Help, advise needed, CFL indoor grow

I do not know whether this is a problem, I am new at growing and can't determine it.
Hopefully somebody here can advise me.
ok so some details.
I am growing C'99 from seedling, today is 25th day. it is looking normal regarding leaves. BUT I compared pictures with other people journals, she is so damn small, like 3 times smaller than other plants. She's like 3 inches tall and top fan leaves are 3 inches wide. I have 6500K 25W cfl and 6500K 18W LED lamp, temperature is about 70-77F because it's pretty cold in where I live I use heater. Humidity is about 41-48%. Trying to raise that up, but probably heater dries the air. I spray some water on foliage. 2-3 times per day and keep computer fan constantly on her. The thing is that it has already 5 nodes and from 1st to 5th node distance is like 1 inch...
I got soil in grow shop, mix made specially for growing weed, water plant every 3-4 days with 6-6.5pH, since I over watered my first plant I am making sure I won't make the same mistake. Since roots are small I water like half liter around the root area, not soaking all 3 gallon pot.
Some additional details. When I was germinating I left her too close to heater and for 5-6 hours there was temperature around 90-95F. But later it sprouted and for two weeks she was doing the same progress like other people seedlings so I was not worrying about it. I wanted to make her feel comfortable therefore I planted her into 3 gallons pot thinking that I will not cause her stress while transplanting, later I read that it is advisable to start with small containers and to transplant afterwards. But I've seen some posts where people went also with the same container and still their plants 3 times bigger. Oh and also I buried like 2 inches of stem into soil since I planted her very high, later I read a thread how to replant it deeper in the pot and she did not show any signs of stress. I commented more about those things in my grow journal with more pictures and fertilizers and mix photos. Here are some today's fotos.


Would be very happy if someone would help me to get on the rails.

By the way if it is because of lamps, I am really not able to get HPS or MH, because of price and ventilation issues. Besides it's only one plant..

Looking forward to your comments.
Thank you guys!
Tell me if you need any additional information.

she looks nice to me, if anything can you get a higher watt cfl? idk what you have available, i used cfls and grew great weed. just have to have enough true watts. i wouldn't sweat it honestly because it looks like a nice healthy plant

I agree with sunnyboy, you definitely need to up the wattage in your grow. I love cfls and will probably not use anything else, but the only problem with them that I have experienced is that in order for them to be truly effective, you MUST keep them no less than 3 inches away from the plant at all times. Honestly I would not keep my light more than two inches away. It is a daily challenge to keep them from growing into the lights...but that's not a bad problem to have, lol. Hope this helps, good luck and good skill!

Thank you guys for relieving my concerns about her I want to get some more wattage, I ordered from ebay two Y spliters and they should come within two weeks hopefully, maybe less. I am keeping light constantly like less than 3 inches away, sometimes when I see very edges turning up, I found out that they indicate heating stress so I move one inch away and leaves get back to normal. Still it looks like this small plant really gets quite a lot from those two bulbs, It makes nice leaves, but just does not grow upwards at all but probably I just need to be poatient, also I am not in a hurry to harvest her, so if this slow growth because of the insufficient lights, I will get some more and see how it goes. Anyone can comment whether humidity is sufficient? Thank you!

The growth is probably just low because the light intensity is pretty low. It looks healthy so although it may take longer it will get there.

Try adding a 125w CFL. They are cheap, cheap to run and don't get too hot. It'll make a significant different to your grow.

Thanks, nice to see you guys all agree on one thing, makes me confident about things. By 125W you mean actual of equivalent? i've never seen actual like that, and in a place where I live 30 actual watts cfl cost like 20$... annoying I am planning for flowering to use 4x30 actual watts, but I was wondering if I can get away with e.g. 2x 6500K bulbs and one or two 30W 2700K. Do you thing that would make things any better or 2700K in veg is close to nothing? Thanks again for the reply

when u put your lights close it wont grow tall but short and stocky.Dont up the humidity 30 40 is good dont go higher keep it dry think the best weed strain is supose to be kush and comes from afganistan. Very dry over there and if u have a air tight room u can use dry ice for co2 use just enuff so it wont melt during lights on in the grow room. If u dont have an air tight room make it u dont have to have air flow but air exchange. Cfls r over looked on there power iv had some of the best harvest from just cfls the hole grow vegg and budd. but yes looks good keep lights low u also dont have to water so much i seen your dirt is very wet your plant will tell u when it needs a drink it will sag alil it takes a couple days for a plant to die from under watering one day wont hert. I give my 3 gal dirt pots like one cup a day and ill get one to two inches a day in growth.

simisimis said:

Thanks, nice to see you guys all agree on one thing, makes me confident about things. By 125W you mean actual of equivalent? i've never seen actual like that, and in a place where I live 30 actual watts cfl cost like 20$... annoying I am planning for flowering to use 4x30 actual watts, but I was wondering if I can get away with e.g. 2x 6500K bulbs and one or two 30W 2700K. Do you thing that would make things any better or 2700K in veg is close to nothing? Thanks again for the reply

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For flowering you want 2700k and I'd add more than two.

