Newb Growing for Gold!

Alright guys. I am new here and new to growing altogether and I am trying to make the most of my space by going big and seeing what I can get. I will add pics soon so that everybody can see what I am doing.

To make things easier I will list it all here:

2X (yes 2) - Deep H2O cultivation + drip feed systems

each includes:

HYDROHUT Deluxes 8 X 4 (7' tall) (for flowering)
10X 5 gallon buckets with baskets (for 10 plants)
25 gallon res w/ 5 gallon reserve (float vale controled)
3X 400W full spectrum MH (I think, I was told this is a great light for both flowering and veg although I am not using these for veg). I also have HPS ballasts but they power my lights great!
Sub pump
Air pump
lasko oscillating tower fan
2X 6 inch oscillating ceiling fans (mounted in each corner)
water heater (78 degree)
2X inline fans (high powered almost $200 each)

1X 4X4X7 HYDROHUT (VEGGIE CENTRAL)

4X CFL lighting array (vitalight CFL)
2X2 drainging tray
10 gallon res
air pump w/ stone
sub pump
water heater (78 degree)
1X 19" oscillating fan
1X Soon to be installed 6" inline fan

Both lights have a max height of about 5' 8"

Gonna use mostly perlite for the growing medium. I will be using distilled water with nutes when they hit the flowering room.

I am using rock wool to start the babies and I was using a flood and drain system to water them. I think I may have stunted them with too much water and they have stopped growing. I also burned one fo the babies by keeping it too close to the GFL with no ventilation. I have 9 critical mass babies and 15 Sense Star clones. I origially only had 10 but a couple got burnt because of poor ventilation so I got 5 more new clones to use. With the inline fans and tower fan I think I have solved that problem. Everything is in a garage 26 X 15 and the air is okay. I think I may need some more fresh air solutions but as of now my temp is at a solid 69 and humidity of about 46 or so.

I am using my HID light on 18/6 to speed up veg growth on the clones. As of now one 400 watt light seems to be enough. Almost too much since some got burnt. I moved the light away and got my venti going good. As of now nothing is connected to the hydro system. Just hand watering. I am just fearful that I may have been watering them too much since I am seeing some droopy leaves.

So far just use a little bit of nutes on my clones. Half strength of nova grow by GH.

No nutes on the seedlings. Once I have pics you can all see what is going on.

Like I said, I will have pics soon.

I really need help with nutes and watering cycles. I am using a cycle stat timer with light sensitivity and I need help with how I should use it.

That damned rock wool holds water like crazy and I need to stop over watering!

Please lets all try together and help me

Consider this a learning experience. You may not get gold your first try friend, learn from your mistakes, learn through trial and error. It sounds like you've done your home work. If things don't go perfect the first try no big deal, you'll figure out how to make everything go your way and things will pick back up again. Keep us posted, I look forward to seeing your pics.

Why would you use the MH for flowering and not for vegging. And why, if you have all those different lights would you not use the cfl.s for the younger plants, especially with the problems you are having.
Yep, rockwool cubes hold water pretty well so why would you water seedling everyday. it doesn't matter when you water the clones because they don't have any roots yet, you have to mist the tops ar least a few times a day until they get roots. May be I 'm just stoned.

to man how big were your clones when they got burn and how close was your light? my sproutlings are like 1-2 inches and i have my 400 wat MH about 32 inches away! planing on them getting like 6 iinches then going to 24 on the light. then keeping it around 18 inches away through the rest of the process... i dunno the only thing i am sketchy on is my light distance :[

Clones and seedling should be started on floros like shop lights with the leaves almost touching them.After 7-10 days you can change lights if root formation is confirmed.The floros should be 24 hours a day and rockwool should stay prettu damn with little watering since only the leaves can intale food and water until roots are formed.MH os good for vegging I like to go 2 weeks 24 hours and then 18/6 for week or 2 before switching to hps 12/12 flowering stage.I have my moms which were from clone on a 24 hour cycle now for about 4 weeks as I am going to pull 40 plus new clones from 5 moms so I wanna veg them real good , take my clones then cut lights back to 18/6 to eleviate shock.A good way to tell if your lights are position right is the simple old hand test.Put your hans at the top leaves of your plant with palm down .Hold your hand there for about 5 minutes if the heat is comfortable to the skin your not to close.I use mostly 1000 watt systems and keep them about 14-18 inches away from tops.my 400 watt lights about a foot above.The further away you go the increase in stretching will happen.More light also will increase potency and bud density.Good temp to grow in is to keep temp no more then 78 degree F and no less then 68 degree F.75 - 78 is optimol.Mist the clones a few times a day.I like to keep them in a humidity dome until ready to pot them in median.Mist them and watch the lid.If no moisture shows remist the leaves.Dont mist the dome lid as it just blocks light.A heating pad under the tray also helps but I suggest a 1/2 inch space so the pad heat doesnt hurt tender new forming roots.Open the dome 2 times aday for 15 minutes to refresh domes air.Maybe some of this will help.Carefull misting with fert in th watre make sure its very week at first quarter strength is more then enough.

