Simple wicking method with CFL's (journal)

Hi all, i am starting a grow journal for a simple wicking method using cfl's for lights. I havent seen too much info on wicking methods on this site and im about 2-3 weeks in on my grow so i figured i would post a thread for anyone who wants to see how it goes... and yes of course for some advice since this is my second grow all together and im still a newb.
I currently have 9 plants in veg, hoping to get 3-5 girls
I will post photos of setup and plants in a day or two (friend borrowed camera for a vacay)

My setup is as follows:
grow area is half of my closet measuring about 3.5' long, 2' wide and basically as tall as need be. I enclosed the one open side of the closet with a white cardboard wall, and am using a piece of cardboard for a ceiling to keep humidity and C02 in. All of the surrounding walls are white also. I have a 4 inch fan stuck through the lower portion of the cardboard wall (pushing outside air in and exiting throught the top)
lights are only cfls (the spiral shaped ones). i have (2) 42 watt which do not specify the temperature of color but they look to be warm (3000k). and (6) 27 watt lights 2 of which are daylight (6500k) and the rest are warm (about 2500k). I plan on replacing the two daylight lights with 42 watt warms for flowering.
Wicking system is made with glad large dinner containers, 5/8" nylon rope, and 6 inch pots. Soil is scotts potting soil and perlite equal portions of each. I cut out the blue tops of the glad containers so that the pots would sit in the top about 1 inch. each pot gets its own glad resevior. I took about 12" of rope and tied a knot close to one end. the knot sits inside the pot and the shorter end of rope goes through bottom of pot and sits in the glad resevior. I put a paper towel over the rest of the holes so soil wont escape. I coiled the rope upwards as i added the soil mix, leaving the end of the rope about an inch under surface.

C02 i have a container with 2 cups of water, half a packet of yeast, and 1/4 cup sugar. I add a lil water and sugar every couple of days

I have 4 different strains out of the 9 plants, (2) orange sativa skunk, (2) top44, (5) bagseed-(which seem to be growing the best)
looking back i probably should have had a more homogenous blend of strain, mixing sativa and indica in the same grow makes watering/nutes a lil more complicated.

I havent used nutes yet, but plan on introducing some in the upcoming week (week 3). Largest plant is 6" tall(started it 5 days before rest) the rest are about 2-3" tall.

My plan is to grow them till about 10" tall then spend most of my time focusing on flowering... my prior grow i vegged them too long (about 2ft) and i didnt have enough wattage to make quality buds (this was using 4 ft tube flouros).

I am hoping to get some quality buds, and hopefully a moderate yield. Obviously me being a newb i will probly need some good advice, thank you to all who follow/reply to my journal

BTW i have noticed the wicking system is not a perfectly balanced watering system. I found early on that if i filled the resevior up to just below the pot ( the pot obvioulsy should not be submerged in the resevior), the soil gets a lil oversaturated and made a couple leaves go brownish. I only fill the resevior with 1/2-1" of water at a time which still supplies 3 or so days of watering, and then i leave container dry for about a day before adding more water. The plants have reacted nicely to this intermittent watereing.

I just planted 10 plants in 3 gallon bags and ran 4-1/4 inch ropes thru 4 of the holes. I haven/t found the container I'm going to use for the wicking yet. I am hesitant to raise them up and unbalance them at all. I have had just hellish luck. I actually fell on 4 of my plants last grow. klutzy LOL
anyways...I'm watching this to see what you do.
Vannette

Thanks for tuning in vannette, ya lookin back the glad ware boxes make a alot of work filling each individual one. If i were you i would have a large resevior or two for all your plants, maybe try gettin one of those metal laced organizer shelving things to hold your plants above your reseviors so you can let the wicks hang down through the platform. as long as you can adjust the light height, you wont have to be moving the plants around much, just slide the resevior tub in and out as you fill it up or whatever

I was talkin with a friend about this and they read that the water needs a pump to keep it circulating. Thinking .... a kiddie pool to set them all in with them maybe sitting on a couple 2x4's to keep them above water level.
Vannette

yeah that sounds like it would work. would you continuoulsy circulate water in it or would you water when its starting to/is dried out. I am having some problems with my wick oversaturating my media, maybe i didnt add enough perlite, or maybe my plants dont require that much water cause they are still small (they are just putting out their first set of 5) once i get my camera back i will pst photos, but my one larger plant that is 6 inches tall (has 3rd set of seven leaves coming out) has yellowing on the lowest set of 3 and im pretty sure its cause my wicking system soaked up too much water

Here are some pics of my plants(3rd day of 12/12, 18-23 days overall),

the laregest in the last two pics is my oldest about 23 days and its the orange sativa skunk( or atleast thats what the bag said, my friend found these seeds in a backpack that was left at his house after a party no one claimed it...).

they have grown a lot in the last 3 days, cant wait to find out which are females (hopefully the biggin)

Tell me how they look...