First cfl grow

Day 48, Day 25 Flowering
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oops.

also forgot to post the pics I have already got.

I missed a few more days, but I cant remember if it was one or two haha.

alright it was 2

Day 49, Day 26 Flowering
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Day 50, Day 27 Flowering
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its now day 51, prolly some pics today.

anyways some updates

-8 new sprouts, all seeds germinated and all seeds sprouted.
--today the overhead lamp socket [with 2 26 watt cfls] came down on 2 of the plants, almost killed the best one that was growing, but the bulb only ended up completely burning 1 sprout to shreds.
-I think the main plants that are flowering are starting to show sex, and It think they are both females, I could be totally wrong, they might not even be flowering -_-.
--I knocked off some of the dead branches on the flowering plants, only the ones completely stiff and dry and came off when I touched it. [im collecting that stuff in baggies]
--I mixed some mollases in with the water I water the plants with, i may have put too much mollases, the water was very very dark. i cant tell if the plants are growing better with it though.
-I got a new fan so the veg room has a fan now.

hey it;s sounding good, but wassup ? stop lagging it

Day 51, Day 28 Flowering:

https://www.rollitup.org/marijuana-pics/index.php?n=5727

Easter Plant 1:

https://www.rollitup.org/marijuana-pics/index.php?n=5728

Node:

https://www.rollitup.org/marijuana-pics/index.php?n=5729

I still cant tell male or female

I feel you dude im having the same problem with sexing...but ppl told me its normal if you forced them to flower so... all you can do is wait patience is the key...better take another hit from the bong lol
peace

Day 52, Day 29 Flowering
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well some of the sprouts died; and easter plant 1 is drooping [already pretty banged up ].

I dont even know if I will get a harvest... I dont even know if I will make it to see the sex of any of my plants -_-.

Day 53, Day 30 Flowering
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NOTHING still, I doubt these plants are even flowering. Even if they both ended up flowering they have probably been under too much stress and are both going to be males. Only one of the sprouts is still alive, the others all died... damn shitty ass fuckn soil at dollar general, I dont know what the fuck happend but it dries up like a fuckn rock... not like soft soil.

I dont even know why im wasting my time. my space is too fuckn limited and its a pain in the ass just to take a look at the plants. the closet is now a fuckn oven. the timer keeps fuckin up, its now 23 minutes off... I dont know how the fuck this is happening, one day its fine the next its 23 minutes off, and it doesnt slowly get more and more off... it just happens.

this just isnt possible right now. I mean shit im growing in such an awkward space, the roof might as well be 4 ft tall, and the width of the closet might as well be 2 ft, because of all the shit stacked on the sides. Im growing in the ghettoest setup you can imagine, trust me, nothing beats this. I have a fucking vanity light facing downwards, stacked on a box on each side, and other boxes raising it a bit more. Self wired. Then I have cardboard with weak reflective material that I try to get positioned over the lights. Then I dont even have proper exhaust, I did what I could. No reflection of light really, and then I have a fan in front of it stacked on a box.

then the veg box is 2 gooseneck lamps over a plant in a red cup, with a fan, in a shitty ass home made duct taped box out of scrap cardboard, and then I put towels everywhere over it to help cover up light, takes about 15 minutes to setup every day.

this just isnt working out, I feel like just ripping my plants out right now and throwing all this shit away, all im doing is wasting my fuckn time, and risking a fire. My plants havent even changed in the last 2 weeks.

U can still transplant if soil is the issue. U shoild stop by wal-mart and get a bag of miracle gro potting mix($3.50) and a bag of perlite($2.50)... make it a 50/50 soilless mix and stop fooling around with dirt.
"If you play with dirty you're gonna get muddy."
Just break down the root ball to the size of your fist, and stick the plants into a better mixture.

be patient with sexing, males usually show within 7-14 days, females take longer. For the first two weeks the plants need STRICT lighting schedules, any screw-up's and they will take their time to show sex.
also if you want it to hurry up you should change the lights to 10 hrs light/ 14 hrs dark or even 8/16. that will help with the temps and speed up the sexing.

