Starting my first real grow, have a few questions

[Tiki]

Hello everyone

I'm new to the scene and still have bit of a learning curve to get over but i believe i have a solid base to build on at this point. I have a few questions to ask as well as opinions to be asked of as well.

First off i converted a small closest that will give me roughly 32 x 19 to work with. I made my own cfl light and reflector that will give me roughly 27k lumens, i just installed it and i have to say that it is extremely bright in their now.

I'm using a 10 gallon tote and it is setup for bubble at the moment.

My seeds are Nirvana Bubblelicious which i chose for their shorter nature. With this in mind I would like to get people on take on how many plants should i set the tote up for. I was thinking either 2 or 3 but I'm unsure that a 10 gallon tote in this area is capable of sustaining. Any opinions on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

One of thing i was wondering about is the pump timing. Should i have this thing spewing bubbles 24/7? The water is ice cold when i have that thing on and was unsure if that was inappropriate for the roots.

Thank you in advance for any and all help.

Here is a picture of my homemade cfl setup. I'm missing 1 Y in the middle which i will be picking up today.

 

[strydr]

Hello everyone

I'm new to the scene and still have bit of a learning curve to get over but i believe i have a solid base to build on at this point. I have a few questions to ask as well as opinions to be asked of as well.
--no expert, but will add what I can

First off i converted a small closest that will give me roughly 32 x 19 to work with. I made my own cfl light and reflector that will give me roughly 27k lumens, i just installed it and i have to say that it is extremely bright in their now.
--Yay, CFL's are a good starting point

I'm using a 10 gallon tote and it is setup for bubble at the moment.
--I run RDWC, and I love it

My seeds are Nirvana Bubblelicious which i chose for their shorter nature. With this in mind I would like to get people on take on how many plants should i set the tote up for. I was thinking either 2 or 3 but I'm unsure that a 10 gallon tote in this area is capable of sustaining. Any opinions on this matter would be greatly appreciated.
--Well, my concern with from-seed is you will get a few males in your seed pack. I always start the entire pack (10 seeds) in soil/coco first, so I can sex them before placing them in my buckets. Take a clone (or two) from each seedling, just before placing them in 12/12, and toss the males (unless you want to breed with them). Keep the clones you took (the female ones), and make them mothers. When your first grow is done, decide which of the finished plants are your fav., then only keep that mom.
--opps, forgot to answer your question here.. I would say two, but that's if you are going for bigger plants. With the CFL's though, you may want more plants, smaller in size (CFL penetration issues). If you think you will eventually replace the CFL's with a HID (or other higher-power light), stick with two, and work towards trees.

One of thing i was wondering about is the pump timing. Should i have this thing spewing bubbles 24/7? The water is ice cold when i have that thing on and was unsure if that was inappropriate for the roots.
--air and water pumps on 24/7. If they turn off, expect bad things for your ladies.

Thank you in advance for any and all help.

Here is a picture of my homemade cfl setup. I'm missing 1 Y in the middle which i will be picking up today.

here's a pic from my old CFL setup (now using a LED panel)

 

[jm420]

a 10 gallon tote will hold about 8 gallons of water,i personnally try to have app .4 gallons per plant ,so i would recomend 2 plants per 10 gallon tote.reason being its easier to keep ph under control .
yes airstones must run 24-7
cold water holds more o2 65-70 is where you want to be if its to cold get an aqurium heater
search lucas formula for feeding easiest way to learn as well as cheap
ph 5.3. 6.2 a small swing is best for nute uptake
get a ph meter or drops ,i prefer drops cant go wrong
an ec or tds meter isnt a must but it helps
ventilation?
make sure no lite leaks
read freezerboys thunk dairy,as well as blunt 69 info for newbs lot of good info for a first time grow.
dont forget stiches guide to sick plants
theres alot of other factors to but IMO is keep it simple and you will suceed
good luck

 

[Tiki]

here's a pic from my old CFL setup (now using a LED panel)

Yeah I'm really interested in LEDs and have been following LEDgirls customers threads. I think I will hold off till next year to invest in leds, they area bit pricey for me at the moment .

