CFL Closet Grow, First Try

Hey guys.
So this is my very first grow and since this place has been such a great resource to me I figured the least I could do was post my journal. I had some issues I had to deal with at the beginning and I changed my light setup once as well. Now that I have my final setup it's time to post this.

Setup:
1 Rubbermaid garment bag
4 26W 6500K CFL
4 23W 4100K CFL
4 26W 2700K CFL
6 Clamp lamps
6 Y-Splitters
15 8" pots
1 Noma Halogen space heater
1 Oscillating Fan
20L CIL Peat moss
8L CIL Pearlite
8L CIL Vermiculite
DNF Grow and Flower Nutrients
AK 47 Seeds
Ice Seeds
Feminized Trainwreck Seeds

All seeds were ordered from www.bcseeds.com. They have an excellent selection and offer great service when orders are placed within Canada. I would recommend bcseeds to anyone from Canada looking to purchase seeds. I obtained all of my remaining materials at Canadian Tire except for the DNF nutrients which I purchased at my local Hydro shop.

I experimented with both the shot glass germ and the paper towel germ. Both were done on top of my water heater where the temperature was warm and constant. I had success with both methods, however, the paper towel method proved to be far superior when compared to the shot glass germination. My paper towel seeds were ready to be planted in about 36 hours and broke through the surface roughly 2 days later. The shot glass germed seeds were ready in about 3 or 4 days and took another 3 or 4 days to break the soil. I would HIGHLY recommend that the shot glass be avoided whenever possible. The damp paper towels completely outperformed the shot glass germination.

I started my seedlings in my dixie cups filled with my soil mix. I hand mixed my soil and it is roughly 2 parts peat moss to 1 part of both the vermiculite and the pearlite. The seedlings have since come out of the dixie cups and gone into the new 8" pots where I am hoping they can stay for the remainder of the grow. If they begin to show signs of being pot bound I will transplant them one more time.

My 8 CFLs are running 24 hours right now. I wanted to use a 18/6 light cycle but my timer is no longer working. It will run fine and go into the dark cycle properly but for some reason does not turn the lights back on. Once it is almost time to flower I will be moving the plants out to the area I am setting up for flowering. It is about 5'x6' and I am thinking of using 2 400W HPS bulbs. Do you guys think that will be an ideal light set up for that area. I am planning to keep the best looking female of each of the separate strains inside the rubbermaid bag in permanent veg state. I will constantly be taking clones and transferring them into the flower room as soon as they are ready.

As of right now the seedlings have only received water. I have no pH meter so I am using water directly from my water cooler. The ppm on the cooler water is very low and I figure the pH is probably very close to neutral. I have been letting it sit out in an attempt to let some chlorine evaporate before I use it. I have decided it is time to apply my first feed. I am waiting for the plants to dry out so they can get their first taste of the DNF gro formula. I plan to start with a 1/4 strength and work my way up to a full strength.


So that was a whole bunch of talking. Now for the part everyone really wants. I took a couple pictures now that I have all my issues sorted out. Let me know what you think. This is my first ever grow so any advice that anyone could give me would be greatly appreciated.

hey man, looking really good....you got some shades for your CFL's to direct the light at all by the way? might make them more efficient, and have a look on some CFL threads, i think the best amount of lumens per square foot would be around the 6000 mark.... what wattage cfls you using at the minute? make sure you get a lot of the bluer spectrum to make your babys grow nice and strong in the vegging,
goodluck man, will be subscribing

I've thought about a shade. I just haven't figured out how to engineer one for that box yet. Most of the bulbs are 2700K 26W there are a couple 23W but i'm not sure of their light colour. I'm gonna do some reading in the CFL posts. I have no idea what light colours correspond with what spectrums. I have a total of 6800 lumens in that box. I figure it should be enough. Eventually that will be covered on the outside in black plastic so that no light leaks out. I am a little tight on cash for now though so that will have to wait.

Ah, so that's what the setup looks like. I'll have to try to replicate it once I snatch those 4 babies from the nest But seriously it looks real good, clean and efficient, hope they yield lots for you. Good luck.

Their wont be any yield coming out of that box. That is just for vegging and keeping my mothers in once I get a couple good mothers. The rest of the area which isn't pictured there will be where the flowering magic happens.