you should probably get a new timer, home depot has them for $5 and they work perfectly. Of course its not digital, but its very easy to use and almost fool-proof.
I'd really hate to see you toss everythign out, and I know that once the plants show sex and start taking off its gonna seem like they wont stop growing..It'll all be worth it as soon as you see those first few pistols
Just my 2cents

It will only flower on 12/12, changing the light to less will only be bad for the plant, that I have read countless times. But yeah, the lighting isnt as strict as it could be, stupid timer keeps messing up all the time. And now its not even in full dark because of the veg box.

transplanting is pointless, I only have sprout alive in the crappy dollar general potting soil, turns to a rock when wet. the sprouts doing pretty bad too... so I say just throw all that away.

the main plants flowering were originally in mirical grow, but I got the potting soil because I read it was decent, and mirical grow was bad. Mirical grow actually worked quite well, I will definitely keep using that.

the timer I got wasnt digital, and it had 15 minute intervals, for $10. I dont know if its getting messed up because the timer accidentally gets pushed forward a bit time to time, since I have blankets and shit up against it to block it from view... or what, but when it messes up, it goes down by large intervals, it went from perfect 12 am - 12 pm, to now 11:37 am - 11:37 pm. It always goes off and on right on the dot though...

the main plants that are flowering are also impossible to transplant pretty much. The roots are in horrible soil and it will just completely rip it to shreds because that soils not gonna budge, and the mirical grow will [which is what they were originally in]. Also theres 2 plants in 1 huge bucket, with a cardboard divider so it would be too hard, and would destroy the plants...

they are both drooping now pretty bad... some people said they droop when they are flowering and its normal... I wouldnt be suprised if my plant got really confused and went on and off flowering, and is just starting to flower again...

Day 54, Day 31 Flowering
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Day 55, Day 32 Flowering
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theyre starting to droop again, and the last remaining sprout died today. 6/6 died within the first 5 days -_-. I bought more miricle grow today though, I didnt have enough to get perlite though... but I really didnt have use for a big bag of perlite, I only needed a lil.

I will probably germinate some more seeds sometime soon and plant them in miricle grow, that stuff actually works, Dollar general potting soil doesnt work... at all.

You Dont Need The Pop Cans Or Any Reflector For That Matter When Using Cfls Makes Absolutly No Difference. Thoughs Pop Can R Just Creating Heat That You Probably Dont Need

No pop cans work extremely well, cfls work well in any case. If you dont use a reflector about 90% of the bulb light isnt even aimed at the plant, and its only getting whats reflected off from quite a distance. A reflector reflects all that not even an inch away and aims it right at the plant. Saving all wasted light. Pop cans are extremely reflective.

Its not by any means creating more heat, putting a pop can over a bulb doesnt make heat... it puts off heat because of the power, and the physics behind lighting a light. Although more heat is around the reflector, its all fanned away, and all the air balances just the way it would without the reflector.

I had easter plant 1 growing extremely well, no streching, I havent even had strech problems on any plant, and anyways, it grew up til about 6" tall, about 8 nodes, with 1 26watt cfls and a can reflector.

fact is, it works.

the soil is the problem, and root constraint

im sure the roots on my flowering plants are very constrained... but i cant transplant, and both flwoering plants are now drooping, every branch and leaf is... the soil is pretty gnarly though, and that has to be the caused... that and over/ under watering, and the fucked up light cycles its been gettn.

well each to there own i thinks its a waste of time with cfls the lums r so weak that IT MAKES NO DIFFENCE people just think it looks brighter but realy what r y gainig 50 maybe 100 lums. i dont use any refectors of any kind and i have no problems. another point would be that u might shock the shit out of yourself in the process not tometion start a fire.

it loses its specturm or some shit like that.

Using a reflector, your not gaining lumens... I dont think you have a clue what your talking about. All your doing is reflecting them back, so instead of wasting 90% of the light, thats not initially directly hitting the plant, that has to wait for something else to reflect it back, so you get worthless light from that pretty much, the farther light travels, its intensity just falls like a brick.

