Auto AK47 - CFL Closet Grow - 1st Indoor

Well, here is my first attempt at a little indoor grow. My outdoor grow is not going so good, but i hope this one goes MUCH MUCH better. My intentions here are to get a little experience growing indoors and then after this grow i want to buy a grow tent and get all the official stuff needed. Right now, i'm actually just using the Guitar Hero World Tour box that was sitting in my closet for a year as my growbox and painted the walls with semi gloss white paint. The measurements are 16.5" Wide x 21" Deep x 28" high. I bought 5 feminised Auto AK47 seeds and tried germinating 3 of them. Only 2 germed. Probably better off, since it's pretty tight in there with just the 2. I'm using 2 gallon grow bags and got 2 mini fans blowing in there at all times. Two pc fans installed on the top of the box for exhaust with a passive intake hole on the bottom left side. Temperatures with Lights on have been between 73 -77 degrees and with lights off about 69 - 72. Humidty has been anywhere from 30% - 50%. I've been leaving my windows open in my room so lots of fresh air is getting in. The exhaust is blowing into my room and have no idea what i'm gonna do about the smell when the time comes. I know about the carbon filters, but am not gonna do that till next grow. I'm hoping those ONA Blocks can do the job. Well, i think that about covers most of it.. Oh wait, i forgot about the lights. I have 4 Y shaped sockets installed and can fit 8 lights. Right now i have 6 lights connected with a total of 146 actual watts. 2 30w 6500K, 2 30 watt 2700k, 1 23w 5500K and 1 23w 2700k. I also have 2 42w 2700K that i'm gonna add during flowering. Ok, i think we got it all covered now. Welcome to the grow and hopefully something good comes out of it.


Pics of the little ladies are @ day 8 from sprout and have been on an 18/6 light schedule. How are they looking. I'm already starting to think that they should be bigger for their age. Any thoughts ?


Don't know why it looks like that. But the inside of the box is WAY brighter than what the pictures are showing

 

I noticed the seedling leaves are starting to droop on one my plants. I don't think it's from lack of water, but it might be from too much water. I watered them on the 12th because on the 2nd and 3rd day, the temps were kinda high. Then i watered them on the 15th, with a ph of 6.3. Is this something i should be worried about ? The other plant is perky. I watered both plants with a half gallon jug of water. Splitting it between both of them, and had alot of runoff. Any ideas ?

 

Man, i should've never used the left over Organic MG Soil i had from the outdoor grow, for this grow. I should've learned but let my laziness get the best of me and i used what was already here. Looking @ them this morning, I feel like there has been no growth in the last 3 days or so. The first 5 days they seemed to be going nice but growth has slowed drastically since then. I don't know what else to blame it on, so it must be the soil, or could it be crappy drainage in these grow bags, and water could be sitting on the bottom ? Maybe i watered it too much when i did ? If anybody has any ideas or thoughts, i would love to hear them. Thanks

 

Oh hey thanks for stopping in man. I had gotten one of those cheap moisture meters, with the two long probes about a month ago, but i'm not sure how accurate it is. I got it reeeally cheap on ebay http://www.tlead.net/phmeter/sz/3in1ph.jpg . This is not what i use to test the ph of the water tho, i picked up a digital reader, the ph600 for about 25 bucks that i use for that.

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Update:

Ok, i'm starting to get a little nervous now. These things haven't grown at all since the last pictures. Or there has been VERY little growth, and that's it. It's been 3 days since the last pictures, and 11 days since they popped out of the dirt This is the same exact thing that happened to my outdoor grow. They grew a little bit, and then decided to grow a spec once a week. What am i doing wrong ?

