Bag o' Schwag, first grow, closet CFL setup

Hey there RIU! I'm new to the site, but it looks like just the place I want to be. I'm doing a small personal grow in my closet using 3 CFLs (currently). I'm on day 5, but I'll take you on the journey from the beginning.

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Day 1

Pic#1:
I germinated these seeds for about 8 days in a moist paper towel, but fucked up that process completely after I left them in my car overnight and they were exposed to a temp change from 80F to 40F in a matter of a few hours. However, I was naive to the damage I had done, and I plodded away.

Pic#2:
I saw a stack of Solo cups sitting in the wrapper in a lobby at my small school. I took those (there were only 6 sadly) and brought them home to wash, poke holes in, and fill with Miracle Gro "Potting Mix".

Pic#3:
Desperate to get started, I was hasty in my attempts to set up a decent grow room. I bought a 100w 6200K CFL and shoved it into a lamp I had to take from the living room. Hopefully the roommate, unawares, would not notice the lamp was AWOL.

Pic#4:
I made a reflector out of aluminum foil and wire and sat it on top of the lamp. It didn't do it's job well, but it was a hell of a lot better than nothing at all, I suppose.

Pic#5:
Everything was placed in my closet as far as the lamp's cord would let me go, on top of celophane I had put down to catch drainage. The towel around the outside was to catch runoff and insulate the soil, however little it may.

Pic#6:
You can see how cramped everything was... definitely not Feng Shui, but it'll do at first.

Your going to need a lot more light...but good start

Day 2

Dropped my last $40 on supplies, and am now officially Broke®. Here's what I picked up at Wally World:

1x 150w 2700K CFL
1x Light Fixture
1x 15' Light Cord
2x 2-way Light Socket Adapter
1x 4" High Velocity Fan
1x Analog Light Timer
1x 12' Multi-Socket Extension Cord
1x Miracle Gro 24-8-16 All Purpose Plant Food

::ALREADY HAD::

2x 100w 6200K CFL
3x 8" Plastic Pot
1x 10qt bag of Miracle Gro Potting Mix
Fuckton of Tape
Fuckton of Plastic Wrap
Fuckton of Aluminum Foil
Fuckton of Super Sculpey (not really necessary)


Pic#1:
I assembled the fixture and then hung it from my shelves. Shoved it through the refelctor and plugged in the adapters/light bulbs, and then spent a lot of time trying to get the whole assembly to hang level and reflect decently. The cups are elevated on small boxes so they can drain better. The towel collects any runoff.

Pic#2:
When the fan is on there's hardly any heat around the plants. At this point I don't want that so much.

Pic#3:
Here you can see the light setup and the different color spectrums.

Pic#4:
Timer's on full throttle -- 24 hours a day.

Pic#5:
The whole operation from the outside. Yes, I own swords and keep them next to my teddy bear. Don't judge.

Pic#6:
This is the only thing to give away that my closet is a grow room. It may be hard to notice, but there's just a little bit of packing tape under the bottom left corner of the door concealing and holding in place the extension cord that keeps the whole op running.

Day 3

Got 2 40" x 32" x 0.25" sheets of foam core from my school today, FO FREE! Brought them home and dissected them into the masterpeice you can behold in these pictures. The new reflector has aluminum foil glued to the inside of it, and it appears to reflect at least 90% of the light.

After installing the new grow box, I noticed that none of my seeds were growing (and they were planted only 1/4" deep), so I did a little digging and found that all but 1 were duds. All was not lost, however, as I'd been germinating a brand new batch just in case, and they were already ready to be planted! So I replaced 5 of the 6 plants, and I guess technically they're just on day 1. Here's the pic rundown:

Pic#1:
The box I constructed. It's about 40% translucent, but it's also a great reflector. I'll deal with the light spill later.

Pic#2:
The new hood, now with more convenient light switch placement!

Pic#3:
Here's the whole setup, once again, and once again very different. Oh, and I forgot to mention putting down aluminum foil on the towel to help reflect/collect drainage.

