New Grower Complete first time grower. 20 days in. Advice/comments & help welcome on my setup and grow.

[c0reforce]

So I am a complete newbie to indoor growing, but I did a large amount of research and talking with the growshop guys prior to purchasing my set-up (which was fairly expensive due to high-end components) Cost me the equivalent of about $1000USD for everything.
My set-up:

• Homebox Growlab GL120 120x120x200cm
• Lumatek 600 watt Electronic Ballast
• 600 watt Lumatek dual spectrum HPS bulb
• XXL reflector hood
• Can-Lite Carbon filter (425m3/h)
• 160mm Inline Fan (extraction - pulling air through the filter and out of the tent) (680m3/h)
• 125mm Inline Fan (active intake) pulling fresh air through 10m of aluline from window (280 m3/h)
• 2 small 15cm fixed fans inside tent for circulation

Pictures:

• All plants - http://imgur.com/I29HzoR
• Tent Overall - http://imgur.com/CWD0PDa
• Light & Reflector - http://imgur.com/wHc7661
• Extraction & Filter - http://imgur.com/qDUUvfV
• Active Intake - http://imgur.com/rLhppqQ
• Plants Together Closeup - http://imgur.com/PZGpaSj
• Caterpillar Eaten Plant (caterpillar now removed, hope it will recover) - http://imgur.com/YtP58XG
• Bottom Leaves turning yellow & big yellow/black spots appearing on bottom leaves -http://imgur.com/aojHqon
• Same yellow problem with bigger spots - http://imgur.com/ojE0VdW

My Plants and medium:

6 x Dutch Passion AutoXtreme 3 x Dutch Passion AutoMazar (just sprouted 2 days ago)
All in standard 11L pots with holes in the bottom. Hydrorocks clay pellets in the first 5cm of the pots just enough to cover the side holes on the bottom. Rest of the pot filled with BioBizz light-mix.

Nutes, Lights & Watering:

I really wanted to avoid the problems of overwatering. So I am only watering when I feel the soil is completely dry down to a least half of the pots depth. So usually every 4 days or so. Only been fed once with full strength nutes as of noq, only been adding organic root stimulator to the water at the recommended levels of 1ml/1L. I will be using only 100% organic liquid nutes from general organics.

Lights are on 20/4 cycle at 600W since the seedlings sprouted above the soil and will remain that way for the rest of the grow.

Temps can be a bit of an issue. Normally hovering around 28-29. But if the outside air is warm or I have the window closed then the temp in the tent can reach 35 at canopy level. During lights off the tent drops to about 25.

Extra notes:
I have almost completely sealed the grow tent by covering the passive air in-takes at the bottom, leaving only 1 open because I have the tent in my apartment where I work constantly changing hours so sometimes I am at home when the plants are sleeping and I don't want my normal lights disturbing there sleep cycle. This has caused a bit of a problem with negative pressure in the tent and once it is sealed the tent contracts massively inwards which isn't a problem now, but may well be once the plants get bigger. Even with the in-take fan running its still a problem.

Just looking for some feedback/advice from more experienced growers. I already had to kill 1 plant because I came home from work and in 12 hours a caterpillar had made short work of 1 of the seedlings (really strange yes) so I got rid of that plant ASAP to avoid any risk of cross contamination.

 

[supernaan]

Excellent setup. AutoXtreme is on my list of strains to grow out so I'm looking forward to your grow. Big fan of hazes and all haze hybrids.

Hopefully all the wonderful guys on here with more experience growing can drop by and give you some better feedback on everything. Subbed!

 

[Muddy]

Welcome to AFN. Stop by our introduction forum, start a thread and introduce yourself to everyone.

Off the top I see a couple of issues with your plan. I think you need to increase your ventilation. Temps of 28-29 are okay but 35 is much too high. I can some some curling along the edges of some of your leaves. That's the result of the high heat. I would open up another of those passive intakes. How is your relative humidity?

