Newb's CFL Grow

Hi all.

I have been browsing the forums for the past couple weeks since I have started growing myself (or shortly thereafter). Admittedly, I kinda jumped in without any prep/research, simply so that I would not be able to put it off any longer. So, here I am now, after having read this and other related forums to get started, looking for guidance throughout the rest of my first grow. You may come to find that there is not much more money to be put into this grow, so hopefully I have all that will be needed for the most part. What I have now...

A box - 4' long, 46" tall and 2' deep. It is an old job box and i extended the top a bit with mold/mildew/fire resistant 5/8" drywall.
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An economy in-line fan (140 CFM, iirc(I will get name of it when i relocate the box for it)), wrapped in horse leggings to quiet it down a bit for the time being.
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Temps- maxing at ~93F (ambient temps basically). Because of this the 6 hour night time is during the hot hours of the day here, (12pm - 6pm).
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Leaves spotting/discoloration - I am using XNutrients Micro, Veg & Bloom (3 parts) and 1 drop per gal. super thrive. Micro is full strength as is veg (as of 2 days ago, prior both were half strength), and half strength bloom now (was quarter strength 2 days ago.

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DIY (Of course) lighting mount (?). There is 4 50w T5 H/O surrounded by 16 23 watt cfl's. All is mounted on a 18" x 45" x 3/4" piece of particle board. Which I am considering encasing totally (plexi-glass on the bottom of course) and making it air cooled by my 4" inline. I will post pic soon of the 4" inline fan already going through the light mounting board so it is sucking air out at the level of the lights currently, (picture is worth a thousand words here, soon).
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All connections made with wire nuts inside of 1 of the 3 junction boxes. Light is hung by chains on either side that are adjusted outside of the box so the light can be pulled tight to the ceiling if need be.
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I am doing a DWC set up now, (feel free not to ask how I here). Also is Co2, at about 200 bpm. Air pump which after reading another post earlier I believe I should move out of the box to help keeps temps down? (Yes that's a question)
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Just another pic.
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Questions, comments, complaints... Leave them below! Thanks again to this forum and other like it for getting me to this point

P.S. I'm sure I left some stuff out i.e. 2 120 mm fans being used as intake. They are part of a pc cooler with radiator that I am thinking about turning into a mini ac unit.

Little update and still hoping for some help

Temps getting lower (ambient), dropped box temps 5 degrees F.

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From left to right - Fire OG : Unknoown (iirc its another JV86 or Blue Dream. Have the bag it came in around somewhere, just need to find it) : JV86 (for pretty sure). Also did a little cleaning in there.
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Just got this on friday. ~3 days after my deficiencies started to appear. On Thursday (using the liquid test kit/method for pH testing), I added ~2 cap-fulls of pH up and I was still reading sub 6pH (the lowest my liquid test kit goes is 6.0pH). I was a little surprised at adding that much and still no reading so I got a pH pen, tested the water and it was right about 6.0 pH.
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Roots just started to appear! They have been in the pots exactly 1 week now. Two were transplanted from soil and the third ( the middle (unknown) plant) was a fresh clone from the pharmacy.
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The Fire OG, some of the stems put on over an inch since yesterday, did a little fim'ing (think that is the right term) to it yesterday too. For the most part, all the new growth is looking good. That is coming from someone that doesn't know shit though.
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The Unknown, new growth still not looking to good.and kinda droopy looking. At bottom left of the second picture you can see very dark brown spotting on leaves, I need help with this. Please, throw me a bone.
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Here is how I adjust my lights. currently they are as low as i can get them and that's apx. 5 inches above the plants. Gonna look at my space again to see if I can get them lower.
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The nutrients that I am using. Also using Super Thrive @ a drop a gal.
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A Few Questions I am hoping o get some help with:

1) Top Feeding: When can/should I stop? Would a top drip be beneficial throughout the grow?

2) Scrog: I wanted to put netting in there but not sure what height I should put it at. The space from the top of the net pots to the bottom of the lights (when fully raised) is 26".

3) Flowering: I would like to start the flowering process as soon as the deficiencies are taken care of and temps are constant sub 90 degrees F. All the plants are clones I got from 2 to 3 weeks ago. Ya or Nay?

