My First Grow - Northern Lights CFL Grow

Discussion in 'Indoor Grow Journals' started by CANandProud420, Nov 17, 2014.

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  2. I'll follow along. Very interested in growimg some northern lights, seems dank and stealthy all at the same time. I'm doing a cfl stealth maui grow check my sig..
    Good luck
    Cheers :)
     
  3. Kfreeze...before investing in CFLs, look up one of my posts on lighting...I'm just not ready to type it all out again.

    But the short and sweet of those posts are even if you use 400 true watts of CFL (18 bulbs), you won't get the equivalent light intensity (lumens) at 18 inches from the bulb of a 400 watt HID, and a 400 watt HID is more than 1280 times weaker than natural sunlight AND lacks in some needed bandwidths, and produces a lot of waste light (bandwidths the plants just won't use).
    LEDs have issues, too, and for similar reasons to CFLs, but CFLs are absolutely THE worst lighting method in existence that growers actually try to use.

    The simple statement is, currently, HID is still the best bang for your buck, but you really want to build your own hybrid system, and it WON'T involve CFLs (except maybe reprile bulbs to suppliment UV), once you look up the science about light and lighting systems.

    Simply put...want to spend $180 on bulbs, plus purchase 18 fixtures, use MORE electricity, create MORE heat to get LESS effect than a $200 HID system with both types of bulbs?


    "100 watts per plant" is horseshit, based on the fact that people read "the sun delivers about 120 watts to ground level". A watt is a unit of measurement equal to one joule per second of energy required to do work, make heat, or make light. The sun made the light we use 8.3 minutes before we use it, and arrives at 128,000 lux (lumens per square meter) intensity. The "watts" that are meant by that "120 watts" are the watts that are expended warming the ground as converted to heat energy at 120 joules per second.
     
  4. #24 Kfreeze7, Nov 20, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 20, 2014
    The 226w I have running only cost me about $70, for a temporary setup they seem to be doing wonderful for such a small of lighting..I plan to get mars 2 leds [SIZE=14.1666660308838px]up and running [/SIZE]before xmas ...2x2x5 tent should only need a mars 2 400w or 700w depending on how adventurous I am feeling. Only to play devil's advocate, I have seen many cfl grows currently and in the past that have produced massive buds...your environment is only as good as you make it..
    For me HID is not possible due to my current restrictions, have to look for something that doesn't turn my room into a hotbox
     
    Cheers :smoking:
     
  5. True, you gotta work with what you gotta work with. You'll never hear me say different. And each person will solve it a different way.

    However, light intensity figures/science are what they are. They don't change.

    While I endorse HID as the best "bang for your buck" in trying to match sunlight intensities, as I've said in most of those posts, they have their own shortcomings, just like LEDs and CFLs...

    IMO (and this IS "opinion"), you're screwing yourself if you don't design your own hybrid system in order to solve as many of those as possible through cross-support (CFL's lacking in red/blue? Add a couple LED spots. Both lacking in UV? Add a reptile bulb. Light intensity not giving the plants enough energy? Add at least a minimal HID system, or use a mirror system to draw in living sunlight at least part of the day. You get me, I'm sure.)

    But as I've also said repeatedly, even indoors, no two growers have precisely the same conditions to grow in, and so have different issues that are "more of a problem". I'm up in WA state...humidity is almost never an issue here, except when you can't bring it DOWN in Feb and Mar, when it just won't stop raining, and normal atmospheric humidity is usually OVER 100%. But that means I battle fungal infection ALL THE TIME. And mites LOVE it up here...since I prefer an organic solution, this means several times a cycle, I have hundreds of ladybugs or dozens of mantises escaping the tent and ending up EVERYWHERE in the house, and occasionally hitching a ride to school or work on the clothing of one of the kids.


    Something odd I do for heat control issues (I don't have them REALLY bad...a single 745 cfm fan mounted inside the tent drawing hot air out, and using underpressure to draw fresh air in, does most of it fine), that also covers gas balances without the expense of a monitor, switch, and compressed CO2.....

    Might be worth a try for you, might not.