The BioBizz Lite Mix you are using is what is called a soil less mix. It contains no nutrients itself so it's up to you to supply everything that the plant needs. As seedlings, start them out at 1/8 the recommended strength, then increase that to 1/4 when they have 3-4 sets of true leaves. You should be able to go to 1/2 strength by the time they are 4 - 5 weeks old. Half strength is about all that most auto strains can tolerate.

Get a feel for the weight of your pots when they are almost completely dry. Only water them again when they feel that way. When you do water, given enough so that about 10 - 15% runs out the bottom of the pot. That will keep any salts the accumulate in the soil as a bi product of nutrient utilization from building up in the soil.

In your equipment list I don't see any mention of a pH meter. Do you have one? If not, I would highly suggest you invest in a good liquid tester at the least, and ideally, both a liquid and soil tester. You will need to pH balance your feeds and check the pH of your run off water. The yellowing and spots you are seeing could be from your plants being underfed or possibly a pH imbalance. Without a pH meter it's impossible to tell if that is the problem. Also, take your plant pictures with the HPS light off so we can see the natural color of the leaves.

 

[c0reforce]

Excellent setup. AutoXtreme is on my list of strains to grow out so I'm looking forward to your grow. Big fan of hazes and all haze hybrids.

Hopefully all the wonderful guys on here with more experience growing can drop by and give you some better feedback on everything. Subbed!

Thanks bro. I love strong Hazes as well when I come home from a long nights work and really just wanna chill out. I'll let you know how it smokes as well

Welcome to AFN. Stop by our introduction forum, start a thread and introduce yourself to everyone.

Off the top I see a couple of issues with your plan. I think you need to increase your ventilation. Temps of 28-29 are okay but 35 is much too high. I can some some curling along the edges of some of your leaves. That's the result of the high heat. I would open up another of those passive intakes. How is your relative humidity?

The BioBizz Lite Mix you are using is what is called a soil less mix. It contains no nutrients itself so it's up to you to supply everything that the plant needs. As seedlings, start them out at 1/8 the recommended strength, then increase that to 1/4 when they have 3-4 sets of true leaves. You should be able to go to 1/2 strength by the time they are 4 - 5 weeks old. Half strength is about all that most auto strains can tolerate.

Get a feel for the weight of your pots when they are almost completely dry. Only water them again when they feel that way. When you do water, given enough so that about 10 - 15% runs out the bottom of the pot. That will keep any salts the accumulate in the soil as a bi product of nutrient utilization from building up in the soil.

In your equipment list I don't see any mention of a pH meter. Do you have one? If not, I would highly suggest you invest in a good liquid tester at the least, and ideally, both a liquid and soil tester. You will need to pH balance your feeds and check the pH of your run off water. The yellowing and spots you are seeing could be from your plants being underfed or possibly a pH imbalance. Without a pH meter it's impossible to tell if that is the problem. Also, take your plant pictures with the HPS light off so we can see the natural color of the leaves.

Hi Muddy,

Thanks for the welcome.

I am doing my best to improve ventilation, but the tent is not in a separate room to my actual living & sleeping space in my apartment (I am actually sleeping next to it I find the fan noise quite relaxing actually) So its really hard to control both the ambient temperate around the tent and the light if I am at home while the ladies are sleeping. This is why I have just 1 passive in take open at the back which is against the wall to minimize light leakage when they are sleeping. Also the overall room temperate around the tent is usually 26-27 so its not actually pulling in very cool air in the first place. This is why I have the active intake sucking air from outside when I have my window open (obviously not possible all the time, due to reasons already stated) If its cold outside and I've got the window open the tent temperate drops to a nice 25-26. This is something that I will have to fine tune and find a balance. Maybe a small portable AC next to the tent should do the trick. I was told by the grow shop guys that I shouldn't really have to measure my humidity, I guess I'll have to pick up a humidity meter of some sort.