4) I think my water temp is to high. Should I be concerned? Could i just wait till is max at a certain then move into flower?

That's all for now.

I do have a little ppm do dad that should be here Tuesday I hope, not sure if that would effect any answers.

Hi. Just a little update. Cut off most of the dead stuff and they seem to be growing better every day since the pH got fixed. So, starting to breath a little deeper Also located the bag the 'Unknown' plant was in, it is another JV86. Can't say I'm to thrilled about that, much rather have 3 diff strains. Either way, things seem to be settling down, so, can't complain to much. Few pics for today, also before I forget, wanted to say that r/o water is being used. The pics..

Fire OG: Cut off all the dark brown spots (I think) and she still seems to be growing pretty good.
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JV86 'A': I wanted to say she was looking less droopy today, but, in this pic she looks pretty droopy so I won't say that. Also some leaves curling up a bit, not sure if that is something to worry about, pretty warm day though.
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JV86 'B': Bit of work with the scissors on her to remove the dead stuff. I believe all the new growth is looking pretty decent (by my standards (which are borderline non-existent)), so that's positive!
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BlueDream that may be the cause of an early death of JV86 (of course, that would mean that I keep her alive(if it even is a her)). I am really looking forward to starting one from seed.
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Just for comparison.
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Hi. All my previous pictures got deleted by accident, and I just got a couple for tonight. Things are continuing to look better though.

Got some of this at the store today, guy said plants like it...



pH went down a bit and Temps continue to go down for the water and box (~83 F)



The blue Dream:



The line up (JV86 'A' in middle And 'B' is on the right)



The Fire OG and JV86 'A'




Got some feminized sativa seeds



Started doing a little lst after the pics were taken, should have some new ones up tomorrow.

Today's update. Really no idea how old anything is so just gonna call it week 5 (as of this past Monday) for the clones and week 1 for the Blue dream that way they are a month apart. I'm sure its messed up but w/e.

Anyways. Got a couple things today..

Top Feed system: Already had the pump and hose. Dude at the hydro show gave me the gang valve for like $2.50 and it seems pretty decent (heavy). 2 gal. per hour drip things were like 25 cents each. Not sure why I didn't make this earlier instead of top feeding a few times a day by hand. Also not sure if my plants will like this, guy at the hydro said the would and I'm pretty sure I have read somewhere they would... Also got some silica, will get a pic of it up. It is supposed to help with heat and.. I'm drawing a blank.


Here is it in test run, you can see it has a decent drip rate.


LST: Started last night, I have already done some topping and fim'ing the past couple weeks.
This pic is right after the LST/Super Cropping. All 3 got Super cropped in several locations.


Not sure if I mentioned before but the light got lowered and it is a bit of a pita now taking pics.

Fire OG: You can see the breakage there on the left main stem, yet everything is pointing back up, even the right top which is now tied for lowest set of leaves on the plant. She took a lickin'


JV86 'A': Bent her up quite a bit to try ant let the light in but she is really wrapped around he stalk (which is super cropped about half way up leaning away from the camera in this pic. The mid left piece of new growth got its branched snapped pretty bad, we'll see what happens with it.


My Finger & JV86 'B': Can't recall if I snapped her or not, but shes got it goin' on now. Want to get rid of the rest of the dead stuff soon, as it seems we may be in the clear here for a minute.



Here they are, sittin pretty.



Lastly the Blue Dream and some more finger: Do they normally grow this slow?

Couple more pictures.

Here's the Silica. The guy said plants like it..


The Fire OG: Odd looking leaves are from fim'ing/attempted fim'ing


JV86 'A'


JV86 'B'

Update For the day:

Got a quality harvest here, will be smoking good tonight!


The Fire OG - Was easy on her today, she still has a delicate set of branches from the super cropping. did trim off some leaves that were point straight down and/or not looking healthy though.


JV86 A: you can see where I harvested my smoke from in the 2nd pic. She is looking less droopy today, I did remove some leaves from her as well, for the same reasons.


JV86 B: More of the same, assuming it is nute burn, it is most evident on her.


