First Timer, Advice?

Well, I've been wanting to grow for years and have read up on countless threads and books and I decided to finally give it a shot. However, I live in Japan and some of the things I need are not readily available. My current space is a 2X4X6 and I am running a 400W switchable HID with a small fan at the base to circulate the air. I've got my MH for veg and HPS for flowering. I painted everything white and got a sheet, similar to pandafilm, for the door. My goal is to have around 6-10 plants growing in the closet.

Unfortunately, it's in the dead of winter right now and the outside temperature where I live is around -15 C (5 F) but, with the light on, I am able to keep it around 28 C (about 80 F) in the closet. I got some really, really old seeds and am having some problems getting them to germinate. After about 10 days, I finally got two of them to germinate using a coffee mug with newspaper over the top. For soil, I am using a mixture of: soil, peat moss, bark and lava rock. I was able to find a fertilizer at a ratio of 10:10:10:1 (NPKMg). Japan is a very seasonal country, so, finding the things I really need for growing is a bit difficult.

Do you have any advice?

What are you growing inside of a box?

I was able to get some seeds from a friend in another city who has collected them over the years. A lot of them are very underdeveloped but I have no idea what they actually are strain wise. I have two seeds from some bud I bought a couple months ago, those are the two that have already germinated and I am going to put into soil when the taproot gets a little longer. If I had to guess for those two seeds, I would say that they're sativa due to the very cerebral high I experienced when smoking the bud.

Sorry for being a nuisance, I finally got five of my babies in soil yesterday and am hoping that they will start to break the surface in the next few days. Considering the low temperatures in my house (due to lack of proper insulation and heating), I have my 400W MH light about 3 feet above the pots. It's keeping the area warm and I am keeping the soil moist. Should I turn the light off until they sprout?

Also, after searching several stores in my local town I was unable to find any pots larger than 9 liters. I understand that these will be a little too small but I'm hoping that they will be sufficient to get a decent size yield. I'm actually not looking to harvest too much because I am moving back to America in July, so, this is more of a test grow for how I want to do things back in the States.

So, will 9 liter pots (about 24" deep) be okay? I appreciate all of the help.

Well, I am not getting much in feedback but I thought I would ask for an update. Slowly but surely all 5 seeds sprouted but I had a couple questions. One of them sprouted with two serrated leaves in addition to the usual two. I was wondering if that is normal? Also, one of the seedlings sprouted with a weird white band across the leaf. Is this normal? I'm going to try to include some pics to show my current setup and the two seedlings I am talking about...

I'd like to get the light closer; it's a 400W MH but it stays incredibly cool, to the point where I can put my hand right under the glass of the reflector without much heat. Beforehand it was about 3' above the pots and I just lowered it today. Would it be okay to drop the light even closer to speed the process? Again, any insight would be appreciated.

Well, I'm sure I am talking to myself on here but I figured I would give a quick update. As for seedlings, the one that sprouted with a band of white is filling with some color and I have hopes that it will make it further along into the veg phase. As for the others, my last seed finally broke ground and came along with two serrated leaves. Now, that leaves me with two that sprouted with four total leaves (2 serrated) and 3 that sprouted with only the two tear-shaped leaves. Those 3 have yet to form any new leaves but are stretching a bit so I lowered my light. Can anyone tell me about how long it takes for them to sprout the serrated leaves? They've been above soil for about 6 days and I can notice tiny white "leaves" that are nearing the top of the stem. I am hoping that these are them... can anyone confirm?

Looks like your soil is a little wet, try to keep it damper for seedlings or you'll overwater and they die. Not sure what the white band is on yourt leaves. Regarding your pot size, I'm using .5 gallon containers (2 litres) and i'm about to harvest so 9 litres should be adequate. I can't answer some of your questions but I'll try to answer anything else you have!

Thanks for the input! Yeah, I know the soil is a little moist. I went and bought it when my seeds were already germinating. Unfortunately, the only place I could find it was at a compost place and it was soaking wet then. I have put very little actual water into the soil and haven't watered them in awhile. As of today the top is starting to dry out a bit, enough that it is now easily crumbling in my hands. I am hoping that, with the light closer, the soil will start to dry out quicker and increase the growth rate.