For flowering I will be getting 4x 30W 2700K cfl, Maybe I will be able to add 5th one, but I am wondering if I could add to veg state 1 30w 2700K cfl? so I would have 2x 6500K and one 2700K would that be any better than only 2x 6500K ? Thanks

I googled out some guys comment from another RIU thread:

chrisb
When nutrients are locked up, plants cannot grow. Typically, a plant growing in an environment with pH levels that are too high or low is very small, often growing only a few inches in several months. Plants growing in a high pH environment look pale and sickly and also have stunted growth. If the water or soil is kept near a pH of 6.5 all of the nutrients the plant needs will be readily soluble ready available to the plants.

and I am thinking this could be my case as well... My tap water is nearly 9 and I was dropping that with apple cider vinegar to around 6, sometimes even a bit less.. I was reading some wrong information apparently or misinterpreted it, anyway, now I try to keep water at 6.5pH, but I am measuring it with color scale, which can be a bit less accurate. And when I add nutes water becomes brown and I cannot trust the color scale anymore so I have no idea what is pH level after adding nutes.

Could you perhaps say whether adding fertilizer to water drops or raises its pH? I try to google that out but unsuccessfully, maybe that's the problem? Cause now I realized that it stopped doing growth height-wise at the same time I started giving her nutes...
Any ideas about this? Thanks

simisimis said:

For flowering I will be getting 4x 30W 2700K cfl, Maybe I will be able to add 5th one, but I am wondering if I could add to veg state 1 30w 2700K cfl? so I would have 2x 6500K and one 2700K would that be any better than only 2x 6500K ? Thanks

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yes add the 2700KCLF, in general, the more light the better, and plant use all kind of colors/Kelvin all grow, just more blue in Veg and more red/yellow in flowering, I would also add one of the 6500K in flowering, specially fist 2-3 weeks and last two it can make a different.

and I must agree, keep the light 2-4 inch`s from the plants, my light meter show that CLF and T5s only provide strong light at that distance, after 10" they don't provide much and after 12" I don't even get a reading ..

also, if it was me, I would make a DIY hood of some kind and add as many CLFs as possible, vertical, and then grow my plants in to small bushes in a kind of SoG and keep all the Bud sites even and with in 2-4 inch`s of the hood ..

simisimis said:

I googled out some guys comment from another RIU thread:

chrisb
When nutrients are locked up, plants cannot grow. Typically, a plant growing in an environment with pH levels that are too high or low is very small, often growing only a few inches in several months. Plants growing in a high pH environment look pale and sickly and also have stunted growth. If the water or soil is kept near a pH of 6.5 all of the nutrients the plant needs will be readily soluble ready available to the plants.

and I am thinking this could be my case as well... My tap water is nearly 9 and I was dropping that with apple cider vinegar to around 6, sometimes even a bit less.. I was reading some wrong information apparently or misinterpreted it, anyway, now I try to keep water at 6.5pH, but I am measuring it with color scale, which can be a bit less accurate. And when I add nutes water becomes brown and I cannot trust the color scale anymore so I have no idea what is pH level after adding nutes.

Could you perhaps say whether adding fertilizer to water drops or raises its pH? I try to google that out but unsuccessfully, maybe that's the problem? Cause now I realized that it stopped doing growth height-wise at the same time I started giving her nutes...
Any ideas about this? Thanks

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Your plant is fine and I do recommend adding more light. You want close internodal spacing as a lot of people who use CFL's get way too much stretching. I use the Home Depot special of 2 65 watt (which equals 300 watt incandescent and are about 16.00 a piece) in 1 light fixture with a Y splitter for each plant (8 lights total, 4 fixtures). I also have one true 250 watt CFL (about 100.00 for it) for 1 of the plants. You should go a head and switch the lighting to 12/12 and your plant should grow quite fast.

Healthy looking but yes very small....at 25 days tho the roots are or should b filling up entire pot so i would water entire area of pot not just part of it....can't really say why so small...prolly a runt...I've had em...my plants are usually that big by week 2.

Thank you guys for the info, will be adding more lights ASAP, I am keeping her less than 3 inches from the lights and I was planning on supercropping her 2-3 times before going into flowering, but when the spacing is like this I cannot get to the stem with my gigantic fingers hehe.. And if according to forum threads switching to flowering in the end it will double her in size, it's not acceptable, I would yield a 6-9" plant haha I'd better wait Will be adding some co2, raising a bit ph and adding more lights. We'll see how it will go.

ya get that 2700k in there to it will be getting more spectrum's

ziggys420 said:

ya get that 2700k in there to it will be getting more spectrum's

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u can do that from start to finish

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you can get big CLFs on the net/grow shop`s, even up to 300W

if you have the money look in to LEDs don't use much power and don't provide much heat either, but is a bit expensive to start with if you want a good one that works, so might be for the future ?

but yea use them Y-splits and make a hood of some kind and do some LST to train the plant for multiply tops that you can be keep close to the light

p.s.

forget the Co2 only wort adding if every thing els is spot on and you got really strong light, use the money/energy on the light for now, that is your biggest "problem"

thatboyis1uvakind said:

Healthy looking but yes very small....at 25 days tho the roots are or should b filling up entire pot so i would water entire area of pot not just part of it....can't really say why so small...prolly a runt...I've had em...my plants are usually that big by week 2.

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the thing is that it is mostly sativa and suppose to be not runt at all It must be either lights or water... I wonder if adding nutes reduces the pH of water. in that case I was watering her with too low pH.

By the way, it is just an idea, maybe because I was doing a lot of foliage spray, maybe it was getting enough water through leaves and did not stretched its roots because it did not needed?

any opinion about this?
in some pictures the ground looks wet only because I was spraying the very top so the fan would ventilate it and make air more humid around.

Slipon said:

p.s.

forget the Co2 only wort adding if every thing els is spot on and you got really strong light, use the money/energy on the light for now, that is your biggest "problem"

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Thanks! So be it. All hands on light then