First Grow - Rubbermaid Tub w/Soil and CFLs Grow Journal

Welcome all!!!

First off, I would like to say hello to all the rollitup users as this is my first post here. 16 days ago, I germinated some bagseed (from some good weed), and once they sprouted in some ridiculously horrible clay soil, I put them in the ghettoest cardboard box you could possibly consider growing weed in. Anyway, a few days later I had 2 dead seedlings and 2 barely living seedlings due to (I believe) heat stress from the CFL's and inadequate airflow. And with that I knew that it was time for a change.

My current setup:

The Tub:
-Height: 16.5"
-Length: 20"
-Depth: 14"
-Area: 2.67 Cubic Feet (When the plants become too large I will be adding another rubbermaid tub.
-Instead of making a light trap, I just stack a bunch of boxes and lids and such around the box and throw a heavy black fabric over the whole thing, leaving some open area for ventilation, like some kinda secret weed fortress. This makes the box ALMOST light proof, and once I get a hold of some black and white paint it should be completely light proof.

Ventilation:
-Intake: 9" oscillating fan turned on high blowing through a 9x9" hole in the bottom of the grow box. This sucks in lots of cool basement air.
-Exhaust: 3" computer fan at the top of the tub. (I know it is not ideal to have a more powerful intake than exhaust but I assume having the correct temp. is more important.

Growing Medium:
-Topsoil. Yeah, yeah, I know. It is all I have at the moment and is certainly better than my previous soil. It doesn't seem that bad to me anyway once I got out most of the gravel.
-Sand.
-Perlite .
-I also put about 1/2" of perlite at the bottom for better drainage.
-The seedlings are currently in solo cups.

Nutrients:
-Miracle Gro. The NPK rating is 24-8-16. I plan on using this very carefully at low strength during vegetative stage, and I hope to get nutes more suited for flowering before I get to that point.

Lighting:
-CFLs taped between pencils suspended from strings stapled to the lid of the box.
-All CFLs are wired directly, I did not use any sockets.
-4x42W CFLs
-5x23W CFLs

Other:
-I just recieved my pH test strips about a week ago. The pH of the plants is around 6.2. I am working on raising this.
-I put a small cool-mist humidifier next to the grow box.
-Since I only had 2 living seedlings, and I wanted 3 to ensure that I get atleast 1 female, I started 2 more seeds. One of which is now on day 1 in the tub, the other, well, I'm not sure what to do with.

Thank you for taking the time to read and I would GREATLY appreciate anyone's input on ways I could be doing better. I hope to do this journal from start to finish, so feel free to stick around.

Stay high.

Day 1 seedling.

Day 16 seedlings.

Update:
Plant in the second picture is looking really awful, I'm not sure if it will make it. Since I have so many issues I have decided to switch the lights to 12/12. While I wait for my mini plants to flower, I'll be trying to get all the supplies I need to have a VERY sucessful grow. Other than that, third plant in pic looks better and better everyday. It's third leaf set is coming in nicely and my new seedling is looking great.

I subbed bro, I'm here to help! Are there drainage holes? What's your temperature at lights on/off?

When you say the ph of that plant is 6.2 is that your tap water or what water are you using?

MiracleGroBox said:

Update:
Plant in the second picture is looking really awful, I'm not sure if it will make it. Since I have so many issues I have decided to switch the lights to 12/12. While I wait for my mini plants to flower, I'll be trying to get all the supplies I need to have a VERY sucessful grow. Other than that, third plant in pic looks better and better everyday. It's third leaf set is coming in nicely and my new seedling is looking great.

Click to expand...

sorry to say man but switching to 12/12 is NOT gonna fix your issues

Update:
I checked on the plants this afternoon and I'm sad to say that there is now only 1 remaining plant....
However, I think I found the problem! The plant on the left (closest to the intake, 3rd pic) is looking just as healthy as it did before, which isn't saying much by the way. The plant to the right of that (pic 2) is not looking so happy. In fact, I'm pretty sure that it is dead given the the twisted yellow leaves and stem that looks like it would break if I even touched it. And the newest seedling all the way to the right of the box by the exhaust looked like a straight up burnt piece of grass, had fallen on the ground, and is now in the trash. RIP. Anyway, this proves something though! I think the stunted growth and slight yellow of the leaves that I was experiencing even AFTER I moved my plants to the rubbermaid tub must have been from heat stress. I figured having that fan on high would get rid of my heat problems, but I guess not. As of right now, I have only 2 42W cfls on the only living plant. and the air coming out of the exhaust feels WAY cooler. So I think that the problem was that I had too many lights in such a small space. So I plan on spreading the lights out more evenly in the box and taking a couple of them out. Do you guys think this will solve the problem?

