still learning to navigate the site

justanotherbozo

newbie hydro experiment

newbie, as in ‘newbie’, first cause I’m new here, maybe more important, I’m new to
growing as well, having grown only one ‘crop’. My returns were meager.

I guess intro first, I’m 52 now and I started ‘blazing’ my own trail in 1968, ‘the good old days’. I’m also a disabled vet and a single parent with 3 teenagers convinced they know all the answers before they’ve heard the questions, sadly, just like they’re old man back in ’68, I vacillate between wanting to hug them and wanting to choke them, lol.

Anyway, that’s another story, maybe ‘The Trials and Tribulations of Trying To Teach Teenagers To Think’ would work.

Enough intro, as I said, I’m new to growing, in fact, I’m actually only recording hypothetical scenarios that exist within the nooks and crannies of my half-baked mind, I’ve NEVER actually grown any illegal substances nor would I.

Anyway, I started my second ‘grow’, hypothetically, about a month ago and I thought I share some pics, please don’t make fun of my ineptitude

Attached Images

P3170064.JPG (909.7 KB, 7 views)

hearmenow

Welcome to GP, Justa. Nice little hypothetical setup you have there. What are you hypthetically growing? What CLFs are you hypothetically using? How old are your hypothetical plants?

A couple of hypothetical observations: your hypothetical plants look a bit stretched. You need to get those lights closer. With CFLs you can get them as close as 4". I suggest you add more lights as well. Seems you have a lot of hypothetical plants for such few lights. You also should add some kind of reflective material to maximize your lights. Even though your hypothetical walls are white, they don't seem very reflective. Good luck!

justanotherbozo

thanks for the feedback hmn, the truth is i'm gonna have to move within the next few months so i'm not expecting to get anything useful other than experience, i'm just slogging up the learning curve.
my current hypotosis has 4 x 26wtt CFL's at 6500kelvin and 1 x 30wtt CFL in the middle at 3500kelvin. started with 'bagseed', 2 kinds hence the different colored cups. anyway, soaked some rockwool starter cubes in a mild solution, dropped a seed into the hole of each cube, put them in a dome and i put the dome in the window. once they sprouted i took them out of the window and went under the radar.
the pics are one month after.

ISO2BWELL

They all look very happy to me! Great job!

On the CFL's, if you have time for them to arrive before you need them, consider 2 or 3 of these instead of the 26W. These are 105W CFL - 5000k. Each lamp is equivalent to 500 incandescent watts, and they do a heck of a job for vegging and screw into a normal socket (not MOGUL). At $23.00 ea. not to spendy for some good light.

For flowering there is no real substitute for HPS lighting, but you could use some of the 150-200W - 2200k CFL's, or consider the T5 tubes as an option if heat is an issue.

A great start for an imaginary grow!

ISO

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hearmenow

Justa, you said you were moving in a couple months? If I were you, I'd pretend to flower these imaginary plants once they have 4 or 5 alternating nodes. Even if you pretend to harvest them when their trichs are still clear or milky, you'll at least get some imaginary buds to pretend to smoke, even if the imaginary high isn't as intense as it could be.

justanotherbozo

thanks for the feedback, actually, i plan on adding exactly those bulbs on the 1st of the month, still searching for them locally, want to pay cash so there isn't any hypothetical paper trail, feel me? i'm gonna stick with the CFL's to flower too as heat, cost, and headroom are all limiting factors

hearmenow

I wouldn't be too concerned about CFLs. Bought a ton of them myself at the HD and Wallyworld. 1000w HPS? Yes. Cfls? No.

justanotherbozo

thanks for the comments man, i've been reading some of your posts and i like what i see, anyway, i do plan to flower before i move but all i'm really looking for is a couple of little fem cuttings to take to my new digs, where ever they turn out to be, then, hopefully, they will become momma's for the next phase of my learning curve, learning to grow hydro reliably and stealthily so i can then start buying quality seeds, although i must say, the thoughts of that kind of exposure is daunting for me, can't afford to have the man knocking

hearmenow

I hear that. No one wants that dreaded knock on the door. Seems like you have a good plan. You are way ahead of the curve compared to where I was when I did my first grow 3 years ago. Hell, I didn't even know how to tell the difference between a male plant and female plant. Also had no clue about 18-6 vs 12-12. My first grow was a disaster. Zero fems and zero smokable bud. If I say so myself, I've come a long way since then. Now I have a clue.

justanotherbozo

lol, this is my second attempt, 1st hydro, i actually got inspired by a buddy who threw some bagseeds in a pot in his back yard not last summer but the one before. anyway, watching his progress, or lack of it, decided me, i just knew i could do better than he did, for example, early on he decided to pull all the little seedlings and just keep the vigorous looking ones, lol, killed the girls and kept the boys, dumbass.
i say 'dumbass' cause he has a pc with a dsl connection, he coulda done some effing reading for crying out loud !