Soil Grow Question from Seed

[Lance85]

I'm almost done with my cab and the seeds are on the way. I have a ~7gal tub for 2 plants, and i'm using Miracle Grow Moisture Control. Please no MG haters! Just looking for advice/suggestions! I've seen some great results and some poor results. After all my research, i'm convinced the failures are due to ignorance with nutes/watering. I'm trying to avoid that mistake.

I'm trying to keep this simple and low maintenance. I can only comfortably check them a couple times a week (stealth operation). Here's my plan of attack:

• Turn on lights, thoroughly water pot until there's run off through the bottom drainage, plant seeds, and wait a week.
• Water when needed (getting dry). Water completely and thoroughly and leave it alone. Hoping to average 1xweek, we'll see.
• No nutes until flowering (gradually).

And that's it really. Have 260w of mixed CFL's and am hoping to have a solid harvest! I'm not gonna be shy with my veg time Anything wrong? Right? Suggestions, advice, anything? Thanks in advance!

 

[desertrat]

it is a really bad idea to grow more than one plant in a single container. competing roots, inability to treat one plant without affecting the other, bad karma.

and i assume you have a timer for your lights and you have done something to get adequate ventilation and odor control.

is that 260 actual watts or equivalent watts? not enough light if equivalent watts.

this may help:
cfl 13 actual watts/60 equivalent: 850 lumens
cfl 26 actual watts/100 equivalent: 1,750 lumens
cfl 42 actual watts/150 equivalent: 2,750 lumens
cfl 68 actual watts/250 equivalent: 4,200 lumens

you want to shoot for about 7,000 lumens per square foot of growing area.

 

[Lance85]

I have 10 26 watters, 4 veggin spec, 6 flowerin spec. Running them from start to finish. Ventilation and odor are under way as i'm still finishing the cab but lights are installed, fans are installed, just need to finish intake cut and figure out how to light block my intake/exhaust. I have 2 fans installed, 2 extra if needed (probably lol). I'm gonna do a DIY CF come smelly time, but growing a low odor strain to begin with.

I think the two plants in one BIG pot will be okay, I've seen others do it (and more) successfully. I was hoping this would help keep the plants VERY similar since they'd have 50/50 of everything i give them: water, nutes (later), room for growth, etc.

 

[GrizzlyAdams]

Listen to the smart people lance. Don't grow 2 root systems together. If you want to use the same tub/pot put some kind of divider in, you won't regret the decision.

Sift/mix the dirt while its wet, look for dry clumps. Happens ALOT with cheaper soil and dry pockets won't leave. If you don't want to get your hands dirty, submerge the container for 20 minutes (bathtub or larger bucket works) and that'll take care of dry pockets.

I tell people this frequently, GET A SOIL METER! Overwatering and underwatering is a huge rookie mistake because its easy to do. They're 10 bucks and it eliminates guesswork for the moisture of your soil.

 

[Lance85]

I was thinking of just adding a divider, that's what i'll probably do. Okay so 2 plants, ~3.5 gal pot each, 260watt(130 each), tight little grow cab. I'm hoping for .5g/watt (about 2 oz's per plant) but i'm gonna bet on getting about 1oz on plant since it's my first grow and i'm unsure about my cab limitations.

 

[GrizzlyAdams]

.5 gram per watt is a reasonable goal man, 3.5 gallons is a good amount of root space. You have enough light to make it happen, my only caution is that every time you double the distance from the light source your power is reduced 25%. So if you have 3k lumens per square foot @ 5 inches it drops to 2250 lumens per square foot @ 10 inches. Get them close, but don't burn em - always a battle

 

[desertrat]

.5 gram per watt is a reasonable goal man, 3.5 gallons is a good amount of root space. You have enough light to make it happen, my only caution is that every time you double the distance from the light source your power is reduced 25%. So if you have 3k lumens per square foot @ 5 inches it drops to 2250 lumens per square foot @ 10 inches. Get them close, but don't burn em - always a battle

the general point is right but the math is wrong. it's worse. the intensity of light drops as the inverse square of distance, so if you have 3,000 lumens per square foot at 5 inches you have 3,000/4 = 750 lumens per square foot at 10 inches. it's really important to keep cfl's within a couple of inches of the plant.

with your light i think you're looking at 2 ounces whether it's your first grow or not. the grams per watt standard is very misleading because of the differences in efficiencies of lights. the most efficient light is the 600 watt hps that puts out 95,000 lumens giving you 158 lumens per watt. your lights give out only 67 lumens per watt. it is relatively easy to get .5 grams per watt with a 600 watt hps and is quite a challenge to get the same yield with equal wattage of 26 watt cfl's.

 

[Lance85]

Yes that math is a little wrong, i just finished a physics course and learned about the inverse square law. Gotta keep these suckers close!

My lights are hard-mounted on top of the cab so i'm going to lift the pot up to get it super close and slowly lower it as needed. Goal is to keep it VERY close without burning as everyone mentions. I want to max my yield I'm trying to do this right and build good habits on my first grow!

I'm going to veg as much as i can for max yield and plan on topping and LST'ing, was going to SCROG but after further research realized i can't train the bud sites daily to keep them under that thing, i'm only going to be checking this thing a couple times a week. Part of the reason is so i don't get TOO obsessive and inpatient!