# "The Runt"



## cyberquest (Dec 30, 2006)

this is runt, she started life with four little sisters, runt was a ugly duckling that got ignored cause she was a slow starter. her four sisters got watered often, too often, with a fatal mixture of some fine dime store MG's finest did that make me pay more attention to runt, nope, i was mad i burnt the good ones, so she felt the pain too. two months old and a wopping two inches in height, starving for light in my bedroom window with mid 50's temps.
its first introdution to light was a donor light from a freinds recently de-ceased eguna (spelling?) and  2' flouro tube and a 250w incandesent HEAT lamp placed in the living room closet and the flouro about 1ft away, and the heat lamp 7ft away from her top branch. two days in and she reached for the sky! two full vertical inches in two days, WOW, shes got life in her. the research began and i found this wonderful place, a little reading on CFL's and up to the upstairs closet she went. 

here are the first recorded pics of runt taken from my dads gift, a new digital


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## cyberquest (Dec 30, 2006)

1 day under CFL's


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## cyberquest (Dec 30, 2006)

day 3 under CFL, GO RUNT!


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## cyberquest (Dec 30, 2006)

under great guidence from members of this site we decided that runt had earned our respects, so it was time to show her some. LETS ROCK!

first she needs a new home, second she needs some real LIGHT!


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## cyberquest (Dec 30, 2006)

now this is a light worthy of sheding light on my little buddie "runt". 

light is awsome, plugs right into the power strip, no electrician needed, just common sense


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## cyberquest (Dec 30, 2006)

here she is after ONLY 1 DAY in the new 400w HPS closet, THIS LIGHT ROCKS!!


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## cyberquest (Dec 30, 2006)

a new addition is a rescued plant from my sisters house, she was in need of some TLC, so lets let runt give her some inspiration. and we got two seedlings going that will grow strong in "runts" house.


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## cyberquest (Dec 30, 2006)

calling "runt" a she is a little premature since her sex has yet to be determened, but its all about positive carma. 

we havent got a name for the new one yet, one good joint and it will come to me....lol. 

what do you guys think? these are all bagseed plants, we got a crap load of them so we will test our wings with the ones we have before destroying some purple sticky punch


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## kbkiller9 (Dec 30, 2006)

It looks to me mayn that you might be over watering your plant. It seems really droopy in every picture. Im not 100% sure on that but it looks like that to me. Nice setup though. Good luck with the grow!


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## cyberquest (Dec 31, 2006)

GO RUNT. look what runt looked like this morning, looks like her soil is finally drying out a little and shes starting to stand back up, she such a fighter!

i finally got some good distilled water for her and going to start with a small dose of nutes cause once she gets back to full health we will flower her cause i am dying to know if shes a girl.

i think i will give her just a day or so more to finish drying her soil then give her a nice fresh drink of some good water.


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## cyberquest (Dec 31, 2006)

also a quick check to the seeds that were placed in tupperware soaked in papertowels, and placed on the computer monitor (nice and warm up there) we have 4 new sprouts, these were soiled and placed in the grow room asap. welcome to the club ladies!
also you can see our FINE selection of bagseed "***" mix we have collected over the past year or so, we will find the femes hiding in this bunch before ordering some good ones.


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## longtimeuser (Dec 31, 2006)

what up cybernut,had to sign up


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## longtimeuser (Dec 31, 2006)

getin any more sprouts


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## cyberquest (Jan 1, 2007)

we have a total of 8 new sprouts, all badseeds, all just a wet paper towel in a tupperware bowl placed on a monitor to germinate. i added about 20 seeds in the germination bowl today, since we have a much stronger flowering light we might try to veg them till first alt. nodes  and send them straight to flower.

we tried some differen methods after the germination of the seeds. we had four go into SOIL, three went into (american seed) peet pellets, and one went into a JIFFY-7 peet pellet. i heard they are slow at starting seedlings but they were $2 at wally world so i got them to put them up against the soil and off brand ones i found. 

so far the soil took first (at breaking thru the soil) followed by the american seed peet pellets, the JIFFY-7 one has still to show it head. the soil one had poked thru this morning when i got up, the peet pellet was noticed when "runt" was moved to the cfl room for some modifications to the HPS room.

and we transplanted "runt" to a little larger pot today, its only a 3 1/2 gallon pot but i liked it better then the 5 gallon ones we have, soon as she adjusts to her new home and perks back up we are gonna flower her.


