Tips for a new grower? A month into my first grow

[Phireman]

This is my first post on here so if it’s not in the right spot just let me know, any tips would be appreciated if someone could point me in the direction of a simple closet cfl grow guide that would be great also. Photos to follow

 

[Phireman]

I germinated them using the paper towel method and planted them using regular soil from a houseplant.
I'm using 1 23W cfl bulb about 6 inches away from the plants. I just added a 14w cfl today, also 6 inches away. (Working with the bulbs I have laying around if anyone could suggest a shopping list that would be greatly appreciated) I've been watering with tap water occasionally but mostly RO water when the soil starts to dry up. The plants are about 4.5-5 inches tall. The edges of the leaves are beginning to turn brown and some leaves are yellowing. The bottom leaves closest to the soil are turning a pale yellow as well.

 

[Chris Scorpio]

Check yer pH

Clear pots aren't recommend
More light
Is it basic soil
Any nutes

 

[Scrogdawg]

I suspect theres no nutrition in the soil being as its used soil with no nutrients added and your using RO water. My suggestion would be to get some Miracle Gro plant fertilizer and mix with your RO water and use it every second time you water. Let the soil dry before you water, not just the top, stick your finger into the soil and make sure its dry at the roots. Make sure you have a drain hole or two in the bottom of your cups.

Then, search this site for closet grow journals, theres hundreds of them. Read a ton and then get yourself set up properly for success.

Good luck.

 

[bunkbudz]

All good advise ☝. Avoid overwatering as well, your soil looks super saturated ✌

 

[SwAggNiFiCeNt]

Any drain holes in those pots?

 

[Phireman]

Any drain holes in those pots?

no... I guess I need some?

 

[Phireman]

I suspect theres no nutrition in the soil being as its used soil with no nutrients added and your using RO water. My suggestion would be to get some Miracle Gro plant fertilizer and mix with your RO water and use it every second time you water. Let the soil dry before you water, not just the top, stick your finger into the soil and make sure its dry at the roots. Make sure you have a drain hole or two in the bottom of your cups.

Then, search this site for closet grow journals, theres hundreds of them. Read a ton and then get yourself set up properly for success.

Good luck.

Cool, thanks for the tips!

 

[Phireman]

Check yer pH

Clear pots aren't recommend
More light
Is it basic soil
Any nutes

Basic AND used soil, I got it from another plant around the house, so new soil is definitely on the shopping list

 

[Phireman]

Thanks everyone for the advise, I gotta make a trip to the store tomorrow for a ph tester, humidity meter, bigger pots, new soil and miracle grow. So you guys think the lights are fine? I know they're not ideal but they will produce results right?

 

[SwAggNiFiCeNt]

no... I guess I need some?

Ansolulty u should have some. The water has to be able to go somewhere other ur drowning the poor thing.

 

[TorturedSoul]

[EDIT: This thread was sitting in a tab in my browser for the last two days or so, and I didn't think to refresh it before posting this. Therefore, some of this may already have been addressed, IDK. Apologies!]

Put the aluminum foil back in the kitchen where it belongs and paint those walls bright white! Flat, by preference - but if you require the ability to clean/scrub them, go with an eggshell or satin finish.

Rotate those CFL bulbs so that they're in a horzontal orientation instead of a vertical one! Bulbs produce the vast majority of their light from the side, with (relatively) very little coming from the top (and none from the base, of course). Right now, you can see that you're producing bright spots on your walls... instead of on your plants :rolleyes3 . While you're at it, grab some empty soda pop or other beverage cans, and turn them into homemade CFL reflectors. It's easy to do (and they're cheap enough that you can go through a couple figuring it out, if you have to). Make a straight cut from the bottom to the top, then cut horizontally, just a little less than halfway around from both sides of the both the top and bottom of your vertical cut. This will allow you to open the can up, as if it has a crude pair of wings. The bottom, you can either cut off or cut most of the way around - so that you can open it out just a bit for additional reflective area. The top, you'll trim that so that the canflector (lol) fits snugly around either your CFL bulb's base or around the socket it screws into. BAM, you've (hugely) increased the amount of light that is actually reaching your plants, for ZERO extra money each month in electric, and basically pennies in materials.

While you're at it, get those bulbs within an inch or so of the tops of your plants! Realistically, those Suzie Homemaker grade low-wattage CFL bulbs don't produce much light - and the intensity is LOW. The amount of light that is (usefully) reaching your plants doesn't get cut in half when the distance doubles, you end up with the square root of it. In other words... Imagine that you've got a light source that gets 100 "units" of light at a distance of, IDK, one foot (not, obviously, a 26-watt CFL bulb, lol). If you double that distance to two feet, you don't end up with 50 units of light reaching your plants - you end up with 10 units. This is very important!

You are paying for 100% of however much light you are producing. You should do everything you can to ensure that as much of it as possible actually reaches and benefits your plants. Especially when it doesn't cost much to do.

