CFL White Rhino + Northern Light Grow

[growGuRoo]

so heres the set up....
this is my first grow with the help of my grow buddy.
seeds: Nirvana Seeds 10 White Rhino, 10 Northern Light & 10 Free Seeds
number of plants to date: right now there are aprox 25 seedlings
germinated: on January 17th (paper plate and wet paper towel method) once seeds popped they were transplanted to jiffy cubes
where: closet, white walls, aprox. 3ft by 5ft by 6ft tall.
growing medium: for the first few weeks before being transplanted to the 5 gallon home depot buckets, we are using basic MG soil
current light: as of right now we are using clf lights. 4 26 watt daytime CLFS (GE brand). hung within 1 to 2 inches of the plant. (lights are on 24 hours a day)
we are watering as needed right now, so pretty much daily keeping the soil moist. aprox 20 out of the 25 seedlings are under a makeshift humidity dome.
status: right now it looks like a good amount of the little seedlings are stretching, some so much that they are falling over...even though the lights have been very close the whole process...
any ideas as of why this may be happening? here are some pics

 

[CocoJoe]

Hi growGuRoo, to the 420Magazine forums. Glad you have joined us. I'll be watching your grow. If you need help ask a mod, and you will be helped!

 

[Velodrone]

Awesome. Welcome to 420.

so heres the set up....
this is my first grow with the help of my grow buddy.
seeds: Nirvana Seeds 10 White Rhino, 10 Northern Light & 10 Free Seeds
number of plants to date: right now there are aprox 25 seedlings
germinated: on January 17th (paper plate and wet paper towel method) once seeds popped they were transplanted to jiffy cubes
where: closet, white walls, aprox. 3ft by 5ft by 6ft tall.
growing medium: for the first few weeks before being transplanted to the 5 gallon home depot buckets, we are using basic MG soil
current light: as of right now we are using clf lights. 4 26 watt daytime CLFS (GE brand). hung within 1 to 2 inches of the plant. (lights are on 24 hours a day)
we are watering as needed right now, so pretty much daily keeping the soil moist. aprox 20 out of the 25 seedlings are under a makeshift humidity dome.
status: right now it looks like a good amount of the little seedlings are stretching, some so much that they are falling over...even though the lights have been very close the whole process...
any ideas as of why this may be happening? here are some pics

Here's my thoughts. They look a little light hungry. A 26w cfl will put out 1800lumens, that gives you 7200 total lumen's. That is not a lot of light. maybe think about getting a few more of those cfl's. The reason that you don't want the stretch is that it has to devote the energy to stem growth. The shorter and bushier the better. Before I did anything else I would get those babies buried in some pots. IF you are lucky they might form roots all the way down the part of the stem. I might back off on the water as well. When Cannabis is in its seedling stage it does not need much at all. I had the same problem and recovered from it. On any note nice choice of strains. What do you plan on using for nutrients? Are you going to flower with CFL's as well?

On to the MG issue. Some will tell you its fine, others will tell you to keep it as far away from your grow as possible. I have never used it so I cant say for sure. The one thing that I do know is that MG has time released ferts that may burn the plant. ESPECIALLY at such a young age. If and when you get those babies in some pots you might want to think about your feeding. I don't know, food for thought.

Once again, I'll see if I can send some of the big dogs over to help out.

 

[Lil Neutrino]

And just to expand on what velodrone said about the stretching...aside from more energy going toward stem production if the stretch too fast and don't develop a strong stem when they start producing heavy buds you may end up having to rig up supports for it. Also, the closer together that your nodes are the more bud sites/branches you will have for a given height.

With CFL's don't worry about ever having too many...you'll run in to temperature and space problems long before that happens!

Can't comment on the MG soil as I have never used it...definitely can see the reason people avoid it though with the premixed time-release nutes, could make it hard to control pH at a critical time. On the other hand I've read a few journals where people used it with success so don't freak out too much thinking you need to "rescue" them immediately. Get some input, read about it on this forum and Google, and make your own decision.

