Another newbie's first grow

hi, so this is my first grow i am on day 18 for my first wave, and i just started germintating another set yesterday...so the basics

I have a 4.75L pot with 8 drainage holes spaced all through out the bottom, the pot is placed in a plastic bin leaving about a foot of seperation between the drain water and the bottom of the pot.

I used miracle grow soil with nutes mixed in, i flooded the soil while i was germintating to try and get the nutes out, i let it dry out a little before placing the sprouts in, the soil was still moist but not soaked.

all my ph levels are within normal range, soil is 6.6 and after water is applied it doesn't get above 6.8, i also bought a ph testing kit that allows me to check the individual levels of my n-p-k

I currently have a moisture meter in the mail, but at the moment i have been watering with tap water, left out for a day, once every 3 days about 16-20 oz. not sure if i'm over or underwatering or what the exact amount is, although i know it varies for every strain. by the way these are all bag seeds of sour d.

now for the lighting i currently have 6 daylight cfls 2 100w equivalents and 4 60w equivalent, right now all basically focused on the only plant i believe has a chance, i'm putting more hope in my next set of seeds, hoping to learn from my mistakes. the 2 100w cfls and positioned about 2 inches above the center of the plant, and the 4 60w cfls are positioned about 2-3 inches below the top and i rotate the plant once every 6 hours to evenly distribute the light to all sides of the plant. they are currently on 20 hours on 4 hours off.

so far i've noticed one weird thing, on one set of leaves one of the sides had a 5 finger leaf while on the other side it's a 3 finger leaf and then on the next set of leaves they both had 5 when they both should've had 7

i'm basically looking for any advice or suggestions, i appreciate any help given, now i don't know how to thumbnail pics onto posts or threads, but i am able to do links so here you go

http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn26/upsman420/DSC00174-1.jpg
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn26/upsman420/DSC00187-1.jpg
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn26/upsman420/DSC00188-1.jpg
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn26/upsman420/DSC00189-1.jpg
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn26/upsman420/DSC00190-1.jpg
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn26/upsman420/DSC00200-1.jpg
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn26/upsman420/DSC00201-1.jpg
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn26/upsman420/DSC00202-1.jpg
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn26/upsman420/DSC00203-1.jpg
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn26/upsman420/DSC00206-1.jpg
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn26/upsman420/DSC00207-1.jpg
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn26/upsman420/DSC00210-1.jpg

the third pic is the top view you can see the two odd leaf sets, compared to everyone elses journals mine looks kinda tall and not bushy enough, am i not using enough lights? my fiance said she would throw out the plants if i bought anymore lights so my only option would be to up the wattage and hope she doesn't notice, honestly even i think i'm obsessing to much, but it's a cool hobby, and recently i heard about CO2 playing a factor in growth, not sure on all the details but the room is completly ventilated so plenty of free CO2

i figured out how to put them on as thumbnails

UPS- Looking good! I have gone from start to finish using CFL's with pretty good results in my opinion. I had 6 CFL's on 2 plants to the finish. These were just your garden variety lights like the ones you are using. I grew them in a narrow closet and when they got to be 12" or so, I transplanted them into 5 Gal buckets- but each bucket had maybe ~3+ gal of soil. I regularly see pics of plants that seem too large for the small containers they are in. Maybe I'm missing something. I am always worried about them becoming root bound. Maybe just paranoia? Root bound is a reality! I wouldn't worry about the exact # of leaflets each new display produces. Cannabis does all kinds of weird things. I had one plant go hermaphrodite, and the resulting Feminized seeds have given me 7 female plants in a row! What matters most is that the leaves are all green and the plant is thriving.

In the closet I am now using, I hung the lights from the curtain rod so that the lights were directly above the plants and I could adjust the height so that they were as close to the plant tops as possible. The plants got as tall as about 4 feet. They are/were indica/sativa hybrids that don't get That tall-(Northern Lights). I am now growing 3 plants using a 400 HPS- Cheapest one I could get- doesn't have a cooling exhaust attached. I use an inline vent fan to vent into the attic. They are about 10 days into 12/12 and are in the stretch phase. That means they are over growing the room! I let them veg for 2 full months so they could get nice and bushy first. With such a narrow closet, just put 2 buckets side by side and the plants are already wider than the space available. The leaves are brushing up against both sides of the room. They are about 3 feet tall at this point.