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## cyberquest (Jan 1, 2007)

this was the improvement made to the closet tonight, we added a shelf. you can see in the previous pics its been sitting on top of a clothes basket   so i got two 4 foot shelf strips ($1.59) and some hooks to go in them to hold the shelf ($1.25) and one peice of 4x2 pre cut 1/4 plywood ($5.99) 
i hade to remove just a hair off it to account for the door frame and it fit like a glove, fresh coat of white and we now have a fully adjustable shelf. it can be lowered all the way down to the floor to allow for plant growth. 

next is a $12 bathroom fan, a quick inspection discovered that in a craw space just about the closet is a fresh air vent that lets air into the craw space  it couldnt be any better, the bathroom fan we are looking at will install in the ceiling and vent right out side with an existing vent unknoticed! and we might use this same area to pump in some nice fresh air too. 

heat temps with the door shut in the closet are about 91 degrees, a little warm, with the door just cracked open to let in a small amount of air it stays about 80 degrees. so a small exhaust fan up top to let out heat, and maybe just a fresh air vent in the door will make it perfect temps. 

here are a couple shots of the shelf, and the little plant from my sisters thats doing very well so far. i think we are gonna call her "april" after my sister.


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## THE BROTHER'S GRUNT (Jan 2, 2007)

*Everything is looking great but ya gotta get those temps down for sure. 91 degrees is way to hot for your babies. Need to get those temps down under 85 degrees.  *


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## cyberquest (Jan 2, 2007)

thanks TBG, good too see a more experienced grower chime in and tell me i am not screwing things up too bad  yes ventilation is my last step in completing the project, a 4" inline fan was ordered at the same time as my light, i didnt knotice it but the seller had 9 bad ratings for taking for ever to ship bought items great for me, got this hot *** light, and no fan to cool it off. 

i have been just keeping the door cracked to let in air and it stays usually around 80 in there, and with the vicks vapor machine humidity is about 40% normally. 

this morning when i got up at 7:30 temps were a blistering 100 degrees   cause at night time i shut the door completly so its night time isnt disturbed. but at 7am the lights kick back on so it got a half hour of light time with the door shut and no ventilation. 

since we rent, we cant just cut a whole in the door, we are gonna have to make a small hole in the ceiling for the exhaust fan to exit but i would rather it be a hole on the inside of a closet then the door itself, would be less noticable. so a trip to LOWES is in order to get the fan so that we dont have temp spike up like that on me again. 

on a GOOD note, "runt" looks to have taken to the transplant well cause even with temps at 100 degrees this morning she was perked up and soaking up her daily rays.


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## Mutt (Jan 2, 2007)

I would remove the vicks vaporizer. It produces heat abd steam..until you get the fan. That should help too. Also I get "cautious" about intoducing water vapor into a grow room. I'm paranoid of mold. In the winter the R/H goes down, but I've grown very successfully at even rates of 15-20%


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## cyberquest (Jan 2, 2007)

UPDATE: on the newbie seed sprouting tests. as you can see in the pic below we have 5 new spouts that have popped up for some rays. we used three different methods to see which would work best. so far here is the count.

Regular MG seed starting soil = 3 sprouts ( out of 4) 
American Seed peet pellets = 2 sprouts ( out of 3 ) 
JIFFY-7 peet pellets = 0 (out of 1)

so 5 of 8 have come thru the soil and 3 have yet to come up, this is only after two days underground, and they all germinated in two days as well so this is 4 days from seed to soil, to sprout. not bad!, for some bagseeds. 

QUESTION: how long should i let them stay in the tupperware container once they break thru the soil??? should they be put under just the CFL's out of the box or leave them in there for a while until they root real good and get a couple inches of growth on them???


