First grow in Cab with CFLs - Cali Orange

So I decided it was time to give a grow a shot indoors... I built a cab last week to do it in.

The cab measures in at 30" x 28" x 58" - not huge, but assuming I'll have a couple males and prob transplant 1 or 2 outside the cab right now has 6 26w 6500k lamps with parabolic reflectors, though I will be adding either more CFLs w/o reflectors or maybe some flouros.... lights are mounted with chains to adjust the height... only thing I haven't sorted out yet is ventalation... I have the fans for it, just need to buy the ducting supplies.

24 hours after starting germination 2 were showing taproot so I planted those. I;m starting the seeds in 2 different kinds of soil, 3 will be in Hortibec Premium Nature Mix - Seedling Starter Mix which is made up of Peat Moss, Perlite and Compost (not sure of the ratios)... the other 2 are in Hortibec Premium Nature Mix - Vegetable Garden & Herb Mix which is made up of Peat Moss, Compost, Humus and Sand... not sure of the ratios of either of them though...

I plan on using the VGH mix only once I do the first transplant, but I am thinking of adding Perlite to it.

Anyways, heres some pics!

Edit: the seeds are Nirvana - California Orange Bud btw

the first is the 5 seeds germinating with the 2 showing their taproot

the second is the first seed going in the pot

the next 2 are pictures of the cab setup.

Plant 1 & 2 had their "Day 1" as Apr 12 and plant 3-5 had their "Day 1" on the 13th... for the sake of simplicity, I;m going to say Apr 13 is day 1 for all of them.

any suggestions are welcomed! :thumbsup:

Day 2 - # 1 & 2 popped up out of the soil so they have now gone into the cab and under the CFLs while the other 3 remain upstairs so they don;t dry out fast by being under the lights

First pic is of plant #1, odd its much smaller than #2 already and #1 popped its taproot first!

first pic is plant #2

last pic is them under their CFL's - i've also adjusted the neighboring CFLs to point at them while we wait on the other 3 plants

ooo looks like #1 is actually a little bigger than i realized, just took a closer look at it a few hours later and I could see that the stem was actually coming up out of the soil and then curled back under it with the first 2 leafs forming... i carefully scraped a bit of the dirt away from where it was going back under to help it pull those leafs up out of the soil a bit

You should go to your local hardware store and get a few of them Y adapters for light sockets. 1socket+Yadapter=2sockets.:jointsmile: Soil looks kinda rough No offense but I would not want you to grow me if I was a seed lol.:jointsmile: Good Luck man I would go with them Y adapters tho twice the lights:cool:


~One~:rastasmoke:
~BudG~:rastasmoke::rastasmoke:

Yeah, i've been thinking about the Y adapters, i took a look for them in home depot the other day but they were sold out of them.

the soil looks kinda rough because the mix uses compost as a natural fertilizer instead of chemical fertilizers which gives a soil somewhat similiar to what you'd dig up in a forest... has lots of small biodegrading sticks and its very crumbly when its dry... its quite damp in those pics which makes it a little sticky.... i suspect thats why the first plant had a little trouble popping the seed leafs up out of the top... now that i freed them a bit they are starting to stand up and open

the 2 are growing great in the seedling starter mix so far... i can see noticable growth as i keep checking them every couple hours to make sure they aren;t getting too hot from the lights being so close to the soil

Ya I figured that it had some compost or some other mixture to it but I could not be to sure as I am steady smokin an drinkin. Ya dig?



~One~:rastasmoke:
~BudG~:rastasmoke::rastasmoke:

Wow, I just realized I screwed up when Day 1 was..

Day 1 for plant 1&2 was actually the 15th, and plant 3-5 was the 16th... so going to call the 16th day 1 for all of them.


Anyhow, its now Day 3, so not much has happened, but been thinking about improvements too...

The first 4 seeds that germinated have all popped up.

the 5th one i can see just starting to push through the soil.

been thinking about the lighting situation as well... I think what I am going to do is re-make the centre mount that hangs from the chains to be slightly smaller and mount some fixed ceiling brackets on to it... then I;m going to cut some wood and screw some straps between the verticle posts inside the box at varying heights inside the cab... those straps can then be used to attach the clamp-mounted parabolic reflector lamps which i can i aim a little better from there to get at the lower sections of the plants while the suspended lights hit everything from the top.

Also... I should have mentioned before... but once I goto flower I;m planning on swapping out all the bulbs with 46w (150w equiv) w/2600 lumens each @ 2700k where as what I am running right now for veg is 26w (100w equiv) w/1600 lumens each @ 6500k.

