First Indoor - Asstd. Bagseed CFL

[thatdjsnow]

So... I've grown multiple times outdoors in various U.S. states, usually all natural - only intervening to fix major deficiencies and pest problems.

This will be my first Indoor grow - It will be a CFL grow in a box approx 4ft T x 3ft W x 1.5ft D, which I will be constructing in 5 days. I'm in an apt. which needs to be low power usage, so CFL energy saving, and less need for cooling, was the obvious solution... as of right now, half of my plants are 13 days old, and the other half sprouted today - 8 plants total. 4 different batches of Bagseed - 2 from each bag.

This is an experimental grow.... to see of I like Indoor Growing, and can handle it... I will be spending as little money as possible, while spending where spending is needed... make sense? lol.

It all started with me reminiscing about the good ol' days of outdoor growing... so I got bored and germinated 4 seeds in a paper towel... I planted them in random empty containers I had (parkay, sherbert.. lol) and tossed them in the bottom of my closet with a 20w 18in 2700k t8 fluoro, and two 20-24w 18-36in 5100k t4 fluoros... To my amazement.. within 5 days I had four 3 inch seedlings, and one was working on her 3 Adult set of leaves...

This is where I started researching and came upon rollitup.org... which i instantly fell in love with, this place is the shit!


My next two posts will further sum up what I have gathered since then, and include 1 week photos, and current day photos.

Along with this post I have added a rough design (ms paint ) of what my grow box will look like.

 

[thatdjsnow]

DAY 3 - 7

I read as much as I possibly could in the forums... everything from the basics, to advanced lighting issues, controversial grow styles, and methods like SCROG and FIM... It was overwhelming, yet highly fun for me. I consider myself very intelligent, and learning is one of my hobbies!

So from what I had learned from reading, I found a few errors that I needed to address in my methods.... which required early transplants. At 3 days old - I transplanted all my plants into new soil and containers.... some of my containers were semi-translucent, and I had used a MG soil mixed 50/50 with outside soil. (all I had laying around when the seeds germinated.) Also - I learned that my lighting was hardly sufficient, so I decided to get some lights.

Here's what I bought:

• Two 6in clay pots (to ntthe translucent containers)
• MG Organic Choice potting soil .10-.05-.05
• two 26 watt 5300k CFLs
• socket bulb adapter/splitter
• one 42 watt 2700k CFL with reflector/clip
• Spray bottle
• MG 30-10-10 Water Soluble

And what I already had to work with:

• 1.5ftx2ft container
• 2ft box fan
• power strip
• 20w 18in 2700k t8 fluoro
• 20w 18in 5100k t4 fluoro
• 24w 36in 5100k t4 fluoro

So transplanted all the plants into better soil and containers and set it all up as best I could with what I had to work with. (it was 2am when I went shopping, so Wal-Mart it was! haha)

Day 4 didnt show too much change, probably due to much understandable shock, but 5,6,7 astonished me! I even posted a thread asking if one of my plants was growing faster than normal... I had the 5300k CFLs as close as the could get, and the rest weren't too far either... One of my plants went on a leaf sprouting rampage, and grew maybe 1/4 of an inch taller... the rest were all behind, but still looking good...

Here's some pics of how my ghetto improvised grow in the bottom of my, still occupied, closet turned out... and of course, how the plants were looking.

The one on the bottom right had some off leaf structure... I thought it was overwatering, but the leaves were healthy (as far as i know) - just shaped all crazy... ideas? lol

 

[thatdjsnow]

Free to Comment now... not that this Journal is very interesting to any one except me, though..

That one has really taken off compared to the others right? They are on 24/0 ATM and get rotated daily - usually twice. I had been watering them as the soil felt dry an inch down.

I'm off to take some current pics and make another entry. Hope some of you enjoy my journal.

 

[thatdjsnow]

Day 14


I've been keeping them on 24/0 - going to switch to 19/5 in five days when i build my box, add more lights, and a get some timers/soil testers... Since day 7 I've added another 32w 5100k cfl (would be two if i could find my other splitter) Also have some brand new seedlings in the pic... going to do two grows, 2 weeks a part... maybe try one FIM SCROG and the other FIM LST... havent decided..

They all seem to be going at the same rate that they were... I've named them 1, 2, 3, and 4.... from largest to smallest...

