CFL Grow

Hi everyone:

Been lurking and learning for the last few months and have just harvested my crop.

I grew in fox farm ocean soil in a 6'L X 3'W X 4'H space. Because of height concerns I used CFLs from start to finish.

While I do believe that HPS would have yielded more dense buds, I am satisfied with my crop as I am only growing for my personal needs.

Have attached a few photos of my plants.










Peace to all

I'm also doing a CFL grow, although I'm only 3 weeks into vegging. What was your setup like? I'd like to be able to compare my growing to someone else who used CFLs through out.

nice man, cfls produce potent buds.

Looks great Stoker. What was the dried weight of your yield.

I started on CFLs, but ran into a great deal on some HPS lighting so I now use both.

looks good, im barley starting a cfl grow all the way , how was ur setup ?

Not sure of final yield as I just harvested today ( 2 of 3 plants). Will weigh after drying and report back. However the buds were fairly thick, dense and very sticky! Hope this is a good sign.

Started with bag seed from some pretty potent weed. Grew four plants and got three ladies, although I must say the male was the best looking of them all. Oh well. Still waiting to harvest plant 3 as it is not ready at this time.

I started with 10 daylight 6500K fluor tubes rated at 3200 lumens each.

When my plants reached about 14 inches in height, I switched to 10 soft white 3000K tubes rated at 2850 lumens each. I also added 7 CFLs 2700K rated at 2700 lumens each. For flowering, this gave me a total of 47,400 lumens, and most importantly for me, very little heat.

I placed the CFLs around the sides of the plants to increase the light reaching the lower parts of the plants. This helped produce better buds through the middle of the plants.

Once again, I do believe that HPS will produce a bigger yield, but for my stealth grow and limited space, I feel that fluors and CFLs have given me a pretty nice harvest.

Peace to all.

Stocker,

You have almost the exact same setup as I do, or had... I have since expanded and added another box for flowering. I use 10 26w CFLs (6500k) + 5 18w floros. I started 10, and ended with 5 females. I then proceeded to cook them when I switched to flowering nutes and lost one. This encouraged me to build the new grow box.

My new grow box has 3 150w HPS + 2 70w HPS + 5 42w (2700k) CFLs. It is still stealth and well insulated with RBI.

So I am down to 4 females, from which I have taken 5 clones which now live in the old veg box. The 4 females are recovering from my stupidity. It will be interesting to how it will ultimately effect the yield.

Well... enough of my rambling... Great job Stoker....

-ngtybear

very nice for a cfl grow mate!

I'm also doing a CFL grow and it seems my main problem is just finding enough sockets to hook my lights up to? How were ya'll's setup? What did you use to hold up your lights, etc...

Dude, I think you have a very nice grow there, now it is time to enjoy the fruits of your labor! CONGRATS.

Thanks for all the comments. This is my fourth grow and the info I got from everyone on this site really improved my crop, both in potency and yield.

My grow space is an area I found under my stairs. As I have stealth issues, i.e. kids at home, I need to be careful.

I attached the shop light fixtures to the joists under the stairs using eye hooks and the chain that came with the fixtures. I then attached a five foot long 1x1 piece of wood about 4 inches out from the last shop fixture. From this I hung the CFLs to get light to the middle of the plants. This wood is on chains so it can be raised and lowered.

For power, I used surge protectors hooked up in tandem. I needed five plugs for the shop light fixtures, seven plugs for the CFL fixtures. I also have a fan, a bathroom exhaust fan, and a fresh air intake fan. That's fifteen plugs. I purchased three surge protectors with six plugs each. I plugged the first one into my timer, the second into the first and the third into the second.

I also placed each plant on it's own stand so each plant could be adjusted individually as it grew. This kept each plant within 1 to 2 inches of the overhead lights. For me, adjusting the plants to the correct height is the most time consuming part of the whole CFL growing process.

Here are a few more pictures from my grow:







When my last little chick, AKA Nosy Rosie, flies the coop, I am going to try an HPS set up in the garage, but with her still at home, I will for now continue with my current set up.


Peace to all

coldshot60 said:

Iv made a small grow box (2’L 3’W 4’H) just wondering how many watts, k , and lumens CFL lights I should have in there to grow a good crop?

