First Grow - 2600 + watt CFL!!!!

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Originally Posted by low_rdr

by 24/7 I meant All the time :) Realizing the format, yeah, i shoulda put 24/0. I'm leaving them like that because what I'm planning on doing is having a constant cycle, and until I move and actually get my 'room' I get 2 cabinets, one for flower, and one for veg, each cabinet unfortunately has to be sectioned off, as I'm having my ruderalis strains flowering as soon as they veg 7" and the rest will grow out more, and I still haven't set my mothers yet, so from there I've gotta start my clones for my scrog for when I move.

So I've got alot going on as far as growing is concerned, but I'm sure you can tell by the work put into the cabinet, that I'm going to have a phatass growroom (and my veg cabinets/clone station will be in my boxes, unless I get a killer closet in the house)

I've actually got enough lighting that if I squeeze enough plants in there, I really can produce 2lbs - heat would be a major problem in that grow box though, so I've gotta get that taken care of first before I consider an overload of light.

subscribe to the thread, I should be putting up new pics of the two strains we're following tomorrow :)

Oh, btw, if your reading this, that means I want you to help pitch in and name my two girls!

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You could name super haze HAZEL keep it simple so no one gets confused

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Originally Posted by billydakid6812

Yea I am debating on getting a box like yours, but Im wondering if it will be enough room for the present plants i have growing they are already in 5 gallon pots, and there is six of them. I know it would not fit, I see you have 6 smaller ones. Im very interested to see how your plants end up i will be watching from start to finish I have always been interested in the seed to harvest 60 days. I just worry about yield when I think harvest in 60 days it just doesn't seem to be enough time to me, this is my first grow well second actually, but this is my first official grow investing money into it. My problem is one of my plants is already extremely wide,about 6 inches each side of the stem, and every alternating node is proving to grow the same,idk why its growing so wide I can tell it's going to be a long lanky plant the rest are short and bushy,but still in the 5 gallon pots space is an issue,im going to keep my eyes open for a cabinet like yours. My girlfriend is bitching about having to share a closet now, but I am def interested in running electricity like you have, I presently have a max lume 200 watt cfl putting out just about 18000 lumens so I would only need lights and wiring for the flowering box. How much money for all the materials excluding the cabinet. As far as the diagram goes I would very much appreciate that, Im not ready to do it now, but very soon so it's up to you if you wanna make a diagram now or later, just keep me posted. Thank you

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Okay, total cost on this was between 300 and 450 - the reason for the variable in price difference is the amount of bulbs I purchased. I purchased everything I could find in the spectrum(s) and style I was looking for, because its hard to find decent quality lights and be able to get them in large amounts, I actually wiped 3 hardware stores out of certain kinds of lights, as well as ceramic light sockets.

I was wrong on the price of the cabinet, I looked at the receipt, I got it on sale for $49 - but for $130 there is a wooden one with about 6x more space. If you re-read my thread, you'll notice that I said I saw another technique I was going to use for flower - the 3 6 smaller pots will not be there, I'm going to incorporate a solid mass grow box that is about 5.5-6" deep, that encompasses the underlighting, and allows me more space for rooting overall. Basically what this means, is that all the roots from all the plants will entangle - If you read the 3 pound per light grow log, you'll understand more clearly - thats one reason I'm not concerned about my small footprint, it might be a tiny cabinet, but with FIM, proper tiedowns, and my underlighting, I can actually have a very good yield per plant!

talk to your girlfriend - I'm sure after she realizes that you can potentially save 1k per plant (or more depending on prices in your area) she'll be more cool with it. My wife and I are both young, while she doesn't really like to hear me talk about my plants and ideas for them all the time, she fully supports me. Although this is one reason I'm using cabinets instead of a closet!

My flowering stage is just under 40k lumens. Now, if I switched to different style CFL bulbs, I can get about 50k lumens with the same setup, HOWEVER - I'm going for watts+lumen because i know on a decent grow you can yeild 1 gram per watt. I'd like to do about .35 grams per watt giving me a 752 gram harvest, or about 1.7 pounds. Relay that to your girlfriend - Street value where I live, that's almost 10k (and I buy by the ounce).

