Did I get bonzai seeds? 4-5 nodes, 6-7cm tall... 840w CFL 1st Closet Grow!

Hey everone!

Well, we finally managed to get our first closet CFL grow up and running after having thought about for ages and dreamt about it a little longer!

So I've done a fair bit of research over the course of about a month or so and I've come across some amazing information on some great forums; more than enough to get anyone off the ground! Anyway, I've just got a couple of quick questions that are bugging me about the girls that I'd really appreciate some clarification on please.

And if anyone wants to just throw in their 2c that'd be great too!

I'll am happy to give any futher info if ya's have any questions, and I'll try and get 1. current soil details 2. fresh pics from today of my sexy little girls!

Hope the below is coherent!!


So there's 3x seeds; Hollands Hope 2.0 from suzyseeds (80% indica 20% sativa) in a grow space of 1.1Mx0.45MX1.1M giving about 1/2m square, or 20 cubic feet. Not very big I know, and I'm already researching LST but I don't know if I'll need it, you'll see why.

- Sprouted in those expanding jiffy disc thingos from the local garden shop under 2x 20W/2700k + 1x 150W/5500k, and a makeshift humidity dome. Temps kept about 25C @ 80% plus humidity. No worries, all up in 72 hours! (thanks suzy!)

Day 1 from sprout changed to 285w of 5500k @ 18/6. (1x150W + 1x135W...real values, the bulbs are bloody huge!) and placed the jiffys directly into intermediate "pots" made from plastic 1.25L bottle bottoms with holes and tape to block light (i know right...i was really poor a few weeks ago lol!) Top-up soil was garden shop 4-4-4 potting mix, mixed in with about 30% U-grow coco coir which already had 30% perlite in it.

Day 3 couple of pics...



Day 4 Given about a 20ml of tap water (7.0 and sat for 3 days or so) each as jiffy still very moist.

Day 8 Watered each pot with about 300ml same water only this time, one tiny drop of bio-bizz grow in 1.4L water pitcher beforehand, just to give them a taste. Added a 135w/5500k, totalling 420W. Lights had been a bit too close, like 3cm/1inch from them, as they lacked that lush feeling in their leaves, so I moved the lights back to about 10cm/3 inches or so. Installed a 30cm desk fan in the grow box which is a big fan for that space, but its on a timer for like 15 mins/hour or so during daylight hours.

Day 13 Installed extraction fan which should be enough for the air changing reqs of the space, not much...but the fans rated for about 45cfm I think, if not its 60cfm. Will probably install a second fan the same for the intake. Have a geeza...but dont be too harsh on my ghetto box!





Notice how big the tea-light is beside the little plants??

Day 16 Shared the last water mix giving about 100ml each.

Day 18 Watered 100ml each with mix at 6.0-6.5'ish pH, at fert strength of 2ml/L.

Day 22 Plants seemed to have a little nute burn (typical first timers error *groan*) and/or a lack of N as yellowing baby leaves and lowest pair. Light flushing with clean water at about 6.0ph as I noticed my runoff water was about 6.5ph last time so I tried to reduce that a fraction.

Day 23 Repotted into 8L sack pots with a a stronger potting mix which has horse shit etc in it. Watered clean water. 390g/m2 of N....too hot?

Day 24 (Today 19-4-15) Got 2x150w and 2x135W giving me 570W/5500k. Temps kept around 27c with humidity about 30-60% depending on time of day for them.

I will be adding today another 2x135w giving 840w total and also changing the light fixtures/positions. The photo shows my temporary light setup as of yesterday when I repotted.











And thats where we're at! Ok so the above took me about 3 hours to sort of from my scrap of paper I'd been keeping...I think its pretty much right!! Looking at the pics, I can see how much I fucked up with the nutes...Poor things being sold to a newby like me lol!

I'm curious though guys, they seem to be doing ok, its just that they are ultra small at about 5-6cm but have like 4 nodes at least!! They remind me of friggin bonazi plants, looking somewhat mature, but being miniature! Is this normal? Their stems are solid as, at least the thickness of a matchstick if not more... I realise they are Indy's but still...I didn't expect them to stay SO SMALL after 24 days! At this rate, I'll be vegging for months, which I don't want to do...it was supposed to be a quick first grow to get some stock in the cupboard!

Thanks for reading if you're still here, and please throw up a few words of wisdom!

I just saw this;

Post #6 - "More soil required, as that space in the pot, get very very hot and dry, and cooks the plant in time, ...your plant is typical of plants grown under cfl's using but one range of kelvin, that of the blue band or 6500k, blue or cool white encourages horizontal growth, for the next week or 2, swap out the cool whites for some warm whites, 2700k that makes vertical growth, once the inter nodes have parted a bit, 2 weeks? replace 50% of the bulbs with your cool whites and continue, the requires both colors ...google kelvin"

from this thread https://www.rollitup.org/t/cfl-grow-journal-starting-week-6-veg.814875/

Is that my problem you think? Only using 5500k? I wouldn't have thought so given the spectrum spread? of 5500k's... I'll get an image up later...

Day 25
Well after some further thought and talkin about it with a mate over a big one, I'm thinking it wasn't so much a case of too much nutes (Bio-bizz Grow) because in the last picture above, you can see the tiniest signs of nute burn, but only tiny signs I think.

So, this leaves me with me having chosen shitty soil for the first pot and/or having the lights too close. So, now they are in new bags (pots) with better soil which, looking at the bag, has 390g/m3 of "azote" being fertilizer.... Shit I hope I've got the soil right... Any ideas? The lights backed off to 1x150w and 2x135w at about 10cm/4 inches.

Temps 25C @ 50%.

They seem to be doing better already today, top most leaves lookin spritely and nice colours, so I guess I'm on the right track...

From one noob to another ... good start! She's a very forgiving plant.

Nice grow going there! Can you list the actuall cfl wattage individually by the bulbs you are using? If you dont mind.

Well cheers guys, nice to hear some encouragement! Being the first, this site looked like a good one to get on board with!

About the bulbs...
2x 150w 5500k
4x 135w 5500k

There's 1x150 and 2x135 running at the moment, one per little bonzai! If you're wondering about "rated watts"...well, I dunno, it isn't printed on the bulb anywhere, neither the box...that I can understand, they came from Hong Kong! Anyway, they are photographers bulbs and what I actually am planning to use the whole way through. Perhaps not ideal I know but the budgets tight and this should get us off the ground, in more ways than one!!

Oh.and 2x 2700k that were layin' around the house, but not in use...haven't even bloody thought about 2700k to be honest yet....they are still so bloody small.

There looking fine for just over 3 weeks the only thing I can say is keep your spirits up when when your growing from seed the plant puts most of its energy and growth into its root system at least for the first 4 to 5 weeks anyway and then it should take off like a rocket be patient it will all pay off in the end