Alright guys I have decided to start my grow journal since I literally just got done ordering my equipment. Thus, far I have ordered two PC tower cases, 8 6500k CFLs, 8 2700k CFLs, and a batch of Aurora Indica and Mazar x Afgan.

I am very excited to finally be able to start my own grow journal. I have set my personal goal of a Qp in one harvest. I think that I can get it. I might not get it on the first try, but even if I get close I will feel very accomplished. I have, also, been thinking of ways that I can increase yield in such a small grow and I have decided to go with LST and will be looking into hydo products in the near future. I think that the hydo will give me the boost that I will need to really get this grow kickin'.

I will be picking up the rest of the appliances when the shipments start to come in.

My expected planting day is: June 8th
My expected harvest day is: August 17th
My expected smoking day is: Sept 1st/Sept8th*(birthday so i might let cure longer)

This is allotting two weeks for veg and 7 weeks for flowing.
------------------------------------------------------------

Pricing:

*rounded up to the nearest US dollar*

PC Case x2 $125
Glue Gun x1 $15
Glue Stix x1 $5
Car Reflector x1 $15
30W CFLs x16 $71
Power Strip x2 $20
Outlet Converters x8 $25
------------------------------------
Sub-Total: $276
Seeds: $40
------------------------------------
Total: $316.00

Welp, that is about it. I will get back to the journal when the equipment starts coming in and I start putting it together. Wish me the best of luck!

--X

__________________

Color me interested! We have very similar grows, by the way. Subbing. Pics soon?

__________________

Thanks for joining me in my quest, ER. Your grow journal was very inspiring to me when deciding on a PC grow. Thank you for that. I will, also, have be adding pictures as soon as I start to build my PCs.

edit* ER, your experience is very welcome and if you ever see me making a newbie mistake feel free to correct me

__________________

Thursday, May 21st 2009

Well, I got my first run of bad news yesterday. As I said previously I ordered all the necessary equipment Monday night. ATX power supply e-mailed me yesterday stating that my 'skyscraper' (8x19x22) case was out of stock. I frantically looked across the entire internet looking for the same model or at least the same dimensions for roughly the same price. None, no where. Before giving up I decided to take a look at the ATX power supply line up and found one with the same measurements, just different dimensions (9x20x20). I then e-mailed my sales assistant that gave me the refund notice and asked him when he would be getting more 'skyscraper' models in and that if it is past next Friday to just send the other one.

Today, he e-mailed me back saying that he would have more 'skyscraper' models in Monday or Tuesday and will ship them immediately. Although, this is a delay and set back it will not effect my plant date, flower date, or smoke date. That is all I am worried about. Should have everything that had to be ordered by next Friday. After that I head off to Walmart and will start getting some pictures up!

-X

__________________

Friday, May 22nd 2009

Got my lights in today. All eight of them and they look like they are in good shape. I compared them to my current small desktop pc and they will easily fit in the server towers. However, I will say that there will probably only be about an inch from the light and the shutting side. Is this to close? I hear that CFL's do not produce heat unless touching, but is that true?

I will be running to the hardware store tomorrow to pick up some socket converters and other small items that I will need for the construction. I think I will get the glue gun and glue sticks but if I can find some cheap power strips I'll grab those too. It is looking like I am going to need about an extra $75 or so after buying the medium, carbon filters, nutes, and heat and humidity gauges. So make sure you guys plan in for that if you are thinking about a pc grow or any grow for that matter. I know I forgot to put it in my introduction at the top, but every one of these things are extremely important to have right at the start especially with a PC grow.

I have decided to not start with perpetual and just go for the big harvest. I have a personal goal of a Qp/ harvest, but duelly noted that I am going to be running two PCs for this grow. With the measuing stick I can imagine 3 plants/unit (8*19*22H). The only question is do you guys think that there will not be enough lights or it'll be a slow grow? I would like to hear opinions on this issue because even if I have 6in circumfrence pots that only adds up to 18 inches. Thus, I think it is very plausable with this sized case I morely finding my self questioning if 4x30W support 3 plants with quick and dense growth?

Thanks for all the help guys,
-X

__________________

i can grab a hold of my 26 watt cfls and 42 watt cfls for longer then 10seconds with out needing to stop. and not heat from a cm away

__________________
All pictures posted by this user are showing the newest bestest catnip on earth..

LTD's stealthCFL

I'm running 8 26w CFL's right now in a 2x2x4 grow tent. They make plenty of heat if not exhausted properly. It sounds like you're worried about how close they're going to be to the side of your case though - it won't matter, they do not produce enough heat to do anything to the metal.

Look around at other people's reported harvests from PC case grows to get a good idea of what to expect. One thing to note - all of the good PC grows I've seen run 12/12 from the start. 20" may seem like a lot of room but after lights and pots you're not left with much and there's not a lot of space to LST in a case. Nothing wrong with aiming high, you definitely are planning things out better than most (myself included!).