Plant 1 has multiple leaf sets for only being 3.5 inches tall, it seems. Doing pretty well with a nice thick stem. In the pics u can see what looks like the purple stem splitting and a green stem being revealed underneath... What's that all about? I thought purple stems were stress, then some RIU members said it might just be the strand.... but now I'm just like "WTF mate?"

Plant 2 looks fine... nothing to good or bad... leaves pointed sort of off due to lack of lighting and missing a few roatations.

Plant 3 is still chugging a long... very nice deep green color... but still has that crazy shaped first leaf set... and the rest of the leaves look slightly odd shaped too... Ideas?

Plant 4..... oh plant 4.... The lil one got abused by me... Had started plant 1 out on a 1/5 veg nut from a spray bottle just on the top of the soil.... and uhhh... that sort of slipped my mind and i forgot the spray bottle no longer had plain water in it... Hit the lil leaves and all... That was 48 hours ago, she seems a little better since I gave her the best flush she could handle...


So that's what's going on now... Heading to the store right after this post to buy another bulb y-splitter... hope the hardware store down the street is open.

Oh, and cross your fingers for me that nothing drastic happens before I can get the rest of my supplies and build my box!

 

[thatdjsnow]

Oh, and yes I know that my soil is awfully twiggy/barky.... but hell... its all i could get at the moment that i obtained it... i shook the soil in the container before planting to get most of it to come to the surface so it wouldnt be obstrocting any root growth, hopefully it helped some.

 

[islander21]

Yep, looks about like the route I was thinking. I'm questionning the whole thing a little bit now. It almost seems inevitable that it's going to turn into a much bigger ordeal than I think I want to get into.

 

[thatdjsnow]

Yep, looks about like the route I was thinking. I'm questionning the whole thing a little bit now. It almost seems inevitable that it's going to turn into a much bigger ordeal than I think I want to get into.

If you only had 1-2 plants and the container was white - something like in my pics wouldnt be too awful for your first grow... and under $30

 

[thatdjsnow]

Well... turns out what had looked like (accidental) early nute burn.... turned out to be total nute defiencency due to Tightly packed soil...

In the beginnings after germination I had run low on soil for one seed and had used a lot more outside dirt than soil with one plant.... and I forgot to address that problem.

I transplanted the plant into another container - shaking of as much of the old sandy soil as possible - replacing with MG Organic Choice.

I'm sure it will have the hell shocked out of it... maybe it will pull through.

 

[Phenom420]

Hey man,
I wouldn't use anything MG, I started my first off with it (as much as I love to admit it) but I quickly changed.
I don't like the ferts they use, it also helps burn plants faster as well.
I went to a local grow shed and got some soil without fert in it and it's much much better.

Happy gowin

 

[thatdjsnow]

Hey man,
I wouldn't use anything MG, I started my first off with it (as much as I love to admit it) but I quickly changed.
I don't like the ferts they use, it also helps burn plants faster as well.
I went to a local grow shed and got some soil without fert in it and it's much much better.

Happy gowin

Yeh I've heard a lot regarding people distaste for MG... I started off with Regular MG that had a 1 month 30-15-15 already in it... but quickly switched to the MG Organic Choice, it is .10-.05-.05... you think that is still a significant amount of nutes to make the MG OC a bad choice?

 

[thatdjsnow]

So here's a quick update:

Added -
1 5300k 26w CFL
1 2700 23w CFL (had it under my sink, didnt know about it)
Timer (not being used atm - waiting for box)

Tomorrow I get payed (I've been behind lately - paycheck to paycheck) and I'll be acquiring a ph/moisture/light meter, thermometer, new larger pots, 2 more CFLs, run-off pan, fans, and other misc. items... I actually lucked out and got a 2.5'x2.5'x5' box from work that they were going to toss... it should work nicely, especially for free!

So plant 4 is pretty well shot, so I didnt even take a pic - she's pretty much where she was before, except sicklier... I'll be removing removing her tomorrow.

Plant 3 has been some-what of an experiement.... I've been nipping parts of leaves here and there, messing with the stem, fimmed it... Just seeing how much stress these young weedlings can really take! It's actually doing quite well, aside from looking like the beaten up redheaded stepchild... its staying super short, and branching out like crazy with all sorts of new growths... pretty much what I was going for..... it's an indoor learning experience/experiement.

