My First Grow! 10 plants! Advice Appreciated!

This is my first grow. I know it's not going to be perfect but I am very optimistic and excited. I had 9 ganja dwarf seeds that I bought from amsterdam seeds and 1 alaskan thunderfuck I got from a friend just for fun. Currently they are all potted and put under lights. Here is my setup.

2 48" T12 cfl daylight bulbs on a 20/4 schedule
Fox farm ocean forest soil
Age old veg. nutes
A small room heater running at a low 80 deg. F

The plants are currently in a cardboard box that I hung up as a shelf (budget friendly lol) in my apartment storage room out on the patio. I plan on going to the store tonight to buy some mylar so I can get some real reflectivity going! I germinated the seeds on 1/4/12 and had a 100% turnout! All the seeds were planted last night and I felt so proud.

Through the course of my grow if you have any advice it woud be greatly appreciated!

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*I will take better pictures next time*

Looks like a good start to me...IMHO, I would ditch all the cardboard though.

Ya I do need something better. That was just the easiest solution. Any suggestions?

better lighting would be a good start.

i was about where you are a few months ago with just the bare essentials a few hundred dollars and 2 months later you would shit yourself.

if your gonna grow you midas well do it right

if i was to start again i would...

go directly to http://www.htgsupply.com and splurge i use them all the time safe trusted site and 2 days and its at your door.

i would get 6 bulb 4' t5 fluros if you have never grown with coco coir gotta try it atleast once thats all i grow with that with airpots you get plant growth almost like your growing hydro but there is more room for error

the foxfarm trio for nutes is always good its what i started growing with
you mentioned mylar they have panda film like 25$ for 100ft roll i use poly film black on one side mylar on the other
you need a ph tester thats a necessity ph to low or too high you could get lockout thats bad.

theres alot of stuff you should get my suggestion is make a list then go shopping get everything as early as possible

veg is the juicer stage when you juice up your plants with as much light and nutes as possible

flower is where the lighting and nutes count foxfarm is good acrossed the board you need t decide weather you wanna do hps led cmh cfl or flower with your t5s

each has there own pros n cons

hps- typical flower lightig fat dense juicy buds but they run really hot and you need a way to cool all that hot air and filter it you can buy a hps for 60$ but can expect 2x that amount in fans and cooling

led- runs cool cheap to run but the panels are costly and if you decide to go this route dont get cheapo its not worth this for 5 plants you will prolly need a 800w cost around 1000$

cmh/ceramic metal halide- basicly same as hps you can run these bulbs in a hps ballast a wider range of k but again runs hot and hid lighting is cost alot to run a 400watt (what you would need) would raise the power bill by atleast 100$ a month

cfl- its what i use i found some 8u 150w cfls on ebay for 50$ each i have 5plants in flower prolly week 6 looks like its been snowing in the grow room they are that icey
cfl cheap to buy cheap to run not as big dense like hps but if your just growing your own smoke expect to be pleased.

t5-basicly same as cfl your buds are gonna be really airy tho nd that sucks...

Thanks for the suggestions spex! You're right if I'm gonna do it I might as well do it right. Following up on what robbogart said I've decided to buy a grow tent 36x60x20. As for the things that you have listed I have a meter that tells ph/moisture/light. I already have veg nutes but when I'm ready to flower I will purchase the fox farm big bloom. As for lighting I don't have the funds for. Mighay of those nice set ups yet but I will look into the t5s. I've heard many good things about those so I will check em out and let you know once I decide. Maybe a mixture of t5 and cfls?

EDIT: after going to the htgsupply website I've decided that I will get a hps/mh 400watt light system to go along with the 36x60x20 grow tent. I will be ordering these tomorrow! After that I should be pretty set

Update

4/10 seeds have broke soil! Gave em a little bit of water and put em back under the light. Ordered my tent and light so those should be here soon.

In other news, GO BRONCOS!!!!!!!!!

Update

Well I successfully killed all of my plants. I have a few ideas of how it could of happened but I'm not too sure. Anyways I have my room completely set up with my tent and my hps bulb. Threw 4 seeds into germination last night so hopefully those will sprout and I can start em off on the right foot.

how did you manage to do that?
i hope you don't plant to veg under that hps?

Not to sure. It went from 9 breaking soil, 5 get first set of leafs, then 1 still standing, until this morning.. I had the 1 in the mh light but I had it set to 100% so I think that's why that one died. I had the mh bulb in Idk why I said hps my apologies.

Be sure to veg for 4 to 5 weeks if your soil has nutes then don't add any nutes till week 5 or 6 only water when the pot feels light and the soil feels dry and also check out running vertical set ups when you get your stuff dialed in they yield huge.

noptical said:

Be sure to veg for 4 to 5 weeks if your soil has nutes then don't add any nutes till week 5 or 6 only water when the pot feels light and the soil feels dry and also check out running vertical set ups when you get your stuff dialed in they yield huge.

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Ya I was in week 2 of veg. I had em under t12 daylight bulbs for a majority of that time. I might have gotten a little water happy at times but I always waited til it looked dry. As for soil I was using ffof so I didn't add any nutes. What's better a scrog or vertical?

sog is easier i verticall grow imo i think its just a pain in the ass trying to tie down everything so it gets light sog you just cut off everything throw a net nd let it grow

you put those seedlings under mh too soon if you are gonna put em under so soon you shoulda put the light about 3ft above them

that's a lotta plants........you're gonna have a rainforest. especially from seed. do a SOG and don't let them get too big......they'll "stretch" after 12/12. just one stoned gardener's opinion.

i completely agree with scro i forgot your doing 7 plants sog most definitely its gonna be hassle to grow vert

personally i could cut those jokers up make clones flower them nd make a it perpetual

Thanks for all the input. That was a lot of plants but now they're all dead I'm only germinating 4 currently so I can keep it under control. If the seedlings were to go straight into the mh to veg should I have it on 400watts? Or dim it down to 300 or 200 watt? I had my light fairly high up id say about 3 ft. Also how soon does sog start? Id imagine once there's enough leafs to block certain parts? Cloning is deffinatly something I wanna do so I can keep a constant grow but ill cross that bridge when I get there.

VapedGhost said:

Not to sure. It went from 9 breaking soil, 5 get first set of leafs, then 1 still standing, until this morning.. I had the 1 in the mh light but I had it set to 100% so I think that's why that one died. I had the mh bulb in Idk why I said hps my apologies.

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Get a thermoeter and set it up at the hottest spot under your light to make sure you dont have to much heat on them. I veg under T5's 18/6 and love it.

agenttokie said:

Get a thermoeter and set it up at the hottest spot under your light to make sure you dont have to much heat on them. I veg under T5's 18/6 and love it.

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Ya that's on my list to get. Ill probably put mine under 18/6 once they germ. Anyone have any suggestions as to when to introdce a fan?

VapedGhost said:

Ya that's on my list to get. Ill probably put mine under 18/6 once they germ. Anyone have any suggestions as to when to introdce a fan?

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As soon as they start growing put a fan on them on it will help make the stalks strong.

agenttokie said:

As soon as they start growing put a fan on them on it will help make the stalks strong.

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Sweet, thanks.