new setup need advice

hello everyone, I am a begginer grower... not the first time but hoping for a first successful harvest. I have started a few plants from seedling, not sure yet if they are male or female, but am really excited to find out. I have made a little setup in my closet with 2 sections,(only one being used right now), one for the veg. period and the other for the flow. period.(hoping to get to that stage) as of right now i am on a budget and trying to make things work. I am very interested in the cfl setup so I have tried to immitate that kind of grow room. I dont have the proper wats right now for bulbs but going to pick them up at the end of this week or at the beggining of next week at the latest. I was told that 23 wats cfl were the best to use. anyways im going to post my pics and ask for comments and advice from you guys since your chronic looks a lot better than anything i have ever grown.

Thanks in advance for your help, hoping to grow some nice green one day...s

how often should I be watering them if I`m using organic soil and shultz 20-30-20 nutrified water. Also, is the set-up going to be okay?

your gonna want at least 2 42 watt cfl per plant

you want your plants to all be level with each other so that they are all the same distance from the lights which should only be a few inches due to the lack of lumen and output of cfl

this a pic of a good cheap diy light fixture

Your plants look healthy just get some lights shop lights are better than cfls for veg and maybe that will give you time to get an hps for flower

the tube light that I`m using in there is a repti-glo 5.0, i had heard that it was a very good light for UV B for increasing THC? Should it be okay? Do I even need it before the flowering stage? I`m planning on getting more CFL`s for them, I was thinking I needed 1 per plant. But 2 is good to know.

Also, I was told that at this stage, I should be leaving the lights of for a 22 hour cycle? Is that harmful for the plants? Is the plantfood I`m giving them okay too? 20 30 20? Should I give the nutrients every water? Or every second water?

kevdeb said:

the tube light that I`m using in there is a repti-glo 5.0, i had heard that it was a very good light for UV B for increasing THC? Should it be okay? Do I even need it before the flowering stage? I`m planning on getting more CFL`s for them, I was thinking I needed 1 per plant. But 2 is good to know.

Also, I was told that at this stage, I should be leaving the lights of for a 22 hour cycle? Is that harmful for the plants? Is the plantfood I`m giving them okay too? 20 30 20? Should I give the nutrients every water? Or every second water?

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you can leave the lights on for as long as you want during the vegetative cycle, as long as the lights are on longer than they are off. a lot of growers leave their lights on 24 hours so that their plants will grow faster, but i veg 18 hours on 6 hours off, because the roots grow more healthy during the dark cycle.
it makes sense that plants need more nitrogen than potassium or phosphorous during the vegetative cycle which increases healthy green growth. nitrogen is the first number on you fert.
during flower, you want less nitrogen and more phosphorous, which is the second number on your fert. no one can tell you when you need to feed your plants, you need to pay attention to how they are growing to determine when and how much you feed each one of them. if you think they need a tad bit of food, dilute your fert down to 1/2 or 1/3 strength. so if its a teaspoon per gallon, put hal or third of ateaspoon per gallon. i havent heard to much about the uv lights, alls i know is nothing beats high pressure sodium for nice big buds except the sun

Well thanks a lot for all your help, going to buy proper bulbs this weekend monday at the latest. I was thinking about setting the timer on the light to 20 hours on and 4 off. the bulbs i was going to buy were 23 watt cfl's they are suposed to replace 100watt bulbs, thats what it says on the package anyways. is there any way i could go with these instead of the 42 watt cfl's? Another thing since i really cant afford HPS lights, im going to have to stick with cfl's for flowering as well... Clear white Cfl for veg. and soft white for flow. does that sound right to you guys? thanks again for your help. greatly appreciated!

Cheers!

oh by the way GotKush i couldnt see the pic of the lights that you posted all that well, is there any way you could re-post it in a bigger format??

bluish bulbs for veg and a orange glow for flower is what i was told...i use 30 watt 1750 lumen and on average of 1000 to 3000 lumen per sq foot of plant. I use a variety of hues and switch places with my plants every few days so they get the benefit of all hues!
And for nutes i only add nutes every third watering...but thats just me.

Can you post any pics of your setup, im still looking for a better setup in my closet...once i have all the lighting i need i dont want to be spending so much time moving things around. looking at my last picture of the set, does anyone think i will be able to veg sev. plants and flower one at the same time??? the flowering section would be the shelf at the bottom, at least i think that would be the best way to go about it..

it will work..they will just be lanky if you dont get more light..and i wouldnt suggest trying to flower intill you get a better setup..altho..if you do it right..u could veg on top and flower on bottom.vise virsa..
and i run on 20/4 light cycle..it seems to work out just fine..it pushes them a lil with the extra light.and they still have a good dark time..it works for me.
let me know if ya need anything..mess form..Ima expert at making due with what you can find at the house.
if anything get a lil fan on those...blowing directly on them..not hard..just on low will work..move the air around..and blowing the plants around will help them not fall over so much once they get bigger..altho..id top,pinch,fimm them as often as you can..keep them short.

my plants seem to be growing rather slowly new leaves are continuing to grow and they are growing with 5 leafs on them right now...they just started this stage. I'm guessing its because of all the problems i have encountered since the begining..cats knocked them down from the window when just a few days old, got overwatered when they started out.. and other numerous problems. In the last few days I have been noticing a real good improvement which sugest to me that they should be getting back on track. Let's just say it's a real miracle that they have survived all of this. LOL

I was just wondering, how long does it usually take to figure out the sex of the plant, I have seven plants right now and I don't want that many. I'm hoping to have 3 females so I could keep 2 of them in veg. and just flower one at a time. I'm not looking for a mass production but just enough to save me a bit of money. Just another quick question while I'm on the subject... once i know the sex of the plant and hopefully havea few females, how long and how can I tell when they are ready to flower.

