USKS' First grow

Hello, I am new here. I like this journal feature so i guess i will start a journal.
At the moment i am only growing 1 plant. it is approx 1 week old. it grew for 5 days on the window sill (approx.) Tonight is my baby's 2nd full 24 hour day under lights. My lights are typical flourecent light tubes for growing vegetables.
As i have odne some reading and research on the site, i have made the decision to go to compact fluorescent light. This is a better choice for me since it does not take up so much room. I will buy these lights within a week as my schedule permits.

My plan is to grow this plant until it becomes obvious if it is a male or female. Regardless of its sex, it will help me learn some general guidlines for how to grow. If i find out it is male i will ungracefully chunk it and then plant another one or two in hopes of a female.

For now my set up is mediocre at best. I have a simple 10-15 gallon pot and two flourecent light bulbs. The pot has been raised with tiles up to 2 inches from the light. I will take them out 1 by one as it gets taller, then when the tiles are finished i will actually raise the light.

Anyway, i dont know what else to say.
Here are three pictures.

The one by the ruler is day 4 or 5 by the window sill. it is about 3.5 inches tall.

The second picture is the night i transplanted it (3 days after the first picture) and the begining of its first 24 hour cycle (about 4 inches tall)

the third picture is after its first 24 hour cycle under lights and is about 4.5 inches tall.

I will try to do a daily log of when i water it and how much it grows.

The last time i watered it was 24 hours ago. I gave it about 2 cups of water (measuring cups, not drinking cups)

And it starts. Good luck

Thanks.
Hopefully I will get some CFL soon.
I've got my uncle coming in a few weeks. He will be randomly coming and going for the next month or so. I'm sorta worried because i enver know when he plans to come to my room or not. 1 time he might come and bother me early morning or 1 time he might never come to my room for his whole stay.
OH WELL.
I will be posting daily (if possible) stats of my plant. Growth and when i water.

Quick question
Is fish emulsion good? If so, when can i give my baby a fish emulsion?

So i've got a few more pictures for you.
My camera 'aint that great sorry.
Basically i took 1 picture at 1:30AM before i slept and 2 this morning.
they have officially ended their 2nd full 24 hour light schedule and are about 8 days old if i'm not mistaken.

in the first picture, i guess i took it just to take it... not to show any detail really.

In the second picture i noticed though the second pair of leaves that are coming out are already bigger than just 11 hours ago

in the third picture, you can see my plant is STILL approx 4.5 inches. i took someones advice 2 days ago to put it 2 inches away from the light and since then it stopped growing in height (which i guess is called stretching right?)

Also, is fish emulsion any good?
Any idea what kind of strain it is? i'm guessin indica?

btw, i'm still prayin my lone plant is a female. i may end up plantin 2 more to increase my odds.

I have a new set up now.

Before i had two long fluorecent tubes and 1 pot setting at the right hand side of these tubes. It probably wasnt getting a lot of light. My baby was and still is in a HUGE pot (easily over 10 gallons).

Now i have two CFLs. Each 23 watts (100 watts equivalent to incandecent) and they are 1600 lumens each with a color temperature of 6,500K. These bitches are WAY brighter than i thought they'd be which worries me.
I was told to keep my baby, for the previous set up, 2 inches away from the light.
Should i continue with the 2 inch rule?
Are these two bulbs over kill for my baby?
Here are two pics of what it looks like now.

Any and all comments are welcome as well as suggestions!


Also, i'm planning to put foil around at least half of this thing.
Tonight will mark the 3rd night of a 24/7 light schedule. But my baby is about 8 days old if i remember right... it was growin on a window sill for a while and since i put it 2 inches under the lights, its stopped growing so much in height (or stretching i guess).
I give it about 1 to 2 cups (measuring cups, not drinking cups) of water every night before i sleep.

I have a 5-1-1 fish emulsion i plan to feed my baby in 2 more weeks when it turns 3 weeksold.
i cant wait to see if its male or female.
after all the love and care i give this bitch, it better be female or i'll shit on it. i'll post this pics too lol

So as shown in reply #5 my set up is two CFLs at 45 degree apart and my baby was in the center of them both.

So i wake up this morning and my baby is bent over like a broke dick at 90 degrees trying to lean over to the light on the right for some reason.

