My very first grow - 400w MH 2x40w hfl bagseed soil closet stealth

I've never grown anything in my life. I've saved some seeds from various sacks I've attained and after being unemployed for over a year and sick of playing endless amounts of xbox and sitting on my couch, I finally decided to partake on a new endeavor and germinate the seeds and see if i have a knack for growing.


I dont have much money to spend on equipment (I spend it all on weed) so I was very fortunate to have a friend hook me up with his old system that he wasn't using anymore since his kids are getting older.

I have been reading everything i could get my eyes on about growing herb for the past 3 weeks since i've started. I love lurking the grow journals and seeing everyones methods and trials and tribulations.

I am going to post my experiences, methods, and pictures and am welcoming any responses about things i am doing wrong/right or advice or anything.


i started germinating my seeds about 3 weeks ago and after about 3 days I had my seeds crack and i put them into some miracle-gro moisture control soil about 1/2 inch into the solo cups and ran them 24/7 under a 100w incandescent with a reflector in my water heater closet. I let them grow like that for about 3 days under that bulb and then put them in a storage bin lined with foil with a 40w x 2 4' fluorescent shop light about 2-3 inches aboveand let them sit under that 24/7 for about a week watering them as needed when the topsoil got crusty. Just used tap water that i let sit out for 24 hours prior to watering .

I noticed that after using the 100w light bulb that few days that i mustve mutated a couple of leaves ...they got kind of warped but i fixed that once i put it under the shop light.

there are still remnants of the mistake but now they seem to have moved on like it never happened.

Ok, so about 5 days ago I transplanted the seedlings into 5 - 6" square plastic pots with Fox farm Ocean bLend? I think it is.

I put them under a 400w mH with a sun system horizontal reflector and the 2 40w fls first for 24/7 for 2 days but then since they are in my bedroom closet and it gets kinda bright at night thru the closet cracks, i have a medium sized fan blowing on medium setting to keep the closet cool and to cool of the HID light, it stays about 88*-92* during the day and turn the fan off at night when the lights are off and it drops to 75*-80*. I have I switched them to a 18/6 regiment so we could sleep at night. I introduced Liquid gold fertilizer at 1/2 strength yesterday, I put a bubble stone in the nutrient mix to oxygenate the water for 20 mins checked teh PH (6.5) and they seem to be handling it fine. i mist them 2 times a day or whene3ver i go up and feel like admiring them. i will water once more tomorrow with half nutrients and then after that full strength run from then on.

I have a ebb and flow hydro system made of couple of bus tubs and the pumps and stuff that i am still learning how to use, but thats next time after i see what i can do with some bagseed. i posted a few pics of where i am at as of today..i am going into
week 3. the plants are starting to grow their 3rd tier, some even 4 tiers and they are growing more leaves at the nodes. I hope i have a female or two out of these. is there any way to tell before you start flowering? One of them has a purplish stem and when i mist them it smells very sweet. im excited. i have no idea what these strains are but i got the seeds out of some good sacks(headband, white widow, trainwreck) so who knows?

i am now learning about lst/TOPPING/CLONING/hydro and SOG. i am like a sponge right now . its amazing how much you will learn when you immerse yourself in something.

This hobby has brought so much light into my life the past 3 weeks. I have found a new love.

Those of you I have added means that you have taught me something while reading your posts and journals or was impressed by your garden.. i thank you all. RIU is the shiznit.

anyways enough of the chatter, i will keep you posted on my first closet bagseed stealth grow.

I welcome any help or comments.

Peace Y'all happy growing.

Dude those plants look very nice & healthy. The one thing I would recommend is to transplant into 5 gallon buckets if you really want to maximize the yield you can get from that HPS. & you are unemployed like me, so I'm guessing you do. lol You need to do this asap for those 5 larger plants. They are ready for transplant now & should be ready for flowering a few short weeks after that. I'm growing some WW & TW along with some other stuff. Check my grow if you get a minute. + rep.

dIRTYdUBYA said:

I've never grown anything in my life. I've saved some seeds from various sacks I've attained and after being unemployed for over a year and sick of playing endless amounts of xbox and sitting on my couch, I finally decided to partake on a new endeavor and germinate the seeds and see if i have a knack for growing.

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WOW! You literally described my exact same story, I got laid off in March last year, got full pay until the end of August and have been technically unemployed since then. Been applying like crazy for jobs, even for shit that pays half of what I used to make. My wife got her card a few months ago and 6 weeks ago we decided to start growing to save money. I haven't turned my 360 on in over a month, researching grows and working on my own setup is taking up every waking second.