 

[Tiki]

a 10 gallon tote will hold about 8 gallons of water,i personnally try to have app .4 gallons per plant ,so i would recomend 2 plants per 10 gallon tote.reason being its easier to keep ph under control .
yes airstones must run 24-7
cold water holds more o2 65-70 is where you want to be if its to cold get an aqurium heater
search lucas formula for feeding easiest way to learn as well as cheap
ph 5.3. 6.2 a small swing is best for nute uptake
get a ph meter or drops ,i prefer drops cant go wrong
an ec or tds meter isnt a must but it helps
ventilation?
make sure no lite leaks
read freezerboys thunk dairy,as well as blunt 69 info for newbs lot of good info for a first time grow.
dont forget stiches guide to sick plants
theres alot of other factors to but IMO is keep it simple and you will suceed
good luck

I just got back from petco to get an thermometer for the water and with the bubbler running nonstop it is 61.4 F. This is not with it in the closet or under the lights at the moment so it may just up a degree , i might just go buy a small heater for it.

As for nutes i have General Hydroponics 3 part solution at the moment.

As for ventilation I have a 6in fan to move the but do not have an inlet or outlet for air at the moment. I'm considering having the door cracked open during the times that the lights are on if it is getting to hot in there.

The closest is light proof, i crammed myself in there to be sure that it was.

Thank you for the advic eit is much appreciated. Do you think my cfl setup is going to be sufficient for with its configuration?

 

[strydr]

How tall are you planning on growing your ladies?? CFL does not have very good light penetration. This is my only concern. If you were running short plants, it will be fine (for now). If you plan on trees, then no, CFL's will not be enough light.

 

[jm420]

i dont know about cfls i use 5 400 watts dual spectrum for veg i assume cfls will work.If you can get a 250 or 400 for your setup,but you will need ventilation for them .during veg keep door open with a fan you will be fine
you dont need the grow just micro and bloom 0-5-10 search lucas
femmed seeds?clones?
rockwool ?
I woud use in your case 3 inch net pots, hydrotron (LECA}the small netpots will allow for more water in res cuz when roots hit water you will need an air gap .61f isnt that bad imo.wish i could help more ,dont know what your plans are for res etc..
ph test kit? (most important tool)
KISS
in your case once again search freezerboy thunk diary, my first grow i read it daily

 

[Tiki]

The seeds are Femmed bubblelicious and they are suppose to be of the shorter variety, im hoping to keep them around 30 inchs give or take. Unfortunately my current setup wont allow for an HPS which is one reason i also looked into LEDS, but for now cfls will have to suffice.

I have my rockwool soaked in PH'd water and ready to go, I'm using 3 inch net pots with hydroton as well. I think im pretty good with the setup I think its more of the specifics that i will have to work out.

I'll see if i can remedy the water temperature problem, I'll run it under the lights and in the closest to see what the temps are like in there.

I will also look at the diary you suggested as well, there is so much information on this site that it is almost overwhelming at times.

I have had 2 beans soaking now for almost 24 hours but have not showed any signs of cracking yet so i still have some time to get this sorted.

By the way, would a scrog setup work better for cfls ?

 

[fatigues]

I'll see if i can remedy the water temperature problem, I'll run it under the lights and in the closest to see what the temps are like in there.

Your water temps are fine. Leave it be.

 

[Tiki]

Your water temps are fine. Leave it be.

OK that is great to hear, 1 less thing to worry about.
I was reading Craftys pc scrog grow which is peaking my interest. I probably have close to 3x the usable footprint and easily 5 times the height to work with. I'm wondering if this might be the better way to go.

I really wish i had more space because i want to try it all!

 

[bendoslendo]

I just finished up two grows with Nirvanas Bubblicious. While they did not yield huge for me, the stems bend well and are conducive to scrog training.

