1st serious Closet CFL grow: Purps, Maui, Sour Deisel and Blueberry

Hi all! I've been lurking and reading for about a month and figured 4/20 would be a good day to "come outta the closet" so to speak. I've been loosely following the Buds for less book for about a year using bagseed with poor results and finally actually read the book and found this awesome website mentioned in the back. I'm presently veging 9 clones under 8 26/100 w 5000k cfls with 4 mother plants separate from them under 4 of the same bulbs. I scrapped the Miracle Grow soils and now I'm running organic soil with an organic booster and some perlite mixed in on a 3 to 1 to 1 mix. Just repotted them into 2 gallon pots from their solo cups last night. Right now they're all about 12 to16" tall and looking beautiful. I now have the sensi grow 2 part veg and bloom nutes as well as some big bud and carb overload nutes. I wasn't feeding them anything before thinking the Miracle grow food would be enough, NOT!!! So far they have been on a water only diet. I'm hoping to get better results than before so any tips, advice etc. will be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks so much for reading my long winded post and have a great 4/20! edited to add pics, please ignore the date stamp, and sorry about the fuzzy pics. Ancient little video/camera can only do so much.

Happy 420 man
Welcome to riu
Seems like you did a good amount of research on growing
So you're already off to a good start if you ask me.
Check out my grow,
I'm growing some sour d too

nice write up on the grow KUSHXOJ, very informative!! Lookin' beautiful too! Thanks for the warm welcome, and thanks to everyone here who has shared their knowledge so a newb like me can have a little confidence in their grow.

Happy 420! Much like 4x4Brat I also sat back and read, and still read alot. I have a small tent that I stated 10 bag seeds in. Sadly out of the ten only 3 were females. I started the others that I bought 2 weeks after they are all doing well. View attachment 2130749 I have a total of 6 plants 1 Mkage, 1 Papaya, and an 8 Ball Kush, everyone is in flower and pistils a blazin. I'm veggin with a 125 CFL and additional 16, 23 watt at 6500k and flowering with 200 watt 2700k and 14, 23watt at 2700k with 2, 6500k. My 3 bag seeds were started Feb 20th.

3rd week so they got their 1st taste of the sensi grow veg nutes. Bottle said 4ml so I started them off with 1ml each of parts A&B in a gallon.

Babies are coming along nicely, minor ph problems from mistakenly thinking my well water would be ok. Only distilled water until I get a reverse osmosis water system. Looking at getting a 400 watt hps system for flowering stage. Time for more reading and research, back to RIU university!!!

Sounds good I'm looking to get a hps soon too..
I hear the 600w are the most efficient at Luman to watts
Alot of people on here that get a 400w his wish they would have put out a couple more bucks for a 600w

No pics ?
How's the sour diesel doing ?

Camera is on the charge right now, I'll pop some pics later today. Diesel was a little sparse on the leaves but they're starting to respond to the little bit of nutes i fed them and fill in. Same with the blueberry. The purps and maui are bushing out nicely. I'll be making my own tent setup soon for the 400 watter and will be plenty happy with the potential results, I want to make sure I stay within the state laws here. My main goal in all of this is to get off these damn oxycodones before they kill me. Pills SUCK!!!!!

I am using well water with no problems. you want to check the ppm of your water (under 190 ppm should be ok). you can always adjust your ph. ph is super critical especially in potting soil. also using less nutes than rec is good idea. check ph of soil/ water runoff (6.5 - 7 ) is good. hygrozyme and rootz excel are good to use. bad ph and over fert will cause nute lock out. cal-mag plus (for soil) is good.

looks great look forward to see them now ha

Don't have the tool for testing ppm yet but I would guess it's WAY above 190. I haven't drank a glass of that water in a long time. My ph levels jumped from 6.7 /6.9 up to the high 7's and low 8's after 1 watering with the water ph'ed down to 6.4. I just did a test (cheap wallyworld 19.99 digital ph tester) on the organic soil and organic booster i mixed up with perlite (3 to 1 to 1), the soil was ok at 7.1 but the compost booster has a ph of 9.1. I'm not gonna panic but with my leaves starting to show possible signs of trouble I'm considering scrapping that soil and buying some new soil from the local groshop. Fox farms, happy frog or something similar. I am now even more confused with all the ph related posts I've read today concerning soil grows turning into arguments about whether you can or can't adjust the soils ph with the ph up or down products. And pics comin soon tonite, can't do em on the smart tv and the comp is in use right now.

Once again please excuse the poor pic quality and date stamp being off. Here's a few peeks in the closet. I tried to get some shots of the leaves up close to show the pending doom from the ph imbalance but the camera don't like extreme closeup mode.

The PPM number does not tell you what is in your water thus how can you say it will be ok under 190? In this 190 can be sulfur or arsenic for all you know. I have seen homes with 1/4 the parts per million and the water was undrinkable. Every chance you get collect some rain water and water with it when you can or buy bottled water and add nutes. Just my .02. Good Luck bro I hope this helps.

looks nice

Lookin alot better than a couple of mine. I just did a flush with Sledgehammer and may have added a bit to much or the roots didn't need it. I'm getting alot of nute burn and spotting, but my pH is stayin at 6.2 in DWC. Really looking good! Keep it up.

Happy Growing!!

Decided on the FFOF soil and did a replant today. Ph in the runoff was 8 or better in all the pots and that ain't good. Now their all snuggled into their new Ocean Forest soil. I gave each plant about 16oz of distilled water with 1 drop of Superthrive to help with shock in a gallon ph'ed to 6.5. Added 1 more 26 watt 5000k bulb to help cover all the babies with some good vegin' light. Is that alot of work for everyone else or am I that far outta shape? Tired, but happy now. Thanks again for all the advise, you guys ROCK!!!

Not sure if it is work or fun, I personally enjoy being around my plants. Beats dealing with screwed up friends or the nagging GF, let alone my kids that can't seem to do anything on there own ( I say kids and the are 26 and 25 years old ).

Sounds like you are headed in the right direction to me, just watch them babies, in a few days things should start to come around for you. They will definately let you know if they enjoy what you did for them. More light never hurts, do you mix a few soft whites (2700K) in with your veg setup?

Happy Growing!!

Thanks for the complements. I'm psyched to see how much better I can do this time now that I'm actually learning and trying to do things right. I'm on 1 hell of a learning curve right now. LaGarratt, that is some cool stuff you got goin. I'll be following and learning. And where do I get me some of that Black Russian strain? Those are about the prettiest lookin Cola tops I've ever seen and I've been in a few N Cal outdoor gardens that almost made me mess myself. Txchilies, I presently have 7 5000k and 2 2700k bulbs goin. All the 26/100 watters. More to come when I redesign my light setup for better coverage. I like that pvc light bar array I saw here, pretty damn ingenious of the guy that figured that 1 out. Perfect for a veg box when I get a hps system. I like the idea of mixing the spectrum, and I figure that's a hint to them as what's coming. Soon. Back to reading, more to learn.