Big Bang, still not flowering after 2 weeks of 12/12

[TrickHomie]

Hi guys,
So I am venturing into the realm of microgrowing, since outdoor became a bit too risky for me.

I constructed a little 22 liter bucket and vegged a clone of Greenhouse Seeds Big Bang (fem). It vegged beautifully for 6 weeks under 2x25W 6400K CFL's.

After six weeks of 18 hours of light I switched it to 12/12 and changed one of those bulbs with a 30W 2700K CFL. They spent 1 week under this light, when my new bulbs arrived and now it is under 2x38W 2700K CFL's.

12 Days have passed and still I see no increase in pistils. In fact I have just a few pistils, that were there before I switched to 12/12.

The plant has vegged in a 4 liter pot. Last night I transplanted it to a 7 liter pot and filled it with worm castings, hoping that this would stimulate it to flower.
Temperature in the bucket is steady 27-30 degrees Celsius (overall temperature is 2 degrees above room temperature). Humidity is in the range of 58-64%.

And last night something strange happened, my mechanical timer has f*cked up and it didn't switch off. So last night they spent about 16-17 hours under lights (before I noticed this and cut the power). I immediately bought a new one.
I know this is stressfull for them, but I hope it won't delay the start of flowering for one more week.

So has anyone flowered Big Bang before? Is it normal that it doesn't start flowering after two weeks of 12/12?

P.S. On the picture the bulbs seem pretty white, but that is due to my shitty phone camera. They are 2700K for sure

P.S. 2. Just remembered something... I FIM'ed most of the tops before turning to 12/12, could that be slowing it down?

 

[D.I.trY]

No need to worry at all. sometimes it can take a while for the flowering hormones to take effect. the plant will flower, its programmed to do so. mine started budding after 3 weeks. you dont mention any light leaks and they are obvious if you have them

I had a similar fuckup with my timer - they got about 18 hrs of lights. I gave them a full 12 dark period and then the remaining 6 hours light, then 12 dark, so my lights were still on during the night when they are easier to cool. good luck, looking good.

 

[Pyrosin]

give it 48-60 hrs of dark then put it under 12/12 it will begin flower

 

[FreezerBoy]

Some girls are shy, some develop late, some like to leave their boyfriends waiting in the parlor ... Go to K-Mart and buy a big bottle of Patience.

 

[Cozy Amnesia]

Two weeks ain't all that long at all.

 

[SpaDeKo]

I switched mine to 12/12 about 2 weeks ago, and no pistils yet

Just like last time. Took 3 weeks for them to stort budding up, but when they started, they Really grew fast as hell.

 

[TrickHomie]

Heya guys,
Thanks for all your answers.
Here's an update - start of week 5 of flowering...
I fell in love with microgrowing

I hope I can get somewhere around 40 grams out of this bucket... And with 76W of light, I am still pretty much behind the 1W/1G ratio.

Anyways - as my first microgrow, I would be perfectly happy with ~40g of GOOD smoke.

Wish me luck

 

[cork144]

looking good

 

[lmv931]

what a diffrence a week makes....keep it up I wish you luck on the 1gram/1Watt ratio!

 

[TrickHomie]

Heh, thanks, but that's not 1 week, but a whole 5 weeks. Look at the dates of the posts. The plant started flowering a few more days after the first post in the thread.
Anyways, today I got my hands on a better camera, and took a few pictures:



Week 5 is almost over now. Just can't wait

 

[#1cheesebuds]

wow wow wow wow wow. holy shit she be looking so good.

 

[vanbl]

I love your setup and your plants are looking great. That's a 22l bucket huh? How tall are your plants? I would be so pleased with 40g off 76w. Good stuff.

 

[TrickHomie]

Glad you like it.

Here are some details about the setup. Sorry for the poor quality of the photos, but I took them with my phone (which is only 1.3 MP).

Here you can see the bucket "as is" coming directly out of the shop:


I knew I'd had to make a microgrow setup, but I didn't have any idea about the basis of the setup. Went to the shop and started looking. This bucket caught my attention, since its dome-cap would do a perfect reflector.