Day 4

Oh the revisions... will they end? Not if I can keep improving my setup for free! Today everything got covered in foil, I made my box door all fancy-shmancy, and I got my first sprouts! I'm now the proud papa of 5 beautiful 1cm green babies. The last seed has a visible stalk, but only through a small hole in the dirt. He/She should be here tomorrow. On with the pics!

Pic#1:
The door now opens accordion-style to save space!

Pic#2:
All the walls have aluminum foil glued to them. It's almost a mirror finish in there.

Pic#3:
The aluminum also helps the light spill because my box is completely opaque now.

Pic#4:
The only survivor of the original plants, or the "Soil-Grown Six" if you don't mind a reference to Lost. Looking green and happy.

wow. cool grow room evolution. GO RIU!!! kinda started make shift but looks great now.

ALX420--
Day 5

With my current setup and in their final 8" pots, the plants will only be able to get to a maximum of 18" tall before they are in the light fixture at its highest point. I'd have to move it to the floor and build an addition to the wall, but if that's what it takes to get a decent crop, I guess that's what it takes.

Here's the most recent batch of pictures:

Pics#1-4:
Each plant individually. They all look about the same, but number 3 has a bit of yellowing on the edge of its leaf. Is that any cause for alarm or should I raise the lights? It feels like there's almost no heat under there, but I'm also a newb.

Pic#5:
This one has a purplish hue in its stem. Does that mean anything?

Pic#6:
Here's my late bloomer, seed-pod in hand.

Pic#7:
Here's a look at all 6 plants. I gave them their first splash of water today, after being put into moist soil two days prior. I really hope that doesn't constitute overwatering... I'm gonna have to try pretty hard to figure out when they don't need water, it seems.

Pic#8:
This is a small sampling of the tape I have on the inside of my door frame to keep light in. The tape on the left runs up the side with the knob, and the sticky side is covered with lint from my dryer's lint trap to help make it more opaque and to keep it from sticking to me when I'm going in and out. Works very well so far!


That's all for the 5-day recap. From now on, you're getting live feed from my apartment.

Thanks for checking out my grow, and if you have any suggestions, please go ahead and suggest them.

I'm not sure if this is anything of concern or not, but I figured it best to consult the RIU community. All of my plants have varying amounts of what appear to be salt crystals all over the top layer of soil.

In the attached picture, everything that's white is a little grain of salt, sand, or something. Is it anything to be alarmed about, or is it completely normal and I'm having a n00bie freakout?

Thanks!

Honey, I freaking am in love with your tenacity!!! You are clearly driven but you are making a few grave errors....aluminum foil is your worst enemy. You have to take it all down!!! what happens as where it crinkles and the light hits and reflects to the plants leaves will eventually cause little burn holes in the plant

The white opaque surface that you had from the foam core is 100% better for reflecting surface light. Your kickass light reflector has to have the aluminum foil removed to you are on such a good track but that foil is like a mirage it looks so good but its not..

you could also just use white copy paper see white will reflect the full spectrum and bounce light back and forth from itself....if you have like the plastic lids off some pringle cans or coffee cans you can use that as lil drain trays for the cups..

Im so fucking proud of you for making so a whole hearted attempt please ask me any question you have and when you have time please come read my journal its a cooky little grow like yours and I think you will learn sooo much!!!

lookin good... nice sprouts and great start!

pinksensa--
If I tripled my light setup (a la 6x 100w 6200K, 3x 150w 2700K) would I still be struggling to support 3 mature plants? I'm trying to get a potential shopping list together so I can assess cost and make budget adjustments as necessary.

More feedback!

with that amount of light in a small area i would think that you would have no problem grow at least 2 maybe 3 mature plants. something you have to(and i'm sure already have) take into consideration is how big these plants are really gonna get, prepare for a double or triple in size once you go into flowering. But before we start talking about flowering(i know its exciting) if you concentrate on growing buds your not gonna grow a plant so well, i know that has been one of my problems. you need to first concentrate on growing green, bushy, happy plants.
I am working on putting together my own CFL grow right now. So i'll be watching this grow to see how it works out. best of luck m8, and A for effort.

themoose--If I force flower at 18", do you think I'll want pots bigger than the ones in the pictures I attached? They're 8" pots, and they hold about .8 gallons. Will I want more space for them to root and be able to grow up to 3'-3.5'?