I do want to make a special notation... I do not share with my friends, I do not sell, I do not supply, and I have no intentions of doing anything of the sort (I'll gladly get my friends high as a kite if they come over, but I don't give my crap away) All this being said... protect yourself. If 10 people know your growing, consider yourself caught.

If its just you, and your girl - Keep it that way :) Always stay safe.

Anyway, back to my grow and your space issue - Check out the box method, its really good, 6" deep with a 18x24" footprint actually gives my plants TONS of room to grow, granted they will all be 4-5 inches apart, but thats where the strings and tiedowns come into place.

There are several educational videos to watch, if you've seen most of them, you'll have seen multiple levels of scrog for different lighting types, where each scrog produces a smaller amount of bud than the last (kinda like making hash, some is really high quality, but there isn't alot of it, then you've got alot of hash, that smokes great, but it's not super high quality) Same basic concept with the lighting (reason for the underlights) I'm going to have a bottom canopy and a top canopy - That's the only way I can yield so much out of a cabinet like this.

Just think, my popcorn nuggest will be about the size of my thumb (god... I can't wait)

So, cost breakdown for my cabinet:

Cabinet: $49
Paint: $7 (the inside of the cabinet was originally beige) I just used cheap flat white to coat the interior well enough to reflect better.
Cedar 2x4: $12 (cut into 24" sections, this holds my lighting) Why cedar? It is a natural bug repellant.
13 Ceramic Light Fixtures: $30 (they are about 2.29 each, I'm just estimating the total cost)
14 gauge wiring: $14 (black and white)
wiring terminals: $5 (don't use electric tape, do it right, get the orange or yellow terminals, if your using 14 gauge wire, get 10 gauge terminals (your wires are doubled up)
6 plastic light fixtures: $7 *(only for simple CFL lighting, and not alot of heat, so make sure these CFL's are at least 2" apart, use ceramic if they're closer)
2 Full Light Fixtures: $8 (for the underlighting)
24" T12 fixture: $14
24" T12 daylights: $8 (two GE's they're 610nm, not sure on wattage, low watt just for seedlings/clones)
6 Micro CFL 100 watt 6500's: $21 (Brand is up top) the non micros will give you more lumens, the micros are better for heat and still have a great lumen/watt efficiency
13 Full CFL 150 watt 2700's: $150 (they are right around 11 each, plus tax)
2 CFL Floodlamps 100 watt 2700's: $15? (I can't remember how much they were, I know they were a decent deal, I would have bought more, but they didn't have the 150's I wanted)

Germination Box: $8 (its a burke or whatever they're called)
then of course my nutes and perlite and soil ran me about $20 including some peatmoss and some cocoanut fiber.

I took all my plugs from old appliances and reused them, so saved cost right there, my flowering lights are grounded, but my veg are not.
Seed Order for this grow: $107 (includes shipping and nice tshirt)

Total: $475 including seeds - Not including seeds $368

Keep in mind, those 150 watt bulbs, I could not buy in bulk - I've got 40 of them
The 100 watts, i did buy in bulk, I have 4 boxes of 10 - It was roughly $50 per box but the individual price works out to about $7 each
The flood lights, I didn't wanna buy in bulk

Same with the T12's, I wanna put a T5 up top.

remember, this doesn't include any heat pads, or cooling whatsoever. (but, a passive cooling system might work with this....)

I did the same as you i cleared out wal-marts 2700 k cfls, i also bought 5 225 watt 75 watt equiv larger cfls so I am set for flowering as far as lighting goes. Maybe just pick up a few more for side lighting like you.I gotta get my flower room under control soon I have not figured that out as i want to have a constant veg and flowering cycle growing,as soon as i get that cabinet I will let you know, I will def need help with the wiring, thanks for the info dude. By the way only me and my girl know I'm growing she is just as interested in them as me, I did time in jail before. So i know better.

Okay - then I have to give you my BEST advice on all of this.

