potlover62
Active Member
I felt like this would be the best forum in which to post this question. I'm posting it both because I would like to avoid pitfalls others have encountered while growing and also so I can share a few big newbie mistakes I've made so that others can avoid them. So, to start things off, let me mention a few of my big newbie mistakes:
1 - Feeding new cuttings when trying to root them. What I discovered is that to get good healthy roots fast you need to have a very weak nutrient solution - even tap water will work fine, as long as it is properly ph'd (I did use rooting hormone). My plants were very strange. They didn't grow much at all and they were very green and healthy looking, but all they had for roots were these tiny white nodule looking things that were apparently able to absorb enough nutrients to support what little vegetative matter was present, but not enough to provide growth. I could be wrong about my interpretation (I'm no expert by any means and I welcome any constructive correction). I'm just sharing my experience. Anyway, I got vitually no root runners until I started over and left out the nutrients and just properly ph'd the water to about 5.8.
2 - Letting light get to my roots. In an effort to save money, I decided to build my own flood and drain hydroponic system and used totes from Walmart with white lids (thinking the white would be good for the plants, but ignoring that it would be terrible at keeping light from the roots). I even went so far as to spray paint the sides of the totes black to keep out the light (but, not all of it, anyway), but I ignored the light going through the top. That was really stupid on my part and I paid dearly for it. I lost an entire crop four weeks into flowering when the roots got root rot from being light poisoned. Those plants were beautiful, too.
I compounded the mistake by not using hydroton or other inert media to protect the roots - the roots were just dangling in the totes and fully exposed to all the light getting through that white top. I solved that problem by wrapping the totes in a double thickness of black duct tape from Home Depot and covered the tops in one layer of black duct tape and one layer of white duct tape to block the light getting to the roots. This worked great. But, it was still a painful lesson to learn - so, don't ignore this one.
3 - Trying to grow too many plants in too small of a space. In looking at all the DWC (deep water culture) hydroponic systems on ebay I noticed that most of the smaller "personal" "beginner" type systems had six to eight plant spots in their tops - so, that is what I built into mine. But, of course, not knowing the growing characteristics of MJ, I thought I could cram all eight plants into one side of this 4 foot wide by six foot tall by 21 inch deep cabinet with a shelf in the top that I would use for cloning and seedlings and two spaces below that were about four feet high and 22 inches wide by 20 inches deep for growing the plants (comical, I know). And, it really did get ridiculous. The plants were bursting out of that little box at the top and bottom - and, all of it was this stringy stuff with little leaves and no strength to the stems, not to mention they were dying off because the bottoms were light starved. It was pathetic. So, don't go into this thinking you're going to grow eight plants out to harvest in a little tote with eight holes in the top - unless, you're an expert at Bonsai methods and would be satisfied with a quarter ounce of smoke for your efforts.
4 - Trying to flower under too little light. Again, to save money, I bought LED grow lights (at a higher price) to save money on electricity. And, they worked great for cloning and vegetating the plants, as long as I used at least the 40w to 50w rated panels (which are really about 30-35 watts draw from the wall each and the smaller 13w panels are garbage - period). But, they just aren't suitable for flowering ( at least, not the dual band 55w panels I used (112 0.5w LEDs in 5 x 0.1W modules with lenses over them). I love the LED lights for vegging and I would like to try the newer generation LED grow lights for flowering someday - but, the ones I used were just too weak, or had an incomplete spectrum, or something. They just didn't produce much weight - little wispy buds that were disappointing in size, even if they were still plenty potent (but, had a terrible taste because I didn't flush properly).
5 - Not flushing properly. The temptation was too great for this newbie to resist keeping my plants on full nutes till harvest (hoping to maximize yield). I won't do that, again. What I got tasted terrible, it was difficult to stay lit, sent out little sparks, left black ashes, and caused me to cough up black phlegm the next day - nasty. But, it still got me high, so I suffered through it and smoked that crap. Now, I flush for at least a week before harvest and get much better results. Whether, or not, I got a little more weight for having pushed the plants with nutes till the end was a question that no longer mattered, once I smoked the final product. That stuff hardly even tasted like weed.
6 - Using unsulphured blackstrap molasses in a flood and drain system. I had read in a number of places online where people had used molasses in their grows with good success; so, I decided to give it a try, using the recommended 1 to 2 tablespoons per gallon of nutrients. BIG MISTAKE!!! DO NOT DO THIS WITH HYDROPONICS! It may work great in soil, with the intended benefits; but, in hydroponics, it just ruins everything. It coats the roots with molasses so they can't breathe - and then, of course, they DIE!
I discovered my mistake a few days after dumping that goo into my reservoir, when I read an account from someone else who had made the same mistake, but I had yet to see the deleterious results. So, there it was almost midnight and I was faced with having to immediately tear everything down, clean all the roots on all the plants, clean all the growing trays and the reservoir and sanitize everything before I could go to bed.
But, that wasn't the end of the trauma to me or the plants. The plants' roots had been badly damaged and were already pretty much dead, so the plants started to drop leaves. I pre-emptively pruned back a good bit of the vegetation off the plants to lessen the strain on what little living roots were left. Then, one by one, I slathered rooting gel over the roots at the base. Then, I took some of the rooting gel and mixed it with water till it was more like glycerin, then poured that mixture directly at the base of the stems. And, I also mixed a very weak solution of nutrients and began foliar feeding. After a couple of weeks, the roots were beginning to grow out nicely; but, this ordeal cost me about a month for the plants to recover fully, and it was a pain to deal with from start to finish - so, don't try the molasses in hydro.