And I've got these in 8oz Solo cups... what's the soonest I can transplant so they don't get rootbound and slow down? I know the transplant will slow them anyway, but I'd still rather them be growing steadily when I do transplant, if possible.

I'm in love with this community so far. There's a lot of support here!

Glory, your grow is looking great, man!

I use Miracle Grow, like you, and I've learned a few things along the way; I hope you don't mind if I make a few suggestions?

Go to Lowes or Home Depot and get some gardening Lime, it's pulverized limestone and if you add 1/4 teaspoon to your water, it will "buffer" the soil and the roots won't be so finicky about the PH level.

Also go where the Fish are at Wal-Mart and get a PH kit; they only cost a few bucks and you'll need to get your water around 7.0 PH, which will drop to 6.5 or so once they get into the soil.

You can use Apple Cider Vinegar to lower the PH and plain ol Arm n Hammer baking soda to raise your PH...just a few drops will change the PH, don't over do it! Only use VERY small amounts of the baking Soda as well.

Miracle Grow is "Hot" it has too many nutrients for smaller plants, so they may crinkle up or grow kinda strange til they hit the third week, then they'll take off!

MG has ALL the nutes you need for vegging...don't add any more or you'll burn the plants.

When you go to Wally World, get a bag of Perlite and mix it in with the Miracle Grow...this will give the roots a bit more breathing room and help control the moisture in the soil. Mix at about 1/4 Perlite, 3/4 MG soil.

Get more lights Those CFLs will do the trick during the veg stage, but when you start flowering, you'll need an HPS to get REALLY good results. Lots of people flower with CFLs, but it's tricky..

Let me know if you have any questions..I'll be glad to give you any advise from my grow and if you don't mind, I'll post a pic or two so you don't think I'm BSing ya!

Gloryfades said:

themoose--

I know I'll have to move everything to the floor (instead of on top of the dresser) right before I go into flowering, because there's only 18" of space for them to grow where they are now, and that's about the height I want them at when I switch up the photoperiod. I'm going to try and find a few more cups to plant more seedlings so I can increase my chances of ending up with 3 or 4 females. The 6 I have now look pretty green, though. They got a lot darker today, it seems.​

If I force flower at 18", do you think I'll want pots bigger than the ones in the pictures I attached? They're 8" pots, and they hold about .8 gallons. Will I want more space for them to root and be able to grow up to 3'-3.5'?

And I've got these in 8oz Solo cups... what's the soonest I can transplant so they don't get rootbound and slow down? I know the transplant will slow them anyway, but I'd still rather them be growing steadily when I do transplant, if possible.

I'm in love with this community so far. There's a lot of support here!

Click to expand...

You'll need bigger pots, look at my pic from the previous post; I use the 9Quart trash cans from Wal-Mart; just drill holes in the bottom for drainage, they cost around 2 bucks each.

Transplant from the Solo cups at about 2 weeks or they'll get rootbound (I use those too, hehe! When they are about 3 inches tall, go ahead and move them over to the 9Qt buckets.

No need to get too fancy with the pots, we ARE shopping Wal-Mart here
EDIT:
Oh...and listen to Pinky...lose the foil, it will not help your plants...use white paper as she suggested; it will be more effective!

yeah those pots look big enough for a small operation,If you can fit bigger pots its always better because marijuana doesn't like to be restrained, but i would say you are going to have to move your baby's to something in between because unfortunately they will not grow to 18 in. in the cups, also when your transplant make sure you have white gloves on, if you touch the root system or even the plant in general when it is still a seedling without gloves you can seriously risk damage your little buddies, i always wear a cheap pair of all white gloves. I just transplanted my oldest seedling to a larger pot and within the same day i saw signs of growth.

Muddy Paws--
The soil was extremely dry earlier, but I didn't want to overwater. I dug in about an inch and it was still dry as a bone. Should that be safe to water? And how much water should they get? I'd assume I should just fill the cups enough that eventually a little water drips from the bottom, just so I know the soil is saturated. Correct me if I'm wrong, please!