Budsyezbuds's First CFL Indoor Grow!

[Budsyezbuds]

And how far is the bulb from the plant?

The bulb is about 3/4 of an inch away.

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Ok im doing my update a little bit early as I will be busy tomorrow so here we go.

Week 7

Do you believe in miracles? I do!
Champion has made a full recovery and has been growing well. I am going to be transferring champion over to the grow tent this weekend as she is starting to smell a little too much and I have my carbon filter setup in my tent. once I finish completely and transfer the plant over I will take more pictures.

My waterings are consistent now at about 1 time a week. It gets nutrients every other feeding and has been doing well with that. My PH is around 6.7 and i still need to an electronic tester and also need to pick up vinegar and baking soda to adjust the PH. Ok I know alot of you are thinking pics or GTFO so here goes...

Never give up guys!!

 

[Antics]

NO BAKING SODA. Way too risky. I don't care if Joe Schmoe said it worked for him. The sodium levels are too high.

I would suggest buying the proper PH up and PH down products, for soil.

You just fixed a huge problem, don't start half-assing your grow, or you can end up with an even worse predicament than before.


I would also move the bulb a little further away. If you hit a growth spurt, the light is going to roast your leaves.

 

[Budsyezbuds]

NO BAKING SODA. Way too risky. I don't care if Joe Schmoe said it worked for him. The sodium levels are too high.

You just fixed a huge problem, don't start half-assing your grow, or you can end up with an even worse predicament than before.

Lol Antics smoke a bowl and calm down. Not having the money to buy something is not half assing my grow. As of now my levels are good. There are ways to use baking soda and not get so much sodium but I dont have the time for that careful procedure right now. I think I can find other cheap alternatives to adjusting PH (such as lime) as I was reading about baking soda this morning and decided not to use it. PH up down is not the only solution. Also as of now the bulb height is fine from what I see. Thanks for your concern.

 

[Antics]

This is why I was in all caps:

That's my own personal experience listening to shitty advice. I was hoping to help you not make the same mistake I did. Especially since you're down to 1 out of 3 plants.

 

[Budsyezbuds]

Ok ...Damn, I see. Thank you.

 

[Antics]

Ok ...Damn, I see. Thank you.

That's also why I suggested moving your lights a little further back. I made that mistake too.

My plants hit a growth spurt, and I didn't check on them for a few hours and came back to burned leaves. It won't kill your plant, but it's unnecessary stress.

 

[Budsyezbuds]

Here are a few pictures, the leaves are looking kind of fat, its looking like it might be indica dominate but im not sure

A little droopy due to a late watering

Im going to begin its flowering cycle soon.

 

[FunkySkunk]

Here are a few pictures, the leaves are looking kind of fat, its looking like it might be indica dominate but im not sure

A little droopy due to a late watering

Im going to begin its flowering cycle soon.

Good to see you got over your seedling mishap with a surviving plant. Champion is starting to look pretty good, very dark green foliage though, just keep an eye on their dosage of Nitrogen as it may be getting to high. And make sure you let your soil dry out enough (soil should shrink from pot edge) inbetween watering as this flushes your roots with fresh oxygen. Aim for a 10-15% runoff out the bottom aswell as this helps stop nutrient build up.

ohh, see if you make a DIY water mister outta a spray bottle, use on foliage when lights are off. This will increase humidity and will help in the plants uptake of water.

Your doing a good job. Keep it green!!!

 

[Budsyezbuds]

Thanks Funky!

Yea.... I was looking at the dark green color too. I has me a bit worried. Not sure how to cut my nitro % as its in my fert mix. I actually think im feeding nutes too often, so im going to have to adjust that. Im going to explain more in my update but ever since the move to the new grow tent heat and humidity have been a pain in my a**. My current temps and hum are stable at 77f and 60 % humidity which i had to fix by going to my local drug store and buying a humidifier.

Thanks for the support!

 

[FunkySkunk]

Don't worry yourself about it too much, it's not a toxic amount yet. Just cut down the amount you mix with water each feeding.
You will need to stop feeding them high nitrogen fert anyway pretty soon as you say your gonna switch to flowering light schedule and i'm pretty sure high N will delay and disrupt the onset of flowers.

 

[FunkySkunk]

How are they looking buddy?

 

[Antics]

Thanks Funky!

Yea.... I was looking at the dark green color too. I has me a bit worried. Not sure how to cut my nitro % as its in my fert mix. I actually think im feeding nutes too often, so im going to have to adjust that. Im going to explain more in my update but ever since the move to the new grow tent heat and humidity have been a pain in my a**. My current temps and hum are stable at 77f and 60 % humidity which i had to fix by going to my local drug store and buying a humidifier.

Thanks for the support!

How often were you feeding nutes?

 

[Budsyezbuds]

@Antics, I was feeding way too often and didnt follow the directions on the bottle. I think I was too high when i first read the instructions lol.