Oh wow, let me see if I can reply to all.

First to Victor Vicious:

Currently I am using both my CFL 4 X4 hut for vegging as well as one of my 8 X4 huts (MH light). THe other 8 X4 is on standby.

Here is a link to my light bulb manufacturer:

Image

Hopefully that will answer some questions about the bulb.

Currently I have 10 rooted sensestar clones in the 8X4 with the MH. They are all in rockwool and are recovering from their recent "burn". THey dont look too bad but I will add pics on my next post so you can all see.

In my 4 X4 I have 9 critical mass seedlings. They all look so so right now and the weakest of the nine was just transplanted (I will tell you why later).

In the 4 X 4 I also have 5 more sensestar clones. Please keep in mind that all of my clones have already taken roots so I figured that I had to water them.

The newest 5 clones look the best out of all of my plants right now. They are all clumped together in small rockwool cubes and are sitting together in a bag. Don't worry there is no standing water and I water them very little.

Some seedlings are looking okay but are mostly a light green color and have stopped growing. I did burn them slightly because of lack on ventilation. Luckily my vent problem has been solved but now I have temp ploblems. I am at about 69 degrees right now and am trying to warm it up a bit with a small portable heater.

To Whitebombs:

My clones were like 4" or so when they got burnt. Remember that I had no vent at the time. Now it is a cool 69 and as is well.

To Filthy Fletch.

Thanks for the info. My clones all of roots so my ass is saved there. As of now I am just hand watering to rockwool with distilled h2o with 1/2 strength floranova. I am worried about going 24 hr since my hydro guy said that it can be stresful for plants and that it fucks up their metabolism. My temp is at 69 and holding. once all 3 MH lights are on I should be able to get it above 70. Floro veg room is always cold but we will see if the heater works. I never mist with fert, just distilled h2o.
http://www.lifelighttec.com/albums/album_image/4034043/1176811.htm

To all:

Do think I should stuff all of my clones and plants under floro?

Now that my system has good air should I lower my NH lights? They are at about 2'6" right now.

Also, I really fucked up on my rockwool. The first 9 seedlinds and 10 cloned plants were all transplanted into unsoaked rockwool (oops).

I bought more rockwool and soaked it in the reccomended PH and I noticed that the texture and consistancy of the soaked rockwool is so much softer and better than the non soaked. I cracked open a cube belonging to one of the seedling as well as one of the clooned and noticed that the roots are not taking too well to the non-soaked rockwool.

DO you think I need to transplant all of them into new rockwool before the roots get too big?

I fear that by not soaking the first set of cubes I may have disrupted the ph balance as well as the plants ability to root into that shit.

Please let me know what you all think about this.

I still have 5 more clones awaiting transplant where I hope to do the things the right way.

BTW, I have already tansplanted my weakest seedling into one of the correctly soaked cubes. We will see what he does.

Please post, I love hearing from everybody!!!

Well looks like I can only post 5 pics today. I will get more up tomorrow so we will focus on the important stuff for right now. First off for today I will show you my stuff.

I also have a buddy named "P" Diddy who is growing using both the same seeds and same clones as I am all stared at the same time.

First is all of my clones together. All 10:

https://www.rollitup.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=3032&d=1171015824


Note the burned plant on the second colum from the left second down from the top. Got my HID too close with no ventilation!!!

Here is a halfway decent looking clone:

https://www.rollitup.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=3031&d=1171015587

Here is my burnt (and worst looking seedling) 1 hour after transplant into properly soaked rockwool:

https://www.rollitup.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=3030&d=1171015587

Look at the difference between one of my decent looking seedlings vs the 5 new sense clones. These clones are new and look happy. They are still in their new cubes but will break out soon (hopefully). Right now they just sit in a bag all huddled together:

https://www.rollitup.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=3029&d=1171015486

Here is a good pic of the veggie tray. Just recently upgraded to the drip hydro. Bye bye flood and drain. oh yeah, you can see the 5 new cubes chillin and waiting for new clones.

https://www.rollitup.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=3028&d=1171015486


Tomorrow I will hopefully find a way to add more than 5 pics so you can see "p's" setup. Keep in mind that I am using 150 watt floro x4 in an array. Temp is at 75 now (thanks to heater) and humidity is about 56. Got 9 critical mass seedlings here and 5 sense star clones.

and remember guys please dont forget about the 10 sense star clones in the HID setup.

