First Grow. CFL Closet Cab with Bagseed. A learning Experience!

Alright. So hey, I'm Boonierat. I said in extremist's thread I was going to post a journal. Well, that was over a week ago. I decided not to post, then I decided to post, then I decided not to post again...all for security. Then I realized, awww fuck it. So I've got TOR now and here I am!

I've done quite a lot of research on growing for a while now. I've been one of those lurkers. So for my first grow, I'm pretty much diving in head first and I'm going to be attempting cloning and lots of other fun stuff.

Alright on to the goods. I have a simple tote box that I have lined with one of the emergency blankets from wal-mart you can find in the camping section. I have got 2 125mm computer fans in the box right now. One for intake and one for exhaust. I wired them up via a 12v DC converter bought from Radioshack. For odor control, I decided to go with a carbon filter that is used on air filters. It is just a sheet of carbon filter. However, the computer fans can't really push or pull enough air through them so they are currently hanging unattached because I have heat spike issues.

The heat is currently never going above 86 degrees but that is also with the carbon filters unattached. I think I am going to get a small desk fan or something to actually sit inside the box and circulate more air over the lights. I also may end up doing a DIY canister filter kinda like the one made from the pencil cups from wal-mart. I just need something with good air flow...

My medium I am using is ~80% soil (Miracle Grow 6 month nutrient release) and ~20% perlite (also miracle grow 6 month release). They are in 20 oz water bottles that have been duct taped up to shield the roots.

My nutrients I have (but have not used yet) are Superthrive and Schultz 10-15-10 plant food. For water, I am using tap water that has been allowed to sit out and also pH tested and adjusted. I before had the pH adjusted to about 7.2 because apparently the soil I was using had a low PH so they balanced out (maybe). Umm, I think that is about it for what I have done and the setup so far. Oh!

Lights. For lights I am using a mix of 6500k and 2700k spectrums. I think I have 4 26w 6500k and 2 26k 2700k running right now. I will be switching this over to 1 55w 2700k and 3 of the 26w 2700k. The lights are in a splitter that is in a diy lamp kit from lowes. I run the wire through the box, and I have a couple of boot strings holding the lights aloft. With this I can adjust exactly how high I want them. Right now I'm keeping the light about two and a half inches away from the plants. Anyways, on to the goods for now.

I started with 10 seeds in a papa john's napkin that was left moist in an open plastic bag beneath a plate under my desk light. Out of the ten seeds nine of them germinated. Out of the nine seeds, I have gotten eight to grow. The ninth one I pulled out last night because I had a little watering accident on like, day three or so. I watered it, and with the soil too loose (already learning from mistakes: I left the soil too loose so when I first watered a lot collapsed down, Oh well) the little seedling came up and fell over and never really recovered. Since then, I have watered three more times I believe. I water once, waited a couple of days, watered again, and then I waited three days because I was afraid I was overwatering.

Anyways, as you can see I have not worked out all of the problems. Five out of the eight are experiencing a problem and I don't really know what. It doesn't look like nutrient burn from the soil. I also don't think it is overwatering because I let them sit for three days before my last watering! The leaves are getting these yellow spots on them, and they are curling down a bit. On second thought, I went back and looked at the worst plant, and the yellow spots are starting to turn brown. Maybe it is nute burn? But it is all spread throughout the leaf and isn't starting on the tips....Maybe nute lockout? I have not found any pics on the boards yet that looks similar to mine but I'll keep looking. If anyone might have some insight feel free!

All comments welcome on my first grow. Thanks for looking.

(Alright. Having problems uploading pics right now via TOR so I'll try and have them up asap.)

Here's the pics.

EDIT: The seeds went into soil on the 25th so I guess this is...day 8.

Day 8

it looks great not alot of leaf growth but lots of height growth. also superthrive is not a nutrient and my plants tips are turning ORANGE BADLY like a orange fruit ill take pics. anyways subbed were pretty much same days so glad to see this and help each other

Alright. Day 9. I switched them over to 18/6 yesterday before I left for work. I came back after the lights came back on and was pleasantly surprised by my healthier ones. They seemed to really enjoy having a little bit of dark. Got a few more pics today because I felt I should be paying closer attention and documenting more.


Here is a pic showing those burn spots on my unhealthy plant. Think maybe too much of the nutrients were released from the MG soil?


I also have some pics showing some new small growth.


I was thinking of maybe topping soonish and using that as a clone. I have a few days off so I was thinking of maybe making a mother/clone veg chamber and getting this to perpetual status. What do you guys think? Let them veg for a while before topping or what? Also, I've decided that tonight I'm going to experiment and give my plants their first taste of superthrive and nutes. Going to do 1 drop of superthrive and 1 drop of the schultz 10-15-10 plant food in a gallon of water. Going to water them with that and see how they like it. Any suggestions/questions yet?

looking pretty good dude, one of the leaves looks a little droopy. how often do you water? I have a couple plants too, at roughly the same age (mine have 4 nodes) check em out!
what's the nutrient content for the superthrive? because the plants need more nitrogen instead of Phosphorous in the veg phase. So i'd hold off on the Schultz right now and wait until flower, when the plant needs more phosphorous.
pretty cool set up too btw.

