CFL Micro Rubbermaid Grow 2nd Attempt

This is my 2nd try at growing ever. the fist grow turned out male so i scrapped it.

hopefully the two plants i have in veg. now are female. only timing of light will tell.

the box is the same: 25gal rubbermaid on end to maximize height and easy to open, mylar reflective inside.

changes: hung two 75w daylight cfls from top with hooks to adjust height, also have a 100w cool white bulb at ground level. all running on 18/6 cycle.

using menehune magic organic soil and just started using 1/4 strength MG all purpose ferts. local hydroponics shop has fox farms so i will go get the good nutes soon.

added one outtake fan on opposite side of original outtake fan with dryer hose between the two and cutout in middle.both run on 12v.
no fan for intake but may add one later.

both plants look healthy, only been 3 weeks since sprouting.

one plant has fat leaves the other skinny. seeds from same bag. any ideas why?

pics to come....

pics are pretty much a must on this site..if not, good luck getting any responses..looking forward to seeing your babies.. stay high bro

lee harvey said:

pics are pretty much a must on this site..if not, good luck getting any responses..looking forward to seeing your babies.. stay high bro

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Damn lee, you're fucking funny, but I couldn't have put it better myself...that being said...

Looks like a good start gr33n, way to keep the lights close to the growth to minimize stretch. Looking forward to some 5 pound nugs, so better get working on that! Haha, naw, hope ya get some females dawg...cool setup.

ty meta. just learning, thankfully i did a lot of research on here and other sites to get an idea about how to LST and light placement. any help i can get is gonna be much appreciated.

You got it buddy, just keep the pics coming and we'll be right here watching...haha...just gotta do your own thing though, and decide what is right for you. RIU is a great resource, and there's a lot of good info on here if you're willing to look for it. Does that soil drain well? Anyway, keep 'em green!

Looking good man. And weed's like humans. Just cause the parents have kids, doesn't mean they turn out the exact same. If you look through my grow all my plants came from the same exact nug and one is a purple Diesel, one a lemony Haze, and one similar to NLights.

Luckily for you if both of them become female. You'll quickly gain knowledge of how each type of plant will flower.

I just have a few questions.

Do you have anything to monitor or change your PH?
Also are those 75w and 100w equivalent? cause they don't look too big, you go by the smaller wattage number.
What are your temps? I see a thermometer and it reads 88 but that might be from a reflection.

Its looking real nice and green so far. good job

no pH tester yet. dont have any idea where to get one. more research to do i guess.
the lights are 75w output/18w actual @2700k and 100w output/23w actual @6500k. i read somewhere its good to have both spectrums.
i have seen 300w output at Home Depot but theyre kinda pricey. plus i can control the heat better with the smaller bulbs. just need to find a fan small enough for circulating the air inside to make the stems sturdy.

i also found this table lamp with a daylight T4 bulb in my gfs room that she doesnt use.i looked up the ratings and its 150w comparable. i may create a mini cloning/veg box from it:

meta, the soil drains nicely. its organic and made locally since i live in HI. iveseen the fox farms at the hydro shop but this only ran me $5-6 at Long's.

So its been a few days and I have been giving a foliar feed every 'morning'. the ferts are at 1/4 strength and are the same multi purpose plant food i use to feed every 3rd water. it seems to be doing something.

my funny looking plant is very dense i had to use a pipe cleaner to position a growth site so that it gets as much light as possible. i may have to tie the others also.

each plant has been topped as you can probably tell. (i did the same to my previous male and it was amazing to see how from one snip two heads appear. )

the bottom leaf in the middle pic has old heat damage but now that i got a 4" fan circulating the air the temps have stayed between 78 deg. (night) and 87 deg. (day)

due to limited space i am going to start the 12/12 cycle on tues. making it 1 month of veg. in the meantime i have been lowering the daylight hours by 1 hr every other day.
monday i plan to flush to make sure no salt buildup will lock out any nutrients.

any suggestions?

