Fuzz's first grow - T5 + CFL - Medical Cabinet grow, DWC, Bagseed

Hi there, been lurking RIU for a while and getting alot of useful information!

This is my first grow(first post too) and I am definately hoping to be able to grow my own medicine. It is so exciting checking my plant and seeing how much it's grown overnight.

My grow area is in a cabinet measure 4x1.5x1 so it is basically a tall skinny cabinet made from two plastic file cabinets obtained at staples. I like this method because the footprint size is very small (1 1/2 foot by 1) as well as the tall height hopefully for taller plants.

I am using a 2.5 gallon bucket inside of the cabinet (perfect fit) with a airstone and netpot inside of it.

I am very new to this but am totally open to advice and comments! Please dont bash me for being a flourescent fan, I am trying to keep the power consumption and heat production as minimal as possible. I am of course worried about fluffly buds but Im hoping if I blast it with enough 2700k light I should be okay.


I am not sure the sex of the plant yet, as I have not started 12/12 but am also worried about it being male, as this is a single plant setup.


Also I posted a picture of a leaf with some damage, the damage happened when I transfered the planet to the black bucket but I am still worried that it might be some sort of nutrient problem.


I am going to attach some photos of my grow including slightly older setup(non-dwc) but same plant

Looks good so far. Might need some N but other than that are you using any kind of cal or mag supplement? There is nothis wrong with flourescents! Just keep them within 2 inches of the tops. I vegg all my plants under floros to make nice bushy plants. I have seen alot of threads on here where guys use cfls for flowering with great results. Good luck and happy growing!

Dirtfree said:

Looks good so far. Might need some N but other than that are you using any kind of cal or mag supplement? There is nothis wrong with flourescents! Just keep them within 2 inches of the tops. I vegg all my plants under floros to make nice bushy plants. I have seen alot of threads on here where guys use cfls for flowering with great results. Good luck and happy growing!

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Thanks for the response, I am using Botanicare's Pure Blend Pro Grow, Pro Bloom, as well as Liquid Karma. I read on the packaging that both the Pro Grow and Pro Bloom have 1% Calcium and 0.5% Magnesium. Nitrogen on the vegging formula is at 3%. I mix 30ml of solution with 4 liters of water and PH is maintained and I keep in 5.8 - 6.2 range

Does that sound sufficient or should I look into additional Calcium and Magnesium and Nitrogen supplements?

I am also planning on setting up a bottle with yeast and sugar for some CO2 directly infront of the intake, as well as maybe one directly in the box.

The pro blend line has a calmag supplement. I use a lil with every feeding. The grow has plenty of N in it, maybe you just need to raise your ppm a lil.

Dirtfree said:

The pro blend line has a calmag supplement. I use a lil with every feeding. The grow has plenty of N in it, maybe you just need to raise your ppm a lil.

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Thanks, I will definately look into that when I get some scrilla.

So I was being lazy and didn't check the plant and it grew into the 105w which basically dried out the crown and I just snipped the crown because it was dead. This could be really bad because I was hoping to make the plant tall and fill box and from what I assume I just accidently trained it to be short and bushy. Any advice would be welcome, im thinking about moving the out of cabinet but would still like to utilize the lights as much as possible. Also thinking about trying a different plant, maybe a feminized seed.

I did purchase 3 LED PAR-38 Bulbs with RED + BLUE leds but I have read that they are lower wattage LEDs so therefore arent as powerful... but im hoping I can use all three to clone as well as flower the clones to determine sex. I dont know how good they will do, I might just end up using them as supplemental light or makeshift disco light

At the time of pictures she had rank 2/3 of the water in bucket and lower leaves were wilting (I assume because top of rootball wasnt getting enough water)

Input would be appreciated but h8rs can

I really should've wrote down when I germinated the seed, because now I am clueless how old it is!

Anyways some changes have happened to this grow, decided the tiny cabinet I was growing in was very restrictive to side growth so I ditched it and converted my closet into a two tier shelf of sorts. It isnt lightproof yet but as soon as I get some more money to buy some mylar/pandafilm as well as wood for cabinet.

The plant seems to be doing great, drinking from the 2.5gallon something fierce. My balls are in my throat for fear of it being a male, as I have used about 5/6 all my vegetative nutrients on this particular hopeful girl.

I have started tinkering around with a little bit of LST and am hoping it isnt too late. This decision was pretty impromptu and not sure how it will turn out but thought id just try to fill up as much room as possible. I also topped the plant awhile back so im interested to see what happens

The plant has very little smell, ive taken some of the leaves I trimmed from some sorry looking clones and squeezed and smelled more like plant material then any kind of marijuana odor.

I do not have lights yet to flower but am selling some shit on craigslist.
I am entirely torn between buying a 150w HPS grow light for about 90 dolllars... OR buying a sunblaze 4ft t5 fluoro with 4 bulbs for about 130-180 (54w X 4)

One advantage of the HPS is that its cheap and notorius for better bud... but heat is definately a concern for me.. as well as I am not entirely sure if 150w would be enough.

An advantage of the sunblaze fluoro fixture would be that I could switchout bulbs for daylight or warm so if im not flower I can use extra power for vegetative.

Another option is one of those stupid looking 90w UFO LED lights, as I am looking for a light for flowering what I would probably end up doing is supplementing the UFO LED with CFL/T5s, this is the most costly option by far thou

I would LOVE FEEDBACK about any advice you have. The powerbill is a giant concern of mine so anything too powerful wont fly.

