A little advice needed.

[buds73]

Hi all, i have recently started a grow in a cupboard in a bedroom but rushed into it without thinking. The decision to start a grow was made after i had some news about a family member and was probably more emotional than intelligent.

I have been a cannabis consumer for around 30 yrs so i have heard and read about various oils and in particular Rick Simpson oil which is my main goal and also to provide a smoke for myself and wife lol. Im not in a great financial position so i bought a budget led light from amazon. The light i bought was a Koscheal 1200w light. i went for Leds as the space i have to grow is small at just under 3ft x 3ft x 4ft 10 inches high and was concerned about temps using other type lights.
I bought RQS Fat banana seeds which came with 1 silver leaf white widow and 1 silver leaf Critical Crack og as freebies, all feminised. i germinated 2 fat banana seeds and and the 2 freebies all cracked within 48hrs and were put straight into pots with a multipurpose compost (its a budget grow lol) and put under the lights 9 days ago. for the first few days i had no hygrometer but bought one when i felt that my temps were too high and the light was giving off more heat than i expected despite the 3 fans built into the top. When i put the hygrometer in the cupboard the temps were at 38 degrees and humidity was at 48%. The weather has got a little cooler since and temps have dropped a bit but are still hitting 33.5 degrees. I know i,ve made mistakes as i didn't think about any venting or airflow in and out of the cupboard and whilst its not an airtight cupboard it is closed off and i am unable to make any adjustments to the cupboard such as putting holes in the door for example. Humidity varies between 45% and 65% but did get as high as 71% this afternoon when the lights were off. Originally i only planned to grow through the veg stage in the cupboard and get a grow tent to put in the attic for the flowering stage. Its seems i'm going to have to get a tent sooner but i'm unable to do so for about a week or so. My questions are these

How can i better control my temps and humidity in a closed space such as mine until i am able to get a tent?
Will those temps do any damage?
Do you think my seedlings are at the stage they should be at for the time they've been growing?

My seedlings seem to be doing ok and look healthy enough although i do think the first few days under light growth was slow but seems to have picked up last couple days with the slightly cooler temps. i have attached some pics below.

[Poppa]

Keep cupboard open with fan blowing cool air in you don't need cupboard to ever be closed in veg. Only time to worry about it being closed is in flowerings 12 hours of darkness.

[Tersky]

First, your led's are not 1200w but 215w as mentioned on amazon. Led sellers always say it is equivalent but it never is. You cant get more wattage out of nothing.

Second, led's need lots of space, like a foot and a half to almost 3 ft (depending on leds) so a 4 ft space, while possible, is very difficult for a new grower as heavy pruning and training is required to keep plants from growing into lights. So taking into consideration the pot which is usually a foot or so tall and the distance needed from canopy you only have a foot or two to grow the plant which, like i said is possible, but requires experience and is not a novice friendly grow space.

Third, your soil looks like it has very poor drainage and airflow. Is there any perlite in there? Cannabis plants like lots of airflow to the roots. Also seedlings like low nutes so hopefully your soil is not too hot or it will kill the seedling.

Lastly, ventilation is SUUUUPER important. Your temps are too high and will stunt your plant. Definitely not suitable for flower. I try to keep my tent under 85 F (30C) in veg and under 80 F (26C) in flower though i aim for 75 F (23 C) in flower. Having too hot temps in flower will hinder bud production and you may find your bud airy cause it couldnt take the heat or it may hermie from heat stress.

Growing cannabis the right way is not as easy as many think. I would do your research next time before committing to something. The main GWE site is where i learned how to grow and there are lots of tutorials that address the issues you are having. https://www.growweedeasy.com/basics

[homegrown]

i cant hit the like button twice..so..yes, what Tersky said.

[Gjourney101]

My tent is a little smaller than your size and O had no problem with size until flower. She went from 1 foot to almost 3 foot.

[buds73]

Hi all, thanks for your replies.
I am unable to to open the door when the light is on as its facing the window however I do open the door for about an hr prior to turning the lights on and also I'll turn the light off for half hr every 6hrs while it is light outside and open the door to allow some exchange of air and I leave door open for a little while once I turn lights off.