Now, guys, it's your turn - help me to avoid making more stupid mistakes. Thanks.
1 - Feeding new cuttings when trying to root them. What I discovered is that to get good healthy roots fast you need to have a very weak nutrient solution - even tap water will work fine, as long as it is properly ph'd (I did use rooting hormone). My plants were very strange. They didn't grow much at all and they were very green and healthy looking, but all they had for roots were these tiny white nodule looking things that were apparently able to absorb enough nutrients to support what little vegetative matter was present, but not enough to provide growth. I could be wrong about my interpretation (I'm no expert by any means and I welcome any constructive correction). I'm just sharing my experience. Anyway, I got vitually no root runners until I started over and left out the nutrients and just properly ph'd the water to about 5.8.
2 - Letting light get to my roots. In an effort to save money, I decided to build my own flood and drain hydroponic system and used totes from Walmart with white lids (thinking the white would be good for the plants, but ignoring that it would be terrible at keeping light from the roots). I even went so far as to spray paint the sides of the totes black to keep out the light (but, not all of it, anyway), but I ignored the light going through the top. That was really stupid on my part and I paid dearly for it. I lost an entire crop four weeks into flowering when the roots got root rot from being light poisoned. Those plants were beautiful, too.
I compounded the mistake by not using hydroton or other inert media to protect the roots - the roots were just dangling in the totes and fully exposed to all the light getting through that white top. I solved that problem by wrapping the totes in a double thickness of black duct tape from Home Depot and covered the tops in one layer of black duct tape and one layer of white duct tape to block the light getting to the roots. This worked great. But, it was still a painful lesson to learn - so, don't ignore this one.
3 - Trying to grow too many plants in too small of a space. In looking at all the DWC (deep water culture) hydroponic systems on ebay I noticed that most of the smaller "personal" "beginner" type systems had six to eight plant spots in their tops - so, that is what I built into mine. But, of course, not knowing the growing characteristics of MJ, I thought I could cram all eight plants into one side of this 4 foot wide by six foot tall by 21 inch deep cabinet with a shelf in the top that I would use for cloning and seedlings and two spaces below that were about four feet high and 22 inches wide by 20 inches deep for growing the plants (comical, I know). And, it really did get ridiculous. The plants were bursting out of that little box at the top and bottom - and, all of it was this stringy stuff with little leaves and no strength to the stems, not to mention they were dying off because the bottoms were light starved. It was pathetic. So, don't go into this thinking you're going to grow eight plants out to harvest in a little tote with eight holes in the top - unless, you're an expert at Bonsai methods and would be satisfied with a quarter ounce of smoke for your efforts.
4 - Trying to flower under too little light. Again, to save money, I bought LED grow lights (at a higher price) to save money on electricity. And, they worked great for cloning and vegetating the plants, as long as I used at least the 40w to 50w rated panels (which are really about 30-35 watts draw from the wall each and the smaller 13w panels are garbage - period). But, they just aren't suitable for flowering ( at least, not the dual band 55w panels I used (112 0.5w LEDs in 5 x 0.1W modules with lenses over them). I love the LED lights for vegging and I would like to try the newer generation LED grow lights for flowering someday - but, the ones I used were just too weak, or had an incomplete spectrum, or something. They just didn't produce much weight - little wispy buds that were disappointing in size, even if they were still plenty potent (but, had a terrible taste because I didn't flush properly).
5 - Not flushing properly. The temptation was too great for this newbie to resist keeping my plants on full nutes till harvest (hoping to maximize yield). I won't do that, again. What I got tasted terrible, it was difficult to stay lit, sent out little sparks, left black ashes, and caused me to cough up black phlegm the next day - nasty. But, it still got me high, so I suffered through it and smoked that crap. Now, I flush for at least a week before harvest and get much better results. Whether, or not, I got a little more weight for having pushed the plants with nutes till the end was a question that no longer mattered, once I smoked the final product. That stuff hardly even tasted like weed.
6 - Using unsulphured blackstrap molasses in a flood and drain system. I had read in a number of places online where people had used molasses in their grows with good success; so, I decided to give it a try, using the recommended 1 to 2 tablespoons per gallon of nutrients. BIG MISTAKE!!! DO NOT DO THIS WITH HYDROPONICS! It may work great in soil, with the intended benefits; but, in hydroponics, it just ruins everything. It coats the roots with molasses so they can't breathe - and then, of course, they DIE!
I discovered my mistake a few days after dumping that goo into my reservoir, when I read an account from someone else who had made the same mistake, but I had yet to see the deleterious results. So, there it was almost midnight and I was faced with having to immediately tear everything down, clean all the roots on all the plants, clean all the growing trays and the reservoir and sanitize everything before I could go to bed.
But, that wasn't the end of the trauma to me or the plants. The plants' roots had been badly damaged and were already pretty much dead, so the plants started to drop leaves. I pre-emptively pruned back a good bit of the vegetation off the plants to lessen the strain on what little living roots were left. Then, one by one, I slathered rooting gel over the roots at the base. Then, I took some of the rooting gel and mixed it with water till it was more like glycerin, then poured that mixture directly at the base of the stems. And, I also mixed a very weak solution of nutrients and began foliar feeding. After a couple of weeks, the roots were beginning to grow out nicely; but, this ordeal cost me about a month for the plants to recover fully, and it was a pain to deal with from start to finish - so, don't try the molasses in hydro.
Now, guys, it's your turn - help me to avoid making more stupid mistakes. Thanks.
