First grow - banging my head off the wall

First of all I wanted to say hi to everyone
I've been cruising around for few days and I must say that I'm impressed with the positive vibrations.

I'm sorry for the poor quality of photos, but my cell phone is all I've got and its not going to change for a while.

Let's get it started then.

I went into few shops and equipped myself with stuff I thought would be handy... I bought some good stuff and some useless junk (but we'll get to that later).
Basically this is most of the stuff I started with:


Add to it a tube of silicone I already had. The silicone was actually useless and in my case it was a waste of time.

This is meant to be aero and I tried to get fancy on the subject. The idea was to create 2 "sub-reservoirs" that would concentrate the bubble flow in two different areas of main reservoir. I had to drop the concept because silicone was not sticking to the platic. Anyway, here is a picture when I still didn't realize that it will not work...


So the air stones felt off. I could try with different glue but it turned out that the "sub-reservoir" boxes were a bit too big to easily fit into main one, so I just dropped the idea.

I couldn't find those fancy cups with holes in their sides, so I improvised a bit. Here is my "fancy" design cup with volcanic filling in it.


As you can see, the volcanic filling is not to the top because at the top I've put... actually I'm not sure what's the name of it. Is it rock wool? I'm really confused about the names in general.

So, this is how completed cup looks like




I modified the reservoir a bit, so it includes a REALLY LOW COST TERMOMETHER and a pipe that will indicate the water level inside the res.


In the meantime the seeds were working their way.
First I kept them in a ~6 ph water for 12 hours, then moved to a moist paper towel put between 2 plates.

It seemed to work and this was the result after 2 days total (awful quality... sorry )




So the growing part of the seed is really white and a it grew a bit faster then expected. I planned on moving them earlier, but some drinks were involved and I decided to keep them 12hrs more in the towels. Above photo is demonstrating their state just before moving to the cups.

I kept the rock wool (let's stick to this name until someone corrects me) in water for over 24hrs so hopefully it got prepared for seedlings.

After moving the seeds into cups I kept them in open at moderate sun for 12hrs. I covered the seeds with some volcanic stuff so they were not in the open and poured some water over the rock wool.

Today I tried painting the reservoirs box white, but it also didn't work. Wrong paint and even with 4 layers of it it still lets light through. I'll probably just use the tin foil.
This is how it looks like now:


At first I tried to connect the lamps with the light switch, but it turned out I bought some weird stuff that wasn't really a switch. Although, I managed to find the electric device that will turn the light on / off so the switch isn't required anymore.

Above picture has only one lamp, but there is another one I took off for the picture. One is 2700k warm light and second one is 6500k cold light. Hopefully they give a good mixture for the beginning.

Next I want to finish off with the reservoir and think of a way to isolate the grow closet.

Any tips on "do it yourself" and general growing are welcome
Remember that I'm trying to keep it low cost and fun way.

hmmm, interesting setup u got goin here, ill be curious to see more...duct tape fixes everything.

nice job your on your way ! and if i was you ill put a plastic cup on thos babys cuz the love the Humidity

first picture is what we call Rockwool
the others is my babys im going Hydro ( ebb and flow setup)
Good luck

sllik thanks for clarification and the tip

Day 4
So, the girls seem to like the rockwool and they fight their way out of the cups.
Today I worked a bit at their room, painting the wall to white and attaching some tin foil to one side. I still need to think of a way to seal the box, but I guess I have still at least a month to get this done.

I covered them with plastic cups and finally mounted the reservoir (still without water in it).

Now it looks like this:


I read somewhere that at this stage plant does not want too much light so the bulbs are a bit distant from the cups. Above the lights there are 2 reflective screens made from tin foil.

As you can see I'm mixing the light at this moment. When the plants will have few leaves I want to switch to both bulbs cold light.

I'm watering them very cautiously, but I want the girls to feel the humidity.

I bought some kind of universal fertilizer with nutrients and was wondering when and how to use it. It's fluid so I guess I'll not have many problems with applying it to the res, but I wonder when can I start applying it. I guess it's too soon now, but the question is when is the right time?
Fertilizer has lots of different stuff in it, including nitrogen, phosphor, potassium and some nutrients like B, Cu, Fe, Mn, Mo, Zn.