I was really worried about the one with the white band just keeling over but it is pretty sturdy and, like I said, the leaf is filling in quite a bit with color. Thanks again! +1 Rep.

Yeah hopefully if you're soil gets to a point where you can start to micro-manage what you're feeding it; do you have a way to check pH, do you have nutes ready for when the plant hits flowering, and how old is your seedling now? As long as you can keep it alive you're doing fine, and it sounds like you have nice hardware to assist any first time growers-woes. How many plants are you going to have going under your 400w?

I would say that the seedlings are about 3-4 days old, varying depending on the seed. Considering the size of the pots, I am able to fit about six under the light but one of the seeds has yet to germinate. I think that one may be a dud as it's been germinating for about two weeks. But, I am perfectly okay with five plants because I am only intending to do this grow while in Japan. I'm moving back to the States in about 6 months and just wanted to get familiar with the process.

I do not have a way to check the pH other than by what the old man told me. He said that it is normally at an average 6.0 but it could fluctuate between 5.5-6.5. I think that should be okay for this grow. I do have fertilizer prepared and the local shop said they are going to start stocking more soil and fertilizer as the snow melts. Hopefully I can get one that is high in N and one that is high in P. That way I can get some good growth and flowering. But, since snow won't clear until mid-April, I just hope I can find something good for flowering.

So, 5 plants under a 400W MH for veg then HPS for flower, what are my chances of getting some females out of this bagseed? Even if I only get 1, I will consider it a success compared to how hard it was to find some quality bud that had some seeds in it. My hopes are that 3 of them will be female and that I can get a solid 20-30 grams of tight buds from the grow... I don't want my hopes to be too high.

Yeah, where I am we only got a few minor quakes, no serious damage. Well, I am actually leaving Japan at the beginning of August. Even if I have to harvest a little bit early, I am just trying to get the experience with my first grow. Mainly this is just for practice and taking notes. I am hoping to be ready to harvest by the first or second week of July.

You should easily be able to have cured bud to smoke by August if you already have seedlings. If they are sativa don't veg them 8 weeks, do 5-6 instead. You might also want to germ a few more seeds because you might have a male or 3 and you want as many females after you pull males as possible. As for the seedlings, how about a new pic, lets see how they are progressing!

As for the pH issue...that is pretty low, but you can raise the pH with some dolomitic limestone, pH up (from a growstore), or garden lime to raise pH. You're going to want to get a pH tester if you haven't already (I can't remember if you have one), and keep the pH from 6.2-7.0, usually not much higher though because it will lock out certain nutrients. All in all it's about feeding your soil to keep your plants happy, so once you can solve pH, nutrients, moisture, and bugs you will have happy big growing plants. Nutes are more important during flowering in my opinion but they are good for mid to late vegetation too.

How do you feel about your grow so far? The whole thing is really addicting once you get going, and you'll screw up a lot (I did a lot, a lottttttttt) but it's all good experience as long as you keep searching for answers and really learning how to produce fat, frosty, mean ass buds you see on this site you'll do fine. Enjoy!

my advice is to shut down that 400 get a couple of flourescent tubes put them down on top your buckets you should have started in smaller cups it seems to me i will take forever for them to sprout up check out the guys doing a whole run in a cup just my opine good luck

Thanks for the advice, guys! Unfortunately, I couldn't find the right fixture to do fluorescent lights. Of the 5, the two that sprouted with the serrated leaves are growing fairly well. One in particular is growing much faster than the rest. The other 3 haven't even sprouted their first leaves yet but they still seem healthy. I will see if I can get some photos up by tomorrow.

