First CFL Grow Using 30 Watt CFLs

Good to hear you haven't seen any, I know what you mean with the sticky paper, and the damn glue doesn't wash off your hands easy either lol. maybe you could cut them up and stick them on your newspaper so any flying around your pots will get trapped.

are you sure the flies were gnats? not fruit flies? because fruit flies will move on when you remove dead / dying leafs. they look the same except the colour.
 
@ fish cake, you never steer me wrong way what you mean??

these flies are tiny little black things, id call them fruit flies like the ones that eat my cactus, but not really sure if im right or not.

right some good news and 2 lots of bad news possibly losing a plant or 2,
good news, i been out all day at my moms cuz she is taking my kids on holiday for a week so im kid free from now till next saturday, but when they get back their off school for a week so gota find something for them to do with this hot weather we are having, anyway back to the good news, i got back on opened the grow room door and never saw 1 fly at all, i shook all the plants and nothing flew off, i put fly traps up everywhere and tomorrow, i will cut some up as jimm says, think thats a brilliant idea, ill reps all of you if it lets me, thanks everyone. chances are if they laid eggs i got a couple of weeks to go before they are completely gone.

now the bad news, :( :(, i could be losing a plant, possibly 2 but we will start with the worse case senario, now im not sure if this is the normal life cycle of the special kush, but i got back today and all the big fan leaves around the bottom of the pot are turning yellow and dying, possibly will be dead by tomorrow or day after unless they get better, its been hot here today so i will need to feed tomorrow me thinks, the 2ltr hempie was low so just filled the res up as the tops covered with paper still, but my special kush is losing its leaves, either to a problem or due to its life cycle, the buds look perfect and all the little sweet leaf as i called them back in the day are ok, its just the big fan leaves that seem to be dying, the rest of the plant looks totally healthy, the northern lights is not suffering the same problem so hoping its an age related issue and they die off as normal.

now for the 2nd plant i may lose, the ak47 12-12 replacement for the male i took out also looks like a male, so im hoping one of my outdoors is females, else that means i have only got 1 female out the 7 i planted and thats the 2ltr hempie, the aerogarden not shown sex yet but is now 12-12, so will find out soon, so i may kill the male off tomorrow if it is male, to get my numbers down, dont want to end up getting in a load of shit for male plants, so the less the better, may even lose the special kush if its a problem with the plant.

tiny bit more good news, my greenhouse seeds auto bomb femenised is female as its showing sex today, it wasnt yesterday but it has got white hairs growing now so it is female, so thats 2 auto i got going, will possibly need bigger pots now.

so has anyone grown special kush before and am i just getting what the plant would normally do, the fan leaves are turning yellow, the stems and buds and the smaller leaves look like they normally do, a very nice shade of green, its packing on the crystals as well, the nl x bb fem has not got this problem.

any ideas, no ph tester to check run off, bit mistake me thinks
 
just had a closer look at the nl x bb femenised, this is now got the same problem, all the lower and big fan leaves are wilting it looks as if the plant has not been watered, may need to give them a big drink tomorrow.

when i water ok, as soon as i pour the water on top of the soil it runs strait out the bottom, i dont need to wait any amount of time, say i put a cup full in the top then most of it will come strait out the bottom, it possibly drains to quick, i need to find some dishes for them to sit in when i water and let them drink it back up, possibly they need a drink, im not sure though as the pots are heavy, but are the pots heavy due to the buds, surely they cant weight that much all ready, now im getting this in both plants im getting concerned, id be so gutted if it all went wrong now, i could harvest the special kush as its covered in trichs but the northern light has only a tiny amount, its strange actually the buds on teh kush are short and fat like a buda and covered in trichs but the nl x bb has long thin buds with loads of mass to them but very little trichs, both plants are totally the opposite grow wise, buds look so different,

any ideas what the problem is, could it be lack of water, i usually water every 3 days so im thinking they should be ok
 
sounds like you either got well draining soil or they are root bound. hope someone else can chime in on this ! just my opinion:circle-of-love:
 
