and get rid of that halogen light, it's not adding anything to your grow except heat.
when you have more money, buy more cfl's.
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and get rid of that halogen light, it's not adding anything to your grow except heat.
when you have more money, buy more cfl's.
haha... i was going to say EXACTLY what jakezking and justanotherbozo just said...
- if the roots aren;t tangled already, if you wait until the plants are appearing to be root bound or that they are fighting... it will be far far far too late to seperate them - more than likely you will cause some severe root damage trying to untangle them... many of the roots can very very thin like the hair on your head - but not nearly as strong as your hair and can be damaged quite easily.
- the halogen is probably doing absolutly nothing for you.. i;m not sure about the specs on the bulb you are using, but everything i've read seems to point to halogens being useless for growing
also the floro you are using 10k colour temp? i;m not certain thats doing anything either, i;m not sure cannabis can make use of anything in that colour spectrum, may want to consider swapping the bulb out for a T5 bulb if you can find it... though i;m not sure if T5s come in 18".. if i recall... T5s tend to come in non-standard sizes.
I think you'll find the CFLs you've added though should make a fairly dramatic difference... its still not very much light with just 2 of them, but it is MILES ahead of what you had before.
make sure you keep the CFL bulbs roughly 2 inchs away from the top of the plant - probably no more than say 4" and no less than 1" once you go past 4" you are going to have alot of wasted light due to the way CFLs emit their light, and once you are closer than 1" you start running the risk of scorching the leafs.
you can also make some home-made reflectors for your CFLs that you might find will help alot - checkout this article, it has some great info in it - Text
good luck!
First, thank you to all who stopped in and those who have given advise. Very much appreciated.
So we have AGAIN changed the lighting as of now we have 4 26W GE CFLs day/blue lights and a little 15W florescent T6 tube that has been changed from the 11000K to a different tube that seems to be putting the bulk of its energy to the 600-615nm range from looking at it's spectrum chart; no other specs on that.
All the walls have also been lined with matte white/black panda sheeting as well as installing those cool, but painstaking little soda can reflectors that were suggested by syde, all very helpful stuff from everyone. This method of installing individual CFLs is very useful if anyone who is trying to do CFL grow on a bulb come, bulb serve basis if you catch my drift:) Although i do see this method a a problem when the lights are being hung as it can get crowded and clumsy looking; but cheap reflectors - bottom line no doubt:thumbsup:
In the ventilation department I have 2 fans that run at 35 CFM. Should I use the top or bottom as my vent opening? There are small cracks going places that escape the box so I plan to use both the fans either together working in the same direction(2@bottom blowing in or 2@top blowing out) or 1 fan blowing in/out and the other to use inside the box helping to give the plants some more air circulations. Im not quite sure what I plan to do yet.
I tested my pH with a saltwater aquarium tester and got the same reading of around 7.7 for the tap water I am using and the runoff coming from the pot. I hope this is wrong, I will try to get some pH test paper strips soon before I go and try to fix anything. For now I will use day-old brita filtered water for the plants until i find out the real pH of my runoff soil.
As of yet, the plants have not been separated to different pots. I am still concerned that they need a little more time to flourish and regain some of their strenth before i repot and restress them again. I'll take a pic of the room when I have a chance so you can see what it looks like now. Maybe ill wait to the first substantial looking leafage has spread..they look QUITE sad right now. very disappointing to find out that that halogen bulb was doing very little good and could of given me heat problems as well;this was my ONLY light on the seedlings for the entire first 4 weeks of their sprouting! ugg:mad:
Peace!:jointsmile::jointsmile::jointsmile:
You have been blessed with some great advice, stick with it and you will see results :thumbsup:
I'd also try to transplant them into individual pots ASAP... I didn't catch if you had transplanted them at all yet or just planted them straight into the 2gal... cuz if you put the plant into a big pot, the roots will keep growing, and the plant will focus most of it's energy on the roots. Explained better here http://boards.cannabis.com/basic-gro...ency-baby.html
Many people have made the same mistakes that you have... if you browse around the "first grow" logs, you will see it over and over again.
Color test kits are no good for measuring soil run-off; they can only be used on clear liquids. You can get digital ones starting at $8 at home depot someone said, descent ones for $20 and up...
As for the Brita filter, I came across this...
You might need CalMag if you are using the Brita, I'm not positive, so best to do some searching about that. Or, once you find out your actual tap water ph and run-off ph, just use the tap water and adjust accordingly with ph up/down... http://boards.cannabis.com/plant-pro...hy-how-do.htmlQuote:
Originally Posted by Weedhound
As for the ventilation, you can get the full answer plus more here--> http://boards.cannabis.com/indoor-gr...-progress.html Basically, you want to pull the hot air out the top with the fan(s) and have a passive (no fan) intake on the bottom, preferably directly opposite from your exhaust. You will have to make these light-leak proof, just another thing to keep in mind.
