All CFL Stealth Grow Cab - First Grow

Well, here we go! I know some of the guys on this site have been anxiously awaiting the beginnings of our first grow. After such a long wait, here we go!

Our grow cab is a white 24"h cabinet with doors bought at a chain store. It's a cheapee. We also bought casters and put on the bottom for easy portability (just in case we have company). Inside are a personal fan and four "cool white" CFL bulbs, all 27 watts. Of course, since our area is only like 2 square feet, we can likely get by with these four bulbs.

Oh ... and it's Bagseed.

They germinated (using the moist paper towel method) for about a total of three days. (I'd heard around 40 hours was average, but these were Bagseed, after all, and the paper towel dried out once - which should never have happened.)

Pics of the stealth grow cab with babes are attached. It's in a closet in the spare room.

Feel free to comment!

Goodluck! I have those exact CFL clamps.

whoreable said:

Goodluck! I have those exact CFL clamps.

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Thanks for stoppin' by! I think this is going to be GREAT FUN! LOL

whoreable said:

Goodluck! I have those exact CFL clamps.

Click to expand...

We got 'em at Home Depot. It was the only place we could find anything like them. We were looking for the sockets on a cord with the little round switch thing, but we couldn't find those anywhere. If I'd ordered them online, they would've been around $12 each. We bought these clamps for like $6 each, so we ended up better off by not shopping online (which is my fave thing to do, but ... LOL).

Quick update.

The kids cabinet gets pretty warm inside. I'm keeping them on 18/6 cycle, and, even with the fan constantly blowing across the lights, the temp rises to 90°F in there. I can solve that problem in the afternoons by opening the door a crack and letting some of the air out, while the lights are on. But ... at night time while we're asleep, I'd like to keep the door closed. That's how I discovered the issue. I don't want to get above 90° in there or it'll eventually murder the plants, I think ... I've heard that above 90° is way too much for them.

So, I need to evolve the vegetative growth cabinet. I am currently considering cutting a whole the size of the fan and duct taping the fan to the back of the cab, as in the original plan. Using this to force cooler air into the cabinet would work to keep the temp below 90°.

Or, before that, I could just put a second fan in to see if would work. But I think the problem has more to do with the lack of cooler air, as opposed to too much warm air. Ya know?

Thoughts?

Woohoo! We have head pokage! The second of the two seeds planted ... I'm calling this kid "Olivia" at this point, in hopes that it turns into a baby girl ... poked on up around 3 this afternoon, when the lights came on. In another few days, I'll probably start working on a few nutes ... in very, very small quanitites. Here's a pic.

I'm not sure why, but the "attached thumbnails" don't open to larger pics for me. I don't know if anyone else is having that issue, but I think I will post linked images from the gallery from now on, just to avoid the issue. So here is that pic of the first kid poking through:

Bro, dont do nutes till that thing has atleast 6 main leafs. Impatient begginners slow down there grows when trying to nute and water in the first stages of seedling life. Leave the plant alone, it will be better off without water and nutes than you think.

Keep it simple. This plant is very capable of surviving and thrivin without nutes for several weeks. You will only hinder its growth, also, if you can Water with a spray bottle rather than pouring water directly onto the soil. It furthermore re-enacts the rain, and wont move soil underneath the surface. Water with 5oz of water every 2-3 days.

whoreable said:

Bro, dont do nutes till that thing has atleast 6 main leafs. Impatient begginners slow down there grows when trying to nute and water in the first stages of seedling life. Leave the plant alone, it will be better off without water and nutes than you think.

Keep it simple. This plant is very capable of surviving and thrivin without nutes for several weeks. You will only hinder its growth, also, if you can Water with a spray bottle rather than pouring water directly onto the soil. It furthermore re-enacts the rain, and wont move soil underneath the surface. Water with 5oz of water every 2-3 days.

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Cool ... six main leaves, it is. Thanks for that. As far as water, I have to keep fairly close tabs on it. I know the soil doesn't have to be *wet* all the time, but I am making sure that it is quite dry before watering at all. Today, for example, it was dry for hours before I watered at all. It gets close to 90°F in there, so it dries out extremely quickly, what with the small pots and all. Anyhow, I let about 10% H2O run off into the under-bowls, and it *still* dries out completely.

Thanks for the advice! +Rep!

Dont nute untill atleast 3-4 weeks old.The plants are pretty delicate at this point and u will do allot of damage if nuting right now.

About the temps,u HAVE to do something about it!
Get 1 or 2 more small blowing fans on it.
Or a 20$ heater,ventillator from wall mart will do.The ones that keep the space within certain temps are really effective and fixed my temp issue within an hour.

Here are some things that may help you out :
*Lighting:
4 23w CFL's won't be enough for the grow from 4 weeks veg till harvest.
How to fix:
-Get Y sockets from wall-mart.That way u can use 2 CFL's per socket.
I'm thinking,get 4 y-sockets(like 2$) and get an extra 4 43watt CFL's from wallie.
Screw in the Y-sockets and install the 4 23 watt cfl's and the 4 43 watt CFL's.
4 23watt cfls are simply not enough to grow decent bud.
with the additionall 4 43watters u will get ALLOT better results.
Down the road,if u feel like it,replace the other 23 watters with the 43 watters for even better results!

*Humidity:
Simply get a humidifier from wallie thats like under 30$ to fix this issue if it ever becomes one

*Moisture control:
10$ at wallie and it will tell you when to water your plants whithout worrying that ur watering to much.

*PH tester:
If u dont already have one,get it.

Everything else looks fine!
I hope u get a female!
I will be following this.

Cool. Thanks for the advice ... and for stopping by ... Lexterian. I hope it all works up to a great harvest!

UPDATE

Kid 1, on the right, seems to be doing quite well. This pic is of that plant. Seems to be a fair size for 2 weeks of growth, and has identifiable leaves coming in.



The following pic is of Kid #2, on the left. A bit smaller, but that's to be expected, since it didn't poke through until a day after the other one. Also has discernible leaves coming out, but the tips of a couple are turning yellow. Not sure if you can see it.



Also, both plants seem to have lost the very bottom leaves. The very first leaves that came out are now yellow on both plants. I'm not sure if this is lack of water (we were gone for 5 days without watering them), or if it is overwatering (we tended to overwater before we left).

Thoughts?

Okay, here is the latest update. The kids are doing great! They're growing like weeds (LOL) and are a nice bright green. (Remember, this is bagseed, for the experiment before we order good strain seed.) When we came home from vacation, they were a little dry, and the very bottom leaves had died and dried up. Ah well. They've bounced back marvelously. (They are WEEDS, after all!)

So here are the pics ...





Thanks for stopping and checking in!

Enkilot

The kids seem to be doing okay. They're actually quite huge, but there's a slight issue. The lower leaves seem to be yellowing and dying off. I'm not sure what it is. It could be a few things, I think. It could either be overwatering, overnuting, underwatering, or nitrogen deficiency. I'll post pics after the kids wake up.

Here are the pics I promised of Sammy and Olivia. The yellow leaves have all fallen off the bottom, so we're not going to worry too much about it now ... unless other leaves start turning yellow. These pics were taken just after tying (for the second time) and misting the plants.






Thanks for stopping by to check up on the kids!

Haven't really updated for a long while. The girls, Sammy and Olivia, are doing great. We went away on a week-long trip back in July and the electricity apparently went off the day we left, so the kids had no light, water or air circ the entire week. They're doing great, though, with fat juicy buds that are just starting to turn amber in color. Pics to come.

Well, the girls have been smoked by the hubby. LOL We've started two new bagseed babes and they're heads are already poking through.