Now this was my initial idea about air intake:

A 1 inch flexible pipe coming from the top and going to the bottom. I thought that this way CO2 could not escape the bucket, since all holes were above the canopy.... Bad idea, temperatures were skyhigh, and I immediately made a hole at the bottom and installed a 80mm pc fan.

As for the cap:

Trimmed the excess plastic from the flip-flop cap, and secured it to the dome with filler. cut a hole in it, and attached a 92mm NoiseBlocker fan for an air outlet. Later I added a flexible pipe, with a cloth at the end, which up to now serves as a light trap. Here it is ready:


When everything was assembled, I painted the whole bucket with 4-5 coats of primer, to stop light leaks. There are still some tiny light leaks, but nothing too annoying, I'll take care of those once this grow is over.

The initial purpose of this bucket, was to grow two seeds (1 Greenhouse Big Bang and 1 Greenhouse Lemon skunk), for about a month so I could take clones out of them, and then transplant them outside:


On those photos you can still see the first air intake (1 inch hose) hidden under the aluminum foil. That one got removed later. The new air intake can be seen at the bottom.

With those plants inside, I was trying to match the day length outside (increasing the light period with 15 minutes every 10 days or so), so not to stress them too much, when taken out of the bucket.
Anyways they were transplanted outside in early-May, clones were taken (later given as gifts to friends), I kept the first clone that popped out roots, and that was a Big Bang.


Before purring it inside, I removed the old air intake from the bucket. I was still wondering how to grow this plant. Suddenly I decided on SCrOG, and made this screen. Its pretty dull and ugly... but it does the work for now. For the next grow I'll think of something better.


As for the BigBang and LemonSkunk that were grown out of seeds... Here is a picture of them (and me) somewhere in late July


But as I said, outdoors has became too dangerous. So this will be my last outdoor grow. Hope to pull that off, and from now on.... only buckets and cabs for me.
Now the aluminum foil which I used inside the bucket, proved to be a pain in the ass. It tears too easy. So when I'm done with this grow, there will be some upgrading. The aluminum foil on the sides will be replaced with white self-adhesive foil. The reflector will probably remain with aluminum foil.
I have ordered 10 pcs. of 90 lumen blue diodes, which I will later install, they should provide the blue spectrum of light when the plants are flowering...
But that are all plans for the future.

As for now, I hope this grow reaches the finish without any problems, and fattens those buds.

 

[vanbl]

I agree, aluminum foil is a complete pain in the ass. In my latest project I used some foil adhesive backed tape and it seems to be working quite well. Looks like this http://allfoils.thomasnet.com/Asset/foiltape_psa.jpg

 

[TrickHomie]

End of week six of flowering (~60 days since 12/12) a little update.


On the pictures it doesn't seem too different than last week... But actually the buds seem a bit denser and more pistils have turned brown. Hower ~90% of the trichomes are still clear. Two more weeks to go, hope she puts on more sugar than that

And the current conditions inside the bucket:

Luckily this summer was very moderate and I didn't have any problems with the cooling with just 2 pc fans. Now, however, I'm starting to think how to keep this baby warm in the winter... I like fresh air, you know... and in the winter, fresh air comes with a "-" on the temperature tag.

Have been thinking about a TEC (Peltier) with two PC fans and a heatsink between them, serving as AC for this microgrow. Basicly a TEC plate with a CPU heatsink, air is moved through the heatsink and absorbs its temperature. Depending on the polarity, the TEC is hot on one side and cold on the other...
Should work, but decent TEC's start from 40W and go up, and my bucket consumes 80W at peak. That's 50% more power consumption on top just for warming it up (and chilling it in hot summers).

The thing I like about microgrows is, that they demand hi-tech DIY.... On a large scale - you just buy an AC unit and problem is solved...

I think I just found my hobby for the near future to come, hehehe.

Oh, and could some moderator please change the name of the thread to something like "GH BigBang, CFL grow in 22l bucket"? Thanks

 

[#1cheesebuds]

wow wow wow. she is looking so so dam good.