Plant 2 is is probably the most promising - it's the second largest, but didn't get affected by my brain-shart of not watering the other day... when I came home, she was all perked up with leaves pointing up at the lights... I was very surprised.

Plant 1 is too big for its pot, so when I forgot to water, it really got hit hard.... Since then, I've gotten her back on track, and trimmed the first adult set of leaves that were pretty well damaged/dead... Aside from that, she's doing great - you can still see a few signs of my non-watering mishap, but she looks entirely better than she did a day ago!

Here's a couple quick update pics... my grow "setup", plant 1, and plant 2.


Tell me what you think so far - I know there's not much to think though! And as I've said before.. "I'm not exactly planning to succeed.."

 

[Old Coot]

So here's a quick update:

Added -
1 5300k 26w CFL
1 2700 23w CFL (had it under my sink, didnt know about it)
Timer (not being used atm - waiting for box)

Tomorrow I get payed (I've been behind lately - paycheck to paycheck) and I'll be acquiring a ph/moisture/light meter, thermometer, new larger pots, 2 more CFLs, run-off pan, fans, and other misc. items... I actually lucked out and got a 2.5'x2.5'x5' box from work that they were going to toss... it should work nicely, especially for free!

So plant 4 is pretty well shot, so I didnt even take a pic - she's pretty much where she was before, except sicklier... I'll be removing removing her tomorrow.

Plant 3 has been some-what of an experiement.... I've been nipping parts of leaves here and there, messing with the stem, fimmed it... Just seeing how much stress these young weedlings can really take! It's actually doing quite well, aside from looking like the beaten up redheaded stepchild... its staying super short, and branching out like crazy with all sorts of new growths... pretty much what I was going for..... it's an indoor learning experience/experiement.

Plant 2 is is probably the most promising - it's the second largest, but didn't get affected by my brain-shart of not watering the other day... when I came home, she was all perked up with leaves pointing up at the lights... I was very surprised.

Plant 1 is too big for its pot, so when I forgot to water, it really got hit hard.... Since then, I've gotten her back on track, and trimmed the first adult set of leaves that were pretty well damaged/dead... Aside from that, she's doing great - you can still see a few signs of my non-watering mishap, but she looks entirely better than she did a day ago!

Here's a couple quick update pics... my grow "setup", plant 1, and plant 2.


Tell me what you think so far - I know there's not much to think though! And as I've said before.. "I'm not exactly planning to succeed.."

Hey DJSnow! Your grow looks very similar to my last closet grow. Here are some thoughts you might try.

Put em 12/12 for two to three weeks to sex them and then revert back to veg. For example lets say you get two out of four are female. Pot up to larger pots. Leave one in 12/12 to flower and put the other back in natural light near a window to veg until the first plant is about four to five weeks along. During this time you can train, IE... LST scrog, top, etc. and increase your yeild.

This way you can concentrate your light on one plant and get your bulbs closer together to focus the light you have. As they get taller CFL light penetration to the canopy is only about four inches. LST will allow you to get lower bud sites to the light.

Y splitters work best if you can keep you light bulbs oriented bulb sides parallel to the canopy at two inches from the top of your plants top. Lotsa small bulbs works fine but 42 watters give you more bang for the buck despite the cost at about $8 per.

Four 42 watt 2700 K bulbs yeilded this for me last grow. The suggestions I give you are ones I am using myself in response to my last grow yeild of 23 grams dry on three plants. The smoke was great but the yeild was dissappointing. My goal is half a pound for one plant using CFL this go round.

On my first grow I used MG and yes it works but the preferted soil releases to much at each watering which caused my plants to look listless and overwatered each time I watered, which was once or twice a week. The plants looked stunted until two or three days after each watering when they got perky again. My final product was tasty but they got nutes they didnt need with each watering and I spent panicky days after each watering hoping it would pull itself together. MG might be best after seedling stage and when potting up into flower. Out side dirt pilferred from and outdoor garden that is well tended might be better for seedlings. I too used outdoor soil and it compacted and strangled my roots on my first grow. Throwing some sand and vermiculite into outdoor soil might aid drainage and prevent compaction. I use water only for seedlings for thirty days.

