First grow. www.marijuana-seeds.nl Northern Lights. 2 X 400w HPS

This is my very first grow!!!

The room I'm using is 6.5' x 4' with an 80 inch ceiling. I painted the walls, ceiling and floor with flat, brilliant white ceiling paint. I stapled plastic sheeting to the floor instead of buying saucers. I will use saucers or something comparable if I have to flush the plants.

Seeds:
-30 Northern Lights seeds purchased from www.marijuana-seeds.nl (non-feminized)

Lights:
-Two Sunlight Supply Sun System 2 400 watt HPS reflectors with built in ballasts (air cooled)
-Eye Hortilux Super HPS EN bulbs

Growing medium (percentages are approximations):
-52% Premier Pro-Mix BX w/Mycorise
-42% Fox Farm Ocean Forest
-6% Perlite

Nutrients:
-Fox Farm Grow Big, Big Bloom, and Tiger Bloom
-Sunleaves Indonesian Bat Guano



October 2nd:
I germinated all 30 seeds using the paper towel method with distilled water.

October 4th (Day 1):
All 30 seeds germinated but I only had 26 pots. I wet the soil with plain distilled water (no nutrients added) and planted 26 germinated seeds. I will leave the plants in the dark until they break the soil.

I have a couple of questions:
-About how long will it take for the plants to break the soil?
-How far should the lights be from the plants when they do break the soil?


I will post updates at least once a week. Comments/advice/questions/answers are all welcome. Thank you.

October 7th (Day 4):
I wasn't able to check the plants until today and it is looking bad. The plants are tall (about 1.5 - 2 inches) and skinny. The leaves are yellow and the stems are white. I turned the lights on 18/6. I hope that the condition of the plants was caused by lack of light and will soon be improved. I couldn't post any pics today but will soon. If you have any information about the sickly plants, please post it. Thank you.

October 8th (Day 5):
The plants are looking much better besides the fact that they are too tall and leaning. Two seeds never sprouted and one looks like it is dying. Another one was so tall that it fell over. I put some extra dirt around its base for now, but tomorrow I plan on putting more dirt in all of the pots and tying them to something supportive. Do you think this is a good idea? Any advice? Most of the plants look like this:

aa614 said:

October 8th (Day 5):
The plants are looking much better besides the fact that they are too tall and leaning. Two seeds never sprouted and one looks like it is dying. Another one was so tall that it fell over. I put some extra dirt around its base for now, but tomorrow I plan on putting more dirt in all of the pots and tying them to something supportive. Do you think this is a good idea? Any advice? Most of the plants look like this:

Click to expand...

Supporting them? Olny if they are leaning, and it makes me think that your lights arent close enough. Bring your lights closer to yhe seedlings but make sure they are not too close! ive never used HPS/MH but i know they get very hot, so watch not to burn them! Also im pretty sure that adding some soil to the pots would be a good thing, since from what i understang the Marijuana plant will root anywhere that it is touching soil or any dark humid place (thus the ability to clone)

GL and subbed, I just got 5 Northern Lights femmed and a LA Woman from the same bank this morning!

October 11th (Day 8 ):
The plants look much better now. I removed the one that looked like it was dead. I also added more soil to all of the pots and put the two oscillating fans in the room. None of them are leaning anymore and they all seem healthy. I didn't have to support them, the extra soil worked fine. Here's what they look like (comments/advice appreciated):

looks like u saved em nice 1 . they a bit stretched but well on the way m8. gd luck.

October 14th (Day 11):
The plants are getting bigger and look normal from what I've seen here on RIU. Since this is my first grow, I have no point of reference to compare them to. I notice that there is some space in between the first leaves that sprouted and the first true leaves. Is this what is referred to as stretching? If so, how bad is the one pictured below? The picture is a pretty good representation of the rest of the plants. Some have more space, and some have less. Any comments on how it looks? Is it growing slow, fast, average? Does it look healthy? I lowered the lights from 19" to 16" above the top of the plants. Is this a good height?

Looks solid so far! They grow quick, so get ready!

scribed

October 16th (Day 13):
The plants are getting bigger. Do they look healthy? Below are pictures of my smallest (first three pics) and biggest (last three pics) plants:

they look gd m8, boy r you gunna have a handful there in a few weeks, nice 1. did u say u had a little fan in there as well?. nice big pots , i take it they the final resting place? i do the same so i dont have to transplant, but slows initial grwth as the roots take time to fill out to the side. saves hassle later though. scribed 2 this grw,

October 20th (Day 17):
The plants look pretty good. They are really growing. The only thing I'm upset about is the discrepency in phenotypes. Some are short and tight, some are taller and stretched; some have broad leaves and some have skinny ones. Is this common with Northern Lights or is it more likely because I bought them from a cheap seedbank? I move them to different spots each time I water them to avoid one getting more or less light/air than another. Below are pictures of my smallest (first three pics) and biggest (last three pics) plants. The pictures were taken right before I watered them. How tall should they be when I turn the lights to 12/12 if I want them to finish at 3.5 - 4 feet tall? Is 12 inches good?

id say 18" cos its a indica so wont go 2 mad during flowering, i flowered cheese at 12" and they only 2 1/2 ft 5 weeks in . also flowered an alaskan ice at 12" ended up with 5 ft plant lol but she haze dominant

October 24th (Day 21):
Most of the plants look healthy but a few have slightly curled margins and a few look kind of crooked. One plant's stem is very loose in the soil--I think I may have knocked into the plant the last time I watered them--and looks like it is dying. The stem is very thick and healthy, it is just very loose in the soil and leans very easily. I am going to try and nurse it back to health, but it looks like I may lose it. They are beginning to smell a little. The shortest plant is about 5" and the tallest is about 10". The tallest one is the one that looks like it's dying; the next tallest one is about 8". Here is a picture of an average plant. Notice how one side looks higher than the other. Any comments or advice?

are you over watering?

Your gonna need a little more light than 2 400`s for 26 plants. Your ok now. You may want to add acouple 600`s at least. Good luck!!!

2 400's would be perfectly fine for 26 plants considering their relative size and the growing technique...... I am starting to lean more and more towards the FIM and lolli combined method