1st Grow, Indoors UK, Random Bagseed, DIY Pizza Box Grow Tent with Can Reflectors!

Hello my fellow green thumbs!

I openly confess, I totally went about my grow the wrong way, one afternoon I was sitting around with my partner, rolling a spliff and picking out all the annoying seeds so they wouldn't ruin my smoke. My partner loving asks why don't I just plant them and see what happens, and here I am 4 weeks later. 6 seedlings in tow, 3 weeks of painstaking research and a plethora of newbie mistakes.

My grow started with just a handful of seeds thrown into a large pot with some dusty old organic soil I found around the house. I watered them and left it for a week in a warm place. Wouldn't you believe it every single seed I sowed sprouted, 10 in all. far too much! I left them under a household 100w energy saving bulb thinking this would be enough. Then I began my research!

Within a week I had replanted 6 of the seedlings into individual pots, within 2 weeks I'd bought 2 65w CFL (6500 and 2700k) bulbs and began to build my pizza grow box. Growth, obviously has got off to a slow start, a lot of stretching going on. but for now it serves my needs. I'm currently in South Africa on holiday and I've left my plants in the care of my housemate. They are being watered once every fews days, more as and when needed rather than every day. That's one newbie mistake I don't want to make, i.e. over-watering. They are currently on a 24/0 light cycle.

I'm going back on Monday and I've bought loads of new bits and bobs to professionalise my grow, they are:

• 1m x 1m x 2m Grow Tent
• Another 4x 65w CFL (2x2700k 2x6500k) - so 6 in total, 24,000 lumens
• 6x CFL Lamp Leads
• Bio Bizz All Mix 50L
• 6x 10L Air Pots
• Bio Bizz Grow Nutrients
• Temp and Humidity meter
• PH meter
• Plastic bottle with mister cap
• 50L R/O water

Haven't looked in to cooling (extraction) just yet, not sure if I'll need it as CFL's don't give off much heat couple with the fact that I live in the cold UK it might all balance out. I will be building a few custom light traps connected to desktop fan to provide inward airflow. Is this a good idea or should I just stick the fan inside the tent? I still can't seen how the air enters the grow tent, I know it's not a vacum but there doesn't seem to be much room to air enter freely.

Anyway, please enjoy the photo's below of my current amateur setup! Enjoy whilst you can as when my grow tent is up and running I'll be burning the pizza box tent to ashes in a very ritualistic manner. Out with the newb in with the informed.

First CFL arrives, Pizza box grow room V1.0


Grow Box V2.0, look at that light leakage!




My Cola reflectors


Without reflectors


Last picture before I went on holiday:


My housemate assures me that they are still healthy and that they've grown substantially, I can't wait to see them on next week Tuesday! I miss them

Woah these images are huge, I'll edit the post and add them as attachments instead,

They look fine to me Looks like there's a good amount of stretching going on there.

Hey man, i like the set up you got here, really creative! Your plants seem stretched a lot and nice to see someone else from London!!!

The coke cans KILL IT lol. Think theres some thing up with you 1 the eafs wrinkly. Im off to find out what it is as 1 of mines done same thing.

Hi guys,
Been a stressful week.

Got back from holiday to find my plants had grown significantly, but my housemate neglected to water or feed them for a few days so they were in a sorry condition



They all had huge dying leaves, turning brown curling up and falling off. One had even turned bright yellow as a result of a Nitrogen deficiency. My babies were on the brink of death, but thankfully I think I might have saved them in time. He'd also got the the pH wrong and had been watering them a 5.0!!! So my first priority was to flush them at 6.5, it took ages to get the run off to read even close to normal again! I treated them to some nutes a couple days after and I believe they are on the road to recovery. The one in the tiny pot was transplanted to larger one.

This was the one with the nute deficiency, much healthier now!


My babies


I got my tent and most of the supplies I detailed in my first post, still waiting on soil so I can replant them, unfortunately there are roots coming out the bottom of the pots now. As I'm using 65w CFL's it's had to find reflectors for them, he coke cans have served well for now, but aren't good for when the plants get bigger. I bought some zinc plant pots and cut out the bottoms, superglued some polystyrene inside and rest them on the ballasts of the cfl lights, see below. Is this ok? Will I need to ground them?



My plants seem healthy overall, but I'm worried about the wilting/dropping leaves some seem to have. Just on the larger leaves, the smaller ones are pointy and erect. Could it be my temps? They tend to stay in the 25-29 celsius range.



Cheers!

wavey.mofo said:

Hey man, i like the set up you got here, really creative! Your plants seem stretched a lot and nice to see someone else from London!!!

Click to expand...

Cheers man! A fellow londoner, cool! Have you checked out he Growell Hydroponics store in Fulham? I was in there today getting some bits the guys there really know there stuff! Blatant stoners though lol

I've done some research on my wilting problem and I've concluded that it's either a Magnesium deficiency or perhaps a some kind of stres form the ambient envirment of the grow box. However, my botantist friend believes it could be becasue my plants desperately need transplanting to bigger pots, i.e. the current roots can not support the growth rate of my plants. Unfortunately I can not rememdy this until my soil comes next week Tuesday :/

Speakin of which I'm thinking about going with a 80% Bio Bizz All Mix and 20% Perlite mix is this ok?

Cheers!

I had a eureka moment this afternoon.

When the post man delivered my clip on cfl lamp wires, I had just finished taking my dry clothes of the drying rack and it occurred to me that I could use the drying rack as a light stand for my cfl lights!!!