 

[vanten]

the temp shoudl never be above 22 degrees, i grew aero for 8 months and trust me it is alot better if it is below aroun 18 is ideal to low and p and k wont be soulable in water, also the highest amount of oxygen is reach at 18.
I use gh biofilter with mineral magix , a kind of bacteria that kills of all pest, also when using this u can have and i konw for a fact above 30c whitout problem. i love that filter
i had ec around 2.8-3.0
with gh micro and bloom
my water has an EC of 0.1 , live in very good place , waterwise

 

[Tiki]

I just finished up two grows with Nirvanas Bubblicious. While they did not yield huge for me, the stems bend well and are conducive to scrog training.

Sorry to hear that the yield wasnt huge for ya, the description of that strain seems to read like it has huge potential. It good to hear that they are capable of being scrog'd, I'm up in the air on wether I want to try it this time around or not.... I'll just be ecstatic if i can have a successful grow.

My seeds cracked this morning and the taproot is barely showing, hopefully tonight or tomorrow morning they will go into the rockwool.

When these things arrived in the mail i was blown away at how many freebies Nirvana threw in. I only ordered a 5 pack of fem bubblelicious and they gave me 12 extra unlabeled seeds that looked even healthier than the bubblelicious. i really wish i had some more space so i could grow 5-7 at a time.

Anyway thanks for the info, much appreciated

 

[Tiki]

excellent information there Vandent, I will look into that biofilter

I have my closet running right now so i can monitor the temps all the way around before I throw my seeds in.

 

[bendoslendo]

Yeah both were organic soil grows, and I'm a GH/DWC guy so experience might have had something to do with it. The yield wasn't dismal, but not great either. My main qualm with the strain is high leaf/calyx ratio. The sugar leaves get extremely frosty so they are smokable after a good cure, but the buds are less dense than most strains I've grown.

I'm curious to see how she performs in DWC. I'm thinking those CFLs won't help with bud density though. Maybe a small HPS for flower?

 

[Tiki]

I ish it was possible to throw a 150w hps in there but it is next to impossible to do it without some major home improvement going on, since I dont own this home I would rather not deface it.

I'm really considering just taking the plunge and buying one of those second generation LEDS that Ledgirl has but i really want to wait till all the grow journals are done to see what the verdict is.

Btw about how tall did your Bubblelicous plants get? I saw a journal on here ( which i cant remember the name of the grower) that was 1 bubblelicious under cfl 12/12 from seed and he got about 40 grams wet off of it For a first grow i would be happy with that.

 

[Tiki]

Man my temps went the other way now that the tote is under the lights. The water is sitting around 72 degrees so i turned the fan up and underscrewed some of the lights for now.

One of my seeds had cracked open and the tap root is showing but it doesnt seem to have made anymore progress than that in the last 2 days. The other one is rooting nicely and just about to flip the last part of the shell off.

I'm germinating another seeds as a backup and trying to figure out a way to bring the temps down a bit. The closet is sitting around 85 degrees at the moment and i think it will get worse as the plant grows and soaks up the radiant heat.

 

[Think Green]

Woot Woot for cfl! keep those pics rolling!

 

[bendoslendo]

Mine were grown with Pura Vida in a Topsoil/Peatmoss/EWC/Perlite mix. I vegged for about 4weeks with LST. I threw a screen over them right before 12/12. Because they were LST they only were about 18" tall. I just got a dry weight last night, 190g smokable bud off of 2 plants. I got an additional 75g of shake/popcorn for cooking/oil.

Not bad considering I'm perpetual and they were sharing the 600w HPS with the next crop. It's very tasty bud especially after a good cure. The high leaf/calyx ratio is kind of a bitch but the leaves are resin packed so can be smoked if cured well. Cold nights gave a lovely purple hue to some of the leaves. Good bag appeal.

I'm thinking I could have gotten about 20-30% more if they were in my DWC systems.

 

[Tiki]

Good lord bendoslendo... 190g off of 2 plants.... That really makes me wish I could get away with a 600w hps. If i could get half of that with CFL i would be more than happy.

I think I'm going to start a grow journal this weekend and start my pics with my seedling that way i can get some feedback on where i should be at or where i should be headed.

ThinkGreen, thats a nice CFL setup you got going there. Looks to be successful too.