My new & improved grow room! Help with suggestions anyone?

M

MrSnowMan

Member
My current new set up of lights is 8 2700k 20w CFLs and 2 sunlight spec (5500k) 20w CFL and 2 40w 4' sunlight spectrum florescents to lead the growth upward a bit.

Total lumens = 16,200
Total square footage = 4
Lumens/Sq. Ft. = 4050

Note that the 4' floros only have about 2' of them actually inside the tube... I don't know how much this effects the lumen output so I left it as is.

Temp. at 68-78
Evaporated water, waiting for a PH meter
Nuted soil... although I'm really fucking up on nutes and I was wondering if anyone could help me on how to handle prenuted soils? I can't flush them but I need to get the salts out... wtf do I do!?

But yea.... picture time!




Thanks to anyone who comments or suggests anything! I appreciate it all!
 
wyndorf

wyndorf

Active Member
Very nice! a snug little blanket of light... I might add higher k cfls though...

I can't say much about the nuted soil, i'm not that knowledgeable about them yet...

Good luck man...


MrSnowMan said:
My current new set up of lights is 8 2700k 20w CFLs and 2 sunlight spec (5500k) 20w CFL and 2 40w 4' sunlight spectrum florescents to lead the growth upward a bit.

Total lumens = 16,200
Total square footage = 4
Lumens/Sq. Ft. = 4050

Note that the 4' floros only have about 2' of them actually inside the tube... I don't know how much this effects the lumen output so I left it as is.

Temp. at 68-78
Evaporated water, waiting for a PH meter
Nuted soil... although I'm really fucking up on nutes and I was wondering if anyone could help me on how to handle prenuted soils? I can't flush them but I need to get the salts out... wtf do I do!?

But yea.... picture time!




Thanks to anyone who comments or suggests anything! I appreciate it all!
Click to expand...
 
M

MrSnowMan

Member
Yea, dude, nuting is a bitch, and watering, I honestly have no idea how often to water, and I try to do it every other day but the plants.... they talk to me.... "please please water us! Yes! Over water us! Don't worry! We like it!" I just can't resist! But now I'm using super thrive in my water so I'm gonna try to actually stick to once every other day... anyone get better success with any other type of watering plan? Any suggestions are appreciated.
 
R

ryankm

Member
just check your soil man finger length should be dry, and in the future get a small hps will pay off large i started off with cfls and didnt turn out very good and now im going with hps check out my pics
 
Arrid

Arrid

Well-Known Member
Soil that is already packed full of nutrients is generally a big nono in terms of growing as you cannot really change the nutrient levels sufficiently without having a realistic view of what levels are already in there. Often people have complained of their young sprouts dying because of it, that's not to say a good grow cannot be done with this type of soil.

I noticed your grow space is also made out of cardboard boxing. I would suggest changing this as quickly as possible for a few reasons..a few people will disagree but Cardboard isn't the safest material for a grow space to be made from also painting the surfaces flat white will increase the reflectivity of your grow space, as you may know painting cardboard makes it soggy and unusable. ;)

What have you got in terms of ventilation?

You will definitely need to get yourself a nice little fan in there to get those babies moving a little in the "wind" this will increase stem strength for later on when they're carrying more weight. :)

Stop watering your plants so much or they'll start to wither up and die, they need to stretch those roots out in search of water, this will help them to grow taller.

The general rule of thumb when it comes to watering is to wait until the top 5 cms of the soil is completely dry, then water.

A good idea will be to get decent ventilation set up so you can deal with any heat and smell problems (via carbon filter/scrubber) that will arise later on. I'd also be inclined to suggest flowering them with a HPS light, you can pick a cheap one up for about $60, if the ventilations alright the heat it generates won't be a problem. :)

Hope this helps, happy growing. :leaf:
 
M

MrSnowMan

Member
Arrid said:
Soil that is already packed full of nutrients is generally a big nono in terms of growing as you cannot really change the nutrient levels sufficiently without having a realistic view of what levels are already in there. Often people have complained of their young sprouts dying because of it, that's not to say a good grow cannot be done with this type of soil.

I noticed your grow space is also made out of cardboard boxing. I would suggest changing this as quickly as possible for a few reasons..a few people will disagree but Cardboard isn't the safest material for a grow space to be made from also painting the surfaces flat white will increase the reflectivity of your grow space, as you may know painting cardboard makes it soggy and unusable. ;)

What have you got in terms of ventilation?

You will definitely need to get yourself a nice little fan in there to get those babies moving a little in the "wind" this will increase stem strength for later on when they're carrying more weight. :)

Stop watering your plants so much or they'll start to wither up and die, they need to stretch those roots out in search of water, this will help them to grow taller.

The general rule of thumb when it comes to watering is to wait until the top 5 cms of the soil is completely dry, then water.

A good idea will be to get decent ventilation set up so you can deal with any heat and smell problems (via carbon filter/scrubber) that will arise later on. I'd also be inclined to suggest flowering them with a HPS light, you can pick a cheap one up for about $60, if the ventilations alright the heat it generates won't be a problem. :)

Hope this helps, happy growing. :leaf:
Click to expand...
A few things have changed since I took those pics, I have a rather large fan inside there blowing just above the 10 bulbs. Also, I have white paper taped into there, I know it's ghetto but I have to leave it like that until I come up with a better idea. Cardboard is my only option, also, CFL's are my only option and the only things I actually want to grow with. When I go to flowering, I MIGHT get a low watt HPS like 100w or so but probably not, I'm probably going to just get 5-10 more CFL's and perhaps another fan if the temps go haywire. Thanks for the watering advice, I've been looking for some kinda simple way to tell when I need to water, so thanks for the measurement!

Have a nice day...


Edit : Smell isn't an issue.
 
Arrid

Arrid

Well-Known Member
MrSnowMan said:
A few things have changed since I took those pics, I have a rather large fan inside there blowing just above the 10 bulbs. Also, I have white paper taped into there, I know it's ghetto but I have to leave it like that until I come up with a better idea. Cardboard is my only option, also, CFL's are my only option and the only things I actually want to grow with. When I go to flowering, I MIGHT get a low watt HPS like 100w or so but probably not, I'm probably going to just get 5-10 more CFL's and perhaps another fan if the temps go haywire. Thanks for the watering advice, I've been looking for some kinda simple way to tell when I need to water, so thanks for the measurement!

Have a nice day...


Edit : Smell isn't an issue.
Click to expand...
If you can, try blowing the air upwards instead of down at the plants as blowing hot air at them can cause stress and as you may know heat stress has been linked to causing hermies, which we don't want! :bigjoint:

You can make up a nice box and paint it for under $30, it'll be well worth it and give you a better peace of mind..I mean paper + cfl = Firefirefire!

Happy growing dude, hope this has helped. :leaf:
 
M

MrSnowMan

Member
The fire hazard won't be a problem. It's 100% secure and monitored very very often. Also, there's a fire extinguisher in my room and the living room just in case.
If I can afford a better box I will try to make one out of wood...
I have encountered another problem because 2 of my plants are right under the CFL and if they grow another CM or so they will touch it and it will burn the leaves. I could solve this problem by getting rid of 1 of the 7 because then I could have 3 rows of 2 and not have that space issue, but I don't know if it's worth trashing a plant for. Also, can anyone estimate how many plants I could grow all the way to sexing in that box without it touching the CFL's? I want to keep all 7 until sexing if possible...
ALSO.... my plants are working on their 4th node right now, and they're growing their 5 spear leaves as I type but they haven't got them in all the way and I was wondering if it's too early to think about topping them or super cropping them or something.
 
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