400 Watt CFL First Cabinet Grow Week 3 Flowering

Hey everyone,

Welcome to my first grow from seed to flower. I started with 11 seeds that all came from a one gram purchase from my local dispensary. I kept the seeds for a few months, and then decided to germinate them. I germinated them in paper towel, and they all developed tap roots.

Before moving forward, I'd like to thank the RIU community. I've had an account on this site for almost 10 years, and I've learned almost everything I know about growing (and plant science in general) from the community on this site. So thank you. Thank you so, so much!

I will post a detailed list of what I'm currently using to finish this grow at the end of this post.

All feedback and comments are welcome!

Let's get to it!



I planted them in some below average potting soil, and put them under 4 x 23 Watt 6400K CFL's until I found the right cabinet to put them in.



I found a cabinet, and decided to to put together a simple CFL light fixture using two power bars, a few socket adapters, a piece of wood, and some zap straps. The tape has since been removed and lights have been added.



You can see the power bars are zap strapped to a piece of wood, which is attached to chain by hooks for adjustment. Lights/fan are plugged into a power bar with a built in 24 hour timer. Lights are on 18/6 in this pictures.



Plants seem to like it!

Next on my list: More lights.

I was struggling to figure out a way to get more lights surrounding the plants, and not just coming from directly above. I only solved this problem very recently, but in the mean time, I added more lights to my professional DIY lighting rig!




Plants didn't seem to mind this either! At this point I had been vegging the plants for about 3 weeks on 18/6.



Around 7 weeks I flipped them into flower



I was a little impatient, because I had started with 11 bagseed, and only 5 ended up healthy enough to keep. And at this point I had no idea if they were male, or female. So, I flipped them into flowering to find out. I was also impatient because the seeds I ordered as a backup had arrived

After I added the additional 4 lights to my setup, I was running 4 x 23 watt 6400 K CFLs and 5 x 23 watt 2300K CFLs for a total of 207 actual watts, and after about two weeks of flowering, I started to see some tell tale signs.....

Good news! They were all female. Lucky break! (Should have vegged them longer....)

I did some pruning to remove a bunch of the leafy foliage shading a lot of the plant.


About half way done



Above is a more recent photo showing pruning outcome at about 3 weeks of flowering. After pruning, I noticed most of the plant was in shadow, not getting enough light from the fixture above. I had known for a while I would want to add more light to this setup, and I had a few ideas. One idea being to get lights lower down the plant, surrounding them and bathing the bud sites in light. A quick wiring tutorial online, and a trip to my local refurbished materials store had me setup to add another 100 watts of light for about $25 including the bulbs (20 watt 2700k bulds for $2 each!)

This is what I came up with



This is a standard 4 socket bathroom light fixture. It's meant to be hard-wired into the wall. I just spliced it with a standard power cord and it works like a charm!




Once again, the ladies don't seem to mind.

Dude, CFLs are all heat. Just get 100w replacement LED bulbs, they're cheap now, like $5-8 each. They draw 14w and put out 1500 lumens. A 23w CFL puts out 1600 lumens. That's only 7% more light from 60% more power draw. Bad deal really. The worst thing is that they're just a lot hotter, due to their inefficiency. I have a crapload of CFLs that I never use anymore since I found out how much better the LED bulbs are. Those bulbs are a lot cheaper than any commercial LED grow light watt for watt, costing about 50 cents per watt. Any commercial unit will cost you $1-2 per watt.

Otherwise he's doing good.As long as you can keep the heat down and humidity up with them cfls your ok.Good Luck

BobCajun said:

Dude, CFLs are all heat. Just get 100w replacement LED bulbs, they're cheap now, like $5-8 each. They draw 14w and put out 1500 lumens. A 23w CFL puts out 1600 lumens. That's only 7% more light from 60% more power draw. Bad deal really. The worst thing is that they're just a lot hotter, due to their inefficiency. I have a crapload of CFLs that I never use anymore sense I found out how much better the LED bulbs are. Those bulbs are a lot cheaper than any commercial LED grow light watt for watt, costing about 50 cents per watt. Any commercial unit will cost you $1-2 per watt.

