Round 2 - Its about time. A [Soil - CFL - Closet] Grow

Haha alright I will see...

I see on the labeling of the 2 40watt CFLs I bought, its soft white light... is that what I need?

Temps are staying around 85... not good... should I add in my timer and put the lights on 18/6, or 16/8 or something? it would definitely help cool the closet.

They are looking better than earlier... and yesterday... the sprouts are stretching for light though, because I have no way of positioning a light over them currently... I would have to rearrange the setup quite a bit.

I still REALLY need to transplant the 2 plants... the pot that Alpha is in... is that big enough for me not to need to transplant it again? I have 1 other same size that I may transplant Chi into tomm... I have nothing slightly bigger... only a bucket massively bigger, and I would have to raise the hood about a foot, and all the other plants in cups a foot... and buy many more bags of soil hahaha so I dont think thatll work right now...

anddd.... Alpha hasn't grown a bit still... I think its dead? hahaha.... seriously if I just got rid of Alpha, Beta and Chi would both have bigger pots, and the sprouts would have adequate lighting...

anddd the pictures taken 30 minutes early today.
Day 16 - 01/04/08 [Plants Alpha - Chi]
Day 4 - 01/04/08 [The 3 cups with sprouts]

pic one is a close up of Chi, second is overview of all except alpha [in the bucket], third has alpha in the pic, and the last is chi... its extremely small for day 16... and its the biggest out of the 3 day 16 plants!

i have always use cool white for veg and soft white for flowering when i use CFL's

and as far as tranplanting u can leave those planrts in thhose cups till they are like 3-4weeks old...then thats when they will become rootbound with those little cups.

did u ever go back to lowes and find that cloneing poweder?

thats right. cool white .

just look at the light when it's turned on.

is it blue or an oarnge red.

use blue for veg, red for flower.

search lowes, they have em, I dont know why they have them hidden ? but they are there, so far i have bought 22 of them.

I should be going to Lowes today, but I am low on money, so I will probably go for the soil, powder, and if I find the powder I will go to walmarts bakery section for the tray thing lol.

I really dont need more CFLs... but I guess the 40watts I have are in the flowering spectrum... they didnt have 42 watts . But I do have a crap load of CFLs not in use... almost a dozen... all the spectrums on them are questionable... but the bulbs are either 23w or 26w... so I would think the 23w is all on spectrum and the 26w is another... im not sure, but I am color blind so it would be hard for me to eye it... but my camera... if I aim it at the light, shouldn't the light come up on the cam either with a blueish tint or the orangish red tint?

I do believe the 40w have the orangeish red tint when the cam was focused on them.

would it be benificial to remove the 2 40watts in exchange for 2 26w or 23w [whichever ones are in the blue spectrum]? 14w less output... but it will be in a better spectrum... not to mention would mean 28w less light total, which would mean less heat.

Should I put my plants on 18/6 or 16/8 or something? I think they would be doing much better with a lights off period, and having lower temps.

all the 42 watters at lowes are red spectrum. I dont know why they dont have the blue there.

I would think it would be best to have a little of both spectrums, as does natural sun light. but go heavy in the blue and reverse it for the budding.

deep freeze came here and stunted my plants. room fell to low 60's and i fear even more at the bottom of the room where the plants are, this has been happening to me for 2 months.

I'm getting very pissed off.

I'm revamping my room today, got to go to dollar store and buy white plastic garbage bags as for i cant find any white plastic. I'm sealing the room up and putting in a heater and setting to go on at 72 degrees to maintain the temp.

I'm still waitng on my white widow seeds, couple more days and they will be here, got a confirmation email 3 days ago they are on the way.

until then what I have is an experiment.

I have peat pots now to start them in, this next grow is going to be the 1.

I have spent over 1 grand and all I have is 1 big bud plant stunted several times but it's still there and nice and green. 1 kahuna that was booming from a seedling and now is stunted because of the cold. and 2 sickly big bud plants still at the 2nd node past the seedlings stage but 1 1/2 months old.

14 dead big bud plants and 14 dead kahuna plants all because of the cold.

if this was summer / spring, i'de be a wash in plants

i have my work cut out for me today. I'm also running a new power line from the fuse box, I noticed every plug in the place runs off 1 breaker.

wow that sucks, you have too cold, i have too hot... haha. I went into my closet today, humidifiers been off for forever, and the temp is almost 90 degrees, the air in the closet is almost 85... those 6 CFLs put out quite a bit of heat... and temps outside are almost 60... so that means when it gets to be summer, closet temps could reach above 100! Even worse when I will be having to use double the CFLs I am using now -_-... I might end up having to always have my closet door cracked open, except for when I am not here.

Also one of the 40w is fuckedddd up... I went in there and immidiately was like... WHAT THE FUCK is blinking... it was a really slight flicker youd hardly notice it was happening so fast... I at first thought it was just the mylar waving in the wind... but nah its the CFL... and it looks half dim, and I can clearly see it flickering... WTF its brand new... other ones doing great nice bright light... but this one is definitely fucked up... and somehow happened over like a 2 hour period of normal use 0_o.

