Need help on my first grow

[grow-magnon]

Hey,

First post here. Though I have done a lot of reading.

I'm growing a single indica dominant Curvee (by TGA) plant under an eshine 150 light LED in a 4x2 ventilated grow tent in a 5gal fabric pot which is about 2/3 coco and 1/3 clay balls (unfortunately, can't get perilite or vermiculite where I am). Drainage seems fine though at about 15-20% on average.

Other than my plant showing a little dryness from underwatering (I'm doing my best to not be a newbie over-waterer), it has looked really healthy from day-one. Never any signs of bugs, spots, color changes...always a really healthy vibrant green to all the leafs.

There are a few problems though: For most of the time, the plant has continually looked a bit droopy. The plan is incredibly compact/short compared to a lot of pictures I have seen out there. And it seems like it is growing waaaaay to0 slowly. The attached pictures are at about 40 days from sprout. Its currently only about 6.5 inches tall. (That ruler is CM).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Sorry that my camera is so crappy

 

[MountainBudz]

How much and how often are you feeding them? Also what are you feeding them?

Is there good ventilation in the room and plenty of fresh air?

How much exactly and how often are you watering?

 

[grow-magnon]

Hey, thanks for the reply.

I've been watering every 2. I went 3 days the last time because i was afriad i was overwatering and that is why they looked droopy. But after 3 days, they started to crisp up from lack of water. Feeding them some really generic regular nutes, unfortunately. My options are limited.

Yes, plenty of fresh air for sure.

 

[grow-magnon]

Oh, missed the other part: "How much am I watering them"

I'm watering with a half gallon each watering. About 20% drains through.

 

[Keighan]

Can you measure the distance from your light to plant. Do you know what your RH is? Ph? And I can't get my phone to enlarge that image of your ferts would you mind giving me the ratios?

 

[chronosync]

I made the same mistake and had droopy plants at first in coco.
You are using too much water. What is happening is you are drowning the roots in a anaerobic environment . Meaning they don't have enough oxygen. What i would do is to use a very small amount of feed very close to where you think the root mass currently is. Ignore the rest . What you want to try to do is to encourage the roots to spread and grow into the media .when roots have developed more until about the pot better you'll be able to run water through them all day . With coco don't ever let it dry out completely but for now you cannot saturate the entire pot until the roots have begun to take up more space .is water very frequently with low concentrate nutrient solution in very small amounts until the plant is up to speed. Id get some better plant food asap and a ph kit. Order litmus
Paper online if you have to. That's all I got for now. Good luck

 

[grow-magnon]

Thanks for the help.

Kheigan, they are 7-3-3 for grow and 0-10-10 for bloom. I have ph tester. Water is being fed at 5.8.

Chronosync: I'll follow your advice and see how that turns out. At what point of the plants growth are the roots spread out enough to fully water the medium without drowning the oxygen?

 

[Ganoderma]

I think that you could be having having a ph issue. Have you ever checked what the run off water's PH is?

 

[grow-magnon]

Nope. i will check next watering though and report. And I believe you are correct. I just a few spots on the tips of some of the lower leafs which seems consistent with PH issues.

 

[grow-magnon]

So drainage PHP is 6.8 And that is AFTER I switched to 5.5 nute solution. I had been using 6.0 before. So I'm sure it was above 7 for most of the plants life. What can I do to better stabablize a lower PHP of the medium? I'm doing 1 nute, 1 water. Im unclear on how I should fix the probem. Are my nutes just too crappy?

Please advise! Thanks

 

[Ganoderma]

Not familiar with the brand of nutrients that you are using, so can't say if they are bad or not. With coco you're going to need to also have a cal-mag additive.

How much of the 5.5 ph solution did you did you pour through the pot? did you only pour enough to collect run off water, if so you need to flush your pot with your ph'ed solution by running more through it. This helps to flush out the higher ph.

 

[chronosync]

I may have over emhazised the need to go slow with soaking the pot. For me it was a balancing act getting it right.

Ganoderma is right of course. You should run alot of the ph adjusted feed through now to completly replace what was in the container. I know this sounds confusing, but now you have the medium set. Try to go easy on the amount of water. Dont let the coco dry out, just till the top of media is fading. Weight testing saturated pots against dry/ish pots helped me alot at first. After awhile you will know when its too light and the plants are needy.


I would really consider getting some basic nutrients from a major company. Mst have ffeed charts and stuff and sometimes will answer questions. Try h3ads, formula , gh micro/bloom lucas is a good method. or look up maxibloom kiss. Hella cheap and basic.

