filter funker
Active Member
just wanted to share my first attempt at a cfl grow and see if anyone has any tips/tricks. Iv'e grown a few outdoor plants before as well as a couple indoors using natural lighting. Basically I'm aiming to grow a good mother to clone off and then go from there
What iv'e got for gear is the following:
four 4" Sunblaster 56 watt t5's (6400k, 4700 lumens each)
eight 13 watt Sunblaster Cfl's (6400k, 800 lumens each)
twelve 26 watt cfl's (2700k, 1650 lumens each)
two t8 4" Ballasts with two 32 watt grow bulbs in each (2700k, 1800 lumens each)
digital ph meter, soil ph/moisture combo meter
4 litre bottle 35% hydrogen peroxyde, carbo blast, Prop-o-gator, quickroot gel, Holland secret 3 part nutes, blackstrap mollasses
For Soil I have peat, vermiculite, perlite and wood charcoal.
I do have a 50 site cloning station and 4 site bucket hydro setup but i'm going with soil for the first run to get used to everything before "diving in".
I had 4 seed given to me that I was unsure of the quality/vitality of. I germed them in paper towel (now using straight to soil method which makes more sense to me). Three showed taps within 24 hours and I planted them into red beer cups with organic soil. I didn't have my PH pen in the mail yet since I live in the middle of the boonies and I now know it takes forever for shipments to arrive. So I took a shot and planted them anyways. Right off the bat I could tell the soil was WAY too rich and wasn't very airy. 1 seed shrivelled up and died within a few days, didn't even break the surface (it was planted about 1/4" deep). The other 2 broke surface within 48 hours and seemed to be doing OK for about a week and then some yellowing started to apear on the first set of leaves and pretty much all growth had stopped. Without a PH pen I found it very difficult to know if i was getting lockout or what. For lighting I was using four 6400 k bulbs on 18/6 , so about 3200 lumens...not a heck of alot but should be good for seedling i figured. My first mistake was moving the lighting around too much thinking that it MIGHT be the lights...and I dropped one on a plant..broke the stem almost clean off! I gave it a "crutch" and built up soil around the stem but the plant only survived for another week until it finally bit the dust The last lonely plant continued to yellow and the soil just became harder as time went on , so I took a risk and repotted it with a mixture of peat, vermiculite, perlite and charcoal. I also started watering the plant at this point with dehumidifier water, since I was still unsure about the PH of the filtered tapwater I was using previously. Within a few days color and growth was showing on my plant!
As it now stands, It'd been 27 days from seed and the plant is about 4 inches tall with "almost" 1 complete set of leaves....slowest grow yet!
Today my Digital PH meter arrived and I tested the tap water...8.9!!!
my best guess would be that ..
a) PH lockout was starving my plant
b)My "organic soil" sucked
c)possibly genetics? (runt)
I do however know the strain, it is an f1 cross between Herijuana and Thunderfuck
since these were given to me it was more of a test run anyways but I learned a few important lessons along the way.
Growth is continuing to improve and the plant is looking better each day. Now that I have my PH pen it's making things go ALOT better! Now I know why the pro's stress PH so much
I'm PH'ing my water to 6.5, soil is sitting at 6.8... I will be going shopping soon to pick up some nutes since I don't have anything other than coffee grinds, mollasses and eggshells
oh and I almost forgot to mention grow room conditions:
temps I keep between 22-26c
humidity 50-60
Starting seedlings in a large rubbermaid tub with flat white paint on the inside and two 120mm fans for ventilation on each end. also installed microfibre cloth over the outside of the fans as a filter
I do have a few questions though...
Whats some cheap organic options for getting nitrogen to my plant?
anything else that I can add to my soil other than what I have listed?
i'm at about 100 feet above sea level but could not find any info about how this may affect plant growth, any takers?
will be posting pics shortly...
What iv'e got for gear is the following:
four 4" Sunblaster 56 watt t5's (6400k, 4700 lumens each)
eight 13 watt Sunblaster Cfl's (6400k, 800 lumens each)
twelve 26 watt cfl's (2700k, 1650 lumens each)
two t8 4" Ballasts with two 32 watt grow bulbs in each (2700k, 1800 lumens each)
digital ph meter, soil ph/moisture combo meter
4 litre bottle 35% hydrogen peroxyde, carbo blast, Prop-o-gator, quickroot gel, Holland secret 3 part nutes, blackstrap mollasses
For Soil I have peat, vermiculite, perlite and wood charcoal.
I do have a 50 site cloning station and 4 site bucket hydro setup but i'm going with soil for the first run to get used to everything before "diving in".
I had 4 seed given to me that I was unsure of the quality/vitality of. I germed them in paper towel (now using straight to soil method which makes more sense to me). Three showed taps within 24 hours and I planted them into red beer cups with organic soil. I didn't have my PH pen in the mail yet since I live in the middle of the boonies and I now know it takes forever for shipments to arrive. So I took a shot and planted them anyways. Right off the bat I could tell the soil was WAY too rich and wasn't very airy. 1 seed shrivelled up and died within a few days, didn't even break the surface (it was planted about 1/4" deep). The other 2 broke surface within 48 hours and seemed to be doing OK for about a week and then some yellowing started to apear on the first set of leaves and pretty much all growth had stopped. Without a PH pen I found it very difficult to know if i was getting lockout or what. For lighting I was using four 6400 k bulbs on 18/6 , so about 3200 lumens...not a heck of alot but should be good for seedling i figured. My first mistake was moving the lighting around too much thinking that it MIGHT be the lights...and I dropped one on a plant..broke the stem almost clean off! I gave it a "crutch" and built up soil around the stem but the plant only survived for another week until it finally bit the dust The last lonely plant continued to yellow and the soil just became harder as time went on , so I took a risk and repotted it with a mixture of peat, vermiculite, perlite and charcoal. I also started watering the plant at this point with dehumidifier water, since I was still unsure about the PH of the filtered tapwater I was using previously. Within a few days color and growth was showing on my plant!
As it now stands, It'd been 27 days from seed and the plant is about 4 inches tall with "almost" 1 complete set of leaves....slowest grow yet!
Today my Digital PH meter arrived and I tested the tap water...8.9!!!
my best guess would be that ..
a) PH lockout was starving my plant
b)My "organic soil" sucked
c)possibly genetics? (runt)
I do however know the strain, it is an f1 cross between Herijuana and Thunderfuck
since these were given to me it was more of a test run anyways but I learned a few important lessons along the way.
Growth is continuing to improve and the plant is looking better each day. Now that I have my PH pen it's making things go ALOT better! Now I know why the pro's stress PH so much
I'm PH'ing my water to 6.5, soil is sitting at 6.8... I will be going shopping soon to pick up some nutes since I don't have anything other than coffee grinds, mollasses and eggshells
oh and I almost forgot to mention grow room conditions:
temps I keep between 22-26c
humidity 50-60
Starting seedlings in a large rubbermaid tub with flat white paint on the inside and two 120mm fans for ventilation on each end. also installed microfibre cloth over the outside of the fans as a filter
I do have a few questions though...
Whats some cheap organic options for getting nitrogen to my plant?
anything else that I can add to my soil other than what I have listed?
i'm at about 100 feet above sea level but could not find any info about how this may affect plant growth, any takers?
will be posting pics shortly...