First Grow Ever, Using CFL

[3lions]

I know someone has suggested that the ph is ok and about neutral close to 7 but I have to beg to differ my friend and would suggest as I did before that you bring this down to around 6.5 yes.

Also when adding nutes, add them to the water and then check the water for ph and bring it down to 6.5 before watering. People sometimes get the water right then add the nutes without checking it again.

In this case I would add some low ph water for the next couple of waterings, perhaps around 6.0 or something to try and bring it down

Just my 2 centimos

 

[CFL man]

Well, in that case im going to filter some water through a lot of peat moss, i don't have anything else handy and it takes time to order pH down bottles. Any other good ideas how to get from pH 7,33 to pH 6.5?

 

[3lions]

Well, there are plenty of 'household' products that will bring it down but there are drawbacks to each one; be it, wont last more than a day or so like the lemon juice to not knowing how bad the toxics are in reality like diluted battery acid.

phospheric acid, battery acid, vinegar, lemon juice, coffee beans, ammonium


If I had to say use one of them it would be juice of lemons, natural of course but deffo get your order of ph down asap

alternatively you can flush them out with lots of clean water if you have really good drainage of course

 

[CFL man]

Ok i will remember the lemons

By the end of the day the pots had gone dry so i made some water that was filtered through 3 large cups of peat moss.
Also did a little bondage. Started LST, looked at some posts and stuff and ended up using pipe cleaning rods, i saw them being used without problems.
Monkey see, monkey do

They will be 12 days old after i have pressed "POST" and two hours will have passed!
I might have to repot them sometime.
Im getting my cupboard finished by the end of this week.

enouh of talk, picture time!

Grop shot #1

Close up #1

Group shot #2

Close up #2

In the box

 

[3lions]

I think it may be a little early for LST but maybe not, they are still young things. The LST is to get light to the lower branches that get shaded a lot by the upper leaves right?

 

[MountainHigh]

I think it may be a little early for LST but maybe not, they are still young things. The LST is to get light to the lower branches that get shaded a lot by the upper leaves right?

The purpose of LSTing is to shine the light on the stalk. Stalks find light to be an antagonist and try to cover themselves, they dedicate energy to the area and the lower sites get promoted to upper ones. You continue to do this until you have the amount of tops you want to go into bloom with, or to get faster high energy clones...tops...tops = good period...good bud, good clones, good rolling papers and fun toys...

Low light grow's (CFL's) turn lower branches to top's and keep the overall canopy flat so lower light still gets the job done and done well...

brother

 

[3lions]

Ahhh nice explanation Mountain thanks. So really it makes sense to always LST then?...

I read once that a plant will still actually only produce the same amount of bud weight except that there are more smaller buds as oppose to a single or few large buds or is that another process like cropping?

 

[ledtester]

Whoa! This actually makes sense! Many thanks on the pH thing! Im getting my pH tested tomorrow on my tap water(yeah i use tap water but we have really good tap water in our small town) nutrients, water+nutrients mix and the runoff. I could not yet afford a pH meter, neither could i find a place where i could buy it without ordering, but i found a place where i can take my samples and get .001 accuracy for a few bucks in total.

I think the nutrients are working OK, tho i found something interesting on one first leaf, little brown spots. I couldn't find anything from the plant abuse chart though and i cannot make sense of it myself either, it only appears on one of the plants.

But i think im still going to give them the same amount of nutrients after i find out my pH levels. Only trouble is that to get the runoff one of the plants has to be first to take the hit, so a question, should i hit it with nutrient solution or just plain water?

I'm not certain the point was emphasized enought to you. You need some way of testing the ph of the feeding your giving your plants each and every time. Since your ph needs to be around 6.5, you need to mix your nutes first and the use ph up or down to get it to 6.5. Taking it somewhere I would think is impractical and you'll pay for a ph meter before you get out of the veg stage. As you can see from the discoloration in the leafs your having problems already.

 

[ledtester]

Ok i will remember the lemons

By the end of the day the pots had gone dry so i made some water that was filtered through 3 large cups of peat moss.
Also did a little bondage. Started LST, looked at some posts and stuff and ended up using pipe cleaning rods, i saw them being used without problems.
Monkey see, monkey do

They will be 12 days old after i have pressed "POST" and two hours will have passed!
I might have to repot them sometime.
Im getting my cupboard finished by the end of this week.

enouh of talk, picture time!

Grop shot #1

Close up #1

Group shot #2

Close up #2

In the box

Just a word of caution with the clay pots. they are very porous and tend to hold moisture and alot of bad salts...plastic is always preferable..besides the fact they break easy.....jmho

 

[CFL man]

Hmmm i did not know that the clay pots might hold bad salts, i chose them so that the roots would get better air with clay being porous. But i think plastic pots with a lot of drain holes in the bottom and a layer of pebbles/vermiculite/perlite would also do the trick. bad salts are bad...

I got my waters tested to get the general idea what im working with at the moment. As the pH down, a pH meter is also an order only item in my area. Im working with what i got, building up as i go, i just hope that it won't be too late when i get there...

But you do have good points Ledtester.

Thank you all for looking out for my babies!

 

[MI-grower]

What's up bro,

Everything looks good my friend...

How long were you gonna veg for, as well as what is the size of your flowering area?

