help with grow cabinet

stankybudz

Active Member
I have a cabinet that is 57" tall, 27" wide, and 15" deep. I have one shelf in it that the lights are attached to and I can move the shelf up and down. Right now I have 4 - 26 watt CFLs over 10 seedlings in small pots. There is a few problems though. First off when I close the doors there is a gap in the middle that lets light out and also at the bottom some light leaks out. Will this cause problems?? I want to do about 10 plants and keep them small, 1-2 ft. tall. Also, should I add more CFLs in there?? How many CFL's should I add?? I attached 2 pc fans in there behind the cfls to kind of circulate some air around but there isn't really much ventilation aside from the gaps. When I checked it today it felt warm in there so I'm worried if I add more CFLs it will get too hot. Heres a paint drawing of what it looks like. The top section of the cabinet is empty btw, as the plants get bigger I will keep moving the shelf up. Any ideas on what I can do with this??
 

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stankybudz

Active Member
I added 6 more CFLs to the shelf and now I have alot of heat, it got up to 100 degreez. I had to kill 4 bulbs, that brought the temp down around 85-90. Also, switched the pc fans so one fan blows air into the chamber and the other blows it out. I was thinking about adding a few more pc fans but instead have them all drawing air out of the chamber. Can anybody offer some ideas on controlling the heat in the chamber?? Is 10 cfls for that amount of space overkill??
 
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