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## cyberquest (Jan 2, 2007)

Mutt said:
			
		

> I would remove the vicks vaporizer. It produces heat abd steam..until you get the fan. That should help too. Also I get "cautious" about intoducing water vapor into a grow room. I'm paranoid of mold. In the winter the R/H goes down, but I've grown very successfully at even rates of 15-20%



thanks for the advice mutt, i just thought it was a little dry in there so i added that, humidy was in the 20% range and i thought i read that its borerline dry. it was a little cheaper then a room humidifier and because it only produces a very small amount of vapor i didnt think it would be a probelm. with it in there its never gone higher then 41%, it has a nice feature on the thermo that gives me the HIGHEST and LOWEST recorded temps and humidity of the day. as long as it doesnt get above 50% i wouldnt think i would need to worry about mold, BUT if any signs show of it the vicks vapor is outta there. 

the fan will more then likely get installed today cause we dont want to see ANY more heat spikes like that. once the exhaust fan is installed we will see where we are sitting with the temp, its a fairly small closet and its a 70cfm squirrel fan so it should bring the heat out relativly fast given the small space. if its not enought they are only $12 so we could add a second one if needed.


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## cyberquest (Jan 2, 2007)

keep the advice coming guys i really appriciate the help! 

all constructive critisisms welcomed.


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## cyberquest (Jan 2, 2007)

ok got back from lowes, we got the $12 bathroom exhaust fan, its only 50cfm of air, the 70cfm one was $27, since i already ordered a 80cfm air duct fan from ebay this will do fine for this closet till that one gets here. this one might end up in the veg room but with the cfls temps are about 72 degrees with no air movement, so that room is really fine. 

we measured our cubic feet and we are only at 49cf, and we installed a 50cfm fan in the room. so in thought, that fan will replentish the entire air supply to the room in one minute. for air intake as of now we just drilled two 2 1/2 inch holes at the bottom of the door, they have two PVC drain pipe covers on them and look pretty discrete in the bottom of the door, since we built the shelf in there it blocks most of the light to the bottom of the closet.

these are designed to be installed in the ceiling and have just a square part with vents (not pictured) but it requires you to cut a 1 foot hole in the ceiling. instead we just mounted it to the wall, then used ( dont laugh ) intake tube from a car and ran it thru the ceiling, this way we only had to drill a three inch circle thru the ceiling, since we rent and all. now minus me hitting a ceiling brace on the first shot, and having to drill a second hole all went very easy on install. now on the top of the closet on the craw space the tube is attached to a longer dryer vent style hose that runs it straight OUTSIDE the house thru a 3 inch vent pipe in the roof that was discovered when crawling up there.  

the fan has a regular plug on it so i just plugged and extension cord into it and hooked it to the power strip thats hook in with the lights and timer. couldnt be easier.

check out the readings on the temp and humidity meter now, top temp 78% thats above the shelf where the plants are, 69% is below the shelf where we store the water (its placed up top to warm before a water) and a nice 52% now showing for humidity. these are much nicer numbers for my babied then the blistering 100 degrees they woke up to this morning.


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## cyberquest (Jan 3, 2007)

seedlings are doing great! and getting big fast in the state of the art CFL tupperware grow room 

runt is doing good, still a little droopy, i think some of it was related to her rootbound pot she was in  but shes perks up during the day some, this was taken about 10 minutes before lights off, she was ready for some rest after her day in the sun.


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## night501 (Jan 3, 2007)

maby its just me but she is looking a little droopy did you just water her?


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## cyberquest (Jan 3, 2007)

she was just transplanted day before yesterday, she was rootbound and overwatered a little, i see her making a full recovery with no problems though.


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## KADE (Jan 3, 2007)

yeah, if they are rootbound, sometimes it takes a lil while for them to shift into gear again.


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## cyberquest (Jan 3, 2007)

the pot she was in the roots were down to the bottom and started growing back up almost to the top of the soil again....lol. 

QUESTION: should i wrap something around the new pot since its transparent, i got the pot because i liked that i could see the bottom of the soil to see if it was dry. but also remembered that roots dont like light.


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## Zarnon (Jan 3, 2007)

Hey dude,  whassup!  Nice beginning setup.   I would def chime in with TBG... 91 you can maybe get away with in flowering if you add Co2.  Not for these babies.  

You are on track with the inline fan idea.  Don't go squirrel cage.  Spend a little more money and you will receive benefits with a very efficient and quiet fan.  I like Elicent.  You should have the smallest for your closet. I don't know the stats but they are about 200 cfm.  Don't go smaller or your cooling will not be efficient. These plug right in too,  either directly to the wall or into a control unit (preferred, see below).