My apologies it was the 2000w version I bought (channel power 255w). It has a veg and bloom switch so am I better off just using the veg light instead of both I presume it would help to lower temps but could it also affect growth as light wouldn't be a bright?
As for the soil I was thinking it wasn't draining too well myself and was thinking of adding some perlite to the soil but am unsure if it's wise to add it to the soil in the pots, could mixing some in while it's in pot do damage to any roots? As for nutes there are none in the soil and I don't add any at the moment was going to start using nutes when it goes from seedling to veg stage.
I'm going to be putting them in a grow tent (is a 4'x4'x6'6in big enough for 4 plants?) as soon as I'm able as I've mentioned so my plants won't be in cupboard for any longer than another 2wks and so won't be on flowering stage in there.
Yes you are right I should have done my research first before starting not after but it is what it is now and I just want to try and make the best out of it without losing what I've started.

[AccidentalGardener]

Hi Buds!
From what I can tell, the first grow is never perfect. I just finished my first. I called it the "assembling my infrastructure" grow. I too, started a few seeds (albeit bagseed) without any plan. Then things sorta went from there - put them in the wrong dirt, didn't have proper lights, had to hide them from the lawn-man because they were in a window vegging. Then they were on the garage floor vegging with a 100w grow bulb clipped to my bicycle handle (was so glad to be using my bike again, LOL).
My first two plants never saw a properly designed space until 2 days before I flipped them to 12/12.

I did the same thing you did - jumped without a parachute - but after, I read GWE like an Evelyn Wood speed-reading student. I emotionally committed myself to doing it wrong, but in the process learn to do it right, and that I might not make it to harvest, I felt better about it all. I even got some fancy seeds - but didn't want to start them until I had all my equipment and nutrient acquisitions and stuff dialed in. All I'm saying is when plants are little and in the vegging stage, they are pretty resilient. What would happen if you opened the cupboard and turned off the lights? You say it's facing a window?
Yeah, my first girls were little, but the buds are a little bit of alright Got about 1.25oz off each. Most expensive pot I've ever tried, lol.
Good Luck! Making mistakes is the only way we learn anything.
(warning - I became so enchanted with indoor gardening, I got a second tent before the first was done flowering and put it in the dining room. It became the catalyst for getting the garage sorted to make room. Score!)

[buds73]

Thanks AccidentalGardener you've made me feel a little more positive.
I think maybe I was expecting too much for a first grow so have decided to be a little more relaxed about it and just look at this as a learning experience and try to get things right by the time I start my next grow.

Im not sure how much my temps are hurting my seedlings but they seem to be ok and don't seem to be showing any signs of problems although I know that doesn't mean that there are not any in the making.

Another thought though, I have my lights 32 in from top of canopy (if you can call it that at this stage) but I've been making the assumption that the height is fine as my seedlings don't seem to be stretching but they haven't gained alot of height. How can I tell if its temperature keeping them short or not. I'm afraid to lower light in case it does more damage.
I have attached some pics of one of the fat banana that is doing slightly better than the others. I've included a couple with measurements to give an idea of size as pics don't always do them justice.
They are now on day 8 from first showing through the soil do they look about right or are they behind where they should be now?

Ps I will add pics soon have to switch to pc as phone won't upload them for some reason.

[AccidentalGardener]

the ones through my dirty window are 2-3 weeks above ground, and don't have but 2nd set of leaves - 3 fingers - and look how tall they are...
(if you can see them Omg. We can't all be good at everything. I'm sure someone out there that grows really crappy weed, but their window-cleaning skills are fire. lol)

[buds73]

Lol. Your ones in the tents look good if mine get anywhere near that I'll be happy, although it's unlikely this time round but you never know. I once just chucked an early misty seed I found in some bud into a pot and just put it in the center of a spare room that got a lot of light in the summer, came up well stretched a bit and produced some not too bad bud lol

[buds73]

Hi all,
Just a little update and a question lol. I added some perlite to the soil about a week ago to help with the drainage as Tersky pointed out it looked poor.
This seems to have helped out a bit although the following day i did have a bit of a panic attack when i saw that the one plant was leaning like the tower of Pisa lol.
im going to be ordering a tent a few other thing s this weekend so they will have a better enviroment than the one they are in at the moment
All seem to be doing ok and are still looking healthy however a couple days ago i noticed that on the fat banana plants they have leaves that just have the points turning down. i have looked it up but i cant seem to find anything that matches the description. So i was wondering is this something that happens normally? Or is it a sign of something else? Also i've noticed today when i went to turn the lights off that all plants were pointing upwards. After doing a bit of reading it points to maybe me having the light just right but ive also read that it could be heat stress. How do i tell which is right?

I have posted some pis below. the first 2 were taken yesterday and show the curling at tips the others are from today. Second pics look dark because i didn't have enough battery to use flash.