6X23Watt CFL grow First time , bagseed 12/12 FS

Hi Guys im new to growing although i have been interested for years and have read alot about growing ,still i know im a noob and am making mistakes.

So anyway i have a box 45x50x100 cm with 4 23 watt cfls (getting more after i post this) they are all 2700k because for some reason 6500k bulbs are unavailable around here oh im doing 12/12 from seed just cause i dont want my plants getting too big for my space , i have a 12 volt exhaust fan which is moving well enough air (might even be moving too much) my temps are around 23 25 degrees C and drop under 20 at night , this is worrying me but my seedlings dont seem to mind it.
I am definatelly going to lst these plants as cfls arent the best for growing and i wanna make the most of them.
Oh for soil i used just some cheap potting soil and added perlite.
so anyway i germed my seeds and potted them afterr the roots showed.
The first one broke soil 2 dfays ago and the rest came out yesterday.
Im afraid that i am overwatering them too but im unsure of this i think im just being an idiot
anyway im gona go do some pics of the setup and of my babies.
Oh and please bomb me with suggestions on whatever u can think of it will be much appreciated.

As to watering, just keep the soil moist but not drenched for now, definitely don't want the roots to rot or dry out. As the roots develop, water as the top dries out, checking by poking your finger into the top of the soil. When your fan leaves start developing, watch them for watering as well. If they are perky and reaching for the light, you're doing right. If they look droopy, they are either over or under watered. Good thinking to keep the plants small with cfls, also keep the lights as close as possible. You will want to increase the number of lights if you stick with cfls. Avoid leaving the lights low if you're not constantly checking them, as the plants can grow faster than you might expect. Good luck and have fun.

LST and 12-12 are not a good combo. If you are going to LST, then you need to veg.

Not to sound like an asshole but... First grow and you are cutting corners with the feeling that you can get away with it and be successful. Shit for soil. Poor temps. Not ideal light spectrum...

It takes a while to get comfortable growing without setting yourself up for issues. You have done research so you a step above many.

don't overwater. easier to overwater and drown them the opposite. New seedling shouldn't need to be watered very often. So if she popped two days ago and you have watered more than once, you are overdoing it. Wait for the sides to dry and separate from the edge of the pot a bit.

Thanks for the replys and the pointers .. ill put up some pics as soon as i can find the damned batteries.
I know i could provide alot more to the babies but at the moment im bettween jobs so im trying to spend as little as possible , one of the plants actually started its second set of leaves and to me looks pretty good ,the second is still on its first set of true leaves and is very droopy looking and its stem looks to be getting weaker , to be honest i dont mind if it dies of im sure ill get atleast a couple out of the lot but i do wanna aim for the most so if u have any advice on how to save her please share ,ive a couple other ones popping at the moment, i think i was overdoing it with water cause i didnt spray the soil yesterday although the top 2 3 cms were dry i felt that deeper its still pretty moist so i left it and it looks like they liked that,
As for temps i read somewhere that some dude was getting as low as 10c degrees at lights out and his plants didnt seem to mind i checked the lowest my box gets is 18.2 so i assumed it should be fine, but u think its still too low should i get some sort of heating for the nighttime? i think daytime will be better once i add the 2 extra bulbs.

Thanks again for the help and il post picks asap so u can help me better

oh and i prolly will leave out the lst then

Oh one more question , what size pots u guys think i should get for a space like dat granted i get atleast 4 plants on their way properly.

Wait a second, that is like 19" x 17" x 38". That's gonna be tight. You will need to use small pots if for no other reason than to keep the plants closer the ground. The bigger the pot the taller is it. With 19" x 17", you don't have space for but one, maybe two decent sized pots. I have two plants 12 days after flipping (they were topped twice) in 5 gal buckets. Each plant now takes about 15" x 15" for its foliage. Plants are tied down a bit (but only recently to spread the tops a bit, not LST oriented) and 10-12" tall. But the pots are about a foot tall on top of that.