I know I promised some photos a few days ago but I am just know getting around to it. I have one plant that is growing incredibly fast compared to the rest. I'm not sure why but it just seems to be moving so much faster than the other plants. I am wondering if it could be an autoflower but I have no idea. There's another plant that is growing at about the same speed but it sprouted a few days after so it's a bit smaller. My other plants aren't looking too good. Two of them are a bit yellowish on the leaves, I am thinking it may be a N deficiency but I wanted to get another opinion. The last plant looks like it is going to die, the leaves look stunted and they were mostly white when the plant first sprouted. I'm not sure it's going to make it. Please let me know what you think.

These are about 8-12 days old.

Well, no feedback since my last update but here is another one. My largest plant, which I thought was doing incredibly well, has started to have drooping leaves. They look healthy, I haven't been drowning them with water nor is the light too close (about 18" away) and it still isn't too hot when I have my hand about 2" under the glass. I am wondering if the planter is just too narrow for the roots and I need to transplant or if there is another reason. I moved the light up to about 20" away to see if that helps. My other strong plant seems to be growing fine although the leaves are pointed up slightly but it is also buried in less soil. My fifth plant has died, I never thought it was going to make it so I am not too concerned. Of my other two plants, one of them finally sprouted its' first leaves but they look a little deformed. The other I am giving about one more week before I pull it.

Also, found some cheap buckets at the store today (about 3.5-4 gallons) that aren't too deep but they have more width than the current plants. Should I transplant them or keep them in the longer containers? I was under the impression that marijuana roots grew more vertically than horizontally but I have never checked. Please let me know, I included some pics. These were taken with my phone so the quality may not be too great.

Well, here is another update with pics! I am really hoping for some feedback!

The first pic is, what I thought, was my strongest plant. Unfortunately, as mentioned before it started to droop on the lower fans. I thought they were being over-watered but that wasn't the case. Eventually the lower fans turned dark green, all the leaves began drooping, and I realized that they were overloaded with N. I flushed it this morning and am hoping for improvement by next week.

The second pic is of the last seed to sprout. It is growing quite fast and is already putting on a bit of weight. I need to transplant it to a different pot since this one was low on soil. I will be doing that this weekend.

Finally, the last pic is of a seedling that I thought was dying but it managed to sprout some malformed first leaves and has continued to grow quite well since I last updated. Some of the newer fans are starting to show more leaves, as usual, but only four branching leaves... seems strange. It also had a stunted stem so I straightened with a bit of bamboo.

Sadly, my last two seedlings didn't make it. These are all bagseed from some nice bud I smoked over the last few years in Japan. As to the strain, I am unsure if they are indica or sativa.

Here are the pics! Again, any help or advice is greatly appreciated and I will boost your rep!

Shall we make it 5 posts without an answer? Sure thing!

First, sorry for the delay, it is the transition between semesters here along with the farewell/welcome parties for new teachers. So, for the last couple weeks, I have been out most nights.

Without further stalling for time, I will get right to it!

In the first two pictures, you will see my largest plant. This is the one that was suffering from horrible nute burn from excess N. I flushed it and saw some great improvement in the leaves and growth. Unfortunately, there were some very negative effects in the older, lower fans. Some of them started to dry and wither, now, they are not as bad but, as you can see, the fans have suffered and have these yellowish areas. Also, it is a very crowded plant, should I do some trimming?

In the second photo, you see my other strong plant. However, I fear it may die. A few days ago I was checking it before I noticed the roots were breaking through the bottom of the plant and were covered in a bit of mold. I quickly transplanted to some fresh soil but severed some of the damaged roots. Hopefully it still survives, I haven't noticed any negative changes in the plant.

Finally, the third picture, this plant is growing very awkwardly compared to the others. It's nodes are very sporadic and the stem incredibly stretched. It looks like I trimmed this plant, however, I did no such thing. Also, some of the nodes are sprouting in 3 stems instead of the usual two. Other than that, the plant seems healthy.

Now, here is my problem. My departure for America has been moved up by 10 days! So, now I am thinking I may need to start them on 12/12 next week instead of the first week of May as planned. Do you think this will be a problem? I could wait until the 24th but I would have to cut the flower cycle short to about 6 weeks. What would everyone recommend?

+1 Rep for advice and such!