bridgeofsighs
Well-Known Member
Looking real good. Certainly different than my NL Autos from Crop King. I'm on day 73, and still have a ways to go.
Nirvana Northern Lights Autoflower - First Grow - CFL - Indoors
- Thread starter paintedbudman
- Start date
nightsmokerG
New Member
girls going great,good job.
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- #63
paintedbudman
Well-Known Member
Dec 15th - Day 43 The little ladies are growing well especially Martha. Last week I moved the pots down ~7-8" because Martha was touching the ceiling. Well as of tomorrow I expect that will be true again. This time I'm just going to wait until my normal feeding/watering time on Friday to lower the plants once again. I also am starting my Flowering Nutes on Friday. Well, based on my read of the mixture this is not really "flowering" nutes this is more a mix of veg and flower that I hope will continue to encourage growth as well as provide the necessities for good large strong bud development. Well at least that is what I hope. We will see over the next 4-6 weeks. Martha is ~21" tall and at least 5-6 inches taller than any of her sisters. Pip is still the runt and maybe 9" tall but still pretty and normal looking .... just short. I will definitely post pictures when i take them all out to lower their pots as well as feed them.
breezy12
New Member
Im just looking at how busy your girls are pre-flower. They are going to look crazy good when they get into flowering. Its interesting in comparison to mine, which were way less bushy than yours prior to flowering..
Nice, cant wait..
Nice, cant wait..
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- #66
paintedbudman
Well-Known Member
Breezy, Martha is definitely going a little wild right now. For the last week she has been growing almost an inch a day. The rest of the girls are behind her. I think they were affected by my little pH problem early on, so their development has been slowed by about a week or so. Here is a current picture. My plans are to remove the buckets under the plants on friday when I feed them. After that if they reach the ceiling I'll have to do some training. Martha is in the back on the left. I also included a picture of my setup currently. For scale note the one gallon paint can under Pip (front right). From the plexiglass cieling to the floor is 36". I hope once all of them get to flowering I have enough room. I already have plans to increase the size of my grow box (height mostly).
breezy12
New Member
I'm thinking you're right, you probably will have to remove the buckets.
From mine I have noticed a distinct amount of growth or stretch during the first phase of flower but then this is halting as the buds begin to form proper.
Keep you girls trained early I reckon!
You sure do have a Sea Of Green in there! wooohooo
From mine I have noticed a distinct amount of growth or stretch during the first phase of flower but then this is halting as the buds begin to form proper.
Keep you girls trained early I reckon!
You sure do have a Sea Of Green in there! wooohooo
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- #69
paintedbudman
Well-Known Member
I'm sure I will have to remove the buckets, not sure just how tall they will get though. I have plans to add an additional 22" of height before my next grow. I just have to wait til the box is empty to move it.
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- #70
paintedbudman
Well-Known Member
Slayer, They are 6 weeks. (44 day from first germination or 39 days from where the dicot leaves broke ground not sure which is the "official" start of the count, anybody out there have an opinion let me know
thanks in advance 
)). BTW good luck on the NL grow, Im subbed on your grow as well. 
thanks in advance )). BTW good luck on the NL grow, Im subbed on your grow as well. - Thread starter
- #72
paintedbudman
Well-Known Member
Slayer, Since this is my first grow, I'm really curious how much I'll pull off them as well. I'd be satisfied with an oz each but I'd be ecstatic if I can get 2 from each ). But even if I don't get even an ounce, I'm having so much fun growing them. I've spent hours just staring at them while their leaves flutter in the breeze. Its almost hypnotic, nearly zen. I find myself in a meditative state and just stare at the plants not really thinking just relaxing. 
I think I've found a new hobby that in a few years I can fill my retirement years with. 
). But even if I don't get even an ounce, I'm having so much fun growing them. I've spent hours just staring at them while their leaves flutter in the breeze. Its almost hypnotic, nearly zen. I find myself in a meditative state and just stare at the plants not really thinking just relaxing. I think I've found a new hobby that in a few years I can fill my retirement years with. Subscribed.. it will be interesting to see how much you'll get out of those Autos.
But I do wonder why you use such ineffective lighting, CFLs and not even a reflector.. a bunch of 55W compact T5s (PL-L), e.g. 4 fixtures with 2 each, should get you similar illumination levels at just 440W + ~20W for the ballasts. The rated lumens for that setup would be 76800, with much less heat. How wide/deep is the box?
But I do wonder why you use such ineffective lighting, CFLs and not even a reflector.. a bunch of 55W compact T5s (PL-L), e.g. 4 fixtures with 2 each, should get you similar illumination levels at just 440W + ~20W for the ballasts. The rated lumens for that setup would be 76800, with much less heat. How wide/deep is the box?
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- #75
paintedbudman
Well-Known Member
Grasbauer, welcome
. First I chose not to put in a reflector. Mylar reflects ~90-95% of the light incident on the surface. A reflective white coating will reflect ~85% of the incident light. This is often the route greenhouses go. White, flat, reflective paint (not silver .... just bright white). I chose to go cheap and easy and painted the interior. I have not painted the structural wood yet, I was in a hurry to get the plants started. I am planning on doing that before my next grow.
