White window indoor soil grow

[widow0maker]

Well I started my journal on another forum, but after asking for advice in my journal for several days, creating separate threads multiple days apart and having virtually no one willing to even comment or suggest some ideas I decided F' that I'm starting my journal somewhere else. So here it is. Oh and ANY comments or suggestions are welcome in this journal.

Alright, so I germinated my seeds a few days ago and have since planted them in 1 gallon grow bags with FFOF soil. Once they sprouted I took the plastic baggy covers off and have been misting them once or twice a day with water, haven't actually watered yet. I am planning on using a sog, but am unsure if this is wise with how I designed my box. As you can see I have the lower veg chamber and the upper flowering. The CFL lights I hand wired with cooper grounding wire (a little much, especially since I can't actually ground it). I have covered the walls with mylar but need to finish the flowering box still.

So as of now I have 9 plants growing, I am expecting 2+ to be males in which case there will be more room during flowering. Now my problems I am running into is you can see my plants are stretching. I've lowered the lights more since I took the pictures, but feel that some plants are not getting enough light since my soil is not all the way up to the top of the grow bags, thus shielding some plants. I was thinking of just buying more splitters and adding it to the group I already have, I am just unsure if this will cause issues, since I used heavy duty wire I figure I might be able to do it, just not sure if there are other factors that I should watch out for.

I am also thinking of taking out the board that separates both veg and flower chambers and making my box one large open area and not having a separate veg or flower box, mainly because the lower section is not tall enough to grow my plants to a foot tall and also get them light and in the flower box the fan and ducting takes up a large amount of room which will shield light and also get in the way. Any suggestions? Just keep it as is or should I open up the entire box and add my 400watt HPS light to the CFLs for vegging.

Another question I have is watering. I have been trying to search, but how much water should I be giving these new guys? Should I keep misting a keeping top soil wet for a few more days or start adding maybe 10oz of water to each one when I water and slower add more water each time?

So many unforeseen (at least the grow box issues were for me) that I need to figure out quick before I damage any plants.

My supplies:

box size: 3.5 ft x 2.5 ft x 5 ft
mylar
120 cfm inline fan/carbon filter attached
2 mini 6 inch fans
9 23 watt CFLs
1 gallon grow bags
FFOF soil
grow big/big bloom nuts
ph testers
400 watt HPS with reflector hood


The inline fan is a little noisy with the air blowing through it, not the fan itself, I'm trying to figure out how to dampen that noise as well. Any ideas to make my box work more smoothly then it does now would be greatly appreciated. Hopefully this will end well 3 months or so from now.

 

[widow0maker]

I figure I'll try to update this log as much as I can, most likely will be every few days or so, but at least once a week, mainly so I can see my own progress. I am surprised at how fast these plants grow, I look at them and they look the same as the day before, but you can definitely tell the main leaves are much larger. I watered them all today using a 20oz bottle and splitting that water between 5 plants, I didn't want to overwater these little guys, so I figure I'll let them be for a few days, or until the soil dries out. It seems to fairly fast in my box, may be the low humidity of 36%.

Pictures will be of better quality as soon as I locate my computer plug for my camera, just using a camera on a phone right now.

 

[matteodvr]

nice one of my fav strains good luck

 

[widow0maker]

so as of right now my box hovers at 85-90 degrees. Since I am having troubles keeping the temps down I might cut one more ventilation hole in the box and am planning on picking up some yeast for a DIY co2 maker to make sure the plants can grow just fine if the temps stay high.


================================

Well it looks that my box isn't going to stay around 85-90 degrees but wants to be around 100 now. Hmmm not sure why its staying so warm. I do have 300 watts of cfls, but I figured my 120cfm fan would circulate air better, maybe I need to duct my hot air farther from my box, but I really don't think thats the issue.

Any one know of some cheap a/c units or ways to keep it cooler?

================================

Figured out my box not being 100% airtight was affecting my temps a bit. I knew there were some leaks but didn't worry to much about it since my plants have just started. Some of the leaks were on the top of the box which then sucked in warm air instead of the intakes. I have got all the leaks up top sealed and will have to seal the rest this weekend when I have a some actual free time. Since I've sealed those off my box has dropped 5 degrees and sits around 86 degrees. I figure with it being totally air tight as well as cutting out the middle piece of wood making my two story box just one box and having my plants on the bottom the entire time should bring temps down to a consistent 80 degrees or lower. We shall find out this weekend.

Other then temps, I can tell my plants are growing a little slower once the temps raised to a consistent 91 degrees. I have my fermentation co2 bottle in there, but its only a 20oz i'm using. I'll switch to a 1 gal jug after my milk is finished tomorrow. That should help put some more co2 in there to help the grow if the temps do stay higher. At least the cold time of the year is coming up and will be here when I start to flower and use the 400 watt hps and should make all venting much easier. Also I may try and buy a cool tube for the light, not sure if mine is able to have one attached.

I'll post some more pics up when the plants start growing at a better speed and growth becomes a little more obvious. Right now the only difference I can really see is the second set of fan leaves is starting to grow directly above the first set. (see the one image I attached)

 

[matteodvr]

I figure I'll try to update this log as much as I can, most likely will be every few days or so, but at least once a week, mainly so I can see my own progress. I am surprised at how fast these plants grow, I look at them and they look the same as the day before, but you can definitely tell the main leaves are much larger. I watered them all today using a 20oz bottle and splitting that water between 5 plants, I didn't want to overwater these little guys, so I figure I'll let them be for a few days, or until the soil dries out. It seems to fairly fast in my box, may be the low humidity of 36%.

Pictures will be of better quality as soon as I locate my computer plug for my camera, just using a camera on a phone right now.

how old are they

 

[widow0maker]

Well temps are back up to 90 degrees, i've taken out 3 of my 26 watt cfls and added two more 2 inch intakes to my one 4 inch one which I have now placed a 6 inch mini fan in front of to help bring air in. I am thinking one issue is that my actual room/house is at 78 degrees, obviously making it hard to keep temps down in there. Gotta say I hate old houses with really shitty insulation.


===========================================


Start of day 6 since planting in soil.

My box temps I have finally got to consistently lower to around 87 degrees now. I took the exhaust from my box and put it into the wall, the hot air was heating to much of the air in the actual room up making it that much harder to keep temps down. I am now worried that my 120 cfm inline fan is not powerful enough to push through ~6ft of ducting..... guessing this means I need another smaller exhaust to help pull air out at the end?

I can't tell if my plants are growing a bit slower from the heat or not. I had a 20 oz co2 yeast generator in there and just made a 1 gallon one instead (Interesting note, after I added the sugar and 2 tsp yeast I couldn't get the mix to fizzle. I wonder if it just needs a little while to revive the yeast.)

Here are some pics of the plants, including the best growth ones and the least (the ones with almost no light directly overhead). If anyone wants to comment on how the think the size is that'd be great. Also, the new set of leaves is basically directly above the first set of fan leaves, no stem between, I'm guessing this is from my 24/0 light schedule. Is that alright to have no stem between the nodes?

 

[widow0maker]

how old are they

Just at six days as of today. My last post with pictures was all done and taken today. I'm just trying to find any way to solve my heat issue without getting an a/c. Not so much the money, but there is no room to place it buy the box or in the box or to easily vent it into it.

I'm planning on cutting the middle piece in the box out and making it one large box this weekend hoping the easier air movement from the intake holes will help cool it a little better. My place temp is sitting around 76 degrees inside, so obviously this is not a realistic temp for my box, but I hoped around 82 degrees could be possible.

 

[matteodvr]

if you want you humidity higher put a bucket or cup of ice behind a fan blowin on your plants why you buy two comp fans put one on the bottom blowin air in and another as high as posibale since its two rooms blowin the hot air out

 

[jrk152]

They look fine, the new growth and the fan leaves wont have any stem in between until at least about 10 or 11 days in and then they take off. Check out my widows in my grow journal in my sig, they're all between 4 and 17 days old so you can have an idea about sizes at different stages.

 

[widow0maker]

I gotta say, this forum has just become my new favorite place. After a week of no responses to my journal or after I finally created a new thread in a new section (was appropriate to put it there too) and not able to have any one able to anything and then coming here and getting replies within minutes of my posting....Nice to have a new place to come read at.

EDIT: just realized I titled it white WINDOW....

 

[widow0maker]

One question I hadn't even thought of until now is when to use nutes, more specifically when to use them since I am keeping my plants in 1 gal grow bags. I know normally fox farm ocean forest potting mix is good for 3-4 weeks before needing to use nutes, but usually this is in larger pots, meaning more nutes to use up. Would starting sometime in week 2 with 1/8th dosage of fox farm grow big (6-4-4) be too early? Obviously there is not set in stone date, just not sure if this would be raising some red flags for others?

 

[widow0maker]

Well the plants seem to be exploding with growth now and its been moving along pretty fast. I feel like they are different every time I look at them. Hopefully this weekend I'll find a way to get my 400 watt hps in there with the cfls as well without the heat destroying everything. Watered monday night but am continuing to hold off, mainly since my leaves were looking a little droopy, and not looking "perky". I figured after I stuck my finger towards the bottom of my bag and felt some moisture that I should hold off at least until tomorrow night. I am wondering if my plants are used to the heat since they germinated in it? I've read on here and other forums of plants starting in the heat and growing fine, which mine seem to do. At night I've started leaving the door open to cool it down, but it only gets down to 84 degrees at the lowest, but this does seem to promote a little faster of growth.