I;m going to think about the lighting situation a bit more before I do that though... not like I even want super intense light just yet as my seedlings are still very very tiny and the soil will get too hot with more light anyways.

Remember ventilation is a key idea with a little fan blowing on them when they get a decent little size.:jointsmile:


~One~:rastasmoke:
~BudG~:rastasmoke::rastasmoke:

Yep :)

I still gotta sort out the regular cabinet vents... might do that today i have some old relatively small industrial fans that i'll use 1 or 2 to pull air out the top from some vent holes in the bottom... I just need to go and pick up some some cheap ducting so I don't create any light-leaks in the process. I also have a small oscilating desk-size fan that will be going inside the cab once the actual cab vent is sorted out

I;m not *too* concerned about that at the moment though... i have a regular upright fan oscilating into the box at the moment through the front door... but that is creating some light losses having the door open.

For the afternoon today though I've pulled the seedlings out of the cab and they are catching some sun-rays infront of a window... wanted to put them right outside but its too cold today (about 60F).

today is day 4 and things are still looking good, plant #5 has its seed leafs stuck together still... hopefully they will pull apart on their own soon.

right now I have the plants on a 24/0 light schedule, but I may pull back to 18/6 later on.. haven't decided yet. right now the CFLs being so close to the soil is causing me some dryness problems... my soil seems to be getting dry very fast from the lights being so close... and i;m sure the parabolic reflectors are making it alott worse having them so close to the soil...

hopefully they'll enjoy the day in the sun :rasta: might grab some updated pics of them later today :D

Just a quick day 4 pic update

the first is just the plants/lights in a new layout while they are really small... once they grow up a bit the lights will be in a new configuration

the second and 3rd pic are just a couple macros

your plants shoudn't be drying out that fast. no matter how close the lights are.

do you know what temps your cab is running at?

also, you shouldn't take your plants outside. you will be inviting a whole slew of nasties into your controlled indoor enviroment. not a good thing.

keep it up!


-shake

Yeah I have a temp/humidty meter in the box with everything... ambient temp in the box, not under direct light, flucuates between 70-75F and humidity is in the 20-25% range... which seems like it could be a little low (humidity) to me, but i;m honestly not sure what a good target would be, and i also suspect that number is going to start going up on its own as the plants get larger.

good call actually about not taking the plants outside, i never thought about the pest problems that that could create... makes perfect sense now that you mention it though :thumbsup:

I think the biggest problem with the soil drying out is the parabolic reflectors... they are obviously getting more light to the plants/soil than would otherwise get there which means more light energy is getting absorbed by the soil, but then there is also the problem that the reflectors themselves get warm and keep the heat closer to the plants instead of letting that heat rise in the air easier...

but..... i also installed my proper cabinet ventalation yesterday and that seems to have helped with the soil dryness problem as well... i previously just had a big upright fan pointed down through the cabinet door basically right at the plants on its lowest setting (which is still quite powerful for the plants) and i suspect that the constant air flow over the soil was also helping to evaporate additional water.

that seems to have helped with the dryness problem... but it very well could be that i;m just over analyzing it as well, i know over-watering is a really common rookie mistake so i;m trying to find a balance somewhere between what my instincts are telling me with what my knowledge from reading all these forums is telling me :D

I should of also mentioned that I added a 7th CFL to the cab yesterday...

i hung a 42 watt (2600 lumens @ 2700k) that is basically in the middle of the other 6, it doesn;t have a parabolic reflector on it though.

I know the 2700k colour temp is not ideal for veg stage, but I figured giving it a little something other than 6500k wasn't going to hurt and I had read about some people prefer a bit of a mix anyways.

This now gives me 6x23watt (1600 lumens @ 6500k) + 1x42watt (2600 lumens @ 2700k)

for a total of 12,200 lumens, which works out to about 2100 lumens per sq. foot if you take into account the entire cab... this is actually still very low, but at the moment all of plants and lights are concentrated into about a 1 sq foot area, possibly even less, which means that lighting situatin should actually be very very good... possibly even too much?... but once those plants start getting larger and i have to spread them out, more bulbs are going to have to go in for sure.

