First Grow - Converted Dresser w/ CFL's

Hi All!

This is going to be my first real grow/experiment. Any comments and/or suggestions are welcomed and appreciated!

I have spent the last couple days working on converting an old 4 drawer dresser into a grow cabinet. Here is the results:

Measurements:

36" H x 24" W x 18" D

Inside wrapped with mylar emergency blanket.

Lighting: (This is just what I found in a box on the shelf, looking at changing it up a bit)

(4) 14 watt "Soft White" 2700k 900 lumen cfl's
(2) 23 watt "Daylight" 5000k 1600 lumen cfl's

Ventilation:

(2) 120mm computer case fans
one of each for intake and exhaust (intake at bottom, exhaust at top - opposite sides)
(2) 80mm CPU heatsink fans


Starting:

2 bagseeds with paper towel method.

One of which has already popped. The other looks like it will soon.

3/16 @ 12 AM:
The first seed was placed in a Jiffy peat pellet and into the green house in the 'cabinet' and placed under 24/0 lighting.

I am starting to wonder if the light setup I have going is gonna be enough/right for veg. I was thinking of replacing the 14 watt-ers with the 23 watt daylights...any suggestions?

Still need to purchase a soil pH meter, temp. gauge with humidity readout, and ???

Hope the pics look ok...using my phone.

here is my old cfl box made from a dresser was running a lil over 400 actuall watts of cfl mixed spectrum

So I basically have only 100 actual watts...will that even cut it for one plant? lol I sound pretty silly right now!

Add more lights. what you gotta think my friend is more W = more BUD!. you will grow with a little amount of light but you wont grow much. you wanna aim for 1g per 1 actual W.
Peace AK

Went browsing at Wally World today...I have come to the conclusion that their selection of CFL's completely sucks...HD has a lot better selection and I think the prices are actually cheaper! Looking at purchasing several of each when the paycheck comes in:

4 - 23 watt 5000K
4 - 42 watt 3500k
4 - 23 watt 2700k

That will bring me up to 350 actual watts.

I picked up some growing medium that is a mix of peat moss, vermiculite and perlite to go along with my pots for when the lil ones sprout. Any thoughts or comments on this stuff? Anyone used it?

I also have a bottle of Earth Juice Grow that I use for my plants outside...I know that I am a few weeks out from using it but being a 2-1-1 is that sufficient?

i got a couple of good CFL lights at 1000bulbs.com they have some really good prices on CFL's and the delivery was very well packed had no breaks yet i would shop there tbh they always have deals but you will deff need more than 105watts for that box unless ur gunna grow 1 plant and LST it as for the medium that seems pretty decent, and the fans 120mm fan doesn't mean anything because they can range from very low CFM's to very high CFM's when you bought the fans it should have CFM's on the box also depending on the bearing system the lifetime of the fan you could possibly need a back-up god forbid during the middle of the day a fan craps out on u and ur not extracting or intaking any air that would b terrible and you would need to replace it immediatly... good luck

Home depot dosent have better prices then Walmart unless there's a sell.

Don't use anything under 23 watts

And CFLs get hot. 300 watts is more heat then a 150 watt hps . the CFLs also cost more

Your computer fan isint gonna cut it for exhaust when you use a filter . if you don't use a filter hope you don't plan to have company over.

Ok...got the bulbs:

4 23 watt 3500k
4 23 watt 5000k
4 23 watt 2700k
1 42 watt 2700k


So I am now running 318 actual watts...

What is the best thing to do for ventilation? I have found out quickly how useless the computer fans are lol

your going to have to get atleast a vortex fan with some tubing ventilated outside with some sort of carbon filter filtering out the smell... this is where it gets beyond my knowledge and maybe somebody could help out a little more maybe you can just settle with some ona block idk lets see some elaboration on how to get this done...

As of right now, nothing has sprouted up from the peat pellets yet and I removed them from the cabinet. With the new lights on in there it went up to 106...so I cracked the bottom of the door and tried blowing cool air in with a box fan...temp went down to 99...not good enough

Before you go any further,, I would take that emeragny blanket out and in the trash. Get some flat white paint and a brush and paint it all white.. Trust me..you were told.\

Do you have Light Traps on the Fans? Have you light checked it? the door frame? is it all Ok?


All that said,, It looks like a start, I did a buch of " Dresser CFL" growes.. they all came out alot better then anyone said they would.. Keep reading, and keep posting.

locosmoko said:

As of right now, nothing has sprouted up from the peat pellets yet and I removed them from the cabinet. With the new lights on in there it went up to 106...so I cracked the bottom of the door and tried blowing cool air in with a box fan...temp went down to 99...not good enough

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RIght now, you dont need ANy light or just 1 bulb,, you need plants and they wont need much light for a week or so once they start. CLFs do get hot. you might find that you have to mnay bulbs.. YOu said you had 2.7K and 5.5 K... you dont need both at the ame time.. if you grwo 12/12 ( i do) you only need the 23 watt 2.7 K CLFs.. IF you are going to VEg at 18/6 then you need the 23w 5.5 ( as close to 6.5 as you can get) and then the 2.7 for flower

For right now I have cut the lights down to just one...going to try the 18/6 with the 5000k. Going to try what VX said about removing the emergency blanket and painting white. There are no light traps on the fans. As for the rest of it, its not sealed great, but have it under control for when I have to go dark.

Got the temp at 80* with humidity at 50%...will post with pics when something emerges...

Any ideas as to what I did wrong??

The two seeds that I was germinating ended up splitting in half and the middle is goo...what the hell? So I decided to get more smoke and try again with the seeds BUT go figure, the bag didn't have a single seed in it...I ended up ordering 10 Blue Mystic seeds. I'm not sure where I went wrong...I do the paper towel thing for a lot of the veggies I grow and never have had a problem with it..............Were the seeds just bad? Help! I'm lost!! Want to figure this out before the new seeds arrive!

??? What happened to my seeds ???

Too wet they obviously rotted

locosmoko said:

??? What happened to my seeds ???

Click to expand...

sounds like they took in too much water and heat and rotted, with ur new seeds try germing them in the paper towel like before but this time place them further away from the lights when u pot them and only 18/6 untill u see the first sign of life also keep an eye on temp dont let it get too high, this is what i do and never had any problems, hope it helps dude

i yielded an average of 35 grams in my dresser grows, its an awesome idea and even better if u split it in half for veg/flower and perpetual harvest monthly.

Thanks for the replies! I will definitely make sure I do that.

Was that 35 grams per plant? I would be happy with that...it would last a while. I only smoke for my pain and occasional insomnia.

Got my new seeds today! 10 Blue Mystic...Started 5 in paper towel. Going to be extremely careful about too much heat or water. Lets see what happens!