Good luck, I'm going to tag along for the ride

Thanks rom, yeah that's an old post ...i accidentally made 2 different threads and this one got left behind..i might as well fill it in with the posts from my current journal( still haven't been able to figure out the minor details of the posting and signature linking)

here is a recent update of where i am at at of 4 days ago.

new post added to this thread today from 6/18/2010~~~

```````````````Alright, i am in week 3 almost into week 4. Since i had them in 6" square pots i was watering them every 3rd day with shultz liquid fertilizer full strength, and they haven't shown any signs of over nuting. so far so good.

I have had the lights on a timer 18/6 for the past 2-3 weeks after having them on 24/7. i just have two fans, both pointed at the Mh 400w and it has been keeping the closet around 85-90 degrees steadily.

A week or so ago i wanted to experiment with FIm'ing and topping. I fimmed one and topped 2 of them. It seems to me that topping is better than the fim and gets results much quicker. i used some plastic wrapped wire to make the topped stems go up since they seemed to want to grow sideways. I wanted them to go straight up..LOL. Oh and i also got some mylar(space blankets from wal-mart in the camping section..2.99 a pack , i bought two, used 1, more than enough.)

Today i transplanted them all into 3 gallon pots to give the roots more room to grow and breathe and then watered them, now i wont have to water them as often . I mix the nutes and then put a bubble stone in the water jug for 1o mins to oxygenate it and seems to work fine.

I wonder what strains these are since they are just bagseed, but they were out of some dank chron so who know? anybody have a clue or recognize the strains?

I also bought a 400 HPS today at the local hydro shop for in a week or so im going to start flowering them..is this about right ? start flowering at 4-5 weeks? does anyone recommend any flowering nutes?

anyways these are very low maintenance so far and they have been growing nicely. below are some recent pics i took today, enjoy and any and all feedback is welcome...


**update 6-23-10** I got a job now(yes!!!) and just in time cuz my benefits just ran out..close call.

I got my self a timer and now i dont have to worry about being home on time ....the light coming from my closet annoys my woman when she tries to sleep..whah!!! LOL I mist them about three times a day just because....my best advice for new growers and something that old growers know is always trust your instincts...

Today the runt of the litter seems to be growing up a bit faster...it was started after the others and seems to always sit low in the pot....today i topped it and decided to LST because im all about learning new crap and experimenting since this is my first time growing. i just bent it over and tied it down to where it looked and felt right. after 3 hours of being in that state, the leaves and little branches have already started to upright themselves....plants grow faster than anything in creation..isnt that wonderful? anyways i got some skewers from work to help keep the plants straight if they want to slump and also use them as supports to use ,my wire plastic ties to keep them upright since the tops seem to want to droop but i want them straight..im sick like that

anyways im baked and rambling so enjoy the pics and any feed back is welcome..

rombomb420 said:

Dude those plants look very nice & healthy. The one thing I would recommend is to transplant into 5 gallon buckets if you really want to maximize the yield you can get from that HPS. & you are unemployed like me, so I'm guessing you do. lol You need to do this asap for those 5 larger plants. They are ready for transplant now & should be ready for flowering a few short weeks after that. I'm growing some WW & TW along with some other stuff. Check my grow if you get a minute. + rep.

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thanks,i am very happy with them so far..do u think maybe 5 gals? i think i just got 3's im not sure now...yeah right now im running a 400 w MH and am in the middle of week 5 from germination. i bought a 400 w HPS for when i start to flower the ones that turn out to have tits. is there any way to predict what sex a plant will be by how it is growing? its leaf structure? and how much longer should i veg? i still need to figure out a plan for 12 hours complete darkness..any suggestions? a tent maybe?

thanks for dropping by i will check out your threads and drop you a line...+rep to you as well.

bajafox said:

WOW! You literally described my exact same story, I got laid off in March last year, got full pay until the end of August and have been technically unemployed since then. Been applying like crazy for jobs, even for shit that pays half of what I used to make. My wife got her card a few months ago and 6 weeks ago we decided to start growing to save money. I haven't turned my 360 on in over a month, researching grows and working on my own setup is taking up every waking second.

Good luck, I'm going to tag along for the ride

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hey baja , thanks for dropping by.

WOW DUDE..THATS SOME CRAZY SHIT..ALMOST EXACTLY THE SAME STORY...i havent played my xbox since ive been growing either..lol

