First Grow, would like some advice please

@MAXHeadRoom also there is no fixing the ppm now, it’s 11pm and we’re leaving the hours at 6am (ish), probably 7!

I could add the feed tomorrow am when I water then re do the test when home.

its been two weeks since i done the ppm and ph tests, the ph is now corrected to 6.6 in and out, ive fed twice but the ppm hasn’t changed. doing a slurry test, water in is always around 200ppm, and the output is always 300ppm. im not to bothered atm as they are still progressing and the fan leaves are still very dark green, so they dont look like they are lacking .

here is day 42 in flower, they are looking decent, if not quite fantastic. ive oreded a “cheap” £55 1000w LED for my next flower process, just to compare the same strain ,afghan, against the CFLs though i may use a few CFLs as well. the flower after that i may build a single cell version of what you have @MAXHeadRoom.

here is a few pics of day 42 in flower.no great closeups, some of the white whiskers (dont kow the correct term.pistils maybe) have gone from white to amber in some areas, and tricomes are starting to go milky in some places.

not the best pics sorry.

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Great Job. So read as many articles as you can on harvesting. I know Robert B. has several in the guide section. But since you are turning all this to oil I’m not sure if you need to cure the buds or not. Maybe just ask some one with experience.

Anyway congrats. I know its not over yet but its looking like you have a successful grow . What was the average flower time for your strain. Only 3 more weeks???

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They look great :+1:

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The average flower time on ilgm for Afghan says 76 days, so I I’ve probably got 4 weeks left.

Yes max, now is the time to start reading up in harvesting. There us no real info out there as wether you need to dry or not for oil, so for this first lot, depending on i the wife needs oil or not, I’ll probably just dry it for a week, and not bother curing it.

I seem to say this alot, but this isn’t a relaxing hobby, I seem anxious at evey stage.

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After you get a couple under your belt they get a lot easier! @TheDuke Drying I think, but curing only if you aren’t going to use it all at once, I would think!

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@bob31 cheers, my yield isn’t going to be high, so it will all be turned into oil and refrigerated. Hoping for 3oz of the two plants. As that should last the wife while the second veg happens.

I have some led vef lights (1000w chi brand) so I’m hoping for a better yield. Going to use the same nutes, on the strain stain, and see how the chi led compare to my starter cfl setup. To add a bit more heat I may have to run 4 cfls around the perimeter, we will see.

Also got some “golden tree” nutes, so I’m going to throw 2 afghans under the 1000w led, and compare FF nutes to GT.

Sorry of my spelling is everywhere, been up for almost 3 days, I’m about to check on the girls, they shouldn’t need anything (fingers crossed), then I’m off to sleep.

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Hello :blush: how did you get the bulb to the box that way? This is a good idea. I live in a trailer park so outside is out of the question. I currently rotate window seals but that’s getting to be a problem with my plants growing and being obvious what they are.

Wait, I’m sorry around the cloning section a pic was posted that said “cut here” why do we cut there? And around what time? I want to make sure I’m understanding this. I got a little confused with the whole cloning convo.

I’m not the best man for clones, I. I’m yet to attemp cloning. Though today I was going to, but I’ve just been woken to a call for help,as my BiL is moving house today and the removers had just let him down.

Re the box, for my nursery I use a large storage box, line it in tin foil and poke a single 3600k cfl bulb through the top. Plants will stay in that for about 4 weeks.

Then for your closet space, (I use a grow tent), i simply mounted 8 light bulb holders in series (daisy chained from one to the other) to a piece of chip board I had. And I hang it from the top using “light hangers” (search on eBay, they are like small pullys cost £5 for two).

For flower, you can either just swap for 3600k bulbs for 1600k bulbs, but I don’t think that is the most effective way for flower. But it is the cheapest way to get started.

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@Nug-bug @MAXHeadRoom @M4ur @anyone else, I’m going to move my two other plants from cfl to an led flower light, is their a procedure I need to follow?

I’m brand new led, It’s not a great one, but it’s was in budget, but I think my cfl flower set up I’m using for my first grow, is holding the plants back a bit.

