Small Growing For Personal Use

[Peaches987]

I know of the emphasis on light and lumens on growth and such, but i'm trying to do something small for myself and for the hell of it. I'm not going big so i'm not really gonna go out and splurge on supplies. I'm working with what I got. There is already bags of soil, a few kinds of fert. There are also an abundance of 2 bulb fixtures with 4 ft. flouro's in them. But heres the problem.. I have a small grow box i made. 3 1/2 feet long, Almost 4 ft. high and 1 1/2 ft. wide. the box has the inside covered with reflective material and insulated because my room is cold.. Since my box is so small im forced to only use 2 20 watt. flouros.. one bulb being a cool white, and one being a GRO LUX. If any other light i'm only gonna add 1 or two cfl's. Ayone have any advice for me besides to add more light.. Just how to get the most of what i have.. :rasta: Thank You All

Peaches987 Reviewed by Peaches987 on 12-20-2007. Small Growing For Personal Use I know of the emphasis on light and lumens on growth and such, but i'm trying to do something small for myself and for the hell of it. I'm not going big so i'm not really gonna go out and splurge on supplies. I'm working with what I got. There is already bags of soil, a few kinds of fert. There are also an abundance of 2 bulb fixtures with 4 ft. flouro's in them. But heres the problem.. I have a small grow box i made. 3 1/2 feet long, Almost 4 ft. high and 1 1/2 ft. wide. the box has the Rating: 5

[stinkyattic]

Can you make a slightly larger grow box? Tube flouros are actually very good for young plants.
Other advice I have is don't skimp on ventilation, and read the thread linked in my signature. It's based on a small, personal, inexpensive setup.

[Peaches987]

no, I cannot.. unfortunately. i need to keep it on the dl for the most part. it sucks, but im not looking for getting too much out of this, just enough to keep me happy. thanks for the help, anything is definitely helpful to me

[Roughrider]

You need more light...kind of a lot more light.

40w of floros will get you around 2800 lumens, at most. You've got 5.25 sq. ft. Since you want to get 5,000 lumens a square foot, you've got about 1/10th of the light you need. One or two more CFLs won't cut it (unless you have something like 4 65 w floros). You may be able to start a few seedlings with that much light, but you won't get anything in flowering. It will be a waste of time.

If you don't use the whole grow area and you pick some of the $1.50 Y-adaptors, you could probably get 8 CFLs in the area. That will be enough for two plants. Or you could use a 2 foot T5 set-up. Regardless, it's been my experience that you'll need 6,000 lumens of light to get a pretty good result out of one small to moderate sized plant. You might want to go for 4 CFLS in a smaller area and try to get one good plant through flowering. Just my opinion.

[Peaches987]

yea.. i scrapped the idea.. knowing it wasnt worth it.. but thanks for the reply, im just gonna wait until spring and start my outdoor..