Using a reflector gives you about 8x more light hitting the plant [instead of wasted], and all about equally intense to what the bulb originally put out.

Lets say you measured light, just one example, put a 1200 lumen cfl above a light meter, hypothetically you get about 200 lumens. You add a reflector, and you will get upwards of 1000 - 1100 lumens, including light loss over the distance.

As for electical fires and anything... a bulb has no wires sticking out, I dont see a problem... it doesnt get too hot either, and I have the reflector touching the cfls. The only semi problem ive had, is one bulb started moistining up the adhesive on the duct tape, that attached the reflector to the can...

So anyways, with my 8 light strip cost me about $85, and I have 8 26watt cfls, I think they are 1700 lumens each, I give each one a reflector to save the light, that means I am getting about 13600 lumens, [my 1700 figure might be a bit off], and its takes 208watts. If I didnt use reflectors I wouldnt even be getting 1/5th of what I could potentially be getting.

Oh yeah, one more fun fact, the plants get most of its light from whats reflected, not from whats given out directly from the bulb... ask anyone.

but anyways

Day 56, Day 33 Flowering
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the plants are starting to look better, still no signs of sex, flowering could have been messed up sooo many times, but I took down the veg room it leaked too much light and all the sprouts died anyways. So finally the flowering plants get complete darkness for 12hrs. I think they were severly underwatered, after a heavy water they stopped drooping and perked right up.

this grow sucks

bull shit. keep up the good work broken. i am doing the same exact thing. and i have 8 26 wat cfls as well in flowering. and they put off 1750 lumes. for a max lumens of 14000. i have 7000 in my veg box. oh hey do u have both blue and red spectrum cfls? i got 2 blue cfl's(on accident) but they are loving them.

oh and hey btw i have 2, 3 foot plants that were just put into flowering so you non believers can go flog urself!!!!

Day 57, Day 34
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eastlog, is that a joke lol? but yeah, the pictures stopped when the plant stopped. The plants actually look bigger and healthier about 3 weeks ago, than they do now.

Ive seen barely any new growth.

although now the light cycle is 100% 12/12, I should start to see some real signs of flowering.

nice insanity, cfls do work very well, and even better than hps's in some cases, because thats just 1 bright light, whereas cfls you can position anywhere you want, and pretty much as close as you want.

I will be starting a new grow, in a large pot of mirical grow, screw transplanting gradually, the only way the roots have enough room is if I get a massive bucket and fill it with soil, for just 1 plant... I mean shit, I transplanted into a giant bucket about 10" deeper and way wider than what it was previously in, 2 days later theres roots out the ass all over the bottom... I think all the probs are because of the freakn root constraint... I cant figure out why they are growing so deep... I see other people with a 1 gallon bucket, with a 1 foot tall nice bushy plant, I get a 1 gallon bucket, and it fits a good 5" plant with about 4 nodes... thats it... then transplant time -_-.

one more question, is it necessary to feed the plants? I have never gotten a clear answer, or read anywhere about it being necessary... because the flowering plants were originally in mirical grow [with 3 month food] for 2 out of the 3 transplants, back when it was perfect, but during the last transplant right before flowering, I had to transplant into a bucket bottomed with topsoil... and after about 20 days it started to get sick...

I will post pictures sometime soon though... just so you can see these ugly plants...

oh well, atleast when both of the flowering plants die I will have more dead plant crap to put in my bag to make hash or somethn out of sometime.

BrokenHope, you are so RIGHT!
test pilot, you are so WRONG.
Brokenhope has a large gallery and major rep and large number of posts and has really studied GROWING here. I KNOW HIM AND HE KNOWS HIS SHIT!

You can't 'create more heat" from a bulb you can touch and hold while it is burning. I have 9 85-Watt spiral CFLs in one closet, on two grow tanks, all with ten inch reflectors aiming the light where I want it.
Reflectors do not add much at all to lumens. Lumens is man's way of measuring the light he sees. after we see so much light, it can't appear much brighter.
Brokenhope, you have dozens of friends and admirers here that will back you up. you do know what you are talking about from reading, reasearch and experience.