I think she is frozen in time, considering smoking it.


Little project for the weekend, hopefully I can get a bit to focus on it an I have some cool plans for it. Also going to do a water change and try and normalize the environment for these ladies. Some other surprises may be in store. My pH pen is not working properly (will test the quality of the customer service at my local hydro tomorrow) and my ppm pen should be arriving tomorrow finally.


P.s. No idea what the attached thumbnails are about... And the grayed out pic are a transfer error from my phone to pc I'm guessing, no idea..

pic #1, your smoking the trimmings? in veg? and thats good harvesting quality? confused.

HueHueHue... Just playin. That is just some branches that did not survive my super cropping. After I threw it out, I instantly wished I had taken a picture of it in my piece. I have gotten better though (no more broken branches) and believe I should not have anymore quality harvest for a while.

Hi, just a little update. Picked up some goodies for this weekends overhaul & did a partial water change.

(Partial) Water change. Ty gravity and old fish tank 'vacuum'. Just a 5 gal(of ~14 gal) change. Didn't get the results I was hoping for, but it is better for sure.


New bulbs: Going to try to put one of these on each end of the T5 ballast/hood. Want to gut my T5 hood first though as it takes up a ton of space. I think it should be easy.


Cheap silver tape, 2x Mongul Base, Free timer (kinda dinky, gonna put small stuff on it to give my other one some breathing room, and a $5 dollar used Air King 6" i believe.


Guy didn't even bat an eye when I brought in my pH meter that was not working properly, and handed me a new one (A+ on the CS RASA Hydro in san jose). Also the PPM meter came in the mail today and confirmed and confirmed that I was stupidly (newbly) high, in the ppm department. I was around 3,500 ppm, now were about 2,400. Considering how high it was, I'm surprised the plants don't look worse. Either way, gonna do a water change this weekend and hope to get it sub 1k ppm.


Pics of the ladies in a little bit.

Picked this up, not sure what I want to have the humidity at..

Pic Update, not much going on, need to let them grow a bit before anymore fimming/cropping.

Yes, this is a new pic, little girl (I title by hope), is still frozen.


Fire OG: looking nice I suppose, getting direct light at all 'top' locations. Think there are 10+ now on her. Not sure if 'top' is the correct term, please correct me if I'm wrong.


JV86 A: Not much going on here, you can see in the 3rd pic best where I stacked the fan leaves for better light. They were more vertical before the stacking.


JV86 B: Looking fairly happy aside from the nute burn (I assume that's what it is). If I can just figure that out we should be stylin.


Cheese


Got one more pic for tonight I forgot to take..

Here's the pics i forgot to take.

JV86 A: Haven't checked the roots since I put the top drip system and only noticed today when playing with the ppm pen. Nice to see this, almost want to smok them.


Fire OG: Looking happy. (To me anyways, I don't know shit).


Getting the urge to fim tonight and got 6 hours free tomorrow to work on my light/grow box Stay tuned.

P.s. JV86 B is just now showing roots coming out of the basket.

Little update.. Got another project going as well.

Just a couple pics of the new light and new room, plants had a rough day, in just r/o water for the night. Still a bit of work to do.

Update for today.

Finished filling my tub this morning, added nutes and pH'ed. Ppm before nutes was 39 (R/O water, I don't think I rinsed my tub/hoses etc. well enough as straight r/o should be lower) and I finished with 785 ppm. I added 150 ml for each the micro and veg nutrients, 0.8 ml super thrive and 20 ml each of amino acids, silica and bloom. The pH was adjusted to 5.6.


The blue dream is starting it's 2nd set of leaves after being knocked on the ground and thrown out of its 'pot' yesterday. I think it's a female as I don't any guys that tough.


Fire OG: starting to get some of her roots back (back side of net pot in the water) after a rough day yesterday. Fim'ed (several locations (5'ish)) and super cropped today.



Jv86 A: Roots coming back here too. Lots of fim'ing on her (5+ locations) and a little super cropping.


JV86 B: still no roots showing for her. Also a bit of fim'ing and super cropping.


Very warm day, box temps are very close to ambient.


