450watt Closet CFL Papaya Grow(2nd)

My Journal is totally open for discussion. If you would like to chat it up or give me some pointers, tell me what I am doing right and wrong, I totally appreciate it. Thanks a bunch everyone!!!


This is my second attempt in this very small closet. First attempt resulted in 2 males and just poor room design.

This closet is a room within a room. I have a barn attached to my house. Years ago built a small room (6x10) within a large room 20x 16

Closet is 2x4 framed incased within 2"foam insulation board

Closet has two doors. one leading to my house the other leading to the barn in which this closet is housed.

Within that closet I built a 2'x2'x5' enclosure, this is where the grow will take place. Its located in the far corner of the closet. right next to the eve of my roof.

Enclosure is painted top to bottom with one coat of kilz latex primer

then 2 coats of kilz white latex matte finish


I wired the room up with its own 15amp breaker. 2 gfci outlets in a series. both outlets have exterior h20 proof housings




1 70 cfm bathroom exhaust fan mounted in the center of the ceiling of the room - exhausted out of the room via 4" ducting totaling about 3.5' ducting to reach the outside of the room.




At the end of the ductiing I installed a carbon scrubber I made out of
4" ducting
Gorilla tape
Activated Carbon
green scrubby cloth

I wrapped the small piece of ducting with gorilla tape to make it stronger, then i taped on piece of scrubby cloth on one end of the ducting.

then i filled it with carbon,put another piece of scrubby on the other end and taped it down.

once I did that I taped it to a painters cup with the bottom cut off, this is acting as a reducer flange so I can fit the scrubber right into the exhaust ducting.

I built a new light housing all CFL lights.




8 cleat sockets all wired in a series. this is the standard light array, I have it setup so there is plenty of space inbetween each cleat so I can add and configure y splitters and way i want. this way I can adjust the lights to fit the plants size and needs.

I wont be turning this on till I get some plants growing. right now I only have one pathetic clone right now that is trying to root some legs on her.

I added in some power bar fixtures as well. I have 3 one on each wall. These are nice because there cheap, easy to make, easy to install, and even easy to move around. These will be nice to help with the growth under the canopy.

These are plugged in a series of power bars leading up the the digital timer.


right now I only have one power bar fixture turned on, it has 3 26watt 6500k cfls on it. using these to root some leggs on a clone. Once I start the veg stage on her and the papaya seeds I ordered(if i get them) I will move these 6500ks into different spots threw out the different fixtures in the room to spread the spectrum out a bit.


The picture above shows the cool air intake. This is a 4" ducting with 2 4" inline fans one on each end all pulling in cool air into the room.

Got my papaya today. have them germing right now. Tropical strain so I wraped in scotch cloth and baggied them then placed under my laptop on my desk. laptop is keeping the pouch nice and warm. hopefully not to warm.

Well I think putting the seeds in a towel in a baggie under my computer was a great idea. One of the already spilt and opened up today. I put them in the towel around 4pm est and this morning around 7am est already one split open.

Looks like a nice setup, you could easily later change to a HPS system and have side lighting with CFLs!

It's great overall...but plants are not going to grow uniformly. Some will rocket ahead of others...most often they are males...but sometimes they are just phreaky ladies. You will need to be able to individually reposition your cfls. More than 6" away from the plant and they become less and less effective with more light wasted.

Cfls are a p.i.t.a. but absolutely can produce fantastic results if you tweek the lights every few days.

Anjinsan said:

It's great overall...but plants are not going to grow uniformly. Some will rocket ahead of others...most often they are males...but sometimes they are just phreaky ladies. You will need to be able to individually reposition your cfls. More than 6" away from the plant and they become less and less effective with more light wasted.

Cfls are a p.i.t.a. but absolutely can produce fantastic results if you tweek the lights every few days.

Click to expand...

I thought about this a bunch and I have decided that I am going to the hps route. I will be keeping all of the cfls i have and use those for floor and side lighting.

I am also moving my setup to a tent I have made out of piping and plastic.

