Grow Journal: Rubbermaid CFL First Grow

Hey guys.. This is my first attempt at growing.. I have decided to start now, after months of research and I thought I would start my own grow journal and show everyone my progress, as well as, so I can get some tips, advice, comments and suggestions. I also need to note that I plan this to be a short grow as I am in university now (in the UK) and have about 2 months left before I finish my course and move out, so I plan to get all this done (hopefully!) within this time span. Anyways, the grow details are as follows:

Grow Box:

• Rubbermaid type grow using 2x Storage boxes from Ikea (28.5 gallon each) with the dimensions of each box are Width: 79 cm, Depth: 57 cm, Height: 42 cm
• 9x 20W CFL Lights (5x Daylight 6500K & 4x Cool White 4000K)
• 4x 120mm Computer fans (2x Intake on Bottom Rubbermaid right side and 2x Exhaust fans on Top Rubbermaid Left side)
• Diamond Mylar Sheeting for the top Rubbermaid and Metallic Silver spray for bottom (Ran out of mylar sheeting!)

Seeds:
I am currently growing 7 plants from seeds I bought from Attitude, the strains are:

• 3x G13 Labs Pure Power Feminized
• 2x Buddha Seeds White Dwarf Feminized
• 1x Dinafem Blue Hash (got this free!)
• 1x Dinafem Seeds Blue Widow (got this free too!)

Soil/Nutes/Others:

• BioBizz Organic All-Mix Soil
• BioBizz Bio-Grow Organic Nutes
• BioBizz Bio-Bloom Organic Nutes
• Perlite
• 7x 5-Inch round pots (initial pots), 7x 8-Inch square pots (Plants will be transplanted here once sufficient growth is established)
• Soil Moisture meter
• Liquid PH Tester
• Thermometer/Humidity
• 24Hour Electrical Socket Timer switch

Light Schedule/Photoperiod:
[18/6 hours]
11am-5am GMT (LIGHT)
5am-11am GMT (DARK)

Grow Box Design:
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE

The grow box using two Ikea Samla Storage boxes (Outside wrapped in Aluminium foil to prevent light leaks).


2x 120mm PC fans as Exhaust on the top box (left side)


2x 120mm PC fans as Intake on bottom box (right side). I alternated the intake on right and exhaust on left to promote air circulation.


9x 20W Lights altogether with digital thermometer and humidity on plant level.


The light socket wires are put on the box itself to allow me to easily lower/raise the lights. The picture also shows that the top box is fully covered with Mylar and the 2nd thermometer in the grow box.


The picture shows the lights being 3 inches away from the plants.

Thanks for viewing my journal, I will post more later on about my plants as now I am in day 5 since planting the germinated seeds. Any opinions, suggestions and comments will be appreciated! :

Hey guys.. Finally got my journal approved by one of the moderators.. thanks again Chiceh.. anyways, My plants are in 5 inch pots using 40% Perlite and 60% BioBizz All Mix (can't get Fox Farm in the UK). The watering schedule currently varies, as I am still learning how to water them properly, but my method right now is to poke the soil around the plant with a Soil mosture meter and if its 4 or below, I water them with 150-250ml of just filtered tap water (ph 6.0-6.5) with no nutes. Here are my backdated notes/pictures on my grow from 2 days ago.. (note that the times are in GMT)..

Plants:
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE


Blue Widow (Clear pot covered by green pot)
- Start planting 11am (15/07/09)
- Seedling sprouted (17/07/09)


Pure Power I (Clear pot covered by green pot)
- 8pm Plant time (15/07/09)
- Seedling sprouted (17/07/09)


White Dwarf I (Clear pot covered by green pot)
- 8pm Plant time (15/07/09)
- Seedling sprouted (17/07/09)


Blue Hash (Clear pot covered by green pot)
- 8pm Plant time (15/07/09)
- Seedling sprouted (17/07/09)


Pure Power II (Red pot)
- 5am Plant time (16/07/09)
- Seedling sprouted (19/07/09)


White Dwarf II (Red Pot)
- 11am Plant time (16/07/09)
- Seedling sprouted (19/07/09)


Pure Power III (Clear pot covered by green pot)
- 8:45pm Plant Time (16/07/09)
- Seedling sprouted (20/07/09)


Overview look of all plants in grow box.

Any opinions, advice and comments is welcomed..

Hey guys, I haven't updated in a while, so I decided to post up the status of my plants.. I've decided to post an update every 5 days.. so anyways, back to my plants.. right now, we are at day 10 since planting the 1st germinated seed.. some minor changes have been made to the grow house since the last post, I have raised the pots off the ground with the aid of shoe boxes (instead of the larger circular pots as a base), this is mainly so i can keep the plants closer to the light.. I also made a DIY CFL reflector with thick cardboard, wood, adhesive spray and tin foil (as can be seen in photos below), I also added a small 6" fan to help with air circulation and temperature as the intake fans are slightly blocked due to the boxes.. lastly, i have added 2 glasses and a bowl of water+perlite to the grow box to hopefully help increase humidity as currently I am averaging out at 32-35% humidity (as can be seen in pic below)..

