LED/CFL Stealth Grow in Closet

lwells2000

Active Member
Hi all, welcome to my thread. Please feel free to post advice as this is my first real grow attempt. I've spent many hours studying grows and advice her at RIU and feel like an expert even though I haven't got a crop yet lol.

I started out 4 or 5 weeks ago with an Aerogarden in a cheap tent I bought on ebay with some low rider seeds I got somewhere on the net (I think attitude). It got way to hot in the tent and I think the tent was toxic too as they started wilting nearly as soon as I put them in and I removed them after a few days and put them in my closet. I only had 2 survivors and both of those ended up male. I was about to start some more when a friend dropped by and gave me several starts.

There is a little history to these starts. The seeds originally came from Denmark and my friend, who lives in Pompei part of the year, wanted to bring some good weed to the Islands. They managed to find someone to smuggle them in and grew several varieties. After 3 or 4 generations he collected seeds from the best strains. He called them White Witch and Purple something (he couldn't remember) and brought them back to the states. They are both Indica strains. I think the ones he gave me are all the Purple xxxxx variety.

He gave me a total of 12 plants. They were in 4" pots and several were falling over, but several were very healthy. They were different sizes, but generally around 8" tall looking a little stretchy with 3-4 nodes. I quickly re-arranged my closet and re-potted them in 8" pots. I could squeeze 8 of the pots in the closet and gave the 4 shortest and weakest ones to my nephew to see if he could save them (nope!). I made a mistake I think in using Miracle Grow soil as all of them showed nute burn after transplanting and my nephews four plants died and 2 of mine are are currently stems in dirt! One is probably not going to make it but the other has gotten some leaves so it may make it still. 6 plants are healthy and plenty for my closet if not too much.

My friend told me to go ahead and send them into flowering so after a couple days getting used to the new soil I put them to 12/12. I regret this now as I wanted to scrog, and found out I should do that during vegging. Trying it anyway to see what happens.

I'm using several cfls and 2 90W tri-spectrum LEDs that the plants totally love. There is air coming in from the crawl with intake fan and exhausting into the attic as well as a fan on the plants. I have a diy carbon filter as well as a diy co2 bottle.

The pics with this post include the orignaly Aerogarden pic of the plants that died and/or turned male and the other 3 are after a week of flowering or so.

The aerogarden now has some newly germinated low rider auto flowers in it so I'm going to grow those on the top shelf while the lower plants are flowering.

Please feel free to comment and give advice if its not hater talk!

Thanks for dropping by :joint:
 

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lwells2000

Active Member
Sorry if pic quality isn't great. I'm still trying to figure out how to take a good close up with this camera. These were taken yesterday. They are leaning as I am training them down to try and get growth from the lower branches.

I fed and watered yesterday adding 1/4 strength Fox Farm Big Bloom and Tiger Bloom. Was worried bout overnuting since its nuted soil, but they got great growth last night with no apparent new nute burn, so I think its ok and I'll probably go 1/2 strength on next feeding.

Any questions or advice appreciated! :joint:
 

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kx125rider

Active Member
they look sooo nice !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!i have 2 of those lights and im about to use them with a t5 4bulb, some 23 watt cfl . the t 5 will be my top light and for the sides im going to have the leds with the cfls i have a box with a 4 plant dwc all im waiting on is some clones of blueberryxhash plant from a buddy of mine

good luck !!
sry but i have a few Q
how are your temps ?
how far is your light from the plants ?
 

lwells2000

Active Member
they look sooo nice !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!i have 2 of those lights and im about to use them with a t5 4bulb, some 23 watt cfl . the t 5 will be my top light and for the sides im going to have the leds with the cfls i have a box with a 4 plant dwc all im waiting on is some clones of blueberryxhash plant from a buddy of mine

good luck !!
sry but i have a few Q
how are your temps ?
how far is your light from the plants ?


Thanks man, That sounds like a great set up. My temps with the cfls were a little on the high side in the upper 80's frequently. and now I've removed all the cfls and put in a 150W HPS. Temps are fine till later on in the afternoon and get up to 90 with the door wide open. Got a carbon scrubber with a big fan coming Monday so I'm planning on having that suck the air out as my ventilation fans now are only boosters, so hopefully the temp will come down.

The LEDs I was keeping witin about 6" or closer if I could get them closer. The CFLs I kept about 4 inches away. Now that I have the HPS its about 18" away and the LEDs are around 12" I'd guess.
 

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lwells2000

Active Member
It looks like we're down to 4 purples now. A second one showed to be definitely male. Its the only one that was spiraled above the pot instead of pulled over to one side and it had lots of branches. Hate to see that one be a male. Two of the remaining plants are defnitely girls and one of the others I think is a girl too, but not positive and the last one I can't tell yet either way, but since the two males showed much earlier I think it may be a girl too. Its nice to give them a little more room and since these aren't huge plants I think 4 will be about right. (Next time I'm just using fem seeds so I don't have to worry about it. Already got them even (10 Killa-Watt Hindukush hybrid and one each of Dinafem seeds: Power Kush, White Widow, Blue Hash and Blue Widow) can't wait for the next grow!).

The Lowriders in the Aerogarden are doing fine except the back left one is kinda falling over and growing slower than the rest. I propped it up a little more today so it should be fine. The airstones don't hit the roots on this one as well as othe others so it may be related too. The front left one has a ball at the very top that I think is a male preflower. The other three aren't showing anything. These are supposed to show around 3 weeks and I think its near that now. These have been on 12/12 since sprout and are pretty small, but maybe this is typcal for Lowriders. I've never grown them before so I'm wondering how much more they'll grow through flowering.
 

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lwells2000

Active Member
Re-arranged the closet today. Repotted the purples yesterday in 3 gallon bags with Fox Farms Ocean Breeze. Got the carbon scrubber in too. :joint:
 

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lwells2000

Active Member
Purples are doing great. I keep pulling down branches and tops to try and get an even canopy going. Its looking good I think.

I'm down to one lowrider. The one that was growing the best had white hairs all over it and then popped a couple balls. Snipped it yesterday. Thats 2 males and a hermie out of 4 low rider seeds. The first lowriders I planted also turned out to be males, but they were way stressed!
 

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