My First Grow: Journal

Day 18 of grow. Nice growth in four days. some of the plants leaves are hanging to the edge of my 10 inch planter pot. Nice short and compact growth with a level canopy. Very happy up to this point. Finally got my ph meter today and the soil is at stable 6.5 for both plants. Plants are now about 4 inches high (hard to tell b/c an inch is buried in an inch perlite.) I've seen a total of two fungus gnats since starting to treat for them. I've been using the neem daily and every water gets a does of the of the bacteria from the mosq. dunks. Watered today with a treatment that had a four day soaking with dunk. That dose should go along way to killing all the remaining larvae in the soil. I will continue to treat for at least thirty days. Nothing more to say or than very happy with the results so far.

They look very nice man, what do you plan on flowering with?( if you will even talk to me)

Funny you should ask about that drew. Originally, I wasnt goint to add a single thing and let them grow. I just dont want to over tamper with my plants the first time around. That seems to be where most of the mistakes come from with new growers. That being said, I think I have a slight problem. My NKP is 21:7:14. There in lies the problem with MG Mositure control soil. Its great for the veg and the the first two weeks of flowering, but after that, you are going to have to twice the amount of N and any where from 13 to 23% less K than you need. The P is also about less than 6 to 16% than what is optimal. So the hard part is finding a nute that fits those needs. I've found one nute that fits the bill: Dyna-Grow Mag Pro. It has a 2-15-4 NKP. Which fits the bill almost perfectly. So what I plan on doing is letting the now 23% N ride in the the 30/30 KP. Its the best I can do that adds the smallest N with highest boost to K and P. I think it will work out well based on the data I've collected up to this point. I could flush during the the 3 to 6 week period, but i'd also be washing away the KP that need so desperatly. I think the 23% N is an acceptable level. But only time will tell. Also, i would assume that some of the N would have been depleted from the growth of the veg state and the first two weeks of flower. How much I'm not certain, but certainly it has be less than the total than what I started with. I'll keep you posted. Thanks bro.

Bro you should really buy a product called Revive, its made by Advanced Nutes. Its really cheap at about $30 a litter and lasts a long time because you dont use it that much, but it will work wonders on balancing your soil levels and fixing any overwatering/nute burn/nute lock you might incounter.This stuff will save you so much worry bro, I grow soil and dont have to adjust my ph at all cuz I use this shit once a week.

Those plats look great bro! Thanks for the new pics, it is a big difference! Looking good bro keep up the good work. And I agree with you take it slow when you start adding nutes to your shit. I can go sideways real quick! If it aint broken don't fix it! I would start out around 1/4 to 1/3 strength on the nutes. I did 1/2 one time then the next time I did 2/3 strength and I got a small bit of burn so I backed it off to 1/2. I use the Fox farms liquid ferts right now, and the FFOF soil that has nutes in it so take is slow brotha. Looking fucking awesome can't wait to see some short plants that are solid bud!!!!!

I got my new cfl's today and I was shocked. They came in this big ass box and was wondering why the three bulbs would be packed like that. Then I opened the box and man these things are huge! 12 inches long as about 5 inches in diameter. I got three 105 watt that total 19,200 lumens (7100 for the 2700k and 5000 for the 6500k). They put out more heat too I'm sure (bulb runs at 140 degrees F) so I need watch my room to see how its going to effect the temps. Not sure how far I should place them above the plants. I got them at about three inches right now. This is day 19 of the grow and I expect them to flower any day now. I went ahead and installed my flowering setup (two 105 watt 2700k 7100 lumens, one 105 watt 6500k 5000 lumens.) This will give max lumens per plant through the flowering period and I should get maxed yeilds at least from the light perspective. I hope they flower soon. See my pics below of the new cfl's. I took one pic with my 26watt cfl for scale. These fuckers are huge!

Holly shit those bulbs look huge! They should blow up your growth bro! I see you got two flower 2700K bulbs and one 6500K bulb. Your plants will love those. Are you sure they are 105 watts? I have two 150 total watt bulbs and they are no where near that size. Are you talking about the watts they use in energy or are you talking about the watts they put out?

