First time Grower an wit CFL's too!

Hello everyone, let me start by saying that I have never grown anything before, but it's getting so hard to find where I live it seems the right time to grow a few plants!
A mate gave me two clones which he says are a cross with KC Brains and somthing else, a month ago (funny, seems alot longer) I had no idea what to do with them! In a hurry I got an old box, lined it with foil and dropped a 22W CFL (largest I could buy locally) in through the top, I also ran a crappy little hand fan most days (cost a fortune in batterys!!)

I've now moved on a bit, I have an old chest of draws, which is painted white inside, with reflective celing with the same 22W CFL hanging from the top and another on a lamp base at the bottom. At the back I have an oserlating (cant spell!) 7" fan, which I dont keep running for too long (maybe only 5 hours every 2 days)
The lights are on for 12-13 hours a day and the temp (with lights on) seems to stay around 20-25oC and with lights off around 18-20oC.

I'm just off shopping to a DIY store to buy a few timers, to check out other, hopefully more powerfull, CFL's. are the floresent tubes anygood?

Enought about my set up I have some probs:
I have been a little worries about one plant in particular, the smaller one's leaves seem to be turning brown, which i have been told is nitrogen burn. I have recently repotted the plants in plastic coated metal pot's with stones at the bottom and with new soil (just regular soil as far as I know), using water with a PH of 7.

I'm just off shopping to a DIY store to buy a few timers, to check out other, hopefully more powerfull, CFL's. are the floresent tubes anygood?
Im I also right in thinking that I need nutrients (20-10-10 for veg)(12/15/10 for flowering)

I have also pulled off any leaves that were turning yellow, and trimmed a few leaves that were brown.


hope the pics help and thanks for reading such a long post,
Cheers, Fez

just some more pic's showing my probs. the red lines on the stalks are a bit of a worrie..... any idea's?????
I also bought some Miracle-Gro 24-8-16 this was the closest to 20-10-10 I could find.

stay away from miracle grow man
tthey look like they streched what lights were u using before you got the cfls

been using the same CFL's from the start 2x22W, recently been in a car accident and cant get out to buy bulbs (shouldn't have put it off)
There seems to be a problem with what i assume is mold, a light fuzz starting to cover the leaves, and even a little of the soil. should i be using a pestercide to clear this up and idea what the cause could be, i thought high humidity but didn't know how to lower it.
really in need of help now guys.

Oh, what wrong with the mircle-grow? they actually look healther and greener now (apart from the mold and red stalks that is)

the red stalks and the droopy leaves look like to much water to me.
also they are stretched to the max(never seen that before).
fluro tubes are good get the long ones or something about 60watt per tube 2 or 3 is enough(for starting the plants) but hps is the way to go really once the plants are about 4 weeks from sprouting under fluros.how old are these plants???????

right, i'll ease off the watering and see how they do, last watered with a little miricle-gro on friday.
I've been keeping the lights about 2 inches from the tops, they were stretched when I had them tho (see first few pics)
Been wondering about tubes but only have small space, so would have to use 1foot tubes, prob about 4-5 of them i guess.
I was hoping to do a complete grow using just CFL's or tubes (this is my first grow and I'm on a real tight budget, will plan a better space once this grow is done)
I've had the cuttings just over a month now, i would guess they were 3-4 weeks old when I had them. (they seem to have a lot of roots)

you can't complete a full grow with fluros the plants require different light spectrums throughout the process.
any other questions happy to help.

Thought it'd be a more interesting post if i kept updating with pictures

give em more light (18-20/6-4 for veg then 12/12 when flowering), and bring the lights closer to the plants, they're stetching badly

he already said they were stretched when he got them.

looks almost like someone trimmed the bottom leaves off

yes looking back at the pics it looks like the lower branches have been cut????

i also noticed that hes got aluminum foil in there
nix it man

I have pulled off two sets of leaves on each plant. just put the light a little closer.
foil is on the cealin, just to reflect some light as the bulbs arn't that powerfull (22w)

pulled leaves off as they were almost yellow!

ok ok
but still the foil barely reflects good light and will send heat right on to your plants,
not a good idea no matter where it is

u can use clfs for ur whole grow.. u may not get the quality or yield that u would from hps but you can still get some really nice buds. as far as watering u want the soil to dry out a lil in between waterings and when u do water u want a lil bit of run off. you want to keep your lights as close as u can without burning place ur hand b/w the light n the plant to see if its too hot. i used mg for my plants i think its allright seemed to work fine for me just DO NOT over nute always start off with a lil 1/4 strength and work your way up. they look pretty decent but are def stretched and leaves seem to be drooping may be from humidity or over watering.. the yellowing is from a nitrogen def. the nutes should help. but yeah you defineitly want some more lights im using 10 cfls for 3 plants seems to be doing the job but could even use more probaly lol. well good luck hope you find the answers to help ya!

just some more pics.
Oh, and the foil is outta there!!!

I'm def looking to use CFL's all the way through my grow. was looking on the net yesterday an came across some of these. seem like a good idea. anyone used them before??
I had not seen any before that seem to offer both the reb and blue ranges together.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]125w DUAL spectrum CFL & hanger for vegetative & flowering stages[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Exclusive CFL with both 2700K Red & 6400K Blue spectrums[/FONT]

link bellow is for item descrption from ebay.co.uk
Dual 125w Hydroponics CFL & hanger grow light lamp bulb on eBay, also Hydroponics, Plants Seeds Bulbs, Garden Plants, Home Garden (end time 12-Oct-08 18:59:53 BST)

Thanks again for all you'r help people.
as you may be able to see, the mold type stuff is now gone (without any pestercide) just got the fan occerlating and on more regularly.

forgot to ask. i've heared alot about "topping" from a few different site's, they all seem to say different thing, cant find it on here so.
what exactly is topping (cutting tops off?!?)
and why is it good or bad?
cheers everyone!