good or bad? advice? ...pics...

skippy1

skippy1

Well-Known Member
Hi, super new! 8 days above ground, Scots top soil, no fertilizer. I'm trying not to over water, I might be though. When I water them every 3 days, the water seems to flow through real quick like a bunny. Distilled water with a 6.5 ph. 600w mh conversion that I just lowered to 24". Temp with fan at tops is 77 ish humidity is 65 ish. How do they look for 8 days? One is starting its 3rd set of leaves before the second have grown out all the way. Any advice or recomendations? There is sooooo much info online, but some real growers looking at my crappy pics and advising me might ease my worries. Just seems like they shot up quick and now are just chillaxin on me. Thanks for any help, a lot of good info on these pages...
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skippy1

skippy1

Well-Known Member
Jypsy Dog said:
Learn how to water by weight, not date. MH is a bit of over kill. You can do starts under CFL's or T-5's Saves on power and heat. Good Luck and remember.. "Love Kills" don't love them too much.
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I'm trying to learn the weight thing. This morning before work, they still seemed a bit heavy compared to my dried out cup. Felt like a heavy ball in the center, so I'll wait until tomorrow. I just worry about the tops, they seem to dry out real fast. My local hydro shop is 45 mins away, and they seem to just want my money and not very helpful. Told the guy I was started 12, but only 6 are for me. He sent me home with one cfl bulb for 12 plants. Next go around I will order some t5s of the interwebs for sure. Thank you for your advice man!
 
chemphlegm

chemphlegm

Well-Known Member
put the dry dirt cup on a frikken scale if you have to right? geesh, tip it, rock it, lift it dry. note the weight? now add,
1/4th the volume of the soil , water. dont water again until the weight is near dry, or if your plant begins to droop and the cup is dry=time to water. try to water before she droops though
 
skippy1

skippy1

Well-Known Member
chemphlegm said:
put the dry dirt cup on a frikken scale if you have to right? geesh, tip it, rock it, lift it dry. note the weight? now add,
1/4th the volume of the soil , water. dont water again until the weight is near dry, or if your plant begins to droop and the cup is dry=time to water. try to water before she droops though
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Thank you for your advice. I did weigh my dried out cup, but have no clue if it's too dry since there is no plant in it. Not sure I follow the add 1/4 volume of the soil? Sorry, that just doesn't make sense to me.
 
chemphlegm

chemphlegm

Well-Known Member
1)fill cup with dry dirt
2)weigh it, with your hand, your scale, whatever. don t let anyone see you using a scale to do this though
3) now determine the volume of your dirt filled cup,
if your container is one gallon you would add 1/4 th of that volume in water=1 quart
3)dump that quart of water into the dry one gallon container and weigh it again, feel it? feel the difference in weight?
when it feels like # 2 again, go to # 3

good?

the weight of a seedling is insignificant to this lesson
 
skippy1

skippy1

Well-Known Member
chemphlegm said:
1)fill cup with dry dirt
2)weigh it, with your hand, your scale, whatever. don t let anyone see you using a scale to do this though
3) now determine the volume of your dirt filled cup,
if your container is one gallon you would add 1/4 th of that volume in water=1 quart
3)dump that quart of water into the dry one gallon container and weigh it again, feel it? feel the difference in weight?
when it feels like # 2 again, go to # 3

good?

the weight of a seedling is insignificant to this lesson
Click to expand...
Yes, I'm tracking you now. Thank you. That's a lot better than me just waiting for them to show signs of needing water.
 
Walter9999

Walter9999

Well-Known Member
It's also a good idea to pack/tuck the dirt around the edges prior to watering...you should do this no matter what size pot you're using...if you're not doing this the water hits the edge and runs down the outside edge of the pot and right out the bottom...g/l
 
skippy1

skippy1

Well-Known Member
Walter9999 said:
It's also a good idea to pack/tuck the dirt around the edges prior to watering...you should do this no matter what size pot you're using...if you're not doing this the water hits the edge and runs down the outside edge of the pot and right out the bottom...g/l
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I just did that, thank you for the tip. I'm thinking the water running out quickly earlier saved me from over watering them. Thanks again man!
 
