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Budget CFL grow gogogo!!!


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just picked up this clone from a co-op down town.(12$ US)

name is blue cheese.. supposedly a short stocky tight stinky indica dominant plant... 80/20 or 90/10 indica/sativa

at the moment I have it in store bought seed starting dirt with perilite mixed in...

I am not a dirt guru by far... I dis-like the stuff no offence to you natural growers.... I am a hydro kinda guy and this little lady will be switched to hydro as soon as it veg's enough to be cloned....

I am afraid the dirt is too muddy or water holding.... was hoping the perilite would help it be more airy and drain faster but all it does is float so I took alot of it out and just left it muddy....

the lighting is at the moment 4 cfl 5000k daylight lamps and 4 65000k natural daylight lamps for more of the correct blue spectrum of light....

I am on a super budget... 12x5000k 24 watt cfl fluro's cost me 26 bucks and someone donated the other 6x6500 cfl bultbs... supposedly this light is super in the spectrum of the plant... time will tell wont u pull up a seat a see?

-BlueSkyOlympia

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Hey Bluesky! Welcome to the life!

Don't know how you think hydro tastes better than soil! First time I've ever heard of that one, unless we're talking about Kushman's Vegan Organic style!

But to each his own! Also anxious to see how one moves from soil to hydro :)

Quick tips from what I see, your CFLS are about 2-3x too far away. CFLs light intensity drops off drastically at about 4". You should have the CFLs no further than 2" away from you plants at all times IMO(in my opinion).

Did my very first two grows with some CFLs. Not totally CFLs, but I vegged with them, and used them thruout the entire grow.

Good luck with the grow :)

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actualy I dont really know for sure about taste... I did not really notice a difference I only grew dirt to flower 1 time in my life and it produced such tiny buds I gave up real quick not to mention it seemed like growing took forever.... I will love to walk ya through the conversion its very easy... just need an air stone air pump and bucket with some clonning powder =P

From Cutting to budding(my first journal) is my other grow I did if u wanna use the search button lol... cant copy n past a link into here for somereason...

TNN hog breath search on google.com will pop it up first.....

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thanks for opening a journal bluesky :)

I hope this baby blue cheese will make it till the end and make you happy :) It is suposed to be a very nice strain, at least the people i've seen growing it were happy ^^ so we shall see for you ;)

For your soil if you are afraid that it becomes too compact, don't hesitate to break it with a wood pike everytime you water and break the mud with it like you would do in a field, if you are careful to always go up and down and not making circles in the pots with the stick you will not damage the roots and the soil will breath a little more, be careful also with your amount of water as you already know it can be too mudy slowly increase if you see everything is doing fine, time will tell :)

Good luck with your grow i'll stick around to folllow

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I agree with IG.

Get that lady closer to the light. And what do you mean the soil stays muddy and is water holding. If you mixed in the right amount of perlite that sould not happen. Why not rather go for a soilles mix:

 

    ⅛ Peat moss

    ¼ Vermiculite

    ½ Perlite

    ⅓ Peat

    ⅓ Perlite

    ⅓ Vermiculite

 

 

    ½ Perlite

    ½ Peat

Either 1 will work

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Day two.

dunno for sure wanna get you guy's oppinion...

I think the lower leaves are curling down because of the soggy soil.... I am not sure though : )

prolly gonna try and do what dust suggested and make some small are holes via a tent stake or something small maybe a pencil...

over all I moved the plant up via some lumber and stacked books under the run off water catcher... its to high I cant fit my side lamps in there at the moment lol gonna see if I can modify em to fit lol more lumens gogo!

will show pictures soon of the bubble cloner I'll be building...

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Growing isn't exactly a cheap hobby bossman!

Just gotta be resourceful!

But much better light placement IMO!

And take you watering can and hide it from yourself!

Go stash it somewhere for a while and fuggetaboutit!

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Day 4 update!

everything is looking up except for what I believe are thrips.... seen a few little fruit fly like critters but when they land they scruttle down into the dirt much quicker than any fruit fly I seen lol... I am hoping that they will stay in the dirt and stay off my plant just long enough for me to get some good growth that I can clone... I know I am not supposed to water my mud for a few days so I was wondering what you guys think of a leaf spray of spinosad/water essentialy.... monterey garden insect spray is the name...

in the mean time I was tired of seeing the plant not get light from the end bulbs in the V set up I made so I re built a new light holder yesterday and switched to that.... got 6x6500k and 1x5000k vertial above the plant now... currently trying to figure out how to get a little more light in there like some side lamps to get the plant to stretch those bottem bracnes so I can clone them asap =)

thx for all your input guys so far!

on to the fun part the pictures!

gotta keep the air flow good with these lights because they need to be sooo close to do any good lol......

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Better and Better! Why not get some mylar or flat white paint and make yourself a reflector for the nice light you made!

And topdress your soil with a layer of sand so that the the bugs don't have access in and out.

& IDK about the spinsoad! I don't know enought about it to say yay or nay, but maybe someone else does and will comment!

Very nice light you've made :cool:

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thx IG! I will go for a walk with my dog and locate some fine sand you speak of.... maybe a 1 inch layer? hrmmmm they will still have access via the super ammount of holes I drilled because of how muddy the soil was figured it mite b a drain issue.... just the wrong kinda soil lol is for seedlings..... of the vegetable kind =P I look forward to trying the sand idea though I rember reading it in your post the other day ^_^

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Got some sand... I dug it outa a hole... was pretty crazy.. just sand like bam! in the woods... was like I was playing at the beach rite next to a main road in my town... kinda scary... the road is built upon sand... sure hope it dont rain to hard and make that sand into slush lol... anyways I got atleast 1 inch of sand covering the top o the pot... I also built two new lamp stands today so there are now the 7 lamps up top plus two more 5000k lamps on either side... left/right... hope this helps her get growing~!~! =P... can hardly beleive how she looks in 4 days.... anyone know if having a fan blow rite at her is a problem? can they take constant wind or willl they dry up? thx for all your advice so far... sure hope the sand halts the thrips.

-BlueSky

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I'm with IG. Get some wood or something and get a cover over those lights so that they can reflect light back to the plant. You are losing a lot of light that the plant can use.

Ever thought about some lst work??? Get a nice a bushy plant

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I have not though of LST training... honestly I am planning on switching her to hydro asap and then from there I plan on growing a good baby they setting up a completely new flower box... I plan on just making babys where she is now... I am so ready to flower her though... I mite just wait a few days and take clonse... lord willing by the time those clonse root I can send her to flower.. I'd love to LST train her once I get a few rooted clones off her... she is my only plant at the moment.. thx for your comments and I really appreciate you folllowing my journal.

-BlueSky

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Water normally I'd guess! I pour water at a descent rate and try not to flash flood the soil.

N, P, and K, among a couple of micros are very mobile which means the move around in the soil, so if you flash flood the soil, you could wash these nutrients out.

In organics, nutes don't readily wash out of the soil, but with synthetics the nutes run right thru the soil and anything that's not used right away will wash out.

And like Pete suggested, you have to look into LST ASAP! You will be much more successful in your setup with an LST'd plant!

The light you have now won't be enough for the plant if you let it grow as tall as it wants to. The good news tho, is that by LSTing, you keep the plant short and light reaches the entire plant with no problem.

Check this thread out for the idea that I'm talking about : http://www.strainhunters.com/forums/topic/7009-hawaiian-snow-in-dwc-led-journal/! It's a MARVELOUS LST job!

You should start training it today or tomorrow haha!

Still anxious to see how that moves goes from soil to hydro! I just can't imagine it, so I have to see it haha!

Good luck brother

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Day 5

She is exploading with ruthless abandon ^_^..... the sites that were once small pistels are now throwing nice healthy leafs and soon to be towers for cola's =P

very excited see'ing her do so well sooo fast under the CFL's!!! baby blue dont look a thing like she did when I picked her up...

yo IG the move to hydro is very simple it is exactly like soil clonning but with out the soil.... gotta use a bubble bucket in stead =P soon as the bottom branches grow a few inches up I'll cut em and make them into brand new plants :)

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Day 6

wound up rushing to build a new lamp today.... picked up a few more CFL lights so I figured I'd try and get more lumens...... was rocking 6x6500k now I got 10 chained up... now looking at 11,700 lumens on the little blue cheese... hoping to up it to atleast around 40k lumens for flower....(equivelant to a 400 watt MH...(38,000lumens))

hope the extra lumens help her explode!!

starting to think its almost time for a watering.... dunno for sure though aint watered her since the first day... the dirt is a bit wet still like mud... just noting the new growth up top is a little light colored just wondering if its just new or if it needs nutes yet... still aint fed her since day one and that was just ph'ed tap water.... running about 77ppm....

love to hear your input!! thx in advance!

she is looking tired after a whole day worth of sucking up good sun =P.... cant hardly wait to see what grows over night!@!@@!

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Very VEry VERY Nice CFL light fixture :D

Quick idea: Try to swap in a couple red CFLs(27k) to make the spectrum mixed!

But that's an advantages with CFLs, you can sorta create your spectrum with all the different Kelvin bulbs there are.

Learned that my very first grow with CFLs.

Also, the lumen count..

It's possible for you to get 38,000 lumens from that fixture, but only at a distance of up to like 4" as the CFLs lack light intensity.

So every couple inches further than 4(approximately) your getting less than the lumens you calculated..

Seems you're EXTRA crafty tho, so I'd suggest looking into building a fixture that will support some CFLs to go around the sides of the plant, that way you don't miss those lumens.

Your setting is perfectly fine without a doubt. Just trying to give you some input from the outside looking in :D

The good thing is that you've getting UV lights from the CFLs which will help add to the trich production!

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Day 7

snagged some good photo's today... in the first it was early in the day and the later one is of rite before bed.

the plant is either soaking in the sun or getting ready for bed haha.

can hardly beleive how much it has grown in these few days..... planning on cloning to hydro tomorrow....

threw 2 2700k bulbs in there just for IG.

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