I want to thank everybody that helped me on here when I reached out, after months of pain I'd like to share my experience and would like to get some feedback on what I could do better in the future. Short story made shorter, small white cab 2.5 x 2 x 1. Vivosun 250w CFLa 65 and 2700k, one 3 in case fan for intake, two 4 in adjustable fans for outtake, giant fan for circulation, during veg I was lucky to keep under 80 before the big fan, still going to look into a proper inline fan, I like venttech if anybody has experience. All bagseed, was only able to clone the one with larger colas. First time doing scrog, and first time using fabric pots. Ended up in 2 gallon fabric pots, found it hard not to flood the cab during watering and flushing. Flowered for 8 weeks and some change, 72 hrs in dark, dried for 4 days and here we are. Some weight is still stem I know but they just went into the jars tonight, I want to do better please give me some input. Conservative estimates, about 1.5 to 1.75 Oz give or take those stems seemed pretty heavy, gonna weigh again in a week to see, either way I'm happy and the clone is almost ready to clone again. Thanks again to everyone who helped me out. Next project: bigger, dual chamber cab.
Will do friends, does trimming get easier with time? I noticed that a lot of sugar leaves curled up and made the bud look a little unappealing but other than that I'm really proud of my homegrown. I want to look into an indica dominant strain, like querkle next.
If you want more weight at harvest and larger plants overall, you've got to increase the light. Light is the key element in the indoor grow that forces plant growth and bud development. You'll do better by flowering less plants and giving those the light you have now instead of overcrowding which shades out bud development. If you put the right lighting together, you should be able to flower 2 plants and harvest several ounces per plant...but the key is having the wattage/spectrum to get the job done. The more you grow, the better you get at it and the more it makes sense. Read, read, read.....the better informed you are overall about the plant, the better result you'll get. Don't seal those buds up and leave them sealed without giving them plenty of air....opening jars several times a day and moving buds around to let air move around them all. You lose a TON of weight in the dry/cure. No way to get a decent idea about overall harvest weight until they're cured out because of all the water they hold. But it takes a good month to get them slowly cured out right. Trim your plants when you pull them. Before you pull the plant, remove the large fan and sugar leaves and that leaves you with a lot less actual trimming to do. NO....it doesn't get easier or more fun. There are some trimmers on the market now and I bought one for myself but haven't gotten up the nerve to try it yet for fear it will trim off too much. LOL But trimming basically sucks regardless. TWW
Looks good for what you had to work with. Great learning experience. Very small gram per watt yield for 250 watts but hey, it's cfl. I'm not trying to put you down. They have 1/2 to 1/3rd the light output per watt of HID and LED depending on what wattages you're comparing. That means you paid 3x the electric bill for the same amount of light with the CFL bulb compared to other lighting. CFL vegges great but when the light requirements go up in flower it can't hang. You want to do way better next time? You need new lights and probably a new space. That is very cramped. Replace your 250 watt cfl with a 300w led panel and make that cabinet the veg area. www.amazon.com/MEIZHI-Spectrum-Hydroponic-Greenhouse-Growing/dp/B01HFZ3PC2 This will run way cooler then your 250 watt cfl and put out comparable lighting. It's probably cheaper then your vivosun fixture. The difference is many people get 4-5oz's of dense nugs from these lights with only about 130 watts. Build one of these cob kits for your new bud space and give yourself some actual headroom. I say at least 6 feet if not a little more. You need light distance, room for the pot on the floor, room above the light to the ceiling, ect. Headroom is very important. I hate seeing all these 5 ft tents. I could never grow in a tent that short. VERO29 Triple COB Array Kit Grow the plants a little taller next time and lst/supercrop an even canopy. That light and your know how from this experience should get you 6+ oz's next time.
Thank you very much for your input. That being said, I must argue on the small watt to gram ratio, from what I've read most people doing cfls the first time are lucky to get 0.1g/watt if anywhere close, however admittedly this could be due to factors other than lighting solely. I have also read that 0.25g/watt is great and that some people with HiD's have trouble hitting that target, again I understand that lighting is not strictly the only factor relating to yield. More or less: I thought I did considerably better than a typical CFL result, I could be wrong tell me about it. Now, I do agree with the headroom statement as I couldn't get the light any tighter to the top I felt that the tips of the tallest colas did get a little light burnt. I'm now designing a taller, wider, and slightly deeper cab, I hear you on the HIDs, I really do, thank you for the input on the LEDS as I almost went with one before deciding on the CFL, they were too new and expensive at the time, now that there are some solid reviews I want to look again. I would also like to point out I did this on miracle grow and cheap molasses.
