st time grow. Any suggestions?

Any feedback on this??
4 x 5 x 2 Enclosure
8 plants
3 - 120 watt CFL's
Fan

I kept it simple because my budget is limited. What do you think? All of the plants were clones, 2, grapefruit diesel and grapefruit kush, the rest unknown. I used a product calle Superthrive for transplant as I do with my other plants. 5 gallon buckets each and 18 X 6 x 7 light schedule. HERE WE GO!

brolson said:

HERE WE GO!

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What up brolson.... Welcome to the site bro. Here we go, indeed. After beginning in Feb, Im addicted to not only growing mj, but this damn website.

So your grow... I don't do soil so can't help to much. My first thought is this... does the basement (or where ever you have that room built) get lit up... like do you turn on the lights to do the laundry? If so the light looks like it will spill over into the grow space, over the wall. If that is that case it won't do for flowering. All is fine for veg as the plants need like 18 hours of light a day minimum, but more is fine. When you switch to the 12/12 light/dark for flowering the 12 hours of Darkness is the important part. If there is light shining on them sometimes during their night period it can confuse the hell out of the plants and could cuase them to mature more slowly, turn them hermaphrodite, or even re-veg.

It's ok to take a picture now and then with the lights off, but that's about it. And like I said this is for flowering, not so much veg.

Those are my thoughts for now... I might have more later. Try to get more pictures of the set up/ environment, so we can tear it up, haha.

The plants look good by the way. They will grow, you just need to get the best possible environment for them to grow in and produce top shelf buds.

Do you live anywhere near a hydro store? If you don't know google hydro store and your town.

Is that alluminum foil on the walls? If so, that's not going to cut it, you can reflect light onto the plants and cause burns (like magnifying glass action). Mylar would be good (that's why I ask about the hydro store)... I use flat white paint in my closet.

The foil will burn for sure? It would be too difficult at this point to take down the foil and paint. What is mylar? I found some shit at home depot, will this work? http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100656748

Are we worried about burns while using higher intensity lights though? Like HID, metal halide? I am using CFL's 120 watt and they dont really get that hot.

Can I wait to switch out the foil until the plants are getting closer to the walls?

brolson said:

Are we worried about burns while using higher intensity lights though? Like HID, metal halide? I am using CFL's 120 watt and they dont really get that hot.

Can I wait to switch out the foil until the plants are getting closer to the walls?

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Mylar: http://www.discount-hydro.com/dept.php?navid=33

I didn't even think of the lights. I don't think you could burn them if you tried with the cfl's you got going. And yeah, you can change things up later... no rush.

You could probably do the whole grow with the foil and be ok, but it is a pretty cheap fix, and why not provide the best?

Nobody is posting in my section. Did I do something wrong?

Anyway, I just added 2, 65 watt incandescent indoor grow lights. They are made by GE. Colored lens and come in a housing with plug. Question is how far from the plant should I keep this type of light? I cannot seem to find that anywhere. I know CFL's do not get hot so I have them about 2.5 inches away but the new incandescents I put 1.5 feet away, on either side of the box, not really focused on any one plant. They are above the CFL's and provide a very good coverage area, but I do not want to burn the plants. They are still young and fragile.

Today is the end of week 1. Progress is small but noticable, FOR SURE. They look healthy and full. Pics to come

brolson said:

Nobody is posting in my section. Did I do something wrong?

Anyway, I just added 2, 65 watt incandescent indoor grow lights. They are made by GE. Colored lens and come in a housing with plug. Question is how far from the plant should I keep this type of light? I cannot seem to find that anywhere.

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It takes time for people to post. Your thread title is ambiguous too, it doesn't really pull people in. I had a journal for 10 days and 6 posts before someone wrote to say "looking good".

I think you can't find info on incandescents becuase they aren't used. I looked up the lights you are talking about and 2 out of 3 reviews on amazon say they don't actually do anything, and that the lens filters out any good light produced anyways.