Please try to answer my earlier questions from the last post if you can.

Thanks,

Sub

here are the seedlings:

Here are the clones:

Remember these are the first 10 sense star clones that both P Diddy and I got. These are in the 8x4 under the MH full spec:

damnit! looks like she might make a comeback though...

temp and humidity for the 8 x4. (vegging now but soon to be flower)

https://www.rollitup.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=3063&stc=1&d=1171024304

temp and humidity for 4 x 4 veg

https://www.rollitup.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=3064&stc=1&d=1171024304

got the inline fans going nice!

Now here is my buddy's shit.

When we started all of this he had one of the same, "Critical Mass" seedlings, one of the Sense Star clones (which were out of the same batch of my first 10 sense star clones which I currently have vegging under the MH light) and a clone of NYC Diesel. He is doing a soil grow with a secret reciepe of nutes and is hand watering. I think he might be using a little hydroton and perlite to line the bottoms but I have no idea because I wasn't there.

Each plant (seedling, Star clone and Critical Mass) has its own 5 gallon bucket and is being grown under a 430 watt HPS (yes HPS!) light.

Here is his seedling compared to my strongest:

https://www.rollitup.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=3071&stc=1&d=1171025096

and me:

https://www.rollitup.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=3075&stc=1&d=1171025189

As you can see I am getting my ass kicked in growth. His clone though is good but mine are right there I think. His is a darker green but that may have something to do with the light (being HPS) or nutes. In size though I am not that far behind.

https://www.rollitup.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=3072&stc=1&d=1171025653

Now I admit that I have commited a few errors (burning them, un-soaked rock wool, no nutes, cold and no vent for a day).

Here is what I plan to do and correct me if I am wrong:

#1 buy 24 4" rock wool blocks and soak them in 5.5 PH h20 for 24 hrs. while mixed with 1/4 strength Flora Nova.

#2 Transplant all clones and potentially all seedlings to the new (and correct) long term growing medium.

#3 Take the strongest 10 clones and keep them under the HID MH to accelerate veg cycle. At 12" take them to flower.

#4 leave the remaining 9 seedlings under floro until I can clone them. Raise the remaining 5 sense star clones for shits and giggles or maybe just give them away. Or better yet, experiment on them.

#5 Get the seedlings to 12" in the next 8 weeks!

Please post since I am axious to hear all of your thoughs on this.

Cheers!

Its sounds a lot more like if you really wanted our opinions you'd give them to us. Correct me if I'm wrong is one of two things. Its either arrogant or a challenge. In my humble opinion, Ganga God, you need to kick back, roll up a fatty and chill for a few. Maybe look at some other grow journals. The folks that have posted them have already gone through what you are just starting to do.
Sorry we couldn't all afford to go for the gold, that doesn't mean we are stupid, it just means our circumstances are different then yours.
Transplanting can be a big shock to plants. You might want to try to flush out the medium they are in now, or just leave your hands off for a few days let the water get used up a little and then add a little properly ph adjusted water.
You didn't mention, or i missed it (probably stoned again) but do you have some meters and testing equipment? Oh I forgot, you are using 2-super doper power deluxe Hydrowhatevers with fans that cost at least a couple hundred each and blah, blah, blah and all you wanted was some back up, a little high fivin, and bowing and here I am suggest there may be something different you might try. What was I thinking. Guess I wasn't thinking at all. But that doesn't mean I don't like you. Here sit down, wanna hit this and listen for a minute.
Your assignment for the day would be to read at least three posted grow journals from beginning to end, all the posts. You are to try and discover whether there is ever a difference of opinions about anything having to do with growing a weed.
You are to try and identify the 7 things that all plants must have in order to grow. Special attention will be paid to any posts by folks that have been growing weed for longer than three months. Any figures having to do with actual yield are to be written down and reviewed so you may get a better idea of whats shits a giggles.
The idea of this assignment is to let you get to know some of us, we would like to help you, but for that to happen you will have to learn how to ask questions and them listen to the answers. If you take this assignment to heart, put as much effort into that, and I am sure you did some of that during your first few days here, you may end up with a decent yeild. and of course some sensistar to give away.
Hey Major hows that ignore list coming. Video just my humble opinion, you are welcome, just keep earning it. Greenbeast talk to the brother. Sorry I forgot, its not nice to jump someone else's post. That happens as we get older, must be the effect of thirty years of smokin.lol

Victor I understand where you are coming from and I appreciate your input.

The purpose of this whole thing is to share information and get feedback. You have to keep in mind that I am a newb and that I don't want to give anybody here their opinion.