Don't get the plastic cabinet, spend extra for the larger wood - i love my cabinet, but the fact that its plastic, really sucks ass. If i could have taken it back after I put it together (I had already painted, dammit) I would have. The reason I'm doing constant cycles, is because... well, we smoke a Z a week, easily, I'll quite often stick two blunts together and roll up 8 grams - So yea, we burn through it like its fuel.

I also like to have a nice variety depending on the mood we are in. I have always kept three constants on hand (AK, Grand Daddy Purple, and Haze), haze isn't my favorite strain (lemon drop, aka cat piss is) - but I do love a good haze. Basically what I'm doing, is just insuring we always have a flavor of the day, kinda like icecream, you can try 30 different flavors a month, but you'll always have that one constant you go back to :) Mine is mint chocolate chip :)

speaking of which, wait until my new chocolope kush gets here :D Oh, and look up royal kush, if your anything like me, you'll love the flavor profile.

As far as help on the wiring, when I do start my next one, I'll take pictures, but I'll also do a short private video for you and put it up on youtube.

k cool thanks

Seems like everyone is using cfls these days. Is that just for smaller spaces?

Is CFL only for smaller spaces? No, not at all, there are several ways to set your lighting up - Let me just give you an idea, if your familiar with a coliseum setup, using CFL's instead of MH or HPS enables you to control your temps better and penetrate your canopy better. Utilizing some of the ideas you'll see me create DIY guides and logs to, you'll see how we can use CFL to increase yield in almost any type of grow.

True believers of HPS or MH (or both) will always testify that its all they use, its what they're comfortable with - Well, I'm not a commercial grower. I'm out for the best product, and best yield possible. I firmly believe that I can produce better yields with CFL, more or less giving about 3x more light than we NEED without hurting the plants and keeping cooling under control. Will it work? Guess you'll have to stay tuned in :)

Think of it this way though, a 600 watt HPS can flower a 4x4 area, and even a little larger with proper setup, with a decent yield. This 600 watt bulb produces about 90,000 lumens (thats the measure of light, more or less, the amount of light the bulb gives off) - One of the biggest problems with HPS is the heat they put out, so your losing a good percentage of your lumens in distance alone, unless your wrapping all your HPS bulbs in glass with an AC duct system, but most of you aren't.

Now, utilizing 480 watts of power, I'm generating 2150 watts of light (thats 3.5x of your 600w, cheaper and with less heat), producing just under 40k lumens. So if we do some math, and i get my grows down to a science and start producing 1 gram per natural watt of light, I'll be producing 2150 grams (if not better because of the grow methods) while the guy with the 600 watt HPS is still only pulling down 600 grams. While the light penetration isn't as bright with a CFL compared to a HPS,the CFL can be SOOOO much closer, that the light penetration won't make a difference.

Imagine a coliseum backlit with CFL's, I'm not sure what my entire plan is yet until I get it on paper, but I'm already imagining a multi layer scrog (top, bottom, inside, outside). If I can successfully scrog all 4 sides and FIM trim instead of prune, I might be able to add a good percentage to the yield. It looks as though I'm going to have a 3.5 x 10 closet for veg, and a 14x9 room for flower - Thats alot of room when you put an engineer to work on ways to produce the most yield out of the least amount of space.

My biggest problem is construction noise, I want to make sure I keep it to a minimum when I first move.... We'll take a look at the circumstances when I get situated.

I will be forever grateful for all yalls hard work in keeping the notes. My favorite place on the internet is right here

Thanks for your comments stillnawe! I appreciate that!

Update: Pics are coming soon "Hazel" hasn't unfolded yet, so I'm kinda waiting until she unfolds to get a pic of her and amnesia, lets just call them Hazel and Amy :)

Amy is looking good, very strong root, as she was almost 1" above the soil line, and now she's even with it - This wasn't from watering, the root pulled her down - Pretty nice actually, I've got a feeling that for a sativa I'm going to have some luck with my LST on her to bush her out and FIM my clones before I put her over to flower.

I went shopping for my 2nd cabinet last night, and I didn't find one suitable, had a few ideas based on some designs I saw, but I'm actually planning a trip to walmart and back to home depot this afternoon to continue my search for a good flowering cabinet.