A temp control will run you about 80 bucks.  You want the fan to cool the room efficiently but you don't want her running all the time.   Humidity will be an issue once you get sufficient plant mass so you may need either (a) a dehumidifier or (b) get the temp/humidity control from the jump as a single unit and use it with your inline.   I've use both (some function as backups now).   A stable enviro is key bro.


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## cyberquest (Jan 3, 2007)

first off thank you again guys for your useful info, and thanks for good comments on my new grow room. we started with the idea that it needs to be small to hide from leo, we figure NOW if leo is coming hes gonna find it no matter  if its big or small, so might as well get what we can while we can. 

yeah the bathroom squirrel cage is temporary, and NO its no silent fan that for sure. i can hear it in the hall way running
but since its been added the temps are great, stays between 78-80 degrees with 35-40% humidity. so i think any more cfm's on the ehaust fan and it might get too cool in there. but i am more concerned about smell when flower time comes so the more air it takes out the better.

i ordered and PAID for a ebay fan, didnt pay any attention to the sellers feedback and i guess hes got a bad rep for super slow shipping  so the bath fan was installed until it arrives, whenever that may be. 



here are some pics of it.


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## cyberquest (Jan 4, 2007)

the clf room is getting crowded, the little plant(well big one in this room) was moved out of the HPS closet cause i am going to flower runt cause i cant stand it anymore  
we have many others going and had to move some things around, next spurt of money and this room is getting a makeover to get the clf's to not be so all over the place, but a more uniformed setup.
seedlings in the tupperware container have been moved to the top, i am just using the ceiling light that was already in there and put a cfl and a dome around it to put all the light down on the box. keeps it nice and warm and gives nice constant light, you can see we have as much of the top section blocked off cause it will stay on 24/0, but the ones below it are on 18/6 but i think i might give them a couple more hours of light since its a little shy on lumens in their still.


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## cyberquest (Jan 4, 2007)

and here is runt, this is soon as the lights kicked on, she got a 10 hour nap last night and tonight she will get her first 12 hours. going to flower her cause it looks like shes doing good from the transplant and starting to bring her leaves back up.

she is about 12 inches tall now and when her leaves come up she would be a good 12 inches across too. her stalk is looking good and healthy, about the size of a regular style bic pen. 

i think we might have a good sized plant on our hands here, she got a good 6 1/2 feet to grow so we will see what happens, wish her luck on her journey to the dark side:fly: 

01-04-07


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## night501 (Jan 4, 2007)

wow that plant looks like it has the same basic structure as mine.... everyone elses looks more spread out


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## cyberquest (Jan 4, 2007)

when i transplanted her some leaves turned yellow so i trimmed them, maybe 8 leaves in total. 
this is a bag seed plant so i have no idea what strain it is. runt had a horrible first couple months of life so shes just now packing on some growth. she was at least two months old before being intorduced to indoor grow lights, she sat starving for light in my bedroom window. 

she stopped growing so i transplanted her to the larger pot, shes now standing back up from that and we just switched to a 12/12 light schedule so we will see if she can really pack on some mass during flower.


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## cyberquest (Jan 4, 2007)

maybe ours are about the same cause we are in the same area.....hmmm. 

maybe its cause they are both a couple of goverment funded plants....

i wish my fan would get here cause that bath fan is loud, thats how i know everything turns on i can here the fan from the living room.


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## sanchez (Jan 4, 2007)

She's gorgeous dude and I'm totally jealous.  Keep up the good work and she'll be feeding you some frosty treats in no time :ccc:


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## cyberquest (Jan 5, 2007)

thanks snachez, i hope that you have luck finding you some good lighting for your ladies.


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## THE BROTHER'S GRUNT (Jan 5, 2007)

*Good luck on flowering my friend. Hope you get yourself a nice female lady friend.  *


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## cyberquest (Jan 5, 2007)

thanks TBG, i think the hardest part is gonna be not being able to peek at her for 12 hours a day, i get pretty bored.... and ive seen so many of your awsome buds you guys pump out so its true inspiration to keep trying and not give up on it. 

i think a couple of good old fashion trial and errors and i should be able to do alright and keeping enough for us around to have some nice personal smoke. 

i am pretty sure shes gonna be female, shes had a rough life so only time will tell. this willl only be day one of full 12 on 12 off so in a few days we should know for sure.