Click to expand...

Lighting

Light is needed by a plant for using nutrients and manufacturing food. It has a great influence on chlorophyll production, growth rate, leaf size, and flower and seed production. Light will be one of the most important aspects of your grow operation. For the purposes of growing marijuana, there are two basic types of lights: fluorescent's and high intensity discharge (HID), including MV (mercury vapor), MH (metal halide), and HPS (high pressure sodium).
HID vs. Fluorescent

The main difference is that fluorescent's create light by passing electricity through a gas vapor under low pressure and HID creates light by passing electricity through a gas vapor under high pressure. HID lights are much brighter and while initially more expensive, are more cost efficient to operate and will grow a much nicer crop. Therefore, they are the light of choice for most indoor growers.
Fluorescent

Fluorescents come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. There are compacts, twist bulbs and circle bulbs. They all work the same way. They have a starter and ballast which help provide a steady and regulated amount of electricity to the light. Before HID lights were available indoor growers used fluorescent lights. While fluorescents can be used for an entire grow from seedling to harvest, it is generally not advised to use them in this way. To grow effectively with fluorescent's, think small. These lights are better suited for starting seedlings, rooting clones and small plants, maintaining moms for cloning purposes, and providing sidelight for the undergrowth. These situations do not require a high intensity of light to run their course. The light emitted by fluorescents is gentler and more diffuse, it doesn't release a lot of heat, and doesn't make the plant work as hard. For this reason they can be kept closer to the plant. One or two inches is sufficient, but this also means that the lights must be adjusted almost daily to accommodate growth which can be troublesome.
High Intensity Discharge

There are basically three types of HID lights. Mercury vapor (MV), metal halide (MH), and high pressure sodium (HPS). These lights also require a starter and a ballast.
Mercury Vapor

Mercury vapor is the type of lights that were used for streetlights many years ago. Not very good for growing because it doesn't provide enough of the right kind of light spectrum. While they do provide a littleof the blue spectrum, MV also produces too much heat to get very close to a plant, and are very inefficient to operate.
Metal Halide

The metal halide is a very good source of the white/blue spectrum of light that is ideal for vegetative growth. Many growers use MH during the vegetative phase. MH is bright and cost efficient to operate, but not as efficient as HPS lights. Most commonly used sizes are 400 watt and 1,000 watt. Works best when used in combination with HPS lights.
High Pressure Sodium

The best light available today for growing marijuana. High pressure sodium lights are very bright and very efficient. This light has a red/orange spectrum that is ideal for the flowering phase. With enough of these kind of lights you too can grow those centerfold buds. HPS comes in a wide variety of wattages from 70 watts up to 1,000 watts.
Lighting Forumlas

To correctly determine the best lighting for your space there are several things that you have to know. At this point, a couple of definitions are in order. The amount of light emitted by one candle that falls on one square foot of surface one foot away is called a lumen (lm). The amount of electricity flowing through a wire is measured in watts. Watt (W) hours measure the amount of watts used in one hour. A kilowatt/hour (kWh) is 1,000 watt/hours (Wh).
Lumens Per Square Foot

To determine how many lumens per square foot you have, find out the square footage of your space by multiplying the width and depth. Divide the lumens available by your square footage. This will give you lumens per square foot. For example, say your space is 3 feet deep by 4 feet wide, for a total of 12 square feet. The total lumens available from your light(s) is 45,000 lumens, which means you have 3,750 lumens per square foot.
How Much Light Do I Need?

Technology has advanced so much in the last 15 years that we are constantly refining the process and updating what we know works best for growing. Current theory holds that the minimum amount of lighting needed to sustain growth is around 2,000 lumens per square foot. Mid range is around 5,000 lumens per square foot. Optimal is 7,000 to 7,500 or higher lumens per square foot.
Can I Have Too Much Light?

