First Indoor Grow - CFL Style - Do these look OK?

Total newbie here, but wanted to share and see if there's anything I could be doing better. I have a 7'x3'x4.5' grow tent in my garage with 700+ watts (not 'equivalent' but the actual CFL wattage) and 3 plants inside. I planted them from feminized seeds, and they are 33 days old, currently in veg stage.

I see some of the amazing photos people are sharing here in this forum, and in comparison my girls look a little stretchy to me. Does that mean I don't have enough light yet? (They are sativa-dominant CBD MediHaze seeds.)

I am going to try to upload photos of the lights and plants... any feedback is welcome.



Each plant as a 65 watt CFL placed in a light reflector directly over the top of it, and I have 2 125 watt bulbs hanging between them. There is also a 32 watt light in each of the 4 corners.



Behind the center plant are another 2 lights (both 65 watts) hanging down, lighting up the middle areas of the plants.



I topped this one last week at the 5th node.



This is the center plant, which I also topped at the same time.

Are these plants too stretched out, and do I need more light?

Thanks for any feedback you may have!

Here are a few more images of the plants...





This one (above) was topped a week ago.



Just for fun, I FIMMed this one 2 days ago. (At least I *think* I did.)

They all look fine,a good start I guess.
Fimming is a nightmare,hard to make a decision what you've done before one and a half week.
Hope you'll get the four tops after all
The only thing I can say about your set up is the position of the bulbs.Youl'll get more benefit by using them horizontal or at least 45 degree like the ones on the splitter.Especially I'm pointing the 125Ws.
The 65Ws on the tops look like focusing well so you can keep them but you're losing a lot with the bigger ones I mentioned above.
Btw I'm a noob,you're doing great and keep on going

Update: They are growing slower than I would expect, but after topping them I can see that there is a good amount of growth happening down below. The grow tent is about 81 degrees when the lights are on, almost exactly. There was a period of a few hours where it got to 90 (ack!!) because I added some aluminum trays as reflectors. (Bad idea!) But that only lasted about 2 hours before I caught it.

Question: Is 80-81 degrees and 30% humidity too hot and dry? I can't seem to get the inside any cooler than 80 with the lights on, so I don't really know what else to do.

Dang 700 actual watts, they are actually looking pretty healthy. I wonder if the stretch ia caused by geneitcs or the gap between the lights above. Mine was stretching every day untill,i filled the complete top half above my plant with 8 reflectors with 23w bulbs and two big bulbs in reflectors on the sides. Not much wattage but light from all directions solved my stretching. Whats your tent ventilation like?

Next update (this forum is great, I am able to learn and make adjustments as I go. Very cool!)

I added more lights, so now my grow tent has 1024 watts of CFL (4 6500k 32w lights above each of the 3 plants; 4 5500k 65w lights in each corner and 2 more hanging in the back; and 2 5500k 125w lights hanging between them.)

The temperature inside is kept at an even 80 degrees while the lights are on.

For ventilation, I have an intake vent at the bottom of the tent, which has a ventilation tube that goes out near the garage door, with a fan blowing air directly into it (pulling cooler air from the outside.) There is a fan at the top of the tent blowing air out the other side. Seems to be working!



Although these plants are still in veg, I was looking closely at them to see if I could see signs of being female. I noticed the 6th node, right below where I topped one plant, seems to show signs of being female. (See image below.) Am I right?



This is a lot of fun!

After a good drink of water, they're looking much more lively.

Healthy!! Allthough i counted 768watts continuous from 32x4/65x6/125x2 lol. Nice grow btw.

32w x 12 (4 over each plant.)

I am totally new to this, so all I'm doing is regurgitating information I've previously read (mostly here on this forum) -- but its my understanding that CFL's effective range is under about 4 inches, and that any bulb that is more than about 6 inches away isn't doing much other than producing heat and using electricity. IF that information is correct, then the bulbs in the corners of your grow aren't impacting the plant much, and you might want to save them until the plant is big enough to need that much light coverage.

Hopefully someone with lots of experience or more of a science background can confirm or correct what I've said. Going on my previous assumption, I set up my array of bulbs for maximum coverage, but if any are more than 6 inches from a leaf, I unscrew them. I've had heat issues in my space so I'm trying to optimize usable light, and minimize wasted light.

Again, this is my first grow, so I'm just passing along things I've read that I can't verify one way or the other -- hopefully someone else can.

Looks great. Get theights closer. Like 3 inches maybe even closer. Lay you hand on top of the plant and drop the lights down to 2-3 inches above the plants. If it doesn't burn your hand your good. A fan down low blowing up will move the heat from the tops.

Good luck.

Oh and don't run straight 6500. Out of twelve make 8 6500 and 4 2700 and switch the ratio for flower. I notice faster growth with a mixed spectrum. I see you got 5500 in there, still throw some 2700 in there.

Oh, OK. I was going to switch all the 6500k to 2700k for flowering, and leave the 5500k where they are. I read somewhere on this board that the plants would stretch too much with the warmer light, so I was trying to keep that to a minimum.

The lights are actually closer to the plants than they appear in the photo, but I'll take a measuring tape out there to make sure they're no more than 6 inches away. I know that the ones on the sides are very close because I'm always worried that they'll grow into the lights over night.

For all of the doom and gloom I've read about CFL lights, I must say that thus far in my first grow, I'm super happy with what's happening in my little grow room.



The girls are doing fine, and filling out nicely. I think this mat have something to do with the lights that I am throwing along the sides of each plant.



I think I am going to put them into flowering next week. But before I do that, I thought I would shoot a few more pictures of them in veg...



This is so much fun...



A little closer...





I went to Home Depot the other day and bought all of their available 42 watt 2700k CFL bulbs (only 7 in stock). I still need 6 more of them before I can put these girls into flower. Exciting!

Today's update - looking pretty good so far.

Beautiful plants! Cfls really can do a great job, i cant wait to see these flower, when are you flipping?

TequilaGrower said:

Update: They are growing slower than I would expect, but after topping them I can see that there is a good amount of growth happening down below. The grow tent is about 81 degrees when the lights are on, almost exactly. There was a period of a few hours where it got to 90 (ack!!) because I added some aluminum trays as reflectors. (Bad idea!) But that only lasted about 2 hours before I caught it.

Question: Is 80-81 degrees and 30% humidity too hot and dry? I can't seem to get the inside any cooler than 80 with the lights on, so I don't really know what else to do.

Click to expand...

My girls are under 88-91 degrees with the humidity around 70%. Ever since I brought up the humidity my plants are doing fine. At 88-91 my plants don't seem to be stressed.
Someone on this site have me advice to buy some Protekt. It helps with heat stress. Makes your plants more tolerant.

Nootnam said:

Beautiful plants! Cfls really can do a great job, i cant wait to see these flower, when are you flipping?

Click to expand...

This week. Still need to score a few more 2600k CFL bulbs after I cleared out Home Depot!

Decided to put a leaf on my flatbed scanner tonight. You know, just for fun...

I'm at 2 weeks info 12/12, and this is what it looks like.