 

Damn. Same thing today, hardly no growth at all. This really stinks guys Today is Day 12 and i still haven't had to move the lights up yet. I really thought that this was going to go great before i started, but now it's just looking like another shit grow. Waking up to hardly no growth every day has killed my confidence with this and half of me wants to say screw it all and the other half wants to stick with it and see what happens. I just wish there was something i can do. If anybody has any ideas, i would love to hear them. I haven't watered them in about 6 days, but the soil is still moist an inch or so down and the moisture meter goes off the hook towards the bottom (although i'm not sure how accurate this meter is)


Edit: I am also noticing that the leaves seem to be getting a lighter shade of green. Lighter than yesterdays pictures even D:

 

I just went into my garage to check the bag of soil and noticed that i'm using "gardening" soil.. Not potting soil. It shows pictures of tomatoes on the front and it says it's for vegatables .. Could this be the problem ? Cmon, there's gotta be somebody out there who knows something

 

Hey, thanks for checking in man. Pretty much, the soil is only dry on the very top, about an inch, any further down it still feels moist. The moisture meter is on max half way down the pot, but again, i don't know how accurate a moisture meter will be for 50 cents. Ok, So the over watering was definitely causing the slow growth. 3 days after sprouting, i watered them both with a 1/2 gallon of distilled non ph balanced water, splitting the 1/2 between both pots. And 3 days later, again the same thing. Both times there was way too much runoff coming out. And when i finally got my digatal ph pen, i found out that my tap water is about 7.2/7.3. It's been 6 days since the last watering and i have some 6.3 ph water ready for them when they need it. I think i might bring it down to 6.0 tho. Thanks for the reply man, you definitely put my mind at ease a bit. Now we just play the waiting game

 

Well, now i know for sure it's this soil and perlite mixture. I just did a little test in a 16oz cup, and mixed 60% fresh soil with about 40% perlite. I made some holes on the bottom of the cup and poured 32oz of 6.5 ph water into it and let it run out a bit and then tested the ph of the water. it was 7.5 So i poured another 32oz of the same 6.5 ph water into it, and the ph was 7.6. But get this, i put two drops of vinegar into about a half gallon of the leftover 6.5 ph water and it brought it down to a whopping 4.6. So i poured the whole half gallon of 4.6 ph water in the 16oz cup (took forever) and the ph of the runoff was a whopping 7.7 ??????? How is this possible ? I thought for sure it would've gotten lower. What can possibly be causing this ? This has got to be what had caused the insanely slow growth on both of my grows, no ? How could the ph get higher every time ? Bah, what a waste of electricity this was D: . I need to get me some quality soil and try again with the 2 remaining seeds. What a bummer.

 

Hey thanks man. The water that i'm using is tap water that's been left out for a few days to let the chlorine out. The pH of my tap water is about 7.1/7.2. You know what, your right about the vinegar drifting the pH back up dude, because the night before i had adjusted the pH of a gallon of water to 6.0 with a few drops of vinegar, but when i did the little soil test the next night, the pH of the water went up to 6.5. My pH meter is pretty much spot on, i use pH 7 calibration liquid, and either the meter always reads 7.0, or i have to adjust it from 7.1 to 7.0. I'm gonna have to grab both pH up and pH down tho instead of using vinegar.

Nah, it's the soil. It's gardening soil, not potting soil, made for vegetables grown outside. I just noticed today (lol, a little late), on the back of the bag, it says "not for containers" and shows a picture of a pot with a line thru it (like a No Smoking sign). The pH of this soil is ridiculously high and is about 7.5 - 7.7 right out of the bag. And like i said in the post before, i flushed a 16oz cup of it with a 1/2 gallon of 4.6 water, and the pH of the runoff water was 7.7. So i'm pretty convinced it's the soil.

I went out today to the local nursery to buy a bag of regular potting soil, with no ferts inside. The only thing they had was Fafard Proffesional Quality potting soil, so i picked it up. When i got home i did a a new test with the new soil This time the runoff was about 4.9 - 5.0 GRRRRRRRR!!! So then i tried mixing 2 parts of the new soil, with 1 part of the other soil. The runoff climbed up to 5.5. Then i finally mixed half new soil with half old soil and the pH of the runoff was 6.0. So after the testing, i think i'm gonna have to mix half and half. I'll probably wind up doing 40% of each soil and 20% perlite. The Fafard soil has perlite already mixed in, but not enough. I also want to see the pH of the mix after it has dried out a bit and then re-watered to see the difference. I hope it all works out