Grow Journal: my first grow with 600w MH/HPS

ok, so this is basically my first fully attempted time to grow. I have done a ton of research on here and have gotten a ton of information. i have made a grow box out a storage cabinet from lowes. its dimensions are 2 feet deep 4 feet wide and 6 feet tall. i am just going from seed to harvest using a little bagseed i got off some nug awhile back. in my setup i have two intakes, one with a fan and hosing for fresh air and the other a 5000 btu window a/c unit. i have a 600 w digital greenhouse dimmable ballast with an agromax HPS and an Agromax MH conversion bulb. this has a maxwing reflector on it and all this came from wonderful people of HTG. i have one 4" fan on reflector moving air on bulb. then a cool air humidifier( i was having crazy humidity issues with the bulb, i was getting an average of about 5%) and an 8 inch fan moving air above the plants. the setup is pretty good and figured i would put up a log on here to document the grow. i ordered some great seeds from greenhouse seeds( through the Attitude) i got some feminised super lemon haze, fem trainwreck, fem cheese, fem white widow and a few others. ok enough rambling, just got done smoking some herb haha.

should some of my new leaves be drooping a little bit. the 3 biggest are starting to droop just slightly on the top new leaves. the RH is around 35%. temp 76.
also the leaves are very light in color and the first set are yellow. for the first week and a half they only had two 18" plant flouro bulbs but now have a 600 w Mh pushing 66,000 lumens.
i let them dry out for a day and water only one of the big three but all were still drooping. i have a meter the tells me when the middle and bottom of the cup is dry and then i water. should i wait longer to water? im a newbie grower and really want these plants to thrive but i dont not if im watering too much or not enough. they are in solo cups and i probably water once a day or every day and a half. mostly day and a half. im also running 24/0, should i switch to 18/6 or 20/4? please help!

jeez think u got enough cooling on that light? haha

how hot do the 600's get?

also could switching from like 6000-7000 lumens and then going to 66,000 lumens hurt the plants. what i mean is that sudden change in massive light intensity differences hurt the leaves i.e. bleaching of the leaves. the bulb is 20" from the tallest plant. also the darkest green plant i show, why is it greener than all the others. granted these were all a collection of bagseed i had from nug so they are probably not all the same strain.

man without out that a/c unit and all of the fans and a cool mist humidifier at 50% got to 90. i have a pretty good exhaust too. if its at 100% without the a/c it get about 110. haha the a/c was necessary. i only had this problem because of my enclosure. with the a/c i can keep it within a couple degrees of 77. they are 100 bucks at lowes. great buy.

if i had a cool tube or a vented hood i probably wouldnt have to have the a/c but i didnt really want to pay the extra dough haha now i thin back and should have. oh well hindsight is always 20/20

buuummpppp

alright man your going to need to figure out how to get your heat down without all that stuff in there. It's cool now but just wait till theyre a month old it's not going to work. Perhaps you need more ventilation to accomplish this I don't know and than put the ac unit outside the air intake if needed. Fiddle around with it until you can keep the heat down in the 80s at least. I recommend using cfls for the first couple weeks a 600 is overkill and looks to be too much for your plants. I would wait like 3 weeks before putting them under probably.

so is the light what is causing my leaves to droop? i dimmed it down to 50% today just in case. i think i am going to leave it at that. and the humidifier will go when the plants themselves can maintain a decent humidity. without the humidifier i get about 5-10% RH.

No I think your plants are droopy from being overwtered likely. Your just going to need to fix the temp and humidity asap. Without knowing what kind of soil your using it's hard to give more advice, but either they need nutrients or they are not able to use the nutes because of the overwatering and or wrong water ph i think.

well i was using MG organic with 2 month organic nutes. using bone meal and blood meal for slow release nutes. as for ph it was alaways around 6.5 with my soil ph meter. had a little fluctuation but not much. well i figured over watering, so i picked up some african violet MG soil( Miracle is really only choice in my rural area, sorry.) and put in one 8 qt bag in a 5 gal bucket then mixed in about 10 cup percalite and 1 half cup blood meal and 3/4 cup bone meal. then i put about 8 cups of spaghnum and peat moss mix. then mixed all that up good. then put 1/2 cup calci sand, which includes a lil zinc, Mn, and a tad bit of Mg. into the mix for an extra boost in aeration and micro nutrients. they'd be really slow release. its a good airy soil and it was pretty dry. i transplanted the three big girls into 1 gallons of that soil mixture and didnt water them. one of the three has already perked up a little . so im hoping the other two will too by tomorow. hopefully. with my 600w Mh on 75% to give them a lil relaxation. im hoping once the roots move into the new soil and dry out they will turn around. the transplant went really smoothly. used a quite efficient method. i just placed the cup into the new pot( with the bottom filled up to get the cup to the hight i want it) then fill in around the cup. i waited a little bit and then eased them out of the cup and placed the root ball into its perfectly formed hole. flawless

oh and to annouce. i just started germinating a feminized Super Lemon Haze seed im going to plant and flower with the others. ( three females from the bagseed and the one SLH).
this one is definitely going to go better, with better soil and not going to over water this time and use the drought method for watering, wait for first signs of underwatering and then water, using molasses every other watering. with the soil mixture i made it should be good. nice and gentle and pre PH'ed. been using distilled 6.5 ph water.

Buuuummpppp

hey here are a few more pics. ive transplanted them into 1 gallon and just stuck 4 lovely new beans into some soil after being germinated. i put in a trainwreck a white widow and 2 super lemon haze. all feminized of course haha. all courtesy of the attitude with their super fast shipping

Over watering is your culprit... Those big pots should do the trick and you will see new growth in no time. Just don't give them so much H20 every watering and only water when the pots are completely dry. To avoid future problems with over watering, don't use party cups. They make over watering too easy Try a wider, shorter container starting out.

thanks man. i figured it was overwatering so i put them in a good perlite mixed soil to help them out. two of them are doing really good. ill probably keep those, since i just put some good beans in the ground. two super lemon haze, a train wreck, and a white widow.

i wish i could keep them all but i dont have the room in my grow box.

No problem =D I struggled with over watering for 5 months until I figured it out =[ To give you an idea, plants about the size of yours only need maybe 5 tablespoons of water every 3-5 days. Also water directly around the stem and not near the edge of the container. Mary Jane thrives in dry soil =] I personally only water when my plants droop. A healthy growing plant's leaves should reach upwards towards the light.
Keep us updated with your progress.

dang.. so i was really over watering them. well hopefully they will pick up growth, and im going to be sure not to over water the new babies i put in the soil today

also should i never water the whole pot, or just for right now? like when they get older and bigger should i water the whole pot?

so i just ordered some jacks classic 20-20-20 for some veg nutes for when the babies get older. i heard that this blend is good and gentle on the plants. also aparrently it help promote root growth? if im not misunderstood from uncle ben's posting in another thread. idk, but figured it be better than using MG. didnt think that the SLH i planted would be able to take a chemical based nutes. but the soil mixture im making will have regular non pre nuted soil, im going to add sand, perlite, sphagnum and peat moss mix, calci sand, then some blood meal and bone meal for a little nitrogen and phosphorous for the plants, im thinking 1 cup perlite to every 4 cups soil, and 1 cup sand for every 8 cups of soil. does this sound like a good soil mixture? and will the sphagnum moss and peat moss mix do anything? i heard it could be beneficial and help with under and over watering but not sure about this. i know the moss absorbs moisture better that soil, so it could act like a vermiculite. please help. i want to give my new 4 babies the best soil mixture possible