CFL Closet Growbox.

[joedirte]

so yeah, those two were goners. pulled em out of the soil this morning and dropped two new seeds into germination. hopefully those'll have popped by tomorrow afternoon and i cen get started again. this power skunk better turn out well so i can get some good clones as i dont' have anymore seeds left. i could always turn it into a mother plant i guess...but that involves buidling a sparate grow room. ahhhh...to much digressing for a single post. updates on teh new ones when it's worthwhile

ugh that sucks, sorry to hear that. i hate killing plants. but the only way to move is foward. try, try again.

[GeddaLiddleHI]

yeah, it's always a very sad time when that happens, i said a few words for my seedlings. but all is not bad, my new white widow seed is already popped and in soil. the power skunk wasn't cracked open yet, but it was swollen and had sunk to the bottom in the water so it can't be far off. should be some new seedlings in a couple days!

[joedirte]

sweet...

[Aspire420]

Most every expert agrees,

6000 for veg and 3000 for bloom.

Flat white paint is more reflective than foil and mylar is the best. You might want to make a homemade reflector and fill that thing up with as many CFL's you can. Surge protectors and connectors whatever as many lumens as you can. Hope you got nutes but at your local hardware stores you should be able to find seaweed and molasses. If there are no nurseries or Amazon is not an option then you can always use Fish Fert which smells like ---- but works great. I highly recommend using seaweed throughout the whole process. You might be able to get away with using a flower bloom fert like orchid or rose. Not sure about that so check the N P K. High in P (10) and around 1-3 in N and about 5-8 in K. Peace.

[GeddaLiddleHI]

yeah, i have 4 6500k bulbs and 2 5400-5600k (just to give it a nice spread throughout) right now and will be replacing the 6500 with 2700 when i start bloom. the whole inside of the box is painted flat white, only the top is (dull-side out) aluminum foil, which you can't even tell is foil unless you look close as it's reflecting all the white from the inside of the box. that's really as many cfl's as i wanna have in there, my computer, tv and PS3 all eat up a ton of wattage already and i gotta compensate the rents for the rise in electricity (fair enough). i do have fert with plenty of nutes for when i need it, which i talked about in an old thread here. i also have a bloomd fert for later that changes up the nute concentration to the correct dose (all the fert is left form my last grow, and still very much good).

all of this stuff is in my first post in this thread, but i appreciate the advice. now i know one person to bug when i have questions.

[GeddaLiddleHI]

actually, i do have a question. both my seeds have broken soil now and the white widow is further along, once again.

however, the white widow seed casing is still attached as far up as it is. should i help the plant out and flick it off, or is it like the butterfly emerging thing where if i help i'm actually gonna fuck it over? here's some pics of what i'm talking about to explain. (i figured out that if i use manual mode i can get much nicer pictures)

[mitchy30]

You can take the seed casing off. Only use surgeon like fingers, and fine tipped tweezers. Just don't hurt the leaves!. If it doesn't come off easy, leave it be for another day or two. You don't want to rip the leaf. With that said the seed will prolly come off on its own.
Looking at the pic again...That casing should come off quite easy if you do it yourself.

[GeddaLiddleHI]

alright, thanks man. i popped it off last night. i mean popped, it made an audible popping noise when it came off and the leaves just exploded outwards. anyway, here's pics of my new seedlings. white widow on the left, power skunk on the right.

[GeddaLiddleHI]

alright, so here's an update on what the plants look like, PS on the left, WW on the right. also included is a pic of my newly attached not-quite-reflect-or. as you can see it's actually a piece of white styrofoam. the opposite side of the styrofoam is flat and even. i decided to try this because, as i've been told, flat white is better than foil, so it seemed to make sense. anyway, here it is:

[GeddaLiddleHI]

Alright, so i haven't updated in awhile. I was having some problems, and at the time i was looking for advice, the forums were down for maintenance. Just my luck, psh! Anyways, my plants were suffering from heat stress, and some of the leaves had really yellowed and dried out. I had the lights way too close, and probly too many lights anyway (my temps were hitting 86-90, depending on the ambient temp of my room). I added in another fan and moved the metal circular one over to get airflow over both sets of lights. I also turned off the secondary lamps (with the 5500k lights in them) and now my temps rarely go above 80, especially with the lights on a timer with 4 hours of darkness during the hottest part of the day. I also wrapped the bottom of my reflector in aluminum foil to make it more...reflective.

so here's some pics of how the box looks now, the circular fan is right behind that lamp on the right.

WW on the left, PS on the right. You can clearly see the damaged leaves from when i was overheating them, looks like ima have to do some pruning when they get bigger. ..or should i do that now...i hadn't thought of that until just now.