1st grow, CFL, Northern Lights

Hi all,
This is my first attempt at growing. Like most things I get interested in, I did an inordinate amount of research prior to starting and was feeling like Mr. F*cking Super-Farmer before I started. However, I've quickly learned that, while helpful, most of that research was a poor substitute for experience. After running into multiple problems I've decided some real-time advice from this awesome community is the right thing to do for my girls (feminized seeds, so they got pet names real quick ). So any and all advice is welcome/encouraged/desperately needed. Please be cool, lol. I'll do my best to be as descriptive as possible but if I leave some major necessary detail out of this description, just let me know. Here we go

Setup:

2'x2'x4' box made from plywood, I made a 2x2 hood that serves as the (moveable) ceiling to the box, it is all painted flat white

4in intake duct fan (not pictured above, but it was added)

For my exhaust fan, I took the stand off of my 'Vornado 160 Small Air Circulator' and sealed it to a hole in the hood/ceiling

Two 6" clip-on fans hanging from the hood

I made a version of the 'CFL monster' that at this point consists of 4 55W CFLs (5000K, 3700 lumens), 1 per plant, with room to add lights as needed, the earlier pictures are a little different but this is what I have landed on

4 feminized Northern Lights seeds
Growing in Coco Noir + Perlite
Feeding with General Hydroponics trio plus CaliMag

Pellets (I cut the netting stuff off when I transplanted)Solo cups3 gallon smartpots (where they will have to stay due to space constrictions)

Planted on a friday, all 4 sprouted on monday


Here they are 12 days from seed after being transplanted (probably a bit too early, but I get excited..) Two of them have sort of oddly angled leaves.



(continued)

I was having a problem with humidity (75-80) so I built a quick little stand that would allow the intake fan some room to put some air in and eventually I added an oscillating fan down there as well. I don't have any drainage either so I like that the intake fan can blow on the water that drips after I water them and evaporate it.

On day 15 from seed I came upon this
The fan leaves on the second node look like they just split and fell off the plant

I had some leaf miners and got some neem oil and have sprayed it once so far, I haven't seen any new 'mines' yet.

I started seeing this the other day and I am not sure what it means

Here they are at 17 days right before I topped 3 of them (I decided to stick just LST for the one that split and was stunted)
I topped one of them at the 2nd node and the other 2 at the 3rd node

The day I topped them felt what I imagine it will feel like to have my son circumcised..

Recovering well but has a weird discoloration

Do they have constant wind on them??

Looks good I think you did extremely well with everything but I think 4 plants even in 3 gal pots is a bit much for that space my cousin has I believe a 4x4x7 tent and even with topping and other training techniques his 4 plants take up that whole room and then some and he's in 3 gal pots also. You may want to use that box for a vegging room and build a bigger flowering box to put next to it? I just hate to see you get them plants to flowering and then they just engulf your entire box and you lose plants. I think 2 would have been borderline but still okay with a shit ton of training. I'm doing indoor starting next month in a 2x2.5x6ft with LED and I'm gonna do two at a time in 5gal smart pots. Also to give you an idea of how bushy they can get with training, my current cheese is nice and short but over a foot wide and that was topping and lollipopping it.

HydoDan said:

Do they have constant wind on them??

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Well sort of, yes. When I bought the two small fans I thought they were oscillating but they ended up being capable of manually changing the direction.. However, my best effort at damage control is that they don't point directly at the plants, so the wind that they are receiving is, at the very least, bouncing off the walls first. I also use the red tape to have a rotating schedule (1/4 turn every day, and rotate the pots every 4th day) to sort of even it out. But yeah, not ideal.

Spazz24 said:

4 plants take up that whole room and then some and he's in 3 gal pots also.

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Damn, really? My thought here was that I wasn't confident enough to put all of this $ and effort into just one plant and destroy it with my inexperience. I also knew I would have to be able to remove each plant to rotate and water to get the best use of my lights, so I couldn't go for a full-on (albeit, very small) SOG..PuddleOG, maybe? So this was my attempt at 'just right'..

Spazz24 said:

You may want to use that box for a vegging room and build a bigger flowering box to put next to it?

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I've been seriously considering this as well. I really want to get an HPS for flower and supplement w/ the CFLs. I'd just have to make the jump and make another one.

Spazz24 said:

I think 2 would have been borderline but still okay with a shit ton of training

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So do you think I'd be better off flowering these when they are a little smaller, and hopefully very well trained? Or wait a bit, sacrifice the weak, and let the surviving two fill the space? As devastating as that would be..


Any thoughts on the weird color change? My guess was a pH problem and one of them started showing a little nute burn so I gave them a good flush and tried to pay closer attention to the pH, since I'm using liquid tester..

Thanks for the feedback!

deeardee said:

Well sort of, yes. When I bought the two small fans I thought they were oscillating but they ended up being capable of manually changing the direction.. However, my best effort at damage control is that they don't point directly at the plants, so the wind that they are receiving is, at the very least, bouncing off the walls first. I also use the red tape to have a rotating schedule (1/4 turn every day, and rotate the pots every 4th day) to sort of even it out. But yeah, not ideal.


