Grow Cabinet w/ 12 23W CFL Too Hot? How do these look?

This is my first grow ever, I build a grow cabinet and a DIY CFL hood with 12 23 W 6500K bulbs. I'm using an ebb & flow hydro system with Fox farm nutrients. I got the clones 2 days ago they were fully rooted. Strain is 707 headband.

My ambient air temp is 70 deg but my cabinet seems to be getting pretty hot with that number of bulbs. I thought CFL's ran pretty cool. Let me tell you this hood is getting pretty warm.

I have a powerful exhaust fan mounted on top to keep fresh air sucked in from the bottom. I had a 120 mm computer fan mounted on top of the hood to pull accumulated heat out of the hood toward the exhaust fan but still the tops of the pots are 87 degrees. The tips of the leaves are around 87-88 degrees. They are about 6 inches away from the hood and still this hot!

How are the plants looking? They are being watered 5 times a day with the ebb & flow system.

The tall ones look ok but the smaller clones look a little droopy. Is this due to heat?

It sounds like you are running at idea temperature. In the flowering stage drop the temp to 60 to 75 bout 3 quarters of they way through and you can have purplish pinkish bud.

Can they get in the high 80's safely? I wish I had done a little research about the 23w bulb producing so much heat especially at 12x. My ph is around 6.1-6.2. Using RO water and fox farm nutrient. On their feeding schedule I went in the middle of their seedling and cutting and week 1 schedule so I put 2.5 TSP Big Bloom and 1.5 TSP Grow Big PER gallon. Resulting ppm was 570 using RO water. Have them about 7-8 inches from the lights.

Would you guys make any changes with this system? Do the plants look healthy?

its a fantasy that CFL's do not get hot. they do. even with a 6 inch inline fan i still have temps 8 degrees over ambient.


JP

justparanoid said:

its a fantasy that CFL's do not get hot. they do. even with a 6 inch inline fan i still have temps 8 degrees over ambient.


JP

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is the drooping due to heat. Is 570 ppm too much for these rooted clones?

blackonblack said:

is the drooping due to heat. Is 570 ppm too much for these rooted clones?

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your problem is simple, plants have no energy or vigour and are stretchy due to cfl lighting, its far too weak.
if you get 400-600 mh in there ,keep temps around 80, they will take off.