 

[thatdjsnow]

Hey DJSnow! Your grow looks very similar to my last closet grow. Here are some thoughts you might try.

Put em 12/12 for two to three weeks to sex them and then revert back to veg. For example lets say you get two out of four are female. Pot up to larger pots. Leave one in 12/12 to flower and put the other back in natural light near a window to veg until the first plant is about four to five weeks along. During this time you can train, IE... LST scrog, top, etc. and increase your yeild.

This way you can concentrate your light on one plant and get your bulbs closer together to focus the light you have. As they get taller CFL light penetration to the canopy is only about four inches. LST will allow you to get lower bud sites to the light.

Y splitters work best if you can keep you light bulbs oriented bulb sides parallel to the canopy at two inches from the top of your plants top. Lotsa small bulbs works fine but 42 watters give you more bang for the buck despite the cost at about $8 per.

Four 42 watt 2700 K bulbs yeilded this for me last grow. The suggestions I give you are ones I am using myself in response to my last grow yeild of 23 grams dry on three plants. The smoke was great but the yeild was dissappointing. My goal is half a pound for one plant using CFL this go round.

On my first grow I used MG and yes it works but the preferted soil releases to much at each watering which caused my plants to look listless and overwatered each time I watered, which was once or twice a week. The plants looked stunted until two or three days after each watering when they got perky again. My final product was tasty but they got nutes they didnt need with each watering and I spent panicky days after each watering hoping it would pull itself together. MG might be best after seedling stage and when potting up into flower. Out side dirt pilferred from and outdoor garden that is well tended might be better for seedlings. I too used outdoor soil and it compacted and strangled my roots on my first grow. Throwing some sand and vermiculite into outdoor soil might aid drainage and prevent compaction. I use water only for seedlings for thirty days.

Thanks for the input man - I appreciate you taking the time!

Since starting I've switched to an organic soil with 25% perlite, so hopefully the only nutes the plants get will be from me.
I'm using a 30-10-10 very, very sparingly.. and only on the 3 week old plants, I started them on nutes 5 days ago. Also, when I water the plants - I use water from my auquarium. I have too many fish in the size of tank I have, so I used to have to change water frequently, now I just water the plants with the water - it seems to be helping. The ph of my tank water is better than that of my tap water, plus it has the added nutes from the fish.

I actually just finished my box - it's not quite as big as the one I wanted to build, but I got the cabinet for free instead of building it - so I can't complain. I'm about to update and show what I've got so far.

Those plants in the pics look pretty tasty - it sucks you didnt have a good yield though - good luck on this next one! hopefully for me too haha

 

[thatdjsnow]

Day 21

Okay - so I've gotten my box. I added an exhaust fan to the back top right wall - an intake hole on the bottom left wall - A fan for stem strength, and a drilled bottom shelf to place a run-off catch underneath. The walls were lightly spray painted flat white primer to hold in some smell of the old cabinet, and form a base coat, it will be brush painted coat of thick flat white very soon.

I've got two 23w CFLs, two 26w CFLS all 5500k (soon adding 2-4 42w)

one 42w cfl, and one 23w cfl both 2700k

the plants are getting 24/0, 30-10-10 at 1/5 package rec., and watered with aquarium water (3inches of fish per gallon) that has a ph of 6.7. Temp is a constant of about 80 degrees F.

All plants were just transplanted from 6in clay pots to 8in plastic pots, over double the volume of soil. Plants were just dehydrated 5 days ago. All plants also had root bind setting in when transplanted. It has been 24 hours since transplant.

Two plants have stems of 1/4 in thickness, and one is slightly less. They look and feel very healthy for just having been shocked twice.

I've raised the lights up to get some stretching - after a few inches I will go back to keeping he lights a few inched away.

 

[thatdjsnow]

Plant 1 - FIMed yesterday

Plant 2 - Showing 4 tops

Plant 3 - Showing 7-9

Since I've been experimenting with Plant 3, I topped it pretty young... then FIMed it about a week later.
Since the first top worked well on 3, I FIMed plant 2 about a week after topping Plant 3.
Since Plant 2 is doing well, I went ahead and FIMed plant 1 yesterday.

I'll post pics soon if any one shows interest. muahahaha... if not, I'll just update pics on sunday as I've been doing.