I have one papaya seed in rockwool right now. I started germing it last night and it split with the tap root poking out about a inch or so, I was truly amazed at how quick it germed. like 12 hours

Johnboh said:

I thought about this a bunch and I have decided that I am going to the hps route. I will be keeping all of the cfls i have and use those for floor and side lighting.

I am also moving my setup to a tent I have made out of piping and plastic.

I have one papaya seed in rockwool right now. I started germing it last night and it split with the tap root poking out about a inch or so, I was truly amazed at how quick it germed. like 12 hours

Click to expand...

They'd be great for side lighting...

Also cfls are fantastic for veg period. Less heat, less cost and plants don't usually start really out growing each other until 3 or 4 weeks from seed. By the time it's really becoming an issue...you are ready to move onto flower anyways.

You definately did not waste money in getting them.

I purchased all the lights and other equipment over a period of a month or so. This gave me the oppurtunity to be able purchase what I needed without it really putting a damper on my wallett. what else helped out alot was my first grow turned out to be all males. This allowed me to purchase more equipment and completly start over, which was well needed thats for sure.

Added seven Green Spirit clones tonight. Not sure if they will take, they were cut from an outdoor plant that has already started its flowering process. I cut them and dipped them in some root tone and planted in rock wool

Here are the outdoor clones i took yesterday

ooo neat! ive always been curious about this strain!!
definately will keep watch on this!

Right on PeaceMane glad to hear it. I am patiently waiting for the seeds to sprout for me. these seeds are super tuff to germinate. I had one germinate in less than 12 hours and then it died on me. not sure what cause the death of the seedling.

My Green Spirit clones are doing ok. Ive got one that I think isnt going to take root, but the others are doing well. Should be sprouting some legs real soon!

damn that disappointing!
well i hope they turn up man!!
good luck




heheh ill be watchin

Had one seed this morning poke a tap root out of its shell. I planted that one in a rockwool cube. hopefully in a few days she reaches for the light and sprouts up for me. I love when my ladies poke their heads out to say HI!

awesome!!! YAY!!!!

Still nothing from the Papaya seeds. Im beginning to think I have some duds. Ive got one left that I am gonna try and get to germ. the other four havent done a damn thing yet. I am still gonna try to get them to sprout, not gonna loose anything by trying for a few more days.

2 of the outdoor clones took root, the other ones didnt survive. Its really tuff to clone a flowering plant especially a shitty outdoor one.haha

2 is better than none right.

Today while fucking around at lowes I found a killer deal and had to jump on it. 20 bucks for a 70w hps bulb, ballast, and fixture. its an exterior lamp but i dont givef a shit. wicked heavy fixture kinda large but beggers cant be choosers right, i mean it was only 20 bucks.

also added a vertical power strip, first of its kind in this setup. I gotta say im rather impressed by it, thanks to it being vertical I can adjust the height rather simply.


This is the back of the fixture

Finally I gots a sprout. after what seemed like an eternity I finally got a Papaya seed to sprout. Damn that was by far the longest and hardest germ period I have ever had to deal with. Came home today and the little gal poked her self out of the soil and Pushed the hull right off of her.

Now its on!!!!

Hi there
I've ran a few runs with Nirvana's Papaya. A really nice strain. Can be grown really really small (got one finished at about an inch high) or normal height (got it to 1.2m most of the time).
Its not that strong but the high is great - very fun. Doesn't knock you down.

Times are like any other usual indica dominant - around 8-9 weeks of flowering.

It doesn't strech much at any stage.

You really should cure it for over 3 weeks. Unless you do so it smells and taste like cheep weed.

Its a really strong plant - you can feed it any crap and it will survive it. You could pump nutrients like crazy and it will react well. (of course you need to introdue the plant to the ferts - up the dose a bit every week)




As for your closet - I wouldn't use thoes warm white (red) CFLs. They just generate heat while the spectrume doesn't help that much.
At this stage a clone \ seedling can do well with one 45w CFL of daylight (6500K).



Good luck with everything else