Kuro420's DIY CFL grow

So I have learned quite a bit from my first real grow, like don't let the plants veg for two months before flowering them.

I have decided to start with 8 seeds, all bag seed. I germed them using the paper towel method. Once the seeds sprouted I planted them in 16.5oz water bottles cut in half.

This post marks the beggining of day two for my babies, and all of them have come out of the soil to say hi. All but two have shucked their shells already too.

I am planing on taking only the strongest three for this project. I am a little unsure on when I should start doing nutes, but I still have time to figure that out. I will update like every three days with pictures.

Lets hope things go well this time. I think they will because my attention to detail is a little bit better this time, so we will see.

Alright, so not exactly three days but I have been busy. Lay off of me, theoretical audience. Jesus.

Anyway, today is day 6 and I am really starting to be able to tell who is cutting it and who is not going to make the grade. I have one little plant that is just not making it. It feels like it is in a constant struggle, even though it is in the exact same conditions as the other plants. I guess it is just weaker than all of the others. I am watering them about every three days. Temps are between 77-83, so I think I am alright in that department. I think I am going to put them on their 18/6 light cycle tonight, or as I like to call it, the big girl light cycle.

They should have almost pushed out their third set of leaves by tomorrow morning. Every day I am getting closer and closer to where I want to be, feeding with nutes. I have them under 6 23w CFL's, so I am running 9600 lumens. Won't be enough for very long, but it will suffice for now.

Not much else to state, so I guess all I can hope for is some helpful feedback. Any suggestions/advice?

Ohh lala looking like a good start

What type of soil are you using??? When do you plan on transplanting??? Also, when you do trans how will you be getting them out of those water bottles they have little ridges right?

when feeding nutes it mainly depends on the type of you soil you have. if it's all organic nutes you can feed a low 1/4 tsp of nutes beggining in the 2nd week.

Remember npk 20-20-20 is great for veg and flowering. plants in veg like higher N and plants in flowering like higher P

Ok so quick update. I have several plants that are straight out performing the others, and I have some Grape Kush seeds I just got. My question is this, should I transplant the strongest ones to bigger pots and kill the smallest ones? I have pictures of my babies and root growth. I am worried about them getting root bound in such small containers. What do you guys think?


I REALLY want to try growing some of this Grape Kush. I have sampled the offerings it has to give and I want them badly. When I start them I will probably just lump it in with this grow journal.

How are you going to get them out since your bottles have ridges????

I cut the bottle away from them. It is a very long and tedious process, but I like it this way better. It is basically surgery for plants. I transplanted one last night, and she is doing fantastic.

I will keep you all updated. More to come.

actually i find you can be quite rough with the roots, no its defenitly not good and will set them back a day or two, but roots regrow constantly. You should keep in mind that the tallest are usually males, but not true at all, in fact my current grow came from a plant that outgrew the males from day one. As far as nutes go, if your in good soil you can usually wait 3 weeks. But if its inert, you may need it sooner. Just start the nutes off as weak as you can(1/4 strength) and work your way up. Remember with nutes less is more.

lampshade said:

actually i find you can be quite rough with the roots, no its defenitly not good and will set them back a day or two, but roots regrow constantly. You should keep in mind that the tallest are usually males, but not true at all, in fact my current grow came from a plant that outgrew the males from day one. As far as nutes go, if your in good soil you can usually wait 3 weeks. But if its inert, you may need it sooner. Just start the nutes off as weak as you can(1/4 strength) and work your way up. Remember with nutes less is more.

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true that usally the tallest ones are male "usually" but in my current situation my tallest and bushiest was my main ho and my other one was my lankiest hoodrat check it...

the biggest one to the bottom left fem and the ugliest one top right fem and the rest were fuckin males.

the other pic is the biggest bitch

nice and ghetto lol...looking good though

Those are looking quite dandy bro... I want some hahaha.

Ok, so I know I said I would update every three days or so, but I have been busy as fuck.

It is now then end of day 18. I have transplanted them to 2 liter bottles with the tops cut off, and they are loving it. I think I let them go in those small water bottles for too long, and they got root bound. They seem to be blowing up in these 2 liter bottles.

I just started them on Dyna grows grow nutes today. I am at 1/4 strength now, and in 7 days I plan on bumping it up to 1/2 strength. If all goes well, on March 4th I am going to bump them up to full strength. After a week of full strength I am going to cut the nutes completely and give them straight ph balanced water to get them ready for flowering nutes. Hopefully by day 45 I should have preflowers and I will be able to seperate the males from my beautiful ladies. Regardless, I am going to start them flowering at day 45.

