Rubbermaid CFL Closet Grow-Noob Questions

[The Wiz]

After soaking up as much indoor grow info as i could take in these last few months, I finally decided to give it a shot on my own.

Short Resume:
One successful outdoor grow under my belt last summer, ~250g/3 plants.

Any advice/criticism is welcome and appreciated.

Specs:

2 22 gallon Rubbermaid containers stacked on top of each other.

Each one has dimensions:26.5"x18.6x17.1

Right now I have 2 seedlings (<2 weeks) which are Anesthesia (?, Fem) and Chernobyl (TGA Subcool, Free Seed) and 1 veggin' 3 week old bag-seed.

I have one 4" AC computer fan at the top blowing the heat from the CFLs out, and the lighting section is separated with a sheet of acrylic.

The bottom section consists of about 30" of vertical space, and a 9"x3" vent for intake.

I am planning on throwing out the weakest of the 3, but ideally I would like to sex them first. Not sure if there will be room for that though...

For lighting, I have 4 20 W CFLs @ 6500K. Ambient temps are 72 with fan on and 80 with fan off ~30% humidity.

Here are some pictures, one shows all the various nutrients I have bought so far, all I am missing is Fox Farm Big Bloom which I will buy shortly.



The seedlings are in solo cups in Peat Pods surrounded by seed starting soil. The larger bag-seed is in a 6" pot with a great Organic soil mix, which I have plenty more of.

Questions:

1)In 2 weeks, I will be gone for about 7-8 days. Even if I give them a lot of water right before I go, is that still too much time to be away without checking in? If so, has anyone used any automated watering techniques? I was thinking of just buying 5-10 of those aqua globe things but I don't want them to get over-watered either.

2)Also, I am not sure how smart it is to be starting 3 plants in such a confined space. I was only thinking of keeping 2, but its an extra tough decision when I am not sure of the sex of 2/3 of the plants.

3)I picked up some high N bat guano 10-2-1 and some High Phosphorous bat guano 1-10-.2. Will this be a sufficient base fertilizer to use throughout veg and flowering? I won't buy the Fox Farm liquid fertilizers if I don't have to, especially since I am on a tight budget for the rest of the grow, and anything organic is a plus.

Sorry if these questions have been answered before, I am just getting to the point where I have invested enough money that I really don't want to screw things up!

Thanks for reading.

-The Wiz

 

[The Wiz]

Update

Things are looking pretty good.

I'm about to leave for a week and am reaching the end of my 5-6 day watering cycle, so I am not too worried about leaving my girls alone anymore.

I am dealing with a nutrient deficiency on my oldest gal :worried
I have traced it to either Magnesium or Phosphorous, but it is very possible I am wrong. I tried to get a close-up of the yellow and brown spotted older leaves also a large portion of the stem has also turned a red/purple shade.

I have been spraying her with 1 tbsp of epsom salts dissolved in a spray bottle and also giving her big bloom mixed with grow big fox farm liquid nutes.

The seedlings/younger gals look very nice and healthy, I think I'm getting better at this already! It might also be because they are not bag-seed genetics like my older gal.


I'm not too optimistic I will get an answer before I leave. If not, hopefully someone out there finds this thread useful...

Still crossing my fingers for at least 2 females :harvest:

 

[dirtman63]

Wiz,the aqua globe will work for about 7 days,one per plant.Wait for sexing so you have at least two,hopfully.I no nothing about using guano,but it seems to me you should use a fert that more even;10-10-10 or20-20-20 or 15-10-10.Too much of one nute can really upset the balance and cause other nutes to not be taken up.They look good so far good luck on your two females(hopefully).Good Luck!

 

[The Wiz]

Update

Just got back, after over a week away. The girls looked pretty sad and droopy when I got back, and were begging me for water. After 12 hours, they have already bounced back considerably and I am happy with the new growth.

Dirtman, thanks for your input, I went with the aqua globes, and although they were completely empty when I got back, they did their job and kept everything alive.