If your gonna use cfl's their is one thing you should be up on, when in veg you need to get 6500K bulbs and in flower get 2700K bulbs. This represents the lumins and will help out the plants alot.

I dont know how big your grow space is but mine is 2x3 foot and we're pushing 24,300 lumins, this is in the flower room.

 

[quagland]

looks good man! You'll see some nice growth in a couple of days.

 

[MountainHigh]

Ahhh nice explanation Mountain thanks. So really it makes sense to always LST then?...

I read once that a plant will still actually only produce the same amount of bud weight except that there are more smaller buds as oppose to a single or few large buds or is that another process like cropping?

I am of that school 3lions, but not completely. I think when light/grow space is your limiter you will get less letting them grow naturally because the top will chase the lower light condition and the foliage left behind will NEVER catch up (basically it will feel like in the shade, it will stay green but it's contribution to the plant will be negligable, generally this causes a small stalk, poor sap transport, less than ideal growth. This is because of CFL's initial low lumen output per bulb, the multiple point source (many bulbs) does compensate some, but does even more so on a level canopy.

I personally am planning on switching to a 400w HPS and a mover for my closet, but I am still gonna LST to increase my top count to about 8-10 then let them stretch normally in bloom, so I end up with a 2-3 ft tall plant. But there is one problem with that plan...it requires money.

from the mountains.

 

[CFL man]

They are now 16 days old, oh sweet 16

I have been really busy,
I got my grow cabinet running. Haven't had time to paint it and fix all the light leaks in it. I have set the timer to 18/6 now. Also got a pH testing kit and fixed the water, today was the first day with 6.0-6.5 pH. Also today i replanted them into bigger pots, where they start flowering next week.

But well pictures speaks louder than words

The outside of the box

The light ceiling

Last time in the old box

The roots are looking OK

Group shot

The stems

In their new home

New home closer

The grow cabinet has 12x26w CFL's which in total gives out about 18 000 lumens. I will put some kind of reflectors on them, but now im going to sleep. I have done enough for now.

 

[MountainHigh]

Everything is looking great bro. Your babies will just LOVE it when you get that painted inside...you gonna go for a bright white (flat)? Krylon makes a nice latex for that.

 

[Steve McStoferson]

looking great man, you got it all under control. How long are you going to veg for?

 

[MI-grower]

Congratz on your new grow area. Everything looks good bro..



&

 

[miranda]

Ok i will remember the lemons

By the end of the day the pots had gone dry so i made some water that was filtered through 3 large cups of peat moss.
Also did a little bondage. Started LST, looked at some posts and stuff and ended up using pipe cleaning rods, i saw them being used without problems.
Monkey see, monkey do



Hi , i m also doing a cfl grow, and i need to do lst to , but i dont understand what is pipe cleaning rods.
can you take a very zoom photo with that lst you got there??
tx man and good luck

 

[H6251686]

Move the out of the "ghetto ass box" and it looks like ya go them a nice place CFL Man. I think your going to like the results.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Thank you for running a grow journal here, CFL man.

That soil looks a little heavy. You might consider adding some perlite to it in order to both promote drainage and to lighten it so that the roots can get access to oxygen.

I really recommend trying to find those PH drops, they are only $6 bucks and let you keep monitoring as you go...not always easy to get your nutes ph'ed first try.

I know that top-of-the line digital pH meters can cost over $100, but for only around $20 more than the $6 those test kits cost you can pick up a good basic Milwaukee meter (ph600) that will give you a reading such as 5.8 within a second or two of sticking the probe into the sample instead of making you decide which color on the chart your sample is closest to. It REALLY helps when your sample is colored by nutrients or the like and is not crystal-clear to begin with (which could affect the color when the drops from a test kit are added).

Since you mentioned that you'd have to order a meter instead of being able to just pick one up locally, I'll provide a direct link to this meter at Suncoast Hydroponics, one of our sponsors. Daniel and his wife are good people, they have decent prices (aren't trying to get rich off of us, lol), they participate in the forums here as their time allows, and they are sponsors here at 420Magazine - which means that part of their profits go towards helping this site stay up so that we can all benefit from it!

Here is the link: Milwaukee pH600

If you decide to do business with them, you can (if you like) tell them that TorturedSoul sent you. But rest assured, they will treat you right either way.

phospheric acid

That is an ingredient in many pH Down solutions, including the one sold by General Hydroponics. Which is nice, because phosphorous is used by plants (especially in flowering).

The purpose of LSTing is to shine the light on the stalk. Stalks find light to be an antagonist and try to cover themselves, they dedicate energy to the area and the lower sites get promoted to upper ones.

That's a new one on me, lol. I always thought the purposes for LST were to promote branching - as training a plant so that its "top" is no longer the highest part of the plant will cause growth hormones/auxins to be redistributed and promote branching as a survival mechanism (the plant will seek out light, which evolution has "taught" it is generally coming from above) - without having to actually remove part of the plant to do so, and also to help even the canopy so that the light can be placed close to all of it instead of merely shining down on one (or a few) tops.

I got my grow cabinet running. Haven't had time to paint it and fix all the light leaks in it.

Sneaky, lol. I like and appreciate the fact that you're on the "do-it-yourself" side of things as opposed to buying everything pre-made. The light leaks must be taken care of but as long as you do so before you switch to the flowering phase you should be fine (although any light that leaks out is not shining on your plants). The painting I would make a priority because it will help you maximize the lights that you have.