stealth grow under cfl!

DAY 1

I have been looking around the site for a few months and decided to grow again! , I read about 100 different threads and posts and forums and you guys seem to know and help more! I have grown before, but not with all the right lights and soil so those yields were minimum and the plants grew slowly and very tall. This time round with a very limited space and a small budget I set up a mini "grow op"

I have a very very small indoor setup in some old bin that I have. Lined the inside with tinfoil (only temp. For 1 or 2 more days), got a nice bucket and some nice potting soil and germinated 2 seeds using the paper towel formula and handling the seeds with a tweezer and germinated 2 more seeds directly in the soil. I'm using a 65watt 6400k daylight cfl and a 20watt 4000 (highest I could find around in the "normal size") cfl with a fan blowing into the bin over the lights and plants through a vent hole that I made at the back of the bin. My bin is about 30cm x 30cm x 70cm

I planted 4 seeds in total and 3 has come up so far so the lights are on and the fan's running. With both lights and the fan the temp. is about 24 - 26'C. In this small space I will propably only grow 1 MAYBE 2 of those plants anyway, don't know how to choose as I have to choose now and its still very early!

I have pretty high hopes with this setup even though I know I propably can't grow a very big plant.

I attached some photos, of the full setup, from the top, of the plants and of the vent hole.

Its day 2 and they are looking healthy! Woke up this morning and they were open! Would be nice if it kept on going like this haha

Something went wrong with my posts, but it seems fine now, don't know if they are still weird..

They have started they're second pair of leaves now and they look very green! Nice to see them grow so quikly! I only have 1 problem, my fan is of the soil extremely fast so I'm having to spray it often to keep it moist! And everytime I water them once a day they seem to grow quiker!

I made some modifications to my "bin" today! I removed the tinfoil and painted the walls with a flat whit paint, I then cut a door so I can actually get to my plants and I added an extractor fan from a pc at the back by the vent hole. Works much better for controlling heat but dry soil remains a problem!

They are still happy, not going to feed them anything till they are about 3 weeks old, even though it is tempting thinking its going to speed things up. Added photos again, they are from a 5mp blackberry camera so its not the best

Its day 9 already and they look to be growing quite quikly?? First grow I do like this but it looks like they are doing well for 9 days old! Their leaves doubled in size and the 3rd set of leaves are already coming with the 2nd set barely out. Still been spraying them and its been cold here so heat has been fine, the light is about 7cm away so heat stress or burns is not a problem.

They seem to be groing fast, happy to see them staying low and growing healty leaves instead of streching so much! Got 1 coming up now, a groonhouse seed that was not bad at all! The thick dark green plant is also from one of those seeds. Any advice is welcome!

Looks like it's still not streching so that good, the growing seems to be slower but still goed! I looked at how she was doing underneath her leaves and noticed that she already started growing leaves from where the fan leaves exits the main stem, I believe they are clones? Haha

I want to know, can I start giving then seagrow liquid nutes at 1/4 of what they reccomend for a week and then 1/2 for a week and then 1/1 from there? Or should I still wait? Need some advice, thanks!!

In the photo you can see the new leaves growing from the main stem

Please help?? I want to maximize my growth so if I must start now it would help! I know they say 2-3 weeks but they also say it depends on you plant's size, so that's why I'm asking if anyone thinks I can start now?

Please help??

My girls have been struggling to grow the last week, I asked some questions on here and it turns out wrong soil, wrong setup, almost everything was a problem. I fixed most of my problems, but canot fix everything now unfortunately. Moved to a 1'x2'x6' area, I added tinfoil again..canot paint the inside so I will add mylar when I can find it. I moved them to 2 pots and had to scrap one..sucked but I had to! Kept my strongest girls! I added another 65w daylight 6400k cfl and mounted the lights on a wood plank and they are hanging by string from the roof. Will leave the fan on 1 so it should vent nicely in there!

My main concern is that I could not keep all the roots in tact..some of them broke off, I could keep a root ball the size of my fist, maybe bigger.. Let me know what you think!