I like your setup and those bulbs are giant!~ If you want to lower overall bulb/ballast temps, set up a fan blowing directly on the bulbs. In my veg tent it made a 3 degree difference. Take a peak at my grow =D

Good luck

They are 105 actual watts, 400 watt equivilant. The box I took a picture of (you cant telll b/c I didnt put something in picture for scale) but its like 15 inches high. The bulbs say they are HID replacement bulbs (works almost as well). There's a chart: MH 100 watt = 8500 lumens, HPS 100 watt = 9500 CFL 105 watt = 7100.

I really like their size. Their length and width cover just about every leaf I have. I also made a ghetto reflector to cover the top of them. These bulbs put out enough lumens to make it worth it. I made it out of a grill and some tin foil lol. It works tho. I think foil is bad only HPS and MH systems (has to high heat and high lumens that cause hot spots).

Thanks Newb, I've got a 10" fan on them, you cant see it in the pics. I'll check out your grow. Thanks for commenting.

Good stuff you got going on.Those bulbs are good to get the mix spectrum in as well.Looks good.

Yea the mix spectrum works out almost perfect: 3:1 lumens. Very happy with the way it worked out.

Yeah i bet the ladies will love it as well.

Day 21. Woke up today and room temp was about 94 degrees and by far the highest temp to date. Got it back to about 85 in about an hr so. Pants were a little droopy and I had some heat stress on on of the leaf blades. Made new reflector today out of some cheap aluminum pans and ducted taped them together. Its ghetto but it works really well. I was losing about half my lumens to the roof. My current setup now I believe I could grow four normal size plants no problem under these lights. Learned yester day that the NL AF take about 5 weeks to veg before flowering. They should comeplete flowering in 5 to 7 weeks. They should be about as big as a normal size NL. So I guess AF doesnt mean lowryder. Hopefully I will get the same about bud as normal plant as well. Plants are about 7 inches high and still have two weeks of veg to go. Plants look good and bushy. Everything seems to be going well. Still seeing a few gnats here there. Still trying to kill those little fuckers for good.

Man those are looking really good bro nice and bushy and green! Good job bro. I still have a few nats also but I put up tose sticky traps outside of my grow room and they seem to love that! LOL My local hydro shop told me that if I am 2 weeks into flowering dont worry too much about it. I was laughing my ass off at your reflector! But whatever works bro! Good way to adapt and overcome! In the military they use bubblegum and duct tape to get jets in the air, sometimes you need to adapt to get the mission done! Anyway looking good bro and can't wait to see some pics of your ladies when they start budding.

yes that reflector works well even if its ghettoed to the max lol. Might have to take it out. Think the new lights and reflector just make it too hot for the plants. Plants look a little droopy today. Not bad, but not like the perky plants I have normaly. Might give it one more day to see how it works out. I need to water today, and it was only 2 days since last watering. Heat definitely a factor.

I like that reflector idea, I might try to integrate something like that into mine. I have a long rectangular light rack, with 3 sockets on it, gonna expand that to probably 4 lights in middle socket and 2-4 on outsides. This probably would help in my case, due to lower wattage lights (I'm shooting for 42w).

Man those are some bushy plants! Glad MG soil is working great for you. If temps are bad, try removing the middle light for now and have the fan blowing on the bulbs on high. All the heat from the cfl's is from the ballast. If you get a fan blowing directly on a cfl it runs much cooler therefore keeping temps down.

That reflector is working really well. Many ppl will tell you not to use foil products b/c they will burn your plants. But Ive seen this debated a hundred times on this forum, and what I gathered it that cfl are ok for foil, HPS is not. I'm keeping a close eye on it for any burn holes. I might go ahead and line the the inside with heat resitant white plastic. The reflector alone does not heat up, it thin aluminum and stays cool. But it does push the heat down on the plants a bit. But any reflecotor rood will do that.

Starting think maybe my plants are too bushy. Its hard for me to see the bud sites and check for preflowers. Also wondering if the density could hurt the leaves from getting enough light. Not sure. Ppl say dense is good b/c you get dense buds, but you got have healthy plants first to get good bud lol.

glad to find a grow of nirvana auto nl. i got 2 of the seeds. i didn't know they veg for 5 weeks before starting flower. wish it was sooner. but thanks to you ill know what to expect. im subbed up man.

later

yea, the NL auto take about 5 weeks. Good thing is only takes 5 to 7 weeks to flower which is the fastest of all the auto flowers. Good luck with your grow.