 

[UNHALLOWED]

Hey man GOODLUCK
Sweet fish mang.
And why the hell not heres
my newest edition of tank life....
I put random shit up on the back
to make it a background.

 

[thatdjsnow]

Hey man GOODLUCK
Sweet fish mang.
And why the hell not heres
my newest edition of tank life....
I put random shit up on the back
to make it a background.

That's a pretty gangster fish tank. haha. Are those glowfish? got a blacklight?

I got this bastard albino catfish that has eaten 5 rosy reds (4 this week) and 1 minnow... I wondered why he was growing so fast at first. lol. I guess it's good though, he's making wonderful plant food. I'm about to upgrade to a 45-70 gal tank so I can get some more fish, and not have to add water so much from watering the plants.

 

[thatdjsnow]

Day 25

Plants have really taken off... they were all stunted from being cramped in small pots... then the transplant... plus they were crammed in the bottom of closet with no box... just some lights around them.

Now with the box, in just 4 days, they look so much healthier... the leaves are actually standing up!

Plus, the addition of two 26w 5500k CFLs, but the removal of the 23w 2700k... I'm sure this (thin) white paint is helping loads too. haha

Pictures Shot of the box with lights on - then in order, Plant 1, 2, and 3.

Plant 1 is responding beautifully to the FIM - showing 4 tops.

Plant 2 is showing 4 nice tops - maybe 5, can't tell yet.

Plant 3..... is well... it's jsut plant 3! haha... I've mangled this thing up so much, now it's just this crazy ball of leaves... I think it's got 9+ tops. LOL

Other than that... nothing major... Stems are getting thicker, all are over a quarter inch thick at the base. I've got 1 and 2 sitting a bit far from the light to induce some stretching. Going to introduce some lst to Plant 2 in a bout a week, and maybe some scrog to plant 1... Plant 3 is just crazy messed up as it is, so I'm just going to see what happens for now.

I've also got some yellowing in tiny little spots - I think it was the from the other night... little tired after work and accidentally used the wrong spray bottle... :/ It's fine so far though.



Well, get back at me people - Tell me what ya think so far - no matter what it is. haha

 

[parkercky]

Looking good man, I assume you keeping them indoors? Nice and bushy. Is the MG organic choice an extremley stink-ass bag of dry stuff that you just sprikle on mix into the soil then water? Cause I have some of that around as well, used it once on my veg garden and it worked really well. Reps + for the healthy looking girls, subscribed.

 

[thatdjsnow]

Looking good man, I assume you keeping them indoors? Nice and bushy. Is the MG organic choice an extremley stink-ass bag of dry stuff that you just sprikle on mix into the soil then water? Cause I have some of that around as well, used it once on my veg garden and it worked really well. Reps + for the healthy looking girls, subscribed.

Thanks man! - for the first 3 weeks of their lives I kept the lights about 2 inches away... so they got real short and bushy with very thick stems. For the past 5 days, I've been keeping lights about 6 inches away to make them stretch a bit... I'm going to induce flowering in a week or two, so I want them about 6 inches taller, which would make them about half the the height of the grow box.

The MG Organic Choice isn't too stinky, not like compost or anything.... it does however have a slightly "different" smell than regular potting soil, and it's a bit barky/twiggy - which i hear can hinder roots.... but if you shake your pot a bit, the twigs come to the top, which is good because they hold some water for a while.

Yeh it's indoor - 4h x 2.5w X 2.5d box with:

2 desk fans mounted for stem strength and exhaust (no filter yet)
2 - 23w 5500k CFLs
5 - 26w 5500k CFLs
1 - 42w 2700k CFL

19/5 Lighting
30-10-10 1/4 strength every other watering.
Watered with Aquarium water.
All FIMed.. two are showing 4 tops, one is showing 10 or 11... can't tell yet.

NO ph testing, NO Temp rating, NO CO2... Nothing... Yet.

that's about it... trying to let the weed do what weeds do... except Plant 3... I FIMed it really young, then FIMed it again... so now it's got 10-11 tops, and crowding like hell... So I've done some trimming. Pretty drastic actually... but Plant 3 is more of an experiment than anything. Thanks again for stoppin by - and for the rep/scribe. Appreciate it! Hope this grow turns out to be a good grow for y'all to watch!