next grow when I needed sheet for this grow! Good luck!!

Click to expand...

I do check the ppm of my feed. I just started giving nutrients about 2 weeks ago and been working my way up from about 500 ppm to the 1100-1300 it suggest on FF feeding schedule. Im assuming the chart is talking about the ppm of your nutrient water but to be honest never looked it up to confirm it. Just makes sense that way.

Ive considered getting digital PH reader because i am currently using the general hydroponics PH kit where you go off the color of the water after putting solution in it and i just find myself getting really picky about trying to get the same exact shade of color i had last feeding that im constantly adding Ph up, testing it. then ph down, testing it. Then Ph up again and so on and so on. Honestly thinking about seeing how the regular PH of the tap water reacts to the plant just to erase a step because the regular tap water shows a really light green which means its around 7.0 which isnt bad for plants but ive just been aiming for the yellowish green the bottle says plants prefer.

A data sheet sounds smart. different strains react differently to lots of things and i could see that data being useful for future grows to help tweak what exactly the plant prefers.

And yes i didnt spend a crazy amount on seeds. I didnt go with bag seed because i wanted stable genetics so i just went with nirvana seeds because their prices are fair and genetics arent the best but they are good enough for a newbie grower like me. I saw some websites where pack of 10 seeds would be $120-$150 (oregon elite seeds) that id assume have great genetics that i will order from once i can do a complete grow cycle with absolutely no problems. Im not sure if oregon elite seeds genetics are top of the line but thats just stuff i would research about when the time came.

Forgot my top tip: you can use sparking water(carbonated) as a cheap and quick C02 boost. Mine loved it (amnesia haze FEMS & royal cookie auto) spray the foliage couple times a day. YouTube has plenty of examples. Cheap n quickquick!!!

Most manufacturers will have printed feed scheduals. They will normally respond to email enquires directly as well.
You can buy R.O. h20 filter and dilute feeds in 1/2 tap and 1/2 R.O. save buying cal/mag (depending on the ppms in your geographocal region) ppm and pH meters came in handy with soil plants in flower when you want to boost them +++

So im finally seeing some growth come into the wonder woman. The only difference i did was start feeding it FF Grow big, big bloom, and cal mag. Ive currently been feeding them all every other watering with the FF nutes then on the watering where i dont feed i use Cal Mag. Theyve been responding pretty well as far as growth comes.

In the pics you will see holes in my super skunk and white circles on the others that im assuming is from the organic pesticide ive been spraying with called ortho 3 in 1. They look pretty similar to the signs of mites but they didnt show up until the day after i first sprayed so im assuming thats what it is and theres none on my wonder woman plant which i didnt spray. I also have a pest strip in there as well that i read is really useful on mites.

They are all growing pretty quick and i recently LST the MK and Ak48 and they are responding pretty well. They dont look all that photogentic between the holes (which i still cant find out exactly from what, and yes i spray on lights off.) The best looking one is surprisingly the wonder woman which is the only one i havent been spraying so im thinking about not spraying anymore to see if that helps. Or if i do spray pesticide on it i might need to spray with water so it doesnt dry up on the leaves like it has been.

Also included in the pics are some lower leaves from my SS that looks exactly like the nitrogen deficiency pictured in the chart Skidmarx posted here so i appreciate that. Ive only fed them grow big about 4 times. It calls for 3 TBS and i started at 1 and was working my way up slowly and did 2 my last feed whcih was yesterdat so hopefully this helps. Only question i have is if my plant is showing deficiencies should i go ahead and bump the feeding up to what the FF chart says or should i still just ease them up there to the full 3 TBS. Ive also been working them up in the big bloom but since its organic and the NPK is so low i think i could get away with feeding the whole 6 TBS without any type of burn happening.

Also in the pictures you could see the SS has some brown tips on the top growth. My cfls is about 4 inches away so im not sure if it from light burn or what exactly it could be. Its not bad right now so i might just keep the feeding going and raise my lights a little bit and see how they react to it.

Couple of odd thoughts,:All of the rust blistrs ive had have been from over abundance not deficiency.
Silicon is apparently good for strengthening stems and is a substitute for pH Up.
I found 5" desktop fans were cheap & small enough to move around my small box.
early in grow order the cheep sheet from China you'll probably need later. Ratchet rope hangers - little hygrometer- syringes/pippettes and 5" fan.
Your ladies are shaping up lovely, enjoy!

All plants are alive and well. My master kush though however is having some weird growth on the top newer growth. Ive looked into it and its looking like the symptoms of a calmag deficiency but i have been feeding cal mag so i am not too sure. The leaves are wilting up and are super rough and dry whenever i touch them. I was thinking it could be light burn so i moved the lights up a little bit which hasnt seemed to help. Ive started to feed cal mag every watering hoping to help. It sucks because its doing it to the growth where i was trying to train more tops into it through LST and its slowing it down significantly. I hope the pics are quality enough to see the problem. Will have a full update in a few weeks when growth is more noticeable.