Hey thanks a lot man. I'll definitely check yours out. Thanks for stopping by! I'm really wondering now if the miracle grow burned them. It really does look like burn. I water them every two to three days depending on how moist they are on the second day.

Burn usually happens at the end of the leaf tips because the nutrients get shoved to the end of the leaf and it doesn't know what to do with all of the extra stuff so it ends up not processing them right. Your problem actually looks like a calcium or manganese deficency because of the spotting. In an indoor grow, calcium deficiencies can occur when the tap water has been filtered through reverse osmosis or using distilled water. If your watering is super filtered, you can use a very light sprinkling of lime on top of the soil or calcium nitrate in your water, even as a foliar spray.

I'm relaying this information from the "Marijuana Garden Saver" book I picked up. I highly suggest anyone growing to get this book! It has pictures for every deficiency, bug, and disease. It will have the reasoning behind the problem, how it affects the plant and how to solve it. Cost $17.95. Well worth it in my eyes. I have yet to ask a question on this board. Sometimes you get a great answer from one of the seniors here but most of the time you get the wrong answer from someone uninformed. You can find this book and other really good ones like Ed Rosenthal's Marijuana Growing Handbook at Barnes and Nobles. Do it, you wont be disappointed.

The new growth actually looks 'ok' but if it continues I would definitely check into calcium or manganese.

Hope everything goes well!

- DiGGy

P.S. Superthrive is a great vitamin supplement. I even use a VERY light PPM in my seedling water to help root growth. It's got a ton of vitamins but I have never been able to find information regarding any metals(Iron, copper, zinc) it might have in it. It's mystery magic juice!

Mystery magic juice! Haha. Thanks for the info man. I havn't posted new pics but a few have the tips of their leaves curling down and burning. I'll be posting a few pics a little bit later to show the new growth after a new round of watering. Again, thanks! I'll check that book out.

you have nothing to worry about yet--they look healthy and great--looking forward to seeing more

Ah man, I just peaked at em before the lights went off. I can't wait to get a picture a little later to show yall!

Things are really looking great so far! I think I need to get my mom/clone box made tomorrow because I think I'm gonna try my hand and topping. Here's some progress pics.

Oh, and I didn't add any superthrive or nutes yet. Gonna try it in a couple days for the next watering.

hey wasup, looking good. Don't be in too much of a hurry to clone. You'll stunt them more than anything else trying to take a big enough clone from their tops right now. Trust me. the bigger the plant/clone the easier they'll root and the less stress both of them will endure. Even if you planned to switch them over before you cloned you have a good week or two before they're in full bloom.(which is also a harder time to clone). Not IMPOSSIBLE but HARD. Good Luck. Looks ALOT better than my first grow lol

Hey thanks for the advice. I will wait a few more days then. I think I'm still gonna build a box today if I get around to it. Depends on how much couchlock this White Widow puts me through...lol. I'll post some new pics up later tonight after a round of darkness. They are looking beautiful though!

Sorry for the late update. Got a little bit of a misting instead of a watering tonight. Tomorrow night they are getting a dose of nutes with the watering.

Alright. Got a quick update. Day 13 I guess?

Well, had a bit of a heat issue. My plants grew upwards into the lights, and heat became a big issue. The intake and exhaust fan just wasn't enough circulation so I got one of those small red fans from wally world. Now, temperatures are at a constant 81 degrees and plant height! I think I finally solved the heat issue! So I finally gave them the first dose of nutrients last night. It was 2 drops of superthrive and 2 drops of the schultz 10-15-10 into a gallon of water and then pHed to about 6.6 to 6.8. I'm beginning to think it was a mistake though. They just look depressed today. You guys tell me.

hey man, im on my first grow at the mo aswell, i was exactly the same, lurking in the forums just soaking up the info, but now im actually growing its awsome.
im sure your the same, everytime i open my closet im excited! haha.
anyway good luck with the grow, hope you get some nice buds in the end! in a bizzle

Hey everybody. I have not updated as there wasn't a huge amount of interest so I'm going to just update every now and again or when there is a big change. Just lemme know if yall would rather have more often updates.

Anyways. I'm excited! Yessir. They have lived for 3 whole weeks. I have had several problems as well as ongoing problems.

Alright, since the last update they have grown quite a bit.


