New Grower Mr ZigZag’s first grow! Advice accepted!

[MrZigzag]

Update #2

Hey everyone! Glad this place is back after a small break. The new site looks and works great! It's been about two weeks since I updated, here's the sitch:

The Plants:

• #1 Dutch Passion Star Ryder (3.5 weeks old)
• #2 Nirvana Blue Mystic (3.5 weeks old)
• #3 Dinafem SourD (3 weeks old)

Star Ryder (#1)
This baby continues to do well. Vegetative growth in full effect, lots of new leaves and everything looking healthy. I'm even starting to detect a skunky smell, woo hoo! I have a new toy to help me with everything: The Accurat8 PH soil and moisture probe. I was happy to see that when I tested the soil it was almost exactly 6.5 ph, which I think is my target. I am using the Bio-Bizz nutes and in particular Bio-Grow to start with. On Trapper's advice I went with half the recommended dosage of Bio-Bizz's recommendations. It could be my imagination but after feeding it, the plant seemed to jump up the next day. Cool!

I have 3 questions relating to this plant:

1. Should I be adding nutes every time I water now? Or alternate between nutes/no nutes?
2. According to Bio-Bizz's schedule once it starts flowering I should start adding Bio-Bloom and Top Max during the flowering stage. From what I've read here that seems a little aggressive, right? Any advice on what do do here?
   
3. Should I be adding anything else at this point? I have some fish and kelp fertilizer as well as Cal-Mag sitting around but holding off on using those.

Blue Mystic (#2) & Sour D (#3)
So if my Star Ryder is the star pupil, these two are sitting in the back of the class trying to get away with doing as little as possible. It is quite likely that I did something to stunt their growth, I made a few obvious mistakes that I won't get into here. The Blue Mystic in particular is 5 days older than the Sour D but is the same size. In general they both seem *really* far behind #1 to the point where I'm definitely worried. They should not be this small at 3 weeks, right?

I have 2 questions relating to these plants:

1. My soil PH on these two is lower than I'd like (6.0) is that enough to explain their lack of growth? On a related question, if I want to raise the PH to 6.5 is it as simple as adding water that has been balanced to 7.0?
2. In general, am I freaking out too much about their lack of growth? There's not a whole lot I can do anyway, right?

Thanks again for everyone's help, looking forward to some advice!

 

[Eyes on Fire]

well yes and no imo.no for the simple fact that it looks like its an outdoor grow?which lent enough to stunt it early.that happens ALL the time man,you can tell from the simple growth patterns and that the smaller fuller leaves at this later stages are taller than the center growth.I have one that looks awfully similar.as well as the PH as a Yes,it prolly didnt help matters in the slightest especially if it started that way early on.now its not going to do much at this point but its a learning experience bro.it happens ive done several stunted grows outside.doing one bean riight now too lol.

do you know where your water is at?from the tap and if it has any chlorine and/or chloramine? if its running high use that.till it balances out.did you add any lime to your mix?you could top coat the bigger one.or all three if ya wanna run all of them out.also you could brew a tea and cut it with high PH tap water or something similar.rain water if ya got some around or can get some.

 

[MrZigzag]

Update #3
So based on my earlier posts you can see I made some mistakes and was worried that I had stunted my plants. In general, I think they are pretty far behind where they could be in the hands of an expert grower, but I've learned a lot and the good news is all three appear to be very healthy.

I am very close to making the transition to moving them outdoors full-time. Currently the nights here are still a bit on the chilly side (45 degrees min/ 60 degrees max) so I've been bringing them inside, but those days are almost over. I know I will have some new challenges outdoors, and a part of me wishes I could keep them inside for the whole grow, but that is simply not an option.

The Plants:

• #1 Dutch Passion Star Ryder (4.5 weeks old)
• #2 Nirvana Blue Mystic (4.5 weeks old)
• #3 Dinafem SourD (4 weeks old)

The Accurate8 pH and Moisture Meter has really helped me out. The Ph levels have been steady so it seems as if I've been doing a good job there. Where it really has been helping out is with the moisture. In particular I'm realizing the Blue Mystic and Sour D were probably given too much water early on, this may explain why they did not grow as quickly as I though. It's been taking the soil a long time to dry out and so for my next grow I'm going to ditch the standard pots I'm using and go for Smart Pots which I've read will dry the plants out quicker.

Star Ryder (#1)
This baby is doing well. I'm giving her the following feeding regimen: Bio-Bizz Grow, Neptune's Seaweed Fertilizer and General Hydoponics ArmorSi (Silica supplement). I PH balance to 6.5 after adding those 3 and it's definitely pushing the veg state along.

Blue Mystic (#2) & Sour D (#3)
Although I'm still concerned that these are smaller than I think they should be, they are healthy-looking and I'm just going with the flow. I'm going easy on the nutes and the watering and tomorrow I'll be checking the PH levels again because they were a bit on the low side for me last time (6.0 or so). If they are still low I will add a top coat of Bloodmeal and see if that can bring it up.

Enjoy the pics! It's soo cool to see the progress from week to week.

 

[Need4Weed]

Hey bro the best thing about your first grow is how much you learn. When watering seedlings less than more seems to be the way to go, but I think you know that now. The smart pots, or fabric pots will really make a difference and they will dry out a lot sooner, especially outside. Mine are woven out of some sort of plastic like thread I think. I would suggest that you water with at least 1 ml of Calmag, just as a preventive measure. As far as when to add nutes to your watering, I would go with every other time. However, as I say this I've recently been adding fish emulsion every time to try and get some leave tip burn. Although I didn't the last time I watered, and since then I've let my girls get a good soaking of rain. Speaking of which, I had some rain water saved up, but since I found out my water department uses chlorine I've just been filling my jugs up and letting them set for a couple days. Oh yeah, I also bubble my water for at least 24 hours with an air-stone and air-pump, and I always ph after bubbling and/or adding nutes. Not trying to come across as a know-it-all by any means, just my 2 cents and I would listen to anyone besides me that has more experience lol ... Peace bro!

 

[MrZigzag]

Naw man, it's all good! I appreciate the help.

Regarding water, I have a small stream next to my outdoor grow site and so I'm going to test that out from a PH perspective. It's a slow moving stream and I have an old aquarium pump so I might take advantage of it and aerate the water.

As far as nutes go, I definitely have been starting off cautious, I want to get a sense of what the plants look like with a mild solution and then I'll begin to ratchet it up. I do have some Cal-Mag though and I forgot to add it last time, so I'll be sure to put it back in.

Thanks again!

 

[Tetra9]

Subbed up - nice strain selection

 

[wwwillie]

Nice job so far man!
Trapper has shared some great advice with the watering. I don't think I can add anything but some support and grow karma.
Peace and happy growing!

 

[MrZigzag]

Thanks y'all! I'm going to keep the updates rolling so stay tuned . . .

 

[akreso]

Looking good. I can't wait to see their profess outside! They'll love the sun.

Nice to learn from mistakes early, but I think they're looking healthy. I know I'm learning that often times less is more.

Good stuff!

 

[akreso]

*progress