My advice at this point is to get at least 10 26W CFL's over the group on the left (2nd to last pic) and 8-10 more over the ones on the right...if you use some Y-adapters to angle the CFL's out at a ~45 degree angle you'll expose more of the side of the bulb to the leaves which means more lumens transmitted to the leaves. This should reduce any further stretching but if you're going to use CFL's throughout the grow even with 4-5 plants you're going to need a LOT of CFL's...might want to seriously consider HO lighting if you're wanting to grow that many at a time.

Also when you transplant these in to larger pots do them a favor and a helping hand by buring those stems a good 60-70% in to the new substrate. This will reduce the length of the stem above ground making the remaining portion stronger and will not harm the plant. Good luck...you're ambitious to say the least!

 

[McBudz]

I believe "daylight" bulbs can range in K from 5000-6500K if you are closer to 5000 then you want to swap the bulbs out for 6500K bulbs and get them close to the seedlings.

 

[growGuRoo]

thanks for the reply's guys... so today we are transplanting to a big bigger pots and we will be burying much of the stems as well, i will also be hooking up a few more lights too, by the way i am using daytime 6500k clfs, unfortunetly we will be using cfls to flower (2500k, a lot of 2500k too), the space is just to small for any HID, we would definitely need some 'in and out' air flow fans for that, meaning sheet rock would need to be torn down... we will also be holding off on the excess watering until maybe they are a bit bigger, more pics coming soon

 

[Lil Neutrino]

You're welcome!

It was very late last night and I didn't catch it but I don't see a fan in any of your pics or in your write-up. You need to run a small oscillating fan to gently blow across the seedlings which will cause their stems to strengthen. Gently is the operative word here...you want them to move a little bit but not to the point where the leaves are being twisted around or whatnot.

 

[CorruptArmada]

new pictures? how are the plants doing?

 

[growGuRoo]

i'll add some new pics sometime today, the plants are looking pretty good, its a pain keeping CFL light evenly spaced under all of them cause there are quite a bit of them, I probably should be using long 3ft T5 floresents during this stage to keep the light more evenly spaced over the babies, but whatever. i added some more cfl's to help with the stretching issue and all the plants are transplanted into 'medium size' peat moss pots

 

[PhishyPhil]

hey bud, the babies are looking swell.

im concerned about your space limits. the height should by fine, but i dunno if 3x5 will be enough space for 20 ladies. either way, good luck and keep us informed!

 

[growGuRoo]

thanks phishyphil!
well we only plan to grow 4 in the closet, once the sex is determined we are going to get rid of the males and sell the other females


heres some pics
these pictures do not include 2 additional 26 watt Daytime CFL's that were added just after the pics were taken, and 4 cups of water to increase the humidity, i need to pick up a temp thermometer as well as thermometer to detect the humidity in the closet.

so up to date there are 24 plants
-8 26 watt CFL's
-1 large window fan at one end of the closet and a small black fan located in the middle of the closet
- i am also working on a homemade CO2 generator using water sugar and yeast
-that should be added tomorrow

 

[growGuRoo]

there are currently
**10 total 26watt Daytime CFL lights**

i am probably going to switch the light cycle to 20-4 sometime next week when i get one more timer

 

[Lil Neutrino]

You need a LOT more lighting for that many plants...I had that on ONE plant lol. CFL's, like all fluorescents, don't "throw" light very far so the plants that are more than about 6-8" from the light (probably less even) are receiving very little light energy compared to the ones directly underneath. If you can try and get at least four CFL's per "chandelier" that are 90 degrees from each other. I used a 20/4 cycle during my first grow and it worked out very well with tight nodal spacing and lots of lush growth...but again, I had at least 6 26W CFL's per plant and only 3-4 plants in the beginning.

 

[Sungod]

If you were in cali I would recommend you put and ad on craigslist for prop 215 paitients and sell half of them and take the money and buy more light..... As far as the room issue you can find used 400w hid ballasts and hoods pretty cheap throw a small cooling fan through it and you will have much better light for your beauties. Best of luck brother.