root bound is possibility but i thought the plants could be twice as high as the pot, my pot is 1ft high and the plants are less than 1ft high so im thinking the roots maybe ok, but as my plants are topped and lst it could possibly be root bound, not sure how i can solve that, would mean getting some real big pots, would possibly need bigger grow room, if i could control the smell id by bits when i could afford it and turn my spare room into massive grow room with flower and veg room, but i cant afford it, and in on the second floor, i got someone above and below me, all out bedroom windows are in the same place, so the window above and below is the bed room windows for the other flats so smell may be a problem,

i dont mine losing the fan leaves if the plant will be ok, surely it would just force other leaves to get bigger if i lost the big ones, the only strange thing is that the rest of the plant and the small leaves on the stems of the buds are ok, its just the big fan leaves that are all attatched lower down the plant, the leaves higher up than the lowest bud site are perfect, but anything below bud level is yellow, going yellow and wilting, the feel like their really dry, not sure what to do now
 
when i turned the nl x bb round it didnt look good everything wilted like its either got to hot or not watered, so i placed dished under the pots, mixed up some very week nutes 1/4 strength and gave them half a pint each of this, about 300 mil so just over a pint, then i gave a pint of water that was room temp and had been standing on the side for 24 hours, as soon as i poured it in it came out the bottom and filled the dish up, so im leaving the dishes their over night and the roots should drink it all up, its strange its only the lower fan leaves, the rest of both plants look totally healthy, but basically any fan leaf or decent sized leaf is going light green and wilting and some feel dry, i had to pull some off that was totally dead of the nl x bb, so by the looks of it unless they get better after this drink then chances are im going to lose them.

in the bottom of my grow room is a towel and the pots sit on this, and with the water draining this quick the chances are the plants have not been getting much to drink, so ill leave the dishes their tonight, if it is just a water issue they should look better after the lights have been on a few hours tomorrow, but by the way the fan leaves look it could be the end of these plants, or is this what happens when they are well into flower
 
the soil drained very well the first time i watered it, its a peat moss mix, and comes in a big bag, no perlite or nothing in it, possibly next time i need to mix something in to hold the water longer, but these dishes should help, i hope ive not done all this for nothing, if they do die i should get something off the special kush although it probably wont be worth smoking, but the nl x bb has got long buds but very little trichs, the plants look totally healthy its just the fan leaves, the buds are still looking and feeling good and sticky the sweet leaf looks perfect and not wilting, its just the big fan leaves and the lower fan leaves, is this a problem im getting,

i hope the weak nute mix and the water will bring them round, im not sure if i should give nutes at full strength but didnt want to make it worse if anything was locked out due to ph reasons,
 
i poured the water in and left them for 2 min, i want back the dishes are full to the brim with what i put in so it looks like it comes strait back out so ill leave it till morning to soak up, plus its only been 2 min and the top of the pot feels bone dry all ready, id say give it 10min and it will feel how it did before i water, i removed all news paper i had to to try and rescue them, no flys in top layer of loose soil, couldnt check below that as its rock hard, had trouble to poke my finger into it to try and get the water into holes i poked with my finger, so no sign of flies, i just got to take the risk to try and save the plants, does this sound like lack of water, the pots are heavy but if full or roots and bud and plant mass they might be that heavy anyway, so the weighing method dont work when they are in flower, they wasnt bone dry but, to me they look like a plant that has not been watered for a while, not even sure when i last watered, 2 or 3 days ago but sometime i just give them a cup full every now and again as the soil feels dry, so now i drowned the top till it worked into the pot and its not all sitting in the dish at the bottom, so in theory its flushing the plant everytime i water, i wonder if its taken all the goodness out the soil everytime i water and it soaks into the towel, the pots are raised and flat plastic tubs to stop the towel soaking the water out but they wasnt in dishes so the water just drained out and onto the towel, now the plants are in dishes so im hoping this will let them suck all the water up
 