My biggest concern now is if the ladies will be bothered by the smell of paint... I ventilated the closet for few good hours, and the paint is dry, but I can smell it a little.. We'll see.

Quick update:
It seems that tomorrow girls should loose their seed shelves. If they don't I'll help them a little

Even with my tiny bulbs they seem to grow very fast.

The CFL light will do them good right now, 2 inches from the canopy is a good rule of thumb for distance...looks great though

you're doing pretty well but you could improve your lghting setup

1. toss the aluminum foil - it burns the plant - and paint everything white or get mylar

2. lower your lights. they are not going to burn the plants and the plants are going to stretch too much if you don't.

3. you will need to add more light as you go along. by the time you're flowering, you should have 75 actual watts of cfl per square ft of growing area.

Good start.iwould get the tin foil out of there It will cause spot burn on the plants. No nutes untill you your babies r showing good sight of growth. you might want to take the tape off the air stone more bubbles the better. You might want to cover the the res so no light gets in there roots low darkness. I would suggest more lighting they love the light more the better. you can keep them high not too high becauseyou want some stretch but not to much. GL keep us poted

Thanks a lot guys!!! I was counting on that kind of advice

I'm not sure what mylar is, but I'll get it all white. I didn't want to paint the closet, but I'll think of something tomorrow. Do you think I should also get rid of tin foil reflecting the light above the bulbs? The problem will be reservoir since it also is foiled... I need to find some white tape or something like that, because painting everything now might be a bit problematic.

Hmm, as I'm growing only these two girls and I would say that each would take 1 square foot then I should be fine with bulbs I already have. Since each is actual 75W. Am I right?

Anyway since the light's position is fixed, I'll get the res up

Thanks for the advice on nutrients koolhand I was tempted to start using them right away.
The tape was on air stones just for the time to glue them. I wouldn't start with that tape in my reservoir Anyway, now the air stones will just lay on the bottom since the silicone didn't do any good at trying attach anything to this plastic. The res i covered pretty well, check out previous picture demonstrating how the setup looks like now. At the beginning I was just working with it.

BTW - they just got named by my wife. Prepare for Thelma and Luise

Again, thanks for all the input

kanshi said:

Since each is actual 75W. Am I right?

Click to expand...

you're good to go.

thanks for taking the time to write this journal. It's great to watch and learn with you! Looking forward to more. Mylar looks a lot like tin foil but its doesn't produce the hotspots that the others were telling you about. It's what koolhand has. I have a type of mylar insulation board lining my cab, it's like this

Mylar Faced Foam Sound/Heat Insulation with Vinyl Lining : JC Whitney: Auto Parts & Accessories

Anyway thanks again! GL

Thanks rollwithit I hope that my grow journal will be more useful in the future

Day 5
Lots of work. LOTS! As some of you suggested I got rid of the tin foil. I found something that will fill foil's place perfectly. Don't know the name of the stuff but you'll see what I mean on the pictures.

Basically I redid everything. Starting from the reservoir, through lights placement and ending with the grow closet.

Check out the pictures and tell me what do you think of it now.

New reservoir packing:




New closet setup:




Tomorrow I want to check if the reservoir doesn't leak water. I'll hate it if it does, but nevertheless worth checking

If it doesn't leak I want to start bubbling. Do you guys think it's a good idea or should I still wait a while before adding the water to the reservoir?

Also how much water should I put into the res? To max?

Hey man, looks good!! dont fill it to the max! Just under the bottom of the cups about 1/2 inch away I think! But someone else should chime in if I'm wrong. That where I keep mine at. Also more lights, and closer to your girls, that should be number one priority. and more posts and more pics lol- love to see your progress!

rollwithit said:

Hey man, looks good!! dont fill it to the max! Just under the bottom of the cups about 1/2 inch away I think! But someone else should chime in if I'm wrong. That where I keep mine at. Also more lights, and closer to your girls, that should be number one priority. and more posts and more pics lol- love to see your progress!