Buba Blend

Buba Blend

Well-Known Member
skippy1 said:
Hi, super new! 8 days above ground, Scots top soil, no fertilizer. I'm trying not to over water, I might be though. When I water them every 3 days, the water seems to flow through real quick like a bunny. Distilled water with a 6.5 ph. 600w mh conversion that I just lowered to 24". Temp with fan at tops is 77 ish humidity is 65 ish. How do they look for 8 days? One is starting its 3rd set of leaves before the second have grown out all the way. Any advice or recomendations? There is sooooo much info online, but some real growers looking at my crappy pics and advising me might ease my worries. Just seems like they shot up quick and now are just chillaxin on me. Thanks for any help, a lot of good info on these pages...
View attachment 3984328 View attachment 3984329 View attachment 3984329 View attachment 3984328 View attachment 3984328 View attachment 3984329
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I use 600W MH for seedlings. I prefer to start it out 36" away for seedlings then slowly bring it closer over the next 5 to 7 days till it's at 24".
 
Jypsy Dog

Jypsy Dog

Well-Known Member
skippy1 said:
Pretty much what I did too. Seems to work well. I'm going t5s next time just to conserve electricity.
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CFL and T5 bulbs are much cheaper than your MH. You need to replace the MH after so many hours to have them be effective.
 
skippy1

skippy1

Well-Known Member
Jypsy Dog said:
CFL and T5 bulbs are much cheaper than your MH. You need to replace the MH after so many hours to have them be effective.
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I was wondering about that and if being a 600 conversion bulb makes that worse. I have a light meter I'm going to set up sometime and document when it starts losing lumens. I seriously doubt the life expectancy on the box. Thanks for the tip my friend.
 
chemphlegm

chemphlegm

Well-Known Member
Jypsy Dog said:
CFL and T5 bulbs are much cheaper than your MH. You need to replace the MH after so many hours to have them be effective.
Click to expand...
ok, so my mh bulb is really old, 24/7 for a couple few years till I went t5ho. @MichiganMedGrower shamed me into changing them.
While waiting for my new bulbs to arrive(at post office now) I turned on my mh 400 watt and my meter said it blew away my t5ho, the current old worn out @MichiganMedGrower shamed ones. so I dont know how many years a mh lasts but its still more light than the t5ho roughly same age, albeit a few years less use.

I veg with t5 ho, prolly will always. cheap, cool long lasting, no expensive ballasts, cheap bulbs, nice coverage for my space. even my old ones grew marijuanas fine I thought......till , well, you know...
 
MichiganMedGrower

MichiganMedGrower

Well-Known Member
chemphlegm said:
ok, so my mh bulb is really old, 24/7 for a couple few years till I went t5ho. @MichiganMedGrower shamed me into changing them.
While waiting for my new bulbs to arrive(at post office now) I turned on my mh 400 watt and my meter said it blew away my t5ho, the current old worn out @MichiganMedGrower shamed ones. so I dont know how many years a mh lasts but its still more light than the t5ho roughly same age, albeit a few years less use.

I veg with t5 ho, prolly will always. cheap, cool long lasting, no expensive ballasts, cheap bulbs, nice coverage for my space. even my old ones grew marijuanas fine I thought......till , well, you know...
Click to expand...

Stop saying that! Lol

And just to add. Of course a MH of any age will blow a t-5 away.......in lumens.

Even my 400w mh is 2x as powerful on my cheap lumen meter as a bunch of t-5 bulbs.

However. The phosphors and the gasses responsible for the usable plant light spectrums degrade over time. Very quickly degrading with metal halide lamps. As soon as 6 months at 18-24 hrs they will show quite a loss in par.

And t-5 bulbs take 18 months to 2 years to start showing this as they burn with lower intensity.

Also I like my t-5 veg tent but I like to keep plants short. For taller than 2 foot plants I would want mh in there. Or hps.
 
MichiganMedGrower

MichiganMedGrower

Well-Known Member
Buba Blend said:
I have my grow so dialed in with the mh and hps during veg I'm stubborn about switching to t5's. Old school.
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You would notice a loss in growth anyway. I use them because they help slow down my veg so my plants don't stack up waiting for a spot in my flower room.

They veg fine. Pants grow well. But they are not better than hid in any way. And they are surely slower.

Not even cooler watt for watt really. Never understood why people think one light is so much cooler watt for watt. They are all close despite efficiency.

And here's a fun fact. Plants transfer their photosynthesis to the strongest available spectrum they can use.

That's why HPS is still king of growth. The strong red spike it has. And the higher intensity it rains photons down with.

I have removed the fuller spectrum lamps from my flower room and put the super hps's back in to see if there really is such a difference as I thought.
 
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