lights about to go off now so cant do nothing else till 12 tomorrow dinner time,

this is all ive done over the last few days
the temps have been high so had an 8 inch fan about 4 foot away from plants on its lowest setting out of low and high and this fan then rotates and blows the whole room, could it be this, but i have not used it today cuz i been out, so for the last 3 days this fan has been blowing on the plants, but the sk and nl x bb are at the back so it dont blow directly on them it sort of blows round the room, it blows more on the auto and 2ltr hempie and they look ok, the leaves look really bad on the 2 plants, both dishes are now full, so withing like 1 min or less the water has drained strait out the bottom of both pots and into the dishs, i never had dishes till today, so could this be the problem.

you know when you pull a leave of the plant and say you left it somewhere warm for an hour or 2 say onn window sill, well they look exactly like that, when i last took a leaf off and left it to look at through microscope it ended up looking how these leaves look now, all curled up at the leafs fingers and some gone yellow and really dry, but some are dark still and they have wilted, does anyone have any ideas, id hate to lose them now, but if i do its my own fault for not having a ph tester, i never had problems before when i wasnt really that bothered about growing, the plant did it all on its own with no help from me, just watering every few days and it ended up a 6ft plant, so it worked ok that time, their must be something wrong this time, im really hoping its lack of water, so the dishes are full the pots ill sit in them all night, the first litre or 500 to 700 ml of water was a weak bpn mix, the other 2 pints a pint in each was standing water to remove the chlorine before giving the plants, but if they have been draining that quick all the time then could that be the reason
 
2min then the lights off, any ideas or things i can do before it goes off, should i give full nute mix or should i do this when the lights come on tomorrow so they are drinking it up instead of doing what it does when the lights are off, im leaving the dishes their over night, if the plants are worse tomorrow then ill take the dishes away,

or is this just what happens when they are well into flower, i dont think this happend all them years ago last time i grew but really cant remember, i know i pulled a load of dead leaves off the jack flash 9 years ago but not sure if they wilted or what first or if they died when it was well in flower, i really cant remember, surely its got to be something simple, they have been fine, i have said the last few days on here about the fan leaves on the kush, but i looked at the nl and that has the same problem, all the leaves look wilted, it dont look like a nute def or lockout as the leaves should give me other signs other than dying like this, the leaves look like they are changing from the nice green colour to a light green colour then to yellow, that the leaves that have died, most of the leaves on the nl are not yellow or light green they look normal just wilted,


is this going to affect the whole plant, id prefer to cut my losses and kill them now if it means im going to lose them anyway and get some more seeds going or my clones as their starting to grow now, one of the clones looks like it is super cropping, its only 3 inches high and its grown 2 nodes and their not opposite each other so looks like its going to have many branches as the nodes are close but not opposite each other so wonder if thats going to mean some super cropping clones

i could salvage something from the kush if needed but the nl would be a huge loss, very little trichs on buds, more on the sweet leaf than on the buds not sure why but the buds feel sticky so think it must have them just not visible yet to the light colour of the buds, the kush has dark short fat buds and the nl has long thin rock hard buds,

please give me some good news, are these plants done for, am i now wasting my time and nutes keeping them alive, i think i need to give them a few days before i make the choice, i need to know for sure if this is a major problem or not, worse thing is im skint till a week monday so cant even get ph tester till then but i will get one, their was no bugs in the soil maybe i was just paniking over nothing, maybe they was fruit flies just eating and not laying eggs, so the paper is off the 2 big plants but still on the little,

what should i do people, cut my losses and bit them both and salvage what i can, or wait a few days and see what happens, could this be a lack of water due to the high levels of drainage, the compost is not holding the water at all it runs strait through and out the bottom but it done this from the start, maybe because its done this i have not been watering them enough all the time, maybe they have been low on drink, who knows ill guess il know when the lights come on tomorrow and a couple of hours in the light, its just gone off now, so if its a bad idea leaving the dishes their then tell me now else the door will be shut
 
right, thats it door shut, im gutted, think im going to lose these, need to figure out what went wrong, or going wrong, could this be bugs in the soil, ive not seen any at all in the flat and their was a few flying around the plants yesterday and the day before but their is nothing their now.