Everything is going really well. The plants seem really dense and they have nice thick stems. They look a little pale, which I think is from lack of nitrogen, so hopefully todays nute feeding will clear that up.

How long should I wait between nute feedings? I was thinking one watering with nutes, then one without, then back on. I am just really afraid of nute burning these babies.

As always, any feedback is appreciated.

p.s. Should be getting my 400w HPS sometime this week. When I get it I was thinking about using that to run througfh the rest of my veg stage and then into flowering. Should I throw my daylight CFLs in with the 400w to give them more blue spectrum, or would that be a bad idea? Help me out guys.

Dude sounds like you got a great plant. Nutes should be feed everyother watering, so you don't get nute lock up. I also would reccomend using the cfls around the plants in addition the the hps. The hps does penatrate the canopy good, but not that good and the cfls around it would be ideal.....

Ok, so I am at day 25, and I am having problems. I am assuming it is mostly because they are root bound, but there has to be another problem here. I am already getting the rootbound problem taken care of, but I don't know what is wrong with them. I took individual pictures because they are all showing different but similar signs. Please, any help you guys can give me would be helpful, because I am at a loss as to what to do right now besides replant them.

Picture 1 is plant 1 and so on. Last picture is them all together. Please help me bring my babies back to life, because I am at a loss.

kuro420 said:

Ok, so I am at day 25, and I am having problems. I am assuming it is mostly because they are root bound, but there has to be another problem here. I am already getting the rootbound problem taken care of, but I don't know what is wrong with them. I took individual pictures because they are all showing different but similar signs. Please, any help you guys can give me would be helpful, because I am at a loss as to what to do right now besides replant them.

Picture 1 is plant 1 and so on. Last picture is them all together. Please help me bring my babies back to life, because I am at a loss.

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They need nitrogen, since they are in small pots, its almost as if you were growing them hydroponically. Since the soil is depleted of nutes. Are you using any kind of nutes?

lampshade said:

They need nitrogen, since they are in small pots, its almost as if you were growing them hydroponically. Since the soil is depleted of nutes. Are you using any kind of nutes?

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Yes, I am using nutes. I am using Dyna-grow grow and when I go to flowering I am going to be using Dyna-grow bloom. I have also switched soils to a Kellog organic soil. I have only transplanted one at this point because I am waiting for my grow bags to show up from HTG supply. I don't know how fast they are with shipping so I don't really know when they are going to be getting here.

I also recieved my 400w HPS in the mail today. I am very pleased, but I just have one question. I ordered this bulb from HTG at the same time I ordered the grow bags: http://htgsupply.com/viewproduct.asp?productID=47851

Please tell me I got the right socket type. I will be so pissed if I didn't. I took a picture of the socket on my 400w HPS. Can anyone tell me if I got the right shit?

Thanks in advance. Without you guys, I never would have made it this far.

It should be s51 fits almost all 400 watt moguls. Just check the box and make sure it takes S51. This is what your bulb is. If they sent the mogul with the ballast, then your good dude...

Alright, so I know that was a large gap but shit has been eventful. I got my 400w HPS all set up, new bulb from HTG in it and all. I am very happy with it, and my plants seem to be happy as well. I have at least two females right now, but I am not worried, I have my grape kush coming up so I am cool.

I think I should trim the lower branches off of the plant in the small water container because I think those are eating up all of the nutes and shit. I still am not sure though, maybe you guys can clear that up for me.

Got my poly put down, seems to be doing a great job. Happy with the grow bags. I am going to start my babies on flowering on St. Patricks day, the greenest day of the year. I laid off of the veg nutes because I changed soils and I didn't want to stress them any further or risk burning them. Them being root bound for that long was enough.

Anyway, I have camping to start packing for. Tell me what you guys think so far.

Pic 1 is all three plants
Pic 2 is my new light
Pic 3 is their home
Pic 4 is the new soil I am using. All organic, I love it.
Pic 5 is some preflowers on the middle plant
Pic 6 is the top of the same plant
Pic 7 is the top preflowers of the small plant in the growbag
Pic 8 is the same plant, full view. She still hasn't fully rebound from being root bound.
Pic 9 is the plant that I think should have the lower branches trimmed.

Do you guys think I should start them back on grow nutes, or should I just wait until they get into flowering and then hit them with the bloom nutes?

My baby is dying and I can't figure out why. Brown spots on the leaves, most of the leaves are yellow, I don't understand what is going on. Help?