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Hey Cajun,

I was looking at LED's in the beginning, and if I had planned this grow better I would have invested in them from the get go. This grow has been a slow accumulation over the course of a couple months. All in all, you're totally right. However, it's been an awesome learning experience, and I'm excited for the next one. I actually have a carbon filter arriving tomorrow, and a 200cfm fan that I will be hooking up to ventilate the cabinet.

As it stands right now, the temperatures peak at 29C/84F right at the top lights, and sit steady at 25C/77F near the base/foliage. Temperature around the lower set of lights is 27C/80F. Humidity (or RH) usually sits around 45% unless watered recently, in which case it jumps up to about 55% - 60% for the day. I imagine this will change once I get my proper ventilation hooked up.

Thanks for the replys,

Cheers

Just that the difference in growth is dramatic. I replaced four 42w CFLs with 12 14w LEDs. Same wattage, way better growth, no comparison at all. I have them mounted straight down and the diffusers cut off to 1/2". Makes them easier to handle if you leave a rim of diffuser on instead of snapping the whole thing off like most people do. Since you already have the sockets you're halfway there.

I wasn't able to finish posting all of the pictures I have of the grow stages, but these are the most recent pictures.

Just about 3 weeks into flowering

Here is a quick update on the final setup.

I added a 290cfm inline fan, and a 4" carbon filter, and finished sealing all the openings on the cabinet to ensure negative pressure. The additional lights I added did scorch a couple of the tips of some lower fan leaves, but the plants seem happy over all.

The temperature was a bit high after I added the additional lights, around 32C/88F at its hottest. Since I've added the fan and filter, and cut a vent at the bottom of the cabinet, it sits at around 27 - 29C/80 - 84F. I've had the fan and filter running for a few days now, but when I keep the fan on full blast during the night the temperature fell to 16C/60F. I've turned the fan down during the night cycle, it's still effective eliminating the odour, but doesn't create as much of a wind tunnel and cooling effect.Temperature now reads 19C/66F before the lights come on.

Humidity or RH was high before increasing the air flow, around 67%, but has held steady around 40% - 45% for the last 24 hours.


Here are some pictures of the fan and filter, and of the whole setup overall. . I notice one of them is maturing much faster than the other 4 I have in there. I'm assuming it's because it's getting the most amount of light.

Nice man. On my first cfl grow as well what week are you in now? Curious why you didn't train them. Going for that long fat cola haha?! Also nice job in the lighting rig and stuff my only advice would be throw a makeshift hood over those top lights. Get it all focused completely downward

Buds looking good. Nice job so far

GreenBean 420 said:

Nice man. On my first cfl grow as well what week are you in now? Curious why you didn't train them. Going for that long fat cola haha?! Also nice job in the lighting rig and stuff my only advice would be throw a makeshift hood over those top lights. Get it all focused completely downward

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Hey GreenBean,

I am into week 7 of flowering, and I think a couple of them are pretty close. I thought about training them, but it took me awhile to assemble the setup, and my main efforts went into the growing environment. After a while they were already big and healthy, I just let them be. I will definitely train on my next grow, as I have very limited space. I did, however, train them with zap straps towards the base of the stems to help pull the plants into more direct light, and to prevent them from touch the CFLS.

I do have 2 make-shift reflectors! One is a piece of cardboard with tinfoil, and a more recent one made with cardboard and flat white printer paper. I prefer the printer paper.

Thanks for the comment!

cocoleveo7686 said:

Buds looking good. Nice job so far

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Thanks man! Here's an update!


Two out of the three plants pictured here look like they have some more time to go. I have two other small plants not pictured here. An experienced growing told me they were all ready... =/. Not sure if I agree. Decided to post pictures and get some feedback from the community!