Ghetto Micro Grow, 1st CFL try, official noob journal

oh ok. the 2 6500K i was going to use are only 18w cause they are on a splitter in a 40W socket that i took out of a lamp, but the other 4 2700K can be 100W or so if needed

i switched my timer to 12/12 today. i have a dark bed sheet that is folded over a few times, and then put up on the wall with a staple gun, inside my closet. The white box is still around the plant too. so hopefully this will keep out most of the darkness. Im not worried about morning cause i have the lights set to come on when i wake up. but they are going off now at 8pm and i dont go to bed until about 10 or later. normally closer to 12. im afraid my room light may harm it. but i just have to risk it. i hope i have enough stuff blocking the light i dont need to worry.

I will be changing the light spectrum when i get home, im getting bulbs after work. im not too worried about interrupting the dark period since today is the first day of 12/12

theonetitty said:

i switched my timer to 12/12 today. i have a dark bed sheet that is folded over a few times, and then put up on the wall with a staple gun, inside my closet. The white box is still around the plant too. so hopefully this will keep out most of the darkness. Im not worried about morning cause i have the lights set to come on when i wake up. but they are going off now at 8pm and i dont go to bed until about 10 or later. normally closer to 12. im afraid my room light may harm it. but i just have to risk it. i hope i have enough stuff blocking the light i dont need to worry.

I will be changing the light spectrum when i get home, im getting bulbs after work. im not too worried about interrupting the dark period since today is the first day of 12/12

Click to expand...

i had the same problem with the lights off in my closet and tryin to keep my room light off during lights off..... i would recommend tryin to keep ur room light off as much as possible during the plants dark period to reduce light leaks, which can delay flowering

theonetitty said:

oh ok. the 2 6500K i was going to use are only 18w cause they are on a splitter in a 40W socket that i took out of a lamp, but the other 4 2700K can be 100W or so if needed

Click to expand...

also, a great buy is to go to WalMart and buy a couple lamp cordsets theyre like 6 dollars apiece but they can have a y-splitter on em and its easier than taking ur home lamps apart for the cordsets

kingdavid918 said:

also, a great buy is to go to WalMart and buy a couple lamp cordsets theyre like 6 dollars apiece but they can have a y-splitter on em and its easier than taking ur home lamps apart for the cordsets

Click to expand...

yea im going to get a new cordset today. i started to take apart my last table lamp, but thought better of it. Its the lamp that is in the background of a lot of my pics. its been in the grow box since day 1, but i decided to put a splitter in it instead and use it for side lighting.

I have 2 23W 2700K bulbs hanging. 1 18W 6500K (i have to get another splitter to add another 18W to that 40W socket). I have 1 23W 2700K bulb and 1 ~40W 2700k bulb on a splitter on the lamp.

the ~40W is rated for 2700 lumens, the 23 W are rated for 1,650 lumens ea, and the 6500K bulb is rated at 1200 lumens i think...


i had to stack old PC game boxes under my pot to raise the plant up high enough for the table lamp to be side lighting instead of top.


Also, a very strange development. I think the plant had already began to declare its sex and i think its a female...i dont want to jump to conclusions, but at some of the main nodes little hairs were growing out, maybe 1/8in. long at the most. But they DEFFINATELY were NOT new leaves.

I didnt really notice until yesterday when i changed the bulbs and had to move the plant. i hadnt noticed them the other day though...but the plant hadnt even finished its first 12/12 day yet. hell it hadnt even seen full 2700K spectrum yet, i was changing the bulbs when i noticed it.

I will try to get a decent picture of it before lights out tonight. i recently found and old microscope kit at my dad's house, in my old room, in the closet. it has a small hand held magnifying glass that i will try to take pics with.

bulbs added, current list

2x 18W 6500K 1200 lumen
4x 23W 2700K 1640 lumen
1x 32W 2700K 2150 lumen
1X 42W 2700K 2700 lumen

here are some pics. i cant get a clear pic of what looks to me like pistils, but they are ONLY on the main stem. the branches do not show them yet that i can see...so this may just be a part of the stem i never noticed before?

they are an orange-ish color and VERY small...1/16-1/8 inch at the most, but they are all curvy...none of them are totally straight

hey theonetitty i really like your setup and it looks like your doing a damm good job i had a couple of ???'s how close do u have the lights to ur plant in the first couple of weeks?? im trying to make it bushy like yours but not burn it (will the 26wat 6500k burn it?) i read alot of threads and they said to keep it like 4" away but i saw your pic and it looked like it was a inch away ...any help is appreciated ty

i kept the lights 1-2 ". i had to adjust them almost daily. they are a little different now because i had to adjust to adding more lights with limited space. they are like 4" or so away now. the 6500K is like 6" away but im not worried about it

the CFL's should only burn them if they are really high watt or if you let the plant grow into it.

i also topped it when it was about 4-5"

stayin tuned

Ok for anyone who is just reading this thread and would like to NOT read all 7 previous pages, here is a quick re-cap of my veg cycle

I water every other day just about. 1 Red plastic cup full. I have given the plant small doses of Miracle-Gro house plant food about 4 times total. i only did it for about a week and a half


The Soil is Sta-Green potting mix. trace amounts of N-P-K. All are less than 1%


I found this little sprout in my planter outside. Its curved due to the only DIRECT sunlight coming from one direction. Im calling it 4/20 bud cause this was found the week of 4/20 on 4/23

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I already had a grow box waiting on it in my closet.

4X 18W 6500K 1200 lumen (were kept no more than 2 inches away usually)
1x 42W 2700K 2700 lumen (was kept up to 6 or 8 inches away mostly)

LIGHTS @ 24/0

4/23
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i got a Brinks timer at Walmart, i forget how much it was. no more than $10 i think..

5/03 Lights CHANGED to 18/6

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5/05

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5/08

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5/12

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5/14 Topped

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5/19

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You will start to notice a difference in the amount of soil in the pot. i decided to dig it up and put more soil in the pot. there was a lot of un used space. and it REALLLYYYYYY made a big difference. I put more soil in on 5/23

5/23

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3 days from adding the extra soil

5/26


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5/27 was the first day of 12/12

New bulb count

2x 18W 6500K 1200 lumen
4x 23W 2700K 1640 lumen
1x 32W 2700K 2150 lumen
1X 42W 2700K 2700 lumen

no pics from 5/27

5/28

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I took this one because i thought my plant had started to declare its sex already when i switched to 12/12. there are small orange-ish curly things at all the main stem nodes. none on the branches?? i will get a better pic when the get bigger. they are like 1/8 inch long at the most

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WEll that wasnt so short i guess...

OMFG you gotta be kidding me....it deleted all the pics i posted....ok here we go again...

sorry you just gotta look at the name of the picture to see the date

Read the post before this to get all the "captions"

u love it i like it

Wow, looking good. My plants are about the same age as yours, but much smaller; I wonder why.

sweet set up man, I was worried about starting a grow in a cabinet almost exactly the same size as yours but after seeing how yours turned out I'm lookin forward to it. she's sexy!!!

over the last few days the plant has shot from around 7 inches to just over 10. the noodes on the branches are starting to stretch apart. is this normal? like 3 are really stretching to the lights more than others...

and these 2700K lights are much hotter. i havnt had a temp or humidity reader at all this whole time, but i can tell a difference in the heat when i pull back the curtain and take off part of the box to get in there to like water or snap a pic. i can tell a big difference in the temp. should i be concerned? the later half of the growing season, like later summer is usually hotter anyway?

oh, and thanks for the compliments guys!

2nd gen, do you have a journal going? i made this journal to get help from the community here and people here are more than happy to help out a noob like me and you! it took a little extra ingenuity from me to fix the grow area up, but it was all based on advice from these forums.

Looking good so far onetitty. Check my journal out, I have a space about the same size as yours with 5 plants in extreme LST. lots of pics.

Bump from page 3


The plant is growing a lot. I havnt been keeping up with exact measurements, but it was around 7 inches when is tarted flowering and its grown about an inch or so a day. its just over 10 inches right now.

I checked for pistils this morning, and those short orange hair like things are showing up at more node sights, but are not growing any longer, and dont really look like anything i have seen pics of on here. I will check again this afternoon to see if there are more.

bump.

I think its a female. tiny pistils are starting to form at most node sites now, main stem and branches. I hope within the next day or 2 they will be more defined.

bump

still no definite on the female. the small pistil looking things are all over the place now, but they are still very small.

Its been on 12/12 for a little over a week now. It grew A LOT in the first few days, 3 inches, but the last few days it hasnt grown at all and the soil is still very wet. I didnt water any more than usual so i dont think i over watered. Could it be that the plant has finally stopped vegging and is switching over to bud production? Or do you think its growth just stopped because of the size pot? 8 inches deep, 11 incehs wide. plant is 10 1/2 inches tall now...