So now I have a dim flickering 40w soft white CFL... I think I will change it for a CFL in the blue spectrum... I will see if any of the ballasts are labeled.

get that light out of there.

it's fryed.

same thing happened to me, brand new and it flickered and then sizzled and burt into flames.

get it out of there before you burn the house down.

Aight its out, I put in a 26w GE Helical Energy Saver bulb... I checked the packaging and googled and I cant find the spectrum of light it outputs... but its Energy Saver doesn't that mean better penetration? so atleast thats good. I have 3 of those 26 watt bulbs.

I think I am going to put in the timer tonight, set the lights to go off for 6 hours, then come back on 18 hours, and continue that. The closet gets way to hot.

All the leafs on the plants are very dry... even the ones not entirely yellow, they are dry and crisp, I bent one of the better looking ones and I hurt crunching like I was breaking the leaf off... and I think I did partly snap it.

too funny, your burning up, I'm freezing.
it was alot easyer 30 yrs ago when my mom and dad paid the power bill, then the house was always real warm, I'm a penny pincher and keep it cool except for the room I'm in and the bath room.

it gets a little tricky, oh well 2 more months and this will be over with.

ran the electric line, now my lights are 50% brighter, kinda figured that.
too tired to do the rest, will prob. tinnker with it tonight and finish it tommorrow.

bought white garbage bags, and they're paper thin. not worth putting up, the paneling shows right through.

why the hell dont they have white plastic at lowes ? i think i remember one day browsing and seeing mylar. thought this is good for growing, but i'll be damned if I can find it now that I want it.

I still have to go return the glas for my 600 watt light because it's too big so i might get real white stuff at the hydro store. but it's a pain getting there from here. gotta drive through the ghetto 25 miles away in north carolina.

might order some though ?? hmmm. but this is turning into a money pit, gotta stop spending and start growing.

2 white sheets would do the trick though ? hmmmm. dollar store here i come.

naaah, well maybe, nahhh. stop spending money dummy. you want to buy a house.

oh yah, thats right....

i wish i'd win the lottery, i'd buy a small place and build a huge bunker under ground and live in it along with mary jane.

so i cheated, i did go to the dollar store and the sheets were 1 for 10 bucks, never...will i pay that.

i'll plaster the room with tin foil first, infact 1/2 of it already is.


got a thermometer yesterday and realized my old one was 10 degrees off on the cool side, so it wasnt as bad as I thought it was. this one has humidity also.

i'm getting there, I got 22 lights, but only 12 sockets for now.
got great soil, a heater if needed, a fan, thermomater,peat pots, fert, cloning powder. and more seeds on the way.

I still have 5 big bud seeds but those are for summer when i know they wont die. got 15 kahuna on the way, free for ordering the 60 white widow.

and my 600 watt hps for budding and a complete vent set up for it, minus the glass.

couple more things and i'm good to go.

wish i had a bud to smoke, sucks being in a new area.

but i'll survive.

with white widow, even the fan leafs are covered in white thc. I'll smoke that until the buds are done. but i assume i'll have a sacrificial lamb going to keep me away from the good plants that i let go undusturbed.

hey broken u dont need a humidiier .. just open ur window for like 20-30mins a day to get fresh air in there .. that shud be good enough ... trust me.

skunkman98536 said:

hey broken u dont need a humidiier .. just open ur window for like 20-30mins a day to get fresh air in there .. that shud be good enough ... trust me.

Click to expand...

Yeah, your plants really need lots of fresh air all the time, so you should open the window every hour for 5 mins to refesh the room air, especially since you smoke in that room.

You should plan ahead now for the flowering period, by making sure you have a light-proof, ventilated area to keep them in during the dark period. You can't just open the closet door to give them air, so organise a fan and some light-proof extraction and inlet ducts for ventilation during lights out.

lol I used to use tin foil... you should try to find some reflective gift wrap, the other side of it is mylar and its at dollar general, it works very well, and $1 worth is enough to cover a considerable area, it comes in large sheets folded up.

thats a lot of lights... I have like 16 now, 2 burned out and arent even a year old -_-... the 40watts trash and its not even a week old... maybe a week. But I am hardly even able to use 6... struggling to keep temps even around 85 ... they keep going straight to near 90 when I shut the door. I have all those free sockets and I cant use em because way too much heat .

My window is open now, today it got to 60, now its 57. As the weather gets warmer my windows open more... which means the grow room will be vented out more often... but it doesn't take long at all for it to go right back up to 89 degrees... and the quick 4-5 degree drop by opening the closet door for a bit, I am sure is not good for the plants.

I bet almost every one of these goes hermie or male with all this heat stress and all these temperature oscillations.