Day 8

 

[widow0maker]

Day 11

Well since I watered on saturday growth seems to be coming a long great. I do not plan on watering again until thurs or later. Probably another 1-1.5 weeks before I will give some nutes to the plants. Realized I didn't really need veg nutes especially since I am not growing them very long. Since I will no longer have my own separate veg box I was thinking of vegging and extra week or two and maybe lsting them just once during that time period to get the lower stem on the plant some light.

 

[widow0maker]

Just switched out my cfls for my 400 watt hps. I find it a bit funny that this light doesn't heat my box up anymore then the 300 watts of cfls did. I figured they were supposed to be that much cooler than an HPS, doesn't seem to be the case for me. I'll be keeping the lights on 24/7 for the time being and will likely switch to 18/6 for the 4th week before flowering starts. Light is about 2-2.5 ft above plants. I am hoping the hps will more evenly distribute the light to all the plants. Some runts are obviously in there because of the lack or good lighting.

 

[widow0maker]

Well I need to stop jumping to conclusions on how much heat lights put out. The 400 watt hps is HOOOT. With my door open, fan blowing in and the temp outside being 68 degrees, which is circulating into the room my box stays at around 87 degrees. If I close the door it easily gets up to 100 degrees and would probably go much higher if I actually continued to leave the door shut ( which I don't). Basically it's time to get an air conditioner. Didn't want to shell out $150 more, but I gotta do what I gotta do. Plants are growing great since I switched to HPS. Watered them late last night.

Anyone know why there are a bunch of lines in all my pictures when I take them under the HPS light? I had to switch it off to take the pictures because it was so bad. I'm wondering if its just a bunch of infrared rays coming off it.

 

[widow0maker]

Well I believe my plants are finally nutrient deficient. If anyone else can confirm this that would be great since I will start nutrients at 1/4 strength to help remedy what I believe the problem is.

I will post some new pictures after I solve this problem and get my plants a little better looking.

 

[tkjoe]

this is a very interesting grow. im acutally quite suprised you are attempting an HPS grow of high wattage in such a small area. you would need an air conditioner to keep that cool! from what i have read it seems if you havent used nutrients they are deficient, or if you are using them then you are getting nutrient burn. but i am definately no expert! im on my first grow as well. and yes the HPS light is affecting your camera. try a different light setting on it. you have different options when you put it on manual mode

 

[nickbbad]

this is a big part of your heat buildup / noise problem you want that ducting as straight as possible each bend slows down the air flow big time. White widow in my experience does not need a whole lot of nutes the ones I just finished only got fed 3 times and I got about 3 ounces of each but it looks like your are a little deficient so I would give them just a light feeding maybe just under half strength.

 

[widow0maker]

I had not fed them at all until yesterday which I did at 1/4 strength. I will wait until next watering to see how they are and if they are good will skip nutes until the next time. New fan is coming in, 435 cfm and ducting will be straightened out at that time. I figured my design was pretty bad after a while and just haven't changed yet, waiting until my fan comes later this week. I figure that should keep the temp down. haha, yea didn't realize that others didn't use this large of a hps in that small of a box. But I will also be sawing out the middle board to make it one large box which should also help with air flow as well. Other then that they are really growing great under the hps. I can't believe how much faster they grow. If need be I'll sell my light and get a 250 hps instead. Its what i'm doing with my fan, selling the older (1 month old, lol) to pay for the new. I figured this round would have a lot of trial and error. Thanks goodness winter is coming (never thought I would say that).

EDIT: thought I should clarify on the fan. I figure 435 cfm should be more then enough to move the air and keep it cool since when my room is around 76 degrees with the door shut I can keep temps below 97 degrees with the hps on. I would think the better air movement and faster air movement with the new fan will be enough. Right now I do not keep the door close and with open and venting into the same room (since the door is open) I keep the box around 78 degrees.

 

[widow0maker]

Figured I'd update anyways today since it has been a while.

Day 20:

Well Nute deficiency has started to set in several plants. When I watered on monday I gave 1/4 nute strength in the water, but that does not seem to have been enough since leaves are continuing to yellow more. I am planning on watering thurs or fri with 3/4 strength nute for the plants that are showing many signs of the deficiency and only 1/2 strength for the ones that are not. My plants have been growing like monsters since the hps has been put on, this is with a 24/0 schedule. I was planning on putting on 18/6 for this last week, but realized my timer doesn't support plugs with a polarized plug......which is all my plugs.... Well off to walmart to return this one and see if they have one that works. Lowes will probably have one that works.

I am still hoping to switch to flowering in 8 days, but am unsure... For sog most say for plants to be 8"-1' tall and my plants are just at 4 inches, not sure if this is because I haven't switched to 18/6 yet or if some more explosive growth should be happening this week or if it will mainly happen at the beginning of flowering due to the 24/0 lighting. Any input on this would be great.

Here are some pictures.