ghetto diy grow with cfls (pics

ghetto grow with cfls(lots of pics)
Hi everybody, thanks in advance for reading my journal, and feel free to post any helpfull funny or even critical comments. I decided to do this cuz i wanna keep track of what happens this time around, and cuz I know ill need help later on.

so, my grow is in a dresser that i took the shelves out of, which left me with a
28'w -18d -31h space with 4 plants under 4 23w cfls.


how many plants? 4
brand/type of soil? scotts w/ mg time release nutes(i know ) soil n-p-k is .04-.03-.0?
What strain? bagseed
How old are the plants? 3 weeks started on 7/7/09
What type of lights and how many watts? 3 23w and 1 14w cfls(have a 200w cfl soon)
How far from the lights? real close, like 1 inch
frequency and source of water? tap water with ph of 7
What, how much and when was it fed? NPK? no nutes yet but have a MG 24-16-20
What are the temps and humidity in the room? mostly between 78-90 RH is about 55%
What size pots? 8 inch pots
light cycle? 18/6



as it says in title, GHETTO GROW so i had to macgyver a lot of shit up. i used a couple pull down shades as reflective lining instead of foil or Mylar. and the light reflector is a piece of curved metal i found at home depot for 3 bucks (look's pretty spiffy if i say so myself)

i had started out with like 12 plants but due to uhhh... circumstances i had to cut down.
i wanted to be cheap so ibought a soil moisture /light/ph meter from china and then started having issues with some plants yellowing and curling. ph meter tells me the soil ph is over 7. tried lowering it by flushing with vinegar treated water ph 5.5 and it balanced the soils ph for like a day then back to 7.
one still has some dead spot on leaves. tried very light foilar feeding on that one(incase its ph nute lockout) and it hasnt gotten worse so im hopeful.

more macgyvering- it was getting too hot too often in there so i cut out 2 holes near the top and took apart my laptop cooler thing to make two small exhuast vents. i figure that will create negative pressure so the intake can be passive through all the cracks(lightproofing's gonna be a be-i-itch)

Looking good! Suscribing!

Peace
K-town

thats ghetto but works

Ok, got the new pics taken and wow did they grow last night.

first pic is whats left of the laptop cooling pad after i took it apart to make exhuast fans. pretty usefull too cuz i can now use usb powered fans instead of trying to rewire some pc fans or connect to a psu.

the saimese twins(two in one pot) are both looking dark green and bushy, its really gonna hurt if i cant keep them both. im going to perform surgery tomorrow, hopefully they have not tangled roots too much yet

one problem i still have is the one that still looks a little sick. ( the one with chopped leaf tips) i havnet seen any on the new leaves yet but it doesnt look like its getting better. also not sure if its still a ph problem or a prob with the soil im using

WOW i had no idea light bulbs could be this big. thats a 17 inch laptop its sitting on. saw this great deal online to buy cfl and decide to buy a 200w bulb and this thing is huge im just waiting for a mogul socket for it and then my babies are gonna have plenty of light

also i love how my room smells now when i walk in after all day at work. best aromatherapy ever

Yeah, you got the good CFL's. Keep it up.

Peace
K-town

dont put covers on the top of soil man that darkmoist enviorment promotes shit to grow you dont want

looks like a nice setup

iBlaze DrO said:

looks like a nice setup

Click to expand...

hey thanks guys i was kinda feeling a little down about it cuz ive been reading alot of journals on here and they have awesome growbox's compared to my little box.

are you sure about that chitown? i read several places that the soil shouldnt be too hot, and when i felt it yesterday it was kinda warm.

im at work now for a 16 hour shift and cant wait to get home and see them. oh well time to take my mind off of them
(love my job)

ill update often as i dont work during the week and i check on them every 15-20 mts anyway.

if you have a smaller grow box.
just lst em and you should be striaght

I don't know who told you about the soil must bre cold thing but they lied.

Now that i think about it, it was probably for a hydro setup that i read that info. was reading up on a lot of DIY Bubble Buckets and DWC journals and prob got confused.
dirt's a bit messy when inside a carpeted bedroom it takes a long time to sweep dirt out of the rug

Thanks for setting me str8 tho and for checking out my grow(i love these pothead smileys

Well i pulled one of the twins out of the pot, did it by the stem and made sure to get the taproot but not much else. it looked pretty droopy for a while but now its alive and growing in its own pot. new roots had actually started growing out of the stem!

Lst is well underway now on 2 plants and i can deff tell the difference. the Lst plants all branches have extended to outside the pot while on the reg ones the secondary branches are real close to the stem and are real small still.

so far im very happy with how bushy the plants are getting.(only have 31" headroom)
probably going to start flowering in another week or two so they wont outgrow the space.
let me know any suggestions you guys have. im still getting a little nute burn from the ph being off. i need to get some reg ph strips cuz im not sure if my meter is accurate, it doesnt even have a way to calibrate it!!
i will be making some minor improvements to the cab this week so i will post all new pics later