As promised, here are the pics of my first indoor grow. I am almost 6 weeks from germination and the plants are doing better than I had dared hope. In fact, they're doing a little too good and I have run out of space until the males show their sex.

I started with a cabinet 30x18x60 (next grow I will attach two of these together and make something with a bit more room.) I lined the inside with aluminum sheeting and hung two 100 watt lights (1MH and 1HPS) from the shelf, which can be raised and lowered on pegs spaced every 10 inches. I also have about 200 watts of various color temp CFL's which I removed to take the pics. The cabinet is open for most of the day, I only lock it up when I have visitors or when I get really paranoid.

Some of the hardware:




In case anyone wants to know exactly what's in the liquid earth stuff, here's their Nute Calculator


I have 4 of these to supplement:

Here's the cab empty:



And (way too) full:





I germinated 10 seeds of unknown genetics, saved up over the last year or so from the best smoke I could find. I chose the healthiest looking 6 to plant, planning to wean the group down to 2 plants after sexing. They are on day 4 of 12/12 right now and I am very anxious to thin this jungle out before any type of mold can get established. Right now I am blowing major air at them to keep them from sweating.


Here's a plant I germed at the same time, under the same lights, in soil. I'm obviously not very skilled with dirt:


The leaves are looking super-healthy right down to the tips, something I am unfamiliar with as an outdoor guerilla grower. The first alternating nodes began about a week ago and the topmost fan leaves have up to 15 blades.




Ridiculous Canopy:





A poor attempt at showing how broad the leaves are for 8 - 12 inch plants:



I have the plants over 10 gallons of very bubbly water as well as a drip feed on a timer. I am sure this will be enough for 2 decent sized plants, but the other 4 have got to go soon. The preflowers have begun forming and I should be able to make absolutely sure in a few days. So far it appears I have 3 males and 3 females, so I may have to chop one of the ladies or pot her up for mom to put in the window with her houseplants (merry christmas mom!). One of the ladies is definitely indica dominant, the leaves are twice as wide and it is half as tall as the others, and it smells fantastic already! I swear it's just that one lil plant smelling up the whole house.

It is unseasonably warm right now, something I hadn't foreseen when building the ventilation system; so the plants are a little droopy, I hope to address that soon if mother nature doesn't. Any questions or suggestions are welcome. Please be kind this is my first stab at indoor growing. More pics to come after sexing, (hopefully) in a day or two.

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Burning down the house since 1981.

My First Indoor Grow!

Hey Plus, looking real healthy. how much light ( watts ) are those kids getting?
Peace

Hey thanks Zigzag, they're my pride and joy.

I'm running 1-100W Metal Halide, 1-70W High Pressure Sodium, Fluoros: 2-42w warm white, 3-23w full spectrum (from petsmart), 12-13w cool white (fiet electric $6 a 12-pack at the depot. (Obviously I've been doing a little experimenting with color temps)

I find that the 42w and the 23w full-spec CFL's are a little too hot to put as close to the plants as you need in order to get good penetration. I prefer to have 4 times as many of the 13w, you can put them right up against the leaves without burning them, allowing you to get that light as close to the shadowed areas as possible.

So I'm around 400w total, a little over 100 watts per square foot, as the plants get taller I'll use the CFL's for side/under-canopy lighting.

__________________
Burning down the house since 1981.

My First Indoor Grow!

That's enough to give those kids all the sunburn they can stand...

Yeah I tend to get uh...enthusiastic about things.

Good morning houseplants!

__________________
Burning down the house since 1981.

My First Indoor Grow!

Awesome! Very very nice work! I am highly impressed!

You say it is getting hot in there. Tell me what your temps are and what you use for ventalation. You should have an exhaust fan at the top to deal with the heat, for instance a 4 inch vortex. Low in the grow, near the bottom, you need for 4 in heat exhaust double that measure in cold air passive intake. So that would be 8 in., 2 four inch holes will work. With a light blocker something, which you can find on the site. With your knowledge you probably know all this, but I am just adding this to help.

I will come back to see what you write.
Peace

__________________
Life,
j-angel

aka GP purrie kittie attack cat!


My Little Grow LST'ing w/Hardware

My Outdoor Odyssey 2008 BONSAI MUMS

My Little Grow Indoor To Outdoor 2009

Well thank you Jangel, I'm running about 80 degrees, with 85 as the max. I don't really have a dedicated intake because the cabinet is usually open like this, leaving alot of room for fresh air to come in.






My only active intake just blows fresh air on the lights to keep them cool. My active exhaust is two PC fans at the top of the cab, drawing air in through the front and pushing it out the back. The cab is in my spare room, which I had planned on keeping the windows open to keep it cool. The temps here during winter are usually at about 40 degrees max during afternoon, usually much lower. But this year the temps outside have been 40-60 all winter, barely dipping below 40 even at night, which kind of threw a wrench in my works. I'm going to go out today and buy a window fan which should hopefully provide enough cool air to the room to keep the whole thing 75-80 degrees inside. The plants are doing fantastically even at these temps, but I plan on tweaking things until I've eventually got them just right. Hopefully when the males come out that will increase air flow as well.

edit: Hmm maybe a window fan is a bit obvious. More insight needed.

edit #2: I think the light shelf is screwing up my airflow, dividing the plants and lights from the exhaust which is above the shelf at its current height. I'm going to make an exhaust below that level, which should help..

__________________
Burning down the house since 1981.

My First Indoor Grow!

Here are two articles about ventalation from the Overgrow FAQ.

You will need to perfect this before you put your girls to flower as then you will have to have those doors closed at plant night. Also, if say you have guests for a few hours, how will your plants do with those doors closed? They will cook. The better you have this set up now, the better it will be for the girls in the long run. Please read anything you can find on ventaltion as this is one of the most frequant causes of distressed plants, overheating.

Ventalation

How much Ventalation?

Grow temps for pot should be 78F llights out can be 10 degrees less aprox. My lights out temps as I am growing in a cold room go down to the 50's but this is not ideal. This is not written in stone.

__________________
Life,
j-angel

aka GP purrie kittie attack cat!


My Little Grow LST'ing w/Hardware

My Outdoor Odyssey 2008 BONSAI MUMS

My Little Grow Indoor To Outdoor 2009