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## cyberquest (Jan 5, 2007)

well the lights just kicked on so went in to take a peek at her, i think her water logged leaves are looking MUCH better, shes got her leaves up now catch those rays of light

come on be a girl, be a girl, be a girl.....pleeeeease, you are looking so tasty, and smell soooo good.

01-05-07


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## pussum (Jan 5, 2007)

*GO GO GO GO* *Crowd Cheers*


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## cyberquest (Jan 7, 2007)

alrigh now this is what i am talking about, when i open the door this morning when the lights kicked on i was like  we are seeing growth again in here since the transplant, we got a good two inches in the past two days and she looks much bushier. 

also chack out the growth on the little plant i saved from my sisters, she has grown a ton. for 12 hours she sits with "runt" in the 400w hps room, then right before lights out she goes back up to the CFL room for 8 more hours of lights under CFL, so she gets good doses of both cfl light, and hps light.

also been giving them water with the fish ferts and seems to be doing good.
GROW BABY GROW!

01-07-07


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## cyberquest (Jan 7, 2007)

its very interesting too in the growth difference between the two plants, the little one got introduced to good lighting much earlier in its life. it has much more growth on the bottom part of the plant and i look for it to be larger then the big one before too long cause she is only a few inched behind right now, they are about 4 weeks difference in age. she will for sure be more bushy. man i cant wait!


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## cyberquest (Jan 8, 2007)

now this is what i am talking about, much more light reflecting to the bottom of the plant now 
this stuff rocks, cant wait to do the veg room

and my how they grow during flower stage, she has gained three inches in two days, GO RUNT!!!!  

and i am pretty sure we have signs of some female preflowers, but since i dont have a magnifer i cant tell just yet, but they sure look like hairs to me, couple more days and i will get some close ups of her!

i also took a small peice of mylar and placed it around the bottom of the plant to reflect light up into the lower branches.


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## cyberquest (Jan 8, 2007)

couple of shots from the bottom of the plant, that mylar on the bottom sure puts more light under the leaves.


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## BSki8950 (Jan 8, 2007)

hey cyber i was just wondering where u picked up such nice HPS light .. i need ones that plugs into the socket like that .. and how much was it ??? nice plants by the way .


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## cyberquest (Jan 8, 2007)

i got it from HTG supply.


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## cyberquest (Jan 11, 2007)

well it appears that runt is gonna be DUDE! stupid plant. 

oh well the seedling are doing pretty good. i been taking them out of the CFL room and down to the HPS room during the day to get some good rays. 

its interesting to see the growth difference between the two rooms, you can actually see the difference in the leaves growth.


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## cyberquest (Jan 11, 2007)

i can try to get some close ups of the leaves if you guys want to see the growth difference on them .  
its kinda neat. 

i will get some pics of runt when the lights kick back on, i finally got some batteries for the camera.


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## cyberquest (Jan 11, 2007)

ok here ae some pics after the lights came on. 

and just an update, the larger plant is a MALE  

the other one is the small  one i saved from my sisters house, it got left in the flower room by accident the other night, i bring it down and let it sit in there for the 12 on cycle. but since runt turned male i said screw it and have been letting it flower too, might have been a tad early for it but i wanna see a female darn it. the seedlings are doing good so we will look for more yeild out of those, this one we just wanna see a female.


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## THE BROTHER'S GRUNT (Jan 11, 2007)

*Everything is looking great Cyberquest. I see you also like taking pics. Once again mang everything is looking great keep it up.  *


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## cyberquest (Jan 11, 2007)

yeah TBG i am big on pic taken, it stems from my car site i am a member of. we do repair manuals with step by step pictures of everything we do so on average i post any where from 100-300 pics a week  
so look foward to being here every step of the way on my grows. 

and thanks for the encouragement man, now can you wave you magic wand and turn that male into a female for me


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## night501 (Jan 11, 2007)

i hear ya on the pics. i find it easier to examine my plant from pics. everything is so much bigger.
then i figure "hell instead of just formating the disk why not just post the best ones for all of my friends at MP to see."