I am now running into space issues and I need to transplant the two younger gals into 12" pots ASAP, but I am going to wait until they dry out and need another watering. The bushy indica in the 12" pot right now is taking up a ton of room, and I don't know if I should top now or wait until closer to flowering.

The older gal is getting pretty tall and has 3 main branches, I am considering putting her outside and focusing on the 2 younger plants.

Several of the older fan leaves have gray blotches on them and still look droopy and under-watered. I am wondering if I should cut these off or give them a chance to recover.

I'll let the pictures do most of the talking, here is a before/after shot over the past week or so of unattended growth:

The first picture with the aqua globes is right before I left and the last 3 are ~12 hr after I got back and gave them a solid watering.

 

[The Wiz]

HELP! My girls are outgrowing their garden in 12/12

A month later and things look extremely different in my garden! The good news is coupled with bad news though and I only have about 3" of vertical space left for the buds before they hit the lights. I know the "looking back" advice would be to switch to 12/12 earlier. I underestimated the rapid growth I have read so much about. They have been flowering for 2 weeks and are both females.

If ANYONE could tell me which of these below options sounds the best, I would be extremely thankful...

1) Cut holes in bottom of Rubbermaid for the bottom of the pots and raise the whole garden up a few inches with books, etc while the base of the pots remain at ground level.

2) LST'ing, which I have already done to the best of my ability. I unfortunately do not have much horizontal space to work with either.

3) Re-veg and chop 'em (I could use some extra clones too)

4) Get rid of one, but I think it's been in 12/12 too long to go outside.

5) Anything else you can think of.

Thanks guys, I never thought I would get to this point on my first indoor grow, but now that I'm here I want to get this right and in a few weeks time it will all be worth it :harvest: :harvest: :harvest:

 

[Montannabis]

I'd LST and trim some leaf. Oh ya what's that string like stuff on the plants, you may try something more sturdy for holding down the plants. Peace and good luck Montannabis

 

[The Wiz]

Thanks Montannabis,

The "string stuff" is just 4" netting to re-enforce my LST which I did with clothespins and wire and tied the branches as far towards the edge of the grow box as space allowed. I think I can do a slightly better job with LST though, and will probably remove that netting all together.

Will cutting off some of those larger fan leaves cause the plant unnecessary stress during flowering though? I know I definitely shouldn't cut any of the nodes off for that reason, but I didn't think about just trimming the leaves. That might help a lot, I just need to find out if it's a good idea during flowering...

1 other option I forgot to list is to transplant the bigger one into a smaller pot, because I know she isn't root-bound yet, and the pot is really tall and wide.

The smaller plant is actually raised up 6" in that picture so it doesn't have to battle for light.

 

[omerta]

There are really two problems presenting themselves here wiz. Obviously the height is a factor, but you must also consider bud site density. Plant material requires a certain number of square inches (can't remember the recommended number off the top of my head but I'd say it's around 4 sq. in.) to allow for maximum use of light and gas exchange resources. Bushes are great outside, but inside axillary branching must be controlled, otherwise you'll end up with a ton of small buds that are a pain to trim, vs. six or so main stalks that pack on the weight. Resultantly, you'll want to "prune" your girls to your space requirements. This pruning will involve the removal of entire branches, not leaves alone. The only times a leaf should ever be removed from a cannabis plant is when it is blocking a key bud site during flowering or when it is too low to the soil and isn't getting light and may be negatively impacting the air flow. Some folks will clear out the entire "undergrowth" layer to increase airflow, especially when using cfl (due to their penetrability), a technique highly debated. I used to do this but have since read in a horticultural biology book that those old big leaves (or any leaf for that matter) are the plant's lunch box. They use nutrients and sun to make their food and they store it in the leaves. Also, older leaves are used by photoperiodistic plants to judge day length and age. Since learning this bit of info I have practiced the non removal of large leaves until they are toasty and ready to fall off. Scraggly undergrowth is a whole 'nother ball game though and falls under the category of branches. Basically just remember: Trim branches not leaves!

