any help will be greatly appreciated!

[legalize_freedom]

Yeah...you can use the MH all the way through. Some actually prefer it over the HPS, I don't personally but some do. You need to hang the MH for sure, the thing with the floro's is that they can't penetrate your canopy the way the MH will. So that is where lumens get confusing, if you have 10 gazzillion lumens that won't penetrate, they are only feeding the top of your grow. Like Llama said if you can fit them all in there that would be nice, but if you can't, definately go with the MH.

I had a question for you though about your light cycle, you said you went from 24 to 16 to 12....how long have you had it on 12/12? Because really there never was a re-veg issue if this is the way you did your lights. The buds showed after you went to 12/12, and they have been on 12/12 ever since? correct? if so then you should be fine, with no stress whatsoever at least from the lights. Did the re-veg subject at the beginning of this thread only result because members thought it looked revegged? That is why I commented on you not flipping back and forth because I thought you had already flipped from 12/12 back to a veg light schedule...that would stress them if you kept doing that...I hope I'm makeing sense...lol

 

[leastofthese]

yes the more lumens the better, definitely stick the MH in the flower box... can you get the 400w in with the tubes? That would be ideal.

right now you only have 853.33 lumens per sq ft. During flower you want to try and achieve 5000 lumens per sq ft. You need way more lumens in that grow box. The 400w alone will produce 36000 lumens so that gives you 2400 lumens per sq ft. Getting better but still not enough. You really need to get the MH bulb in with the tubes. Still that will only give you 3253.33 lumens per sq ft. Is there anyway to shrink up the sq ft of the grow space a little bit? Working with 15 sq ft is alot of floor space

my 4' lights barely fit in there so without taking the 4-48' lights out and just going with the MH light only, no way. the two plants I have are in five gallon buckets I could probably get them in a 3x3 space with just the MH light. that is probably the way I should go dont you think? that would give me only 9sqft and that ought to up the lumens per sqft.. I probably have another month or so of flowering.

thanks again for all the help

 

[leastofthese]

Yeah...you can use the MH all the way through. Some actually prefer it over the HPS, I don't personally but some do. You need to hang the MH for sure, the thing with the floro's is that they can't penetrate your canopy the way the MH will. So that is where lumens get confusing, if you have 10 gazzillion lumens that won't penetrate, they are only feeding the top of your grow. Like Llama said if you can fit them all in there that would be nice, but if you can't, definately go with the MH.

I had a question for you though about your light cycle, you said you went from 24 to 16 to 12....how long have you had it on 12/12? Because really there never was a re-veg issue if this is the way you did your lights. The buds showed after you went to 12/12, and they have been on 12/12 ever since? correct? if so then you should be fine, with no stress whatsoever at least from the lights. Did the re-veg subject at the beginning of this thread only result because members thought it looked revegged? That is why I commented on you not flipping back and forth because I thought you had already flipped from 12/12 back to a veg light schedule...that would stress them if you kept doing that...I hope I'm makeing sense...lol

ok on the lights I will probably make the grow box smaller I think I can get it to 3x3 but without the Fluorescents.

as for the grow cycle it was 24/7 then 16/8 when they started flowering bad info made me leave them at 16/8 for the first few weeks. I didnt change them to 12/12 until about 10 days ago. still I dont have the right lighting yet and didnt start feeding them until yesterday because of bad info. hopefully if I change the box to 3x3 and use the MH light and keep feeding them once a week things ought to pick up some. tell me do you water between feedings?

thanks again for all the help.

 

[lordhighlama]

9sqft is much better than trying to light 15 with that light. You'll be looking at 4000 lumens per sqft that is not to bad. I would put the 400w in and shrink up the space.

As for feeding your rite about the feedings,, try to feed once a week. If your plant is thirsty between feedings then just give them ph'ed water. You'll be able to see if they are getting thirsty!

 

[legalize_freedom]

9sqft is much better than trying to light 15 with that light. You'll be looking at 4000 lumens per sqft that is not to bad. I would put the 400w in and shrink up the space.

As for feeding your rite about the feedings,, try to feed once a week. If your plant is thirsty between feedings then just give them ph'ed water. You'll be able to see if they are getting thirsty!

:yeahthat: That is weird that they stared flowering under 16 hrs of light, maybe that is the reason for the funny growth. I wonder if it was just enough to start them to flower, and just a little over to confuse them...I have never tried a 16 hr light schedule though...wierd. Anyway now that we are past that little piece of bad advice...on to the next...you live and learn. I would do what Llama said. yes if my plants get too dry between feedings I water with plain ph'd water. I think you will have good results with the MH...you may suprise yourself. Alot better than the floro's.

