1st Grow-Auto Low2 CFL Cabinet

[miranda]

also at 38cm you may want to read up on LST to keep em as low as possible

Hi diesel , i have read something about LST before starting the grow, and maybe could be a solution if the 38 cm its not enougth.

do you know any good reading about LST?

 

[miranda]

Gonna be tough to keep 'em under your lights for long. My Short Stuff#1 is 10.5" already (26 cm) at around 5 weeks from seed. I guess you could bend 'em over but I'd look for a slightly taller space in a closet or something. If that's not possible, this'll be an interesting tight-quarters grow.

I normally start my plants in plastic cups (Clear inside opaque so I can check the roots) and with the AFs I transplant them when they show sex (if they're fems). If I want pollen for more seeds I just let a male flower in its cup (elsewhere in the house at this point).

The plants could use some ventilation of some kind but if you are in there a couple times a day there should be enuff air for the seedlings.

Good Start!

Hi gromper, i read that lowryder #2 go to 15-16 inches that is about 38-40cm, but yes i dont have many space for them to grow...

I dont have other space for them now, have to be in there.
Its a good start for learning , tougth conditions i know

See ya

 

[miranda]

Its time for a update on the grow.
I have bad news , I remove the one that did not open from the seed ..she was dead anyway, dont know why...

I have only 5 on pots now, i started another lowryder #2 today in paper.

Its now day 5 in soil, and i thing they all doing fine.

seens suspicios why the fisrt 2 plants are not so big like the others..
They have leafs, they are green , so i thing they are ok ??

 

[miranda]

About ph :

I manage to get a ph meter and a moister meter for soil.

The soil is moister in all 5 pots so its correct.
The measures in ph in the rain water give me 6.9 7.0, so this rain water is good for the babys.

The soil is 7.0 ph or a lite less on all pots.

No more worries about ph from now

about the ligths , the spectrums etc, im a lite worried!!

the warm white bulbs with 1550lumens, i couldnt find the spectums for them ..
but maybe they are about 2500K 3000K

The cool whites im sure they have 4000K 1550 lumens
So bongtastic, you talk about 2700k and 6700k rigth ?

In the mall i just saw the 6400K for the whites and 2700K for the yellow ligths
Sould those fit better ??

i now have 2 cool whites (white ligth)and 1 warm white (yellow ligth) per plant +/- , and maybe keep this setup until they flower!

when they flower i could change to 2 yellow ligths and 1 white ligth.

but im not sure about that.

See ya

 

[3lions]

I still think it is perhaps a little high that Ph but they will show you I guess if they do not like it. Well done on getting those things, they are essential, particularly when you start to add nutes etc which can throw the ph all over the place.

It still is usually recommended to plant first into small pots as oppose to final larger pots, hence people often use plastic cups etc, indeed canna themselves recommend maximum of 5cm diameter for seedlings; however, yours are quite small in reality anyway due to the grow space of course.

 

[3lions]

That's why they're in 2 cups - a little light gets in but judging by the continued excellent growth, not enuff light is getting in to cause them any problem - nice white, fuzzy roots. I usually get em outta there before they get root-bound and when they hit the Happy Frog in the 1-gal containers they really go nuts. They don't need any nutes for quite a while after transplant since the Happy Frog is pretty hot to begin with. They never seem to go into shock after transplant either.

The only real way to test is to growin both ways, dark pot and light pot and measure the differences. They may be doing well for you but who knows, maybe they could do better in dark ones Of course, what works for one person tho does not always work for another. Experimenting is always good tho I suspect.

 

[gromper]

No need to really worry about pH though if you read around, most recommend a slightly acidic soil 6.0-6.6. You can get this by adding a little White Vinegar (or pH-) to your water. Doesn't take too much so checking with a water meter will be helpful. Also, the water will not stay acidic for long so you have to adjust the pH if it sits in a jug for very long. You can safely bring the water down to 5.5 and water your plants to drop the soil pH to the mid-6s. Decent soil will have additives to help keep the pH fairly steady anyhow.