Overgrow! I like the sound of that!

looks great if you have the money try investing in a 400 watt HPS works great !! and you wont regret it

That's not bad for a first time, serious. Second the rec on the HPS. The only thing that I cringe at is the use or miracle grow? Why when there are so many organic soil and soiless mixes that are full of mychorrhizae and humates, buffering the soils pH and allowing for the maximum amount of nutrient uptake with the least effort by the roots. Cheap too. Fox Farm Ocean Forest bro. Organics. Ethics.

if you cant afford a 400 watt hps i would make some sort of reflector for your cfls to get more out of your lights. half of the light that your cfls are emmiting isn't getting used. i saw a DIY guide for making a reflector for cfls out of a coke can. you could do that or get some shop light reflectors or something. also i would put some sort of reflective material around the perimiter of your plants. other than those suggestions thats all ive got for you. looks great man, keep up the good work.

i saw the diy for the reflector, it looked a little confusing, and it looked like they were suggesting some rewiring of the cfl, which i am not even gonna think about attempting...i just started 5 more seedlings, when the break ground, i'm gonna get a plastic plate and cut a hole for the plant, that way the white play reflects the light and it won't break down or anything when i water them do you think that will help light the underside of the plant, cuz i left it for 3 days with 2 lights aimed at the underside and 4 at the top and the growth basically exploded...only drawback two or three leaves got singed...(cringe, another newbie mistake)...but that accident, seemed to stunt the growth and cause alot of stem and leaf growth

the main one is looking amazing...except for the burnt leaves

ups420 said:

i saw the diy for the reflector, it looked a little confusing, and it looked like they were suggesting some rewiring of the cfl, which i am not even gonna think about attempting...i just started 5 more seedlings, when the break ground, i'm gonna get a plastic plate and cut a hole for the plant, that way the white play reflects the light and it won't break down or anything when i water them do you think that will help light the underside of the plant, cuz i left it for 3 days with 2 lights aimed at the underside and 4 at the top and the growth basically exploded...only drawback two or three leaves got singed...(cringe, another newbie mistake)...but that accident, seemed to stunt the growth and cause alot of stem and leaf growth

Click to expand...

sounds like you've got a good sense of direction of where to take this. if your plants are getting burned then i would back the cfls up and inch or 2 but u probably already figured that out haha. i'm not too sure what u mean about the white plastic plate with a hole but i hope everything works out and that your grow continues to go smoothly. best of luck!

for the white plastic plate, i heard this on this site, so if it's stupid let me know...cut a hole in the plate where the plant can grow through and then the white plate reflects the light back up at the plant

so to help improve light efficiency i taped white pieces of paper to cardboard, so now only one side of the grow area is open for me to get access...i'm not expecting any kind of amazing light reflection from the paper but i figured it couldn't hurt...also my moisture meter arrived today, and it just has the numbers 1-4 on it and says different plants need different moisture levels, does anyone know what the moisture number should be for pot? the brand name of the tester is rapidtest

they are looking real nice. how much bigger you gonna let them get before you flower them?

they are only maybe 4 weeks old at the most, i thought the veg stage was 2-3 months, followed by several weeks of flowering? i would kinda feel like i'm cheating flowering her(fingers crossed) this early, cuz i just got done reading this thread about the banana religion and i went out and bought bananas and placed them in the pots...i also read a thread about creating co2 by putting yeast and sugar in a bottle of soda and you get natural co2...however i was a little curious if some people need to vent their co2 why am i adding some? i have an entire room that's fully ventilated so i don't think i need to worry about co2 building up

also i added another wall to my setup so now it is surrounded on all sides by reflective material barely any light is escaping

So just to update those not following along...during week 2, overnight one of my lights fell on my main plant, the light was still hot so it scorched the top of the plant at the time...i'm on week 4 now, all those leaves that were on top have obvious signs of heat stress...however this accident may have acted like topping the plant cuz now it's growth upward has really slowed and it is building branch after branch in the lower levels...i was curious if anyone thought i should prune these damages leaves? only one of them is more than 40% damaged, and i've read that as long as it's not 50% it's still being productive for the plant, but some of these leaves are very large and blocking out light to the lower leaves. i don't want to jump the gun and start snipping just to find out i killed the plant. it's been 5 days since i watered, and i guess i had been on the overwatering slightly side cuz my moisture meter is finally below 4 the highest level, and my plants are looking very perky the top set of leaves and straight up right now reaching for the light