New starter

[indoorfarmer]

I'm sure you all probably get questions along these lines relatively frequently, so I apologise in advance.

I've smoked for 12 or so years now, and decided I'd have a crack at my own grow. I purchased 3 Royal Dwards from RQS and downloaded an E-book to get started.

Set up: 2ft x 2ft x 4ft tent, TS1000 Light, 4" extraction fan (no charcoal filter fitted yet, but will fit when it begins to smell), 6" clip on fan (cheap ebay rubbish, high speed setting isn't working so awaiting replacement from seller). Growing medium is 2 parts Canna coco, 1 part John Innes multi purpose compost 1 part perlite. Water adjusted to around PH 6 however was using indicating fluid, have purchased a digital PH meter for future watering. Temperature is around 25/26 degrees C with the lights off, and 28/30 degrees with lights on, 27/28 if I leave the tent door open (im hoping when the replacement fan arrives that I can maintain 28 with the door shut)

I believe from what I have read that's a reasonably sensible first time grow, within my limited budget.

I had planned to grow 2 of the 3 seeds, and initially planted 2 of the seeds into pete pellets. 1 made it, 1 unfortunately didn't. Therefore I used the paper towel method on my third seed with far better results.

The two questions I have:

1) the seedling that survived the Pete pellet is now 18 days old, the one done in the paper towel is 11, they are both planted into large pots (not sure how big as they were given to me, i assume 5 gallon) as I had read that with auto's it can be best to put them straight into their final pots. The seedling from the pete pellet is far far smaller than the one done in the paper towel. I would have said a difference of approximately 1.5" despite being a week older. Is this just genetics? or is there an underlying issue with this plant?

2) I've noticed some very minor curling upwards of the leaves at the end nearest the stem. From what I have read this is either a magnesium deficiency (im not yet adding nutrients), under or overwatering (I was initially doing approximately 0.5 litres of water per plant, per day, after some more reading I have changed to 1L per plant every two or 3 days, as I get run off by doing it like that), tent to hot, of which i don't believe mine is, or potentially light burn (I originally hung the light 30" from the plants, approximately 7 days ago I lowered it down to 22" however today have put it back to 30" after finding the leaves like that). Am I missing something obvious, I've read the posts that I can and In my very limited knowledge I'm not aware I'm doing anything particularly wrong. If it's worthy of note, the leaves become droopy when the lights are off, but again from what I have read this is normal.

I've attached a couple pictures to highlight my point (please note the digital thermometer reads approximately 1 degrees higher that the liquid one) any help would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks in advance

Indoor Farmer

[M_C]

When you start mixing your own soil, less people can help

I know a couple on here have mixed compost with coco but it's not something I would try... either choose compost or coco... they are both totally different styles of growing

Get your filter on mate... you are used to the smells in your house & won't really notice the slow build up of smell... but others will

Also, the filter restricts the air flow so it's good to have airflow all sorted before you hit flower as, if there is any issues, that's when you don't want to be running about trying to sort issues

[Greengrass]

Can I ask why the mix of coco and soil why not one or the other?
Nvm MC beat me to it

[indoorfarmer]

Hey guys,

Thanks for the speedy responses. I'll be honest, I mixed them together, because, I ordered the coco online, and it got lost in the post. I purchased the soil from my local supermarket, and before I planted the coco turned up. I had obviously purchased the soil at the point and didnt want to see it go to waste, I naively mixed them together as I had read that there is some nutrients in the soil, none in the coco, so thought I was being clever . Would I be wise to repot them into just coco? Do I run the risk of damaging them what with them being at such a young age.

Thank you for the advice Mr C as it happens the replacement fan has just arrived so plan on having the working one, at fast speed, pointed towards the light, and the other, working at the lower speed, pointed towards the plants.

[M_C]

Can I ask why the mix of coco and soil why not one or the other?
Nvm MC beat me to it

No doubt it is do do with trying to combine the properties of the two together?

...but, do you treat it as compost or coco? If you treat as compost, how does the microheard work with inert coco? If you treat it as coco then you instantly kill the microherd... Hmm... I just answered the question I think... you need to treat as compost?

[M_C]

Hey guys,

Thanks for the speedy responses. I'll be honest, I mixed them together, because, I ordered the coco online, and it got lost in the post. I purchased the soil from my local supermarket, and before I planted the coco turned up. I had obviously purchased the soil at the point and didnt want to see it go to waste, I naively mixed them together as I had read that there is some nutrients in the soil, none in the coco, so thought I was being clever . Would I be wise to repot them into just coco? Do I run the risk of damaging them what with them being at such a young age.

Thank you for the advice Mr C as it happens the replacement fan has just arrived so plan on having the working one, at fast speed, pointed towards the light, and the other, working at the lower speed, pointed towards the plants.

They are too big now to repot into coco... you'll pretty much have to run with what you have

[indoorfarmer]

I'll take the lesson for future grows a stick with one growing medium in future. Could the mix be responsible for the stunted growth and minor curling of the leaves?

Thank you both again

[GEORGE]

I would dig them up and replant in 100% soil. JMO What light are you using?

[indoorfarmer]

I probably still have enough soil and perlite left to replant both of them, would I dig around them and leave the roots in the coco/soil mix?

It's a mars hydro ts1000. I believe around 150w of power

[GEORGE]

I probably still have enough soil and perlite left to replant both of them, would I dig around them and leave the roots in the coco/soil mix?

It's a mars hydro ts1000. I believe around 150w of power

As small as they are, you could just get A big spoon, and dig 3" radios around it and pick it up and plant into the soil. With that light, 16" to 20" until they 17 to 21 days old, then should be able to get as close as 12" after then. Good luck and happy growing.

Are you sure it only pulls 150W? I have A 300W that pulls 127W. You might want to get you A watt meter and measure it to be sure. They run about 10 bucks on fleabay.