I would personally find some square pots for better use of space to help get the yeild you want. Let's do some quick math - 3 pots per case, 6" diameter (3" radius) (circumference is actually the distance around!). Height does not matter for this comparison, but let's plug in 8" high. pi x 3² x 8 = 226.19 cubic inches. Let's see what we gain with a square pot 6" on a side and 8" tall! 6 x 6 x 8 = 288 cubic inches. That's over a 25% increase in volume. You could fit four 4.5" containers in the same space as 3 6" rounds and lose only 8.333% per pot. Take your pick - bigger pots for less frequent waterings/extra rootspace or an extra pot for another plant per case.

LT, Thank you for the accurate information and quick reply.

dontcopenone, I was worried about it wearing in the metal on the side. I have ordered 3x80mm fans to go into my units. I was just going to have two fans in each unit, but I think I am going to use the third fan as an extra exhaust. Do you know or not if you can hook all three fans up to one wire then one outlet? If not I think I will just hook two up and see what the temps average at with the carbon filter. However, I do know what you mean about heat. I started off with a halogen bulb for about 3 days *lol*. Then ordered a either T5 or T1 fluro and man did that thing produce heat in a closet. Killed my first ever grown babies.

As for my expectations, I utterly understand that it is quite high. Although, I have been checking around the past few weeks and most people seem to pull around 15-22g/plant depending on genetics and conditions. Most of the journals I have read are doing perpetual starting with 12\12. I was thinking about doing one unit with two weeks of veg and the other starting from a 12/12, however, the only difference will be the genetics. I will say that the 12/12 from start does offer a great deed by taking away the 2-3 weeks of veg that I was going to do. Thus, I think that it is defiantly an option that I would like to investigate. I do believe though, that if I can get at least 2 plants from each unit to average an ounce a plant that I'll have it.

I will confess, I am not expecting to reach this goal on my first grow with current conditions. There are things that I think I can grow into that will help me reach this goal such as: hydro, larger/more cfls, LSTing (which I am going to do from the first grow), or just buying more pcs j/k

The square pots is a genius idea! However, with this finding I must ask will 4CFLs/unit suppot four plants? Thank you for the idea, and extremely informative post. Hope to see you checking in on my journal.

-X

__________________

Somehow, my sub on your thread didn't take! It's there, now, though.

So.. having read my grow, you can imagine I may have had a thought or two regarding large harvests, etc. Well.. if you want to know how *I* think it could be done in a pc case, I'll tell ya (and I'm getting up another cab to test this 'big harvest' theory w/ 6 ryders). SO.. With Indicas.. you want to veg under maybe 50W for slow (sometimes), trainable growth in veg. So.. I think you're on the right track w/ 3 plants to do this, by the way. So.. 3 plants.. keep them @ 18/6 and top them as soon as you can. Then, top all new tops. This should give you 12 top colas total. ScrOG it.With 12 tops, I think you can get 1/4 lb. or close. Your genetics should be OK for that.. and your veg. time will be approximately 40 days. If each top is 10 grams, you have a cupe and change, my friend. You may want to research whether or not cutting sattellites off will help main bud development, as well. I'm not sure if intentional lollipopping is possible.

Great work making sure ou got your case, by the way. A tower is soooo much easier to work with.

__________________

ElephantRider: I would think that LST, if done right, would easily produce similar or better results in a cramped PC grow. That and I wouldn't want to slow the plant down ever by topping or using low light. Seems kind of counter-productive. I don't have a lot of experience but in my current (first) grow, LST seems to give me a very good control over the canopy height while producing plenty of new bud sites. Again, I'm a newb, so just my highly uninformed opinion!

Xander: I'll admit I thought your goal was kind of high. I'm on my first grow though, so what do I know! I could not remember how much other people pull from PC grows, which is why I said to compare results from PC grow reports. If their results support the idea, it should be possible! Keep up the positive thinking, it's half the battle and will keep you going if you suffer a setback. Sorry to hear about the last grow not working out, seems like you learned a lot from it. Oh, about your lights - I'm currently flowering out two small plants under 8 x 26w cfl and everything seems to be going just fine. I'm going to hook my 250 HPS up soon though, so I won't be able to tell you how they finish under the CFLs. I just found my tape measure and just as I thought, my square pots are exactly 6" on a side. Found some online - LINKY. They hold about 3.8 liters. Let's see 30 watters are going to give you about 2000 lumens apeice, 8000 lumens per case.

I pulled this from the internet: Current theory holds that the minimum amount of lighting needed to sustain growth is around 2,000 lumens per square foot. Mid range is around 5,000 lumens per square foot. Optimal is 7,000 to 7,500 or higher lumens per square

So if you have 8x19 that's pretty damn near exactly 1 cubic foot, which means you should be just fine with 8000 lumens. The thing that I've found with CFL's is as long as you have a fan pulling the air right off of them you can easily put them 2" off the plants. You can go closer but they will still burn plants if they touch the light, so the 2" is a safety margin.