2nd Grow - Top 69 Autoflower CFL Advice :D?

So my first grow went ok. I took some bagseed with no knowledge on anything, bought a cheap grow light from lowes (15$ lol) and got a 3 foot tall leggy male. Couldn't have been worse lol. Now i'm coming back in style with some purchased seeds from attitude. I chose Top 69 because i'm poor and I needed something cheap however i've done a lot of research. Heres a few pics of how Carmin is doing so far!! Id say shes growing fast. Im using 6 - 27 watt Daylight CFLs.

Day 8 out of soil



Heres a picture of my lights. Ive strung them over the bar my clothes hang on with twine, this is inside my closet. My room mate is gonna start some plants too so we actually have 2 power strips with 12 total 27 watt CFLs. My baby is soaking all of it up right now until his germinate.



So Ive read different things on how to light cycle these autos. Right now its day 11 and ive had the lights on 24/0. Is this a good idea? Or do I need to switch it to more like 18/6 so that it flowers. Ive seen these plants stay rather small but I want to maximize everything I can out of her. I was wondering if vegging 24/0 until maybe day 25 is a good idea then switching to 18/6? If anyone has experience growing these types of plants please let me know!

(Hopefully I can get more clear pics next time)

Dude I don't think it matters what your light cycles running at for autoflowers I don't think changing the light cycle will induce flowering. But I'd recomend 18/6 its good to have a little dark time for them. Looking good man.

Yea if shes anything like me she'll like some sleep, plus the light shining out of my closet is so damn bright it'll be good to shut em off to help me sleep better. Ill post pics of how she looks today. This will be the start of my first journal.

As it is now I think the third true node has developed. Would it be ok to give her some miracle grow plant food? We bought some standard water soluble food and I think shes big enough to handle a little bit. It will be a another couple days before I need to water again so she will have more time to grow before I nuter her. Pics soon! Gonna try my laptop camera, its probably better quality then my shitty phone and easier to upload.

Carmin is just about 1 inch tall now. Beautiful green leaves. I seem to have a plague of fungus gnats probably from the miracle grow soil. Hopefully they don't hurt her since I don't have a way to control them other than to kill on site .

Day 11:

Fungus gnat maggots will eat the roots and end up killing your plant. I suggest taking care of them, ASAP, cause your roommate is gonna get them when he plants his beans too. You CAN control them, you just need to go to home depot and get some mosquite dunks. Do a little research on the matter, but I think you get mosquite dunks, break a little chunk off and dissolve it in a gallon of water, then water a little with the solution, and again 7 days later. This will interrupt their breeding cycle. It's not an instant solution, but over the course of a couple weeks they'll disappear.

check my grow, easiest method to fix fungus gnats- water your plant - will induce the gnats to come out , then put a thin layer of sand on top of the soil, they lay there eggs in the sand and die- at the same time put up those sticky traps for flies, in 2 days they are all gone. fuckers stunted both my plants for the first 2 weeks, took care of em and bam they both grew like wildfire, take care of ASAP or u will regret it. sands cheap= any pool store, home improvement place has it. and walmart has the fly traps, been a month and havent seen a single gnat since , except the adults stuck to the glue trap,

https://www.rollitup.org/cfl-growing/404775-red-dwarf-auto-fem-cfls.html

Yeah, i used sticky traps and tried a soil drench with neem, my plants had well established root systems, so they were harder to kick. Only thing that worked for me was Spinosad, but that also nearly killed my plants and I lost a good deal of fan leaves because of it, but it's been well over a month and no gnats. But definately take care of them, the adults flying around dont cause the problems, it's the maggots of the gnats that grub out on new root growth. Start by watering less frequently and letting soil dry between waterings, also, I've heard sand works well, like h2okilla said.

So i think i got the fungus gnats under control. I let the soil dry out and I havent seen any since watering yesterday. I also started adding the plant food. Im using standard Vigoro all purpose plant food, nothing special. Heres a pic of how shes doing. Notice my pot is a Coors Light home draft.

Day 12:

2 more days without fungus gnats. Is there any way that the adults could have died but there still be larva? Hopefully they dont show up again as they kind of magically disappeared! Well its now day 14 out of soil and Carmin is getting HUGE.

Quick question, when using all purpose plant food how often do you water using the plant food mixed? So basically I mixed in the required amount of Vigoro to fill a 1 gallon milk jug to feed seedlings/small plants. Do I water with that mixture every time it needs water, or do i only water with it a certain number of times per week? Any ways heres a pic. Shes about 2.5inches tall now.

You should alternate waterings, one with straight water, one with food, back to straight water and so on. Shouldn't be watering/feeding more than twice a week, either. Yes, fungus gnats can lay eggs and die, the eggs take a few days to hatch, then they hatch into maggots which eat your roots. From egg to flying adult i think it takes a week or two, so they might come back in full force. But then again, maybe they're just gone. I hope they're just gone...lol

P.S. Where in the world is Carmin...San Diego?

Carmin isn't in San Diego anymore. She moved way east lol.

Here it is day 19. Carmin is still looking healthy. The first two leaves that sprouted at the very bottom of the plant for some reason have died. Is that normal? All the other leaves look fine. I thought it might have been from too much fertilizer so I stopped fertilizing for a few days. Also I seem to be having to water every single day. The past few mornings the soil has been bone dry and I water until there is a good amount of runoff. Is the plant drinking all the water? or is something wrong with the soil? I can't fiure it out, but until I do im just gonna keep watering everyday. New pics.

Day19 :

So its officially been 1 month since Carmin sprouted out into the glorious world and man she is beautiful. More good news is she has begun to flower. The first 2 pistils have started shooting out of the nodes. She is exactly 8 inces tall now with another month or so to grow. I feel like this is going to be a monster plant. Im no expert but if it was to finish flowering at the size it is now id say it would get at least a half ounce. Heres some pics:

nice lookin plant u got there.. are you guys worried about the smell?

Not really. I keep a towel blocking air from coming out of my room so the smell doesn't leave and I keep my window open. No problems yet.

Heres the harvest of the Top 69.

nice. where did you get the strain from? It looks great. How much wet weight is that? I would say 1/2 ounce or better once dry. Nice work +rep

i love how in pick #5 you can see the room is baked, nice grow my man and cflgreenthumb no way in hell is that a half

Thanks guys. I got it from attitude seed bank and Im not sure how much weight it will be. This is my first grow and I dont have a scale so im gonna have to take it to my buddies when its done drying to weigh it.

Ended up being a half ounce exactly! Smokes pretty good. Gives me kind of a relaxed head high. Seemed pretty easy to grow, nice potency, so overall its a good plant.