Booboostank's DWC/CFL Stealth Romulan Grow

[booboostank]

What's up guys, after a very unsuccessful outdoor guerrilla grow this summer it only fueled the fire to grow some medicinal cannabis. So after moving into my new apartment I felt it was time for a stealth cabinet. I decided to go with a 2x2x4 ft. box and I choose to use cfls for lighting. I am using surge plugs as hanging chandlers for the lights. I am running 12 lights total all pushing 100w equivalent, 6 lights are daytime lights while the other 6 are soft lights this setup is going to be used for vegging, and I'm going to switch to 4 daytime lights and 8 softwhite lights for flowering. I am using DWC with 2 airstones in the bottom of the bucket. For nutes I'm using Botanicare Pure Blend Pro Grow/Bloom. I plan on using a techinique or two to limit the height of this. I am comtemplating using a scrog grow and topping it once to help fill out the screen. Here is the set-up:

The whole set up is DIY, after many many bowls to get the creative juices flowing Today is the first day and I cannot wait to share the journey. A carbon filter is going to be added within the next couple of days.

What strain is it? Romulan
Is it Indica, Sativa or Hybrid? What percentages? Indica
Is it in Veg or Flower stage? Just started a clone
Indoor or outdoor? Indoor
Soil or Hydro? Hydro
Size of light? 12x100w equivalent CFLs
Is it aircooled? Computer fans for intake/exhaust, inside fan.
Temp of Room/cab? Will be getting a thermometer soon
RH of Room/cab?
PH of media or res? 6.0-6.3 for veg and 5.7-6.0 for flowering
Any Pests ? Not yet (knock on wood)
Type and strength of ferts used? Following a feeding schedule (ppm of water) using Botanicare Pure Blend Pro Grow/Bloom

 

[Quan Yin]

I love your lighting. Very clever. Where did you get the fixtures?

 

[booboostank]

I love your lighting. Very clever. Where did you get the fixtures?

Thank you, the fixtures are literally surge plugs flipped upside down with adapters to screw in lights directly to the plug, then I put a y adapter to connect 2 lights onto one adapter with zip ties to support it so the wont unplug and kill the baby! I can get close ups if you would like me too?

 

[Quan Yin]

I haven't seen adapters to go directly from a socket to a bulb. Where did you get them? How much are they?

 

[booboostank]

I got them from home depot, in the same aisle I got the CFL bulbs, they costed me 2 bucks each.

Question for everyone, is this a pretty decent feeding schedule?

Feeding Schedule
Clones/Seedlings ppm 220-350
Week 1-2 ppm 400-550
Week 3-4 ppm 550-700

FLOWERING PPM
Week 1-2 ppm 700-850
Week 3-4 ppm 700-1000
Week 5-6 ppm 850-1000
Week 7-8 ppm 350-700
Flush...

 

[booboostank]

Day 2 Pictures:

The box and plant both made it through the night really excited off of that! When I went to check the ph and the ppm, they had both increased, ph got just above 7 and the ppm's of the water increased to about 410. Is this a normal increase in numbers? I have already brought the ph back down to 6 but for the ppm im leaving it and going to see what happens (because I am at a very low dose of nutes)

 

[Mad Woodsman]

Nice set up, looks great!
Those bulbs are only 23w in reality though, the 'equivalent' value is just a comparison to incandescent bulbs.
They put out about 1200 lumens each.
So you've got about 280w/14,400 lumens which should still be cool for one plant.

Your space is 4 square feet which by my reckoning would require a min of about 12,000 lumens or ideally about 28,000 to 40,000 lumens.
You're ideally looking for about 7000-10,000 lumens per square foot for an average sized plant, or a min of at least 3000 per square foot.
Right now you're at 3,600 lumens per square foot.

Great info here:
CFL Light Tutorial

Maybe you could get them a bit closer to the plant too as CFLs effectiveness drops off pretty quickly after a certain distance.

I'm just a noob though, so I'm open to correction!
good luck with it!

btw what's the paper plate for?

 

[booboostank]

Thank you man, that is a great read. The plate is just there to help darken the root area just for kicks. Update: I have moved the lights closer to the plant now they are about 8 inches above the plant. The lights are just about to go dark for the first time. She will be resting for 6 hours then back to growing!

 

[booboostank]

So today I woke up to see all of the leaves are becoming slightly curly here is what im talking about:

closer:

Is this normal? Please help me out!

 

[booboostank]

With the lights on it only seems to get worse! Please I need help!

 

[booboostank]

PLEASE HELP ME!

 

[booboostank]

After getting help from fellow growers online! Thank you very much! I have dialed in the ph and the plant has just been exploding with new growth. On top of that, I visited a buddy who is a fellow grower and he had a few extra 100watt 27k cfls laying around with sockets. So he let me borrow one so now it is helping the plant that much more!

 

[Caregivers]

Your cfls look to be a little far. Try to drop them to within a few inches of the plant. The plant will love you for it.

I love your stealth box. Looking good booboostank.

CGs

 

[booboostank]

Once the lights go off in about 20 minutes, ill readjust everything and it should have optimal lighting...ill post up picks when im done and the lights come back on! Thank you again for the help CG the plant is doing great! do you know why ppm consistently has been rising day by day? I don't keep adding nutes, i just add ph up or down accordingly.

 

[Caregivers]

Well .....

I think it might be that your plant is drinking water but not eating the nutes. This would explain the rising nutes. Just keep your water full and you should be allrite.

Sometimes the nute's ppm drop really fast and the water level doesn't decrease with it. This means your plants are eating like crazy but not drinking so much water.

CGs

 

[booboostank]

Wow Caregivers thank you so much for all the help! The lights just switched on and I checked the ppm and it is down to 500 so hopefully she is eating!

Also I rearranged the box and adjusted the lights and I am very happy with the results! I can't wait to see how the plant likes it! The lights are alot closer than it seems in the pics

 

[booboostank]

Update, the lights came on again today and again the ppm is around 500, and the ph is at 5.8 there is so much new growth, and tomorrow she will be done the first complete week

 

[Mad Woodsman]

cool man, its perked up a lot!
congrats on your first week.

 

[Caregivers]

Sweet!

Keep us posted.

CGs

 

[booboostank]

cool man, its perked up a lot!
congrats on your first week.

Sweet!

Keep us posted.

CGs

Thanks guys! I woke up this morning and found some bleaching on the two of the older lower leaves, I have adjusted for this but it is a little too late Other than that I am very happy with the growth so far! Ill get new pics once the lights come back on.