LED's or CFL

So I have a micro grow planned inside pc, giving me about 0.5 square feet to work with inside.
The plan is to have 1 mother plant, take 6 or so clones, let them root and then go straight to flowering.

Now obviously 6 clones inside is pretty cramped but I'm aiming for around 5g per plant which isnt too ambitious I think. I will be using LST to help expose some of the lower branches, and just to utilize the small space as best as possible.

The idea is a sort of SOG style, with 6 small plants instead of 1 big one. I have successfully cloned and lst'd before, but SOG is something I'm new to.

Now at the moment I'v got about 40-50w of cfl in there (4x 10-15w cfls), but I am slightly worried this wont be enough. Would I be able to get 5g roughly per plant using this setup or is it going to be difficult? Strain is
truthband.

If the cfl's arent enough another option is to get about 5 10w led chips and use those instead, opinions?

moonstar47 said:

So I have a micro grow planned inside pc, giving me about 0.5 square feet to work with inside.
The plan is to have 1 mother plant, take 6 or so clones, let them root and then go straight to flowering.

Now obviously 6 clones inside is pretty cramped but I'm aiming for around 10g per plant which isnt too ambitious I think. I will be using LST to help expose some of the lower branches, and just to utilize the small space as best as possible.

The idea is a sort of SOG style, with 6 small plants instead of 1 big one. I have successfully cloned and lst'd before, but SOG is something I'm new to.

Now at the moment I'v got about 40-50w of cfl in there (4x 10-15w cfls), but I am slightly worried this wont be enough. Would I be able to get 10g roughly per plant using this setup or is it going to be difficult? Strain is
truthband.

If the cfl's arent enough another option is to get about 5 10w led chips and use those instead, opinions?

Click to expand...

The led's would work better.
40w cfl = around 2200 lumens.
40w led = around 3600 lumens.
Im comparing lumens for a quick understanding of what light will give more output with the same input, led's are generally more efficient then cfl's.

I was thinking of adding more cfls giving me a total of around 60w. Would this be enough to grow the 6 clones 12 12 after rooting?

EDIT: quick question on smell also, I will be covering any light leaks etc within the pc case, and installing a small carbon scrubber on the exhaust. Will this keep the odours from the 6 flowering clones completely neutral in the surrounding room?

moonstar47 said:

I was thinking of adding more cfls giving me a total of around 60w. Would this be enough to grow the 6 clones 12 12 after rooting?

EDIT: quick question on smell also, I will be covering any light leaks etc within the pc case, and installing a small carbon scrubber on the exhaust. Will this keep the odours from the 6 flowering clones completely neutral in the surrounding room?

Click to expand...

The question is more like, is it worth flowering under 60watts? You can flower at 60w in a pc as long as you flip asap!! Keep in mind, you will be tending to this stealth box every day (especially sativas!!) all for 20-50 grams 3 months later. Why do you need stealth? Anyone els come in the room? I could never mask the smell 100% with scrubbers but they do a good enough job to keep the smell away from the neighbors. If you dont have much experience, then i would start with 1 or two plants. Give them some room

YouYou will not be able to fit 6 clones in one PC box , sorry to say

Well as I mentioned before I've worked out that the space I have to work with is about half a square foot however I saw many sog style setups with minimal space with lots of clones flowered early to give short plants at harvest.

The initial idea was to just flower the mother plant from seed however seeing as I would only get around 5-10 grams I decided to use the above method to try get more yield from the same plant.

So maybe 6 clones is optimistic, how about 2 clones grown inside under 60w cfl? Now I know some people hate being asked “how much will I yield“ but off this setup with lots more space inside and flowering at 3 inches tall, is it worth it with the 2 clones? I would be happy having a zip off this.

And with regards to the smell yes it is entirely possible people will enter the room that the pc case will be in, however I will include a scrubber inside once flowering begins. Seeing as I will only have 2 relatively short plants inside is it ok for me to expect the smell immediately outside the box to be neautral?

2 would be better,, every PC grow I have ever seen was a single plant, and yes, short to no veg time,, most every PC grow I have seen was 4 cfls across the top,, but I would prefer the led's,, sure you cant just grow in one of those shorty tents, the 2 footers?

Stealth is pretty vital for me, so no go on the tent. Thanks for the idea though. I've considered growing in something along the lines of a bedside table, reckon I could get about 8 clones in there, but then I have the problem of needing a lot of cfls.

I have been seriously considering LED's now to be honest, was thinking of getting

4x 10w warm white, 800-900 lumens each
2x 10w red led''s, 1000 lumens each.

So around 60w of led's, as you can see I have not incuded any cool white or blue specific led's as I will only be rooting the clones and going straight to flower.
However I am reading that its best to have lots of smaller leds than a few big ones. I would heatsink the leds and there will be some airflow inside, but do you think the led light might burn the plants at a distance of about 4inches?

You will get about a half oz, it depends on the strain, right? 3/4 ox max. Certainly you want to go with hybrids or indicas, because shorter and more dense. White widow comes to mind, gives a sativa high but grows short if you top it.

Top your plants for more, not sure if that works in growing 12/12 the whole time though. Or just more plants with single cola, up to 3 small plants max. Can you take clones from plants that running in 12/12 the whole time? A small plant like that might not make good enough clones fast enough for ya, you might be better off just topping 1 plant.

Yes if you make a good scrub filter, it will not stink, my homemade one made of pencil holders worked fine. Try to run with a strain that is not really stinky, avoid kush strains most of them wreak pretty bad.

That's 1/2oz per plant right? And the 2 mother plants will be vegged till I can take 3 clones from each of em then plan is to let the clones root and flower them, giving single colas allowing all the plants to fit in. If I topped them I would get too many side branches I think.

Regarding the homemade filter is it possible to make one from a large ish pc fan pulling the air through the carbon?

You should just get an auto or 12/12 from seed for a small space but your better off finding a speaker or cabinet cuz if your putting time into it why not make it worth it

The clones will be taken from healthy mothers which will be growing outside, more cost effective than planting all from seed. I am most likely to do this in a cabinet or bedside table type of thing than a pc now, just because I want to have 6 clones/plants growing. Looking at around 1-1.5 square feet, planning on the 60w of leds as mentioned above^

Hi guys, I`m looking to grow one plant from seed in a pc box. What sort of lighting should i be looking at for both veg and flowering? I`m not so worried about the oz, its for personal use.

Thanks