Experimental Micro Grow CFL's - 1st time grower

Interesting stuff is that bubble foil. I've not come across it before. I suspect it may be useful so I'll have to investigate.
Is it expensive?

My issue with sealing the door, is that my door is a slab of cellotex. Taking it in and out every time already leaves a trail of foamy powdery stuff so whatever I use has sit inside, pressing against the door, rather than on the door to increase the foam spray. Jeez I hate that foam! I gots skeelz yeah, with confining the stuff, but there's no escaping it completely.

I think I'm going to get some gaffa tape, or something a little slippyer maybe, to wrap around all the edges. I can't say how long my doors straight edges will stay straight after several months of opening and closing.

Pound shop is a great idea!
Ta Trout

i used that bubble foil myself, it does work, probably not as good an insulator as your foam board
good parts is it won't powder, easy to cut and fit, not real cheap though
i think there's a technique to get more insulation value out of it, idea is to reflect back into the space

yeah man ... following ya so far ...

tape off the edge of your cellotex door thats the idea.... and then it will stop sanding itself down when you pull it out each time.... pound shop is pukka for things like tarpalings and tape and allsorts of cacka

everything is starting to come together nicely ... well impressed with your stuff so far?, bet them plants are chilling right out now too

i do think you'd find it easier to make a light proof blanket to cover the box rather then try to sort the light leaks from the inside but you know what's best. that roll of bubble foil was a B&Q thing... about a tenner for 7.5m2 ... done all but a square foot of my cab and i was going mad with it, it actually made a massive difference with my temp issues too.... and the way i looked at it i had 3 choices for reflective liner

the first was what i used on the sh*t pc cab ... car windscreen reflectors (sun screens) ...pound stretcher again .... but would have cost £12 for the amount i needed
the second was Mylar™ ... ment spending about £30 and waiting for it mail order (that was never gonna happen)
and the third was the B&Q bubble foil insulation ... a tenner ... nice and reflective and has a U-value of 1.6... dont know what the fuck that means but over the top of that 1" cellotex its warm as toast in there and i went from no fans on ... to needing 2 on constantly instantly

have you got another sheet of insulation???.... just thought you could cut a piece of board 2" larger then your door on all sides ... stick over your door piece ... and that way the old door would fit in the same but the larger second peice would block the light coming out?

troutie said:

yeah man ... following ya so far ...

tape off the edge of your cellotex door thats the idea.... and then it will stop sanding itself down when you pull it out each time.... pound shop is pukka for things like tarpalings and tape and allsorts of cacka

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Pound shop it is then! I want to attempt getting into town this weekend - I have to plan these things as I live out in the stix, town is like 10 miles away...

troutie said:

everything is starting to come together nicely ... well impressed with your stuff so far?, bet them plants are chilling right out now too

i do think you'd find it easier to make a light proof blanket to cover the box rather then try to sort the light leaks from the inside but you know what's best. that roll of bubble foil was a B&Q thing... about a tenner for 7.5m2 ... done all but a square foot of my cab and i was going mad with it, it actually made a massive difference with my temp issues too.... and the way i looked at it i had 3 choices for reflective liner

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Chill as a chilled thing in a proper chilled place

Light proof blanket, you say. hmmm. my think cogs are turning on this one.
It's mostly to keep the bugs out that I need to be sealed up proper, rather than to hide my shit. I keep finding bastard flies buzzing around and someone else said that they found a caterpillar inside a bud! WTF!! I don't know anything about baby moths, but that's what these mofo's look like! Do moths start out as caterpillars? I think they do...

I love your idea for adding to the edge of my door with another layer of cellotex. unfortunately, I've used all the biggest pieces and only have a few straggly bits left. So that's a no no.
Out of all the options/ideas so far, I think the blanket thing may be the best.
Perhaps getting a UV bug lamp in the shed would attract the bugs there instead of to my shit, too. Worth thinking on some more...

spandy said:

Thats cute, you might even have enough to get high once or twice when you are done.

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I hope you have all your sticky digits crossed for me, Spandy. Thanks for passing through.

