CFL Closet Grow (to start) with Big Bud

very nicely done! just started my grow as well..hopefully will be ok as yours....

on a side note, I bet when you walk past a light shop u look at CFL's differently now....hahaha

Dude, I'm constantly looking in stores to see their price on a 3 pack of 6500k 23watt CFL's. It is seriously never ending with these bulbs... I'm trying to make sure every main bud site has a bulb to it. I need about 1-2 more bulbs to accomplish that... Problem is, space to put the light close enough without burning, and fucking light fixtures! The clip ons are nice and all, but you have to have something to clip on. And when the plant is over 3 feet tall in pretty much all directions, its hard to find shit to clip on. I have metal hooks hanging from the inside of my closet to hang lights from lol... It gets quite ghetto quite quick... This is my first indoor grow, and I'm beyond excited to see how much I yield off this puppy with the CFL's.

Plant is now 40 inches tall... I really hope it slows the fuck down on the vertical growth lol... We are getting close to triple the height when I switched to 12-12... I think my closet can withstand another 6-12 inches of growth before I have to start really thinking... Might have to take wire clothes hanger thingy down...

Growing great! Vertical growth has slowed... White hairs are all over, it really looks beautiful... I wish I could get a picture of roots, it's really crazy how much there are. I can't even see my air stones anymore, it is a HUGE, and compact root ball.

Full Grow -
Main stem towards top -
Top Angled View -
The Main Attractions -
Not a nuse...was being used to hold some leaves up and away from the light bulb... Just a pic of the buds around the main stem

So howd it go?

sudodaemon said:

Also, I've decided to wait on lights for now. I'm going to finish this grow using the CFL's and then buy lights. That way I can compare the difference between CFL and MH+HPS... Learning purposes... Figure I've gone this far with CFL I may as well let the suckers finish up, not doing bad I don't think...

Click to expand...

You will be glad ya did. great way to learn the ropes. Great journal. Subd +rep

BuildBigBudz said:

So howd it go?

Click to expand...

How did what go?

Vertical growth has stopped, FINALLY...

So since this is my first grow, I had no idea this was sativa... but after somebody pointed it out I guess it is... These seeds were supposed to be 85% indica, and 15% sativa... well, I guess that didn't work out like it was supposed to... Oh well... still growing good...

here are more pics... She has topped out now at about 42 inches... I've also upped the CFL lights... I'm up to I think 16 23watt CFL bulbs...

Full Grow -
Inside the Jungle -
Up Close of Bud
Right below Top Bud -
Buds -
Top Bud -

Steady bud growth. Drinking about 1 gallon of water ever 48 hours. Getting frostier each day I look at her.


Full view of Plant -
Top of Plant -
Side Buds
Angled view to see all the Buds inside -

Ok, buds are really starting to grow now as you can see from the pics...

Top -
All the other buds -


As for nutes I'm at 2.5/7.5/18 ... about 1000 PPM.

New pics... Buds getting bigger, I think I screwed up a little... I got lazy for a week and didn't buy distilled water, I just used tap water that had been left out 24 hours... Well, since doing that I've had my leaf tips and edges start to turn brown, I'm guessing salt buildup? Either way, back to distilled water and we'll see what happens. Seems good so far though, still growing quick.

Top -
Up Angle Shots -
Random Buds -
Full grow - bad pic though...

Your ghetto setup really makes me smile... That's determination to grow by any means necessary lol
You know you can ditch all the big bulky fixtures and buy those 99¢ electrical plugend to lightbulb socket adapters from most hardware stores.
Then simply hang extension cords to wherever you want and/or power strips work nicely and can connect 3-4 CFLs (or more depending on size of strip)
That's how I used my CFLs for a couple grows before going all LED

I did that with a couple lights that aren't really visible in any pics... But I was using ALL resources before forking out ANY money. Next grow will be better, no kitchen lights or table lamps, lol.

Also, the only issue with those cheap light sockets and extension cords is light reflection... I know I have a lot of light being wasted by not having reflectors on all my lights, but again, you can only do so much... I wonder if I can ghetto rig a cheap reflector to put on those cheap lights... Last pic I posted, of the full grow... the light in the bottom right is one of those cheap sockets and an extension cord...

Pics coming later today...

14th Week of growing, 8th week of flowering... coming down to the home stretch... Trichs are mostly cloudy and clear, some amber but not a lot.

Trichs 60x Magnification - View attachment 2204772View attachment 2204773View attachment 2204774View attachment 2204775View attachment 2204776
Top Bud - View attachment 2204778View attachment 2204779View attachment 2204780
Everything Else - View attachment 2204777View attachment 2204781View attachment 2204782View attachment 2204783View attachment 2204784View attachment 2204785View attachment 2204786
Full Grow - View attachment 2204787

Looks nice. Were the buds slow to put on weight?

Buds are starting to put on some weight now... Had to chop my entire top bud off though, only salvaged about 50% of it... Had a run in with Bud Rot/Bud Mold... This was about 5 days ago, and since chopping I have increased airflow and no new mold has popped up so it looks to be gone. Anyways, here are more pics... Trichs still not even 5% amber so I'm still going with nutes, etc... I'll start flushing when I'm about 10-20% amber... and flush for about 5 days, or until I'm about 40-50% amber...

Also had an issue with nute burn... Note for next grow... don't go according to feeding schedule I got in RIU... Everything was great until I went from 15ml to 20ml of Bloom formula per gallon of water... Stay at 15ml in the future... Thus the burned leaf tips... all is good now though...

Also, for the first time this grow I've been having to use PH up... PH keeps dropping to where I have to put in about 5ml of PH up every morning to keep it from going out of whack... Not sure what that's about.


Full Grow -

What remains of the top -
All other buds -

I'll get some pics up later. Just wanted to update that after looking at about 4 different snippets from the plant I've decided to start flushing... I'd say it was about 10% amber trichomes... So there is just plain distilled water in the res now, no nutes... I'll harvest when the trichs are about 50/50...

Also, I'm guessing it's because I'm using CFL's and had a couple nute issues but, we are on day 69 of flowering, and I'm still a week from harvest or so... So much for the seeds being 50-65 days of flowering time... Is this abnormal? Or is this expected?