how low can you go?

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growone

Well-Known Member
well, i've made a decision, so it's not question

some context here, been growing in a 38 x 15 inch tube with 78w of cfl's - that's already pretty low
harvested a 29 inch nl#5 - yield was 35g of very strong bud
here's link for the interested
https://www.rollitup.org/cfl-growing/189475-grow-tube-part-deux.html

35g turns out to be one hell of a bunch of bud for me, i vape maybe a 1/10 of a gram at night - so this grow setup produced almost a year's supply in one shot
that and i like to keep stealth to a maximum

so i'm joining the PC case grower club - going to use 1 26w cfl bulb per case
these are fairly small cases 13 x 7 x 15 inches
lst is obviously a must here

i haven't seen a good grow that goes this low in wattage - they may be out there
i'll be posting pics of the grow setup in a bit
 
mkay420

mkay420

Active Member
i am very interested in this grow... it would be very cool to see what a single small wattage cfl can really produce in an optimum environment. i have roughly 220 w of cfls in a 1.5Lx2.5Wx5H box and will be concentrating my lights on one plant during flowering, i have an autoflower in there also that will be finishing as i switch my other to flowering. so once i switch all the lights will be on one plant.


i did lst on my sativa dom... it is now barely 5 inches tall (untied might be about 12) but has about 10-12 tops and still a couple weeks to veg.

how close do you think you could put the 26 w cfl to the plant without burning it... i bet you can get it almost touching all the time if not actually touching. i can get my 42 w pretty close, i have noticed however that the lower the color temperature the higher the actual radiant temperature
 
G

growone

Well-Known Member
mkay420 said:
i am very interested in this grow... it would be very cool to see what a single small wattage cfl can really produce in an optimum environment. i have roughly 220 w of cfls in a 1.5Lx2.5Wx5H box and will be concentrating my lights on one plant during flowering, i have an autoflower in there also that will be finishing as i switch my other to flowering. so once i switch all the lights will be on one plant.


i did lst on my sativa dom... it is now barely 5 inches tall (untied might be about 12) but has about 10-12 tops and still a couple weeks to veg.

how close do you think you could put the 26 w cfl to the plant without burning it... i bet you can get it almost touching all the time if not actually touching. i can get my 42 w pretty close, i have noticed however that the lower the color temperature the higher the actual radiant temperature
Click to expand...
thanks for the look mkay420 - i'm pretty psyched at the moment on this grow

my last experience with cfl's showed me you can put the leaf/bud just short of touching with no burn on a 26w cfl
i actually shoved the plant so close i did burn a bit of fan leaf
but the burn was so low and the results so good, it wasn't a big deal
i should be able to tend to the plant much better than my last setup, which should let me put the leaf/bud right where i want it with respect to the bulb
 
mkay420

mkay420

Active Member
cool do you have any pics of your last grow? i always love to see the results of a cfl harvest as this will be my first. my largest cfl i have to keep around 4-6 inches away because it is 105 w and puts off a little heat :cry:. but the others i have can be closer, around 3 inches or so. cant wait to see what your setup looks like...
 
G

growone

Well-Known Member
mkay420 said:
cool do you have any pics of your last grow? i always love to see the results of a cfl harvest as this will be my first. my largest cfl i have to keep around 4-6 inches away because it is 105 w and puts off a little heat :cry:. but the others i have can be closer, around 3 inches or so. cant wait to see what your setup looks like...
Click to expand...
there's a link to my last grow log in my original post i'm having a problem uploading pics since the last system change my old proxies don't work like they used to
 
G

growone

Well-Known Member
so a very basic pc case setup - nothing fancy - dirt simple
cleaned out an old pc case - 7 x 13 x 16 inches - small pc case

so my main trick was to cut a small wooden crosspiece as a beam across the top rails - mounted with a few screws and washers - to that a single ceramic socket was attached
here's the view from the side



and the view from the top



ceramic is good - great fire stop
and the assembled pic - there's a power supply for the fan and a cord for the lamp



finally got my pic posting troubles better - a little bit of plant porn in a little bit
 
ManiacBrainiac

ManiacBrainiac

Well-Known Member
Hi growone. I did read your grow log about a month ago and was fascinated by the success you were having with such a low-wattage grow. At the time I thought that it must have something to do with the cylindrical shape of your grow space. In theory, a cylindrical tube would bounce light always back towards center with one bounce. Since light intensity falls away from CFLs so quickly, doing a bounce back towards center in one bounce would mean that the light hitting your girl would be of a higher intensity compared to a bounce in a square box that may make multiple bounces before ever getting back to center. Comment?

Also, something that I have incorporated to keep my plant from burning when the bulbs touch the plant is a 3 watt synchronous motor driver that slowly rotates a circular platform where my plant sits. The 3 watt syncronous motor was rescued from an old carousel microwave oven that quit working. The carousel still functioned, of course.

It was easy to remove from the oven and mounted easily on a 3/8 inch piece of plywood. The motor is mounted under the plywood and the stem of the motor rests beneath a hole where I dropped in the carousel and tray assembly from the microwave oven. The plant rotates one turn every 10 seconds or so, which is quick enough to not allow the fan leaves to touch the surrounding bulbs long enough to burn.

Anyway, I hope this grow is as successful as your last.
 
G

growone

Well-Known Member
all righty then, 2 pots to the case for the moment
they'll have to bunk together for a little while until the 2nd case gets done
the 'empty' pot is a jock horror - slowest sprouting seed I ever saw, over a week but see looked good in the end
the plant is a clone off my nl#5 mother which treated me so well
I revegged her for the clone, and she'll stick around until I'm sure the clone is OK
clone has been in the ground for a day - any comments on the clone very welcome

 
MasterShake1

MasterShake1

Member
AAAWWW man no more I am going with the same thing only mine might be an inch or 2 biggerbut i have the same thing I was thinking of using two but i don't know now thank you so much for the pics they will help me out a ton. Thanks man and keep going.
 