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## cyberquest (Jan 12, 2007)

here is a shot of the roots on runt, i got the see-thru bucket to help me with my overwaterin problem, i keep a towel wrapped around it so light doesnt get to them. and its kind of neat to watch the roots grow too, now i can see not only whats above ground but underground too. and it has helped me a lot in trying different technics of knowing when they need water. 
i have been trying to do it by weight, and by sticking my finger in the soil, i still havent mastered either, but all i have to do is pull back the towel and i know for sure


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## cyberquest (Jan 12, 2007)

man these new seedlings are doing sooo good. nice tight nodes! looking at these and looking at the one in thats been growing in the HPS room sure are different, the one in the hps room the nodes are way far apart. i think it is some proof of the things i covered in my "cfl lighting 101" topic where i talk about HPS loosing it bang at any distance away from the plants. those cfl being able to be so close is keeping the Light Intensity good so there is NO stretching in them, well maybe just a hair when they first started, but since moved up to the light you can see how compact they are gonna be !

also i have them in clearish containers too, they are paint buckets  $1.35 a peice. this way at first sign of roots against the sides of the container i can get them transplanted into bigger pots and its about that time. now i just need to pull some money out of my butt to go buy them.


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## longtimeuser (Jan 12, 2007)

time for more pots!


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## longtimeuser (Jan 12, 2007)

how much are those we saw at Low's


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## cyberquest (Jan 12, 2007)

i think like $3 or so a peice. but remember i used the last of my soil, so i need more of that too, so its gonna be at least a $50 shop, i got money in the bank but you know the $$ situation around here.


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## longtimeuser (Jan 12, 2007)

right, mabe some will fall off the back of a truck


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## longtimeuser (Jan 12, 2007)

you know ....we should start mixin are own topsoil.....


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## cyberquest (Jan 12, 2007)

yeah i know i think we might so that route this time, and send me PMS so you dont make my tread ten miles long.


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## longtimeuser (Jan 12, 2007)

most of it would be free,if you know the rite plase to start shoveling


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## cyberquest (Jan 13, 2007)

well since we noticed that the seedlings are already outgrowing there pots we took a trip to wally world and lowes today for more supplies.  

you can tell spring is near cause lowes garden center has double what it had two weeks ago, this makes me very happy , they have TONS of stuff out now. 

new soil was one of them , its 50% organic compost,35% peat humus,15% sand,perlite and other. this is much better then the MG soil i was using, and MUCH cheaper too, it was only $2.97 for a 40lb bag, i want ahead and got 4 of them, so we have 160lbs of soil now, this should get use threw this grow 

also the only other perlite they had was MG, the nute count is .04-.01-.06, thats not to bad and its a smaller bag and i am gonna mix one small bag of this with two of the large 40lb soil bags.  

the new pots came from wal-mart, only $2.97 a peice, only got ten and need 14 but we were running low on money 

and i picked up some strawberrys (yummy) and some tomotos (yuck) but dad likes tomotos so i figure since i have this nice greenhouse thing going i would grow him some, and my son loves strawberrys so those are for him.


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## cyberquest (Jan 13, 2007)

well with the new larger buckets i ran out of room fast. but those buckets were the PERFECT size! i can only fit 6 at a time in there but they are end to end , and wall to wall, but just enough room for six exactly, any bigger and they wouldnt have fit. 

so i went out into the garage and took down a shop light to use for the ones that dont fit in there now. threw a peice of mylar over them to keep the light in.  

also i know that new soil is gonna need a ton more stuff mixed into it to get it right, its like mud when you add water


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## cyberquest (Jan 18, 2007)

well here are the seedlings, they are doing great!  1-18-07 16 days of veg under CFL's 
 this one is the best looking one, nice thick stalk, and a little larger then the rest.  

now here is some interesting compairison. these ones have been outside the cfl closet under two four foot flouro tubes. closet plants are under a 18/6 light schedule, these have been under a constant 24/0 light schedule, notice how much SMALLER they are. i dont know if its the flouro tubes, or the hours of light, but they are much farther behind the ones under the CFL's


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## BSki8950 (Jan 18, 2007)

hey that makes me feel good about my next cfl grow .. real good ...


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