If anyone was thinking I should move my light down, here is one of the things stopping me (please see photo at the bottom of this post(still going to replace it with a longer piece)), the other being that I did get a crispy leaf off of the top of the fire OG this evening. The light was apx 5" from the crispy leaf. My favorite part of this photo is my new pulley system for the lights. No more hernias trying to adjust my light, yay.

P.S. I am hopping that after I install the Plexiglas on the 'hood' (making it air cooled) I can get the lights within a couple inches of the light.

Top pile for the most part is leaves that were not looking good and the bottom for the most part is from fim'ing.


Also did some cleaning.

Got some more Reflective liner for the walls but need to figure want to figure out what i want to do with my fans first.




P.S. Wanted to update the lighting. With the new (in progress) hood we are running 14 (10@2700k 4@5600k) x 23 watt cfl , 2 (6400k iirc) x 125 watt cfl and 4 (mix, 2@2700 1@5600k and 1 'BluePlus' bulb which is 15,000k+) x 50 watt t5 h/o for a total of 772 (actual) watts. I will be changing the 125 watt cfl's with 2700k's when we start flowering.

Also watered the Blue Dream today with water from the res.. It has had some sort of nutes since before birth as it was germinated in a light super thrive mix then planted in the camo bag soil. Honestly I am not to concerned with the blue dream, just using it as an experiment for when I start my sativa (still a secret) seeds for next grow to see what kind of punishment it can handle early on.

Hi, Update. Started getting some of the wall reflector up. I think it should work nicely, gonna pick some more up and hopefully finish it tomorrow. Still need to clean up what I have started putting up. Still need to put my intake in, I am thinking about putting it just above the top of the res, still have a bit of work left on the light hood.


The dripers I had stopped allowing any flow through so just running the tubing with no driper. Not sure if the plants will like it or not, we'll see. Just thinking now, I think I will start flowering soon, probably after the last (yesterdays) fim'ing starts growing in, couple few days at most I would think.




I saw the Blue Dream, I had scissors in my hand. It's not my fault.



Fire OG: Seems to be happier now. The leaves on her a super soft and moist now.



JV86 A: still staying compact compared B. Sometimes I wonder if they both really are JV86s... not that much though.



JV86 B: She has stiffened up a lot since I got the second fan in. Most noticeable nute burn on her, I am hoping it is just working the overdose through and that should stop.





Almost finished. Or maybe almost most the way there. I am pleased with the progress though.



Let me know if any glaring issues if you see them please. Thanks. Also the lights stay around 5 inches to maintain safe distance.

Hi, update for tonight, also as of yesterday it is week 6.

Got some Hygrozyme, it's supposed to help keep the roots healthy/clean (irc), added 30 ml. 823 ppm ppm today.


This thing.


Fire OG


JV86 A


JV86 B


They seem to like the new reflective walls a lot.


No cutting tonight. Think I may have some time tomorrow to tighten up the walls and finish the light. Maybe dreaming though.

Quick update. Got the light finished I believe.
Picture here is when front facing board is being glued to the plexi glass. I got the plexi for free, and its not cheap so I didn't care about having a seam in it, also the seem is pretty tight & held with there with little scraps glued on. So I'm happy with it.


These 2 pictures are just before finished (tightened up some of the reflective material), With and without the plexi on. Bottom right is where I will be hooking up my 4" exhaust fan to suck air in to the hod through all the holes I drilled in the plexi glass. Most of the holes are in the far corner from the intake steadily decreasing moving closer to the intake, hope it works well, will be hooking it up around 6 this evening.


P.S. Meant to post this a few hours ago.

Update, Good and not so good: The Good - I got my light finished today, finally. Grow room temps drop ~10 degrees F while being able to let the plants touch the plexi which is about an inch away from the cfl's. Much more than I had hoped for, so I am really pleased.
The Bad - Getting thes brown spots back on the leaves again... No Idea, I made a thread in the plant problems forums though and maybe someone will be able to help me.

FIre OG


JV86 A


JV86 B






Blue Dream started it's 3rd set of leaves.


Not so happy pictures. =\
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P.S. Midnight: Just got the intake fan installed. Pictures tomorrow.