CFL brickseed micro grow

gcosta

Active Member
Ok, so I've been dreaming of taking another shot at growing for a long time and it's finally here. The other grow was about 8 years ago and also relied on cfl, but with puny amounts of light and both brand seeds gave in about 50 days into ugly veg. Let's see how this one fares.

The cab is 71x74x120 cm (28x29x47 in) with an adjustable hood that's currently locked at about 70 cm high due to a venting duct. I started with 4 59w 6400K CFLs rated at 3374 lumens each for a total of about 13500 lm or 2500lm/sq ft. Last night finished fitting 4 30w 2700K builbs at 1721 lm each, so now it's 20384 lm and 3845lm/sq ft. It can fit 9 7,5-liter (2-gallon) buckets with homemade soil, but only 5 are currently in with 6 plants and 4 clones. Lights are on 18/6 so to avoid the scorching heat of the afternoon under a ceramic tile roof. Temps are never below 85-90F, and that's at night. There are 4 PC fans at 45 cfm each which pull air from a cooler corner of the roof, but I need to add another exaust fan to balance things a bit.

These plants will hopefully take me through Indoor Farming 101 without too much of a hassle and have a bit of a story behind them.

There's a barbecue area outside the house and, after several joints smoked and seeds thrown in this kind of vase, a few plants sprouted. There was a tree on there already, still young and short, but very bushy, so the cannabis seedlings were in the shade. The seeds sprouted around April this year, a couple of months before winter, so they soon flowered and some of them hermied. The resulting seeds fell on the dirt and one day I counted 28 seedlings, of which only 10 had survived about a month later, in August. Some had a very stunted growth -- maybe because the soil was not that great anyway -- while others grew quite tall, reaching two feet in not long in trying to reach light. I took a few clones from these and 3 of the living 4 are doing ok.

The plants are about 4 months old but where transplanted and put under lights on Nov. 22nd. The clones are between 1.5 and 2 months old and took forever to pick up, but now show tight nodes, beautiful branching and one of them has flowers at vegging just like it's mother! I might keep this and the two other clones in the same vase vase as mothers for a future grow.

Although I built the cab tall, I always intended to keep the hood as close to the pots as possible. The thing is, the extra height came in handy with these tall plants plus the tall pots. I didn't want to waste the plants so I threw them in the cab, but the next growth is to be a SOG in another cab, I figured a perpetual harvest is well worth the trouble for having fresh smoke all the time, plus it's just so damn efficient!

Well, I intend to keep this space for both sharing and getting info, experience and help. Oh, and all around praising the plants just for the sake of it!

Here are some pics from last Tuesday, Dec 16th. I have since put up more lights and raised some pots, I will see about an update soon.


General view of the cab.



2 tall plants. The taller one I think is a male, the top branches were tied but are now free, two tops have been fimmed about a week ago. The other plant is mother to one of the surviving clones and, like it, is showing flowers!


Fimmed top.


Short plant, looks indicaish by the leaves.


Other short plant. Shitty performance.


Clone that had top burned on the light and now has beautiful arms! They're being held down to keep the plant wider.


Same clone and a stretchy plant in the background, looks different from the other ones.


3 clones in a vase. Two bigger ones might become good mothers, the one to the right shows flowers and it's only veg!


Such flowers!


Beautiful trichs on clone's mother! Anything to worry about if plants flower while on 18/6? I mean, does it make it a not adequate strain for mothering and cloning?


Sweet looks!


Tips have been showing these burns, which have increased inwards. I compared pics with help pages and it seems like nitrogen toxicity due to acid pH. Anyone agrees or suggests anything?


This one plant shows these curly leaves, but other plants also have scarred-like leaves. pH? What's best to lower it? No tester available, sorry.
 

gcosta

Active Member
Just some updated pics, these from Sunday, 21st. I added more lights which aren't in the pics above and moved the clones up a bit. I thought about putting them in flower yesterday, but there's so much new growth that another week or two might pay off, plus I'll have more time to troubleshoot the whole growing process. Still trying to figure watering, and temps are always pretty hot under the roof. In the meantime, I'll build the new cab that will be on a much cooler room.




Previous lights.


Added lights.


Sea of dream



Clone fitness!
 

gcosta

Active Member
Added a power supply fan and two cpu coolers from old pcs around the house... A K6 and a Celeron PII type of old! Scavenging to try to improve ventilation, things got at 43C (110F) in the afternoon, the trio should help get the hot air out. There are still a couple of simple changes I intend on doing to the box, but the room temps are already so high I'll just hope the plants enjoy the sauna grow.

I fed the plants a 12-8-6 two weeks ago, didn't repeat the dose yesterday because I was worried about ph being acidic. Can't test it, but some plants show leaf deformations that seem like it according to FAQ pictures. I think I'll do it now and work on lowering ph later anyway.

No pics, camera is away for the holidays.
 

winkdogg420

Well-Known Member
im doin a bagseed cfl grow too mine are short and phat i cant wait to see the diff between ours!

winkdogg
 

gcosta

Active Member
im doin a bagseed cfl grow too mine are short and phat i cant wait to see the diff between ours!

winkdogg
How old are yours? Are they the ones in your avatar pic? They look nice, should make you happy soon! :eyesmoke: Do you have a journal or more pics?

Do you plan on training them in any way? SOG, SCrOG, FIM, or whatever growing letter soup? Keep your plants short unless you're going to use side lighting, CFLs don't work well on a distance.
 

winkdogg420

Well-Known Member
how old are yours? Are they the ones in your avatar pic? They look nice, should make you happy soon! :eyesmoke: Do you have a journal or more pics?

Do you plan on training them in any way? Sog, scrog, fim, or whatever growing letter soup? Keep your plants short unless you're going to use side lighting, cfls don't work well on a distance.
they sprouted on 10/28 so about two months . I was going to top them but they stay short im guessing because the lights are so close i dont really have any heat issues(maybe too cold) i think i have a sea of green but i guess my plants could be called lolipops, im hoping they turn into one big bud each!

Just click my avatar and check out my grow! Its called "4x4 grow room clean slate "

thanks for looking winkdogg
 

gcosta

Active Member
Hey, if anybody is reading this, it was really inconsiderate of me just quit updating and never coming back. I vanished because the grow went bananas with the heat, most plants began to wilt and a couple seemed to have actually died. It's hard to know if I screwed up in any other aspect such as watering and fertilizing, I just know it's not fair to submit such beautiful plants to temperatures peaking at 50ºC and very high humidity under the roof no matter how well the rest goes. I'm getting ready to start a new grow in a new, smaller cab based on clones, small containers and perpetual harvesting, to the style propagated by Dr. Bud Green Genes elsewhere. I'll germinate some brick seed specifically for the grow and not transplant 2-foot tall ladies born accidentally besides setting up the op in a cool room of the house, so things should be easier to control this time.
 
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