LST'd my plants yesterday, they were tall enough to tie down so I did! And they've responded very nicely indeed. This week I shall be mostly training the little fekkers around the rim of my pots.
Am gonna veg, I think, for another two weeks to get as much around the pot as possible before switching to 12/12 and then hopefully there'll be enough time during flowering to continue around my pots. And even more hopefully there'll be plenty of time spare to have something cured for crimbo!
For this purpose I think a screen may be the way to go, to keep all them future buds down!

Can't wait!

lol... bet that caterpillar was off its nutt!!...

right i gotta fly for a couple of days .... i'll seeya when i get back bro... unless i get wireless access where i'm going ??

fingers crossed for you your wireless lol I know how hard it is being away from the interwebs for extended periods - not fun...

I can't say that caterpillar stayed alive long enough for anyone to find that out! lmao

My cab was sitting at 31C today... not sure why it's gone up by 5C as all I've done is tied my bitches down.
I've had a tough weekend in the studio, so I don't see myself testing my heat cables just now. But you dun know I will test before flowering and let you know the diff in temps, Troutie

dude i ran into the shed ... while franticly packing stuff... mine has gone up 5 degrees also... its down to being more warm and humid... we got cloud cover all day today and its warmed it up a little, i turned my fan up a little ... but tomorrow if its colder i'm gonna have to step it back down... its a pain

I think I need another fan... I don't like to know my babs are suffering. 5C could be the difference, in my case at least, between good healthy buds and droopy balls.

I also think I want a few more bulbs lol too much? maybe...

dude i already feel like i gotta up the bulb count...as yours is out gunning mine lol..... don't raise the bar too high for me LOL.... more fans ... and more light is never going to hurt

pmsl
Okay, I'll hold off on the extra bulbs I may consider it though come mid flowering time - I found some good bargains on fleaBay, something like 1.20 for a single 75W 2700k CFL
At that price I could get a fair few!
But...
I could otherwise get cracking on the LED upgrade instead, and buy some red ones instead of extra CFL's. I do have the space for them with the gaps between my bulbs, but probably a lot less hassle just getting more bulbs eh. Summer would be the best time for pure LED growing as there would be less worry with temps being too low.
Anyways, that's later... I'll hold off for the now

It will actually be interesting to see the difference in yields. You'd think that I'd achieve more with more bulbs, so we'll see what happens there

onlycucumbershere said:

pmsl
Okay, I'll hold off on the extra bulbs I may consider it though come mid flowering time - I found some good bargains on fleaBay, something like 1.20 for a single 75W 2700k CFL
At that price I could get a fair few!
But...
I could otherwise get cracking on the LED upgrade instead, and buy some red ones instead of extra CFL's. I do have the space for them with the gaps between my bulbs, but probably a lot less hassle just getting more bulbs eh. Summer would be the best time for pure LED growing as there would be less worry with temps being too low.
Anyways, that's later... I'll hold off for the now

It will actually be interesting to see the difference in yields. You'd think that I'd achieve more with more bulbs, so we'll see what happens there

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yeah i'm very interested to see what your LED's can do.... maybe add it a suplementry lighting further down the road and see if it improves on what you have acheived before... or you could as you say wait for summer and see what they can do on there own with no backup from cfl's

Well, after much ado today, I've finally got into my chamber to take some snaps and to water/feed/de-fly/sing to/LST/tend them.

Straight to the porn;



As you can see straight away, the droopiness, this is down the the high temps since yesterday. Currently sitting at around 30C and hopefully it will drop further over the next day back to it's norm of 26C/27C.

You can also see the results of my low stress training, which I started day before yesterday. Having the top pulled down below the level of the other new nodes confuses the plant into believing that the actual top node isn't nearest the light and so sends its chemicals to the newer nodes pushing their grow rate up and making them the new top tops

I've found, that waiting until the top top is long enough to reach and hang over the edge of the pot is the way to go. It makes it a lot easier to pull the top below the other nodes levels and then to turn the stem to follow the pot. You can see in my pics, that only one of them so far is long enough to do this. The rest are now gonna look strange as they have to still grow over the rim, but they will, I am sure, over the next week start to go pretty wild as I start to turn them round the pots.