I've actually never heard of a .1g/watt ratio. That seems so incredibly low as to be not worth it. You end up paying in electricity and fertilizer/supplies what it costs to go buy that weed. The lowest previous totals I've seen on these forums are around .2grams per watt. I don't really frequent the results of cfl threads. You don't see many any more. You see lots of cfl growers that come in and post a few questions about why their buds are so small or slow to develop. The reasons are right there in the light's statistics. A 250 watt CFL is about 10,000 lumens. That's about 40 lumens per watt. The higher powered cfl's are incredibly inefficient. The newest leds are around 200 lumens per watt. A 600 watt hps bulb puts out 96,000 lumens or around 160 lumens per watt. It's no wonder that 40 lumens per watt doesn't flower that well. If you're using decent lighting I've been telling most rookies to not expect to do better then .5grams per watt and be excited if they do. That's with HPS or LED. I'm currently growing at about .8grams per watt. It depends, if I counted every piece of larf I would be way above 1 gram per watt. I had over a pound of edible making material last crop made from immature airy buds on the bottom of the plants and trim from sugar leaves, not crap. You could smoke it. It weighted a pound after I baked it in the oven to decarb it bone dry and ground it to near powder. Besides that I got 20oz's of good buds out of a 4x4 with 770 watts. I want to encourage you that's all and believe me I respect anyone that puts the time into growing and finishing a plant all the way to dried bud. I hope your new flower room turns out badass. I would craigslist that cfl. It's not really a good one for vegging. It's hot. The 23 watt cfl's are much more efficient. Up to 70 lumens per watt. In the end the cheap led panels or DIY led kits are the best budget micro grow choice without a doubt these days. I've seen 1.9grams per watt with cree cobs.
Thank you again, and I do take it that way, as encouragement, thank you for taking the time. It's interesting to read what you say because I have looked or at least skimmed everything you're bringing up, including the LED cob lights, it's reassuring to know that at least on my own I was on or in the right direction with the way I was thinking. Depending on money issues I may have to work with this cab for awhile longer. What I'd really like to setup is maybe a 400w hps with a cooltube inside a dual chambered tall cab. Do you think a 6" Vent tech or similar fan would be up to the challenge? I just felt that my temperatures were never where I wanted them to be and I know it was directly related to my exhaust system. I have looked into doing DWC but baby steps, this is plenty to absorb for now.
DWC can be much easier then you think. I jumped into it first go. Bucket DWC or container is awesome. The growth rate is amazing compared to soil. It's not that expensive either. I use an apollo 6" fan I got from amazon for about $69. It's 440cfm and comes with a variable speed controller. It would suck the heat right out of a 400 watt cooltube. What is the cfm of your fan?
In the end a light investment pays for itself on the first grow typically. Even very expensive lights. Weed still sells for up to $400 on oz here. A pound is over 4K. It's pretty hard to not pay for a light with that kind of profit potential.
They were project fans for cooling cabinets rated at about 50cfms with such a small cab I figured I didn't need to move a ton of air but I guess I was wrong and I gross underestimated how hot that 250w would get, but they were two stacked on top of each other, which in retrospect two fans in parallel would have probably moved more air out of there but that would have required making two carbon filters, I digress. I can do it better with what I've got and modify the cabinet further, or just take the plunge and buy a real fan that's scalable to larger grows.
Wait until you grow near a pound and a half. I had to trim for over a week a couple of hours a day. My neck still hurts. I hate trimming with a passion. I don't wonder at all why that is an actual job.
Alright, that's reassuring. I just wanted to make sure that I was right and that that part was the worst part of the whole ordeal minus the waiting lol good to hear from the vets that I'm not alone hahahaha
On a related sidenote, this is my first cure: how many times a day should I be opening these jars? Or what frequency between now and 2-3 weeks, they still feel dry but moist if that makes any sense, like I can still tell they are sweating out moisture. I've been opening maybe 2 to 4 times a day, shaking them off each other feeling them and letting the jar air out, scoop a bit of fresh air back in and close it. Maybe every 6 to 8 hours, no way to tell just ball parking it.
Not bad man. For a first run working with floros I would say you did well. It was more a learning experience anyways as first runs are just getting your feet wet. I would have to agree though with what was said above; If you are going to spend the money on power you might as well benefit from it as much as possible. CLF just isn't going to give you that kind of benefit. I would at a min go with some form of hid lighting. In the end though you have to do what you can with what you have. I have spent the last 6 or so months working towards a new setup. It just takes time. Damn. I am not sure where you are at, but that is pretty high. I don't want to tell you what it costs here. You would cry.
I burp my jars for 15-30 min a day. I recently started using bovida 2 way humidity packs to help me along. Another great item for curing is digital humidity meters. Check out caliber IV (4) meters on amazon.