My First Grow

Well this is my first grow, I'm growing 2 clones i got from a dispensary here in town, i have Super Lemon Haze and DeathStar.
i am using an indoor hydro system, with a 400 watt mh lamp (a bit much for 2 plants but it was the smallest my local hydro shop had)
i built my own hydro system, using a 10 gal fish tank, a wire grid i made my rack out of and wrapped in foil, a submersible pump to do a root drip, then the roots hang into my water, the plants are sitting in plastic baskets, the plants are in 1" rockwool surrounded by clay pellets.

i am in week 6 of my veg stage, i transplanted my clones into my system on 1/31/13, started tying on 2/22/13, and have topped the slh a few times to keep it shorter. i am ready to bud, just waiting on my carbon filter, should be here any day.

i ran into some troubles early on, not sure what the problem was, but i rinsed my roots, cleaned out my system and replaced with clean water and that helped bring it back, the slh seems to be doing much better than the dstr not sure why?

pictures attached from day 1 to now.
any comments or help is appreciated.

some strains respond better to hydro and some respond better to soil/soil-less... I got a G13 Haze that did horrible in my hydro set-up, decided to give it another try and popped more G13 beans, this time I put her in some coco coir and oh my god, she grew about 3 times faster and looks so much more healthy than before.
your two ladies are looking pretty good... have you got a circulation fan constantly blowing and moving air around your grow? I ask because it looks like you're ladies are gonna REALLY need some support stakes when they start to bud. Me personally, I have a 6 inch clip on fan constantly blowing on the tops of my plants... to not only circulate air but to strengthen their stems in preparation for flower. Good Luck and I hope this helps.

PersonalJesus said:

some strains respond better to hydro and some respond better to soil/soil-less... I got a G13 Haze that did horrible in my hydro set-up, decided to give it another try and popped more G13 beans, this time I put her in some coco coir and oh my god, she grew about 3 times faster and looks so much more healthy than before.
your two ladies are looking pretty good... have you got a circulation fan constantly blowing and moving air around your grow? I ask because it looks like you're ladies are gonna REALLY need some support stakes when they start to bud. Me personally, I have a 6 inch clip on fan constantly blowing on the tops of my plants... to not only circulate air but to strengthen their stems in preparation for flower. Good Luck and I hope this helps.

Click to expand...

i do have a fan in there it is a pretty big fan 20' if im not mistaken that oscillates (visible in the deathstar week 5 photo), i have it on a timer set to kick on for half an hour and off for an hour all day, is that enough?
the SLH is doing fantastic, but that deathstar just seems to be less healthy.

I leave my 6 inch on all the time... It helps to strengthen branches through the movement and it keeps air circulating.

Maybe the DeathStar is just being picky. Thats the one problem I have with hydro... You can't individually tailor a feeding plan or even a recovery plan if something goes wrong. Example: with your two plants in the one reservoir, what if one started to show a deficiency? You correct that problem for the one plant and you run the risk of throwing the other plant out of balance. Get what I'm saying?

I wouldn't worry about it too much until you can see something really really wrong, and I don't see that in your pics.

Well i'm glad they look good to you, its my first grow ever, i'm switching to 12/12 tomorrow or Tuesday.

i'm worried the slh may get too tall with how stretchy it is, do you think i would have better luck with a single strain per system or doing strains that are more similar to eachother?

Nice going there,good improvisation with the tank etc.
Best of luck.

Thats a call you need to make... personally, I grow one or two strains at a time. If I'm doing two strains, I will try to pick similar genetics, like running two indica dominant hybrids so they stay relatively the same height. Its impossible when you got one stretchy sativa and one wicked short indica, then where would you set your light?
My first, my very first grow... I tried doing 5 different strains in one reservoir... needless to say only two of the five finished strong

PersonalJesus said:

Thats a call you need to make... personally, I grow one or two strains at a time. If I'm doing two strains, I will try to pick similar genetics, like running two indica dominant hybrids so they stay relatively the same height. Its impossible when you got one stretchy sativa and one wicked short indica, then where would you set your light?
My first, my very first grow... I tried doing 5 different strains in one reservoir... needless to say only two of the five finished strong

Click to expand...

that why ive been doing so much tying, as you can see there is yarn goin fuckin everywhere, im trying to keep the height similar so the light can stay consistent.

ive also considered implementing a "screen of green" technique, where you put chicken wire or something of the sort 15-20 inches high to stop vertical growth and promote more horizontal growth.
the size difference is already quite substantial.

Carbon filter came today, initiating flowering!