Little straggler - the small lazy one - isn't really doing a lot tbh, but it has grown like a cm since the last update. If it decides to give up and die at this point, I won't be disappointed. But I'm not gonna push for it - it could turn out to be my only female! lmao

Current concerns;
Heat cables - Yes I said I was going to test them this weekend but I just haven't found the time. I must do it this week, as I do intend to switch my lighting by next Monday.
Rising temps - I'm not entirely sure why my temps have risen. I put it down to the outside temps being slightly higher, but today was quite a bit colder. So maybe it's my fans starting to wear already? I'm gonna need a new one methinx, a small handheld thing would be ideal for it to fit okay with space to spare for the flowering ladies.

I've not fed them for quite a few days as they were starting to show signs of nute burn, just a little bit of water every so often.
Today, I flushed them with a stronger mix of nutes so they should be good now for a day or two

You may also see another sneaky plant at the back. That's just a household thingymajiggy that needs to grow a little - two years old is that little fekker and it's only an inch tall LoL so I may leave him in there during flowering to see if it helps it at all.

As before, I'll have another update next Monday. Flowering day!! I'm hoping veg is gonna be much more before then, but training will continue.

Didn't mention, that you can actually see straight away the lower nodes stretching up toward the lights and pushing for growth

If you're interested, this image shows basically what I'm aiming for.

View attachment 1864514

I obviously don't have the time to veg long enough to make it as extreme as this, but I'll get it as close as I can with the time I have.

yeah mate ... thinking maybe add another fan... means getting covered in the insulation again but i'm sure it will be worth it... i have one 5" wired in with the others that i'm not using...and if when i add more lights temps shoot up i will just plug the male/female together and then all three will spin up.... so if you have anymore stick em in! (but make sure no light leaks in through exhausts.... but from memory you built a sort of light trap anyways didn't you?.... easy way to find out stick a mobile with vid camera in there and close it up.... if you can see anything on the footage you got leaks

i can see you've been busy!... they will all sort themselves out and you'll see the benefit then, but looking much better then when i tryed (snapped a 2ft plant in half) had no idea that it had to be done in stages... so i bent it double and was going to tie it head to its ankles....SNAP! .... turned out to be one of the best in my sad grow... even though it broke so bad the stem split open and was like all stringy (man it was mashed).... but i like exploded below that break and had mad growth, must have thought f**K you!

looking good, next week will come round real quick so make a list of what needs doing and start crossing the jobs off
i cant wait

onlycucumbershere said:

Didn't mention, that you can actually see straight away the lower nodes stretching up toward the lights and pushing for growth

If you're interested, this image shows basically what I'm aiming for.

View attachment 1864514

I obviously don't have the time to veg long enough to make it as extreme as this, but I'll get it as close as I can with the time I have.

Click to expand...

that diagram is mental, i see the what your trying to acheve ... lots of time and work doing that spiral badboy but i bet it would be an awsome sight

troutie said:

that diagram is mental, i see the what your trying to acheve ... lots of time and work doing that spiral badboy but i bet it would be an awsome sight

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Aye it is pretty mental!
takes bloody ages though to get it like that but it surely can be done given enough veg time. I believe the actual name for this technique is 'Circular LST'ing'. Not particularly original but functional.
One important factor for me to remember next time, is to use FEM seeds or a clone. I'm hoping to shittery that at least one of these badboys is going to be a female... I don't fancy the idea of being slapped in the chin by a bunch of nut sacks, that would suck muchly. Or to promote the cheap puns, it would be so gay!

Having done a little research, it appears that 26C to 30C is ideal temps...
Higher for vegging is actually okay as they love it, but for flowering, the higher temps would actually stunt their growth and they don't like it.
(damn so many things can stunt growth it's unreal!)

Hardware update
I managed to find a new power supply and another fan too!
The old power supply was 12v at 150mA, where-as the new one is 12v at 1200mA. So now all three fans are running like 5 times faster than two were running before and my temps are now sitting nicely at 26C )
Dead chuffed!

