CFL Grow In Distress

Heya all.

Long time lurker, first time poster. I recently moved into an apartment (January) with my girlfriend, and in late April I started my first closet grow.

The original plan was to germinate with paper towels, but for some reason my ratio was something like 1:10 that actually germinated. Because of the lack of success in germination, I spent about 8$ and bought peat pellets and a container for them. This method did the trick, and in three days I had five plants growing. (One from paper towels, four from pellets)

Now. The plant from towels was potted in miracle grow soil, and broke ground exactly 7 days before the other four plants. It was placed under 5 26 Watt CFLs, and left to grow.

Seven days later, the other plants were potted in plastic cups as well, but in nutrient free soil. (After discovering the miracle grow soil had time release nutes) Everything was purchased at either Wal-Mart or other local hardware stores, because Maine is devoid of hydro shops.

A few weeks into the grow, and everything was going good. The plants were smaller than normal (From what I have seen and read) so I added two 2’ grow lights (Again, Wal-Mart) to the now seven 26 watt CFLs.

The plat in Miracle Grow soil had a big headstart on the others, and was twice the size after about four weeks. One night coming home from work (11PM) the entire plant was wilted down, and the leaves were starting to become crunchy. Thinking I must have dry spots in the root system, I flushed the plant in the shower, and took the opportunity to do so as well with the four other plants, who were still much smaller, and starting to yellow rather quickly.

The flush did wonders for the big plant, and the leaves perked back up some within a few hours. The four others, however, continued to yellow (The reason for writing this log)

I now currently have all plants in 3 gallon buckets I got from a local greenhouse, and they are all planted in nutrient less soil. They are around day 60, And I planned to Veg for only 5 weeks. The height is not and issue, but the smell will be if I ever get these plants healthy enough to flower… The closet is about 6’Hx4’Wx2’D. I have been on a very tight budget, and have actually gone far over what I originally intended to spend on this first attempt. So now, some spec’s on the setup.

2 areas, one for the larger plant, and one for the four smaller ones. The larger plant is under 3 26watt cfls, and has a 2’ grow light on the wall less than 2 inches beside it. I know this isn’t enough light, and plan on adding 3-6 more cfls in the next week or so. This is only like this because yesterday I purchased 2 65watt cfl flood lights, and spent much of the night wiring, hanging and wondering how to deal with the height difference. The four plants also have 2 26 watt cfls directly in between them, just because they were kicking around after the reset.

About five weeks in, I gave all the plants a half dose of Miracle Grow 24=8=16 general plant food, and saw no improvement, so I stopped to avoid doing something irreparable. Since then, nothing has improved. The bottom 2/3 of the plants have lost their leaves (Either falling off, or me removing them because they were not salvageable) I am at a loss as to why this could happen.

I thought it could be a nitrogen deficiency, so today when I watered them, I added a full dose of nutes. I figure that they couldn’t hurt things more than they already are. The plants are about 6-10 inches tall, and all the foliage is near the top of the plant. It has been yellowing from the bottom up for a month.

The temperature of the room goes from 70-83/84. I have two fans in the closet, one blowing up, the other blowing on the bigger plant. There is no door to the closet, so I constructed one out of canvas and Mylar. (Keeps the light in well) There is an Air Conditioner about 10 feet across the open bedroom, constantly on low. I am pulling air from around the bottom of the “door” where it is open a little at the bottom. I will be putting a curtain up that boasts 99.9% light resistant when I get to 12/12 and have to worry about light leakage.

Humidity is from 30-40%, and the water I am using has been set out for about 48 hours after being pulled from the tap.

The plants have always been on a 24 hour light swing, but I am starting 18/6 tonight.

Any and all advice will be amazingly helpful. “Get a HPS” will not be. Because of smell, I am sticking with CFLs and trying to regulate growth at least a small amount. I also don’t have the budget at the moment to upgrade much. If we are talking 10-30$, that could be doable, but much over that needs to wait till I yield enough to cover investments already tied up. I understand not to expect much, especially from bag seed, but I would like to think I can accomplish anything with a little tweaking.

As I am not currently at home, I don’t have pictures. I will upload recent images around 11PM EST. Thanks all!

Alright.. a lot to expect people to read with no pics, so take some soon. First, don't veg your plants at 24 hours daylight. It doesn't help, even if it did a smidge, it's wasteful, and just not natural bra. Antartica is only place I know that gets 24 daylight, and there's no pot there bra. Also marijuana grows it's roots at night. People who say 24 hours light are usually the same morons who think more fertilizer than suggested will help a plant grow faster.

