How high to veg in micro space?

[preacher]

Hey, there. This forum is great and got me going on my first grow!
HHMicrohand has helped me so far, but thought I would put this out there and get some opinions.

I have 5 plants now in 5.5 " pots with Ocean Forest and am using 1/2 strength sea tea (gardenville) every 5 days.

Here's how everything is looking.
<img src="http://www.420magazine.com/gallery/data/500/plants1.JPG" />

I'm curious how others think I should move forward here.

I'm still on 18/6 right now with 3, 42 watt cfl's. I also use 2 other task lights with 26 watt cfl's since I'm right next to it most of the day.

I have about 18 inches from floor to light, and my pots are 6 inches tall, so that leaves a whopping 12 inches for goodness.

Here's the space.
<img src="http://www.420magazine.com/gallery/data/500/box5.JPG" />

I obviously don't know how many, if any, females I have yet. I was thinking I could grow them to about 6 inches and then switch to 12/12 and the scrog them, but if they grow too tall I'm screwed.

Or I could LST them. But shouldn't I wait a while to flower if that's the case.

Anyway, this is my first grow, so I just don't know the best way to go about it in this amount of space. I have been reading up on *****'s article on height control. I'm keeping it within about 8 degrees or so from day to night so far. I'm going to put some hot water (Boss's idea) in there at night to get that closer. The spacing between sets seems to be fairly tight so far anyway.

Any thoughts? I would appreciate it.

Thanks!

[Boss]

I would go 12/12 now and cut off the bottom stems in a few weeks. You can also wrap the outside of a fan with a heating pad to add that extra 4-5 degrees if you dont want the humidity and temp drop of water.

[preacher]

Thanks, Boss!

[RooRman]

If you can fit them in there, you might want to transplant into bigger pots too. You said the current pots are only 6" tall, so thats not very big at all. They are fine for right now, but your yeilds will be better if you can move them to bigger pots. Maybe if some turn out male you can kill them and use the room to transplant the females to larger pots.

As Boss said, I would go 12/12 soon if you don't want to outgrow your space. Nice little plants BTW!

[Racefan]

I think your either going to have to LST them or grow them into your light. I don't think you have enough room left. :D This should be interesting to see how it goes though.:)

[preacher]

Thanks for the input, guys. I'm starting 12/12 today.

I'm close to maxing out my footprint on the size of the pots, so I couldn't go bigger if I had 4 plants, but we'll see how many ladies there are. I was kind of thinking that the size of the pot would help keep them small giving less yield but still fitting in the space. Of course I have no idea since this is my first. I'm sure there's a chance they will just die when they get root bound.

I have another cabinet (of the same height) that I could convert, but that's a lot more work. If I truly need the space then it would be worth it I'm sure.

Would topping them keep them from growing taller?

Thanks!

[Boss]

I wouldn't top. But that's me. You could think about plastic grow bags for a wider stance and maximum depth. Remember you can bend the buds as they grow up the center of the plants and literally spiral them up.

Be real careful with watering and nitrogen and you can do it. Did you see the other mico's here?