First grow! Total beginner Journal!

growgirll said:

Little growth if any at all since yesterday. And the leaves seem to be curling down. I have yet to get a humidity meter so I think it might be low humidity? I'm gonna go out today and see if I can find one at lowes. I sprayed the walls of the grow box and the plant with water. I'm going to grab a socket splitter today and add another 23 watt CFL on, 2700k. Temperature has been around 71. Check out these pictures:
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A humidity meter is key! Also, those photos are looking very wet (probably taken after you corrected what was assumed to be dryness). If things stay too wet, your plants might start damping off (I lost count of how many of my early pepper crops I killed that way years ago). Just be mindful of your girl's surroundings. As someone has said, some strains react certain ways to feedings/waterings/etc. So no panicking.

I will say this, though. If these pics weren't taken right after a watering/misting, it might be way too wet for your girl.

One CFL is good as soon as she sprouts. Learn to not over water, and let things dry up well in between waterings. I like to add another 23 actual watt CFL each week. So you'll have four on it by a month. Get a small fan on there blowing indirectly softly across the plant asap, and keep it on always. It will also help dissipate the little CFL heat. KEEP ALL CFL's REALLY CLOSE 1-2"!!! It will be a daily battle to keep your plant from growing into your cfl's, but that is how close you want them. Read up on Picking CFL color temperature. You will need at least 8 or so, thats 200 actual watts of CFL to flower, in a mixed spectrum (2700 and 5000-6500). More CFL than 200 actual watts will likely increase your yield, I like 400 watts plus. You just cant have to much light.

You can to have to much light... bleaching burning and extreme dryness. Granted it takes a lot but it can be done.

Thanks for the advise everyone! Here's a couple quick updates/questions. Some of you are saying to wait to add more lights, but I already put in a couple more... Not high wattage ones though, but now there's a total of 138watts in there, that I was planning on keeping in there until I switch some out for 2700k for flowering. There are 60watts worth of 6500k and 78 watts 2700k right now. They're 4-5 inches away from the plant. Should I take some out? I also moved the fan a bit so it wasn't hitting the plant so hard (it was dancing quite a bit). I went out and bought an Acurite humidity meter. I thought that the humidity might be low and that might be the cause of the leaf curling, because I don't think it would be over watering, since I water every 4 days until water comes out of the bottom. Today was the third day and I watered, because it seemed dry. It took about 2/3 of a gallon of water before water came out of the bottom! It usually doesn't take that much, does this mean that the soil was really dry? The pot has four decent sized holes on the sides that go down into the bottom as well. Sometimes a bit of soil comes out of the bottom too, but it's a big pot because I heard that you aren't supposed to transplant autoflowers, so there's a lot of soil in there. I tested some of the runoff (there was a pretty good amount) and the pH was around 6.4. I use API aquarium pH test to test the water. I also added a shallow dish of water and sponge to my grow box and I put it in front of my fan, in hopes of raising the humidity a bit. As of now, the humidity is reading at 32% and the temperature at 73 degrees. I'm about to close the window for the night and go to bed so I'm expecting the temperature to rise a bit.


Heres bed a picture that I just took now after all of the modifications, and here's a video that I took earlier today. Let me know what feedback you guys have! Thanks for all your help!


[video=youtube;ZgL8OyzBje8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgL8OyzBje8[/video]

Can u hang a moist rag in the somewhere? . It moist with ur sponge andb humidity will be under control. Your heat looks good and cfls are hard to overuse. I suggest getting four 42 watt bulbs two splitters and when that's purchased and put together id throw them on it. And look for a pc gan with a 12v adaptor for exhaust. That's would only be like fifty more lumen . Will be easier to manage and bbc.co it gets a little talkers supplement the sides with your smaller ones to try and get even bud growth.

I'd move the lights an inch closer and she sounds like she way dry. You could even put lights two i nchs closer if u watch em daily and have ample breeze and ventilation. Looks better than my first grow lol

Lights closer pls

The humidity is pretty low. I would trying putting a dish of water in there and see if you can get it up in the 50s. You might have to cut down your exhaust fan to keep enough moisture in the box. I'm not a huge fan of the hanging wet cloth method as I've had fungus/mold problems spring from that. If you do it that way, I'd wash the cloth with bleach to try to cut down on anything that might already be lurking in it. I've also made the mistake of overwatering/overmisting to make up for a dry room, and that ended pretty disastrously in root rot. Can't really cut the humidity corner, I have learned.

Whatever you do to try to get the humidity up, make sure you're changing it out regularly to prevent inviting the bad kind of growing things into your box.

As far as your lights, you could move them closer by and inch or so, but if you get the humidity up in there your girl is going to grow right up into them pretty quickly anyway.

Ok cool so if I raise the humidity she should grow pretty quick? She hasn't been growing all that much over the past few days. I already did put a shallow dish with a sponge in it in the box to try and raise the humidity and it just stayed around 32-33% and it didn't help much. I'm thinking about buying a humidifier, but I really can't spend too much money on one, and it needs to be pretty small to be able to fit in my box. Any ideas? Also, as for moving the lights closer, they already are a lot closer than they look in pictures. I'm attaching a picture I took and I put my fingers between the lights and the plant as a reference to show how close they already are. Should I still move them closer after seeing the picture? Also there's another update picture from this morning too!

Wet rag hanging. Keep it wet and watch humidity rise

The lights can be closer. They will be only to close if they burn the leaves

The humidity is definitely going to have to be addressed. Things you can do as a duct-tape fix while you get the humidifier situation worked out: spray the inside of the box walls down with water and keep an eye on the humidity. With a little trial and error you might be able to figure out how often to do that to keep it up. Much like the wet cloth idea, this can foster an environment that invites unwelcome stuff, but for the short term it might help. As long as you wipe down the walls and keep stuff clean you'll be fine in the short term.

I went back to your video with this in mind to take a look at your box (*rimshot*). I think this might be an ongoing issue with your setup, depending on whether or not what we're seeing in the vid is the extent of your box. It's not really enclosed from what I can see. If this is the case, the box is pretty much going to take on the environment of the room it's in (you'll see a bump in temp in the box due to the lights, and a smaller bump in humidity because it is at least somewhat enclosed). So that dish of water & sponge isn't just trying to humidify your box, it's got to handle the entire room. (this is totally based on the assumption that there isn't more to the box I missed or wasn't in the vid). Even if you get a wet rag or small humidifier into the box, it's still going to be working on the square footage of the whole room the box is in.

If I'm not just all cracked out from being up all night, and that is the case, there's a couple of ways to go about this. You can find a way to do a better job of sealing the inside environment of the box off from the outside (the only air exchange coming from intake/exhaust fans). Or you can get that whole space the box is in up to par. Whatever is more straightforward given the room itself is best, keeping in mind that your girl is going to get a lot bigger down the road.

*edit*

Also you can totally get those lights closer to your girl for now.

You plant will grow fine with 32% humidity. You plant is growing fine right now. Sometimes little girls like that slow down a bit and then speed up. If you walked away for a long weekend and came back you'd be very excited about the results while you were away. Trust me on this.

One mistake I keep seeing with first timers is to analyze every little thing, every day! You will drive yourself crazy by the time she's finished.

There are so many factors involved. Just be patient. Remember this is a plant, not a machine. Plants take days or weeks to react to small changes. Don't start changing things every day or you'll never learn anything and probably just create more problems.

Good Luck with your grow.

I checked back in there today and the temp was 85 and the humidity was 25%. I'm getting kind of frustrated because I can't seem to keep the temps down and the humidity up. I'm going to look for a humidifier tonight, if I get the opportunity should I look for a warm air humidifier or a cool air humidifier?

growgirll said:

I checked back in there today and the temp was 85 and the humidity was 25%. I'm getting kind of frustrated because I can't seem to keep the temps down and the humidity up. I'm going to look for a humidifier tonight, if I get the opportunity should I look for a warm air humidifier or a cool air humidifier?

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Im not the expert that most these people are, but I do live in the desert and I have been growing two beautys since December, where i live there has not been a drop of rain or snow since before I started the grow my humidity in my box has never been above 23% and is currently at 16% ...The girls are lovely and snowy and will be ready to harvest about the end of the month...Like I said Im not the expert everyone else is but I knows what I sees and I sees that the humidity isnt making that much of a difference for me.

ChingOwn said:

Im not the expert that most these people are, but I do live in the desert and I have been growing two beautys since December, where i live there has not been a drop of rain or snow since before I started the grow my humidity in my box has never been above 23% and is currently at 16% ...The girls are lovely and snowy and will be ready to harvest about the end of the month...Like I said Im not the expert everyone else is but I knows what I sees and I sees that the humidity isnt making that much of a difference for me.

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How are your temps in there? Do you have a grow journal?

I did not start a grow journal for this grow sorry...my temps range from the low 50's dark time to about 79-85 lights on very difficult thing to control in this climate.. I was worried about it at first but everything has progressed smoothly more or less. If you think it would help Ill take pics later when the lights come on and post them with the thermo humidy gauge thing in there so you can see the readings.

growgirll said:

I checked back in there today and the temp was 85 and the humidity was 25%. I'm getting kind of frustrated because I can't seem to keep the temps down and the humidity up. I'm going to look for a humidifier tonight, if I get the opportunity should I look for a warm air humidifier or a cool air humidifier?

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I'm gonna give this one more shot...

Get your temps down and forget about the humidity. It doesn't matter as much as you are being led to believe. I've rocked out with 18-20% humidity through flower before. My colas during that dry spell were the size of your arm. Believe it.

If you add a humidifier to the equation you will probably create more heat in that small space if for no other reason than you've got another thing in there filling up space!

Get your temps down and you'll be fine. It is my humble opinion that your 80+ heat is a much bigger problem then humidity. The plant will grow either way but if she's burned from heat you've got a real problem on your hands. Not a small humidity issue that wont really affect much in the end.

Good Luck with your grow.

ChingOwn said:

Im not the expert that most these people are, but I do live in the desert and I have been growing two beautys since December, where i live there has not been a drop of rain or snow since before I started the grow my humidity in my box has never been above 23% and is currently at 16% ...The girls are lovely and snowy and will be ready to harvest about the end of the month...Like I said Im not the expert everyone else is but I knows what I sees and I sees that the humidity isnt making that much of a difference for me.

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Low humidity during flower is ideal. Watch out for Spider Mites though! Keep your area clean and tidy.

Dr Smith said:

I'm gonna give this one more shot...

Get your temps down and forget about the humidity. It doesn't matter as much as you are being led to believe. I've rocked out with 18-20% humidity through flower before. My colas during that dry spell were the size of your arm. Believe it.

If you add a humidifier to the equation you will probably create more heat in that small space if for no other reason than you've got another thing in there filling up space!

Get your temps down and you'll be fine. It is my humble opinion that your 80+ heat is a much bigger problem then humidity. The plant will grow either way but if she's burned from heat you've got a real problem on your hands. Not a small humidity issue that wont really affect much in the end.

Good Luck with your grow.

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Thanks! In only concerned about my humidity because my leaves are drying out, so I feel like I should try to get it up. I'm growing autoflower so it's pretty sensitive. I tried to keep the humidity where it is but my leaves have just became more brittle and dry. I'm in veg right now, still quite a while until flower, so I want to keep her as healthy as possible.