First Grow, CFL w/ bagseed.

[daihashi]

I've been having alot of problems that I've been posting in this thread under plant problems.

I finally decided that it's probably best just to start a grow log. Here is the room setup.

Room Dimensions: 2.2' x 12' x 9' (maybe 10).

Shelving system: 2 shelves. First shelf is 18" tall, Second shelf can run up to the ceiling. Both shelves are slightly more than 4' wide.

Lighting: These are all daylight CFLs. Should be 6000k-6500k on the color temperature scale. I have 8 27watt bulbs (1300 Lumens, 100 watt comparable) and 4 14 watt bulbs (640 Lumens, 60 watt comparable). The lights are sitting about 2-3 inches away from the plant tops. Total lumen out put is about 13000 over a very small area. Lights are currently on 24/7, but I may change this to 18/6 due to some heat issues I've recently encountered since switching to CFL.

Plants: Plants are bagseed. Been having some major issues with growing which I'll get into later. Currently because I changed my lighting setup over to CFL's once I learned T12's were crap, the plants are in a smaller space. Approximately 15"x15"x18" (I've actually widened the area a little bit than it probably actually is).

Temperature/Humidity: Temperature stays between 75F-83F degrees. Since switching to CFL temps get up into the 90's unless I leave the closet door open. If I leave it open temps drop to about 80-82. Humidity stays about 35-40% regardless of the temperature.

Soil: Currently using soil with a PH of 6.8. Name Brand is Calloways. I bought this from a fairly good nursery/garden center and was told by the owner there are no nutes in it. Previously I was using something called Landscapers potting mix, which I was also told by another garden center that it had no nutes. Turned out it did. 2 of my plants are in this new soil, and 5-6 of my plants are in the old soil (I tried flushing the soil to save them, I think the added shock just hurt them more).

Water: I water about every other day. So I guess that's 2 days? My drainage is really good. Too good in some of my pots, I think I used too much perlite in some of the pots. I just have to stay on top of it to make sure it never gets too dry. I use super thrive in my water. I try to use just a drop but honestly it's more like a quick spill. Maybe 1/4 of a teaspoon per gallon. I've been using it with each watering since I flushed the plants about a week ago. Water PH is also 6.8

Ventilation: This is a closet grow so ventilation is especially hard since I live in an apartment. Currently ventilation is very poor. With the doors closed and just a fan on inside to circulate the air flow and bring temps down slightly. Last night and today have been better as I've been forced to leave the doors open so that the room will stay below 85 degrees. (get's up to 90 now with the CFL's on). I have an idea that came to me in my sleep last night I'll tell in the next post.

Nutes: Not using any nutes yet, except for the bastard nutes that were in my first bag of soil.

Germination: I use seed starting medium in a seedling tray (well now I do). I had tried the paper bag method and the ziplock bag method. Even trying using my back heating pad under the plate they were sitting on to try to stimulate faster root growth. I've had mild success at both. Germinating 2 seeds out of 6-9 each time. I'm trying this new method to see if I can germinate more. I've got about 30 seedlings currently in this tray. Reason for this is that I figured most of my current plants will probably just die out soon. I honestly don't have too much hope for them. With my current track record of about 20-30% germination success. I figured 30 seeds would give me 10 good seedlings that I can keep in these containters for the first 2 weeks of their life before transplanting into soil. Hopefully if there is a soil issue these plants will be bigger and can handle the stress a little better than if I were to plant them directly into the soil after sprouting a root.

I tend to be a little impatient, but I've gotten better about only glancing at the plants to make sure they're not stressing (really I can only do this with the 2 new plants in the new soil. The other plants are totally freaked out and I don't think will recover.). I'm going to try to be patient with my posting as well, trying to post only at every couple of waterings (1-2 times a week) or if something bad looks like it's happening to the plants.

Let me know if I've missed any decent information from this first post.

daihashi Reviewed by daihashi on 12-02-2007. First Grow, CFL w/ bagseed. I've been having alot of problems that I've been posting in this thread under plant problems. I finally decided that it's probably best just to start a grow log. Here is the room setup. Room Dimensions: 2.2' x 12' x 9' (maybe 10). Shelving system: 2 shelves. First shelf is 18" tall, Second shelf can run up to the ceiling. Both shelves are slightly more than 4' wide. Lighting: These are all daylight CFLs. Should be 6000k-6500k on the color temperature scale. I have 8 27watt bulbs Rating: 5

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Here are some pics from day 12. The plants could look better. I've found out that once again I've used nuted soil. I went ahead and bought some promix on Rhizome's suggestion but haven't transplanted any plants (also on Rhizome's suggestion).

Some of my plants look small but I have about 4 decent looking plants (at least I think they're decent considering circumstances).

I've also added a few more lights to my box (6 60watt CFL 6500k lights).

Two of these plants are plants that I tried to salvage from my last grow. I think one of them is pretty much good as dead and the other one is showing new vegetative growth but it pretty much looks like a dwarf plant.

A number of my plants are still looking droopy. I think this is because of the rapid rooters drying out early in their life. I'm hoping to see better growth soon.

All the pictures are the top and side view of the plants. So 2 pictures per plant.

[daihashi]

wow. I really wished I had waited to take pictures. These plants pretty much exploded in growth overnight. I don't know what the hell happened but I'm happy about it. :jointsmile: