After 6 years, it begins.. Nirvana White Rhino, Widow & Mazar - 400W CMH

[KMK0420]

Tiny little droops work like magnifying glass and can cause burns. I spray my ladie only at night.... when the sun goes down

I mostly spray under the leaves, other side.... plants LOVE THIS!

first lesson learned! i actually enjoy making mistakes. i could be upset over the fact that i may have possibly severely damaged 1 plant, but i'll choke it up to newbie first grow, i learned what not to do, won't do it next time

 

[SlowCalaToker]

Equip:

400W HPS Ballast (Sun System)
400W CMH bulb + 400W HPS bulb
Yield Master II air-cooled hood
CAN 33 Fan/Carbon Filter combo

I hate to ask, but the CMH is what I am saving up to buy right now. How much was this portion of your equipment list and where did you get them?

Thanks in advance, and good luck with your grow, there's nothing like smoking some that YOU have nurtured, fed, and loved!

 

[KMK0420]

well unless I pull a ton of email receipts, these are ballpark numbers.. hood $140, ballast $140, CMH bulb $63, hps bulb $50, fan&filter $350.... add in taxes and shipping but ballpark 7-800

 

[SlowCalaToker]

well unless I pull a ton of email receipts, these are ballpark numbers.. hood $140, ballast $140, CMH bulb $63, hps bulb $50, fan&filter $350.... add in taxes and shipping but ballpark 7-800

Thanks for the quick reply amigo! Now another question crops up...

You have an HPS bulb listed. Aren't you planning on flowing with the CMH? All the research I have done on the bulb indicates that it is as good, if not better, for flowering as the HPS. That is the major reason I chose to go with the CMH rather than just buying the standard MH for veg and HPS for flower. Just wondering if I need to rethink things at all...

Thanks again!

 

[Seismic]

Looking good KMK

 

[KMK0420]

well, what I planned on doing was use the cmh up until about the last 2 weeks of flowering and switch to the HPS.. I figure by doing so I will get more of the spectrum to the plants .. but some say stick with cmh all the way through, which I may do too. either way the hps can be used as a backup worse case.

 

[guanito]

congratulations K.
You won't regret it, and you have a nice setup.
Just take it easy and treat the girls nice.
best regards

 

[KMK0420]

Thanks guys, pics up this coming saturday.

I planned on this schedule:

1st week: 24/0
2nd week - finish of veg: 18/6
flowering: 12/12

my question is, i hear a lot about when your grow room is in it's night period, ensure the entire area is pitch black at all times....now, when people say they water at night (you're supposed to obv to avoid burning them, etc.) how exactly do they water? in fucking nightvision? lol i mean is it okay to open my tent for 5 to water and mist? or will that dramatically increase the chance of problems?

second, if there are light leaks in the tent, what's the worst that can happen?

 

[SlowCalaToker]

my question is, i hear a lot about when your grow room is in it's night period, ensure the entire area is pitch black at all times....now, when people say they water at night (you're supposed to obv to avoid burning them, etc.) how exactly do they water? in fucking nightvision? lol i mean is it okay to open my tent for 5 to water and mist? or will that dramatically increase the chance of problems?

second, if there are light leaks in the tent, what's the worst that can happen?

Thanks for the previous answer! With regard to the watering at night, I know a lot of people have green lights (not green bulbs, they are just a film on a regular bulb. They have green lights made for this purpose) to do night work. I don't disturb them during the flowering night cycle at all, I water when the lights are on. During the veg period, I don't think it matters at all if you turn the lights on for a few to do your maintenance. Others can correct me if I'm wrong.

Have fun!

 

[Cyber9]

the homebox is pretty light proof, you may see a lil light from the flaps.... But from the inside you see nothing.. Try standing in it zipped up.. I can't see my hand in front of me.

As for the light, like slowcarlatoker said, go get your self a green light... I got a green clf works great

 

[pinecone]

my question is, i hear a lot about when your grow room is in it's night period, ensure the entire area is pitch black at all times....now, when people say they water at night (you're supposed to obv to avoid burning them, etc.) how exactly do they water? in fucking nightvision? lol i mean is it okay to open my tent for 5 to water and mist? or will that dramatically increase the chance of problems?

I don't think the strict adherence to total darkness is all that important until the plants are flowering. In veg you can open your tent during the 6-hour down period and to water. Watering when the lights on isn't really a problem. Foiler feeding with the lights on may be a problem. If you want to foiler feed (which I don't think is necessary - but some people swear by) you should do it when the lights are off or about to go off.

There isn't any reason to mist with str8 water IMO.

second, if there are light leaks in the tent, what's the worst that can happen?

In the flowering cycle light leaks can delay flowering and stress female plants (or latent hermaphrodites) into producing female flowers.

Pine

 

[Frostynugz]

I run my lights at night as well. I just water them 10-15 mins before the light turns on. Pull them all out, water them, and by the time your done letting the water run off your lights should be firing up. No misting though for obvious reasons. I've never had any issues doing it this way. Good luck

Nugz

 

[Cyber9]

There isn't any reason to mist with str8 water IMO.

To keep dust off your plants? I use 5ml of black strap molasses in my spray.. it eventually leaves a molasses film on the leaves.. I hit them with straight water every 3rd foliar spray or so to keep them clean

Oh and spraying with anything stops when you start 12/12.. Spraying buds = moldy buds

 

[guanito]

ants love molasses. have to be careful w/that.

i think plants are best watered just before the lights come on.
i mist w/the lights on. always very careful. never had a problem.
you won't harm them doing a bit of light maintenance in the dark, just watch out for hermies! lol

make sure there are no light leaks or you will get hermies for sure.

