7thG's Northern Lights Micro Cabinet Grow!

[WeedHopper]

Green Mojo Bro.

 

[7thG]

My plants are really getting big! They are growing faster everyday and looking really healthy.
I did a little shopping today. I need more light in there and I want to resolve the small knat problem. I went there looking for Azamax but even the small bottle was 75$. He suggested that I get Azatrol. He said it was basically the same thing. I also got some CFL's to add.

Once I get everything set up I will post another update.

 

[lovbnstoned]

lookin awesome

 

[7thG]

Figured I would take a second to talk about CFL's.
The CFL's I have been using are Growbright 25 watt 6400k's that I bought online. I didn't truly appreciate them until I bought some different brand ones yesterday at my local Hydro shop.
I didn't think I would make it this far with just 2 CFL's (now 3) but my plants seemed very happy under them. I have 3 in there now and might add one more but that's it until late in flowering. I love CFL's because they are cheap and you can position them to really get the light to your plants. Each of the lights are 1800 lumens which doesn't seem like much at all to me but 2 of them have worked very well.
I purchased 3 more CFL's from the Hydro shop just in case. 2 32 watt and 1 26 watt. The brand name is Agrosun. The first one I plugged in started sparking and I guess blew up. The other 2 worked just fine in the same lamp. The Agrosun 26 watt which is 1 watt more than the Growbright has only 1600 lumens. That's down 200 from the Growbright. The Agrosun 32 watt is 1800 lumens. Visually the Growbright looks brighter and it looks better made.
I would suggest anyone with a smaller grow look into CFL's and if you decide to go with them definitely get the Growbrights.

 

[sunakard2000]

$75 for a 4oz bottle of Azamax?!?!?! where the heck are you going for your grow gear? thats absoutly retarted to the max, i pray thats not $75 for a 4oz bottle.... otherwise id suggest finding a different store as they are jacking prices like theres no tomorrow, i paid $27 for a 4oz bottle of Azamax, was enough for a medium strength soil drench and a foliar spray on 10 plants, 6 of which were in 6gal buckets, rest were in 2.5gal pots. used about 3oz all together...

by the way the ingrediants of the stuff you got are the same as azamax, pretty sure the same %s too, so it should work just fine.

 

[7thG]

I'm thinking about setting up my other cabinet so each plant has it's own. Both plants are moving along nicely. The third light is making a big difference. I think I stretched those 2 CFL's as far as I could. The bigger plant in the back has two main sections and now each section has it's own CFL. My plant in the front gets the leftovers so I'm trying to get the most out of it's dedicated CFL(I actually have a 4th cfl pointed at it temporarily). Although I'm impressed with the shape and characteristics of the front plant the one in the back is really vigorous and has huge stems and leaves. I watered them today with Poland Springs and I'll probably feed them in a week or so. Even though I feel like maybe I should be thinking about 12/12 I can't switch them until after I move Dec.6 or later. I really want to let them grow out some more though. I'm still ignoring PH with good results. The guy at the Hydro shop said I could topdress my soil with Lime so I might do that. I am also contemplating buying a small tent and really bushing these ladies out. I found a 600 watt digital growlight on Craigslist for 80$ which would be perfect for that. Anyway thanks for stopping by and I will be posting maybe a couple more pics in the next day or two and then I'll probably save my next update for after I make some mods.:icon_smile:

 

[trillions of atoms]

Make sure you use powdered dolomite lime.... top dress and water in 1/2 cup /gallon of medium.

 

[7thG]

Oh ok thanks Sunakard! I might be wrong on the price I know they do jack the prices up a little but not that much. They are really helpful though so I still buy some small things from them here or there. Yeah the guy told me it was basically the same thing I have just been a little concerned by all the warning labels. My plants are in my bedroom so IDK if I should be spraying insecticides but maybe I'm putting too much thought into it.

 

[7thG]

Ok TOA sounds good. I should have got it when I was there but I didn't see any small bags. I just want to make sure its in there and working by the time I flower.

 

[trillions of atoms]

Yea usually its in a 40 lb sack....its only a couple bux tho

 

[7thG]

Temps getting a little high.
I can turn on the ac but 85 seems ok for now.

 

[sunakard2000]

haha yeah dont worry so much, the active ingredient is the same and i believe at the same percentage as well. if your really worried about it, wear some gloves and stay outta your room for like an hour or 2 after your application assuming you do a foliar spray, if not and you only do a soil drench then your absoutly fine. the active ingredient simply disrupts insects life cycles, makes them unable to molt (shed skin and get larger) and also inhibits their urge to eat and reproduce, with the Azamax the very next day i say NOTHING living in the soil or on the plant leaves. that stuff really works... give it a try, if the directions are anything like azamax there should be like 3 strengths you can mix up depending on the infestation you have and the population of the infestation, id go with the middle strength... well either way like i said in your other thread i still recommend reading online the Azamax label/instructions and do a quick compairison they should be pretty darn close in use. just dont spill the concentrate on your skin or drink the stuff and youll be just fine, after the application just avoid that room for an hour or 2 and alls good.

 

[lovbnstoned]

i thought that CFL's would b good for Grow, but would it also b good for Flower,, cause i thought HPS is the best for Flowering

 

[sunakard2000]

T5s are prefered for Veg and HPS are prefered for flower, how ever CFLs can grow from start to finish, as long as you have the correct spectrum of light for each phase (veg and flower) then CFLs can finish a plant, if yah ask me though they use more energy, put out more heat and the light energy emited is far lower then a T5 bulb or even an HPS, but they still work.

