Having Beginner's Issues

[Beowulfagate]

Started 4 Silver Pearl clones in hydroton pellets in 4 gal buckets (1 plant per) DWC using flora nova, kool bloom (at beginning of flowering) & floraliscious plus throughout flowering. Have them in 4'x4' tent w/ 1000W HPS (digital), heat exhausting through inline cheapo duct fan temps around 80 during day & 70 @ night. They veg for a month first and generally get about 3' high, but have yet to harvest more than 20g from single plant. Have oscillating 10" fan for circulation but no co2. Plants get leggy and buds don't gain alot of girth, also buds don't fill in gaps between nodes too well. Generally harvest @ beginning or end of 7th week or whenever half of white hairs have turned orange. Seen much nicer results at a friend's grow but he doesn't seem eager to share tips. Any suggestions?

 

[cocktail frank]

what strain are you growing?
most plants pack on the most weight towards the end.
7 weeks seems like you yank em early, could be why u getting 20g's a piece.
plus you dont want to use additives when u flip.
lay off the kool bloom til at least the 3rd week of flip.

 

[humble1]

he's not your friend if he doesn't want to share tips. he's just someone you know.
are your lights close enough to the canopy?
use liquid koolbloom towards the end of flower.
use powdered koolbloom in the first week only as a way to initiate preflowering.
i'll second frank's advice about pulling them too soon: use a 10-30x micro or loupe and look at the trichomes, not the hairs, to determine ripeness.
finally, your water may be too hot if your tent is 80+ during lights on. use an aquarium thermometer to determine water temps and try to keep them below 70 at all times.
otherwise, good luck!

 

[Beowulfagate]

Thanks

Thanks

Strain is silver pearl, light is 18" from canopy, are you sure about when to use the dry kool bloom? everything I've read says liquid to initiate flowering and dry at end to promote bud swelling. any suggestions for lowering water temp? Oh... and all my leaves have burned tips, otherwise leaves look healthy, looking in Cervantes's book it seems like zinc deficiency... sound correct?

 

[Possumtail]

One way to lower water temps. is to freeze a water bottle and put it into your res when the lights are on. One reason for the burnt tips could be chlorine in the tap water if you don't let your water sit out for a day or more.

 

[FaderVader]

If your only running 4 plants your gunna need 8 weeks of veg with some nice LST and maybe a scrogg/super cropping (whatever you prefer, personally same results) That 1000w get great canopy penetration and you should be finishing atleast at 5' even with the Silver Pearl.

My 4x4 tenst are 7 feet tall so you should have enouph room i would assume to get um up.

 

[Hydro-Soil]

No matter what other changes you make, I can't recommend the following enough.

Run your FloraNova at 8ml/gal and dump all the other additives. There's more than enough of everything your ladies need in that stuff. If you have issues, let me know.

Edit: Also, you want to keep your res temps in check..... DWC is notorious for issues. Do yourself a favor and look into switching to E&F or Drip. You can use most of the same equipment and you'll gain a lot of plusses.

 

[ogatec]

allot of people are having problems with the growtents harming their plants, is yours homemade or store bought?

 

[Beowulfagate]

Store bought but I already checked it out and it's not one of the brands having the gas off problems, that is just wrong that those companies didn't bother to field test their product before destroying people's crops. We have to be extra careful what kind of gear we use because their sure as hell isn't any legal recourse for damaged crops