Thanks for subbing herb, I definitely appreciate all the help I can get, I sure as hell need it. The solo cup the plants are in has plenty of drainage holes and the drainage seems to be pretty good (water does not sit on top of soil, runs out the bottom pretty quickly.) Unfortunately, I don't have a way to check the temp, but my thermostat is at 68F and my basement is a bit cooler than the rest of the house. As far as lights on, I don't know, the CFLs produce a LOT of heat in that little box, but I thought that the cool air being taken in would fix that. Also, I have been using bottled water to water the plants with after adjusting the pH to ~6.5 or a bit higher and I test the runoff. I used the guide on GrowWeedEasy to check the pH of the soil with my test strips and 6.2 was the number that I got for my soil's pH. However, I am not certain this is 100% accurate.

Dabolili, the reason I was going to put the lights on 12/12 was because I felt like the plants were already ruined and I was gonna prepare for my next grow with better materials as I am broke atm while I waited on them to flower. But, with only one plant I have once again changed my plans. I am going to fix the heat problem (I'm really hoping that was the problem) and start over, growing full sized plants. However, I will still probably keep the living plant provided it recovers. I started germinating 3 more seeds in a paper towel and I'm quite excited to see some plants that don't look burnt as shit.

Anyway, I definitely do not plan on giving up anytime soon and where there's a weed there's a way. I will get it eventually. I'll probably upload pics tomorrow of my progress, thanks.

.....mother of god. Please go read/watch a video on marijuana horticulture. You aren't even keeping track of the most basic essential requirements of your grow space...

Shaded, I have invested more time than you probably would think in researching. As stated earlier, I have limited resources and am quite broke. I assume you are talking about how I can't measure the temperature by saying I'm not keeping track of the most basic essentials? I figured that I could get an idea if the temp. was in the right range, however, I may have been and probably was wrong. Either way, the problem is not a lack of research, it's a lack of equipment.

MiracleGroBox said:

Shaded, I have invested more time than you probably would think in researching. As stated earlier, I have limited resources and am quite broke. I assume you are talking about how I can't measure the temperature by saying I'm not keeping track of the most basic essentials? I figured that I could get an idea if the temp. was in the right range, however, I may have been and probably was wrong. Either way, the problem is not a lack of research, it's a lack of equipment.

Click to expand...

It's all good bro it had to have been the heat. 70-80 is optimal at all times. I'm at 80 lights on and 71 with lights off although I'm sure it can handle lower and higher temps well. As far as I know you just don't want an extreme difference in temp when on/off. When and what are you transplanting it into?

Looks like fertilizer burn you should not fertilize the first week and that fertilizer you are using needs to be diluted extremely well plants looked to be over fertilized I grew my plants in 90 degree heat and they did not look like that they grew fine

weed

My last grow I used mg 18-18-21 I burned two out of eight of my plants they did not die but I caught it in time and flushed them

weed

Why on earth would you assume the temperature inside your grow box with CFL's would be anywhere close to your room temps?

Step 1: buy a temperature and humidity gauge
Step 2: grow weed

My plan as far as transplanting them was to leave them in solo cups until around flowering time and then transplant them into 1 gallon pots full of the same soil I'm currently using, unless I happen to come across some better soil. The thing with the temps was I knew the cfls would raise the temp quite a bit, i just thought it would be at a tempurature cool enough as to where it could still live with all the cool air being intaken. But i think the temp could have been over 90 in some parts of the box. I will try to get a temp meter asap as well. It is not nute burn as i have not given them any nutes and dont plan to until atleast 1 month.

MiracleGroBox said:

My plan as far as transplanting them was to leave them in solo cups until around flowering time and then transplant them into 1 gallon pots full of the same soil I'm currently using, unless I happen to come across some better soil. The thing with the temps was I knew the cfls would raise the temp quite a bit, i just thought it would be at a tempurature cool enough as to where it could still live with all the cool air being intaken. But i think the temp could have been over 90 in some parts of the box. I will try to get a temp meter asap as well. It is not nute burn as i have not given them any nutes and dont plan to until atleast 1 month.

Click to expand...

Yeah I didn't think you had nutes going yet, too early. You're doing good bro you just really need to get the temperature under control. Check out my journal, it might help with somethings.