G

growone

Well-Known Member
ManiacBrainiac said:
Hi growone. I did read your grow log about a month ago and was fascinated by the success you were having with such a low-wattage grow. At the time I thought that it must have something to do with the cylindrical shape of your grow space. In theory, a cylindrical tube would bounce light always back towards center with one bounce. Since light intensity falls away from CFLs so quickly, doing a bounce back towards center in one bounce would mean that the light hitting your girl would be of a higher intensity compared to a bounce in a square box that may make multiple bounces before ever getting back to center. Comment?

Also, something that I have incorporated to keep my plant from burning when the bulbs touch the plant is a 3 watt synchronous motor driver that slowly rotates a circular platform where my plant sits. The 3 watt syncronous motor was rescued from an old carousel microwave oven that quit working. The carousel still functioned, of course.

It was easy to remove from the oven and mounted easily on a 3/8 inch piece of plywood. The motor is mounted under the plywood and the stem of the motor rests beneath a hole where I dropped in the carousel and tray assembly from the microwave oven. The plant rotates one turn every 10 seconds or so, which is quick enough to not allow the fan leaves to touch the surrounding bulbs long enough to burn.

Anyway, I hope this grow is as successful as your last.
Click to expand...
yeah i really like that cylinder - what it gives you is a uniform brightness as long as you space you cfls evenly
motor idea is pretty damn cool - i love reusing old parts myself
 
G

growone

Well-Known Member
MasterShake1 - sounds interesting - 2 bulbs is more traditional for grows of this size - i'm kind of sticking with what i learned in my 1st cfl grow - more bulbs = more heat = more stretch
so for the moment i'm going to ride it low and slow

arcticvapors - good to have you along, i'll try to put on good show

so day 4 - here's the state of affairs

jock horror - never have i seen such a slow sprouting seed - took a good 7+ days for the seed to pop a tap root out with the wet towel method - been in the dirt for 5 days and nothing showing - gently brush back the dirt and she's growing but so slow! - looks a good 14 days before she shows here face - not sure what the hell this means, if anything

nl#5 - my sweet young clone - she's also been in the dirt for 5 days - she looks fine to me, got her under a humidity dome, but popped her out for a close up - i think she's begun to root, but my 1st clone so i can't bank on that

all clone experts, feel free to comment

 
DogWisperer

DogWisperer

New Member
how did you clone your plant? I am with you on the heat thing, i tried making a stealth cfl grow with 2 30w cfls and my temps got up to 104 degrees!!! So im interested in how this will turn out.
 
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growone

Well-Known Member
DogWisperer said:
how did you clone your plant? I am with you on the heat thing, i tried making a stealth cfl grow with 2 30w cfls and my temps got up to 104 degrees!!! So im interested in how this will turn out.
Click to expand...
on the clone, i just cut off a 3 inch top branch and into the dirt she went - no rooting compound - i think she's catching, i would really like to retire my mother as soon as possible, not as stealthy as i would like

on the light/heat - i think you can cool just about any setup even with lots of lights BUT i think the amount of fan you will need will screw up your stealth(i.e. noise)
 
KaleoXxX

KaleoXxX

Well-Known Member
growone said:
MasterShake1 - sounds interesting - 2 bulbs is more traditional for grows of this size - i'm kind of sticking with what i learned in my 1st cfl grow - more bulbs = more heat = more stretch
so for the moment i'm going to ride it low and slow


nl#5 - my sweet young clone - she's also been in the dirt for 5 days - she looks fine to me, got her under a humidity dome, but popped her out for a close up - i think she's begun to root, but my 1st clone so i can't bank on that

all clone experts, feel free to comment

Click to expand...
i disagree. more light might mean more heat however less light equalls more strech, not more heat. if you want to use only one bulb, use a 42 w or some other big CFL. if you cant get a bigger CFL use some amount of LED lighting, atleast. i doubt 1 cfl would grow two plants

your clone, i would make sure its not too humid in there. ive seen some clones shrivel up as soon as theyre taken out of the dome. poke some holes, or open it up a crack to prevent this
 
G

growone

Well-Known Member
KaleoXxX said:
i disagree. more light might mean more heat however less light equalls more strech, not more heat. if you want to use only one bulb, use a 42 w or some other big CFL. if you cant get a bigger CFL use some amount of LED lighting, atleast. i doubt 1 cfl would grow two plants

your clone, i would make sure its not too humid in there. ive seen some clones shrivel up as soon as theyre taken out of the dome. poke some holes, or open it up a crack to prevent this
Click to expand...
hey there kaleo, thanks for the comments

it will actually be 1 plant per pc case, they're just bunking together until i set up the 2nd case

1 bulb is right on the envelope i think, go by feel and see how it goes

and thanks for the clone info - there is a bit of air space at the bottom - did that instinctively, seems like it was good idea
 
DogWisperer

DogWisperer

New Member
i still dont see how you were able to clone it without any compound, ive tried tried this but it just died, any tips?
 
G

growone

Well-Known Member
DogWisperer said:
i still dont see how you were able to clone it without any compound, ive tried tried this but it just died, any tips?
Click to expand...
i've seen some out there that claim they were able to clone without compound - figured what the hell, got a bunch of branches on my mother

i cut a pretty soft branch, wasn't probably as stiff as it could be - maybe easier to form roots?

and using MG Organic Garden - not too many seemed to have tried for mj, but really seems to hold moisture good, added about 15% perlite - might be good for clones
 
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