Do you have any fan blowing around the grow area? An oscillating fan will help to move around fresh air, and strengthen the stems, which will reduce that stretching also.
Oh yeah, some perlite mixed in with the soil would help things a lot!
Good luck :jointsmile:
all sounds good dmahny :) only thing is like bigtopsfinn said, try and repot them asap, the longer it goes, the bigger the potential problem is... totally understand about re-stressing the plants... but if the roots do get tangled, i can guarentee you are going to regret it.... there is a grow log on the boards somewhere right now where the person is a few weeks into flowering and has their roots tangled, and its causing some pretty massive problems for one of them... might be worth a read.
as for your ventalation... you want to put both fans at the top, and you want them both removing air from the box. you'll want to cut some passive intake holes at the bottom that new air will be pulled in through. there is some logical reasoning behind this:
1. heat rises, so putting your fans at the top helps ensure you are removing the most amount of heat always
2. oxygen is lighter than co2 - your plants need the co2, and you need the oxygen, since co2 is heavier than oxygen it stands to reason that it would be slightly more concentrated in lower levels in the air (but honestly, probably not all that much), but your plates are producing oxygen for you, so oxygen levels in the box are probably elevated compared to the rest of your house... and since the oxygen is lighter - it should rise with the heat... best to pump that out for your lungs to take advantage of... when your lungs aren;t busy sucking in smoke that is ;)
3. removing air from the box instead of pushing new air into the box creates slightly negative air pressure inside the box - which as long as its not TOO negative won't do any harm and air is simply easier to circulate when there is less of it, not to mention less air means there is less capacity for heat build up (think about it - this is why space is exceptionally cold... there is just simply a big void of almost nothingness between us and the sun, its earth's atmosphere that holds all the heat in and keeps us warm)
you also mentioned you have some cracks throughout the box... that is fine if they are just letting air in... but if they are leaking light into the box as well, this will cause problems in your 12/12 light cycle... during the dark hours it needs to be completely dark inside... the bits of random light coming into the box during the dark hours will basically confuse your plants and cause some of your females to go hermie... which isn;t the end of the world for sure, but its (most of the time) undesirable.
when you cut the vent holes, you need to do something to let the air through, but block the light... i saw in somebody elses thread recently where somebody used the analogy of the U-joints you find in the plumbing of kitchen sinks and stuff... thats kind of similiar to what you need to make - the air will travel through the U perfectly fine, but all the light will get traped inside it :)
So what's wrong with the lil guys? Any guesses? Leaves are losing their chlorophyl or "burning". I am thinking it might NOT be a problem cause they coulda been "shocked" by the change in power of light so the new growth will be fine but this kinda seems like a funky theory to me cause I have been concerned on a possible pH problem or also a possible deficit in nitrogen, or something. I want to buy nutes, I want to buy a pH tester, I want to but more CFLs..but I'm poor so any suggestions on what my next move should be? I def need to resolve my pH questions don't I?.. I feel useless without that information.:(
Heres the set up and picks of the prettys:
http://boards.cannabis.com/members/d...02-6-setuo.jpg
http://boards.cannabis.com/members/d...ntire-view.jpghttp://boards.cannabis.com/members/d...1800-4burn.jpghttp://boards.cannabis.com/members/d...1801-5burn.jpg
see that?
http://boards.cannabis.com/members/d...-2burn-top.jpg
and this
http://boards.cannabis.com/members/d...urn-lightt.jpg
how about how these leaves are bending down?
http://boards.cannabis.com/members/d...03-7-light.jpg
Peace,:stoned::stoned::stoned:
D$
think ya forgot the pics ;)
reals?! because i can see em...their url'd from my cannabis.com album so you could see them on my profile if that didn't work:)
sry!
Did you get them re-potted yet? The roots could already be competing...:(
definitely not competing. I just repotted them. Got little, weak roots nothing more than 2 inches in diameter out and tap root is about 8-10 inch long. They didn't need it but now they're in separate pots so they are ready to go for a WHILE. Mixed 25% large sand and 75% MG with 4 inches of large rocks on the bottom just as i did in they're first pots. Probably about in a gallon or soil each. Are my pics still not attached on that last post??
go to my profile and look up the album, it'll show you the burns on the leaves. I think they have been too close to my lights. Hope they don't die! If they do, oh wells. Gotta to start somewhere. And I've learned a hellofalot so all in all it hasn't been too bad but I still want them to LIVE. Help! It MUST be my pH, what else could make these things so sad looking??? Soil-not really its just MG moisture control+sand, nutes-no, lighting-COULD have been in the past if they are still recovering from that, temp-NO, humidity-no, water-definite possibility..I can't thing of anything else now..over/under watering-I think not.
If you can't answer or aren't POSITIVE on your best guess give it a week so so we can see what they'll look like then and decide. Any suggestions are welcome though!
Peace