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very good Roll. Dude you cab looks sweet I love it. you might want to get 2 y sockets so you can add 2 more lights. Those Cfl's that you claim to b 75 watts aren't. They are acutally what ever wattage they really r. If there 20 then there 20. I would go 42 watt 6500 lumensifyou can find them. I have 2 42 2400 muneas and 5 26watt 1700 lumeans a piece. So I acutally have 294 watts of pure cfl power. lol for2 plants Yes bubble now keep the water right underneath the cups so the bubbles can splash the rocks and rockwool. Wait till your third set of leaves before nutes. You really should makesure you have hydro nutes.

Day 6
Almost a week and so many changes done to my initial plan... Oh well, I guess it's good to be here
Message to all first time growers -> keep your options open because you never know what you missed and what you'll have to change.

So, a general info what's going on with my ladies now.

Number of plants: 2
Strain data: Psicodelicia
Indica / Sativa: 30%/70%
THC: 15-20%
CBD: 0.9%
CBN: 0,5%
Seeds are feminized.

1. Started bubbling. I'm bubbling with 2 most lengthy (approx 8 cm) air stones I could find. This way I'm sure I don't miss the cups and I make as much bubbles as possible. I peaked into the res and it looks like the water is boiling.

2. Light. I guess that I misunderstood the rat with regards to "actual" word. Actual means not the "resulting in comparison to regular bulbs" but the real value of the consumed watts but the cfl. Thanks koolhand for clearing this up. I guess I'll get some more bulbs in few days. Hopefully delay will not influence my grow that much now. At the moment I have 2x15W CFLs that pretend to be 2x75W regular bulbs. Both are 6500K.

3. Timing. I didn't write about this before, but I'm giving the girls 19hrs of light and 5hrs of sleep. I'm not sure if the bubbles should be on all the time. I will keep bubbling all the time, but if somebody can confirm or correct this I'd be grateful.

4. Positioning. Keep the girls as close to the light as possible. I know, I know. But this is very hard to do if you have your lights position fixed. Anyway, I think I did good this time. Since I've got those plastic cups on them (to increase the humidity) I also need to balance the distance so the cups don't melt.

5. Reservoir. The water level in the res is almost to the maximum level (~2 cm below the top of the reservoir).
It's filled with clean water ph 6. I managed to find a bottled water that is constant on the ph and is also good on the price (still its not that distilled shit water) Hopefully I will not have to deal with the ph until using nutrients (do they change the ph of the water? I guess yes.). When the ph changes I plan on fighting it with soda and vinegar This is supposed to be low cost growing not professional

Size of the res is 12 liters of water.

Picture of the current situation




Closeups on girls

Thelma:



Luise:


as you can see I covered the rock wool with volcanic filling. I think it looks much better now and will increase the humidity inside the cups (hopefully).

I didn't write any temperatures yet because the reservoir didn't have time to warm up. We'll see about it in 24 hrs along with the pH check.

you covered up your air stones with tape? thats going to cause some problems. i suggest inducing the photoperiod early if your using CFL's all the way....

Nonono, the tape was only to keep them in place while glueing them to the bottom of the res. There are no tapes on the airstones.

What do you mean by "inducing the photoperiod"? Could you please clarify that?

you mentioned you filled you res all the way up. no good your going to cause root rot in the rockwool as it will only absorb so much water. You want a splash affect to happend so the roots will draw toward the water. This is real important. put books or somthing under the res to bring up to the light.

So I should lower the water level below the cup? I've got like 1 inch of rockwool and volcanic filling below it. So the water level should be lower then the cup's bottom? Or just lower then the rock wool?


I'm sorry but I'm not a native english speaker and this is probably causing my confusion

kanshi said:

So I should lower the water level below the cup? I've got like 1 inch of rockwool and volcanic filling below it. So the water level should be lower then the cup's bottom? Or just lower then the rock wool?


I'm sorry but I'm not a native english speaker and this is probably causing my confusion

Click to expand...

Yes the water should be below the cup about 1/2 inch or so the bubbles splash water on your lava rock and the rockwool will draw what it needs for the seed.