1st Grow, CFL's semi hydro

[Aor]

Hi everyone, Im a bit of a noob on forums in general so forgive any poor formatting etc etc.

This is my first grow ever, ive never even popped or attempted to pop a seed before.

The grow is taking place in a cupboard and is currently lit with 2 x 60cm standard fluorescents, there are 3 plants in there, 1 which is quite well developed (about 25 - 30cm high) and 2 which are really really small.

Id be estimating, but ill say that the cupboard is 200cm (6ft 6in) H x 60cm (2ft) D X 140cm (4ft 6in) W....

Heres some photos, Im hoping some of the experienced people on here could possibly spot any problems before they develop, although all the plants look healthy to me .




This plant has just been topped about 2 days before this pic was taken, it hasnt really responded yet....


The tubes are going to be replaced with CFL's. We are mounting 4x 20w (100w equiv) Cool White CFL's and in a little while were going to add 2x 48watt (240w equiv) Warm White CFL's (These are monsters). Theres a little fan (10cm diameter?) in there at the moment, on a timer. The plants (with exception of the smallest one) are in a mixture of perlite, which is the white balls and the other stuff in there is core peat? (comes in a brick, which you soak in water, then it sucks all the wate up, gets huge and breaks up). Its being hand watered with weak nutrients, at this time I don't know the exact mixture strength or frequency but I will include more details in the next update.



This is a better picture of the biggest plant, as you can see its got a chunky mainstem on it, and is looking nice and green

[mister2]

nice looking plant you got going there dewd, keep up the good work

O and welcome to GC

[Aor]

Hi mister2, yep, i think its looking good too, hopefully these pics make it all the better. Is that an MR2 in your sig, and is it yours??

Down to buisness.......

We went shopping today, and as such the setup has changed just a little bit.

Instead of one cupboard lit with about 150 watts of CFL, we will now have 2. The veg cupboard will be lit with the CFL's (minus the warm whites) and the twin tubes. The flower cupboard (which is the one the pics are in) will now be lit by a 400w HPS bulb. .

So yeah, today we bought a 400watt HPS kit, some panda film, an exhaust fan and some electrical stuff for the CFl's.

Unfortunatley we didnt have time today to set all the stuff up. But we did manage to mount 2 of the 4 lights and put up the panda film in the veg cupboard, we didn't do anything to the flower cupboard.

Ive got some pics for you, I think I may have spotted some pre hairs of some sort, now ive never done this before, so ive never seen the hairs or anything first hand. As such im after an opinion from someone whose got some experience. I apologise for anyone on dialup :P but you cant see the hairs if the pics are small. Also is that a succsesful topping I spy at the very top there??? Thanks in advance.


First pic: Arrows pointing to the potential hairs...





The second pic is the topping effort, and down the bottom you can get a different angle on the lower hairs and if your good you might be able to see some up higher. (I can see them on my comp, but im not looking at these net sized pics). If you need a bigger/closer view to tell I can provide it..

[OhFuhQ]

*pulls up a chair*

yup deffinetely female , ill be following this

[Aor]

You serious?? female? isnt it hell early for the hairs to be poppin out?? How sure are you?? Ill be pretty damn stoked if its female Thanks for replying so fast man

[cantgetenough]

Welcome Aor!<O</O
Congratulations, you have some beautiful females. Any idea on what your growing???<O</O

[Aor]

Im not too sure, but its definatley not from a seed bank or anything, local style but i have been told its part skunk, the leaves are very broad tho (cant remember if that means its sativa or indica) the other 2 plants are my partners home grown seed, last year his crop came out mega purple so we are hoping the small ones will purple up, which would be nice of course. Thanks for the reply mate

[Aor]

This is some the purple stuff from last crop (outdoor) the smaller 2 plants are from seeds of this crop (thats my understanding anyway, I could be wrong)

[cantgetenough]

Nice Bud <O</O
I like the set up so far. Just watch your temperatures with your new Hps. These things generate allot of heat so it may be a problem. Pulled up a chair to see how these turn out.<O</O
Good luck!<O</O

[mister2]

Originally Posted by Aor

Hi mister2, yep, i think its looking good too, hopefully these pics make it all the better. Is that an MR2 in your sig, and is it yours??


Ive got some pics for you, I think I may have spotted some pre hairs of some sort, now ive never done this before, so ive never seen the hairs or anything first hand.

Yeah thats my MR2 in my sig, i love it to bits!

Gongratulations on your female!

As said, watch the temps from your HPS and you should be fine.

Good luck with your grow (pulls up a chair)

[Aor]

Yeah sick, nice MR2 (the buds behind it look alright too), is it just stock??


We have the cooling sorted (we think). We have 2 fans, one is a 15cm (not 10 like i said before) desk fan, this is used to just provide some air flow in the box. We also have another 15cm fan, its just your typical computer style fan (although it is mains powered) we have been told it moves about 3m^3 per minute (sorry, i don't know the conversion factor to cu ft.) And when we turned it on, it felt like it had a fair bit of push about it, it will be mounted in the top as an exhaust fan. If temperature proves a problem we will probably cut an intake hole down low. The cupboard is in a very cool room, summer is just round the corner, and I could safely say the room temp will never get above 20c...

Are you guys sure that plant is a female, because I thought it was way too early for it to be showing pre-hairs.....

Anyway, good times good times

[Aor]

Well well, we did some construction today, the veg box is done and the flower box is done. Although we havent quite finished the cooling setup on both.

The HPS is fraken hot as!!

We dont have thermometer, so I cant tell you the temp in the box, but its pretty high. We have the little desk fan on constantly aswell as the 15cm extractor fan (this is not mounted properly yet) and these 2 are just enough to keep the temps in check. We shouldn't have any worries once its mounted properly and we have cut some inlet holes.

Anyway, onward to the pics

Sorry guys, I can't remember how to do the white balance on my camera, when I do the HPS pics will look sweet.

This first one is the veg box, you can see the 4x 20watt cool white CFL's



This second photo is the flower box, the light is about 45cm (18in) away from the top of the plant. (The cord in the foreground is for the fan)



And this last photo is just a photo of the main plant, bit of an update, cant see any change tho. Hopefully it will take off in the next few days. Its just gone from being under 2 flouro tubes to being under a 400watt hps (You can the fan in the back ground)




More good times to come, hopefully pull a few Oz of this baby, were gunna top it again when it recovers.... Estimate 3 weeks till switching it to flowering....

[Scott226]

Looking good bud +rep

[mister2]

very nice mate, sounds like your well on your way bud!

P.S MR2 is not totally standard, but not as modded as my other one will be

[Aor]

Thanks guys, yeah we bought a thermometer and have done some cooling upgrades, the temps are stable at 27.5c which is a little higher than you would like, but nothing to cry about.

Massive night last night, so hungover, so shitfaced still really.

hey Mr2, what sorta mods u got on mr2.... is it 4agze style, or is it newer than that???