First time CFL Grow

Hi all, I'm a new member here. I have wandered these forums as a guest for years and have finally decided to sign up! Anyway. I started my grow about 1.5 weeks ago. A friend had given me 5-6 bag seeds of which one sprouted and is growing. Wonderfully from what I can tell. The bag of seeds was labeled SLH, or super lemon haze. But who knows. When my this baby popped out of the soil I got a call from another friend. We had picked up a 1/4 of pineapple express earlier In the week from a dispensary and he could hardly wait to tell me he had found a seed! So I told him to make haste and come over. Long story short, I cracked her and she has sprouted! Working on pictures as we speak.

first picture is the bag seeds and this second picture of the smaller plant is the pineapple express. Express is 24 hrs out of soil, bag seeds is 2-3 Days out. Plants are in MG potting.... i know I am sorry. Have 3 6500k cfls in a small box. Very close to plants, heat is manageable I pull the front of my box and turn my box fan on low for them if needed. After 2 weeks I plan on purchasing fox farms, hopefully MG at this stage won't harm them to badly. I don't want to use bottles nutes. I would prefer organic. Just PhD water and soil with natural nutrients. Feel free to comment anyone and stay tuned for my super low budget cfl grow.

Just to show how much of a budget grow this is... support your local goodwill for growing supplies! 8 bucks for a humidifier and a light socket with reflector and even a cfl Included!

Welcome and you gotta do what you gotta do. Good luck

Thanks! I'm excited, it's going to be a fun learning experience.

Set up my humidifier, and the can light that is a total of 4 cfls. Have not read much on over lighting at this stage. I'm hoping they like it. Tempature is cool, much more humid. Plants have a nice steady breeze moving over them, not to much.

Roots don't like light. When the stem is a little stronger (about 7 more days), I would transplant to a bigger and black container.

vostok said:

Hormones in the roots of cannabis, are allergic to light,

the hormone does not work when light is present(I forget the name)

rootlets the fine hairs down on the roots require heat, dark,

and 02 amongst a heap of other desirables to function correctly

being a grower means you have to know your root zone its vital

many great books abound of the subject

Click to expand...

Thank you, would you recommend I take a light or two down for a week?

Shanej94 said:

Thank you, would you recommend I take a light or two down for a week?

Click to expand...

No It wont kill the plant. Roots will just avoid the side of the container and it will slow down growth. I transplant at 14 days anyway. So transplanting a few days early will fix your problem. Keep light on a whatever schedule you do (I do 18/6).

Wonderful, thank you. I have two larger pots standing by. I'll be sure to do that. I appreciate the warm welcome and help so far! I'm going to update frequently.

Good morning! Woke up fairly early. The first thing I did was going to my closet! Last night did get a bit chilly in the box even with lights on. The girls still look happy. Also noticed that my roots on both of my plants were showing through my clear plastic cups last night. I decided to transplant, I got both plants out of the plastic cups with absolutley no damage. Watered the new transplant site and dropped them each in one of their own 6 inch pots. They look very very happy and have seemed to survived the experience without any issue. First one is pineapple express second is bagseed. Also with the larger pots and the smaller seedlings I will be keeping a very close eye one my soil moisture, don't want to over water.

Something I should have done a long time ago was check what spectrum lights mine are. I did that today. I've been using 2700k lights... so I went to my local store and picked up 4 6500k lights 23watts each and each at 1600 lumens. Much better then my old ones. I'm sure the girls will be alot happier.

They look good!
Congrats on the successful transplant. Good luck, I will be checking in from time to time to see how you do.

Thanks!

I'm using a similar set up, 4 50watt 6700k CFLS, three on my air outtake hood and one on a clip desk lamp and it took me awhile but I've got it down too a system but I suggest calcium mag before you run into problems like I am.. Other then that ventilation is the only other thing I suggest

Thanks, the box is an open front with the humidifier blowing over the plants air ventilation and circulation is controlled.

The girls look amazing this morning, sprout #1 Looks great, second set of true leaves are much more prominent. Im On day 6 or 7 with her. She still has her beautiful color. Nothing to worry about so far with her. the pineapple express grew a bit last night as well. Further assuring that my transplant went perfect! I was slightly nervous. She was a bit dry on the top this morning along with sprout #1. But all was well. She is looking healthy and staying strong. About day 3 on her. a and then a post of my setup so people know what I'm working with. Humidifier is in front, I live in a very dry climate so I need it on all the time. This humidifier is also acting as a fan for me. It blows a good breeze over the plants and they have shown 0 signs of wind burn. My cabinet it 4 feet tall. So not much room to work with. I have 4 1600 lumen 6500k cfls. And that is it. Here's a photo. happy Easter guys hope you all have a nice day.

Photo of bagseed sprout.

Hi!
Greatbwork so far!!
I too originally started growing with CFLs some time ago and your enthusiasm and joy about every little detail of your grow is palpable and reminds me why I love growing so much lol. I'd run and check in my girls now if I could but they still sleeping atm.

I'd recommend reading up on LST - Low Stress Training - now so that you can confidently be ready to do it when your plant is up to 5-6 nodes (at least, you can still do it after too).

In my experience with cfls and a small grow space (and yours looks smaller than my setup) you want to control how the plant grows to have a flat canopy that maximize light exposure and the small amount of space you are working with. This way I learned that instead of hanging multiple cfls everywhere to light the whole plant, its simpler (in a small space) to shape the plants to the lighting and space.

It can look scary when you are first starting, but I say read, ask and experiment. These plants are definitely tougher than I had ever imagined, and LST is a gentle way to learn how to shape them.

Thank you! Since this is my first grow I'm focusing alot on learning and documenting every step. I will definetly try to keep it up, but with a full time job it can get difficult at times. I take all the information you guys offer and look into it and I appreciate everything bit of it. The feedback definetly makes this whole journal experience alot more helpful. I'm going to read into LST some more today. I have read about super cropping and am wondering how that would be in a grow like this. I don't mind moving my lights either, it's another way for me to interact with them and learn a bit more.