 

[PhishyPhil]

i saw your first group shot pic and reminded of a day care for babies

 

[growGuRoo]

hahaha day care, a day care located in the ghetto...alright so more light it is, ill add some more CFL's this week
and Sungod i really don't think a 400 watt HID light would work in this closet, i would need serious ventilation to pump cool air in and take the hot air out, the space is just too small, but i really want to use HID lights, CFLs are OK but far from the best and i'm realizing that right now...
and when should i be able to determine the sex of the plant roughly? 2 or 3 weeks?

 

[Stretchtastic]

You can always try some t-5 floros. They have higher lumen output with around the same amount of heat as the cfl's.

 

[Sungod]

hahaha day care, a day care located in the ghetto...alright so more light it is, ill add some more CFL's this week
and Sungod i really don't think a 400 watt HID light would work in this closet, i would need serious ventilation to pump cool air in and take the hot air out, the space is just too small, but i really want to use HID lights, CFLs are OK but far from the best and i'm realizing that right now...
and when should i be able to determine the sex of the plant roughly? 2 or 3 weeks?

I was flipping through "The Closet Cultivator" By. Ed Rosenthal last night and I came across a bit of information that might be of use to you I'm going to quote directly out of his book so they are his works not mine.

"Gardens lit by fluorescents require an input of at least 30 watts per square foot to produce vigorous plants and good bud"

"During the Vegetative growth stage, they can get by on 20 watts per foot squared, but grow faster if they receive about 30watts."

"Most fluorescent fixtures are poorly designed, with no baffles between the the individual tubes to reflect light downward. They lose up to 40% of the light."

"High-intensity discharge lamps (HID's) are more convenient and more efficient than fluorescents."

"4' fluorescent tubes illuminate 1-2 SQ. feet"
"400w HPS illuminates 8-20 SQ feet"

Your grow space is 3'x5' or 15 Sq ft. Multiply that by 30 watts per sq ft. and you come up with 520 watts divide that by 26 watt bulbs and you need 20 bulbs. But with that particular bulb design the light is going out in all directions so you are lucky to get half of that down to your plants, not you can raise that percentage with with some good reflectors but then your talking more $$$. So in order for you to achieve the desired watts per plant you might have to have 30 or more of those style cfls to make your babies happy and @ 30 thats only 1.5 bulbs or 39 watts per plant. Now you want to talk about heat. you put one of the bulbs in that area and you won't notice a thing. You pack 20-30 of those things in 15 sqft area and its oven time. and the only option you have is to put a fan in there and push hot air around, or keep the door open for all to see. At least with the hid hood you can pull that hot air directly out of the room. Just to give you some comparison I have a 1000w HID in 31.8sqf and my temps are 61-88 the 88 was wen I was vegging and the lights came on at 3 in the after noon and it was hot out. Now during flowering I rarely exceed 82. Sorry to be so long winded and i'm by no means trying to tell you what to do, but I was going through the same thing not to long ago thinking that hid was to big for my area, now I am very glad I went with it. Anyways best of luck with your grow I hope everything works out for you I can't wait to see the fruits of your labor.

 

[growGuRoo]

thank for the helpful information sungod, next fall and winter we plan to grow again but with HID lights, i know that MH is best for vegging and HPS is best for flowering. is it common to find light systems that can take both MH and HPS bulbs? or would i have to buy separate light systems for each types of light?
as for right now we most likely can't afford to spend a lot of money on an HID light even though they are better
any tips on homemade reflectors? i've seen aluminum soda cans being used attached at the base of the CFL. would that be worth it?

 

[Sungod]

First I don't know what kind of math I was using, but it was wrong. 30 watts by 15sqft is 450 watts divided by 26watts per bulb is 17+ bulbs...

There got that out of the way. Hey I'm all for low budget, soooo i'll let you decide how many CFL's your going to shove over the plants. as far as reflectors I'm thinking one big reflector for all the lights might be the most cost effective route here. I think you should be able to make a fireproof reflector out of fencing material covered with mylar on one side You should be able to bend the fence in to a basic u shape, you could then mount 5 or 6 sets of homemade 4 lamp cfl fixtures in a line down the center of the U. Then hang the whole thing from the celing. and make it so you can raise and lower the whole thing as 1 unit.

I'm not sure if this makes sense, I'm having a hard time putting thoughts into words tonight. let me know what you think maybe we can tweek it if we need to.