My advice - forget about 12-12 from seed or look up some SOG method, use something like 1 gal pots, and pray. Cramming plants and CFL are not a good combo IMHO. I would just grow one, maybe two plants in a 3 or 5 gal pot. Top and LST to get lots of tops and keep her short. And pray

You are going to need all overhead lighting which is not ideal for CFL. You don't have enough sq ft for side lighting.

Not trying to be a downer but better to plan the grow out before you got seeds popping. You have some time. Figure out a bigger space and a way to get more lighting. Autos are supposed to be good for height restrictions but I have never grown one.

Plus, you are using bagseed. You have no idea what kind of strain it is and how tall it grows. You need a good indica that grows short.

Yeah i know its half arsed and all well see what i can do I cant flip it to 18/6 now thou can i? theyve been under 1212 since they popped.. i dont mind if i even only get 2 females that i can leave in there .. yeah maybe sog would be best solution ..
thanks for the feedback once again

So heres a couple of pics , the plant with its second set of leaves seemes to have stopped growing .. could this be because of the cold issues i had? (i sorted it out btw) obviously u can see the box too .. any sggestions on changing stuff? does the one with the second set of leaves seem fine ( i think it looks droopy but i might just be paranoid )

Please tell me there are drain holes in all those cups/pots.

Growth comes slowly for a while after they pop. Energy is spent developing a root system, growing down not up for now. Yes, you could move the 18-6. Get some air blowing on them - lightly. That will strengthen the stems.

Better to have the CFLs on their sides = more direct light surface area.

ok sweet so i can flip em .. how would i go about that wait till lights on and just extend the day? All have drainage except one of them for some reason .. im considering getting ridd of all but 2 or 3 and putting them in the final pots.. ill try rebuild the lights so or atleast get em at an angle .. they do have air blowing on them .. im using a laptop cooler which draws air in through the top and blows out the sides.. i put this directly under the pots and its hitting the babies lightly this way.
By the way the reason for me being worried about watering is that i read everywhere that i should water till it drains out the bottom but to me that seems like drowning the thing seen as thou im using the inch of top layer dry method which means underneath its still moist so why ad more? im using a spray bottle at the moment to water so that i dont accidentally over do it ..
Thanks for the help again GrowinDad.. Btw i seen one of your videos of your setup.. how did u get that watering system goin?

For you first grow, being half assed, you should be proud man. You seem very rational and humble about the grow. Truth is, it's been growing for thousands of years and has suffered way worse conditions. Obviously you want to upgrade where you can, when you can, but don't stress it. Keep learning from the plants and pay attention to what they tell you. Once you get the cash, work on equipment and enviornment. I would say keep all the plants until it gets crowded, then you'll watch them grow a little and know which ones are the strongest. I agree the lst is kind of pointless in this setup. Check out some posts about scrog and sog.

Thanks man for the knd words .. To be honest i probably read more on this subject than anything ever Im familiar with most training methods and the principal behind em. Yeah i probably will keep em all cause they are under 1212 and some people wrote that it can show sex very early that way which means i can eliminate those nasty males , i HIGHLY doubt ill get more than 2 3 females out of the lot If yout had a look at the pics you can see i have one plant in a tiny shotglass kind of thing and yesterday i noticed that the shell doesnt want to pop off even thou theres true leaves growing already, so i carefully pulled the shell apart and half hour later i got beutifull pointy first set of leaves to be honest its the best looking one and i didnt even germ that one i just threw it in there to see what happens.. guess it has the best genetics from the lot although most the seeds were from the same produce. I have 1 seed that came from some really really good weed, prolly best i got the last year or so and it was the only seed that was found in that batch , i asked my guy he didnt find any in em , So im keeping that for the next project because im sure its a very good indica strain and the plant couldnt have hermed too hard seen as thou only 1 seed was found in like 5 OZ.
Yeah after doing some thinking lsting is just retarted when doing 12 12 .. was pretty cooked when i wrote the first segment
Again thanks you guys really help me alot and i appreciate it very much!