I'm looking forward to creating this new cabinet and the DIY guide for it. I have all the accessories including lights for the new cabinet - So hopefully within the next week or so I'll post pictures of the entire new setup in a new thread.

An additional update - While Amy and Hazel have broke ground, most of the others have not - I also germinated another pure AK strain, I'd like to get a good AK harvest in before christmas, as AK is a great way to bring in the new year :)

I'm going to try and find a cabinet with at least 96" in height, and I'd like to find a 1.5'x3' footprint, or possibly 2'x4' footprint - This will give me plenty of room for 6 bushy plants with good lighting. I'm going to be putting at least 1200 watts in the new flowering cabinet, and it will be full spectrum with mainly 2700's, but I'm throwing in a few 6500's just to ensure that my auto's get all the vegetative growth they need before they switch over. I was planning on a 24/0 grow with the new cabinet, and I'm going to do that, just for the autos, when I move my photoperiod plants over, I'll be switching the cabinet to 12/12.

Seed Order Update: When they processed my re-order they didn't include a new tracking number, just the original, my package has not arrived yet, and i have no way to track the new one - I will email them and ask for a new tracking # today.

I've also been looking into LED lighting, when I move i may just setup a cabinet dedicated to a 12/12 LED grow so we can compare yields - I am still unaware how the lighting conversion and powerconversion works, it took me awhile to figure out the math behind the cfl's so I will be further educating myself on the lighting properties of the LED's as well, and of course, when I create that cabinet, I'll also post my logs - If anyone knows how many LED's and the proper LED wattage to equal 2k watts, and can give an estimated lumen count, please let me know! I've seen some light panels with 290ish .06 watt LED's that claim to cover a 8x8 grow from 1-4' suspension. I'm skeptical that 17.4 watts put out by these 8x8 footprint LED's isn't actually equal to a 600w HPS... However, considering I'm putting out 2150 watts with a 480w power draw, I have to accept the fact that I need to educate myself more. If you have advice, please don't consider it thread jacking, as it's all relevant!

Also, if I'm using LED's and i use separate cabinets for vegging/flowering, would it benefit me to go with solid spectrums? Or should I stick with the mixed lighting? why do I ask? Well, I'm considering making my own light with the LED's, and i can get the 10 watt LEDs in either red or blue, I can get them in 1-3 watts as well, and since I like to get creative with my lighting, and LED's put off virtually ZERO heat, I might take the time to build a custom lighting structure (and the guide to do it as well, since I know virtually no one on this board knows how to create an LED lamp..... Fortunately, I do, just not sure of the wattage conversion yet)

"I am aware that many growers shy away from MG - However in my experience, MG is a wonderful product as long as you use it correctly for your precious ladies. Never use it as directed, always water it down by at least 40%, and if your paying special attention to your girls, you should be able to make any corrections you need to.

I realize this is my first grow, but I also realize first and foremost that this is a weed. Too much attention, and you'll kill it, honestly, its best to sit back and do nothing than to over do it."

If this is your first grow, how do you any experience using Miracle grow on marijuana? I think its cheap and lacks the proper nutrition for a cannabis plant. Over time the plants becomes deficient in micro nutrients that Miracle grow does not provide. It also contains too much Urea Nitrogen and makes plants foxtail during flowering, decreasing yield and quality. There are many products out there that will give you better results and will only cost about 30-40 bucks if you stay cheap.Botanicare, House and Garden, Advanced, Fox farms, the list goes on and on.

As for lighting schedules, I use 18-6 because i get better growth that way. Ive also used 24/0 and 18/6 for rooting cuttings with different results. Cuttings under the 24/0 lighting don't root as fast, and don't root as vigorously. 24 hours of sunlight is not natural for marijuana, under ANY circumstances. A good motto to follow for cannabis cultivation is this.................When in doubt, Imitate nature. Your trying to create the perfect environment for this plant to thrive. Temps, humidity, light schedule, CO2 levels all need to be controlled. This basically means that your trying to create a Southeast Asia or Humboldt County in your cabinet. Easier said than done lol