One night, somehow my closet door almost shut while I was asleep (I forgot a stopper). The temps spiked up to 92 degrees in the middle of a light cycle on the last day before watering, so needless to say several hours of this left some damage. A few of the lower fan leaves were actually crispy on the tips and they broke off. Well, before I even took a piss I got some water pHed real fast and water them just a little bit in increments. I figured I didn't want to shock them with the cool water too bad. No idea if this was needed or not. Anyways, this brought them around. I gave it a few days and I trimmed a few of them off.

After a few more days, they started just acting all around sickly. They slowly started turning a brighter lighter shade of green and were drooping. Eventually the lower fan leaves (that were already hurt from a previous problem) started to turn yellow between the veins. I hit them with a drop of schultz in their watering a couple days ago (along with the normal superthrive) and as you can see with the pictures they are looking a lot better.

They started to droop one day so I watered them. Sadly they didn't come around. I waited just one day and then watered them again. Bad move (root bound: more on this later.). Shortly after in a moment of clarity I realized that when I reached into the box my hand went from a warm layer of air to a cooler layer of air. Well fuck. I never thought about it but my thermometer was at soil level and at the canopy near the lights the temp was higher by about 8 degrees.

The universe works in crazy ways though because while I was doing my usual poking around with the grow I managed to catch one of the fan blades with my finger and it snapped off and went flying off into the closet. Durka dur dumbass!

I ended up removing the intake fan and put it where the exhaust was. Well, funny thing was that today I read that for this setup it is better to just run a passive intake anyways so now it actually works better and temps are even lower. So instead of like 90 at canopy level, it is more like 79. Ambient closet temp is probably like 77 while the house is 72.

They are root bound right now but are doing alright. The bottom roots are starting to circle the cup already but the sides have not quite used up all the soil so I am waiting it out a few more days or until they start getting pissed. I have some 6" pots that they will be going into and I will probably finish them in.

Also, just tonight I finally trimmed the last of the first fan leaves that got burned or hurt at the start of the grow. So they are looking real nice right now. Sexy momas.


Here's one of two plants that grew long and lanky for some reason. Light placement was pretty much the same for all the plants.



Please guys, if you see something that I am doing wrong, or if I am spreading some information that is blatantly wrong, please correct me. I don't want to spread bad information. Thanks!

Looks good. I thought you had some huge ass plants going but then I saw you holding em. Why not transplant them now? Those roots sound like they are dying to expand.

Alright. I figured I'd go ahead and fill you in on the very soon to be future plans.

Flower box:
I already knew and accepted I would have to build another flower box or clone box. However, recently I realized that it was going to be way too hard to try and get goal of 7g dry off each plant in a cycle. Trying to fit that many plants in a small space just won't work. Sooo, I'm going to try and expand to an intermediate status. I'm actually going to get some wood and build a box this time. It isn't going to be huge, but it will be a bit bigger. I'm thinking something like, 46"L x 30"W x 44"H ish. Made of something like plywood or fiberboard. Inside will be sealed by caulking and then painted white. There will be legit mounts for lights and temp and fans and all that mess.

For lights, I want:
Mid mounted 250w HPS with a cooltube and external digital ballast. Something like this:
http://www.htgsupply.com/viewproduct.asp?productID=54182
Buuut, that is like 261 bucks not shipped with the options I want like a cooltube. Meh. I would settle for magnet ballast and a normal reflector I guess:
http://www.htgsupply.com/viewproduct.asp?productID=47994

Do those magnet ballasts buzz loud? The box isn't all that stealthy but a buzzing noise is a no go.

Also, I will have 2 of these, one on each side of HPS halfway to the wall:
http://1000bulbs.com/product/8253/FC85-S27OD.html

However, I don't really know how high the heat is on a 250w HPS bulb plus throw in those two CFLs and I know heat might be a problem. I figure I 'll just mount an exhaust system up top. It'll consist of a carbon filter near the HPS light. The filter will be attached to a pipe that runs to an inline 6" fan moving around 435 CFM:
http://www.plantlightinghydroponics.com/valueline-inch-435-cfm-centrifugal-inline-fan-p-2260.html
That plus a few light proofed passive intakes and a sealed box and I think I can control the heat.
Question:
Does anyone know how loud that fan is? Or at least one of similar size and cfm?

For the mother / clone veg box I'll just use the current setup with less lights, slower fan, and better light proofing. Going to pull the mylar out and just paint it. The mylar is annoying to work with and clean. I figure two 26w cfl for a mother and two for the clones would be fine. The focus will be to keep temps and humidity stable. I would like to root the clones by using the bubbler method. But I may end up using solo cups and letting them veg for another week to get more height out of them. Just really depends on when I do my first run and see how everything reacts for myself.

That's the ideas floating in my head as of now. Please, I'm open to any and all suggestions. Night!

assasinofyouth420 said:

Looks good. I thought you had some huge ass plants going but then I saw you holding em. Why not transplant them now? Those roots sound like they are dying to expand.

Click to expand...

Right on. I think I will then. I'll transplant tomorrow.