Today will be the first night of 12/12 cycle... i trasnplanted and flushed both plants, and right back into feeding with 1 part MG multipurpose plant food, 1 part MG Bloom booster, and 1 part Alaska morbloom organic fert. diluted with 1 qt filtered water room temp.

I just bought the Morbloom and was wondering if it would be good to use? It has 0-10-10 nute value... i figure i could get the mix to be 2 part morbloom and 1 part MG multi. to offset any N deficiency? Well ill start low and see how they like it.

Here are the most recent pictures as of this afternoon:

After the first 5 days of 12/12 I was inspecting and found that this plant is a female: She is doing very well as i have begun to supercrop to keep height down. my fert are 2tsp Alaska morbloom, and 1 tsp miracle grow bloom boost in one gallon of room temp brita filtered water.

The other plant hasnt shown any signs yet. it is struggling a little with the transition i have diluted the food i give to 1/8th strength to try and keep it alive.
I made a few changes to the setup and I am now running 2x 23/100w 2700k cool white cfls and 1x 18w/75w 6500k daylight cfl; one computer intake fan running at 5v, 2x 12v computer fans exhausting the heat from the lights. temp range is from 72deg.-88deg.

I will post more pics as i see new development. Thanks for any advise or help.

good thread man....subd up. thinking of doing something similar so gonna watch and c how it goes. starting with bagseed before i stick my barney's lsd's n there lol. ive got an old dishwasher im riggin up for veg box and thinkin on rub tubs for a flower box. good luck!

richard rahl said:

good thread man....subd up. thinking of doing something similar so gonna watch and c how it goes. starting with bagseed before i stick my barney's lsd's n there lol. ive got an old dishwasher im riggin up for veg box and thinkin on rub tubs for a flower box. good luck!

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thanx... im surprised to see how big theyre trying to get and how i am able to keep them short. i use pipe cleaner to tie each head down while also using the "super-cropping" techinque where i weaken the taller growth and bend it lower than the others keeping them all about level...

after looking up ways to keep the smell down, because i have noticed a slight odor, i decided to custom fit my exhaust fans with filters... i went with the home-made carbon pouch filters i saw in the forum. pretty simple... i used staples to make it faster, and kept the pouches pretty breathable (i may need to add more powerful fans to suck the air through the filter better though).


i used a plastic square to attach the filter snug to the fans


im thinking of a bigger fan right in the center in back to help with keep heat down. so far its been easy since i found a 13w cool white i can interchange if it gets too hot but i think with another fan i could keep all three on for more light coverage.

here are a few pics from today... i will post more soon.

In the past couple days the girls have really grown, so to make room I rearranged my power strip and made some adjustments to the light setup. I now run 4-5 lights; 4 if temps are high and 5 if the temps are low. I keep the door open about 3 hours a day so theplants get some C02.

New pics:

lookin good!

As you can see the hairs have begun to sprout. I have counted a total of 10 colas that have formed plus some smaller flowers toward the bottom of the plants. I am getting excited to see how much buds i harvest.

first off Happy belated 420! hope everyone enjoyed their day.

ive begun to feed molasses in my solution of nutrients how much should i use to see results. How do you get fatter more dense buds?

i just did a flush with plain water and tested a sample for ph level and its at 6.4 i feed using tree capfuls of Alaska Morbloom and a tablespoon of miracle grow bloom boost to add nitrogen in a small amount so there are no deficiencies..

my temperatures are low 70*f to 88*f high two 40mm cpu fans split off 12v exhaust hot air and one 40mm cpu fan running at 5v lets in fresh air. a 4" personal fan creates a light breeze to circulate air inside the small area.

i took a thin piece of foam and peppered it with carbon and the let the exhaust pressure hold it in place. no smell.

lights are 3-13w 2700k bulbs but i am now ordering a 42 watt/150 watt to replace all three. i can then use a 6500k to add spectrum... i would do it now, but right now the heat of all 4 would be in the 90*s.


anyhow heres the latest.... whatcha think?

ok. its been a week or so since i last posted. in that week things have gotten bad. i now have gnats flying around and one lady is looking sick. i dont kniw what to do i am about 4 weeks from harvest and dont want to lose precious time. can anyone help?