Newb's Own First Grow - AK-47s

Day 10:
About out the door for a couple of days. The girls will be looked after, but I'll be on the forum while I''m out.. maybe some people can help me answer these questions in the meantime



– What could be stunting the growth (if at all)?

– Are their any good water tips for rockwool cubes (not in their hydro system yet)?

– I water about every other day making sure top is always nice and moist? This wrong?

– Any good DIYs for a hood for the 150watt HPS (on the way)??

– The inside is painted a semi-gloss light mint green, do I need more reflection?

Now that I have racked your brains, thanks!!

leggoeggo said:

Day 10: To compensate for my one 42 watter going out, and to have even lighting, I now have 2 42s and 4 23s until my HPS comes UPS. My HPS should be here tomorrow, but I'm going out of town today for a couple days (the girls will be looked on)

The girls.... aren't growing much at all The temp is at a nice 77˚F, what could be wrong? I tried nutes, but after one time Lara is still recovering... Jane and Fox are doing great while Sway is slowly opening up after her late start, but has her 2nd set of leaves.

Anything I can be doing? Right now I don't have a small fan on them (thought that could wait till a bit later) But I decided to look yesterday and Wal-Mart Lowes or Home Depot all stopped selling them this time of year!!

Advice? I'd hate to trash this group my first go

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dude...im telling you man...dont put the lights so close all you need is like 4 bulb right now...and keep the lights maybe 6 inches away. at what level are you measureing the temp..hopefully in the pot...cuz if ur not i bet inside that pot is over 90

and yea....people will say keep cfls close...they all can say the same thing cuz thats the generalization that cfls arent strong enough...but in veg stage 6k color cfls are more then enough light for sprouts..i would know i grew 4 6 plants with 6 23 watt cfls and were atlease 8 inches away....and did not stretch.

JoshT said:

ha im using 200w cfls and i keep them 2 inch away first few days then under a inch dont know what ur talkin about lmao u thinking of hps? cuz cfls stay cool enough for u to touch even when they been on for weeks

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you probably mean 47 watt cfls...and i grow with cfls so i know hwat im talkin about.

leggoeggo said:

Day 10:
About out the door for a couple of days. The girls will be looked after, but I'll be on the forum while I''m out.. maybe some people can help me answer these questions in the meantime

– What could be stunting the growth (if at all)?

– Are their any good water tips for rockwool cubes (not in their hydro system yet)?

– I water about every other day making sure top is always nice and moist? This wrong?

– Any good DIYs for a hood for the 150watt HPS (on the way)??

– The inside is painted a semi-gloss light mint green, do I need more reflection?

Now that I have racked your brains, thanks!!

Click to expand...

oxygenate the water before you water the rock wool, with rock wool you dont need to water everyday....shake up the water in a bottle and water. again heat could be stuntin your plants

I would agree with YM and say it is either too hot in that pot or you are watering them too much. Roots need air as well as water. They will drown if constantly flooded. Your plants will get droopy, turn yellow, and die. YungMune and I will have to agree to disagree about the CFLs. That's fine, as long as we keep our conversation respectful and productive. No more name calling please.

I'm already missing the girls LOL.

I'm starting to think over-water may be the issue for the stunting, I'll cut back and see what happens!!

As far as heat, everything I've ready said not to put the thermometer in the pot because that'll read radiant heat (direct light), and the 65-80ish you want should be air temp, and raidant heat can be over 100 degrees (measured in the direct light)... is this wrong?

That's usually true but your plants are small and entirely within the radiant heat zone. It's not like only the top of a dense canopy is receiving heat there. And the fact that they are inside a metal pot is worrisome to me. Hot and stagnant air is a lot easier to build up in there. I use grow bags to grow in and I fold down the tops of the bags almost to soil level in order to get as much air circulation as possible. I would lose the pot, seems like a heat trap to me.

I have some AK-47 that is just now finishing. I had 2 plants and one crashed recently cause extremely unknown because the other one is like dripping it is so dank.

Basically, AK-47 (or at least what was given to me clone wise) is pretty skunky weed. I have only one plant and it is highly noticeable. I am now in the flush stage, but you can see some of the pics leading up to it in my grow journal linked on this same site here.

I have DIY pics of a pvc and flashing hood. I have since strapped a fan up in it blowing upwards against the reflector.

It clones easier now that I have some gel, but I did clone it with powder too.

Mine will finish in a couple of weeks. Maybe a third week if I find out it is like the long finish variety, which is my next quest...but 2 weeks for certainty, without question it will be getting a right and proper flush.

Good thought on the pot. I'll have my "babysitter" take it out.

And thanks KB for the hood tips! Can't wait to hook up the HPS

night 10: had "babysitter" remove the pot and put the babies in a shallow dish... Hopefully this will help any heat issues. Also had the wrap around rockwool cubes removed to help release some moisture.. Those suckers were watered pretty good.

Day: 11 no idea what they look like... Can't wait to see them. Tracked by HPS via UPS should be at by door any minute.

Sounds good. Just make sure you don't overcompensate and let them get too dry now. It's hard to keep a medium level of moisture in rockwool. That's why I like peat plugs Easiest way to measure something like that is pick up the rockwool cubes a couple times per day. Wet rockwool will have some weight to it while dry rockwool weighs almost nothing.

yea. I kept the slips for the rockwool. I heard i could go ahead and place in my DWC if water it up to the bottom of the to rockwool... Heard this? Should I?? ???

Heard the girls are ok. Though Sway and Lara have little change.

HPS is home.

day 12: Dont know much other than the rockwool is still moist after having the slips taken off. Also the baabies should have a small 7" fan on them now. Hope the get better soon!!

ok... I get to see them again tomorrow!! Im scared though, if there isn't much progress, should I start over??

Day 14:
So... I'd be lying if I said I'm happy where my girls are at. They have grown while I was gone, but not much... here's a recap...

- I have removed (but saved) the plastic wraps off of the rockwool cubes.
- They now have a 7" fan on them on low
- The big metal pot as been replaced with a shallow glass dish
- HPS has come in the mail, but not installed (today's project)

Fox and Lara are still the standouts, with both of them having roots come out the bottom of the cubes... Sway is coming slowly but surely, and Lara... well, she may have raided her last tomb :-/

So for the questions:
- Thinking about giving them one more week with the HPS to see how they do, then may start fresh, opinions??
- Should the roots be out the bottom when they're this small?
- Should I transplant to my DWC??
- If so, where should the water level be?

Thanks guys, I'll have another entry today after I set up my HPS

Any ideas????

Could I maybe trash lara and/or sway and germ two more seeds to maybe catch up with the first go-ers???

LIGHTS

So I wired my HPS to a plug, and tried to hang it sideways with two small chains (too heavy for this after all)....

Now its jsut on a stack of old phonebooks until I do soemthing right. I got this from bxke1414, but not sure if i can pull this off.

HELP. Need a simple solutions, any thoughts???

Ok Hancock is here to save the day its to hot period go back to cfls till you have the following

exhaust
and
intake

raise the cfls up vegging with hps is slowing growth I learned that the hard way especially without proper venting u will stress ur plants out right now their on their way to a nervious break down and we want to prevent that

boricuaboi said:

Ok Hancock is here to save the day its to hot period go back to cfls till you have the following

exhaust
and
intake

raise the cfls up vegging with hps is slowing growth I learned that the hard way especially without proper venting u will stress ur plants out right now their on their way to a nervious break down and we want to prevent that

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AH! When I'm on CFLs I've been told to switch to HPS for the whole growth, now vice versa

point/counterpoint??