HELP..amazing potential with poor results

[Thesius44]

Ok guys i'm going to do my best to describe my current situation...i've been at it in my house using a second floor bedroom for a while now.....it's been a good 8 months i'd say (2/3 cycles)...i have a room that is roughly 15'x15 cfl's...i start them small from seed in yogurt cups using happy frog soil...water is always ph'd to 6.3....once they are bigger they go into 5 gallon buckets with 50/50 happy frog/ocean forest for their remainder....i take cuts off the larger plants to replace them as they go into flower...when in flower (the bedroom) they are under a 1000w hps which sits about 1 1/2 to 2 feet above them depending on plant height....i use foxfarm growbig for veg and foxfarm tigerbloom/big bloom for flower...i usually wait until i see signs of deficiency to use them as i still haven't considered myself comfortable with establishing a normal regiment...

now the problems...please answer to any of these that you feel you can help me improve on....since we expanded from the bathroom into the bedroom we can not get rid of a horrible powdery mildew infestation....some of the strains are clearly more resiliant but all are ultimately compromised because of it...i spray with a teaspoon of baking soda and drop of soap per spray bottle when i see it coming on but that always seems to bother certain strains...at times making much of the foliage burn and die....i have tried using one part skim milk to 10 parts water also...nothing keeps it from coming back...the temp during the day is between 84-88 and at night it goes down to 70-74...fans are on the plants day and night...humidity is roughly 24% according to my meter....i can keep it at bay but it always ends up killing the fans of my flowering plants way too early...i can tell my buds should be way thicker with the light i'm using...I also have problems with my clones...some take but if they do it takes almost 3 weeks for them to be growing at a good pace...i use clonex gel with rockwool cubes and place them in a humidity dome with a 10" cfl on top..there is just enough water inside to cover the bottom....they look great for a week then just always end up just bowing over and eventually die off...i'm not giving them any nutrients and the temp does get above 75 where they are...


My ideal situation involves a perpetual system where i'm harvesting a plant or two every two to three weeks ...as this is all for me ....and have my clones growing in a week and a half instead of three with a 90% success rate instead of 25%...we are planning on ordering burmese kush and putting strawberry cough and rocklock into flower soon and i'm so sick of the same problems...i'll post as many pics as it will let me please help!!!

 

[FreezerBoy]

For the PM- Toss everything porous (plants, clones, soil etc). Field strip all equipment, wash parts in 5% bleach solution, rinse well and reassemble. Wash floors, walls and ceiling too.

Clones- Is your water aerated and maintained at 75ºF? Try smaller cuts with well trimmed leaves. Plant material requires respiration. Respiration requires roots. We have no roots at this time. The less material, the less the plant has to work to survive.

 

[Frozenguy]

To add to what freezerboy said, I would also recommend pulling up the carpet if its carpeted, or at the very least, covering it with a poly sheet and attempt to seal it at the walls.

Also, I wouldn't really go from yogurt cups to 5 gallon buckets. If you only want to transplant once, do something bigger like 16oz beer cups or maybe half to three quarter gallon.. I would do a two stage transplant though, maybe from 16oz to three quarter or full 1 gallon, then to 5 gallon. I noticed an improvement when I did that.

If you could get the humidity up like 5-8% that could help in flowering.

also getting the temps down a tad could help out a bit.. like dropping both day and night temps by like 8-10 degrees.

And one last thing, once I aimed my fan to the wall sort of for a more indirect flow, and put them on a timer to turn off and on, giving the plants windless time, i saw an increase in growth speed. Just a few things I've noticed with my grow that may work for you.

Good luck

 

[lysol]

Smaller lights means the clones with photosynthesize slower too, which could be good when they have no roots to support the process yet, a 10" cfl sounds large but you didnt mention watts. On a similiar note I saw at lowes they have like 80W ( 240w incandescent equivalent ) spiral bulbs now, they are huuuge. I can't imagine what the market is for that outside of growing lol

 

[Thesius44]

where do you get the white poly?...I don't know much about it but i see that every professional grow room i see pretty much use them....I'm thinking the clone issues are from temperature as they have been above 75 degrees