Damn, really? My thought here was that I wasn't confident enough to put all of this $ and effort into just one plant and destroy it with my inexperience. I also knew I would have to be able to remove each plant to rotate and water to get the best use of my lights, so I couldn't go for a full-on (albeit, very small) SOG..PuddleOG, maybe? So this was my attempt at 'just right'..


I've been seriously considering this as well. I really want to get an HPS for flower and supplement w/ the CFLs. I'd just have to make the jump and make another one.


So do you think I'd be better off flowering these when they are a little smaller, and hopefully very well trained? Or wait a bit, sacrifice the weak, and let the surviving two fill the space? As devastating as that would be..


Any thoughts on the weird color change? My guess was a pH problem and one of them started showing a little nute burn so I gave them a good flush and tried to pay closer attention to the pH, since I'm using liquid tester..

Thanks for the feedback!

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As far as nute burn goes be very careful with how much nutes your giving them this early on as it will be very easy to destroy them with nutes as little youngins. What nute line are you using? General Organics is an ok line in my opinion a little weak compared to others but that's not necessarily a bad thing as a new grower them nutes are a little more forgiving because they aren't as strong as some others. I use the full fox farms line of nutes right now and the stuff is stupid strong. For example i fed my girl 4 weeks into flower the "general" feeding measurements and burned the crap out of her. With nutes more does not always mean better, sometimes less is better. And of course when it comes to nutes it's all strain dependent as some take them well and some don't like a lot so you just gotta really pay attention to her and her leaves. Leaves will tell you everything you need to know.

Google image fan leave symptoms chart and a bunch of charts will pop up with various pictures with deficiencies and save that! Also what are you PH'ing your water to? And what kind of water are you using? Tap water, well water, RO water? Also back to the 4 plants your left with a choice, build a flowering room or not. I wouldn't ditch two of them babies because of space restraints I'd just make enough space for them somehow. Is there a reason you didn't go with a tent and decided to build a box? Because after you build a big enough flowering room all that money you spent could have probably bought you a half way decent tent. I could put you onto a few different online sites that are great with pricing too.

Also in smaller boxes I don't think you should even be thinking about an hps light. I think you'd run into some serious heat issues not to mention an hps in a smaller box would burn the crap out of your girls as you wouldn't be able to keep it far enough away from them but that's just my opinion. Like I mentioned before my cousin had a 4x4x7 foot tall tent and he has a little 600 watt hps light and has to have a portable air conditioner right in his tent literally. There's a light out there that is ceramic and is supposed to be the closest to the sun spectrum as you can get right now. A little pricey but everyone I've talked to said they produce such little heat they can hold their hand all over it without getting burned. I can send you a link for that too. Another option would be LED as they don't run as hot as hps either. A lot of plants can and will double their size when they go into flower, gotta make sure you can keep lights far enough away once you start messing with lights other than CFL's or the t5 fluorescents. There's also another fluorescent light I could put you into that you might like. You can inbox me anytime with questions etc.

Spazz24 said:

As far as nute burn goes be very careful with how much nutes your giving them this early on as it will be very easy to destroy them with nutes as little youngins. What nute line are you using? General Organics is an ok line in my opinion a little weak compared to others but that's not necessarily a bad thing as a new grower them nutes are a little more forgiving because they aren't as strong as some others. I use the full fox farms line of nutes right now and the stuff is stupid strong. For example i fed my girl 4 weeks into flower the "general" feeding measurements and burned the crap out of her. With nutes more does not always mean better, sometimes less is better. And of course when it comes to nutes it's all strain dependent as some take them well and some don't like a lot so you just gotta really pay attention to her and her leaves. Leaves will tell you everything you need to know.

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This is the schedule I've been following so far, I got it from 'growweedeasy(.com)'..I'm new and don't know if there are rules to linking outside sites
I added CaliMagic (1tsp/G) to the water that I used to hydrate the coco. Then in the first week I did 1/4tsp/Gal micro, 1/8 gro, 1/8 bloom and 1 tsp CaliMag. Week two, 1/2 micro, 1/2 gro, 1/8 bloom 1 calimag, and rest of veg was planning to do 1/2 micro, 1/2 gro, 1/2 bloom and 1 CaMg.

My pH tester is orange at 5 and yellow at 6 so I my goal is to get yellow with a slight hint of orange..5.5-6 is where I'm thinking this lands me. I've been using distilled water the past 2 times and planned to get using that.

The reason behind the box is sort me being a little manic. I started with a budget a very minimal setup.. cardboard and emergency blankets that were wrapped around the PVC in one of the pictures . In the time it took for the seeds to arrive, I couldn't just sit around and do nothing so I starting making upgrades like one day at a time and ended up with that, haha. At that point I was too invested to just ditch it all and get a tent. I think I could make it 4x2 relatively cheaply.. If I could start over I would do it so differently and probably have spent less money at this point.. but that's okay. Watching them grow makes it all worth it. I'm like sitting on my porch now staring at tress in amazement of how much they've grown! But I digress...