I have thought about the technique I would use to flower and taking clones off the mother and vegging them for a bit then flowering seems to be the smartest option (SOG?)

The pictures im posting are of the new grow closet as well as some close ups of preflowers (if you can tell sex please let me know)

I need to know sex! I took some clones and made a makeshift aquarium/hydroton bog-dwc with airstone... it is keeping them all alive and I can check the roots easily this way. One of the clones leaftips are yellowing and I see white things starting to bulge out of bottom. I have been taking a few clones every week or so and am definately having fun shaping the mom... some might call it butchering i guess.


I am trying to find the right light to flower with and might just use 4x42w CFLs for like 30-40 bucks @ CFL universe.. I would probably also get some Gro-lux T5 bulbs for those two fixtures I have... (supposedly they have both red and blue light wavelengths). I would also supplement with my two 14w LED spotlights. watts would be 168w CFLs + 108w T5 + 28w LED = 301w Total

Im hoping that would be enough to flower the clones and mother. I would definately try to milk the mother for as many clones as possible and flower those before I flower her.


If anyone has experience with gro-lux bulbs (they glow more purple then my 6500ks) please let me know.

I am also leaning to getting a 150w HPS instead of CFL but ventilation would need to be worked on.
I am definately interested in having a portable fixture without some ballast to carry around thou, cfls arent too portable per watt

I am out of vegging nutrients and gonna get next batch. I am thinking of trying General Hydroponics lineup. Second choice is Dutch master.

damn man great medical grow. hope its female

So update and guess what... Fuzz just stepped it up a notch. Traded some crap I had laying around for a 400w switchable light. Have a metal hallide bulb that is a little bit old so that will need replacing but so far my baby is loving it! I really wanted to give the lower growth a chance to spurt so I took some clones as well as supercropped main stem.

I am really having fun seeing how adaptable the plant is. Some of the first batch of clones I took are rooting now, but I definately want to find a way to speed up the procedure. I am also worried the airstone in my mother's DWC is either not up to par or not circulating the water well enough, when I lift root ball half of it is white other half is lil bit more yellow.

I ran out of my botanacare so am using liquid karma, marine algae extract and some "chi" also part of the trade.

So plan is to vegg out mom and get clones rooted in some soil trays, vegg them for a little bit. Then pickup a HPS bulb (possibly some 2700k T5 or Grolux t5 as well.)

I am thinking of flowering mom and clones at the same time and after harvest try with a better seed, leaning to something purple

If you check the picture with my hand in it you can see some of the stretchiness from the T5 + CFL.

looks good but that bitch will be big when she flowers.. I THINKS YOU VEGGED A LITTLE TOO LONG.(sry for caps)

Thanks for input. I have vegged for so long cause was stuck with CFL + T5. Now that I have 400w im definately looking forward to flowering here.

I have trimmed her in a way to hopefully get 8 top colas and a bunch of lower colas as well. Not even counting the clones I have propagating.

The only downside I can think to vegging her for her long is more bud, maybe some stretching? What else should I expect?

Seems some of the top leaves are either getting light bleaching, or some sort of heat problem.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Edit: Checked out diagnose plant and its between PH fluctuation, heat stress, and over fertlization.

So I bought a 5 gallon bucket with netpot lid (upgrading from 2.5 gallon bucket with netpot)
It was a little bit of a chore getting the roots thru hole I cut in bottom of netpot, and then even harder getting hydroton to stay in but I found a way
I buried her main stem as far as I could fit it down.
I am really happy with this decision as I upgraded to a longer airstone and the water circulation is much better. Roots are white all over as opposed to just near airstone.

From my novice understanding I thought that having a giant mother plant would be a good thing. (Except for stretching of course)... As this is the first MJ plant I will ever flower (now that I have a 400w light) I decided to give her some more time to get even bigger.

I understand that when this baby flowers she is going to get gigantic in size but that is okay cause my closet is somewhat rearrangable.

I reorganized the setup (and broke one of my t5 bulbs in the process ) so now there is alot more space between my 400w metal hallide and the top canopy.
You might be able to see the burning that occured on my top leaves, but I upgraded to bigger bucket (with 5.8-6.2 PH water)
I didnt add any nutrients yet, but am starting to notice that the stems of newleaves are turning purple. I have read that this is because a deficiency of nitrogen and have Nitrozin that I plan to add after I give her some time to flush her system. I think the burning leaves is from heat stress + over fertilization.

I know this baby is gonna get big and am starting planning on how to support the (hopefully supermassive) flowers. I might install a screen just for support of the taller colas.

I am impressed with the supercropping technique and using that in addition with tying down some of the stems that are raising higher then its opposite side im hoping to make a fairly symmetrical plant.

Enough talk here the pics

so my she is a he/she

thats just the way it goes, im sure all the trimming and butchering clones + light leak made her go... at least that means i will have seed to go again. i was going to sprout a few premo seeds and if any turned out male pollenate this strain for fun. that might have to wait til next batch.

anywhere here is the proof


looking into a growtent + new mh bulb and hortilux

my next grow will be the purplest most dankest shit this lil mary j monk can get his grubby mitts on

royal purple, "purple kush", purple haze, "purplecstacy"

ive smoked royal purple and some other varius purples but i want true genetic purple.


anyways PLAN for current grow is to just wait to see if they are indeed nuts, if they are and when they are i might pinch a bunch off, ive heard seed production will cut into the THC production so would want to keep it minimal

when i smoked this shit it was pretty mid-grade but im looking forward to see how this shit is fresh


PICS

DAMN THOSE PHAT NUTZ

+ pistils too but not always focused