Anyone know why it would favor 1 light over the other? they're both the same lights, and i put the baby in the center of them as best as i could because i read on the forum the CFL give off mroe light on their sides as opposed from their tops and thats why its a good idea to put thatm at 45 degree angles from eachother...

anyway
the second set of little leaves is at least 1.5 or 2 times bigger than they were only 8 or 9 hours ago.

I've got pics of the broke dick plant too. in the pics, i have already moved my baby off to the side in hopes it'll bend the other way.

alright so what i've gone ahead and done is pile up more soil. you can see there is about 2 inches all around the pot that could be more filled up. so i filled it up and gently packed the soil around my baby to where itw ould stand straight up.

now his stem is straight up and his leaves are pointing 90 degress some where else, but hopefully with the lights he'll straighten back up. also, i guess its good to pile up the soil more so itll kinda get rid of some of the stretching that occured when it was a baby.

now my baby is like 2 or 3 inches tall.

yea its always good to bury the plant as deep as you can because it will grow roots all through that stem that you burried and it grows better. New grow and the excitement begins. Subscribed!!

cool, so i'll get some more roots now then.
Right now i'm havin a problem with this biatch bendin over every 10 hours or so. i water it about once a day. today i watered twice since the soil i burried it with was really dry.
i bought a small box fan, and i got that thing runnin' on my baby throughout the day until i sleep now... i'm hopin it'll actually make it stronger like they say.

anywho, tonight marks the end of the 4th night of 24/7 lights and my baby is about 9 or 10 days old now.

id ease up on the watering if i was you, umm and i put em under 20/4 light schedule. i did the 24/7 this grow but i was uninformed of the best method. and when i switched to 12/12 they blew up in growth. Besides the watering maybe try only one light to see if it straightens out.

i'd ease up on the watering for sure. i never water mine two days in a row. overwatering is one of the most common and easy ways to hurt ur plant

cool.
TY for the watering advice.
I just cant help but water the thing lol
i even eat dinner by it. haha
But, as i said before, if it turns out this bitch is a male, i'm going to shit on it.

haha, lol. that is on the shitty part of only growing one plant. you have a 50/50 chance of getting zilch. i love kickin it with my plants too man. i feel like a proud parent or something

so the stems are kinda purpleish
what's that mean?

I have read it could be water stress. What is water stress? too much or too little water?
I also read this could be due to cooler temperatures. Also this has happened since i bought the box fan for it.

purple stems is normal most plants get em.

so update,
this bitch wont stop leanin over. it doesnt fall over, it just leans over... every god damn day no matter what i do. i pull the lights up so its about 3 inches away... pile up soil... no matter what.

so i've piled up the soil MORE. now the plant stands like 2 inches tall.
i've stopped watering it, and its about 3 to 4 inches away from the light.

on the flip side,
it's third set of leaves are just begining to emerge and the nodes are pretty close together (part of the reason i brought the lights up too)

3 pics.

the first 1 is november 9th 7:30 (approx)

the last two are november 10th 7:30 (approx)
so almost 24 hours apart.

Now that i look at the pics, it looks like the very tips of the leaves have the begining of whas is some yellowing. evidently this could be heat or overwatering. If it is either of those, i've got it fixed. 1) i'm watering ever 3 days now 2) i moved the lights about 3 to 4 inches away.

looks like a lotta growth in 24 hours i guess.... the third set of leaves is comin out too, its not very visible in these pictures though (they're very small right now)

that bending just looks like your fan pushing the plant and the plant trying to point towards the light. did you try using just one bulb? or maybe try to point the fan more at the bulb than the actual plant? anyway it seems to be doing fine. Good luck bro

lets see, i put it on 1 light today without the Y splitter. i got back home today, and its still pointing to the side, like its trying to reach the side of the lamp. so i put 1 bulb in WITH the Y splitter so the bulb is more on its side now to see what happens.

my fan is kinda pointed to the side of the plant... just to get a gentle breeze... right now even on its low setting it would easily push the plant over, its kind of a powerful fan for its size.

If my baby continues to bend like a broke dick, i'm going to see if i cant some how get the bulb entirely on its side... this would fix the problem for sure.