Good head - Shame about the body!

Here's some pics of my first ever grow. These poor plants have been through hell.

The three were started outdoors from bagseed. They grew great outside. I treated them just like any other plant and they flourished. If there was a problem it was that they stretched a bit outside, but other than that, they were great.

They spent a few weeks outside while i waited for my lights to arrive. Meanwhile i read as much info as i could.

On the same day I brought them inside. I had to separate them as i made the mistake of placing three seeds in one pot. I dont know what shocked them more - separating them from the one pot or bringing them inside but from the moment they came inside things started going bad. I must say, if it was caused by separating them, I am surprised as I have purchased many vegetable and other plant seedlings in punnets that i then have to pull apart and it does not seem to bother them at all.

Initially they all went under one 130w CFL with wing reflector - kept about 1-2 inches away from the top leaves. I also feel i was overwatering them inside. That was only the case for their first week indoors.

Node by Node, the leaves went yellow and died, starting from the bottom and working their way up. The potting mix they went in only had minor nutrients, so they have had one dose of half strength fertiliser since coming inside a month ago. That was given a few days ago and doesn't seem to have affected them one way or the other.

The yellowing of the leaves never made it to new growth. The top part of the plant always looked good and the one good thing since bringing them inside is the stretching has stopped and their is some lush growth up top. They were fimmed a few weeks ago and that worked fine.

I have the lights on 18 hours per day. They do not get complete darkness during lights off, but i understand that is not completely essential untill i switch to flowing mode - which i was going to do once my growtent arrives. I have two small fans - one blowing in and one blowing out of my cupboard with panda film on the walls.

In a desperate effort to get some lower branches to grow, I changed my lights a week and a half ago. I went from one 6400K 130w CFL placed horizontally with a reflector to having 3 X 130w CFL's (one was 2700K) placed vertically. Unfortunately that completely burnt some of the remaining fan leaves - so the worst dying fan leaves you see in these pics are the result of light burn. The lights however, were 1-2 inches away, however for whatever reason, the plant did not like them that close when the lights are vertical. When i was using the one light horizontally, I found one plant grew into the light - but it did not burn the leaf.

I have now gone back to one CFL vertical and one horizontal and the plants have now been under this set up for a couple of days. I have also added one 23w lamp that i can target the lower leaves with. I will be buying more of these in the next few days to spread around.

Today, i noticed the two taller plants which i thought would be male - are showing preflowers, so turns out they are female. The shortest one (which i thought was female) is not showing as yet. Even though i am a new grower, i have looked at lots of pics regarding sex of plants and I am quite confident I have at least two girls.

I have four new bagseed seedlings about a week old, that are still under a desk flouro lamp. I am seriously thinking of taking a few clones from my confirmed females and giving up on them. I can then start afresh with my new seedlings and clones as I doubt i would pull much from these three original plants. I also have Attitude seeds on their way (fingers crossed) but dont want to grow them untill I can get reasonable results with bagseed. As you can see from the pics below - that may be some time away yet! lol.

The frustrating thing for me is I do heaps of outdoor gardening with great success and it is clear to me that indoor gardening is so much more difficult. I have so much more respect for indoor growers now and the price I pay for my smoke does not seem excessive anymore considering the problems ive had growing. Anyway - here are the pics. Please keep laughter down to a minimum.

Remove the dead leaves. I see some signs of a calmg deficiency. What all are you feeding them, what tyoe of water and at what Ph?

i had a similar problem but mine was calcium problem. i did a flush for each plant with 6.0ph, i used about 10 cup just a little under a gallon (also did a mix with hydrogen peroxide 1 to 3 mix) . from what i have read 6400k helps regrowth. try putting them back in veg for a few weeks to see if anything happens. you already have some nodes popping out. i stopped using fertilizers after my problem happened. try adding a few smaller lights for a 360dgree lighting top and bottom. i also had to cut nodes off, i only ended up with 2 on the bottom then it goes up about 4-5" then another small bud growing from no where. then another 1-2" is another node. mine was dying off and looked bad, but after the hydro and distilled water flush it came alive again. i had people telling me it wasn't going to compare to nothing. i just got done trimming off all the bad dead and ugly nodes and leaves to make it look for, i though it's last picture. this is it about 1 week into flowering. and this is a quick picture of just now its about 17" tall i got 4 23watt 2700k cfl on top, and 4 23watt 2700k on the sides, with 2 42watt 2700k on the other side that turn on and off every few hours due to heat issues. prob wont get a big harvest but hey, it is alive and looking good.

Thanks for the feedback. They have only been given fertilizer at half strength once (a week or two ago) since coming inside (a month ago). It did not seem to make a noticeable difference either way. The yellowing, certainly came before that. As far as ph goes, I used a soil test kit that was a real pain - i had to take soil samples, add a liquid then white dust - i am not too sure how reliable it is and it returned two colors in the sample - one matched 6 1/2 and the other was closer to 8. However, according to the manufacturer (who i called), my soil sample was probably too moist which would have been responsible for the higher reading.

I am fairly confident my first leaf loss was the result of stress, as i split the seedlings from one pot into three on the same day i brought them inside under lights for the first time. Leaves started turning yellow the very next day. When i split them, the roots were quite tangled and i was also concerned about bringing soil that was outdoors indoors - so i washed the soil away to loosen the roots - i now know that was a very stupid thing to do. So, i am pretty sure that had a big impact too.

My second lot of leaf loss came from light burn when i changed by large cfl's around.

flush them asap, with 6.0 water. go to pet smart and get one of the ph tester kits, not hard to find. i would also really use the hydrogen peroxide mix, but try to cut it before flowering, mine did a really good turn around. i would be using around 6500k cfls for at least a few days to see if anything happens. i would put them about 1-2" away. i also have a small little ghetto thermometer riged up by the kola to keep temp up top at a good 78-81 degreese. so that dont get burned up.

i actually flushed mine 2 times in 2 days.

Go to the nearest hydro shop, and buy some nutes, ppm meter, ph tester, bag o dirt, and feed ASAP.

yeah they can still come through.

I did a ph on the run off and it was around 6.7. The filtered water i put in was about 7.1. I take it then my soil ph is around 6.4 or 6.5, which is supposed to be fine.

If my soil ph is fine - could my plants still be suffering Nutrient lockout? Do I still need to flush?

I am resigned to loosing these three (although the tops are still growing fine) - they were bagseed and it was really a learning curve, but i still want to try and get them right - so i can learn from the experience.

If they were mine, I wouldn't flush. I'd atleast go and buy
a bottle of grow nutes, and flower nutes.
I think they are hungry. Maybe overwatered.?
but hungry.