And like others have stated, your soil looks way too wet unless you watered it seconds before taking the picture. Cannabis does best (when grown in soil) when it is watered well but then the soil is allowed to dry out fairly well before it is next watered. It looks like you do have a tiny amount of perlite in there, but you should add more. I mix in 25% perlite to 75% soil. Others will go as high as 33% perlite (some go a little less than 25%). But, you know... a good bit. This aids in both drainage and generally "lightening" the soil, which is important for aeration of the root zone.

Aside from that, next time (or even this time), use opaque or at least green containers - and fill them up with soil, lol, the extra "air space" on top isn't benefiting anything. And your babbies look awfully hungry....

 

[Phireman]

This is great thank you for the input, I'm going to update this post after I make the adjustments suggested to me, I'd really appreciate if you could check back in like a week and see if there's anything else I need to be doing.

 

[Phireman]

So will I be able to do this whole grow with these lights? If not what should I purchase and when should I switch up.

 

[Scrogdawg]

So will I be able to do this whole grow with these lights? If not what should I purchase and when should I switch up.

No, those lights won't grow 2 plants to maturity. Check out something along these lines. Bear in mind the dimensions of the light compared to your available space. There are many choices out there. This is just one example that many people on the board use.

MarsHydro Mars 300W LED Grow Light Full Spectrum ETL Certification Lighting for Hydroponic Indoor Greenhouse Garden Plants

 

[TorturedSoul]

So will I be able to do this whole grow with these lights? If not what should I purchase and when should I switch up.

Only "technically," lol - you definitely wouldn't be happy with your harvest. As mentioned... No.

That is not to say that you cannot do a grow with CFL lighting. I've seen people keep adding more and more bulbs. Thinking they were saving money. IDK... They ended up with lighting that was consuming several hundred watts of electricity. Lots of heat - although it was spread out, it was still there in the grow room. And the overall efficiency was certainly less (IMHO). Not to mention the multiple sockets, extension cords, et cetera.

It'll work, though. But I'd go with either one of those economy-class LED panels (as mentioned above) or a small HID (probably HPS), if I had the choice. Something relatively cheap, low wattage consumption, and likely to give you a decent harvest with less hassle/effort. I've grown cannabis with a HPS as small as 70 watts (wouldn't really recommend them unless you come across them for free or not a lot more). Have you checked your local Craigslist page for used lighting? People still routinely change out their businesses (etc.) HID lighting to other types and sell the (non-horticultural) HIDs very cheaply - I've seen 400-watt HPS and MH lamps go for $25, lol. At minimum, you'd want to spend $20 or so for a cheap - but new - bulb. A little work will generally turn one into an acceptable grow light, especially if you search for and follow the procedure for making the ballast an external one (so you can get its heat out of the grow room). And with more and more people trying LED lighting, it isn't uncommon to see actual grow setups selling for pretty cheap prices. Again, I'd recommend buying a new bulb simply because you have no way of knowing how many hours will be on the one(s) that come with a used light. I've seen everything from 150-watt ones (both with external ballasts and the "all in one" types where the ballast is in the reflector housing) to 1,000 watt setups. From simple open reflectors to expensive air-cooled ones. From 20+ year old Core & Coil (aka "magnetic") ballasts (which generally function fine - and if not, the parts are real cheap and easy to replace - but they consume a little more electricity) to electronic ones that could dim the bulb's output, be set to drive a lower-wattage bulb, or both. I've seen cheap Chinese LED panels on Craigslist, too, but I'd probably tend to shy away from them. Such things seem to be a lot more... delicate (polite term ) than a 25-year old heavy-arse HID ballast and who knows what kind of treatment it has received and what sort of environmental conditions it has been used in.

 

[Bigjake8]

As was said already lose the foil a cheep solution is a sheet of Styrofoam if painting your walls is not a option or find some cheep plywood and paint it

 

[AKgramma]

Thanks everyone for the advise, I gotta make a trip to the store tomorrow for a ph tester, humidity meter, bigger pots, new soil and miracle grow. So you guys think the lights are fine? I know they're not ideal but they will produce results right?

Definitely a couple more clip-on cfl lamps with socket splitters. I started off my first grow with just 23 W cfls, half soft white and half Daylight. I had a dozen bulbs in a 2' x 4' closet some up high and some down low, and got a pretty good harvest.

Once I added a couple panels of mars 300 LEDs to the lighting set up, the penetration and the yield improved dramatically. I now have two panels in each of my grow units, supplemented by 4 pairs of 23watt CFLs.

I don't get the superbuds that people running a lot more expensive lights get, but at least I can afford the light bill.

 

[Phireman]

Update: got rid of the foil, added some "can reflectors (money is tight) and painted the pots green to let less light in, about a week later this is where we are. I haven't added any muted yet still just alternating between tap and RO water. I'm re-potting them later today.

 

[Phireman]