I am just a bleeding edge kind of guy and just want to see what one can do given the resources specified in this post.

I like to cut corners and perhaps that is my downfall. If it is so then I want you all to tell me.

I have spent many hours reviewing grow journals and have learned a lot!!! Unfortunately, over time I have noticed that a lot of small details are left out and that there seems to be some debate over a lot of different techniques and remedies.

I am also having difficulty finding posts which circumstances are similiar to mine.

This entire system is some creation brought up from the debths of a grow room guru in hydroponic meca so if anything blame him for the over-elaborateness of the setup. I wanted automation with the best grow potential and this is what I got. Blame him for being too good of a salesman or blame me for being an idiot. In any case I am making it my mission to get this to work and I will need your help to guide me along.

I plan to keep everybody here posted as things go along so we can all marvel, laugh or scoff. As I am sure to find out, I have a lot of catching up to do but whatever happens I am sure to let you all know.

Cheers!

The reason why I appear to be rushing this along is beacause I would rather start out right then carry limp plants along for the whole process. Getting clones is easy and fairly cheap so if I end up wasting a few then I feel it is better than wasting all of the resources (elec + nutes + time + ?) to take them only to find out that the early stress stunted them to the point of yielding nothing. I am only a few days into this thing so what is a few more to patch things up? I have two places to veg plants so a few extra cant hurt right?

This is off the top of my head,

Now I just saw a grow journal that has this link where mr green says that you need only 3 essentials but we both know that there is more than that.

POT-TV: Mr. Green: I Grow Chronic

#1 - Light

#2 - Water

#3 - air

#4 - heat

#5 - nutirents

#6 - space

#7 - TLC? (I was gonna guess a growing medium but aero doesn't even have that right?)

If this is right I will be suprised

co2 , o2 plants need both of these for seperate things but both of them are found in air. In this case we are talking about getting oxygen to the roots, especially young roots like you have with clones and seedlings.
They also need some humidity, they have to be able to breath in some water for the leaves and stems. And in my humble opion you did extremly well. much better than I did but maybe thats just my age coming on.
If you can get and keep these things in balance, and you have an excellent set up for doing so, 99% of the time you will be successful.
If you can easily get clones of varieties you like then you probably have a real good idea. Throw enough spaghetti agaisnt the wall and some of it is bound to stick. Are they coming to you in the Rapid Rooters? Are the roots already showing? When they are just peaking out is when you want to transplant them. With the lights and grow cabinets you have you may want to put double the capacity of your flowering cabinets. If i'm seeing this right the 10-5 gallon buckets are the part of the watering system that actually delivers to the plants? If so, 40 plants. then you can weed out slow growers or any males that turn up from the seedlings.
You have taken some big first steps. I commend you for that, and I believe some others will do so as well.
Welcome to the forum, looking foirward to seeing you successful. Butr that doesn't mean I like You....yet.

lmao @ Victor, that analogy with the spaghetti, man dude I'm using that. Thanks for that lol.

They are coming to me in rockwool cubes. I can take some pics in the next few hours so you can see the cubes and the roots structures. the plants are asleep right now and I don't want to disturb them. The roots are showing however, I have just been afraid to move them since they look so good right now.

I am going to take some of your advice and not transplant all of the seedlings right now. I plan to soak 12 4X4 cubes in 1/4 strength flora nova and will follow the directions exactly as specified on the cubes (except for the 1/2 strength nute; I wanna use 1/4 since I have been watering with a little nute already). I plan to use 10 of the newly soaked cubes to transplant the 5 new clones and 5 of the old clones (5 of the origial 10). The 2 left over cubes will be used for only 2 of the new seedlings. This will leave me with 3 transplanted seedlings from their old crappy rockwool and 6 seedlings to continue to grow in the old non soaked rock wool. I will also have 5 of the original 10 clones in their old crappy cubes.

I want to test this to see which do better. The new transplants with nutes vs. the non transplanted in the non prepped rockwool. This way if the transplants go to hell, I will stil have 5 clones and 6 seedlings.

I read what you asked about the cabinets and I am not sure that I follow. Since this is DWC the buckets will have baskets that hold the plants and the plants will grow right out of them. I don't see how I am going to get double the plants in that space considering that I am using 5 gallon buckets. With 3 gallon I could get 12 or maybe 14. I am not sure if I want to go any smaller than that since I am looking to grow big plants.

I can elaborate more on the setup more if it will help. Believe me, this has been one hell of a learning exp for me. From what I understand we are going to do DWC and combine it with a top feed system.

Ow wow plants are awake now, let me get you the root pics of the 5 new clones.