stealth micro grow, is this sufficient?

[boardercross91]

i have a rubber maid box, 2.5 feet long, 3 feet tall, and 1.5 feet wide. in here i have a 45 watt cfl that emits 2900 lumens. i also have 2 27 watt cfls that emit 1900 lumens a piece. along with this i also have another 27 watt cfl which puts out 1900 lumens, along with one more 30 watt that emits 2300 lumens. so all together i have 10,900 lumens in this small box which should be more than enough for just the 2 young plants in the box. does this sound sufficient enough to you guys?

 

[kubefuism]

You are close to the goal of 10,000 lumens... It will definitly grow. Just watch all the other factors as well. What good is 10000 lumens if your box is 110*F? Know what I mean? Hope it works well for you. Good luck!!

 

[boardercross91]

hah, i was thinking of that. my buddys working with me on this one for some reasons, and he keeps telling me thats theres too much light, its going to kill the plants. all i keep saying is theres no such thing as too much light, just too much heat. anyways, i had thought about that already because the plants wont like the heat, so i installed a 4 inch fan to push fresh air into the box.

 

[White Widow]

If you have an intake fan it will do you no good unless you have an exhaust fan or hole @ least. You can pump the air in but what your trying to do is pump the heat out!

My next concern is the height of your box. With the lighting that must limit you even more. That doesn;t leave you with much vertical growing space!

Is this box just for clones/seedlings are were you thinking u can produce a full cycle in the box? If so sorry bro not gonna happen. You need more vertical clearance.

 

[bombbudpuffa]

you don;t need that much lumens to grow 2 plants! you just need like 6200 ofr veg and 2800 for flowering.

The more lumens, the better. 6200 and 2800 refer to the kelvin or color of the bulb, not it's lumen output. Imo, you need to double the amount of lumens in flower that you had in veg. Thats what I try to do anyway.

i installed a 4 inch fan to push fresh air into the box.

Take that fan and use it to push air out of the box. Having an exhaust fan(top iof the box) and an intake hole(bottom of the box) will pull cool air in and push hot air out. Good luck.

 

[liermam]

3 feet tall is sufficient if you keep the veg cycle to under 4 weeks. I'd only give them 1-2, especially if you're growing sativa dominant strains.

Anyways, more light. Much more light. 10,900 will be alright in a room that size if its perfectly reflected, but taking the time to get 2 or 3 more lights in there will give you the lumen boost you need with CFL's when flowering time hits. And if you're smart enough to get proper spectrum coverage. 3000k and 5800k ideally, but most CFL's provide either 2300k or 5600k or 6500k. I think 6500k is better than 5600k for some reason.

 

[DaveTheDingo]

CFL lights can be stripped down so that the ballasts (in the base) can be mounted remotely (IE out of the box) which will help your battle against heat significantly, as the main heat making part of a CFL is the ballast - the tubes themselves only produce a tiny proportion of the total heat. There are guides here and there on the internet for doing this.

 

[toke@smoke420]

i just made a box like this for my closet i need to finish it and get it going.... i think were using about the same amount of lite too i just got a temp. gauge and its a nice 81 degrez with all my lights on, @ 2 fans on... its a open faced closed door though so that should breath better...