gianni's 1st good grow?

same as before, #3 and #4 from a few minutes ago.

#5 is looking terrible, small, weak, the leaves are browning... i have no experience with bad or good plants. so what's going on with this one? the rest are doing so well, where am i going wrong with her? i watered her today and moved her into more indirect light. we'll see if she recovers.

so here's how the room looks for now. before i cover with the curtain and afterwards. then i put up the 4th "wall" made of poster board and covered with tin foil. (dull side out of course.)

You can grow some monsters in them buckets... Good luck man I hope it works out.

so yesterday i topped nos. 1-3... todays pics show height and where they were trimmed. i also clipped some dead leaves from plants 2, 4, & 5.

also, i have totals from my light output in 3' x 3' x 3' area (height is adjustable to 8'):
8 CFLs - 18,400 lumens - 295watts
1 - 65W 3900 lum 2700 kelv (soft white 300W eq.)
3 - 42W 2700 lum 2700 kelv (soft white 150W eq.)
4 - 26W 1600 lum 6500 kelv (daylight 100W eq.)

1st pic: #4's height and before a minor trim job
2nd: #5 after trimming
3rd: #2 after trimming and topping

more pics, with ruler... plant #1 has fan leaves that are 4"+.
pic 1: plant #5 before trim, scaled
pic 2: #2 before trim, after topping, scaled
pic 3: #3 after topping, scaled
pic 4: #1 showing her girth, after topping

pics 1 & 2 - the ladies took a walk while i added some great, pretty, new mylar wallpaper to their harem.
pic 3 - tops of #1 looking good 3 days after being trimmed
pic 4 - plant #1 with a cig pack for reference

today begins the flowering portion of this growing adventure. no pics to share with this post because nobody wants to see a photo of the dark. do they? anyway... #1 is 10 inches tall and her biggest fan leaves are over 5 inches. i didn't get measurements of any others...

i do have a question though... i've found that my plants like the heat around 80F with lights on. i have no idea what temps they will like at night. what is the "ideal" night/dark temperature to shoot for?

lights have been out for an hour and the temp is at 60.1F, the room normally levels out temp-wise after an hour. so this is probably what it'll stay... good? bad? any help is appreciated.

the temp was getting to 58F.. i shut off every light in the house, and because i know the closet so well.. i plugged the heater in and the temps came back up to 68F. it makes my mind sit better i guess... i think its chilly and put a long sleeve shirt on when the temps are in the 50s.. wouldn't the plants need some kind of help or warmth too?

i am asking... it's my first day of flowering and i'm tripping out until i can check on these damned plants tomorrow... is the temp problem OK or not? is it even a problem?

yo tole, looking good so far bro. i had some troubles with my plants at the beggining of flowering and it all came down to my doil's ph. my medium was too acidic and the plants couldnt uptake nitrogen. I really recommend getting a ph test kit and some ph up and maybe dolomite lime instead of ph down. hope this helps bro, subscribed and good luck

i did get a pH kit, but haven't used it yet. i keep forgetting until after i button everything up and then it's too late.. friggin stoner...
(note to self: test pH tomorrow!)
also forgot to get a picture of the room after i hung the mylar. that is remedied in the photo with this post.
the girls did very well in spite of my worrying about the temp. they kind of look greener if anything.
pic 1: inside the "tunnel"
pic 2: closeup of #1, the BIG plant (looks huge to me anyway)

closeups after 1st day of 12/12
pic 1: plant #2
pic 2: #3
pic 3: #4
pic 4: #5

pulled the girls out today to lay a painter's cloth on the floor under them. the cloth is almost like a diaper and should control the minor water leakage that's been going on. all were measured and photographed on the table. also ran a ph test on #s 1 & 3.
also, i took the smallest seedling (#7) from my smaller starter closet and put it into 12/12 just to see what'll happen. it hasn't even fully grown it's 1st set of true leaves... experimentation...

pic 1: #3 - 9 1/4" h x 13+" w, 5 1/4" fan leaf
pic 2: #1 - 10 1/2" h x 15" w, 5 1/2" fan
pic 3: #5 - 5 1/2" h x 6 1/2" w, 2 1/4" fan
pic 4: #4 - 8" h x 6" w, 2 1/2" fan

pic 1: #2 - 6 1/4" h x 9" w, 3" fan leaf
pic 2: #4 with new guy in it's bucket (new guy is #7)
pic 3: grow room after today's arrangements

just a question is your username got anything to do with toledo in spain?

um, well... YEAH, that's the ticket! spain, yeah... in europe see...

plant #1 has been the earliest of my 5 remaining plants to do anything, including start to flower... it is a boy... no doubts about it, you really can tell when it's time for them to show. 6 days of 12/12 and that big sucker had balls. it's last picture is below.

what the hell can i do with the leaves now? anything? any suggestions?

got my hands on a magnifying glass to try and sex these things... lo and behold, #2 & #4 are both females! #3 & #5 are still not showing... 7 days on 12/12... pics will be posted later today.

nice journal

Bitti... ummmm... yeah, no habla engles... lol
thank you MediMary

here's some pics from today, seems i haven't posted in a while. there are now 9 - 2700k CFLs totalling over 300W and 23,000 lumens. the buckets were wrapped in bags for moisture control (didn't work very well), but now have restaurant dough trays under them instead. the water seemed to stay in the bags and i worried about mold/fungus/disease/whatever...

after removing the 1st male, these 4 plants seem to have lots of space and light seems to reach them more fully. apparently 4 - 5 gal. buckets is about the max space i have. not bad, but i'm going to switch to 3 gals. on next set of plants.

placed an order for "Nirvana Indoor Seed Mix" from Attitude early friday. they responded within a couple hours with a tracking number and i am hoping all goes well. am waiting for those seeds to begin a 3rd cycle.

pic1: plant #2 which had been topped and just yesterday is a confirmed female
pic2: plant #4 no topping, just pure lady, also confirmed yesterday
pic3: plant #5 no topping, unconfirmed/not showing
pic4: plant #3 topped, unconfirmed/not showing