 

[Mikell]

You need to find out the full analysis of those nutrients.

What is water quality (pH and EC) from the tap?

What ratio of grow to bloom? What is EC of mixed fertilizer solution?

What are day/night temps? RH?

Are pots on the ground?

Coco is hydroponics, you are stressing the plant feeding plain water.

Head over to the coco coir subforum, read as much of the sticky and 5star threads as you can.

 

[Intimea]

All the above tips, plus

I'm growing a single indica dominant Curvee (by TGA) plant under an eshine 150 light LED in a 4x2 ventilated grow tent...

Change your lamp, or change your box.

The plant cannot grow without enough light.

 

[chronosync]

White poster board makes excellent side reflectors. Ive also seen people hang silver mylar off the edges of their lamp. Right now figuring out how to feed it is the main thing.

Good luck, keep reading and keep at it.

 

[chronosync]

Thanks for the help.

Kheigan, they are 7-3-3 for grow and 0-10-10 for bloom. I have ph tester. Water is being fed at 5.8.

7-3-3 is ok for veg but your plants will need some N all the way up until the last weeks, depending on your feelings about flushing.

What about combining them like a two parr nutrient?
%25 Bloom + %75 Grow for veg. And something like 50/50 for flower.
Im in no way sure this is a good idea so dont listen to me just yet. I tend to be wreckless.

 

[grow-magnon]

Ok. First: Plant has looked a bit better lately. I'm an anxious first time grower, so I topped it. Which I am pretty certain if I researched first, there would be 100 threads saying "never top a plant while it is looking unhealthy." But I think the plant was (and still is) suffering from a combination of lack of oxygen and high PH.

Letting the outside of the medium dry up and only applying water/feed near the stem seemed to help a lot. Just making that change caused it to perk up some. Good tip.

I just flushed with a lot of 5.5. Used 2 gallons of water to flush in the 4gal pot. I think the runoff of my 2nd gallon was about 70-80%. Is that enough? Should I flush more? (I ran our of dechlorinated water, so i have to wait til tomorrow for more). The runoff from the 2gals was at 6.5ph. (Combined, I probably should have measured runoff after 1st gallon, and 2nd gal separately).

Sadly, I live in a part of the world where I have to be very careful and my access to lighting and quality nutes is very limited. Its not a money issue, but an access issue. Doing the best I can

 

[chronosync]

Hey thats great news. You are making changes and your plant is responding with improvement. This is how we learn. Im currently doing my first grow and im hitting walls i had not envisioned, but i am learning so much. Guys and gals on here have so much experience and knowledge its so great.

Its too bad you happen to live somwhere that makes it so difficult for you to grow herb and stuff, powers that be always got to boss everyone around an try to manage how people should want to live. Its like that in the states too, jus depends on what yr talking about.

Just keep in mind, behind all these tried and true methods, some sensible, others seemingly bizarre, theres been a whole lot of trial an err, experiments, and of course millions of fuckups
along the way. Stoners are notorious for their ingenuity and perserverence.

Keep working on it, my grow is kinda fucked up but im still loving it and learning so much!

Where there is a will there is a way.

 

[Mikell]

Flushing with tap water or mixed fertilizer?

 

[DizzyGround]

What water do you use?

My tap water + nutes = ph raise for ~3days. Then its stabile.

Never flush coco with plain water, allways put little nutrients in the flush water. Like 25%

IMO coco is best when used small pots. That kind of plant would be good in 1gal pot. They grow so much faster when you have the right pot size and not overbig. Too big pot leads to issues like you have. Its definately overwatering that you have there. Drooping leaves, remember that. You cant feed them properly for very long time. But as you are using big pot, just take it slowly and feed like some ppl in this thread told you to.

Depends how well they start growing but I would say they need some time to root those 5gal pots. Like 4 weeks. So dont start flowering too soon or you might find yourself in deep shit. You want pot fully rooted. If you dont grow huge trees that you veg for months, I would really consider about using 1-2gal pots max. You can grow fucking huge plants in 2gal. But then you need somekind of automated watering because they will drink so much water that you need to handwater daily many times.

Automated watering as timed drippers or Blumat or something.

Good roots --> healthy plant --> good harvest. Allways worship the roots.

I have fount Canna Zym to be very good for roots. It digests dead roots by using enzymes. And it boosts root generation.