Good idea being careful with the nutes but it sounds like your problems could be deficiencies, not over fertilization. Every fertilizer is different, but once the plant is established you can fertilize half doses about every week. The best way is to slowly increase fertilizers. I use 20-20-20, so unfortunetly might be different for you. Another thing that struck me was using 3 gallon buckets? by my calculation thats about 10 litres!! That's Massive. Your plant will have lots of root space which is good but most people use about 1 gallon, or 2- 4 litre pots in the end.

Your room must smell like a farmer's field bra, ah that's rich. Careful not to overwater with those big pots, that could be part of your problems. Also with all that space maybe the plant can't reach enough fertilizer to optomize growth. Next time you can save some space, and go with 1 0r 2 gallon buckets.

What else....A yes the smell. HPS doesn't make stinkier bud bra. Good pot is what stinks. You heed what I'm saying and smell will be an issue down the line. Sometimes you can find strains that don't stink as much. I would stay away from skunks, or super-skunks, the reason is pretty self explanatory I think. I just bought this little 27 dollar Glade style plug in thing, that has a carbon filter, meant to eliminate smoke odour. Frankly it doesn't really do shit but it would if I had like three of them going at once. If your doors seal pretty well, staple a skirt to block the gap under some doors, keep windows open, and buy one of those double fan that are meant to fit into your window frame and pump air either in or out of rooms.

If you dont expect much from your bag seed, because the pot you got it from was crap, I recomend getting better seeds. If your gonna do this grow something sweet you've always wanted to smoke. The bag-seed could easily rock, so now try expecting awsome bud and it might come true, like a self fulfilling prophecy.

Hey NorthWest! Thanks for the input!

I know the original post was lenghty, I got carried away typing it up at work. I also managed to lose my SD card which had the pictures on it, so I wasn't able to upload them as planned last night. It took some work, but the timer is working correctly now, and they are on an 18/6 light cycle.

The pots that they plants are in may only be 2 gallon. I went by what the woman at the greenhouse said, but she could have been wrong. They are big, but not enormeous. (I think the bottom fits into a 12 inch wide tray for water collection)

None the less - The girlfriend is getting a new SD card, and pictures will be on the way tonight.

topher,

Sorry to hear of your troubles, but I just went through a similar learning experience. Most 1st grows have the problem of too much as opposed to too little. It's very easy to do, and the temptation is just about irresistible for a 1st grow. The large pot size would lead me to think there was enough nutes for the stage your plants sound like they are in. Posting the soil that your are using will help in diagnosis. Post pics over in the plant problem forum, you'll usually get much faster feedback for these kind of troubles.

growone

Ya, it could be a 2 gallon. That's still a bit big, but fine for now. I use 1 gallon, and for me it's the perfect size. When using CFL's typically I've found flowering smaller plants, 6 to 12 inches, makes the best size plants for CFL growing. Don't forget they can increase 3X during the first 3 weeks of flowering, meaning you'll still get a pretty big yield per plant in the end anyway. It's tempting to make the plant really big in veg, but unless you tie branches and shape the thing into a bonzi, you'll get skinny droopy buds, and it's just not with it.

could still be the tap water even tho you leave it out for 48 hrs that wont change the ph if its off .. id buy a cheap ph tester like this http://www.acehardwaresuperstore.com/rapitest-soil-ph-tester-tests-acid--compost-p-59623.html?ref=42 you could have nute lockout due to high or low PH
also goto a walmart o whatever and get a small aquarium pump and airstone for your water

NorthWest - Thanks for the interest! I am currently germinating 6 new seeds in peat pods, and plan to veg them for only 4 weeks, growing in regular plastic cups. I planned to be a couple weeks into flowering now, but I want to get the plants healthy again before going to 12/12.

Buckshot - This is a good point. I actually have a spare aquarium air pump kicking around, I'll rig that up to my 5 gallon water container tonight.


I really wish I could get those pictures up to show exactly what is going on, I think it would help alot. Damn 12 horu work days. >.<

Wooooot. Girlfriend picked up another SD card while I'm at work... Pictures tonight! =)

Ok! So I have some pictures now to back up that looooong post, so let's get to it.

First, we will go with the entire grow setup. It's pretty McGyver'd, so I am open to any thoughts of changes.