So it's been about 48 hours since my last photo op and the plants have shown some impressive growth so I figured I'd snap some new pics. It is hard to get my laptop into the actual closet so I took the shining stars of my show out for a little face time with the lens. I have decided to order 2 more bulbs. My last 2 bulbs will be 42W 6500K CFLs. Once these arrive my final bulb setup will be as follows:

4x 26W 2700K
4x 26W 4100K
2x 42W 6500K

The pictures in order are 1,2 My most lush looking Trainwreck. 3,4 My finest AK47 and 5,6 are the top performing Ice. I am expecting some serious growth within the next couple of days. It is time to apply the first nutrient feed since repotting I'm excited. Will post pics when I feel there has been enough growth.

Very nice CFL grow , check out my journal , leave a comment and subscribe

b.r.adley said:

.... It is about 5'x6' and I am thinking of using 2 400W HPS bulbs. Do you guys think that will be an ideal light set up for that area.

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If you're gonna go big, GO BIG! A 1000 watter will do better than 2 400w. I *think* it uses less amps too. Digital ballasts are getting cheaper too, so spend the extra $$.

DrDank said:

If you're gonna go big, GO BIG! A 1000 watter will do better than 2 400w. I *think* it uses less amps too. Digital ballasts are getting cheaper too, so spend the extra $$.

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The only reason I am thinking of using 2 400W is because the 5'x6' space will be split down the middle so I can move among the plants. I figure since there will be a little gap I could probably use the light more efficiently with 2 lights. Perhaps I should look at 600W though instead of 400W.

b.r.adley said:

The only reason I am thinking of using 2 400W is because the 5'x6' space will be split down the middle so I can move among the plants. I figure since there will be a little gap I could probably use the light more efficiently with 2 lights. Perhaps I should look at 600W though instead of 400W.

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I see. Yeah, I would go with 2 600's, and with good vent, you can get them close, and get FAT buds.

hey man the plants looking awesome! speaking of which im gonan go check on my babies.........

hey man how old are your plants currenlt..they loooking dank:]]]

Umm it was Jan 30 when I started germing the seeds. They have been growing in proper conditions for about a week and a half now. My original set up was kinda shitty and stunted their growth a little. I believe they came above ground Feb 9 so they are about 3 1/2 weeks old. I have been seeing some serious growth in the last week. I finally was able to get the temperature up and get some good quality lighting in the box. I'll post more pics in a couple days when they bulk of a little more.

you should post some more pics but make a photobucket account and post them off there so its the whole picture instead of a tiny one..

so your thinking of getting 2 600 watters? well mind you your electricity bill will probably give you a cause for a heart attack, make sure you find out how much its gonna cost you per month or whether it will cause a mass electricity spike in your readings......police look out for large uses :S and he art of growing is as much about not getting caught as it is to have an ultimate green thumb hope your plants shoot up quickly!

playa869 said:

you should post some more pics but make a photobucket account and post them off there so its the whole picture instead of a tiny one..

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Can't you just click on the picture to make it bigger? That is usually how it goes isn't it? If that doesn't work I'll look into photo bucket. Then all the pictures will load on the page though making it slow for people with lesser internet connections.

cheddarchops said:

so your thinking of getting 2 600 watters? well mind you your electricity bill will probably give you a cause for a heart attack, make sure you find out how much its gonna cost you per month or whether it will cause a mass electricity spike in your readings......police look out for large uses :S and he art of growing is as much about not getting caught as it is to have an ultimate green thumb hope your plants shoot up quickly!

Click to expand...

I've already put some thought into the issue. We live in a fairly big house with lots of people and lots of appliances running at all times. I have decided to have them turn on and off 15 minutes or so apart from each other to avoid a 1200W spike on and off every day. I figure 2 600W spikes are a little less obvious. I already ran the calculations on the energy bill once. I can't remember the exact numbers but it was definitely tolerable. It was a lot more than I had expected, but nothing I can't deal with. I am going to try to arrange it so that I can maybe get away with only 1 600W, but I dont want to affect growth in any way. Now that I really looked at the setup I've determined that the area I need to light is really only 4'x6' I forgot about the 1' I needed to subtract to account for my walkway. I figure if I got crazy with mylar and selected the perfect reflector for my space I may be able to pull it off.

This thread will be continued at https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/169987-my-cfl-closet-journal-ak47.html#post2195954
Please come check it out. I'm about to go take some pictures I'll post them in the new link.