And I know you're broke bro....but get some better soil. If anything, the African violet soil is decent at most retailers. Just take a 20 dollar bill and go to home depot or some shit and walk around. You need soil and temp gauge. The humidity isn't so important in my opinion you just need to understand during sprout and veg humidity is good so I just spritz water on em every once in a while. During flower it's better to have low humidity just to stay away from mold issues

Update:

-We have poppage! 2 of the 4 bagseed are showing taproots. I plan on planting them today.
-I can now can with 100% certainty that the heat was the problem. Now that I have only 1 plant and 2x42W CFLs in the tub, the plant looks 10x better already and has grown more in the last 24 hours than it would have in 3 days at the rate it was going. What do you guys think I should do as far as light? I was thinking to put in the 4 42W's and then 3 of the 23 watts. Do you think this would be overdoing it or just right? I definitely don't wanna see any more dead plants.

Herb, I think I'll take your advice on the soil thing, but probably when I transplant them into bigger pots. I think that the soil they are in right now will work for the time being, despite topsoil's bad rep it seems alright to me mixed with sand and perlite. It's pretty heavy but still has good drainage. Would it be cheaper to buy premixed soil or to mix my own? As far as humidity goes, I have a little cool-mist humidifier next to my box for veg, this should also help to lower the temp. My plan was to unplug it when I switch my lights to 12/12 and hopefully to get a dehumidifier for the last week or 2 of flowering.

MiracleGroBox said:

Update:

-We have poppage! 2 of the 4 bagseed are showing taproots. I plan on planting them today.
-I can now can with 100% certainty that the heat was the problem. Now that I have only 1 plant and 2x42W CFLs in the tub, the plant looks 10x better already and has grown more in the last 24 hours than it would have in 3 days at the rate it was going. What do you guys think I should do as far as light? I was thinking to put in the 4 42W's and then 3 of the 23 watts. Do you think this would be overdoing it or just right? I definitely don't wanna see any more dead plants.

Herb, I think I'll take your advice on the soil thing, but probably when I transplant them into bigger pots. I think that the soil they are in right now will work for the time being, despite topsoil's bad rep it seems alright to me mixed with sand and perlite. It's pretty heavy but still has good drainage. Would it be cheaper to buy premixed soil or to mix my own? As far as humidity goes, I have a little cool-mist humidifier next to my box for veg, this should also help to lower the temp. My plan was to unplug it when I switch my lights to 12/12 and hopefully to get a dehumidifier for the last week or 2 of flowering.

Click to expand...

Awesome bro! Glad for the poppage and heat is a bitch even with cfls at times. To be honest it's best to use as many lights as you can since lumen output is limited with cfls. My biggest cfl is putting out roughly 5000 lumens. That is a 500 watt equivalent 6500k I found at fleet farm lol. Come to think of it I could use a lot more 2700k. Space is just such a bitch for me and I'm anal with adjusting the lights until they are all perfectly situated over my colas and shit haha. I'm working with what I got but it seems to be doing great. The soil will be fine til you transplant. I just went with a premixed since it's my first. It actually has three different fucking kinds of soil from me adding over time haha (my soil level was low in my pot) keep me updated!!

Plant from rubbermaid recovery center is looking much better than she used to!
4/4 seeds have now cracked!

herbganji said:

Awesome bro! Glad for the poppage and heat is a bitch even with cfls at times. To be honest it's best to use as many lights as you can since lumen output is limited with cfls. My biggest cfl is putting out roughly 5000 lumens. That is a 500 watt equivalent 6500k I found at fleet farm lol. Come to think of it I could use a lot more 2700k. Space is just such a bitch for me and I'm anal with adjusting the lights until they are all perfectly situated over my colas and shit haha. I'm working with what I got but it seems to be doing great. The soil will be fine til you transplant. I just went with a premixed since it's my first. It actually has three different fucking kinds of soil from me adding over time haha (my soil level was low in my pot) keep me updated!!

Click to expand...

Right man the more lumens the better with cfls but i gotta get my temp under control or they're gonna be too dead to absorb any lumens lol. For a 2.67 cubic feet container and 3 seedlings, what do you think a good amount of watts would be to keep things nice and cool? Oh and should I have the humidifier by the box or next to the intake fan?

Yeah, space will probably be a problem for me too, and that constantly adjusting the lights thing sounds exactly like something I'd do haha. That's good tho cuz love=sticky buds! Oh and I'll for sure have to check out your grow journal.