Ok guys im back, I skipped 2 updates for a few reasons(busy with work and school, and transplant recovery). I will tell the full story here..

Today marks Week 2 of flowering. From seed it has been 10 weeks for champion and was in 9 weeks of veg stage. I am in the middle of the week and friday will be the end of week 2. I have had the plants on 12/12 with strict darkness. The temperature has been steady around 79 and 80 with the humidity at 50%. My PH has been around 6.8. At the end of week 1 of flowering i noticed that with all the increased growth and stretching it would need to been transplanted and I was correct as the roots looked to be heading towards root binding. The transplant had me worried as it took about 3 days for champion to recover and resume the growth process. Now she couldnt be better ...yes it is a she so all my efforts are not in vain! Whooo

I have about 3 tops so far that standout to me. The first few pictures were taken right after the transplant and the last pictures are from today. I also have pictures of my grow tent i built along with some current pictures of champion together with some other strains im growing.

Here we go..

Looked bad but I think the transplant went well.

The closet for my stealth grow...

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This is from today and i can finally see the sex

Well I still have a ways to go but there is hope. I plan to flower until around mid to late November depending on how the trichomes look. I am also interested in some LST but im wondering if its too late by now.

 

[Antics]

They look pretty good, and happy overall! Good job man!

And I have a similar oscillating fan, I absolutely love it. It fits in a very small area, and it's the perfect breeze for smaller grows

 

[Budsyezbuds]

Thanks for the support Antics! I needed that. Your journals helped my out as I was lurking at times when i know you had a similar answer or question that i was looking for. Yea I ordered that fan from Amazon and its awesome, i leave it on at night so the air doesn't get stale. I was actually looking at your first and second grow journals today and got some good tips. I actually am going to start my LST after looking at how you did yours. The oooooonly thing im worried about are the tiny cat claws I see on some of the leaves due to the nitrogen problem i had but I think it is slowly getting better as I havent fed her with veg nutes in a few weeks. I think im going to flush her next feeding which is around this weekend.
Wow when I open that tent in the mornings...i notice two things stretching and the heavy heavy skunk smell. Im so very glad i went ahead and spent the money on a carbon filter. I also wanted to know how are you liking the LED's? I just landed a new job and I will have more money to invest in my second grow.

Used duck tape and parachute 550 cord

Come on tops! Need more tops!

 

[Antics]

I'm glad my journals could help you out man, it's part of why I wanted to do them. The other part is so I had something to reference for future grows

How many total bulbs/wattage are you using on the CFLs now?
If you continue training your branches like that, if you have strong enough light, those branches that are horizontal will produce branches. Just make sure you allow the ends of those branches to turn upwards.

The smell can be quite strong, but damn do I love it

As for LEDs, I don't know yet, I'm vegging under CFLs for the seedling phase. I tried the LED and it started to nuke the seedling lol.

 

[Budsyezbuds]

I love that smell too, makes my mouth water lol.
Im using 7 bulbs and collectively they use about 155w(actual) 4 of them are around 16w, 2 are 23w and 1 is 46w.

Ok, thanks for the tips. That sucks that you have to wait a little to use the LED..

 

[Antics]

Add bulbs if you can, and train the plants to grow as flat as possible. Topping each plant once, and LST will work perfectly. This creates a flat canopy that fills your grow space, and absorbs as much light as possible.

If they're allowed to grow tall, only the top buds get the most light, and the buds at the bottom of the plant don't get as much light as they want.

And yeah it sucks to wait, but patience is a virtue. I'm really excited to fire up the LED again and hopefully see my girl explode with growth. And for the wattage you're using on those CFLs, the LED I bought uses about the same power, but has a stronger output. I was using 361w of CFLs, and wtf was it making my electric meter spin lol. The LED light I bought uses less than half the power of my CFLs.

 

[Budsyezbuds]

Week 3
14 days Flowering

So today marks the start of week 3. I have changed anything on my part, most people say this is the cruise control part. I flushed all the plants in preparation for flowering and also did a bit of trimming. I removed a few bottom fan leaves that were not receiving light and i haven't noticed any negative effects so that's good.

The tops got a little heat stressed one day as the temps rose while i was at work one day and my A/C was off but it wasnt bad just leaves a bit curled up(They have since gone back to normal). I am now able to see more pistils showing and the stretching seems to have slowed down a little although im not sure if its done or not. I didn't really know how fast it stretched until now. When I first put it in flowering it was sitting on a box that was about 5 inches tall in order to get enough light(no lst), now there is only a book separating it from the ground and that's with the lst. I hope the stretching is almost done. There are at least 4 main tops that I look at everyday along with the little top that are trying to develop.

In other news...I am also down to 3 plants as one of them(KC Brains Mango) turned out to be a male and I had to dispose of it. So now it is my unknown(Champion) for which this grow journal is about, Super Lemon Haze, and Barneys LSD.

Pictures coming soon today...

 

[Budsyezbuds]

I need more lights and plan to add at least 2 more bulbs