Roger that, on the nutes front. I have only given them 1 feeding of the general organics grow nutes but at full strength as recommended on the bottle. Wasn't aware auto's can't tolerate nutes as well as normal plants. I currently have root stimulator (given with every feeding at 1ml/1ltr) and General organics BioThrive Grow & Bloom. As well as General Organics BioBud. If you were in my position right now, what course of action would you take with the nutes.

I have been really strict with water and they are only getting water every 4-5 days when I feel the soil is really dried out. I think this is why the soil level has dropped inside the pots and the girls are kind of struggling to get over the top of the pots. When I do water I keep going until I see water flowing from the bottom and stop there.

I did buy a PH meter pen. Exactly this one http://www.amazon.co.uk/Essentials-PH-Meter/dp/B008BHYD3Y

I wasn't sure exactly the best way to use it, and since I was just using lukewarm tap water to feed my plans I figured PH wasn't a big problem. How is the best way to go about testing the PH using the pen model listed above.

Lights are due to come back on in around an hour so I will post more pictures with HPS off, just before they come back on.

Thanks for taking the time to have a look and I hope my answers are detailed enough to help you diagnose the issues.

 

[ramone515]

That's a cool setup you got there! How much light escapes from the tent when the HPS is running and everything is closed?

Weird to find a caterpillar, were any of thoses plants outside ?

Google for feeding schedule for the nutrients you bought, and use 1/2 strength of those recommended for cannabis. Usually the instruction in the box are too strong even for regular cannabis plants.

This site helped me a lot diagnose symptoms: http://www.growweedeasy.com/marijuana-symptoms-pictures

Good luck!

 

[c0reforce]

That's a cool setup you got there! How much light escapes from the tent when the HPS is running and everything is closed?

Weird to find a caterpillar, were any of thoses plants outside ?

Google for feeding schedule for the nutrients you bought, and use 1/2 strength of those recommended for cannabis. Usually the instruction in the box are too strong even for regular cannabis plants.

This site helped me a lot diagnose symptoms: http://www.growweedeasy.com/marijuana-symptoms-pictures

Good luck!

Thanks! I can be pretty anal about setting stuff up properly so I got it already and working before putting any plants in there.

When the tent is completely closed including the passive air intakes at the bottom there is 0 light coming out of the tent, literally none. If you look close enough you can just see a faint orange glow through the middle of the zips.

Yes the caterpillar was really weird, I killed one seedling that got eaten and tried to save the other one and just hope she recovers. The plants were never outside and all the gear is new so I can't see how it got contaminated. My only guess could be the intake fan sucked a moth or something inside the tent (don't know how it didn't get chopped to pieces by the fan) and it laid eggs on the plants. I am keeping a really careful eye out for anymore pests.

I won't be feeding more than 1/2 strength nutes from now on

That site looks really useful for diagnosing problems and I'll definitely take a look when the lights come back on.

 

[c0reforce]

So here is some photo's with the HPS off. Sorry for the camera flash but that is all I can do for now.

All together - http://imgur.com/do5dvXB
Yellow bottom leaves - http://imgur.com/sAtotOZ
More yellow leaves - http://imgur.com/UMmTC9b
Starting of yellow - http://imgur.com/yj9lGve
Canopy Height - http://imgur.com/HOYt9fg

 

[Anasazi]

Plants look great! lil "N" and that yellowing will surely stop.

 

[c0reforce]

So I gave the ladies a good feed today. Used root stimulator @ 1ml/1ltr and GeneralOrganics BioThrive Grow @ 5ml/3.7Ltr(1gal). This is 1/2 of the recommended amount on the G.O website.

PH of the feed solution was 6.7. Is this acceptable or should I be lowering this?

Watered until I got a decent amount of run off at the bottom of the pots.

 

[GodAmJT]

I suppose that depends on what your runoff reads at... If you pour 6.7 in, and get 5.7 out, that means your soil is extremely acidic, and you may need a supplement to fix that.. However..... If you pour in 6.7 and get out anything in the "safe" range for runoff (which IIRC should be ~25% of the volume you fed to prevent salt buildup or pH swings), then you're all set!!