New grower. Using cfl. Transplant outside later. Any help greatly appreciated.

i was trying to keep these babies alive till transplant outside in early may. I have 4 23w cfls at 2700 lumens a piece and 6500 kelvin spectrum. Split at a 45° angle, all parts of plants 5-7 inches from bulbs. A duct fan blowing across them and access to two windows for fresh air currents, along with some morning sun and afternoon indirect rays. I have them surrounded by street signs which i learned are made of retroreflective aluminum so i figure thats perfect .So far im pretty sure ive overwatered, over potted, nute burn, light burned, heat burned, move stressed, gnat invasion. You name what u can do wrong and ive already done it. But all things considered they are still alive and finally starting to grow again i believe .New growth looks healthier than anything else. I am currently running lights 16 hours on and plan on scaling back to 14 hours by beginning of may to match outside sun hours when transplanted. I guess im wondering.... Am i doin ok? Any help or advice or criticism or praise is greatly appreciated. Happy growing. Thank you.

Lol sounds like you've got the concepts down, but I have a couple tips that might help you.

• Before I start, the best advice I can give is to start a grow journal. Write down your specs, then keep track of the environment, chores done, changes in plants, etc. it can come in WAY handy in the future. Just know you'll look back at it in 4 years or so and say "I can't believe how little I knew back then!" Here are a few points to keep track of:
  • Temperature and Humidity
  • Watering/feeding
  • pH (Soil and water)
  • When you spray
  • When you see a change in the plant or environment
  • when you scouted for bugs, and if you saw any
• Air Movement
  • You want air moving, but you don't want a fan constantly blowing directly on your plants. They'll get 'wind burn'
  • If you have an oscillating fan, that would be the best thing to use.
• Reflection
  • Something similar to this came up on the Dude Grows Show awhile back. Some guy was talking about covering his grow walls in something like the reflector tape like they have on construction barrels. You had the right idea, trying to send the light back towards the plant with as little light lost as possible. The problem is that you want as much uniformity as you can get too to avoid any "Hot-spots" of light. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, the best thing to use is flat white paint, or something purpose made for the job, like Panda Film or Reflective Mylar.
• Light
  • You should actually be on 18/6 (18 hours light on/6 hours light off) to avoid potential unwanted flowering with certain strains. I can't say 16/8 will definitely cause problems, but it will with certain strains. I dealt with this recently myself, I have a Jack Herrer that is STUPID sensitive to photoperiod. You could be on a 17/7 light schedule and that thing will start flowering.
  • When the time does come to put them out, do it slowly so they don't get shocked by the difference in light intensity. 72W isn't much at all, so be careful with the transition.

That should be enough to get you started, I'm gonna shoot you a Direct Message so you can get ahold of me if you have any questions, Since I don't get on RIU much anymore. I did alot of the same things when I first started, I wish someone would have offered to help me get it figured out, but because they didn't I made it my mission to help others in this boat so they don't need to suffer through what I did.

5-7" is to far for CFL's

More them alot closer, like 1 - 1.5"

TurboTokes said:

5-7" is to far for CFL's

More them alot closer, like 1 - 1.5"

Click to expand...

This 1000x.

The difference in intensity of 2" away and 5-7" away is massive with a 23w CFL. Inadequate light levels exacerbate all kinds of problems you might run into.