I transplanted them yesterday, I know it takes about 2-3 days for them to get out of shock and grow like they should, but its 1 day after transplanting and the bottom leaved, the single big leaves, are dying..they started turning yellow last night and they are slowly dying..what can I do?? Started germinating some more seeds so if they fail to grow and die completely I will start from scratch! Sucks coz its like 3 weeks of hard work and money! But hopefully they can recover! You'll see in the photo up close that the tip of the leafe is brown and some of it is gone..

Still no sign of recovery, they are 3 weeks old, they should be bushy and they should be growing fast by now! But the transplant must have shocked them a lot or killed them..watered them well about 2 days ago, think I should add more, but don't know! If it turns out they are done I will have to plant new seeds..

They have started to grow again!! Left them and just fed them well with purified water and after about 8 days of being stunned because of lack of space and then being transplanted! Thanks to some help from Dr Kynes they are saved! They started to show their leaves upward about 3 days ago so I started feeding the bushier one with 1/4 the recomended dosage today. I'm not happy with the other one so she will get some in a few days when she shows she's healthy again! Tossed the germinating seeds as they are no longer needed.

So since I'm still new to this I'm still making mistakes, so I saw some burning on the leaves so I moved the lights up higher, also started feeding at 1/2 recomended dosage, in about 1 week they wil be on 1/1! Plants #1, the bushy one, has not really grown higher since the last picture, but she has gotten extremely bushy! The lateral growth has exploded, so I hope the moved lights will strech her a little so that she can start providing light for the side branches! As for #2, she has streched a little bit but since they are not fully recovered from the transplant I'm not too unhappy about it, they will begin growing in time, I will just keep them happy!

Sup, Looks like that potting soil you used was way too acidic should find one with way less bark in it . Get some new pots and soil and start again probably or atleast some new plants on the side with new pots and soil growth looks realy slow im using a similar cfl wattage system . Get somenting looser soil without bark and make a reflector for your 65 watt lamp and try mount it sideways ,a good reflector can be made from soda cans , instructions can be found on the forum .

I have been having problems posting so here are the updates!

Sup, I cannot get any other soil atm but in my next grow I will get more lights, better soil, better seeds, better everything, I am just learning with this grow. The growth has been really slow yes, but if you check my first posts you will see they were in an extremely small space and then I had problems with them for a while, then transplanted then fimmed, they have had a rough life but now they are starting to grow more. They also just started with nutes at 1/2 recomended.

DAY 31 - 08/07/12

They are going slow like you said yes, I started seeing them just bush out and not growing much, so I decided that I will move up the lights, as I have about 1.8m of height, the lights are about 10-13cm away now. Gave them their last 1/4 firt today, in 2 waterings it will be 1/2! I am going to make a reflector for each lamp, will mount it in a different way in my next grow, for now it has to do..hoping they will pick up and start to grow taller so the lateral branches can also get some light.

So far moving up the lights have made them grow nicely, #1 have bushed out more but also gotten higher so that#2 is starting to grow new sets of leaves where I fimmed her ( hopefully they are girls) I am liking tthe way the color on the leaves also changed, they def had heat stress or burns or something, the green is much nicer now. They will get their nutes in 2 more days again.

I have made a reflector, took a big bottle and split it and then made a reflector, just a simple one!

I decided to get some clones from my other indoor plants growing off sunlight. They are doing fking good actually. I planted 2 of them in in soil and the other in water in a big shot glass that I covered up. Put them straight into my grow area. They are not looking great tho, did this yesterday and today they are hangning badly.. Thinking they were too small to begin with? Not sure, never cloned before but did it exactly like the tutorials said! Will just have to wait and see what happens, just an experiment. Don't know it the fan blowing on them might desturm them..its blwoing their little leaves that it flaps around a little..

over-watered.....................every pic

Hope they recover bud, i hate seein plants die. Keep it up and continue reading and updatin.

Are they really over-watered? I give them about 250ml each every 2nd day, sometimes 3 days, depending on how the soil is looking.. Thanks man, will try keep them alive lol nah they will survive, I just need some help every now and then! If they are over-watered and I watered them yesterday, when must I water again? Can I leave them for lik 5 more days?

Thanks dude, I read every day haha I searched this site dry already! Will keep updating every few days!