First grow with CFL. Need advice

Looking good so far! I'm on my first grow and with CFLs too.
 
18/6 is good for now and you also want 6500K CFLs for veg, 2700k for flower. I suggest getting as many CFLs as you can. Use "Y" splitters to add more lights but don't go over what they are rated for. I suggest using 23w CFLs and at least 4 of them. I really noticed the difference with the more lights but I have broke some and need to get more. Keep all the lights close but don't burn them. 3.5in is fine. Keep a eye on the plants and lights too, they will grow towards the light so keep them rotated so you dont grow plants that lean all crazy. And don't forget a fan
 
Watering every 3 days should be alright I went by if the soil was dry and it was every 3-4 days. But no need to mist the plant. Water the soil not the plant. I would just water and then let dry and rewater.
 
As for nutes I was using FFOF so I was set for a while in veg but just add them like you said.
 
A couple things I have learned/suggest is: LST or FIM them. I let mine go natural and I could have had a better yield I think. CFLs don't offer a lot of light penetration so LST is great. Get proper size pots, I wish I had all 2.5g or 3g pots. Read and learn everything you can.

 

ok let me start by saying congrats and I wish you luck.
 
This is the deal watch out for the know it alls. my first few years every  dumbass preached his own style or tricks. read read read and read more. water depends not on days but on humidity how much air you move and many other things like strain and heat ect. fyi don't even think about flowering without a hps HID. that soil u mentioned fox farm ocean forest won't need any nutes until flower. this is all im trying to tell you what works in your spot for you probably wont work for me. I will check back on this and see how you are doing. since I feel I need tons of info and time to explain what I know works. remember share what you learn teaching will help you learn and understand more pay it forward. remember no tap water.

 

Don't monkey with pH too much too often...gets the plants shocky. About once a week, no MAJOR instant changes, even if it's completely out of whack. If you're two full points (5 instead of 7), use 4 weeks to pull it back, not the next watering.

Reason for "no distilled water" is incorrectly explained. You can die of dehydration drinking distilled water by the gallon, if lacking certain minerals in your digestive tract when you drink it. A runner on the edge of heat exhaustion can drink a gallon of distilled water and still go into heat stroke, while someone who drinks a pint of Gatorade will do fine, and someone who drinks a quart of good tap water will do better than both.

Reason is distilled water, without those minerals, can't be "uptaken" into the body. Body can't absorb it properly, or use it properly.

If you have "bad water" from the tap, most problems can be solved by sitting it out for a day, or (even better) using a bit of the stuff from pet stores used to purify water for tropical fish aquariums straight from the tap. If that's STILL not "perfect enough" for you, mix tap water and distilled water at no more than a 50/50 ratio. You NEED many of those impurities.

Bottled "spring water", as often joked, really IS nothing but tap water bottled somewhere else and sold to you for 40 times what the water company charges. Want proof? Why's Nestle trying to get a lock on the majority of SoCal water? Your Aquafina (or is it Dasani?) is tap or well water from the SoCal water system, treated to get rid of any living critters in it. No more, no less. Sold to you in PCB plastic bottles at $2 a liter.Even at SoCal water prices, you could keep your lawn BEAUTIFULLY green in July with the same exact water for less than the cost of 3 bottles a day of the same crap in a plastic bottle.

 

Hasn't for me, that I notice. And if it's healthy for some DAMN touchy tropical freshwater fish and plants, to the point you can mix both plants and fish from all different tropical parts of the world in one tank, use the stuff, and NOT have it cause issues...why would it bother your plant?

 

Ro water needs cal/mag added. I have to use Ro, our city sends out a report every year stating our tap water isn't even safe to drink because of high levels of mercury and other garbage. My 1st tds meter came from my city, they were handing free ones out at the water treatment facility so we could see the difference from the plant to our house. I cant remember what the water plant was, but the ppms were through the roof by the time it made it to my house. There used to be a waste dump outside of town, its been cleaned up, but could take years for our water to straighten out. Our town even built 2 new water treatment plants which has helped, the water treatment plants are reverse osmosis but the water travels through the old city pipes picking up contaminates. The 1st grow I used our tap water with was a pain in the ass till I switched to ro. I work commercial construction and have worked on a lot of new water treatment plants, eventually all city water will be reverse osmosis. A lot towns already use reverse osmosis and most citizens don't even know it. Even if it tests with a higher ppm, its picking up trace minerals in the old city pipes. Its been years since I've heard of a facility being built any other way. I wish we had decent enough city water. I had been helping on a grow elsewhere so when I started my 1st grow here, water never even crossed my mind.