tomorrow im going to check on my outdoor plants, it was really windy last night but i buried the plants in holes in the ground so the top of the plant was at ground leavel well the top was about an inch above ground level as they had stretched in the low light in my cupboard, i sort of didnt care for them well, they was the 2 problem seeds that woudlnt germ in kitchen roll, so i buried them and left them then when i moved the video box my cuttings was sat on the plants where lying flat on the soil about an inch long so they sprouted, but they are about 3 inches tall now and in a nice sunny spot, ill take nutes and water tomorrow and sort them out and check for damage, if they been eaten or pinched then so be it, not a major loss, if they are female or produce buds then thats a bonus, but im not expecting anything off them.

i have 3 plants left waiting to show sex from the ak47 cross strain, the only female i have got out of 7 seeds so far is the hempie, i got 1 plant in aero garden on 12-12 now at 1 foot high but its been topped and i pulled the top fan leaves off and it has now got 4 tops as the node below reached the top of the plant, so i got the same results as a fim by just topping and taking off the 2 fan leaves directly below the top, i think this stunted growth at the top and the nodes where forced to grow, now all 4 stems are the same height and for the last 3 days have been growing at the same rate it has got 4 tops hoping its female, if not then either of my outdoor plants could be, but if they are not fem then out of 7 seeds i got 1 fem,, the seeds from herbies have mostly been female, i had 1 hermie from herbies seeds and an unkown then the dog ate, so hopefully that was female else it would be a mostly male seed group
 
looks like im on my own, thats the problem with been in a different part of the world im not sure what time it is where you are, the time here is now 00:39, so either your all in bed snoozing or you are all at work out having dinner.

now my mind might be playing tricks on me here, the plants have been watered and in dished for about 20min now, and im not sure if i want it to look better so i think it does or it actually looks better all ready, the leaves feel better and they have stopped wilting, so im really hoping the water has been draining to quick, my only problem now is that i only added 1 ltr or their about of 1/4 strength mix, then i added about half a litre or plain water so i wonder if everytime i have watered its been flushing everything good out the soil, should i water at full strength tomorrow and let them sit in dishes, their in them over night now, or should i wait till next time i need to water, 2 or 3 days time
 
Hey, sorry I haven't got subscribed til now. I'm pretty medicated right now - where did you say your leaves are yellowing? Bottom large fan leaves? These die off slowly for me on all plants when they are toward the bottom and they were larger older leaves, especially if they are shaded. If it's somewhere else, I missed it. Then again I'm pretty medicated.

Some other things:

A while back you were hooking up computer fans. I just run those off the power supply itself if you have it. If the supply has a power switch and is older you can just hook up the fan and turn it on. For newer supplies there is no switch. You jumper it to stay on. The connector that goes to the motherboard (biggest connector) has only 1 green wire. That needs to be jumpered to any black wire. The easiest way is to straighten a paperclip, bend it into a U, and stick one end into the connector at the green wire and the other into a black. Then tape it up for safety and plug in the supply - it will stay on. Then you can power a dozen fans or more all from the one supply.

You talked about having gnats. 1 tsp of Bacillus thuringiensis var israelensis (Bt-i) per gallon once a week. The gnats will be but a memory. I haven't seen any since I started doing this a few years ago. Not one. Most of the time Bt-i will come in a brown granular form and is actually Gnatrol. But Gnatrol sold at a minimum 5 gallons at a time, which is expensive. Most grow shops repackage it and call it 'gnat treatment' or something equally generic. Ask at the grow shop. If they don't instantly know what you are talking about you are in the wrong shop. :)

You are having trouble with pots that drain too fast (instantly). This could mean they are root bound, but it might not. I get pots that do that and it is just that the watering has washed out a channel straight to the bottom. The water dumps through them into the tray with almost no exposure to the soil. Fix: go to the local hardware store and get a hand cultivator. It'll have three or four prongs in a claw shape, and the whole thing is maybe 9" long. Break up the top 1/2" to 1" of the soil (depending on plant size) right before feeding. Be gentle. You don't have to displace any major roots, and you don't have to get too close to the stem, just gently break the soil up around them. This breaks up the crust that forms on top allowing the water to better penetrate the soil in more places, and as a bonus the debris tends to clog up the quick-drain channels. If they aren't root bound, this will fix the problem.

