First grow attempt indoors. Need advice/opinions good or bad!

Elmo's Closet

Active Member
Hello, everyone! I am completely new to the forum in terms of posting but have read a lot of stuff on this forum. I have gained a lot of what i believe to be very helpful and valuable information so I would like to first off say thank you :grin:!

MY BOX:
(Temperature referred to in F unless mentioned otherwise.)
I have recently built (not yet complete) a roughly 18" x 18" x 40" grow box/tent using panda film and pvc. I had to make it that size so it would fit into the corner of my closet making it as least visible as possible. I currently have 4x 23w 6500k cfls and 2x 48w 2700k cfls being used to grow my plant. I had 1 pc fan (4") blowing air out of the box and a bit smaller cpu fan pushing air in. My plant is now on day 20 and the temperature in my room after just getting a temperature/humidity device that the temperature was in the upper 80's and the humidity ranges around mid 40's so far. We keep our condo around 69-70 degrees. I got so scared for my plant that I opened up the front flap a bit and positioned a small plug in fan to blow air from inside the closet into the tent which seems to have brought the temp down to around 80. I realize that this lets essential light escape the box which is counterproductive. I also realize that when this little (hopefully girl) starts getting bigger it will smell and I will be forced to close the tent. I forgot to mention I also built a homemade Walmart carbon filter after reading a guide online.

MY PLANT:
I am using an unknown seed that I collected from a batch I had probably a year or so ago. I feel like it was good stuff but who knows since i had only been smoking for a few months before i obtained it. I am treating this as a practice run of sorts since I will have some fem. white widow seeds soon. That being said this is still my first (indoors) and I love it like its my own blood! I topped the plant at the end of day 18 right above what I believe is the 4th node (above the 4th set of leaves starting from the first true leaves.) This may have been done too early but I read different tips on topping from so many different people lol. An odd thing that occurred with my plant that I have never seen before was that it grew a 3 leaf set as each of the 2 true leaves. Looks like this: \ | / .

Here are my questions:
What can I do to keep my box at a temperature that allows the plant to grow without ducting to outside as this is not possible in my situation. Do I need more air intakes than just the one I have?
Will I be able to get my pc fan to be able to get air to exit through the carbon filter or should I make two?
Am I using too many watts for the young age of the plant? Will removing some temporarily solve my heat problem while keeping the plant growing at a good pace?
My tent is about 41" tall. Accounting for my 4 gal. pot, at what point should I start my 12/12 cycle?

My plant is reaching the end of day 20. It was topped at the end of day 18. Tomorrow will be 3 weeks and it feels like its going by so slow!

Currently working on getting pics up of the end of day 19.
 
Here are the pics. I took a lot lol.
 

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Here is an update on my plant and a couple pics of my (in progress) grow box. As you can see it needs some cable management and some cleaning up. I also haven't attached the filter as it hasn't started smelling past the plant itself. Some things I have added to the box since last post: A second larger exhaust pc fan at the top giving me 2 fans pushing air out. I also added a second hole at the bottom for air intake. I held an incense up to the openings at the bottom and the smoke rushed to go inside the box. I guess this means i have negative pressure or something like that which is a good thing. So far my temps range from 81-85 with the lights on and 78-80 with the lights off. When I add my carbon filter to the exhausts, I am scared it will shoot my temps up too high thus stressing my plant. I am prepared to make a second filter for the second exhaust which will hopefully keep the temp rise at a minimum.
 

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