This is the setup for the four smaller plants, and then the one bigger plant.

Alright. SOIL being used is This -



Now for the plants. Plant A!



This is the largest of the plants. It has (what I think) is pretty severe damage. This plant was seemingly dead a few weeks back, and has rebounded alright. Next is an upclose picture of the damage.

Next, Plants B, C, D, E. Sequentially.





B ^


C V

Plants D and E!








SO! Alot of the same. Stunted growth, lots of yellowing. I have 6 more seeds germinating, and I plan to keep it simple with them. I want to flower everything in 3 weeks from today, regardless.

No ideas as to what is causing this, or even what could make it go smoother? Awaiting any help provided! =)

Okay, there's a few things I see you can do here to make better use of your light power. The larger plant seriously looks like it's starving for light. Looks like it's not lacking nutrients but doesn't have the power to process them. First of all reflector are essential for making your CFLs function like a mini HPS! More light comes out of the side of a CFL light than the end, so making a reflector out of half a pop can is the trick. there's a video of how just to do it on youtube. Another thing I think would work wonders would be switching your light systems. Take both those rectangular reflectors and position them vertically, opposite each other, around the sides of the large plant, enveloping all the side foliage, take one more CFL and position it 2 inches from the top of the plant. Prune the bottom 2 or 3 branches, (for clones or not). By doing this you'll get rid of what would be tiny bud anyway, and let light get in there and light the stem too, this is key to advanced growing.

You're plant will start to peak up in a couple days, start slowly using more nutes, organic is best. Especially for flowering, get some bat guano, you don't want to risk exposure to all the fucked up chemicals in chem-fertz. Your kids balls might not drop, and there's high risk of cancer, trust me there just nasty.

If what I see in your photos is all the lights you have, you should have the three CFL's originally from the large plant and 1 more with seedlings. This would be perfect to give all four seedling one CFL each. Get those lights close especially if your not using reflector cause they wont heat up. No more than 2 inches away. You could position that 3-light holder so it sits kinda amoungst the seedling, so the lights are sitting somewhat beside the plants but above them as well, but I would just build reflectors.

Thanks NW! I am now thinking about this closet into two enclosed areas, in an attempt to capture as much light as possable. I'm not entirely sure how to do this, because I am having a hell of a time as it is hanging my lights from the roof to the desired location. I also am looking at making a light fixture for more 26 watt cfls. A power strip and four small adapters makes an easy 100 watt fixture, but then how do I hang it above the plants without a million wires? I want to get this cleaned up and running alot smoother.

Oh, And I can make about 5 of those 3 bulb holders... It costs about 6 dollars to change them from one to three. I just need a way to get them organized.

The bigger lights are 65Watt CFLs, if I didn't mention that.

Try and get an exacto blade for trimming those lower branches, you have too much dead foliage just hanging out, using valuable energy. Even if it's not dead prune those wimpy lower branches. With your exacto, try and shape your smaller plants to look something like a golf ball on a T, so they look like mostly stem with some really healthy newer growth on top. More branches doesn't mean more pot. Fewer branches which are better lit will give you more in the end.

I attach all my chords to the pole in closet, the one normally used for clothes. I would try and find a desk or shelving of some sort and raise everything you have about 3 feet upward. Use the 3 foot gap underneath for 18 hour veg and clone growing area. The space you created above is naturally used for flowering, and hopefully you can attach those lights to your clothes hanging pole. Have you thought about setting up what you have now the way I described above. That larger plant seriously looks like it wants some side-lighting, take those two rectangular lights with reflectors and snug them vertically beside the big boy, and put one of your CFL right on top. You're plant will thank you by granting you much bud. Also if you create a seperate space for flowering, get that big guy in ASAP. I know you want to wait, but it could increase up to 3X, so already, right now that puppy will increase to about 3 or 4 feet. Plus you can be smoken' some Fat Chron while your watching those 4 smaller guys exploding with bud.

I am definetly thinking about something like that. My idea was to make a rubbermade grow box, and toss it on the right side for veg.... then box off the entire left side where the bigger one is now and use it for flowering. I will use 8 cfls in the rubbermade, all 26watt.... and then the two 65s and 3-6 26s in the flowering part.

i need to make a reflector bad...ima look up that youtube video

One of my leaves is like that on the top and im not sure why ? Im not using cfls and im using a simlar soil to you