First cfl grow

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...

Heres a link to Blue Mountain Organics. Its a pretty damned good deal. Check out the organics forum to find a big thread about them. They're well respected.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Organic-Fertilizer-Deal-by-BMO-Super-Plant-Tonic-plus_W0QQitemZ250507891275QQcmdZViewItemQQptZFertilizer_Soil_Amendments?hash=item3a536f124b

Sea level isn't your problem. Your soil is unlikely to be rich or hot in nutrients. Im using Promix BX which is peat based, and I had to start adding fertilizer at day 7 to my seedlings because 3 of them were growing slowly. The other two have done ok(shrug). Since I started them on fertilizer they've improved growth but way behind what Ive seen at 2 weeks from other growers. In the future Ill be ditching it and going with Fox Farms or maybe Roots Organic.

If your soil is becoming too compacted it sounds like your ratio is all screwed up. I used 60% Promix(peat), 25% Perlite(Ive upped that to 30% now), 15% Vermiculite to start out with, and the soil was light and fluffy. Watering gently will also help prevent compaction. Use a fork to gently break up the top of your soil when it dries out. It'll help get a better saturation when you water as opposed to water going straight down cracks in the soil, or being funneled to the side of the pots.

As for amending the soil. Im not sure. Ive thought about adding some Vermiblend Premium Soil amendment to my Pro-Mix. Its a gentle NPK with a bunch of other goodies, so I dont think ill burn the plants. You'll still need to use regular fertilizer with it though.

When you say one complete set of leaves. Do you mean it has only one set of leaves that are single bladed right above the cotyledons? Id be really careful giving it any fert. I gave my smallest two runts that really only had one set of leaves, and the smallest drank up the fert with no problems. While the other one that was slightly more ahead got burned even though it drank a fourth of what the other did.

Id let it get out to at least two sets of leaves before giving it anything and even then make it very weak. 1/4th normal strengths.

How far away are your lights from the seedling? Id imagine its too far away with it being 4 inches tall and only one set of leaves.

Hopefully it'll pick up now that your PH is in check now.

If I were you I'd read Dave's post thoroughly

thanks for the reply Dave! I'll check out Blue mountain for sure

Ya i'm hoping it'll pick up as well, iv'e never heard of a cross between the two before...praying to the gods for a female as well since this batch of seeds weren't feminized as far as i know.

my lights are at about 2 inches from the plant at all times.

About the soil, I should have been more clear... I WAS using a premade "soilless" organic mix, which would harden right up even if I watered with a mister. The soil that iv'e transplanted it to is a mix of 40% peat, 20% vermiculite, 20% perlite, 10% wood charcoal and 10% organic mix. No more hardening, it's very airy yet holds water well and evenly. Every 4-5 days on average the soil gets dry enough to re-water. The plant is showing very good signs of recovery now. Perky, no drooping, new growth remains bright green with no yellowing. Good tip on using a fork i never thought of that!

I'll have to post a pic of the plant so you can see how far along it is, as I was under the impression that a full set meant not a single blade but a complete leafset...

I did give the plant a very low dose (1/4 strength) of micronutes and nitrogen based fertilizer during the last watering...we'll see how she takes it!

I also added 1 more light yesterday for a total of 4. I use the socket splitters so that all lights are at 45' angles surrounding the plant.


received my first shipments of feminized seeds yesterday. Unfortunately someone had stepped on my package, only 3 seeds survived with no visible damage to them so iv'e started germination. The seed company is awesome! They gave me double my amount back iv'e placed a new order! the site is http://www.marijuana-seeds-canada.com/

another good thing is that you can buy single seeds with no cost difference between buying a whole package, it's great!

the 3 seeds iv'e just planted are:

2x laughing Buddha
1xhawaiian snow

ditched the papertowel method and i went straight into soil with a humidy dome over each.

No idea what this package went through on the way here so it's a shot in the dark but hey, they were free!

I'll keep updating as it progresses...

Glad your plant is doing better. I had no idea you could buy seeds in singles . Im looking to grow multiple strains out down the road, and buying 5 or 10 packs of seeds is just too expensive to try that with. Thanks for the link.

Sorry your seeds got stepped on, but at least they care about their customers and did you right.

Good job on ditching the paper towel method. Its just not necessary. As Uncle Ben likes to say KISS(Keep it Simple Stupid). Throw em in some moist soil with a bit of water and in a few days you should have seeds coming up. Pretty hard to mess that up. Make sure your seedlings get fresh air from time to time. It'd suck if you forgot and suffocated them. I dont use domes myself, and plants are doing okay. Just one more thing to keep track of, which is no fun.

looks like she's taking off pretty well after a repot, here's some pics...







thanks for the tips Dave its much appreciated!

Glad to see the plant coming along now. Best of luck with it down the road.