CFL's burned my plants

This is my first grow and of course i screwed it up in less than a week. Since this is a newbie section and you all are doing the same as me (getting educated) i thought my first post would help you learn form my mistake.

I had 8 26 watt cfl's hooked up to a power strip hanging over a 17" by 10" box lined in mylar. They are 8 bagseed seedlings around 2 -4inches tall in dixie cups. I had the cfl's an inch away with a fan blowin from over the top.

Mistake i made was i didnt get enough air circulation, i folded over the two biggest flaps also lined in mylar and left about 2-3 inches for the fan to blow air through. Needless to say it wasnt enough and in a span of about two hours of me checking on them the 3 tallest were burnt.

Sooo although cfl's are weak growing lights, they can still cook the shit out of your plants if you dont give them enough air.

Ptrickl9 said:

Sooo although cfl's are weak growing lights, they can still cook the shit out of your plants if you dont give them enough air.

Click to expand...

They may be weak, but they still get hot as fuck. Remember, you ARE running electricity through the bulb in order to get light

True, but i dont have a problem holding them. That coupled with just about every cfl topic on here talking about how weak cfl's are had me putting common sense aside.

Ive come to the conclusion that i built a death trap. I did the same as before only this time i left the box completely open and raised the lights to about 2 inches. After checking on them several times in a few hour span they were seemed to be getting crispier. So i junked that box and put them in the larger closet grow room i prepared.

I know that the smaller the area and the more watts the better, but im just gonna play it slow and safe. After all i got BIG plans for this bud

I use CFL's, but only because I lack the space to use HID lighting. I could probably make it work, but I'm perfectly happy growing the way that I do, for now.

I think your problem is that you've got too many lights for seedlings. I know that more lumens = faster grow, but more lumens = more heat, so you really gotta dial it back until they get bigger. Rethink how many bulbs you have, and drop down to 2. Add more in as they get bigger and can handle the heat

Good luck!

seedling don't require much light mostly they are just growing roots at this stage so they can support upper branching at this stage I keep cfl's about 3 inches away until they have more leaves the need very little light. What was the temp in your box? RH? One more thing if you have cfl's close together it will get really hot which isn't a problem with good circulation but if your in a box you absolutely need intake and exaust for good circulation.

Yea i definitely jumped into this 2 feet first with little to no knowledge until the seeds sprouted. By then i was hooked and going to walmart and the hardware store picking up 1$ cfl's and such. The first box i was toying with i was trying to jam about 16 cfl's into the box (to no prevail thank goodness).
I dont have an accurate measure of tempurature seeing as how my thermometer is built into the fan and the fan is 4 feet above the plants but the weather here has just dropped into the early 60's over night so my room is going to be breasy and heat shouldnt be too much of an issue any more.

I got a PC grow and the tomato plant I got in there is up to the lights. Some of it is burnt but it hasn't made any difference. The tomatoes are huge for a dwarf tomato. good old DWC

We learn from our mistakes, the trick is not to make the same ones!

Plus, heat is always an issue in small grow boxes. The best you can do is to get enough light in there as possible without making it TOO hot.

Temps in my box are usually 10 degrees hotter then the room that the box is in. It's a killer in the summer, especially with the windows closed, the humidity gets stifling

What are the dimensions you're working with? Can you do an in-line fan?

cfl burned my one of my budsites once.never recovered.sad sad day.

I gave up with the boxes, originally i was going to cram all the plants in the smallest place possible and jam as many lights as possible but that didnt work out well. Now i have them in my closet 5' by 3', 8' high lined in mylar. I painted large and small pieces of cardboard white to enclose around the plants but there is still light shooting out like crazy. Im leaving the door open so air from the fan in my window get to them.
The fan is a two in one and i have it blowing air in on one side and out the other.

Im pretty much done with investments, other than in a week or two when im going to get the nutrients and better soil for when i transplant them.