Need some diagnostic feedback

This is my first grow and I've been making mistakes. Now, I've been trying to avoid being that newbie who posts every little question on the forums without researching his stuff first. Hopefully my question/s wont sound too beginner like. Here we go!

Istarted my grow in my closet (4' wide X 2' deep) with two plants andI transferred them to my little grow box I built called, "Gardenof Eden" (4' wide X 6' high X 2' Deep).

Garden of Eden is broken down into 3 sections.
-Section 1 is the top left (2' wide X 2.5' high X 2' deep). This section is going to be for germination, seedlings and/or clones.
-Section 2 is the bottom left (2' wide X 3.5' high X 2' deep). Used for vegetation.
-Section 3 is the right side (2'wide X 6' high X 2' deep)). Flowering.

The idea is I want to be harvesting a different strain every month by cycling 2 plants per section per month. <--- in my head this sounds like a good idea? I don't actually know how practical its going to be. I'm thinking I'll have to make 3 separate doors per section to be able to control individual humidity, temp, etc...without having to disturb all 3 sections every time I need to work on one section? This grow box is just a theory and I'm open and interesting in more really good ideas!

Anyways...current problem.

Day41 - vegetation

My leaves have been doing weird things and I'm having a hard time diagnosing the specific problem by myself. The leaves feel dried up and crinckly. My guess is it's got to be a nutrient deficiency and/or a watering problem?

Grow medium: 2/3 Soil & 1/3 perlite.

Temp has been in range: 72F-76F.
Humidity:30%-45%. <-- having a difficult time controlling humidity.According to Jorge Cervantes, the ideal humidity range, during vegetation, is 65%-68%.
Lights: 5000k CFL 32w/150w x2 per 2 plant. <-- I believe I need more lights on my plants at this stage?
Water:I recently learned the proper amount to water is 200ml every 2 days.Up until day 37 of growth I watered it almost double that every day.I fixed this issue.
Nutrients:I have not added any. I'm starting nutrients today. I've read to alternate watering it with and without nutrients. Dunno how I missed this.


Any feedback is appreciated.

Hi! Welcome to RIU! Your plants look pretty good in my opinion. Don't be afraid to give them a good drenching with a light feeding of fertilizer. If you can, either paint the inside of your cabinet with flat white paint or line it with mylar or panda film to help increase the light reflection back onto your plants. I would certainly want to increase the light levels, have you thought of using a metal halide or high pressure sodium lamp?

When you start the flowering process, will you be able to keep the light from the top of the cab from reaching below during 12/12?

They look slightly over watered other then that great post. Well thought out!

My suggestion is this, speaking from experience and rebuilding my grow area... Every grow, lol.

Being your first grow keep things simple and be happy with whatever you produce. You are already off to the right start by researching and asking questions. I wouldn't put too much time into making individual cubbies and all that stuff. Chances are after this grow you'll have an assortment of new ideas and a lot more knowledge to design the best possible room for you and your personal situation.

Happy growing man Hope you get some fat colas!

cannabis love said:

Hi! Welcome to RIU! Your plants look pretty good in my opinion. Don't be afraid to give them a good drenching with a light feeding of fertilizer. If you can, either paint the inside of your cabinet with flat white paint or line it with mylar or panda film to help increase the light reflection back onto your plants. I would certainly want to increase the light levels, have you thought of using a metal halide or high pressure sodium lamp?

When you start the flowering process, will you be able to keep the light from the top of the cab from reaching below during 12/12?

Click to expand...

I appreciate your quick feedback.

Today I added two more CFL's, lined it with an emergency blanket (can afford mylar or something else good just yet), and I started feeding it with fertilizer.

I'm wanting to move up to a metal halide and/or HPS. I'm trying to take the learning process slowly and not get too ahead of myself. Cost isn't that big of a concern, I just need to be for sure before I move in a direction. After doing the math, my current light setup cost me a little bit under $60. That's for the light clamp, the 4 bulbs, and the 3 Y-connectors. Plus cost per month on electricity to run them. I'll do all that math later.

My question at this point would be, what is the most economical and efficient way I could upgrade to a MH or HPS? Would it be a good idea to use a HPS in a space of this size? Or should I stay with CFL's?

Finally, when I start flowering, my goal is to have the entire box light sealed. It's a pretty good sized work in progress.

yktind said:

They look slightly over watered other then that great post. Well thought out!

My suggestion is this, speaking from experience and rebuilding my grow area... Every grow, lol.

Being your first grow keep things simple and be happy with whatever you produce. You are already off to the right start by researching and asking questions. I wouldn't put too much time into making individual cubbies and all that stuff. Chances are after this grow you'll have an assortment of new ideas and a lot more knowledge to design the best possible room for you and your personal situation.

Happy growing man Hope you get some fat colas!

Click to expand...

I appreciate you double checking my diagnosis. I'm trying the best I can to get it right or the very least, not kill her.

Basically, over watering can cause a few leaves to get spotty & crinkle a bit? This is normal for this stage?

8th said:

I appreciate you double checking my diagnosis. I'm trying the best I can to get it right or the very least, not kill her.

Basically, over watering can cause a few leaves to get spotty & crinkle a bit? This is normal for this stage?

Click to expand...

Sorry Man, I was referring to droopy unhappy leaves. Crinkly leaves.... Light/ Heat stress maybe. PH outa whack, wind burn if there is a fan blowing directly on them. Are those all in check?

Someone else will probably need to jump in on that one.

yktind said:

Sorry Man, I was referring to droopy unhappy leaves. Crinkly leaves.... Light/ Heat stress maybe. PH outa whack, wind burn if there is a fan blowing directly on them. Are those all in check?

Someone else will probably need to jump in on that one.

Click to expand...

It's probably not light stress, due to the low temp and lower lumen output of the CFL's.

It could be heat stressed. After I transported my plants from the closet to the grow box, the temperature was in the low 80's for the first several days. This was due to me figuring out how to best control all the variables in the new grow box environment.

Ph might be out of wack. I don't have an accurate method for measuring the ph, just yet. I have that dinky little meter from Lowe's that sells for around $8 and it measures ph, light and soil moisture. I'm still working on figuring out how to properly use the meter accurately. My only issue is being able to cross check my readings to make sure I can trust the cheap meter. So far I believe the moisture meter is pretty accurate.

Wind burn is possible. I had a box fan blowing on the low setting for about a week. Even though it was on low, box fans can still move quite a bit of air. This may have exasperated the condition, because the bad leaves aren't showing any improvement just yet.

I'll give it a few days to a week to monitor the system response. I'm pretty happy with all the recent tweaks I've made.

I'm also worried about the humidity levels. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to control humidity, however, it's proving to be the most challenging task. I've tried the spray bottle method with little success. I'd be spraying and spraying and spraying only to get to just below 50% humidity and the bad part would be my temperature would start lowering below 70F. On top of that, opening the grow box for even a few seconds, would result in the humidity dropping rapidly. Hmmm... what to do?

I'd say get those things in check and your sure to see improvement. As for humidity...

De Humidifier, Heater, A/C etc. Not sure what your funds look like.

Check out Amazon for a cheap ph meter that is digital.

"jack harer" has a journal somewhere on here that is dedicated to checking soil ph. Very well put together. Try the ol' search function. "Soil PH"