i got lucky and landed a job 2 weeks ago but for much less than i am worth..i am making 25% less than before..frickin restaurants know work is scarce soo they can get cheap labor..and min wage is going up in a month or so making me even less money than im worth, but hey it gets me out of the house and makes me feel good about life again... i love it , its teaching me patience..i love growing weed...they are such beautiful plants and i love seeing their progress every day when i wake up..they are my babies..my daughter thinks they are tomato plants ..hee-hee.. shes 8...

anyways bro thanks for getting in the car with us and im going to check your thread too..peace!!

time to smoke a bowl.

As soon as I get my tent up and running with a good cycle I'm going to apply at Home Depot or Lowe's. I even told my wife today I was going to and she was like "why? they won't pay you as much as unemployment" I told her I didn't care that I just needed to work so I can get out of the fuckin house, lol. I'm not growing to make a ton of money, just enough to get by on a low paying wage. I'm probably going to lose about 45% of my 2009 salary but at least I'll be earning my money again. I used to bus table's before I became an Analyst, I can do it again

i want a tent and dont know where to find one..yeah my unemployment ran out and i just collected til it was all gone , only worked for 2 weeks when i was but yeah those would be fun places to work..im just growing as a hobby right now but if i get good at it then i will maybe make a little dinero. i want to get my medical card then i wont have to be stealthy about it...total cost would be about 200 bones. good lick on the job search.

Check out the Secret Jardin DR120 and DR120W, I bought the 120W, it's 2ft x 4ft by just over 5 ft. I'm having heating issues right now but hope to get that worked out soon. I have a friend who pretty much gave me a 400w hps as long as I supply him and he's going to bring me clones to grow, it's basically a win win with hardly any money out of my pocket except for the electric bill, water and my labor, which is my favorite part My tent cost me $169 out the door here in San Diego, you can get 'em for $150 on greners.com

bajafox said:

Check out the Secret Jardin DR120 and DR120W, I bought the 120W, it's 2ft x 4ft by just over 5 ft. I'm having heating issues right now but hope to get that worked out soon. I have a friend who pretty much gave me a 400w hps as long as I supply him and he's going to bring me clones to grow, it's basically a win win with hardly any money out of my pocket except for the electric bill, water and my labor, which is my favorite part My tent cost me $169 out the door here in San Diego, you can get 'em for $150 on greners.com

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u mentioned San diego..thats funny i grew up in Imperial beach and lived on 33rd and el cajon blvd for a few years in North park...

thanks for the heads up on the tent, im getting one for flower time...yeah the same with me a bro hooked me up with his getup as long as i hook him up when its time ya know? fair deal to me..he even gave me his hydro setup but thats for next round maybe with some clones if i get some ladies out of this bagseed. i havent seen the electric bill yet for this last month so i dont know what ill be throwing at them for running the 400w 24/7 then 18/6...cant imagine it being too much of a difference, not much more than running an ac all day for the summer.

When you get ready for the tent make sure you include the price of a good fan with it, like an inline fan, I'm hoping to make that my next upgrade. I'm running mine 12/12 except for one clone, which I keep under cfl's for an extra 6 hours. My wife thinks it's funny that every night I have to put her back in the tent at 11pm, lol....she'll understand when she finally smokes it

We were looking into moving to North Park but decided to move to Spring Valley to save on rent.

yeha i have the perfect spot for the tent. our washer and dryer closet. I mean it is about 4x4x7 and has the vent for the dryer and even has a water hookup..lol```maybe some aluminum vent pipes and a cooling fan running up and out.

yeah i tell my girl she wont be complaining about the lights being on til 11 pm when she smokes the final product. thast funny i run from 5am til 11pm also. would totally run 24/7 but for her whining and the anticipated power bill.

LOL spring valley, we used to call it spun valley cuz of all the meth labs. i have homies who still live there.

tomorrow i will take some pics of the LST im throwing my runt into..the stalk is very thick already..any advice about pruning my plants?

How's it going, I'm enjoying your new journal, your plants look real nice and healthy!! I say don't cut unless you have to. I.E. it's dying. The ones that are 5 weeks from germination could totally be put on 12/12 now. Or you could wait a week or 2 if you wanted, it's all up to you. Just remember that they will roughly double in size from when you start 12/12 to finish.

Im subbed.

If you can check out my grow, it's in my sig.

billcollector99 said:

