Closet CFL grow on the low.

After weighing pros and cons of growing I decided to try out a small 5 plant, personal grow in my closet. I'm a heavy marijuana smoker to help cope with depression and insomnia and the daily hassles of life. As that is, I am also a college student without a job, so bud can become a very expensive thing, especially living in a town with a small number of dealers with less than attractive prices. Thus birthed the idea of a small personal grow. I started looking for information on Reddit which eventually led me here. RIU was a life saver. It gave all the information I was looking for conveniently on one site. I began planning and studying, which led to re-planning and more studying and more re-planning. I decided on a CFL grow since the power costs are low. I scoured the internet comparing prices and finding what I needed for as cheap as I could get it. I ordered seeds from seaofseed.com which worked wonderfully. I placed an order for 5 Crazy Miss Hyde feminized seeds after heavily considering auto's. I chose feminized seeds over autos purely for the fact that autos are unclonable. So, in the order came 5 freebie seeds (1 The Doctor, 1 Special Kush, 1 Auto AK, 1 Cheese, and 1 Kandy Kush) which I decided to spread out over 2 harvests. I chose 2 CMH's, 1 Special Kush, 1 Auto AK, and 1 Cheese for this first grow, I germinated all the seeds in under 32 hours and got my soil (Hyponex Organic potting soil from K-mart hand mixed with Perlite) in my pots. I have MG Tomato Plant food (I chose this for it's relatively even spread 18-18-21). I plan to feed very lightly as I don't want to burn my plants with MG as I know is easy to do. For bulbs I went over to 1000bulbs.com and ordered 3 105 watt 2700k CFLs and 2 105 watt 6500k CFLs. I plan to further add 3 more of the 2700k's and 2 more 6500k's when the funds become available. Without further to-do however, here is the part everyone wants, pictures.

The preparation of my closet


Starting to look like a grow space here


Covered to keep out unwanted eyes, though of course the door will always be locked, but what's a little extra precaution?

While waiting for my bulbs to come in within the next couple of days I went ahead and planted the germinated seeds to jump start the process.



So, in conclusion, I am very excited for my first grow. I plan to update this journal often so check back. Please, feel free to respond with any tips, advice, criticism, help, jokes, joints, 1/8ths, etc....

One plant got way too close to a light and got a little fried, I'm hoping it will pull through.

One wasn't close enough and stretched like crazy.

Made some better reflectors for my bulbs, will probably have to extend them.

You can take that stretched one and bury it up to the cotyldons to make it shorter and less fragile without any harm

I already have. It had a nasty bend and I took it to the newbie forum and determined it was the best course of action.

Here's the one with the real bad stretch replanted, it hasn't grown much in height but it looks a lot happier.

After major problems, I've planted 3 new seeds. The fourth cup comes from my impatience. I replanted a tiny seedling into the cup to see if if grows faster, but I think I may have hurt the tap root. I hope it pulls through but it's not looking too promising.

I went and bought a thermometer with a humidity gauge. My space stays under 80 when it's uncovered, but jumps nearly to 90 when it is covered. I'm going to have to address the heat issues before flowering I think.


All in all, so far at about a week in things aren't going as well as I had hoped, but I'm learning a lot. I really just need one plant and then I plan on taking clones, and at this rate I may only get one plant from my 10 seeds.

Dude your going good keep it up. I would not wait until flowering to adjust the heat you really want it about 75 right now. That may be why your having stretch problems.

I have two small fans in the space, but I can't keep the covers over the space for too long without the temps sky rocketing. I'm not real sure how to fix these heat problems, I'm kind of considering making some kind of DIY air conditioner.

This is the stretched one, it's growing... well... like a weed. Not sure if she's started new roots from being reburied yet or not, don't want to mess with her.

This little girl popped up from the new batch of seeds, so I went ahead and planted in the big girl pot so she could have her own bulb.

Same with this girl.

The last seed finally popped out of the dirt too, but I think she's shy, she didn't take off her helmet. Going to wait for the seed shell to fall off before I move to the big pot.



To address my heat concerns I plan on constructing a very cheap home made air conditioner with a cooler and ice attached to a fan. I moved my fans to blow at plant level, it raised the temperature in my closet a few degrees, but its a lot cooler where the plants are.

I made the air conditioner, it works relatively well enough.

This plant it drooping a little, and hasn't shown much growth in the last day or so.

The big one is turning a little too yellow for my taste.

This one just looks pitiful, it might be plant number 6 I lose.


I started adding vinegar to help with the pH being high, I didn't think I added all that much, I measured the pH of the water and it was around 6.5. I hope that isn't what's causing these problems.

Looks like your space needs more air flow, if that little fan is the only thing blowing air on the plants it's not enough. Ideally your plants leafs should be visibly moving all the time.

I have two fans blowing across the plants towards each other. The leaves move.

Subbed! Those aluminum foil reflectors are probably causing the temperatures right over the plants to be higher than your thermometer is reading elsewhere. You should definitely at least think about getting cheap clamp reflectors from somewhere like Home Depot. They have holes to allow air flow and are not designed with cooking in mind.

What was your reason for getting such high-wattage CFLs? In my experience, having more lower-wattage (like 30-40w range) bulbs positioned around a plant is superior to a single bright one right above it. High-wattage CFLs are never going to really compete with HPS systems in terms of using a single bulb above a plant, and you lose some of the benefits of lower-wattage CFL bulbs (like being able to put them almost in contact with leaves, and being able to put them in any basic lamp socket). The reason you gave was the low power consumption, but a watt is a watt when it comes to power consumption, and each of your bulbs is using over 100 watts apiece. If you have 3 of them at once, that's already more than a 250w HPS. A single 400w HPS would be enough light for your entire growing operation, and consume less electricity than 5 of those high-wattage CFLs will.

EDIT: I see the clamp reflectors in the earlier photo. I can only assume that your 105w bulbs didn't fit in them -- another reason I prefer lower-wattage bulbs.

I agree with previous poster. Sorry if I missed it, but what's your humidity been as well?

The temps right above the plants are steady right around 80, usually under. The reflectors I had didn't fit with the bulbs, I was told by another grower over on Redditt to make bigger reflectors out of tinfoil. I chose the bigger bulbs because everywhere I read said I needed around 100 watts per plant with CFLs and just buying 100 watt bulbs was cheaper than buying a lot of little CFLs. Not to mention takes up less room. Humidity stays around 30%.

Still no growth on the plants, they look even worse today. Going to have to leave them for about 3 days, so hopefully with 3 days of no water they may perk back up, I'm hoping I was just over watering them.




Fully aware this one is probably a lost cause.

These plants all unfortunately died, but I have a new grow journal for a new attempt after some changes.


https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/550771-closet-cfl-grow-low-attempt.html#post7802513