stuck what to do for cfl growth

Hey all, after experimenting with my last grow, having the plant outdoors, bringing it indoors when they began flowering, giving normal daylight to see what would happen, still got about 10 bongs worth, which isnt much at all, however, better than nothing when you dont want to spend money on buying weed you dont know whats in it from dealers.
Anyway, trying to stick to the point (as im half baked lol), I have a material wardrobe, the kind you buy for a kids wardrobe, that measures about 5 foot high, and big enough inside to hold 2 plants.
Im planning on lining it with mylar, putting a little fan inside for intake, and doing extraction somehow or other (if anyone has any ideas on how, would be appreciated).
I have loads of 20w 2700k cfls, but no vegging cfls atm, so i was looking at the 300w veg cfl with reflector, for about £45. However, I understand by reading forums, that I would need side lighting, so I think a few lower watt cfls dotted around would be better.
So, has anyone got any ideas, on how I could veg and flower 1 or 2 plants using cfls? would 10 30w blue spectrum for vegging, and 10 30w red spectrum cfls for flowering be ok? Is it best 2 30ws on top, the rest around the sides, etc?
Hps, seems like there will be too much heat, and also, the energy used seems to be quite high from what ive heard.
Any sites that are decent to buy cfls from? ones from uk please. Also, how would I go about doing this, would I need 10 sockets available, on an extension cable or whatever?
I need to keep the cost down as much as possible, electricity wise too.
Will this be possible, using the material wardrobe? i would hang the cfls with hooks, or somehow, with a variable height attained through a chain system, where I could heighten or lower as needed. Does this sound a good idea or not? I dont exactly know how I would hang ten lights when the wardrobe is in the middle of the room, so lights couldnt screw in anywhere exactly, but just very interested in doing this, if not, any other ideas? needs to be where I can lock it up when Im not tending to it, such as a padlock through zips using material wardrobe. Thanks

https://www.rollitup.org/newbie-central/578163-all-first-time-growers-read.html#post8205174

check this out! its about using a 150 watt hps

im not sure what you can get in the uk but you should be able to get something similar.

https://www.rollitup.org/attachment...1878642-all-first-time-growers-read-hps-1.jpg

you can get one of these for about 75 bucks so a little more than youd plan to spend but it would be worth it.

its perfect for 2 plants and it only uses 150 watts and produces 16000 lumens

as opposed to the 10 30 watt bulbs that would use 300 watts and produce about 20,000 lumens but used twice as much energy.

and a 150 watt throws little heat. especially in the winter if you got a fan runnin to it.

hope this helped!

hi, was looking at your forum posts budbro, and although it seems interesting, still, looked like it was going to go into the £200 and over mark, by the time im finished getting all the equipment. Im not that bothered (on this grow anyway) to have amazing weed, just want some to smoke, to know I can do it, with it being better than the crap I buy off people lol

then next grow after, to do some serious, get as much yield as possible grow. if i get more than £50 worth, itl be the most weed ive ever had lol, but for now, i would be happy as long as its growing healthy, ideally with cfls, as theyre easier to set up etc

You can veg and bloom with 2700k cfl. I am 5 weeks into flower on mine and she is doing well with jusy 3 23w cfl an 2 13w cfl. The more cfl tje better. If you can get your hands on a bunch of them, make a chandalier ( spelling?) Type deal out of them. Keep em 4" away from
your canopy and your good. Here is mine two weeks ago amd now

Best advice I could give is to look at other people's setups. That's what I did. Look at enough and you'll get an idea of what you want and how you can do it. Here's my setup.

https://www.rollitup.org/grow-room-design-setup/555593-my-new-homemade-stealth-box.html

I more or less made a homemade ballast for 14 23W CFLs I got from Home Depot. Made a hood with metal ducting. I use ropes to raise/lower it. Works great.

My buddy did something similiar, he cut some passive air holes in the top for heat to escape with another hole on the bottom with a small desk fan blowing fresh air in, he eventually added another small desk fan to exhaust. I do not know exact dimensions but I will try to find the pics on my laptop. He was running (4) 42 WATT 2700K CFLS and (6) 23 WATT 6500k CFLS. he just bought a bunch of clip on light things where you screw the bulb right in, and then fastened to screws with zip-ties and ran all the wiring to (2) surge protectors. It wasn't pretty but he tried to make it neat as possible, no mylar it was all white inside. Grew 2 small purple kush plants and did decent.

I have a similar situation, I am using a 3 ft x 4 ft x 7 ft closet. I am using 10 cfls, ranging from 23 watt to 45 watts totaling 27,500 lumens. I have a uk cheese going and it is kicking ass I am in my 3rd week of flowering. she was vegged for 3 weeks, and I am using a 10 gal. bucket with organic mix. I have my lights hanging on top, and around all sides. she looks like a friggin x-mas tree.View attachment 2425456

You can veg with 2700k spectrum CFLs but the plant will grow upward towards the light.

