Play by play first time

I am new to growing, very new. I have read about a million and one threads, and watched countless videos, the guys at my local grow shop have also filled me with as much knowledge as they could. Based on price and heat production my first grow is with CFL, and a couple bag seeds ( love a good mystery). I plan on sharing everything about my first grow, and yes if it is a sucess, I will show that, and if it is a failure I'll do the same.

So to start off 5/10 I planted two seeds under two 23w 6400k bulbs on 24hr , thirteen days later I had two seedlings about three and a half inches tall stretching for the stars. From what I read this was already a little too stretched. so following the advise of a few threads I replanted my stretchy plants on 5/25, at the same time I put the plants in there VEG pots, and started them on Nuts at 50% strength, after a day of shock there was a noticable growth jump. Below are my two girls on 5-25 and again on 5-28.

Good start. STOP using the nutes. You dont need nutes until 2-3 weeks after the beans have sprouted.

Ok stop the nutes. Anyone know if 16-105 watt will cover my 4x4 tent when i go into veg setup? Picture of setup attached.

Yeah that will be good as long as the CLFs are a true 105 watts and not equivalent watts.

Yes, 105 w, 400 w equiv. 6500k. For flowering I will run same setup @ 2700k but I will add 9-68 w 6400k evenly. What is the thought on scrog and or super cropping w/cfl.

End of week three, I stopped the nutes, I think I avoided any real damage. How do they look are they where they should be, oh and yes they were topped yesterday.

Same strain, planted same time, same growth until about ten days ago. I topped one and fim the other. Fim is now twice as tall, why? Also are these guys about the right height for 30 days, when should I start super cropping? I did a little LST on one top.

Realized pics were too small. here are bigger ones.

Topping will always make them shorter and makes 1 main top into 2 main tops, once you see to main tops top them again so they will split to 4 main tops then flip to flower. You want them to stay short since you are using CFL. Do things right and you will pull 1 oz per plant.

day 13 of flower I believe I have two girls at least that is what it looks like, if someone could give me a warm fuzzy that would be great.

Youve got yourself a female in the first pic

And the second one

Jak31699 said:

View attachment 2677294Ok stop the nutes. Anyone know if 16-105 watt will cover my 4x4 tent when i go into veg setup? Picture of setup attached.

Click to expand...

Maybe I'm not understanding this correctly - you want sixteen 105 watt (actual) cfl bulbs? Over 1600 watts of cfl lighting?

600 true watts should be plenty for 2 plants.

That's a lot of lights (probably kinda pricey ??) Either way, things are looking good ! Congrats on the ladies !!

These are just my test plants to ensure that I have conditions right. You are right that is a lot of lights, I have since revisited my plan and I will be only using 4-105's in my veg room. I will be using 6-105's in my flower room, set up on a triangular vertical stand, in the middle of a 6' two tier octagon. Should be a fun setup with a few unknowns.

Also if someone could chime in on what is more forgiving soil or coco.

Once you start going over 300w of CFL lighting, it becomes more cost-effective (and with better results) to go with an HPS setup.

CFL growing is for small, stealthy, hobby grows. Multiple plants require hundreds of watts, and HPS delivers light much more efficiently than CFLs. Seriously consider your light setup before spending loads of money on redundant lighting for your space/needs.

That said, I love my two 125w CFL bulbs, but if I had more space (and wanted to produce more bud), I wouldn't hesitate to upgrade my lighting to MH/HPS.

Ok so 2-600's stacked in cooltubes it is, also if I do a run of autoflowers is it suggested I go with the bulbs that are HPS and MH in the same bulb and imedatley go into 12/12 or 18/6?

How many plants to you plan to grow at a time? 2 x 600w HPS cooltubes is enough to flower 8-10 full-sized plants (not dwarf autoflowers). Seems like overkill. You could grow half a dozen autos with just one of those 600w cooltubes.

My advice is to determine what your ambitions are for this, and future grows. Unless you're a commercial grower, I wouldn't suggest you go out and splash loads of money on excessive lighting. Most plants require 100-200w of light to flower. Work with that loose principle and decide how many plants you want to grow at a time, then you'll know how much lighting you'll need to buy.

As far as the light cycle goes, most autos remain on an 18/6 cycle (or close to it) from seed to harvest. The seedbank should tell you the light cycle that specific strains respond well to.

Good job so far! I use cfl too... Once in flower mine get about 2.5 feet tall.. I get 2 ounces per plant dry. I grow 4 in flower at different stages and have 4 in different veg stages, im harvetng one plant per month.. With the scheule i got

my flower box has 15 cfls. My vegg has 6 My electric bill goes up 20-30 a month. Any grow more than 8 plants will need more lighting