 

[KMK0420]

the way i have to do it with the homebox (being its in the room i live in practically)...i have a comforter blocking that corner of the room off, and the window in that corner covered...i shut 2/3 flaps on the homebox, and left the one open for air circulation. come flowering, i will have to tidy up and make shit 100% lightproof, the only downside to that is i have to be here when the timer switches to open things up to allow airflow.

with the comforter blocking it off, temps can easily rise to 90+. cant let that happen! a/c is on constantly as the temps around here are 80s 90s..

 

[pinecone]

To keep dust off your plants? I use 5ml of black strap molasses in my spray.. it eventually leaves a molasses film on the leaves.. I hit them with straight water every 3rd foliar spray or so to keep them clean

Well this is a reason I hadn't thought about. I've always thought of molasses as a food sources for the micro heard and not something to foiler feed with - but I guess it is a sources of micro nutrients as well.

Pine

 

[KMK0420]

i plan on picking up some molasses for flowering/veg maybe, but only as a nutrient in direct waterings...no foliar feeding with it..

the only downside to this grow so far is my own dumbass spraying them with the lights on. the first/main set of fan leaves that formed are deformed, bending a little bit in a sense, and the one plant with the sun burns it's first set of fan leaves or whatever are pretty much done for...as it gets bigger, so does the burn spot!

i'll post some pics up saturday. will be a HUGE jump in growth since this past saturday, let me tell you that!

another question... how do you judge when it's time to flower? seedling/veg stage sort of morph-together, but how exactly when do you know its time for flowering? after sexing immediately, or is it more of a size issue (IE, letting the plant get to a certain height, then flowering)...i have about 5 feet height to work with, maybe more..

 

[KMK0420]

note:

went ahead and got ordered ph test strips/kit, ph up, ph down and flora nova grow/bloom.

i raised the light more, to about 3-4 ft away from the plants...i guess i burned one bad, but when the new leaves come in that shouldnt even be an issue

can twisting of leaves be due to high/low ph in my water? ive been using spring water i got at walmart... i plan on testing that, but i think when i transplant next if this doesnt fix itself then i need to get some sort of soil buffer. if the ph is too high, what would you all recommend for a soil buffer?

 

[pinecone]

another question... how do you judge when it's time to flower? seedling/veg stage sort of morph-together, but how exactly when do you know its time for flowering? after sexing immediately, or is it more of a size issue (IE, letting the plant get to a certain height, then flowering)...i have about 5 feet height to work with, maybe more..

People do it different ways. Some people in your situation will just flower then plants after three weeks and discard males and transplant females as it becomes apparent who is who. Other people will wait until they can sex all their plants, transplant, and flower the females.

What I do working with a smaller space is sex all the plants (you need a loop), discard the males, and transplant the females, and determine veg times by what I think it takes to fill the canopy. You have 5 vertical feel to work with, but you can always trade vertical height for horizontal girth through training or cropping. So for instance (and god forbid), suppose you only have 4 female plants. If you let them get 2ft tall there would be some risk of them overgrowing your space. Furthermore, you are only going to get good bud on the top of such a large plant with a 400w light. In this instance you are probably better training them to stay short and broad so that they fill the canopy. If you had 8 female plants you could flower them shorter which would reduce the utility of such training.

In some ways which method you choose will depend on what your priorities are. If you are very future oriented and just want to get through a larger number of plants so that you can find a keeper and work from there flowering sooner is going to be better. If you grow from seed for yield more veg time is probably better. It has been my experience that small differences in veg time, say between 1-month and 6-weeks, can translate into a big percentage difference in yield.

Hopefully some others will chime in with their thoughts so that you have some diversity of opinion.

i raised the light more, to about 3-4 ft away from the plants...i guess i burned one bad, but when the new leaves come in that shouldnt even be an issue

I had water related burns on a lot of lower leaves from them touching wet soil (or just spilling water on them) and getting hit by HIDs as I used to start seeds under MH and the seedlings stayed really close to the dirt. It isn't really an issue. Once the plants start getting true multi-finger leaves and root in the cups they start to grow much quicker. You won't even notice that you burned the leaves in 2 weeks.

can twisting of leaves be due to high/low ph in my water? ive been using spring water i got at walmart... i plan on testing that, but i think when i transplant next if this doesnt fix itself then i need to get some sort of soil buffer. if the ph is too high, what would you all recommend for a soil buffer?

Post of pictures of the leaf twisting. Some strains are predisposed to some leaf deformities. They usually grow out of these, but not aways (particularly in the case of blue strains).

I would be very surprised if you had any sort of PH issues prior to the use of nutrients. As you know I use a similar medium and water with very high PH water (7.8-8.0) and have no PH issues.

After you start using the the Flora Nova fertilizer that your bought I'm not sure. Most fertilizers are somewhat acidic. I'm also not sure how using a chem fertilizers is going to affect the mico-life in the root zone that some folks claim plays a critical role in maintaining the proper PH, irrespective of the PH of water or nutrient solutions that are being used. Some in the organics will forum also claim that PH down has an adverse effect on micro-life, and that if you are going to bother you should use something like vinegar or citric acid to PH down. I honestly don't know though.

One thing you might want to think about is how hard the water you are using is. Generally speaking high PH water also has a high mineral content - meaning high amounts of calcium among other minerels. This can be an issue if you are using fertilizers which also have a high amount of calcium. Too much Ca can lead to other nutrients being locked out.

The most commonly used soil buffer is dolomite lime. You shouldn't need this however as your FFOF is buffered with crushed oyster shells and is adjusted to a PH of 6.3-6.8 according to Fox Farm. Coco should be neutral with respect to PH.

Pine

 

[KMK0420]

here are the pics

this one was the one burned i think by spraying with lights on..