Lady J's 12 / 12 From Seed Perpetual Closet CFL Grow

Lady.J

Well-Known Member
Lol

yah i totally forgot about the heat prob. but I think the tent is bigger than her closet. 4'x4' is a big foot print. so she prob put in her bedroom or second bedroom.

She prob didnt want to take the time to move lights everyday or get leaf burn..

I'm so Impatient. lol I already look at my tomato plant and seeds 2-3 times a day. I have plenty of time.
Lol same here...too much time. Makes the plants seem like they grow painfully slow.
 

Lady.J

Well-Known Member
Jeez didn't you say you were going to get LEDs too depending on how my grow turned out too? You just can't make up your mind lol.
My problem is that I want to try everything lol. I can always get LEDs come tax time :). Maybe I'll ask my mommy for Christmas, tell her it's for veggies :lol:

Hey I remember somewhere in the first couple pages you said I'm sticking with cfl and don't bug me about it or something along those lines :)
Haha I see you guys got the jokes for me :)

I am sticking with CFLs for the closet and bin! Sticking to my word on that. Even when the light system gets here, will still keep the girls flowering in the closet. Still want to show ppl what CFLs are capable of. A few months ago, I would have never imagined I'd be able to afford a 400w system...but since the opportunity is here, I'd be foolish not to take it in order to preserve loyalty to CFLs. I will run some plants in the closet, then the same exact strain in the tent...and compare :). I heard CFL buds taste better because HID lights can give weed a 'hay' taste when positioned too close? Guess I get to find out all this for myself.
 

Cloudz2600

Well-Known Member
Just curious, but how's the fiance taking this? "Sure honey a small grow is ok...Oh you wan't to grow in the closet...no problem...Oh you want a 4x4 tent in the bedroom...um...sure." Lighting doesn't affect taste. Lighting affects photosynthesis. More light=more photosynthesis, that's all. Taste is effected by what's in the soil. A "hay" taste may be burnt buds.
 

mantiszn

Well-Known Member
I seem to remember someone saying something about this ;)

Heat -
find most people are quite shocked at the amount of heat the larger cfl's produce, running a 300w 8u dual spec bulb in a powerplant (non aircooled) hood in a dr60 (currently in dr120 at the moment) with a 5" fan, temps usually sat around 28C (82F) mark, by adding a 125w red spec CFL to the equation this immediately pushed the temps to around 32C (90F )mark sometimes higher depending on ambient. Running a 400w HPS with the addition of a cooltube in the same tent temps rarely went above 28C (82F).
don't smoke hay ... okay..
 

Lady.J

Well-Known Member
Just curious, but how's the fiance taking this? "Sure honey a small grow is ok...Oh you wan't to grow in the closet...no problem...Oh you want a 4x4 tent in the bedroom...um...sure." Lighting doesn't affect taste. Lighting affects photosynthesis. More light=more photosynthesis, that's all. Taste is effected by what's in the soil. A "hay" taste may be burnt buds.
He's very laidback...doesn't really care. Every time I have another idea and run it by him, he tells me it's cool if I want to do it. He even tries to ask me questions to show support and feign interest lol. I love my man :). I'm sure he'd feel diff if it was his money I was spending though lol.

I was referring to the heat of CFLs compared to HID when I was talking about 'hay' buds of course. HID is a lot less forgiving of lights being too close, so I think it's easier to end up with bad tasting buds if you aren't vigilant or miscalculate. I have seen people having their leaves actually touching the lighting without burning the leaves w/ CFLs just by having a fan blowing on it..
 

Lady.J

Well-Known Member
I seem to remember someone saying something about this ;)



don't smoke hay ... okay..
The large CFLs I am running are actually considerably less heat than the small CFLs! My temps were fine until I added low wattage CFLs to the closet as supplemental lighting. When I replaced a 32w/40w combo of lights with a 125w lotus CFL, my temps actually went down.
 

Mohican

Well-Known Member
Some of my cheaper CFLs also ran hotter. Almost too hot to touch. The good ones ran at almost room temp!
 

Cloudz2600

Well-Known Member
Well I haven't had a fan blowing directly on the lights, but the girls have been burned by a 26w. Jorge says just do the hand test(putting your hand at the canopy level and seeing how hot it is) and that should suffice. I suppose if you went by visuals alone CFLs are a lot more forgiving.
 