:peace:
 
@ aberration, thanks for coming over mate, thanks for all the advice as well, its only the oldest leaves that seem to be turning bright green and wilting, looks like the same as leaves you have pulled off and left lying around for a couple of hours, im thinking the pots draining fast due to what your saying, i think the compost was airy anyway and over a few waters it made a channels and it just drains through cuz after a couple of minutes of giving the drink the top was bone dry so it not soaking in its just getting to the bottom very fast so i now have it in dishes, so would this of drained all the nutes out as well, i gave 1/4 strength mix just and fresh water on top and now its all drained into the dishes so it will soak up over night, each plant got about a pint and a half, or a litre and a half roughly, i usually water till it runs out the bottom but as its been running out so quick i wonder if that is something to do with it as they had not been in dishes.

i had to pull the paper off i covered the pots with to water them and no sign of any flies, got fly paper up at the moment, trying to get some of the DE to sprinkle on soil, but if i dont see any over the next few days then they may have been fruit flies and not gnats, but the plants no been eaten anywhere, ill know tomorrow if its got flies as they will be on the papers

i do have a few computer parts as i repaired loads and also repair games consoles and phones and stuff like that, but their the newer type of power pack, i wondered how to bypass the on off without the switch so thanks for telling my as the 12v fans are only running at 9volts,

i have been using an 8 inch fan the last few days about 4 ft away from plants on lowest setting rotating so they have been on the plants as temps have been way high

so will this standing in dish work and how long would i normally leave them in the dish for, they will be over night now as the water drained out as quick as i was putting it in, so i wonder if they need a full nute mix in case its just been flushing everything out all the time.

ill try and get one of them cutivaters i think i have got one somewhere that i used in the last house we was in, mine was like 4 prongs at funny angles so you twisted it and it twisted into the soil, but when the water drained strait through a pushed some holes with my finger about half as long as my fingers length, and after the very loose soil on top that can be brushed off it was pretty solid, i could feel roots, would it be worth me poking holes all around the sides of the pots so the roots could grow out of their and die off would this work like the air pots, i know its no the same but if i drilled some holes then would this work for now, i am in 3 gallon pots and got nothing bigger, plus my room is 3 ft by 3ft,

thanks aberration, you have made me worry a little less, i think ill know more when the lights come on at 12, but as they have had no light time on after the water they may not recover till after a couple of hours of good light,

i just hope im not losing them, ive looked on ebay for a ph tester but theirs no way i can afford one yet, i just gave my mom money for my kids holiday she is taking them down to an island south of the UK, plus im broke anyway, not had job for few months now, but im ordering one when i get paid i got 2ltr dwc hempie and my aero garden which is now a bubble grow or what ever you call them

thanks aberration, reps t you my friend
 
ill sort the computer power out tomorrow, got brand new unit in the box, this will make the fan run better, in fact the fans where out of one of them power packs, it had 2 fans in it and the pack had burned out so i kept what i could like the fans and binned the rest, so i could wire them up to this power pack now i know how to bypass the power off source, thanks mate, thats my 2nd job tomorrow after walking the dog and checking my snidy out door grow
 
reps to you all, if i didnt give you none its cuz your useless, lol, only joking peeps, its cuz i gota spread some love first as i all ready gave you plenty of love,

thanks for all the advice, i really dont want to lose this grow, or these 2 plants, but if i lose them then i lose them, people coped without ph testers and ppm testers didnt they, my last plant 9 years ago went in big 5 gallon pot and abused and moved about and ran out of electric and it got 5 ft tall and gave me i cant remember if it was 5oz or 7ox, it wasnt much for the size of the plant most of the buds where small except the main stem, i never heard of topping or lst so it grew as it was, i know the main cola gave me 1oz and an 1/8th, so 31.5grams for 1 bud, i felt like king showing my mates my big bud, it looked that good that it was the last part to be smoked, i treated it like a fine wine or aged whiskey, and a select few friends had the pleasure of smoking it with me
 