It works really well, Only thing it means is that all the effort I went through to make the zinc pots into reflectors was for naught. :/ Aw well... I think there's enough light in there for now to do without reflectors of any sort. currently there is 240w worth of CFL lights going up to 345w by tomorrow when my centrepiece 105w CFL B22a light arrives ^__^

I'll be transplanting into air pots by the end of the week, I'm waiting on my vermiculite to be delivered. going with a 33% Vermiculite, 33% Perlite, 33% BioBizz All Mix soil growing medium.

New pics below:

Some crazy setup you have there m8 the only problem is that light leakage through the pizza box and the fact there bagseed is your prob going to have mostly if not all males m8 especially if some lights leaked through during the light cycle. Very creative though m8 my first setup wasnt done properly but I got 5 feminized white widow seeds so I know there all going to be females ( def worth £35 ) and my next setups properly planned out after alot of trial and error with my first, im also growing with cfl's and started off with a single 100w household bulb so stretched loads. Good luck with it heres a photo of my single experiment white widow from my first setup,comes down in 2 weeks its about 6ft now.
From thisto this

3 more going in next.

Haha! Cheers mate! I've moved on from the pizza box now and got myself a fully realised 2mx2mx1m grow tent ^__^

Wow! look at that bad boy! How many CFL's are you using and what wattage?

You know what mate for the first 4 weeks I was using a 100w normal household bulb then I just got 1 red 65w cfl and have had it under that for the last 6 weeks and this morning I got in the mail a 105w (525w equvilent) blue as Im going to use both of them together for my next 3. Doesnt seem much but il prob get another 105w red 1 in a few weeks. Ive been a bit greedy and tested a few buds when I shouldnt of really lol just so impatient that was 1 of my errors, blew my head off though but think it was inhaling all the fertilizer vapours that knocked me out nearly. Yehman yours will do well in that grow tent fingers crossed that some are female and get the males out as soon as you start flowering and notice which ones are which.

That's awesome! I can't believe the results you've had from just one 65w CFL! :O Absolutely mind blowing!

I think that once I've ironed out all the kinks in my setup and approach then I'll invest in some feminised super seeds, I'd really hate to buy seeds and blow it on my first attempt, so I'm happy wiht bagseed for the mo. As you say hopefullly some of them will be female! I've germinated some new bagseed from another strain that I picked up recently just in case, also makes me think I need to change dealer lol £40 for a quarter of skunk, and there's always a few seeds in it! :/

lol Ive been feeding her with Canna Coco A+B feeding then flushing, feeding then flushing all the way through every few days and have just started using some Canna pk 13/14 for a bit of boost for the last couple of weeks. Only just started using spring bottled water aswell which was another mistake I made using tap water, always kept the PH at 6.0 and my soil is just Miracle grow potting soil as this has a PH of 6.5 which is ideal. The good thing about the strain Im using which is Bulldog White Widow is that its stealth and doesnt stink! honestly even when you have your face near the plant you can hardly smell it yet when I had a few samples it knocked my head off lol. It took 2 weeks into flowering to start seeing the pistils, it could be alot better and really I just want to take it down now and get 3 going properly. Can I add you as a friend/contact on here m8 if you dont mind so I can see how you get on?

Firstly this is the most ghetto set up I've ever seen, well at least it used to be, and for that I feel I HAVE to give u +rep. Who knew u cud make what I wud call a veg box out of ur dinner.... Using cut open cans of coke for a reflector KiLLS it! Haha. I'm also a fellow londoner, and have been to growell in fulham many times, even know one of the guys that works there. They seem to definitely know their stuff. Ive seen some serious growers buying 50 plants worth of equipment. Most my equipment was bought from there, check my journals in my sig. Glad to see you've got a proper tent and what not now, I've never been convinced by the results from cfl's in comparison to MH/HPS and would definitely advise these lights as a future upgrade. However ur current setup is definitely capable of growing better stuff than whats going around our area, and although it mite seem expensive now, it will end up being MUCH more cost effective than linking draws, so ur definitely on the right tracks! This forum will teach u A LOT if u scan through it regularly. If u need any advice I'm more than willing to help, however I consider myself no expert, just someone who has a fascination with these plants and loves to grow in every sense of the word. Good luck!

Hey man I go to Growell fulham too! They really know their stuff, but they can be a bit blatant sometimes though lol. Yeah, linking draws is a joke now, especially with lazy dealers that leave you waiting. Where's the customer service?! lol I'm sick of guys charging £20 for 2.5g of weed and treating me like a fool. That's one of the reasons why I started too man. Thanks for kind words and the advice +rep!

Also, have you heard of the London seed centre in Staples Corner? I'm thinking about buying my seeds from there after this bagseed grow.

Update time!

I'm so sorry I haven't updated my journal in ages, I'm in day 17 of Flower! The plants have come a long way since, I last updated.

2 of my plants turned out to be male they had some huge balls before I noticed, I had hoped they where unopened flowers lol, newb error!



Now I have 5 definite females and 2 plants vegging (at 12/12). I successfully experimented with topping on both of them and I have 2 main stems on each now!!! Really exciting taking a risk and seeing a positive result.

Anyway, pictures!!! I've got loads as it's been ages since I updated
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Ah, balls. One of babies is covered in balls :/ It was the more vigorous of the 2 as well. Feck. Chop chop time.

I just bought a nifty little 60x pocket microscope from Growell. It's so awesome, I'm looking at a bud of AK47, the tric's look so sexy. I think I spent about an hour just looking at random things around the house, I haven't the machismo to look at bugs yet. I don't think I could handle that lol. What a wonderful little toy this is! ^_^