 

[WeedHopper]

i thought that CFL's would b good for Grow, but would it also b good for Flower,, cause i thought HPS is the best for Flowering

You would need a bunch of CFLs to Flower Properly and the heat would kick your butt. Plus you need them real close to the canopy and would need to move them almost everyday not to burn your plants leaves and buds. Get them to far away and you wont have buds for ****. I know cause my dumb *** tried,,,right before I found MP. And they saved me from wasting time and good money. I bought me a 4ft 8tube HOT5 setup for vegging and even flowered with it. But I will never Flower again with anything but HPS. Buds were OK,,but why settle for OK when its cheaper to get good BUD. HOT5 for vegging and HPS for Flower. You need a Min of 3000 Lumens PSF for vegg and 5000 Lumens PSF for Flower,,and the more the better.

 

[7thG]

i thought that CFL's would b good for Grow, but would it also b good for Flower,, cause i thought HPS is the best for Flowering

I think for small grows of just one or two plants CFL's might be one of your best options(for veg). If you have several plants it becomes kind of unrealistic. In that case MH or T5's are the best(for veg). For the record I never recommended using CFL's for flowering. And I have no plans on doing it. CFL's are awesome in the right situation but T5's, MH, and HPS are the industry standards, for a reason. Most growers on here agree T5 is best for veg HPS is the only option for flowering. If you used CFL's to flower you would have to add so many to get to your target lumens you would probably end up with more heat and power consumption than if you simply went with HID's. Plus everytime somebody flowers with CFL's no matter how many they use always end up with airy buds. Nobody wants that.
You are correct HPS is best for flowering.

 

[7thG]

I had a really clumsy day and while trying to train some branches toward the light I managed to snap off two of my best sections of fanleaves, off the same plant(front). It wasn't a major loss. It wasn't a branch but still hurts. Especially because that plant is still bouncing back from some serious trimming.
Had my plants out today for a visual inspection. They are both still recovering from the topping they received about a week ago. Especially my shorter plant. The taller plant I probably won't TOP or FIMM again for a week or two. When I had it out today I noticed the one stem in the pic was larger which reminded me that I did a little HST(or whatever its called) on it and totally forgot. So, I did it to the other side. Hopefully it will help it bush out a little more and also make the stem which will eventually feed one of the two main colas larger. Overall both plants look healthy. The smaller one is in the recovery process so it doesn't look great but I expect it to look really good in about a week. The spots on the plants are from my plants growing into my lights. There are no signs of deficiencies and no signs of any pests. However, I am still going to apply the Azatrol I purchased within the next couple of weeks. Can't wait to hit them with some GrowBig in a couple days.

:icon_smile:


:48:

 

[7thG]

The other day while I was working on my plants I decided I would go easy on the nutes until my plants absorbed the nutrients in the soil. Well, it didn't take long. One thing I have noticed with these Northern Lights plants from the very beginning is they handle nutrients very well. The last time I watered them it was with bottled water, no nutes. The last time they were fed was the watering before that so maybe 2 weeks max. I just checked on my plants preparing to add the Azatrol and was surprised to notice that there was significant yellowing on the lower leaves. So I postponed the Azatrol and gave them each a bottle of my nutes (5tblsp Big Bloom, 3tblsp Grow Big/gal). After they finish the current gallon of nutes I have mixed up I think its time to hit them with a serious mix. My Fox Farm feeding schedule says I should start adding Tiger Bloom and Open Sesame but I might hold off on that because the schedule assumes I will start flowering after 4 weeks. I might add a little tho. I check my plants daily so the yellowing must of happened pretty suddenly. I was trying to let my plants completely dry out before I watered them which I normally don't do so maybe that had something to do with it.
I took a couple pics which I will post shortly. Ill take more if I see any noticeable response to the feeding.

 

[7thG]

One thing I have learned during this grow is how important container size is to your plants. I've seen some pretty big plants in Solo cups and even though I knew it was important to prevent your plants from becoming rootbound I still didn't believe container size was all that important. I was wrong. Thanks to all the people that chimed in and really pushed for me to repot them! This entire grow the single most effective "mod" I made was to put them in the 1 gallon pots! They immediately exploded in size and growth rate! I might stick with the 1 gallon pots for the remainder of the grow but I would really like to go bigger. If I move to a new space or open up the second cabinet I'm definitely gonna upgrade, maybe to 5 gallons! Assuming I stay in the cabinets I would really need a short pot. I cannot upgrade vertically. So far I haven't found anything and I may have to customize a pot. Anything 12" or taller is too tall for me. If anyone knows of anything please let me know.

 

[sunakard2000]

i got nothing on the pot size, but with most plants a safe rule of thumb is that the canopy without training will only be slightly larger then your root mass, just like trees out in your yard, if the canopy is 20ft out from the trunk its safe to say that the roots are close to 20ft out from the trunk as well, so yes larger "leg room" gives you a larger canopy, with the autos that im running now the leaves that are sticking out the furthest are only sticking out a few inches from the outer edge of the buckets they are in, good think to keep in mind. other then that everythings lookin good,

only thing i can think of that might help with more root room in such a small area like your cabinet, would be a square pot that fits the cabinet almost perfectly with a divider in the middle giving you half the grow area per plant assuming you stick with a max of 2 in that space. otherwise youll have some dead space like you do now since round pots of proper size gotta be staggered in opposing corners like you have now. most likely it would have to be a custom square box with divider unless you can find something in a store that nearly fits perfectly, remember more root space = larger plants, this could be bad for you since your space is so small and it could be a blessing if you do some serious bondage or a scrog to make things easier.

just a few thoughts that may help