If I am fortunate enough to reach the flowering stage, I was planning on maybe starting the first one as early as possible and then wait the appropriate amount of time for the other girls. Just a question of smoking my own stuff as sonn as possible. LOL

well I have adjusted the height of the plants and the lights and so on. Oh yeah also aded a small fan, the leaves are moving around but not too much, just enough to get a bit of air I guess. well besides moving the plants away from the lights, do you guys think that this will be fine for now until i get the new lights? By the way im also going to be picking up more pots, I'm kind of hoping to determine the sex of the plants before doing that though so I know how many to buy, as I said earlier... 7 is just too many for me at this time!

that green guy by the way is my iguana "Buddy" is his name.LOL

sorry about that little ass picture bro, i have it on one of my old threads, you can see it better if go to it https://www.rollitup.org/newbie-central/159047-ninja-like-stealth-my-first.html
you can see my very first closet set up, and maybe it will give you some ideas.
your set up is a bit shaky, a very important element to growing good weed is to do it carfully and quietly, your plants will stink your whole house up in a hurry, and if your not in a situation to not caare about that, then you need to figure that out. theres a lot of different ways to get rid of or mask the strong odor.

23 watt will work but you will need a lot of them. the reflector i built was made from aluminum baking pans, one inside of the other for sturdiness, i bought ceramic light sockets, and an electrical cord and plug to wire all the sockets to.
wait until your plants have atleast 3 or 4 sets of true leaves before you pre flower to figure sex, otherwise you will stress whatever females you have and they will grow cock and balls

hey kush, what do you mean by true leaves?? sorry for all the question, just want to make sure i dont mess things up. what do you mean if i stress the females too much they will grow cock and balls. lol do you mean the plant would be a hermaphrodite?

by the way, i have this one plant that is growing kind of weird compared to all the other plants i have ever started. this one is small but bushy, it has 5 sets of leaves besides the starter leaves that have already fallen off, but instead of growing in height it seems to be creating more leaves and branches in between the other ones. I thought i was looking at the preflowers but as the days go by i notice that they are just more leaves growing.

At this point im kind of confused as to how I am suposed to figure out the sex of the plants, i have destroyed 2 so far, leaving me with 5. like i said the one plant just seems to be growing more leaves where the preflowers would normally be.

I know there are several ways of checking the sex, but I would rather hear from you guys what you think the best way to go about it would be.

thanks a lot fellow green growers, lol

kevdeb said:

hey kush, what do you mean by true leaves?? sorry for all the question, just want to make sure i dont mess things up. what do you mean if i stress the females too much they will grow cock and balls. lol do you mean the plant would be a hermaphrodite?

by the way, i have this one plant that is growing kind of weird compared to all the other plants i have ever started. this one is small but bushy, it has 5 sets of leaves besides the starter leaves that have already fallen off, but instead of growing in height it seems to be creating more leaves and branches in between the other ones. I thought i was looking at the preflowers but as the days go by i notice that they are just more leaves growing.

At this point im kind of confused as to how I am suposed to figure out the sex of the plants, i have destroyed 2 so far, leaving me with 5. like i said the one plant just seems to be growing more leaves where the preflowers would normally be.

I know there are several ways of checking the sex, but I would rather hear from you guys what you think the best way to go about it would be.

thanks a lot fellow green growers, lol

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https://www.rollitup.org/view.php?pg=faq&cmd=article&id=682 click on that link and it will show you your plants life cycle, once you have about three or four sets of leaves, ussually about 2 to 3 weeks after your seed sprouts, you can then change your light cycle to 12 hrs on , 12 hrs off, after a couple weeks of 12/12 your plants should start showing sex. discard your boys, and then you can either switch your light cycle back for more vegetative growth, or you can continue flowering your girls.
yes, if you stress your girls, they could turn herm.

well thanks again for all the great info, think its great that people are sharing their experience to help others turn this world a bit greener!!

I decided that I was going to wait til it has more inter-nodes shes doing great, I havent picked up my lights yet since my stupid income tax return hasnt come in yet. Govrmtn sent it to wrong address... stupid idiots. So I had to get rid of the weaker plants so the strong ones were getting enough light. Feels like im constantly juggling space for these plants .LOL

Well anyways, here's a pic of my prize.
have a gut feeling shes a girl but will find out in a few weeks.

sry bout the quality taken with laptop... digital cam is broken.

well still didnt have any money to spend on lighting, but i still needed somehting better then what i was using on my seedling so I went out and bought some better cfls..hoping to make a difference.

some new pics of the setup with better lighting. starting to get bright in there. LOL

by the way if anyone can tell me why that leaf is turning color and drying out.
i damaged 2 or 3 little outer roots when checking moisture yesterday, could that be the cause???

thanks guys