Lady.J

Well-Known Member
Well I haven't had a fan blowing directly on the lights, but the girls have been burned by a 26w. Jorge says just do the hand test(putting your hand at the canopy level and seeing how hot it is) and that should suffice. I suppose if you went by visuals alone CFLs are a lot more forgiving.
Like Mo said, the cheapies are super hot. The ones that don't have self vented ballasts seem to be the worst. I can hold my 200w CFL in my hands for a considerable amount of time before realizing it's slowly burning my hands...that's without a fan on it. With a fan on it, I watched this frickin gnat I was trying to kill crawl all over it forever. Don't think you can do that with HID. Am going to try to find the thread where this guy compares CFL grown bud to HID bud...him and his friends claimed that the CFL bud was lower yield and 'fluffy', but a better tasting smoke. Same potency.
 

mantiszn

Well-Known Member
Never even bothered with the small uns
all I know is the red specs kicked out a lot more heat than the dual/blue

also the cooltubes are ok.. good for the price and will do fine in a small space, but any larger and it really lacks spread


The large CFLs I am running are actually considerably less heat than the small CFLs! My temps were fine until I added low wattage CFLs to the closet as supplemental lighting. When I replaced a 32w/40w combo of lights with a 125w lotus CFL, my temps actually went down.
could touch the cooltube without any issues

Like Mo said, the cheapies are super hot. The ones that don't have self vented ballasts seem to be the worst. I can hold my 200w CFL in my hands for a considerable amount of time before realizing it's slowly burning my hands...that's without a fan on it. With a fan on it, I watched this frickin gnat I was trying to kill crawl all over it forever. Don't think you can do that with HID. Am going to try to find the thread where this guy compares CFL grown bud to HID bud...him and his friends claimed that the CFL bud was lower yield and 'fluffy', but a better tasting smoke. Same potency.
 

Lady.J

Well-Known Member
What kind of exhaust do you use for yours, like how many CFMs? Do you think 240 CFM is good for a 400w cooltube setup?
 

supchaka

Well-Known Member
I run a 435 in a 4x2 tent with my 600, I exhaust into the attic. I think with any HID setup exhausting the air completely into a different room/area is a must. Without getting into A/C units and whatnot...
 

Flaming Pie

Well-Known Member
Like Mo said, the cheapies are super hot. The ones that don't have self vented ballasts seem to be the worst. I can hold my 200w CFL in my hands for a considerable amount of time before realizing it's slowly burning my hands...that's without a fan on it. With a fan on it, I watched this frickin gnat I was trying to kill crawl all over it forever. Don't think you can do that with HID. Am going to try to find the thread where this guy compares CFL grown bud to HID bud...him and his friends claimed that the CFL bud was lower yield and 'fluffy', but a better tasting smoke. Same potency.

Fluffy is from lack of light penetration. It causes the plant to stretch out for more light, which makes the nodes father between. I think it causes more leaf to grow with bud too..

It can be remedied by having lights within 1 1/2 inches of plant. but fluffy isnt bad necessarily. better air flow = less mold . and the potency is still the same.

That is what I've read anyways.
 

mantiszn

Well-Known Member
would go higher.. you can get away with a 5inch but needs to be the more powerful version.

eg.

RVK 125L1 342m3/hr
RVK 125A1 225m3/hr

both 5 inch, but the L1 has more power.

for a 600w would go up to 6"

also remember once you attache the scrubber the CFM's will drop, also every bend in the ducting and every metre​


also if you buy UP you can always get a controller to slow it down, but you cannot speed it up any more..

What kind of exhaust do you use for yours, like how many CFMs? Do you think 240 CFM is good for a 400w cooltube setup?
 

newbie9

Active Member
hey lady j i have a question. we grew 2 RD from seed and one was topped and grew to about a foot 4-5 weeks of veg. The other is about a foot also but is packing on way more bud.. what could cause this.. same plants same light same everything.. 125w of CFL. the topped one had about 7grams of fluffyness. The other i expect to get about 15-20 and they are dense and full of res. but i planted 15 days later to keep a cycle. im just curious to know if the topping had anything with the reduction of mass. because the tops that appeard after seemed to be half of what the one cola was of the younger. both grown in fox farms soil and local nutes. 20-20-20 @ 1/4 strength for veg then 3-42-11 budding powder. bot plants were in 3liter pots. what caused one to be so much bigger then the other. Both seeds were natural not fem and were ordered from a reputable breeder.
 

newbie9

Active Member
first went out at 63days of 12/12 and the second is on about day 45 from the day she showed me her pistils but is alot bigger then the first runt
 

brettsog

Well-Known Member
ive found with a small hps in my 1.37m3 space there is less heat than 332w from 8 cfls (4 x 23w 3 x 65w 1 x 45w). so much so that im tempted to upgrade to a 400w hps for winter months and keep the 250w for the summer. im using 2 120mm 30cfm fans. no scrubber and no physical intake. highest temp out side today was 25c and highest temp in cupboard 31.8c :)
 

Cloudz2600

Well-Known Member
I can't wait till I get the LEDs lol I won't have to worry about this heat stuff lol. Growing in the summer is such a pain lol. It's 102F here.
 
Top