As far as the height goes, you'll want to add another box to the stack, or ditch that big girl. Don't transplant to a smaller pot because while the general root mass may still be small there are bound to be many adventurous roots that have made the rounds. If they are done their stretch you'll still need at least five to six inches for bud development.

Good luck!

 

[The Wiz]

In the last week I spread things out/trimmed a bit. Buds are starting to show with mostly white trichs. Older leaves are turning yellow, but I will leave them attached.

Hopefully the buds bulk up quite a bit, today was day 23 of flowering, so I still have 30-40 days. I decided to raise the container to give the plants additional vertical room to grow, and they have been doing great since I did that and re-arranged the lights and did some more LST. I trimmed some leaf for some hidden budsites and tried to avoid trimming whole "colas". Temperatures been peaking in upper 80's in growbox but I've lowered it to mid 80's now.

Looking forward to July!

Peace

 

[The Wiz]

Day 38 of flower. Buds still not quite where I would like them to be in terms of size or quantity. How far from harvest do these look to you guys? I have very minimal information about the strains and their flowering times.

I am going to give them straight water tomorrow and then maybe 1 more feeding with the Foxfarm liquid lineup (3 tsp/gal Big Bloom, 2 tsp/gal Tiger Bloom and then 1 tsp/gal Organic Molasses for some micronutes).

Then hopefully 1 more straight water, flush and harvest :harvest:

>=1oz is likely/possible at this point, and that was my goal from the beginning.

I already had to harvest 1 cola from the larger plant since it was starting to get light burned :worried Looks dank though.

 

[omerta]

So far so good man. Definitely need to let them go at least 60 days but you should start looking for a 30x trich viewing tool such as a jeweler's loupe to really determine when to harvest. Looks like you'll get a decent harvest, though you probably could have doubled it by staying organic. The Tiger bloom isn't organic so you basically killed most of the micro life the first time you used it and you'll certainly have deficiencies later in the cycle because of that. The primary benefit of the BB + Molasses tea is to sustain the organic herd, but it's not a total waste because there are some other great nutes in there that are still working (just not in an organic sense).

I'd suggest really deciding on organic or not next time because you are currently in a grey area that drastically reduces yield, potency, and most of all, flavor.

Other than that, (excuse my organic rant) it's looking great and you're feeding schedule looks ok. Definitely give it a 2 week flush to get all the bad stuff out (something you don't need to do with organics) and stop using the molasses a week before that. The mag and other nutes from molasses really make for a harsh smoke if used to late in the cycle.

Time to get the next round started!

Then cut, trim, dry, cure, and share :)

PS. the one on top in the second picture is looking more sativa dom, the bottom more indica, so that should help you a little bit with flowering cycle lengths, ALSO the recommended dose for BB is in TBS not TSP, is that a typo or why you can't cook hahah? I'd give em 2 TBS BB, 1 TSP TB, 1 TSP MO. Is one of these Chernobyl?

 

[mattazstoner82]

i always do 12/12 from seed in my rubbermaid

 

[The Wiz]

Omerta: I definitely regret not sticking with organics, especially when I had everything I needed. My only excuse is I didn't have any high P or K organic ferts besides the Big Bloom, so I added on the Tiger Bloom. I did have the high P bat guano, but it was more difficult to make that into a tea so I went against it and the bag remains unopened in my growroom.

The "top one"/sativa dom is indeed Chernobyl genetics from TGA Subcool, and the small indica is Anesthesia from Pyramid. I'm actually most excited for the indica dom, it's looking dank!!

Just gave my (hopefully) last full feeding yesterday and the girls look very happy and green! Had some samples already and I can see what you mean about the harsh taste from the Molasses and probably also the fact it wasn't cured fully yet.

Yes you are right at my inability to read directions, it is TBS for the BB.

Definitely lots of things to do better next time around. Got some Dutch Passion Mekong High and am hopefully ordering a pack of White Fire from here too...thanks a ton for all the info!