Don't worry about it man they are not dying.. How long have they been into flower? It's perfectly normal as they mature to have the large fan leaves wilt, change color, crisp, die or whatever else you might be seeing. Pictures speak a thousand words though (I haven't checked the prior page so sorry if you put some on). I wouldnt worry about it and I certainly wouldn't kill them. The giesel was such a nice looking plant it's entire life until the last two weeks and it turned pretty ugly, also had a bit of heat stress perhaps.

As far as the ph of your just mixing the water and nutes together and pouring it in then your probably somewhere around 5.3-5.8 pH which is way to low for soil you need to be at 6.3-6.8 for soil and i always shoot for 5.6-5.8 on my hydro and 2Ls (which you should be at for your 2L as well).
 
thanks teSmp, makes me feel a lot better, its the oldest leaves on the plants the ones that have long stems to them so they can stay wider than the plants, no leaf above the lowest bud site is showing any signs of stress, all buds and leaves on the bud stems are fine, its just these older leaves, im hoping it is signs the plant is doing what it should do, is their anything i could add in small amounts to the feed to up the ph slightly without having a tester, i dont want to make it go to high so even if i could get it to go up slightly then it should make things better and not worse, but if i used small amounts it wont matter if it goes on the slightly high side, but a small amount added to a feed might work, or am i tempting fate by risking it without testing it first, i never checked ph all them years ago and im sure ph testing is a new thing and possibly due the the poor state of the plants, thats why we have a rough guide on the correct ph,

mate im really hoping its just what you said that its the normal life cycle of the plant, all the leaves on the nl are fine except the leaves that was resting on the pot at the lowest point on the plant, im thinking if i had a major problem then the upper leaves would be wilting as well, but they are all sticking out as normal and none are curling or wilting.

you rested my mind a bit mate, i was getting pretty worked up after all the work i have put in and all you lot have put in my grow as well, be gutted to lose it all now, but if i was losing the plants id prefer to harvest before it starts getting mould and stuff like that, if the leaves keep dying and rotting i may get fly problems again, ive seen none today even removed the news paper off the 2 biggest plants to give them a water.

what you think about them draining quickly, could this be causing the problem to be worse, i dont think the soil has been holding much water i give it as it usually runs out onto the towed under the tubs the plants sit on, i never had them in dishes so they could soak the water up, if i poured a cup full of water in withing seconds it comes out the bottom, so when i watered just i had dished under the pots and when i watered the dishes where full about the same amount i watered, so ive left them in teh dishes to drink some back up, hope i not made a mistake doing this.

ill try and take pics tomorrow if its not get better but im back to my fone as my mom has took my kids away for a week cuz i couldnt afford to take them away this year, so they gone to stay in caravan down south, a place where i used to live, love the place, if i didnt have kids id pack my bags and go, its called the isle of wight, really nice place and really nice people, plus everyone smokes buds, everyones mom smokes bud and their nans, the police turn a blind eye to grows unless your pushing to school kids, but it so laid back their, plenty of sun

thanks teSmp, ill try reps you if i can, if not ill reps you after i spreaded some love around first,

i also found a great site where i can watch that trailor park boys, its got 7 seasons to watch im on the first and seen the 1st 3 episodes, so ill watch a few each night, looks good, cant believe its not out over here, i mean you lot must be on season 7 or more but their is only 7 on the site so not sure what season your in, i came across a movie as well, not watched that yet, has the same people in it though so ill watch that after i watched these season and all episodes
 
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