once the plants get larger and I have room for more bulbs, my aim is for somewhere between 10 and 14 CFL bulbs... if I put 42 watt (2600 lumen) bulbs in all of them, that should put me somewhere between 26,000 and 36,400 lumens, or 4486 to 6275 lumens per sq. foot. I should be doing pretty well being anywhere inside that range according to roughrider's post over here: http://boards.cannabis.com/indoor-li...uch-light.html

Sadly one of my plants had a bit of an accident last night :\ the 7th light i had hanging from up above slipped and fell on the plant in the middle :( It wasn;t there very long i think, but the seedling is still so tiny and weak... its not looking very good for it... will give it a little time to see if it recovers but i think she's a goner :\

Well, when I got home from work today the plant the light fell on looked even worse... i haven;t given up total hope on it, but i;m not going to put much thought into it... i've decided to take it out of the box and just leave it in a windowsill that gets lots of light during the day and will see what happens to it.

I also caught the other 4 showing some signs of becoming root bound so I transplanted them into some 1 gallon pots with some new soil

the mix for the new soil is roughly 2 parts VGH soil, 1 part perlite, 1 part vermiculite

and wow, i thought the plant seemed to be growing fast, but actually seeing the roots occupying all the soil in those small 4" pots was pretty amazing

Just a small pic update

took a couple of macro's of a couple of the plants today

the first 2 are from plant #1, and the second 2 are from plant #2

Can see a little bit of brown spots from them being a little root bound! but, all the new growth is a nice healthy green.

I find it kind of interesting how plant #2 has much thinner but longer leaves than #1, and also the new leafs coming out of #2 are growing on quite the angle upwards while #1 is staying pretty horizontal.

plant #3 looks almost identical to #1 and #4 looks like #2

mostly just a pic update... here are the plants in there new pots that they got transplanted into a couple days ago... this seems to have really helped with my soil dryness problem, i;m sure the new soil mixed has helped too.

the pics in order are just plant # 1,2,3,4 and then the last is the basic cabinet arrangement at the moment, need to refine some things, but feeling a little lazy atm! all in all, id say things are going pretty well... though #2 has its leaves a little shriveled a bit, I think the one of the lights was a little too close for awhile... and #4 has some tiny brown spots on the first set of leafs, it doesn;t seem to be getting any bigger so i;m just kinda ignoring it.

I've increased the number of liths when i did the transplant as well, here what is what now.

there are 6 x 23watt @ 6500k with 1600 lumens each in parabolic reflectors

then, the kinda X shapped pattern, on opposite corners there are 2 x 43watt @ 2700k with 2600 lumens each + 2x 23watt @ 5100K with 1600 lumens each. I am finding the 2 plants that are directly under the 2700K lights are producing a very noticably brighter coloured green on there leafs

On the plants without the 43 watts over them, they get doubled up parabolic reflectors to try and even it out a bit... i;m going to change it up a bit though as I;m finding it a little difficult right now to keep the lights arranged well... the parabolic reflectors are a little bit tricky to manage.

wow.... i just thought i'd share this as it might be useful for other CFL growers... i just found some General Electric 29watt (125 equiv) CFLs that output 2200 lumens... this works out to around 75 lumens per watt...

these are to-date the most effecient CFLs i have come across in stores... i was a little hesitent to buy them as they do not list the colour temp on the packaging, but googling around with the UPC code and model number written on the bulb looks like it indicates they are 2700K, though all my sources on that info seem to be kinda non-authoratative...

Anybody know anything about these bulbs? they had a product number written on the box - 00861, and on the bulb itself it shows "FLE29HLX/2/XL/SW"

they are going to make excelent flowering bulbs! they were really cheap too since GE has some pretty good instant rebate coupons that are available in-stores here right now... the coupons made them about 1/2 price...

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Originally Posted by syde00

wow.... i just thought i'd share this as it might be useful for other CFL growers... i just found some General Electric 29watt (125 equiv) CFLs that output 2200 lumens... this works out to around 75 lumens per watt...

these are to-date the most effecient CFLs i have come across in stores... i was a little hesitent to buy them as they do not list the colour temp on the packaging, but googling around with the UPC code and model number written on the bulb looks like it indicates they are 2700K, though all my sources on that info seem to be kinda non-authoratative...

Anybody know anything about these bulbs? they had a product number written on the box - 00861, and on the bulb itself it shows "FLE29HLX/2/XL/SW"

they are going to make excelent flowering bulbs! they were really cheap too since GE has some pretty good instant rebate coupons that are available in-stores here right now... the coupons made them about 1/2 price...

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To Add onto this. They also make a 42W bulb that is equivalent to 150W :D