    I take a quart milk jug for every gap between plant buckets, cut it off just above the handle after washing it REALLY well. I keep one between each two plants, and keep the water as cool as I can. Every 2nd or 3rd day, I buy a bit of dry ice, calculated by volume to provide "400 ppm" by volume not ratio of CO2 when it's melted (what I mean by that is under 14.7 ppsi sea level air pressure, .04% of the volume should be CO2, dry ice is solid CO2, so I buy a volume of dry ice equal to ABOUT, but not over, .04% of the total volume), break it up evenly, and drop it into the water jugs....water gets just shy of freezing cold, COLD CO2 vapor flows over (that's what the "fog" is), chilling the soil in the buckets from the bottom up, and, as the gas heats, and the fan works its magic, draws the CO2 to "fill" the tent properly.


    Even if not worth a try, you have to admit, it's a nifty "toy" to screw around with as a solution.
     
  6. Thanks man they smell dank already lol ive had no sick plants issues with NL so far even for how "abusive" Iwas to my first 2 at first due to lack of exp and knowledge ill be omw to check follow yours dude
     
    I agree cfls might be the lowest way to grow but man they working out for me, im on a budget every month so i cant go all out on supplies but once i dont have to spend and got what i need im going to save up on a light upgrade i dont even have a carbon filter yet lol i was looking at reptile bulbs too, thanks for your output mann
     
    Yeah man you do what you can with your space, though your lighting seems pretty for the space you got i got 420(lol awesome)w total actual watts for my 4 1/2x4x2 grow box or its 5x5x2 dont remember anymore but i need more side lighting for sure add atleast another 120w total to make 540w should be good for 4 plants thanks for your specs goodluck man
     
  7. Haha ive heard of that trick just yesterday seems so simple yet so smart thanks man
     
  8. CANandProud...redneck engineering solution to stink without using a carbon filter:

    Mount a HEPA quality scented furnace filter on your exhaust fan. If you start smelling weed again, turn off the fan, soak the filter with Febreeze, let it dry, turn the fan back on.

    Works. Cheaper. Downside is, instead of a neutral "no smell", the area around your house smells like an old lady's house if she's trying really hard to cover the "old people smell" and the stink of her 32 cats.
     
  9. Hahah man, which retail stores sell those or is it an online only product?
     
  10. Upgraded my setup a bit, painted my box white, bought a mix of 30 & 40 w cfls Daylight & Soft Whites and added them to my setup 580w total just missing side lighting, bought some Schultz 10-15-10 as my nutrients (I heard its descent that correct? and says 7 drops every feed 2 times a month I put 3 drops that good?), girls are growing still, what do you guys think? Oh and transplanted 2 week old #3 plant.
     

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  11. #31 CANandProud420, Nov 20, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 20, 2014
    Hey got a really important question really bugging me, when people say 6 week veg is good does it mean 6 weeks from seed or 6 weeks after 3 week seedling stage for a combined 9 weeks?
     
    Man I hope its 6 weeks from seed I love what im doing but I just made a deal with myself to never buy it again and wait to smoke mine its been a month and I am going insane and so iratated all the time.
     
  12. Again...Fred Meyer/Kroger/Fry's, Home Depot, Lowe's, Ace Hardware....anywhere you can find furnace filters will probably carry them.
     
  13. sweet got 3 of those stores here thanks for all the help 
     
  14. #34 CANandProud420, Nov 21, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 21, 2014
    got slight nute burn on 1 leaf on #1 but not worried too much, added #4 to my seedling box cant wait till it sprouts i didnt realise id be screwed on flowering since if i flower gotta flower them all since their in the same box so next time starting all 4 at the same time going to veg for 1 month more starting now because #1 & 2 will be pretty much 2 months old than start flowering. Update pics & got pics of where i topped 3 days ago but had hard time getting a clear pic. Thanks everyone who is following and to who posted youve all helped me so much this bong is for you guys haha :bongin: and a real one too lol
     

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  15. Just a thought. U could put a divider in your box and add another timer for flower side. Then take it out if u wanted to when the others are ready for flower. It would give at least one plant a few weeks headstart on flower.
     
  16. ^ a functional idea.
     
  17. haha man a really good idea but question if I just put a piece of wood in the center of my box as a divider that light coming from the front of that veg side and slightly lighting the room wont that affect the plants on the flower side, because i taught during the night phase it has to be pitch dark?
     
  18. True. But there are ways around that...for instance, a few strips of rubber door sealing strip stapled to the wood at seams.
     
  19. hey again.  I view veg as when the cotyledons die.  till then they have the food they need
     
  20. cool ill check that out
     

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