My plants in the journal are Afghans, as are the other two, so Ill have a good comparison to see how much better the cheap led is over the cfls.

My only concern is heat, or lack of it, so I’m probably going to have to make a ring around the outside to place 4 cfls close to the plants, while having the led hanging higher up

I currently have 8 cfls about 3" off the top of the canopy and that just manages to keep the plants at 28 degrees in the day. Hence why I’m concerned about lack of heat from the led.

Dont worry @MAXHeadRoom I’ll be recreating one of your led monsters to compare against the cheap led. But that will likely be after Xmas.

I don’t know about the transition but you can let the cfl lights and put the led above… You will have more watts per square foot. If you can change the light schedule to run on night you will be able to get rid of that heat… I think :sleepy:

@M4ur that is my plan, but I need to redesign my current light set up. As if I used my current set up the board my lights are attached to would block the led light completely.

So I need to make a ring around the perimeter to attache the cfls to. Though I dont want to run 8 cfls and the led board, as costs add up. I’ll probably do 4 cfls one on each corner, close to the plants for heat, and hang the led wherever the plants like it.

I’m gonna start very high, and lover it a bit each day. How will I know what is the optimal hight? Cfl is easy, as close as you can with out burning the plant. I hear leds need to be further up.

Yep… 4 cfl will be enough I think… Now you need to do that :grinning:

The cfl are mainly for heat, the extra light is per foot is just an nice side effect.

Hopefully tomorrow or Monday I can have it set up.

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So what light did you buy

An eBay chi special lol

The box is next to me, watching football/soccer to you lol, the box says ‘Wegoo’ sounds ligit! It’s a 1000w job, made in China, but arnt they all, good and bad.

I have a watt meter on order from Amazon so I’ll check what the actual wattage is next week. But to be honest it should be more than fine for my 3x3 tents. Espeally when we add in the 4 cfls needed for upping the temperature.

I’ll also test the wattage of my current set up and I’ll finally have a true figure of watts per square foot, for the first time.

As ive basically been winging it so far.

Talking of winging it, I see all these threads taking about ppm, I’ve basically ignored ppm. As mine just don’t make sense what so ever, but the leaves are a nice dark green, so all seems well, despite my low ppm figure.

My tap water measures around 200ppm, and my runoff is 300ppm so to me, my simple mind, that says my ppm is 100?, which makes no sense (as stated above), but I’m feeding, and all is green and growing, so I’m just ignoring it, and keeping my PH at 6.6/7 and carrying on regardless.

So most of your nutrients come from your soil. I have no soil so I must give the plant nutrients in the water that I’m spraying on my roots. So the PPM is just the nutrient level in my water. When you water to run off then the PPM is the amount of nutrients in your soil. You should have a chart on what your level should be. So just like when humans eat small portions of food, we still can live and look OK, But when we eat correctly we will be healthier. Your plants will be healthier and give better yields when you give them the proper food which is your PPM. I hope that makes sense.

I have that exact same light. Should draw around 100 watts when you measure it. Most of them run 10% of the advertised wattage.
It should help out a little. It sure can’t hurt.

Last night I bought 4 more Quantum Boards to build another light like the one I have, so I will have 1000 true watts of power.

I understand your analogy, thr problem I have is, no matter what I put in, and I’m following the FF feed guide, my ppm run off just doesnt change. I’ve stopped worrying about it tbh.

I have Humboldts secret golden tree, nutes to try. Im going to to put two put two plans side by side, under the led/cfl combo, feed one FF and one GT, and see if there is any diffence.

I would feed them both GT, but cos I’m changing the lights up, I want to treat one of the two, the same as my last grow so I have a direct comparison to that grow. Plus at the American time I’ll have another comparison between the two types if nutes going.

It’s just fun finding your way. Having issues with heat again the last two days, I need to overhaul the insulation before summer ends.

@MAXHeadRoom do you have a link to your led boards and drivers?

I don’t think links are allowed, but if you just write ‘dot’ in the link, I’ll doctor it to work :relaxed: