A few questions for you.

Okay So these two pictures are the outside and the top of my grow box (First time grower, not expecting great results). Two 2FT, 75 Watt, 4200K, cool white bulbs and a PC exhaust and intake fan (intake on the outside, VERY low RPM, exhaust fan is much more powerful, much higher RPM). The box is 1FT tall and 2 FT wide. I want to keep the plants under 1 FT because it is a "stealth" operation. The lights are on 24/0 due to a lack of a timer and a work schedule that interferes with me maintaining the plant lighting manually. I get paid Friday so i can get a timer but how can i switch the lighting schedule from 24/0 to 18/6 with a minimal amount of stress?



This is the first plant that sprouted, it still has the seed casing on one of the leafs. Its stem is growing very thin and fast, the plant is falling over due to the length of the stem. What is causing it to grow this way? How can i slow the stem growth?

These are all three of the plants. The one that hasn't sprouted was germinated at the same time but took MUCH longer to crack open. When should I plan to transplant? How much soil do they need each when transplanting? ​The plants are 8 days old as of today.

lights are too far away get em closer and re pot to put it down deeper and it wont be as long and once u get the lights closer it wont stretch

Thanks for the response blunt, How close can i get them to the tubes without the plants getting damaged?

i really hate to give you this answer cause these words i will never type but your best bet is to search. your the first person ive said that to ever! i always try to answer if i really do know but in this case im not sure and dont wanna give u a bs answer cuhs ur using tubes t5s i never researched tubes i know CFL the spiral kind ive gone as close as half inch away with no damage but to be on safe side id keep em 1-4 in with cfls good luck let me know what you find im interested to know

I will definitely keep you posted with how it goes! Im looking for a different method of hiding it in a way that I could allow for taller growth later on down the road, but for now this tote will be more than perfect. I'm thinking i might grow them until they hit about the 9-11" mark and move them to a veg/flower PC grow box thats about 16" tall to finish veg and then flower. Like i said this is my first grow so im not expecting much from it. Just kinda getting my feet wet haha.

i tried going sneaky on my first grow as well i took a subwoofer box ripped out the subs painted inside flat white took some pc fans spliced them to old cell phone chargers i didnt need and the sub box i used had lil ports for the pass through so when i took it apart it was perfectly cut for the pc fans got piece of wood for couple bux and hinged it on whole thing cost me couple bucks and worked great till i let it get to big but i put it in the corner of my room and no one knew the better

Hey, zabzacon, welcome to the world of growing! You've taken the first step into what might be the best thing you've ever done!!

As far as your questions go, I want to start by thanking you for putting them in bold. This will help people like me, who want to help you, find what you are looking for much quicker!

So as far as your stretchy plant goes, this is typical of seedlings. They tend to start out stringy like that, and then they slowly put on girth. However, the posts above me are correct, and you need to get your light much closer. The good thing about this is, that when using CFLs or a T5 you can get the light right on top of the plants. I feel very confident telling you that you can keep a CFL or a T5 within 3" of the top of a plant 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with only a single fan blowing on it, and unless those leaves actually touch the bulb for more than a couple of hours, you will never burn them.

Additionally, CFLs and T5s are so mellow that even if you happen to have leaves grow into the bulbs and make contact, all that will happen is the leaf will turn brown, die back in that spot, and more leaves will come in. This plant is incredible. Every new grower tends to over-baby his plants. We all do it. I did it too! Just take comfort in knowing that this plant is SOOO resiliant. You can snap it all the way over, break every branch on it, and it will grow back twice as strong with fat branches and knuckles wherever you broke it. You can underwater it for days, give it water one day, and watch it bounce back to life in 5 minutes after a watering. It will tolerate a lot, so don't stress so much! Just let her grow! You ever seen all that weed growing in the ditches in Kansas and Nebraska? Nobody pays attention to that shit ever and it grows 8 ft high!

Regarding transplanting, you won't need to do it until plants are at least another 5" taller, with probably four sets of true leaves on them, and a nice root base under them.

A cool trick to slow down your upward growth is to do a technique called "topping". There are a lot of ways to do it, but the end result is the same--your upward growth gets redistributed down via a growth hormone, and the plant shoots lower branches out everywhere. The easiest way to do this is to simply pluck out the top set of leaves, right out of the center of the node with your thumbnail. Let it grow back for a few days, and your plant will heal up fine. It will shoot out new branches below the wound, seal the wound up nicely, and fatten up your stock. Youtube will have lots of videos I'm sure.

Happy growing and I hope this helps!

humbles thats some good info there only thing i wana add is another option to topping is LST (low stress training) its pretty different but an idea you can look into

fatblunt said:

humbles thats some good info there only thing i wana add is another option to topping is LST (low stress training) its pretty different but an idea you can look into

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Totally agree with you. I'm actually doing an LST op on a TGA Flav right now. I've got pictures posted on my current grow journal if you want to see how I do it. Simple method using some string and a 12X12 with predrilled holes...

Check it out! Here's a link:

https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/509553-humble-servants-1000w-one-plant.html

Oh my gosh thank you guys so much! You're both giving me the EXACT information i was looking for! Usually i wait for hours for a half assed comment but damn! So is there any chance i could manage to flower them under a foot in that box or should i establish an alternative method to flower them in a taller box?

How early can i start LST? That looks amazingly helpful!

ya you can flower under a foot ive noticed it about double to triple in size when you enter flower so if your not training keep that in mind and see if you have enough room... if your going with LST here this is all i can find for you for now click here hope it helps!

zabzacon said:

Thanks for the response blunt, How close can i get them to the tubes without the plants getting damaged?

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wooden blocks under plants.

i used old text books lol at least they came handy for something

heres a friends lsting journal, his nice guy, stop by his page and check out his grow its coming along nice! he would probably be happy to help you -----> clickthis

Thanks for the links blunt, i have one more question, the soil i used was some VERY old soil from one of my brother's old house plants, if i buy a bag of better soil would i be able to move the plants into new containers with better higher quality soil without killing them? I was wondering if i could repot them in new soil to bury the stem so it isnt so stretchy. As of last night they have been moved to about 2-3 inches away from the tubes.

fatblunt said:

heres a friends lsting journal, his nice guy, stop by his page and check out his grow its coming along nice! he would probably be happy to help you -----> clickthis

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Thx for the shout blunt...

zabzacon said:

Thanks for the links blunt, i have one more question, the soil i used was some VERY old soil from one of my brother's old house plants, if i buy a bag of better soil would i be able to move the plants into new containers with better higher quality soil without killing them? I was wondering if i could repot them in new soil to bury the stem so it isnt so stretchy. As of last night they have been moved to about 2-3 inches away from the tubes.

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Yes you can without worry being that its old soil, when you transplant your want to softly try and remove some of that dirt off of it, not all but some, and when you transplant make sure to moisten the soil in the pot before placing your plant in, also for the stretch this is fine all you have to do is to bury the stem a bit deeper enough for the plant to support itself, also get a small fan and have it blow directly on the plant, and you can put your bulb within 2" of the plant, the wind will strengthen the stem and the light will keep your nodes tight being that close.

zabzacon said:

Oh my gosh thank you guys so much! You're both giving me the EXACT information i was looking for! Usually i wait for hours for a half assed comment but damn! So is there any chance i could manage to flower them under a foot in that box or should i establish an alternative method to flower them in a taller box?

How early can i start LST? That looks amazingly helpful!

Click to expand...

You wanna start LST once your plant gets to about the 4th-5th node, and when you do LST always make sure its within a day or 2 after watering as it is easier to bend the plant, you also wanna counter tie the bottom of the stem before bending the top over to make sure it doesnt get ripped out of the soil.

It's day 9 (after planting the germed seeds) but day 7 of actual visible emerged growth.I moved the two seedlings into some 4" clay pots with some Sta-Green potting soil. When i was taking the seedling in the back out of its original cup i noticed its stem had a bit of a bend/crease in it that had opened a bit, that was at the base of the stem, i buried it tight and deep, hoping i didnt kill the poor thing. They are somewhere around 2-3 inches from the bulbs now. So now they can grow without putting all their energy into stretching as much!


The potting mix was still frozen so i had to put it into a plastic container, put my space heater behind a gutted computer case and use my DIY usb fan to suck the heat into the case and then trap it in there with the dirt until i brought it to around room temperature. I put some more dirt into the plastic container to get nice and warm so i can easily pop this new (hopefully) girl into a clay pot once she sprouts so that she can be in fresh soil like her (hopefully) sisters!

(Picture is sideways >_>)
And here she is, a week behind but thats okay, slow and steady wins the race.

I just got a spray bottle with a bottle of seltzer water so im hoping the CO2 will help! Switching from britta filtered water to a jug of distilled.