As I said earlier, tonight I add in the timer for 6 hours of lights off starting midnight. Pictures will be taken atleast half an hour early from now on, I will still state how early I took the pictures though... and I will not be able to take pictures late anymore because midnight is when I used to take pictures, and thats when the lights will now go off.

and lol yeah I know, I haven't been using the humidifier for days... humidity is slowly dropping and is probably around 35% right now, it mostly drops when I leave the closet door open a bit... but I did need the humidifier originally, my closet was off the charts dry, our house is unusually dry, and its horrible at winter, my skin is so freakn dry, my knuckles skin cracks like crazy and bleeds sometimes... thats how bad it is... the closet was even worse, and meant I had to heavily water the plants every single day because they wouldn't retain the moisture... when I was using I used it wayyyyy tooo much getting humidity up to 75%.

Before I found the humidifier I tried opening the window and closet door to exchange the high humidity outside inside... but nothing happened, the temperature in the closet dropped but the humidity stayed right where it way... like 20% or something, when it was almost 65% humidity outside.

Happiman said:

Yeah, your plants really need lots of fresh air all the time, so you should open the window every hour for 5 mins to refesh the room air, especially since you smoke in that room.

You should plan ahead now for the flowering period, by making sure you have a light-proof, ventilated area to keep them in during the dark period. You can't just open the closet door to give them air, so organise a fan and some light-proof extraction and inlet ducts for ventilation during lights out.

Click to expand...

Well I smoke in my bedroom, cigs and bud quite a bit... but I always have towels under the closet door on both sides to keep the air inside there free of smoke... but yeah they do definitely need fresh air more often... sometimes the closet door doesn't get opened for 12 hours, and theres not all that much room in the closet either.

I will easily be able to light proof the closet, just by hanging sheets from the inside of the closet down from the top of the door... theres only slight light that comes out of the sides of the door at night, and 4 layers of sheets will cover that up... and its even better since lights go out at midnight in there, I am usually asleep with lights out in my room anyways.

What kind of ventilation do you mean I need? I was thinking just keep the fan running when the lights go off.

- I have had the closet open for quite awhile, temperature is at 80.8 degrees, humidity 30%. I added 1 more CFL to the other side of Alpha [23w], so there is now 7. 2 of the cups of sprouts are raised as well, 1 was streching horribly and the other growing slow... if they start heat stressing I will move them back down.

you need to switch the times

time it to shut off during the heat of the day and on when it's cooler at night, and you can still mess with them at 12:00

also, if you are not budding, dont worry about disturbing them, it wont hurt a bit.

if need be, get a good timer and set it to go on for 45 minutes and off for 15.

or better yet, on for 40 minutes and off for 20 minutes every hour.

thats a 16 hour on light cycle, plenty to keep them from budding and it'll help keep the heat down.

i designed a closet ventilator, i named it the STEALTH O'VENT.
it'll do wounders and i bet solve your problem.

I should persue it.

STEALTH O'VENT haha yeah sounds interesting.

Your right, it would be ideal to have lights off during the day... but yeah that sounds even better 45 on 15 off... my timer has 15 minute incerments, so I could do that. Anyone else have an opinion on this? Setting my lights on 45 min on, 15 off... I am sure that would majorly help keep down heat.

Alright in about 35 minutes the lights go off for 15 minutes, cycle will continue 45 on 15 off.

I think there is a Mg deficiency... the symtoms and pictures look very similar in the growfaq... where can I get Epsom salt? I also think the pH is too low, miracle grow starts of at 5.0, because it has all those chunks of wood or w/e in it, so I should raise it very slightly, but how? and I have no way to test pH.

if ur PH is acidic then u add lime juice if it is alkaline then add lemon PEELS to lower it.

Problem... when the lights go off for 15 minutes the temp drops 6 degrees down to about 81, when they come back on near the end of the 45 minute period the temp goes back up to 87-88... these temp oscillations are bad... I am going to end up with hermies for sure .

anyways I think the pH is too low, and Mg deficiency as well...

Day 17 - 01/05/08 [Plants Alpha - Chi]
Day 5 - 01/05/08 [The 3 cups with sprouts]

first pic is overview, second is 3 sprouts, third is chi, and the last is beta

what happens every night ?

the temp drops and then goes back up.

it wont give you transgender, thats mostly a genetic mutation.



also if you want to put your ph to neutral, just take a cup of water. put 1 tablespoon of baking soda in it and water your plants, it will neut. the acid and give you 6.8 ph.


another thing.

stop listening to so many people and changing everything every 12 hours.
you cant issolate any problem that way. too many cooks spoil the soup.


from the sounds of the last couple days, your plants are screwed up, they cant figure out if its a hot and humid climate, or a hot and dry, or cold and wet.

in florida you have temp flucuations of 100 + to 70 degrees at night and weed grows like gang busters .

just keep the temp under 95 for prolong periods, give it air, and let it grow without fucking with it.

you are your own worst enemy right now.

let them grow.