Sorry I can't help you with the lighting as I only have 2 400-watt HPS for veg and flower, and some shop-lights (4x 4' tubes) over my clones. Haven't tried anything with CFLs.

There are some real cheap PH, Moisture, Light meters on Ebay for a buck plus shipping. They are crappy for pH but good for moisture (Hard to overwater if you check with a moisture meter and don't water until they actually need it.) and the light meter on them may not be too accurate but it shows you how light diminishes with distance (reads in lumens). But since you kinda have no real distance to worry about, it is probly not necessary. If you look at some of the pictures of my grow, you'll see plants at a lot of different levels as I have them stacked on stuff.

Rain water is good, but not if it runs over various kinds of roofing materials where it might pick up contaminants.

 

[bongtastic]

Your rain water is measuring 6.9-7.0?? You must have the cleanest rain ever. Buddy in Boston measured his rain and it's ph was something like 5.2

 

[gromper]

Was doing some transplanting last night and realized I didn’t mention the other reason I start my seeds in cups; when I transplant them to pots, I put them in right up to their little seed leaves (cotyledons). This would have given you an extra inch or 2 in height and they sprout roots all along the buried portion of the stem. Maybe next time.

 

[3lions]

Thats useful yes, altho the same can be acheived by simply adding an extra inch or so of top soil

 

[gromper]

As far as the burying, yes, but that will not make the plant physically lower in the pot.

 

[3lions]

Well, or the soil higher lol. I always find my soil drops a little after the first few waters. I was just being facetious :icon_roll:

 

[gromper]

OK - I get it, but since you have so little space, every mm counts.

 

[miranda]

I will put more pictures later today or tomorrow.

The new lowryder #2 is already in soil since saturday , waiting to see some live to appear !

The other ladys, 3 of them are ok and getting bigger, but the other 2...
they are very short with very small leafs ...

I gave then water today with a lite less than 0.5 ml nute bio bizz Bio-Grow.

about the cfl´s i have the correct yellow ligths they are 2700 Kelvins, about the white cfl´s i found a philips 23W cool dayligth, with 1450 lumens and 6500 Kelvins.. just bougth 1 of those, but soon i will buy more.

 

[gromper]

No Nutes til 4 or 5 weeks. They'll let you know when they need something. Best to use a decent soil as they usually have all they need for 4-5 weeks. A lot of people have different opinions on this but I hate seeing burnt leaves and the stunting that goes along with it.

 

[bongtastic]

No Nutes til 4 or 5 weeks. They'll let you know when they need something. Best to use a decent soil as they usually have all they need for 4-5 weeks. A lot of people have different opinions on this but I hate seeing burnt leaves and the stunting that goes along with it.

Amen. Take his advice, I temporarily f*ed up my AF grow because I fed too early (around 2 weeks). Thankfully I figured out the problem and flushed all my babies. One of the plants that was severely effected has now outgrown all the rest!

 

[3lions]

What about Rhizotonic for root development. When is best time to add this?

 

[miranda]

No Nutes til 4 or 5 weeks. They'll let you know when they need something. Best to use a decent soil as they usually have all they need for 4-5 weeks. A lot of people have different opinions on this but I hate seeing burnt leaves and the stunting that goes along with it.

You mean in general or specifically to Af strains?
I read that Af strains are more sensitive to nutes than the other strains, so i will be careful.

I got a package of nutes from biobizz (organic nutes)and i got a nute schedule from week 1.
I didnt use the root juice, because ive got small pots and small place for them to grow.

I will see how they react to this bio-grow feed i gave.

The nute schedule i got is this:

 

[miranda]

Amen. Take his advice, I temporarily f*ed up my AF grow because I fed too early (around 2 weeks). Thankfully I figured out the problem and flushed all my babies. One of the plants that was severely effected has now outgrown all the rest!

Yes i know you had a problem in your leafs, but now them seen ok

After i post the photos , you will see how desperate im about the size of the plants, that i gave the nutes ,compared to the others.

 

[miranda]

What about Rhizotonic for root development. When is best time to add this?

I thing you sould give them only in the first week , but my answer is only based on the schedule nute i got.