 

[leastofthese]

9sqft is much better than trying to light 15 with that light. You'll be looking at 4000 lumens per sqft that is not to bad. I would put the 400w in and shrink up the space.

As for feeding your rite about the feedings,, try to feed once a week. If your plant is thirsty between feedings then just give them ph'ed water. You'll be able to see if they are getting thirsty!

i could probably put the flors vertical but then may run into a power problem so for now will just go with the MH. any suggestion on a ph meter, at local stores or are they mostly mail order. got the scope from radio shack but then I doubt they carry ph meters!

thanks

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

:yeahthat: That is weird that they stared flowering under 16 hrs of light, maybe that is the reason for the funny growth. I wonder if it was just enough to start them to flower, and just a little over to confuse them...I have never tried a 16 hr light schedule though...wierd. Anyway now that we are past that little piece of bad advice...on to the next...you live and learn. I would do what Llama said. yes if my plants get too dry between feedings I water with plain ph'd water. I think you will have good results with the MH...you may suprise yourself. Alot better than the floro's.

I doubt that the plant actually started flowering under a 16/8 light regime. It was most likely simply preflowers. I would be very concerned with hermies with all the different light schedules these plants have had.

 

[leastofthese]

I doubt that the plant actually started flowering under a 16/8 light regime. It was most likely simply preflowers. I would be very concerned with hermies with all the different light schedules these plants have had.

cool light thanks for the ideas. like I said they were 24/7 since they broke grownd a friend told me to make them flower they had to be at least 16/8 so that is what they were at for about a month Id say, then they started showing flowering (or what I thought was flowering) I didnt move them to 12/12 till about 10 days ago. but then I had the lighting wrong, the temp was low, I read to not to feed during flowering so for them to still be alive I feel blessed!

I have learned alot in my short time here and you people have saved me alot of trouble.

my next grow I hope will be quality seeds, that will be another question down the road, I feel opinions on the seed subject is critical since someone already buying from a source is better then a hit and miss approach.

 

[leastofthese]

:holysheep: I put the mh up and it sure looked like they were doing the wave to me!!!!!:woohoo:

 

[legalize_freedom]

LOL...yeah they are going to love that. We already covered the possability of hermi's right? When we were talking about the lights at the beginning of the thread. I think you will be allright because you didn't go back and forth it was more like a gradual less light thing...and those pics at the beginning of the thread are certainly more than pre-flowers...they were budding.

Anyway, if we didn't cover hermi's, your definately going to want to keep a close eye on them for pollen sacks...look online for all the pics you can of different hermi's so you get an idea of what you are looking for. You run the risk of hermi's when you don't know what your genetics are anyway, hell even when you do know the genetics it's a good idea to keep a close eye on them. Your plants are gonna thank you for the light! PM me if you ever have a question and you don't feel like posting it...I'm laid off and way too bored anyway. Good Luck!

Do you have a hydro store in your area? If not, I would just order one online, Hanna makes a nice pen type tester for around 40-45 bucks.

 

[leastofthese]

here are a few pic of the last few days with the growroom shrunk down to 3x3 my MH light and feeding them again. just read about feeding during flowering so got some 15/30/15 food the best I could find on short notice and is waaayyy better then what I was using. got a ph/moisture meter and the ph is 6.7 to 6.9 so I hope they are on their way! that first pic is one I dusted with some male pollen just that one stem has the pods which I believe to be seeds. some of you have talked about hermie?? looked at some pics but couldnt tell. expecting them to really take off with the new food, and have estimated they have been flowering foe about two weeks.

 

[legalize_freedom]

They look good and healthy bud! I will be sending you a pm later tonight or tommorrow. Hope all is well for you!

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

Your new food is not a good food to use for flowering. You cannot just go out and pick up any old food you find at HD or Lowes. You need something with very little N for flowering. The pH moisture meter combinations do not work and IMO are worse than nothing, because you believe that you are getting a good pH reading, but you are not. Either return it or throw it away and get a real pH meter. IMO, they should not even sell those cheap combo units as they NEVER work correctly.

Quit taking advise from your "friend".