OH and yeah im getting my hand on some cash soon so im going to be going out buying the rest of the lights ( stronger ones if i can and buying soil also ,proper soil, problem is im pretty limited since here in hungary these( http://gomoa.net/termeszto-kozegek/fold-c-25_54_76.html?sortcol=3&sortdir=a ) are the only ones i can find .. theres 3 or 4 growshops and this is what they have to offer.. what would u guys recomennd?

Watering until you get some runoff does not drown the roots. Having them sit in water does. just remember that if they get too thirsty, it is easy to see and once you water, they perk right up. So easier to over than underwater.

I actually dumped the drip system. Over time the halos stopped dripping evenly and I said to hell with it, but it was cool.

Do you have a good garden/farm supply store? No need to buy fancy soil. I buy a cheap bag of earthgro potting soil (no added nutes). I mix equal parts of it, peat moss, perlite, and vermiculite. Then I add 2T of dolomite lime per gal of the mix. Works great and cheap. For nutes, I love dynagro. Easy and only a few components.

And just change the timer. No need to put deep thought into it.

Never grown in soil but I would listen to growindad. I've seen a lot on mixing your own soil. Quality and value!

yeah ill hit up garden supplies later on and see what the story is. I thought that drip system was awesome . Ive seen people using wick systems but im not too sure how they go about that so for now ill just guestimate and watch them for reactions. To be honest im not sure if it would be easier to mix my own or just buy a 25 litre bag for less than 10 euros. Im definately taking Growingdads advices as he seems to know what hes talking about

For the record, i have only been growing for about two years. I am no expert! But I have had my bumps and bruises and have created a stable, simple grow that yields well enough with confidence. So don't listen to me for expertise as much as simple pragmatism.

I am slowly trying out new techniques and whatnot to maximize my grows. But it all starts with a good stable system and I feel good there.

In looking at mixing your own, just get plain stuff, no added nutes, no miracle grow or whatever the equivalent is on the other side of the pond. I get most of mine froma garden store that sells to consumers but also farmers. So I get a huge bag of perlite for $20 that lasts me a year, same for vermiculite. Peat is easy.

My brim tilted to GrowinDad.... What i would do right now is this:#1. get you a 12qt bag of seed starter soil mix. #2. Get (1) 1.5 cubit ft of a good medium strength soilmix like "Roots Organic" or "Ocean Forest" for when youre ready to transplant. #3.Leave your plants in those pots you have now so that they can develope good root systems. They will be safe and grow strong in them for the first three weeks. Get you a couple of jugs fill them with tap water and let the sit with tops off for some hours before use. They will expell gases and other contaminants that may be to strong for them. But the tap will be good for them and help keep the soil amended somewhat until youre ready to transplant them into the stronger medium(soil). So let them chillax in them pots with good rich fresh soil. #4. You need atleast 104w per plant or atleast 8-10,000 lumen output of the 6500k or 6400k blue spectrum per plant in the vegetation stage. You can also use a few 2700k bulbs it wont hurt. But you want the two spectrums i mentioned of the bluse spectrum because it help plants and foliage grow strong during vegetation. There are more of an scientific explanation but thats the basic youll come to understand. 6500k or 6400k for vegetation using cfl. So more lights of the blue spectrum (65-6400k) during vegetation. #5. Keep your temps between 75-80'F optimal. Dont stress if temps hit 70 but dont go below 70 and try not to let plants live under 75'F. Also humidity is ok to reach a high of even 100% so dont stress that either.High relative humidity(rh) is good for cannabis during veg stage. Get you a heat and humidity monitor so that you can control the temperature of your girls environment. Also keep good oscillation flow for fresh air at all times to keep mold and spores and other harmful air impurities out of your soil and away from the plants. Establish a water system consistency. Lets say the first three weeks water every three days or when you see a little drooping of leaves. Its better for them to be under watered than over watered. Make sure you get the basics down before you try doing extreme training techniques. And doing 12/12 from seed is like skydiving without training. You seem to have some love for plant life and the kingdom but youre moving as if youre unsure of yourself. First and foremost GOD said we can grow whatever we choose to grow of plants. The government are snakes. Be discreet keep everybody away who DO NOT grow. And grow! This is how i did it and doing it. Peace and happy growing.