Need some experienced advice for this tiny grow box please... Having trouble.

TinyGrow

Active Member
Okay I never really post on forums so I will try to compose this as well as I can.

With the economy the way it is and the people you have to deal with to get it, growing some personal buds sounds like a very good option for me.

I got the idea and started jotting down ideas and all of the ideas I came up with ended up ( in theory ) costing MUCH more than what I got in production, and if I plant more bud - well lets just say I'm not trying to sell weed nor go to jail lol..

I saw a video on youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_5LUNB0DlA , which says the plant only vegged for aprox 1 month and then entered the flowering phase. From what I can see it looks like the plant harvested some nice looking buds totaling about 1/2 to 1 oz.

This idea got me thinking - I dont want a plant 6 feet tall growing in my garage lol.. As much as I'd love it I live in a populated area and like I said earlier I am not trying to end up in jail. I began to design a little grow box to simulate the size of the plant I saw on youtube.

I grabbed a small wooden entertainment center (excuse these poor measurments I am not sure what order to write them short hand ) 4ft wide, 2 foot long and about 3 feet tall. I had a few shop lamps in the garage so what I did was I put the shop lamps on the top of the fixture (where the tv would go) and they both fit perfectly. I sawed two huge holes in the top part and installed the shop lights in the top caged by wire and a harness (safety first lol). I took two computer fans, one intake one exhaust and fit them into the side walls. Intake on the bottom left and exhaust on the top right for best ventilation. I painted the entire inside flat white with 3 coats (to ensure it coated the shitty wood). I laid down a little paint tray that fits the inside perfect.

Now the design was up and running. The lamps installed, the fans installed and the walls painted flat white and the front glass doors lined with dollar store wrapping paper mylar (yeah i kno its not the best but Im cheap.)

Now that I have you updated on my situation, here is my problem.

I went to home depot and bought 2 120 watt plant CFL's (blue tint) and found out later that I should have looked more into the lighting before I bought anything lol. Apparently MH or HPS set ups grow better bud because they produce the best light spectrum for the plants - these lights cost a lot of money I have heard. I found a few people on youtube who are growing SLAMMING bud with 100 watt CFL daylight twist bulbs and it got me wondering... The blue bulbs are working VERY well for the vege state and my 2 tiny plants are looking healthy and within 3 days went from seedling to 4 leaf sprouts. I know these two lights are going to work for now but in about a month (since im shortening the vege stage in order to grow the plants quicker i need to move fast.)

My plan of action is to install 6 Dual Light Houses into this box, Four bulbs on left wall, Four bulbs on the right wall , Four bulbs on the top, + the 2 120 plant lights. The bulbs I would be using are 30w (100w) CFL Daylight twist bulbs which put out 1750 Lumens each. The total of lumens output for my two plants would be 21000 which from reading this forum for mad long I've found out is MORE than enough for 2 plants.

To overview this in a nutshell, rectangle tv stand, 2 fans installed and air tight, a total of 21000 lumens (12 CFL bulbs), painted flat white, lined with plastic tray (to catch water), in vege state plant will recieve 24 hr sun light, when plant reaches top of box I will turn to 12 on 12 off to induce budding

Will this plan work? If so please let me know, if not please leave a detailed description of why. This is my side project. I am hoping to produce about 2 oz every 2 months - I figure that should be MORE than enough to keep me going and after a year or so I wont have to continue the box.

Im so sorry for the huge post but I am seriously at a brick wall right now lol Thank you again for reading and helping me out.


 

minigrows

Member
In all it sounds like you got a good handle on it. Those "plant bulbs" you have will most likely give you more trouble then their worth, if they are incandescent with a built in reflector like a par 38 with a coated lens then they will give off a ton of heat and make signifigant hotspots. You already have them so try em but if heats an issue then kill those first as the cfl are way better.

A tip on cfls... on the box when it says 100w only uses 26w. The big number is in refrence to incandescent bulbs which are very inefficient, the true wattage is what you want to look at. Home depot and lowes have 55w+ bulbs that put out near/ over 4000 lumens.
 

Cannabis Krew 420

Active Member
yes when talking about CFL's the true watts are they only number that matters, other than the temperature of the light spectrum. for vegging the CFL's should be 6500K, its kinda hard to find on the box but its important! you say the 12 cfls you have are daylight bulbs which means they are most likely 6500K so i think your good on that. and yeah i agree with minigrows those 120 'plant bulbs' dont sound reputable to me, definately find out if they are 6500K or not. Secondly when you switch to 12/12 for flowering you need to switch the CFL's to ones that read 2700K, which is the best light spectrum for flowering.

for future thought. it might be worth it for you to do something like this. Purchase a pack a 5 fem seeds, grow 1 seed into a mother plant big enough to get 4 clones off of then put those clones in a slightly bigger grow box. for maybe $300 you can have 5 seeds that will last over a year, and all the supplies for a new grow box..... think about it
 

jack ripa

Active Member
If you switch to 12/12 when the plants reach the top of the box you better have another box twice as tall ready to go.
 
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