Mattaz: I do wish I had switched to 12/12 sooner for the Sativa Dom, but unfortunately I do not have enough seeds around to switch right to flowering before I can take precious clones!

 

[The Wiz]

Flower Day 50 Update

Day 50 of flower in my closet. Not too far from flush, probably just one more straight water feeding with maybe some molasses. The Chernobyl is looking good and there are sure signs of new growth. The smaller indica-dom has really nice and fairly mature looking buds, it just isn't bulking up as much, probably because it also shows some signs of nutrient deficiency (?).

Omerta, thanks for all the great OG advice! I bought a 30x magnifier, and I'm keeping track of harvest signs. If you get around to answering, would you use a flushing product like FloraKleen over straight water if you were in my situation? I definitely want to get all that Tiger Bloom residue out of my soil! The last pic on here is my next project, I gotta sex this C.D. bagseed clone, already shows some male signs (lanky growth) or it could just be sativa.

Pics:

 

[omerta]

Looking great man, though you should be flushing now. You generally want to flush for at least 2 weeks prior to the chop, thus it's even more imperative to be flushing the indica dominant right now. If the sativa dominant is showing deficiencies too you might consider giving it one more feeding, but that's up to you. I'd also highly recommend you try to find grow journals for these strains so that you can have a better idea of the actual flowering time, rather than the breeder suggested time (as this is often underestimated for marketing value). That way you can time the flush out more accurately. What strain is that cut? Chunk D? Looks sativa dominant but it's also probably stretching from being too far from your light source. Remember light penetration exponentially decreases in value, so keep those girls as close your CFLs as possible. Also, think about topping that soon, then you'll have 8 coaxial branches to work with. Now you just need to get that soil mix together!

I'll keep checking back here to see what's good. I haven't been getting that javascript error so hopefully it was just a glitch or something they fixed. I think it's crappy that this site, and others, don't at least use https for logging in... A PM stands for public message when you don't encrypt your log in credentials and IP address!

 

[The Wiz]

Thanks for the quick reply, Rep For You! I'm going to flush the Anesthesia indica right now since I will be away for the next couple days. I've looked for other grow journals with not much luck on details I needed, I'll try some more. I think I will give the sativa one more light feeding before I flush. Staggered flush seems appropriate since I grew two total opposite strains. Gotta love freebie seeds! The C.D. isn't a strain abbrev, it's just a bag seed and I know nothing about it's genetics. So far so good for OG, it's in my favorite and most time-tested organic soil with some perlite and hasn't had any other nutes added yet. Gotta get that tea a brewin'!

In 2 weeks I'll be at 9 weeks, I see what you mean about flushing NOW! Haha gotta get on that, hard to do after I took my bedtime medication already. Lastly, I agree about the HTTPS and I have been having some security concerns on this site very recently too. Peace man!

 

[The Wiz]

Harvest!!!

Hey guys,

This will be my last update for this thread. I finished chopping down the last of my sativa today after 2 weeks of straight water flush. The indica (Anesthesia) is already dried and curing right now, smokes like a dream and puts me to sleep everytime!

I haven't sampled the sativa (Chernobyl) much yet because most of it is still in my drying box on it's first full day of drying. My yield for the indica was a half O and the yield for the sativa is hard to estimate right now, but it is a lot more than a half O.

I will let the pictures do the talking, I feel good about my yield for my first indoor grow and I am looking forward to improving a lot of things for my next grow, which has already commenced. The pictures start with the indica, before and after harvest. Then shows the sativa before and after harvest. The pictures of the drying box are only the sativa. :animbong::animbong::banana1sv6:

 

[Chronic Monster]

way to work what you got ... :joint: some nice looking nuggs :)

 

[cemchris]

Thats pretty respectable! Nice job.

 

[LikemindS]

Dude! Freakin Awesome Micro-Grow!
:banana1sv6:
LOL
Reminds me of 'trailer park boys' when Ricky steals a bunch of trash cans, makes them all into micro-grows to sell around the park...