 

[Super Skunk]

No kidding 2 years ago I burned an entire grow with one of those PH/ moisture instruments. I just use plain ol' litmus paper. Every time I buy a good digital PH meter it just falls out of my shirt pocket, usually in my water! As far as nutes go, there are places online that you can buy nutes that are made for our type of gardening. It is much cheaper over time to get those before a grow. They will pay for themselves after the first grow. If you search on here you can see what others use. Look at some of there plants in the gallery, this should give you a really good idea of what you need. Most of the people on here have no problem giving up some of there growing wisdom to other members. But for gods sake do as the Hemp Goddess said throw that meter away! They can and will cost you a crop!

 

[lordhighlama]

when I first started out I did the same thing leastofthese and got duped into purchasing one of those combo ph moisture meters. Realized quickly it was completely worthless.

But just the other day I was able to use it as a probe to remove some lint from my outdoor dryer duct so that the louver would close again.

Yay looks like it did come in handy after all. lol

 

[leastofthese]

No kidding 2 years ago I burned an entire grow with one of those PH/ moisture instruments. I just use plain ol' litmus paper. Every time I buy a good digital PH meter it just falls out of my shirt pocket, usually in my water! As far as nutes go, there are places online that you can buy nutes that are made for our type of gardening. It is much cheaper over time to get those before a grow. They will pay for themselves after the first grow. If you search on here you can see what others use. Look at some of there plants in the gallery, this should give you a really good idea of what you need. Most of the people on here have no problem giving up some of there growing wisdom to other members. But for gods sake do as the Hemp Goddess said throw that meter away! They can and will cost you a crop!

ok thanks for the advice I thought the price was to good to be true! Ill just get some litmus paper, where do you get that anyway? was reading about light height last night and figured I better move the light up some had it about 3 inches off the top didnt see any damage but the poster advised the other guy to move his about 8 inches away so that is what I did. I am going to have problems sooner then later, my MH light is an old warehouse light and is about 18 inches from the ceiling and am almost there so if my plants dont grow any higher then about 8 inches higher I will be ok.

thanks again

 

[BBFan]

when I first started out I did the same thing leastofthese and got duped into purchasing one of those combo ph moisture meters. Realized quickly it was completely worthless.

But just the other day I was able to use it as a probe to remove some lint from my outdoor dryer duct so that the louver would close again.

Yay looks like it did come in handy after all. lol

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

 

[legalize_freedom]

The litmus paper is not ideal either, I will find a web address to a cheap digital ph meter that will be more what you are looking for. Sorry I was really busy lastnoght, and really did not pay attention to your post, other than looking at the pic real quick. You want your light at least 8 inches, you may even need it farther if it is too hot, hold your hand ontop of the plants for 1 min, if your hand gets too hot, then the light is too close. Some of us can get away with haveing the light 8" away because we have air cooled hoods, is that what you have?

As far as the nutes go, that is my fault, I told him it was better than NOTHING, or VEG Nutes. So I told him to get something that was higher in P, because he needed to be feeding them something. He has no hydro stores around him. I figured MG, or something available that had a higher (P) than (N) was better than nothing. True it is not optimal, but he needs to get through this one, and his next grow will be dialed in a little better.

I'm sorry if you misunderstood what I meant about the ph meter...maybe I wasn't clear enough, those moisture meters are junk, I will see what I can dig up for you for a website.

 

[lordhighlama]

a good website that I have used and recommended to other members here is hXXp://www.eseasongear.com/ replace the XX with TT

They have very reasonable prices and a great selection of meters.


EDIT:

This is the meter I use and it is on sale right now... hXXp://www.eseasongear.com/miphwaphte1.html

Great meter and is very accurate.

 

[leastofthese]

No kidding 2 years ago I burned an entire grow with one of those PH/ moisture instruments. I just use plain ol' litmus paper. Every time I buy a good digital PH meter it just falls out of my shirt pocket, usually in my water! As far as nutes go, there are places online that you can buy nutes that are made for our type of gardening. It is much cheaper over time to get those before a grow. They will pay for themselves after the first grow. If you search on here you can see what others use. Look at some of there plants in the gallery, this should give you a really good idea of what you need. Most of the people on here have no problem giving up some of there growing wisdom to other members. But for gods sake do as the Hemp Goddess said throw that meter away! They can and will cost you a crop!

so how do you use the litmus paper I got some just to cross reference the two till I can get a better meter.

would you say that the top pic is producing seeds? it is the only one I dusted and is the only one on the plant that is putting on what I believe are seeds.