Vegging with red/yellow spectrum lights makes the plant grow up instead of out. There's science to this.

Whether or not 10 x 30W cfls will work is more about how close you can get them, and whether or not they have reflectors. That's enough lumens, but you lose alot of usable lumens the farther away the CFLs are.

If you can keep them short using 5000-10000k vegging lights and do a little training you can hit them both with cfls pretty well.

Mix ur spectrum....an equal amount of both during veg and flower.......every plant i grow grows fast n strong....n I believe its due to the mixed spectrum....

i can get 5 30w 6500k cfls for £30, if I put 5 30w 2700k cfls alongside this, so have 10 lights in total, a mixture of spectrums, do you think this would be ok to do? think for convenience, would have to get the y splitter. cant find either the 6500k lightbulbs or y splitters anywhere on the high street, only online, shame, as postage seems to be quite high!

oh, thanks everyone for the advice so far, and nice pics too! looks some great setups

alternatively, would 5 6500k lightbulbs, and 2 2700k lightbulbs be ok? leaving one socket free on an 8 socket adapter for a fan

tre, nice pics, what cfls are you using? what spectrums?

View attachment 2425503I have 7x23 watt 2700k, 2x26 watt 3000k, and 1x45 watt 2700k. for a total of 17,500 lumens (I may have misspoke on an earlier post on this). they are ran through holes in a 3 ft x 3 ft piece of plywood so they can be lowered and raised as needed View attachment 2425482 her is how I have my lights set up. this is my first 100% cfl grow and I am very happy with it so far I vegged her from a 7 inch UK CHEESE clone for 3 weeks (20 inches) and she is just starting the 3rd week of flowering. I kept the lights 2 inches away during veg, and have very little streatching. She is now 27 inches tall, 30 inches wide, and I have 25 horizontal budding branches. I did have to back them off to 10 inches when I started flowering, as they were burning the hairs.what do you think?

I used all 2700k and 3000k cfls and I am very happy with my plant. From everything I have heard, the higher rated bulbs (6500k) are better for vegging. its all trial and error, and just because one setup works for one person does not meen it will work for another. TOO MANY VARIABLES.

tre93543 said:

View attachment 2425503I have 7x23 watt 2700k, 2x26 watt 3000k, and 1x45 watt 2700k. for a total of 17,500 lumens

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You are in flowering right?

I do believe in the mixed spectrum, light plays a huge roll in training your plant, you want upward stem growth, but you want bushy overgrowth.

I went and dropped about 105 bucks on a personally selected assortment of 2700, 5000, 5500, and 6500 cfls. My baby is still pretty smal, so i am only using 3 separate CFLs with a 120W coralife 10,000 and 2100 for side lighting.

Right now I'm seeing the most bushy growth in my conditions under 1 x 40w 5000K CFL and 1x 40w 6500K CFL with the coralife going. When i mix in a 2700 cfl my growth seems to slow down alot.

2700k's will work fine and you probably wont want to veg for long anyways. Dont panic about it, especially as you are probably growing a nice stubby indica anyway. veg for 2-3 weeks or so at the most and then flip it since youre doing a first grow/stealth cab kinda thing. As far as your fabric closet (that is what you mean right?) you should think about getting some cardboard boxes, cutting them to sheets of card for the 6 sides of your closet, then use lots of duct tape to attach to the metal frame. Cut holes for fans, cables etc - plan and measure EVERYTHING out, and dont be afraid to tape it back up and fix it if you realise later something needs changing my first growbox look like a battleground. Once you do a messy but strong job with duct tape and cardboard, take your mylar, and use spraymount or whatever glue to stick it to the cardboard (hiding your messy but strong tape with the nice smooth shinyness). For the door: What you basically want to do is create something where you have a door which is a light trap. The easiest way if youre a ghetto bastard is with Use 3 pieces of wood or opaque plastic something a bit stronger than cardboard since youre going to be moving it alot. The way i suggest is hard to explain, but i'll try. You need a piece of wood that is the size of your "doorway", i.e. front of the closet. then 2 long thing pieces - one the height of the closet, and one the width of it. place them up the left hand side, and along the top respectively. Use more duct tape. Now take your "door" piece, and when you put it in, push it flush against the RIGHT hand side and of course the bottom. Because of your two pieces of material on the left and top edges, the gaps caused by imperfections in the size of the door are gone. And, they hold the main door in place.Hope this helps, if i am explaining terribly then tell me, i will try and rewrite. GL

SnotBoogie said:

2700k's will work fine and you probably wont want to veg for long anyways.

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No I am pretty sure 2700 are basically just red/yellow and it causes really large internodal spacing in stem development, meaning you get a plant that grows really precariously long and tall. Blue spectrum and high white/green are supposed to code the plant to grow out, causing smaller internodal spacing; aka making it bushier.

Stealth grows you almost ALWAYS want a short bushy plant because you can't afford rapid vertical growth.

You're welcome to listen to whoever you want, but if you want success in a small area i hope you plan on throwing some 5000k + in there.