Another "My first grow" Hydro using CFLs. could use some input. Yumm Pics!

Hi there rollitup, new grower here and am facing nothing but trouble and discouragment at every turn. I hope you can give me some useful information and i hope you enjoy my newly (almost) finished grow box.

The grow box is made from 3 4x8 sheets of plywood trimmed down to 3x8. The door is hinged(and even clears the floor ). Inside is covered with reflective mylar. Lighting is handled by 7 23w 6500k CFL lights inside reflectors. I just added another 6 on the sides in preporation of flowering(switching to 2700k), not shown in pic. The hydro(aero) system is a GH Rainforest unit. Strains are Purple(just said purple) and Skunk. Both clones from a shop (i hold a license). here is a basic view of the setup



The plants are fairly old and around 2 months from purchase(maybe 3 total). The/y just never seem to have had any signifigant growth, it has all been slow and...well crappy. Nutes have always been GH flora series (3 part) and i always followed the label on the back(perhaps a little light on nutes, but not much less than label). occasionally i would add superthrive and spray the leafs with sparkling water.

PH usually sits around 6.0 and PPM (hanna) sits at about 1000-1100 which seems very high. Water i use is distilled water with a ppm of 0.
here is what the leaves look like




if you cant see in the pics the symptoms have most always been yellowing tips(turning brown if they die). more recently there has been yellow spotting on the leaves(pinpricks) and a spider mite attack... first grow going great! /sadface

Anyone experienced with the GH Flora 3part able to tell me what nute amounts you use? Do you stick with the label or modify? i know each strain is different so im looking for generalities here, ie i saw one person say he only uses 1/2 strength gh nutes. It seems at full strength the PPM is just too high, or am i wrong?

I am about to start flowering so i can get these plants out of here and start on some new plants and start fresh, hopefully with your suggestions. My final question is on my grow box, is it light proof enough? the 4 sides are sealed form light but the top is open to the roof of the larger room. I am about to go inside during lights off cycle to see what i can see for light leaks. Here is a night pic of the grow box, same position as the next with flash on.




I really appriciate any help and will reciprocate when i can. Also sorry if this is not the right place, but i figure most of my questions are hydro related. THanks

Update pic of what im facing(leaves)

Tired of the question in my head of weather or not the CFLs are cutting it. Switching to a "
HTGSupply 400 watt High Pressure Sodium Grow Light"

Tried and true 400w hps system at a cost of only 30w more than all my current CFLs and much less wiring

Anyone want to make a guess at yield from these mainly indica plants? I know its just guessing but a nice interest boost for me

I'll keep my old CFLs for future mother/clone/seedling boxes, maybe keep a few CFLs in the grow room as side lighting.


here is the light im getting

well for one thing i can see that when you spray feed you dont spray it down later with clean watter. all those spots i believe are salt build-ups on the leafs. it wont kill you plant the way it is now but that build up prevents the plants from transpiring thus it will drink up less water, thus eat less nutes found in the water. but other than that your plant looks real healthy. you see how dark green it is, thats about the darkest you want to see a plant any more nitrogen and you could have nute burn. i would suggest try moving you lights closer.

well theres my advise it will help a little and i dint tell you to go buy something

oh, and do you have any air circulation, maybe open your garage once every other day real quick

no circulation = stale air = air with not alot of co2 = no carbon for the plants to make hydrocarbon chains = less plant growth

hey karr i started with htg, like yours im going out on a limb here as far as yield i got a little over 1/4 lb. have since went to 6oow hps. find a cheap ocillating fan will help all said youre on the right track [go 4 it] good luck p.s. just some pics of what you got to look forward to, welcome aboard.....

Thanks a lot guys. in prep for flowering i am flushing the res/nutes and i bought a small fan to place inside and another near the top until i get something better.

As far as ventilation, the garage has an arch vent(that top corner vent) and i leave both windows open with a fan in one. the box itself needs more air circulation i know, working on that too.

As for the pics as well, actually a lot of the spots are sawdust(just confirmed) from cutting my growbox plywood inside the garage(dumb i know).

as of today one of the plants are drooping quite bad. not sure what has changed recently. PH was a little high so that might have been the cause. Also lights have been switched to 2700k(more of them though). Is it usual that plants droop when switching bulbs for flowering?

Thanks for the motivation and input, always appriciated any and all.

Quick update

I light proofed the whole garage(nearly) so that during the daytime it is very dark inside. i hopped into my growbox and hit the lights, no outside light at all(cant see hand)...

Another nagging question in my head solved

Another update. Just picked up some seeds for my next batch. I went with Jock Horror Femmed auto flowering and White widow femmed.

The autoflowering is just something interesting to me, and femmed is a no brainer. This just seems like cheating to me and i figured i would just see how it goes. Seeds were cheap anyway

White widow just seemed like an obvious choice with all the different props it seems to get. Also pretty affordable.

Both are strains i have never had so im looking forward to the diversity.