How's it going, I'm enjoying your new journal, your plants look real nice and healthy!! I say don't cut unless you have to. I.E. it's dying. The ones that are 5 weeks from germination could totally be put on 12/12 now. Or you could wait a week or 2 if you wanted, it's all up to you. Just remember that they will roughly double in size from when you start 12/12 to finish.

Im subbed.

If you can check out my grow, it's in my sig.

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hey bill!!! everything is going good , thanks!

Yeah, i dont think i will end up cutting any leaves off, i was reading some threads about pruning the fan leaves to produce more energy for the nodes but I think it will have to wait.

yeah i know its getting close to time to see what sex they are..im excited and hoping for mostly fems, they could be fem already and i might get lucky since they are from seeds from strains that come from some Lake tahoe growers and some dank strains, trainwreck, diesel,headband, white widow, blueberry...who knows i dont even remember what sacks i found them in its been so long...LOL. but im sure they are seedbank quality at least.

I bought a 400w HPS the other day but im not at all sure how im going to keep them totally dark for 12 hours, because they cant have ANY light, am i correct? i need to come to a conclusion on what i need to do.

I have them in a slide/mirror 2 panel closet and some light might get thru from the street lights outside because i keep a fan in my window cuz its firkin HOT.

i might just make a makeshift tent using some sliced and taped pieces of black garbage bags..hmm. just to cover the canopy from any possible light yet leave them room to breath with a small 6" fan... Damn, i just figgered it out right now on this post..sweet.

yeah i think i will wait a week or so to let the LST'd younguns get a little growth on them..so they will double in flower ehh..ok.

i have about 4 ft. top clearance, that should work.

I started to check out your thread and like what i saw and after i write this im going to go finish the other 20 pages.

Thanks for subbing, i will sub you back +rep and , return the favor

OH AND I TOOK SOME NEWS PICS TODAY AND ....oops caps...and they will be put up tonight with a little update...

Thanks for stopping by.

i like the journals, very detailed. and i learned a lot from just reading this.

im starting my own closet grow, im about a week in.
ive got some dank bagseeds,,, but thats about it. i need some of these materials i hear you all talking about...

crispiy said:

i like the journals, very detailed. and i learned a lot from just reading this.

im starting my own closet grow, im about a week in.
ive got some dank bagseeds,,, but thats about it. i need some of these materials i hear you all talking about...

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hey crispiy

thanks for the props....this site is a virtual encyclopedia of indoor/outdoor hydro/aero/soil growing..pretty much anything you want to know can be found here and if you have a quick question you need answered you can pop over to the chat room , there are always at least 1 or 2 people who will be happy to answer some questions.

about the materials..i just bought them little by little as i got some money available..excluding the light/ballast system.

I will be happy to answer any questions you might have to the best of my ability...6 weeks of experience and 1000+ hrs. of reading..LOL

+rep to you for getting your feet wet and making a post...you will always remember me as your first..ROFLMAO..

keep reading and best of luck to you.

dd

dIRTYdUBYA said:

hey crispiy

thanks for the props....this site is a virtual encyclopedia of indoor/outdoor hydro/aero/soil growing..pretty much anything you want to know can be found here and if you have a quick question you need answered you can pop over to the chat room , there are always at least 1 or 2 people who will be happy to answer some questions.

about the materials..i just bought them little by little as i got some money available..excluding the light/ballast system.

I will be happy to answer any questions you might have to the best of my ability...6 weeks of experience and 1000+ hrs. of reading..LOL

+rep to you for getting your feet wet and making a post...you will always remember me as your first..ROFLMAO..

keep reading and best of luck to you.

dd

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haha, for sure man. im working on getting a job now so i can move out. i live with my mom still.
but im not pathetic(yet), i just graduated HS.
and im ready to get my fingers sticky.

I upgraded my grow tent today, or downgrade I suppose, I went from a 400w hps to a 200w cfl, I'm going to use it strictly for vegging. I picked up a 600w today with external ballast which I'm going to use once I'm ready for flowering. I know heat will be a big issue but I bought a 6in inline fan, carbon filter and am planning a DIY cool tube for the bulb. That's at least 5 weeks away but I got a good deal on all of it.

crispiy said:

haha, for sure man. im working on getting a job now so i can move out. i live with my mom still.
but im not pathetic(yet), i just graduated HS.
and im ready to get my fingers sticky.

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lol .....feet wet and fingers sticky..nice one!!