Why did I choose the "inefficient" light source. First and foremost these lights were readily available from my local big box store. The t5 pl-l aren't (at least not locally here). The next point you ask about is the lumen production of my setup. You have your numbers wrong. Two Pl-L55 watt bulbs in one fixture produce 9600 lumens. Your 8 Pl-L bulbs would only produce 38400 lumens not 76800. With this correction I will agree the PL-L is more efficient (~21%) in production of lumens per watt. To equal the lumens in my setup you would need ~6 of your Dual Pl-l setups. My design goal was to get ~8000lumens/ft^2 over a 2.5'x2.5' area directly below the lights. I ended up with a total area of 8.25ft^2 (36"x33") so really i have ~6750 lumens/ft^2. But that seems sufficient for the plants. In terms of heat, my setup generates 800 watts of heat, a close equivalent (6 dual 55w pl-l light fixtures) would use 680 watts. Not that much difference.
. First I chose not to put in a reflector. Mylar reflects ~90-95% of the light incident on the surface. A reflective white coating will reflect ~85% of the incident light. This is often the route greenhouses go. White, flat, reflective paint (not silver .... just bright white). I chose to go cheap and easy and painted the interior. I have not painted the structural wood yet, I was in a hurry to get the plants started. I am planning on doing that before my next grow. Why did I choose the "inefficient" light source. First and foremost these lights were readily available from my local big box store. The t5 pl-l aren't (at least not locally here). The next point you ask about is the lumen production of my setup. You have your numbers wrong. Two Pl-L55 watt bulbs in one fixture produce 9600 lumens. Your 8 Pl-L bulbs would only produce 38400 lumens not 76800. With this correction I will agree the PL-L is more efficient (~21%) in production of lumens per watt. To equal the lumens in my setup you would need ~6 of your Dual Pl-l setups. My design goal was to get ~8000lumens/ft^2 over a 2.5'x2.5' area directly below the lights. I ended up with a total area of 8.25ft^2 (36"x33") so really i have ~6750 lumens/ft^2. But that seems sufficient for the plants. In terms of heat, my setup generates 800 watts of heat, a close equivalent (6 dual 55w pl-l light fixtures) would use 680 watts. Not that much difference.
Oops, yes, my numbers were wrong, they were for a 4x4 setup with 16 tubes.
I think the rating for CFLs are quite unrealistic though, possibly not sufficiently taking into account that the bulb wastes a lot of power by illuminating itself. Their ratings are too close to that of a PL-L to be realistic. Also, the board with the white paint is too far away to be an efficient reflector.
I was asking about the box height because a 400W HPS with a good reflector should give you similar light levels with half the power.
I'm thinking myself about replacing my 4x55W PL-L with a 250W HPS at some point .. tube reflectors are all kind of crappy and do not bundle the light downwards properly.
I think the rating for CFLs are quite unrealistic though, possibly not sufficiently taking into account that the bulb wastes a lot of power by illuminating itself. Their ratings are too close to that of a PL-L to be realistic. Also, the board with the white paint is too far away to be an efficient reflector.
I was asking about the box height because a 400W HPS with a good reflector should give you similar light levels with half the power.
I'm thinking myself about replacing my 4x55W PL-L with a 250W HPS at some point .. tube reflectors are all kind of crappy and do not bundle the light downwards properly.
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- #77
paintedbudman
Well-Known Member
Dec 18 - Day 46 - Fed the girls tonight. Removed the extra bucket now they have ~7" more headroom. I also took pictures. # of each plant. One down low so that the height can be noted (I have a yardstick right behind the plants. I also took one shot at ~45° And one from directly above. They seem to be continuing to grow well. Martha appears to be 5-7 days ahead of the rest.
nightsmokerG
New Member
Beautiful girls you got there PB,i suggest some defoliation at the lows 
.
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- #79
paintedbudman
Well-Known Member
Grasbauer, ultimate efficiency was not my goal when I built my box. (51" total height but only 36" internal height below plexi heat shield). I've found in my life there are a whole mess of ways to skin a cat, some messier than others, some quick and clean but they all result in a skinned cat. In my case, I chose CFL rather than HPS, LED, or PL-L because it was simple and easy. The proof that my approach is valid is in the plants ( and hopefully will be validated upon harvest). One of the old growers gave me a piece of advice and it rings very true. He said, everybody has all this stuff, pH meters, TDS meters, premeasured nutes, etc, etc, etc. but he said when he started growing they didn't have all of this stuff. He said that back then he learned the most important thing you could do was listen to your plants. He said, "they may not have human voices but if you listen they will talk to you and tell you what they need". Based on their growth, bushiness, green vibrant leaves (well most of them anyway) I see no indication that I need more light. The plants seem to like the setup I have going. Your pl-l setup probably works just as well ... maybe a little cheaper on a lumens per watt basis but when compared to the amount of money I'll save on weed, the difference I'll spend on electricity between spiral CFL and Pl-L (or HPS for that matter) just doesn't seem like a big driver in my world. In the future I probably will build my next grow system with hydro and LED but I wanted to start simple and see how it went before investing quite a bit of money in this.
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- #80
paintedbudman
Well-Known Member
Nightsmoker, Thanks for the comment. I have thought about doing some defoliation (btw the yellowish leaves in the photo were removed before I put the littl ladies away for the evening. In my readings there are several schools of though about defoliation. For this first time I think I am going to go with minimal defoliation. I won't take a leaf that is still green and functional. I assume that it is still pumping more back into the plant than the plant uses to maintain the leaf. Once they yellow and droop I'll pluck them but with my bushy compact plants many of the lower leaves are hidden and I can't tell which need to be removed so I'll let nature take its course and they fall when the time is right with no assistance from me.
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