The basic answer is no. According to the law of diminishing returns, you could theoretically reach a point when your plants just couldn't absorb any more light, but it would be impossible to have that many lights in your space. Heat from the lights would become a problem long before you ever reached that point. So use as many lights as you want, just control the heat.
Experimentation is the only sure method to determine the best solution for each plant. If plants are not receiving enough light, they begin to grow tall and spindly as if stretching for the light and foliage becomes pale green. Or, if they need to be moved closer to the light, or given a longer light exposure period. Too much light may lead to bleaching of leaves and flowers, browning and shriveling. Leaves would become overly compact and curl under at the edges.

Thought I had moved off the front page. I am an expert "pot head" ( 40 years of enjoying this herb ) but not an expert in growing it. I have been following the CFL vs HID discussions on other threads and will let others more experienced than I am continue to debate the merits of each system.

One concern I had with my setup which led me to use CFLs and Fluoro tubes was height restriction. I know heat can be dealt with, but what about height?

With only 48" of head room in my very hidden space, I was concerned that with HID my plants would run out of space and be "smoked by the lights" before I even had a chance to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

Any suggestions in how to deal with height concerns using HIDs would be appreciated.

While my buds were not as large as buds I have seen posted here that were grown under HIDs, quite a few of them were pretty sticky and fairly dense.

I must admit that I snuck a toke from one of the buds before it has completely dried and cured. Nice high if I do say so myself.

I will continue to listen and learn from everyone here and I am about to start another grow.

Peace to all

I think the CFL's were a good idea considering your space. You could grow more plants just flower them sooner if you wanted to have an HID. However you have tons of light and the plants obviously loved it, and if your lumens are at the levels that you have them the only thing you can really improve on is a full color spectrum. I'm not sure if you can get different colored CFL's, I've heard something about envirolites on Major_Toke's lighting post, maybe check those out!

What was your yield on that plant?

Hey, I'm considering growing for the first time in a similar size space, but I'm worried about the smell (not that that has much to do with the size of space). When your plants (which look great by the way) started really flowering, was it noticeable if you walked by or not at all? Just tryin to get an idea. Thx

I vented my space into my garage with a 110 CFM fan and brought fresh air into it with a 90 CFM fan, so the smell was not to bad.

Now, drying it in my closet is a different story. With the door closed it is OK, but when I open the door the smell is pretty strong.

My plants were about 28 to 30 inches tall at harvest and the first one has yielded 1.5 ounces dried. The second plant looks about the same. I have a third one that has not been harvested. It does not look as if it will be quite as good. This should give me around 4 ounces which should be fine for me until the next harvest.

I do not know if this is a good yield, but if I can get around 4 ounces X 3 harvests a year, I will be able to meet my needs.

I will veg a little longer this time as I did have about 8 to 10 inches of height to play with. With a bigger plant, maybe I will get a little more next harvest.

My first grow I did like many do and veged my plants right up to the lights and then flowered. Imagine my surprise when they grew completely into and over my light fixtures. I started cutting the tops off and pretty much ruined my harvest.

After finding this site, I learned that flowering plants double and triple in size depending on the strain and started flowering at about 14 inches tall. Much better results.

With HID lights or stronger CFLs, I am assuming plants this size would yield more weight. Maybe someone growing with stronger lights could let us know what is a good yield for this size plant.

Peace to all

how long did this take you from start to finish??

I veged my plants for 7 weeks and flowered for 8 except for a late bloomer I am about to harvest. That plant I over nuted and it has not done as well.

If veged longer the plants should be bigger. However, with fluoro tubes and CFLs as I used, I think it is better to flower a little early as you must keep the plants close to the lights.

I placed the CFLs around the sides of the plants and this helped the middle buds to grow bigger.

I am also going to build a canopy and use CFLs along the top. I have learned here that this will concentrate the light emitted unlike the fluoro tubes which emit a more diffuse light pattern.

I am going to use CFLs again because I live in the south of the USA and heat is an issue. My fresh air comes from my garage and during the summer it gets pretty hot down here. I have thought about building a box with an AC attached and using the cooled air from that box to cool my space. Will wait and see the temp readings this summer.

If I use the 8 week veg/8 week flower schedule for my new crop I should be finished around the first week of June. If so I might wait till fall to start my next crop.

This is a great site for new growers. There is a lot of info in the 101 already asked questions section and Newbie Central. I know it helped me.

Peace to all