The plants are starting to have significant growth as compared to the pics from 5 days ago, having no problems at all so far.. I plan to give them 4 days-1 week more till I transplant them into their 6.5L Square pots (their final home due to size constraints in box).. anyways, the pics are as follows:

My Plants:
CLICK ON PICS TO ENLARGE

Blue Widow

• Initially, this was the biggest plant I had as it was the first seed to be planted and it was also the first to sprout
• As can be seen, it has grown a little and it is in the process of growing new leaves

Pure Power I

• This plant has grown two new sets of leaves with a few smaller ones on the way, it also still has its Cotyledons

White Dwarf I

• Similar to the Pure Power I, It has grown 2 more sets of leaves, but still has yet to show signs of more leaves to grow

Blue Hash

• The Blue Hash plant also has grown 2 sets of leaves, all the above 3 plants have shown similar growth, I guess this is due to the seeds of all 3 plants being planted at the same time

Pure Power II

• Pure Power II has grown a little with 2 new sets of leaves

White Dwarf II

• White Dwarf II has grown similarly to the other plants
• Sorry for the blurry picture, was stoned when taking this photo and my hand was shaking like crazy!

Pure Power III

• This is the smallest/slowest plant I have as it took the longest to germinate resulting in a late plant time
• When compared to pics from 5 days ago, this plant has grown a little with growing its first set of leaves (not including its Cotyledons).

Overview of plants in grow box

• In this pic you can sort of see the 2 glasses+1 bowl of water+perlite to help increase humidity

Grow Box additions/Other images:

Thermometer II (Plant Level)

• Temperature is averaging at 72-80 Degrees
• As stated before, humidity averages out at 32-35% humidity..

New 6" fan


New DIY CFL Reflector (Off)


New DIY CFL Reflector (On)


Bottom view of Refector from Intake Fan (bottom right)


Top view of Refector from Exhaust Fan (top left)

• As can be seen from the picture, I can still move the reflector higher or lower as needed. This will help me make room for the plants as they grow

Anyways, those are my updates for today.. The plants are growing at a decent rate (i think!), now with the introduction of the reflector, I hope to see faster improvement as the reflector has been on for 1 day and I have noticed significant growth from before the refector.. I have to say that I have had no comments whatsoever yet , I would appreciate it if anyone had any opinions on my grow, as well as, a way to improve the humidity as I have read that the optimum RH is 40%+.. see you guys in 5 days time

Until next time..

You got a good setup goin for you..as for the humitity, cant you just put a glass of water in there and have the fan blow on it?

Johnny Retro said:

You got a good setup goin for you..as for the humitity, cant you just put a glass of water in there and have the fan blow on it?

Click to expand...

yay! a first comment.. I have put 2 glasses and a bowl of water + perlite in the growbox already.. the plan is to let the perlite absorb water to evaporate to the air (due to heat from lights or air from fans) but it only increased humidity by 2% or so.. i currently have 35% RH with those in the box..

any other suggestions?

Hey guys.. Its been a while since i last updated been busy with university stuff.. there has been several changes to my grow in the past week..

the notable changes are:

• I accidentally burnt the White Dwarf I as I left it too close to the light one day (see image below)
• I moved the DIY aluminium foil reflector to the top (highest possible in the top rubbermaid) as a result of the burnt White Dwarf I
• I repotted 6 of the 7 plants (not including the "injured" White Dwarf I) into 6.5L square pots

Now on to some pictures.. The pics on the left are the ones from Day 10, and the ones on the right are from Day 17.. I decided to put them side by side to show the growth/change of each plant

CLICK ON PICS TO ENLARGE

Blue Widow
As can be seen from comparison, there has been a significant amount of growth, its growing slowly but surely


Pure Power I
This plant had a slight burn on one leaf from the lights being too close (3rd Picture), the lights have been moved and I think it should recover as the burn isn't that bad.


White Dwarf I
This is the "injured" plant as mentioned before.. The damn CFL burnt half the plant, so I removed all the burnt leaves.. I don't know what to do with it, I was tempted to just kill it and focus on my other 6 plants, but I decided to just let it be for now and see how it gets on


Blue Hash
This has grown a bit too, nothing much to say about this plant


Pure Power II
This has overtaken the Blue Widow and is now my largest plant.. It has started growing 5 bladed leaves! i'm very happy with the progress of this baby


White Dwarf II
More and more leaves started to grow on the White Dwarf II, it is increasing in size everyday! which is weird cos i though dwarf plants are meant to be small in size..


Pure Power III
This was previously the smallest plant I had as it was the last to germinate and last to sprout.. but now it has grown a bit and is similar in size to the other plants I have..


Overview of plants in grow box
The pic on the left is before I repotted the plants and the one on the right is after I repotted them..

I decided to leave the "injured" plant in the small pot to let it recover (also, i dont think i can fit another 6.5L pot in the grow box!), any suggestions to what I should do with the burnt plant? should I just leave it as it is and see how if it recovers or not, or is it a lost cause and should just let it die peacefully..

any feedback would be greatly appreciated guys, so please dont hesitate to comment.. thanks for reading my journal!

let me know how that blue hash tastes,nice setup

i would see if it grows back a had a seedling with leaves the size of water droplets get burnt half to hell and its still kicking have faith in the little guy

Looks really good. I'll definitely be watching this.