Thanks a lot Spaz.

deeardee said:

This is the schedule I've been following so far, I got it from 'growweedeasy(.com)'..I'm new and don't know if there are rules to linking outside sites
I added CaliMagic (1tsp/G) to the water that I used to hydrate the coco. Then in the first week I did 1/4tsp/Gal micro, 1/8 gro, 1/8 bloom and 1 tsp CaliMag. Week two, 1/2 micro, 1/2 gro, 1/8 bloom 1 calimag, and rest of veg was planning to do 1/2 micro, 1/2 gro, 1/2 bloom and 1 CaMg.

My pH tester is orange at 5 and yellow at 6 so I my goal is to get yellow with a slight hint of orange..5.5-6 is where I'm thinking this lands me. I've been using distilled water the past 2 times and planned to get using that.

The reason behind the box is sort me being a little manic. I started with a budget a very minimal setup.. cardboard and emergency blankets that were wrapped around the PVC in one of the pictures . In the time it took for the seeds to arrive, I couldn't just sit around and do nothing so I starting making upgrades like one day at a time and ended up with that, haha. At that point I was too invested to just ditch it all and get a tent. I think I could make it 4x2 relatively cheaply.. If I could start over I would do it so differently and probably have spent less money at this point.. but that's okay. Watching them grow makes it all worth it. I'm like sitting on my porch now staring at tress in amazement of how much they've grown! But I digress...

Thanks a lot Spaz.

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You should (when you can) invest in a digital PH pen. Mine ran me about 70-80 bucks but I love it! I was using distilled water but my well water is better so I now just use my well water out of the tap. I adjust my PH to 6.5 exactly. Run off comes out of my soil at about 5.8-6.1 normally. But everyone's soil is different I use B'Cuzz Hydromix HP. Expensive but I absolutely love that stuff. What soil are you using? Some soils are "hot" so giving them more nutes at a young age could really mess you up. And we all had to start somewhere right? You'll find yourself doing more and more upgrades and spending more and more money over time it's just the name of the game and how it goes but it's well worth it.

Thanks a lot Spaz.[/QUOTE]
No problem man I'm about to harvest my first grow myself so I know what it's like to be new to this stuff. It can be challenging and beyond frustrating at times and at times you may find yourself wanting to say F this and quit but the more you do it and the more you learn the easier it gets. I still get frustrated at times lol but read read read and ask mounds of questions. My girl is getting the chop at the end of next week and I'm biting nails over the curing process. The curing process in my opinion seems to be the hardest and easiest time to destroy all your hard work in the blink of an eye. Ya gotta worry about drying conditions such as RH, Temp, darkness mold, over drying etc. Also if you don't have one, definitely invest in a microscope so the further into flowering you get, you can keep an eye on your trichomes. And write EVERYTHING down. When the seed sprouted out of the soil, when your giving what nutes etc. You may find yourself referring back to your notes a lot the farther into it you get. Especially when it comes to flowering. Don't start counting flowering days when you switch to 12/12 lighting unless she's already showing pre flowers. Start counting your flowering days after you switch to 12/12 and see her pistils popping up.

Spazz24 said:

You should (when you can) invest in a digital PH pen. Mine ran me about 70-80 bucks but I love it! I was using distilled water but my well water is better so I now just use my well water out of the tap. I adjust my PH to 6.5 exactly. Run off comes out of my soil at about 5.8-6.1 normally. But everyone's soil is different I use B'Cuzz Hydromix HP. Expensive but I absolutely love that stuff. What soil are you using? Some soils are "hot" so giving them more nutes at a young age could really mess you up. And we all had to start somewhere right? You'll find yourself doing more and more upgrades and spending more and more money over time it's just the name of the game and how it goes but it's well worth it.

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pH meter is definitely on the list. I'm using coco noir and perlite currently, so I think my ideal range is supposed to be a little lower. I think ideally under 6.

Do you have any pics of it on here? Idk how to find your posts

Be aware that they will do some good stretching in flower. Have grow several of these and they have had a growth spurt in veg and again when switched.
Looks good.
WE

Here we are today, 23 days from seed

I love how good the 4 stems coming out from where it was topped look here
This is the one that split down the middle early on. It's looking nice and bushy right now, and has probably the biggest fan leaf of the 4

Wilderb said:

Be aware that they will do some good stretching in flower. Have grow several of these and they have had a growth spurt in veg and again when switched.
Looks good.
WE

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I was thinking I'd switch over when they were about 1/2 as high as I have room for. Think they'll outgrow that?

deeardee said:

I was thinking I'd switch over when they were about 1/2 as high as I have room for. Think they'll outgrow that?

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Just remember even CFL bulbs if I'm not mistaken need to be at least a couple inches away at all times. If they touch the bulbs you can burn them and if your talking about my plant I can post pictures if you'd like me to

I'm on my second run of Northern Lights and your plants look pretty good. I'm pretty new and so it's the only strain I've done so far. I love the strain all through veg but I wasn't happy with my harvest off of 5 plants in my first run. I was too light on nutes but I'm pushing as much onto them as I can this run. Hoping for much better yields