The LST'ing is going very well and have had to get in there about four times just today to re-train new growth as bud sites are popping up all over the shop.

Bad point...
I heard that LST'ing a youngling can incur the hermy... I guess we'll have to see about that. But for the now, they're going nuts and loving it! And I'm loving it too!
Just watching these plants grow is amazing so I don't actually mind if I end up losing them all through impatient training lol
Lessons learned are a step forward

low stress trainning does stress them a little.. but they will get over it on a daily basis... do you remember that greenhouse plant i snapped in half and it grew back below the break ...(and the break was nasty too) ... that was all female bruv so i think you'll be well safe with small bends and tugs here and there

no one wants nut sacks in there face.... unless the moneys really good.... but i want money upfront, i'm not falling for that again!

and yeah i'm really starting to enjoy my grow... now that the build and adjustments are done, and i'm learning and seeing results i couldn't be happier... well untill harvest and cure... then i guess i wont be any happier lol

a quick quote from your last entry....
"Having done a little research, it appears that 26C to 30C is ideal temps...
Higher for vegging is actually okay as they love it, but for flowering, the higher temps would actually stunt their growth and they don't like it.
(damn so many things can stunt growth it's unreal!)"

not only that .... Mrs Kitty told me while i was struggling with cabinet temps that yeah 70f-85f (22-30c) is cool for veg...but you want to get below 80f (26c) when fowering purely because at temps between 22-26c spider mites lay eggs on a two week basis.... but 80f (26-27c and above) in her words "is the cut off point!" they can do it daily... and will be uncontrollable and will ruin your hard work!

don't want to worry you ... but that fact puts crayon marks in my boxers!! after the feekers distroyed my other grow

troutie said:

a quick quote from your last entry....
"Having done a little research, it appears that 26C to 30C is ideal temps...
Higher for vegging is actually okay as they love it, but for flowering, the higher temps would actually stunt their growth and they don't like it.
(damn so many things can stunt growth it's unreal!)"

not only that .... Mrs Kitty told me while i was struggling with cabinet temps that yeah 70f-85f (22-30c) is cool for veg...but you want to get below 80f (26c) when fowering purely because at temps between 22-26c spider mites lay eggs on a two week basis.... but 80f (26-27c and above) in her words "is the cut off point!" they can do it daily... and will be uncontrollable and will ruin your hard work!

don't want to worry you ... but that fact puts crayon marks in my boxers!! after the feekers distroyed my other grow

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That's good news also - Thanks Kitty!
Just been out to my cab, and it's sitting nicely at 25C. Very strange as the sun is blaring out today proper and the cab was at 26C early this morning, like 3am. But either way it fits nicely in Kitty's bandings.
If I end up with bastid mites I won't be happy! But at least I'll have two weeks between egg cycles to try to fix it if it occurs.

You really should send her my thanks

troutie said:

low stress trainning does stress them a little.. but they will get over it on a daily basis... do you remember that greenhouse plant i snapped in half and it grew back below the break ...(and the break was nasty too) ... that was all female bruv so i think you'll be well safe with small bends and tugs here and there

no one wants nut sacks in there face.... unless the moneys really good.... but i want money upfront, i'm not falling for that again!

and yeah i'm really starting to enjoy my grow... now that the build and adjustments are done, and i'm learning and seeing results i couldn't be happier... well untill harvest and cure... then i guess i wont be any happier lol

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Yeah I remember you said that - that does make me feel better about my training, thanks
It's just that I read a thread on here last night about a circular LST grow (from 2009) and this guy got like a month or two in, got his plant trained half way round the pot and it looked frikkin awesome!! It really did then.... started flowering and got his face full of nuts pmsl - I was gutted for him I really was lol More gutted for me as I'd just read the entire thread, but it was quite entertaining too.

Not falling for that again? pmsl I won't ask!

Similarly, I'm really enjoying my first grow too. and it's made even better that I have such a decent grow partner as yourself