I think you should get a 75w hid or something. That would use hardly any electricity, maybe the same as all the lights you have running now, except it would be a lot more efficient and provide more growing power then the cfls.

I think those incandescents are a waste of energy.

It's good your plants are healthy and full... that's what's really important. Can't wait to see the pics.

I can't believe that you are finally livin the dream. Hopefully things will be ready for the wedding~crazy cool pics.

Ok, week 2 update and quite a bit of progress. Everything looks good. They are getting very scraggly and a bit spread out, is that normal? I think my clones were cut in a V shape instaed of being cut off a clean straight stalk. Anyway, this may be to my advantage if they get wide instead of tall. Please tell me what you think.

They look great. It seems as if they are already topped. Strange.

They look normal and happy. A few of them look to be well out of the fragile little thing stage. I'd be happy with those little girls.

Oh... you pictures are tiny... what's with that? It's easier to see the first set.

good luck

New pics are needed like I mentioned in the PM. Your plants are 19" tall now?

Ok guys. As requested here are some pics although they were taken on my phone so the quality is not the best. The STATUS: I am in week 2 of flower and need some suggestions. I have made some changes I would like to share and get an opinion on also.

2 weeks in and I am starting to see buds on all 6 ladies. Small but still using fluoro's at the time so I fidured I would get small buds. They look healthy and happy. My clones that I clipped just before I went into flower, which you can see below, just got there own room last weekend. They were in tiny plugs and I transplanted to these pots. In the back are two clones I purchased at a club and they just happened to be kinda "in the middle" of all the other plants. A grapefruit kush and grapefruit diesel blend.

Last weekend (as you can see in the clone room) I got 2 new sunlight system 250 watt MH units. They are beautiful. Do you guys think this was a good switch from the flouro's I had? Do you think this will significantly increase my yeils? I must have had 8 cords all over the place before so to get 2 times the light in one cord is nice!

I understand I am getting 20,500 lumens per bulb now rather than my 8 flouro's putting off 10,500.

So I now have my flowering ladies under a 250 MH on 12/12 and in a seperate area I have the clones with a 250 watt MH on 24/7. Any responses to that light cycle? Is it good? Also can everyone respond with the height from the plant that MH bulbs should be? On clones? On fully grown plants?

Finally, flowering time...How long? I heard 63 days, I heard until all trichomes are milky, I heard until all hairs are red but not brown. I heard a lot, can someone please tell me how I know these ladies are ready for fun?

Thanks for you help and more pics to come

I don't like 24/0 becuase your plants and lights never get a chance to rest. Maybe 23/1. I've also read that roots grow most during the night. But a lot of people do 24/0 so it works fine. I used 20/4 for the first couple weeks, then 18/6 for a couple weeks.

As for harvesting, you can use 8 weeks as a guideline to guess, but the best way is to watch the trichomes. They go from clear, to milky, to amber. The plant is most potent when most the trichomes are amber, so it is best to wait for that. You have a long time to figure that stuff out.

Yeah I agress with Jig about the photoperiod and the flowering stuff.

You don't get enough of an increase in growth to even justify running the lights constantly. Plus it does stress them out. Go with 20/4 if you want. I use 18/6.

hey brolson,

when i saw the cfl's (which you -can- grow with...) my first thought was "get a 400w Metal Halide" but you beat me to the punch and got the two 250 watters.

if you were using "300 watt" cfl's (that actually only use like 65 or 67 watts each) ... they would be good for supplemental light over the girls already flowering under the 250w MH as they have a nice red spectrum. The one 250w alone will work nicely for clone and veg. stages. So... you now have a perpetual setup

But if you live close enough to a place that you can just buy clones like that... i'd just veg. a bunch of clones under ALL the lights you have for a couple weeks... then flip them to flower for about 63 days... then buy new clones and repeat.

Seems ur doing fine though. So keep on keep'in on, bro.
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