Want to do a PC case grow, light advice appreciated

[PaperBoy]

Hi everyone! I'm new here, I decided to try a stealth pc grow and found lots of information on these forums.

I've been reading as much as I can. I have a case that has a growing area of 17"(length) x 16" (height) x 8" width. Very small but I hope I can grow one or two plants.

http://www.1000bulbs.com/36-Watt-4-Pin-2G10-Base-Compact-Fluorescent-Light-Bulbs/6734/

Those are the bulbs I kind of narrowed it down to. Opinions? They are very compact and it looks like I can even fit 4 of them, but from what I read it looks like 2 will be enough for my tiny area and number of plants. Any advice appreciated.

The idea is to make the plant as flowery and bushy (but short) as possible. For this it will spend more time in flowering, so is 3000K the appropriate color temperature? It also comes in 4300K. Is it okay to use this for the whole grow? I can also get different ones as well. I read that like 6000K is good for growth, but is it okay to use flowering lights for the whole cycle since my plant will be very small?

I haven't read about soil/nutriets yet, and haven't decided/researched how I'll do the dark period (it seems everyone is doing 12/12 from start for these small ones). I'm putting together the case, my next step is the lights and air circulation. I'll also try to do low stress training on the plant.

Thanks!

Links are great! Any links to other light stores or anything like that is good too

 

[detoneSmoker]

Hi everyone! I'm new here, I decided to try a stealth pc grow and found lots of information on these forums.

I've been reading as much as I can. I have a case that has a growing area of 17"(length) x 16" (height) x 8" width. Very small but I hope I can grow one or two plants.

http://www.1000bulbs.com/36-Watt-4-Pin-2G10-Base-Compact-Fluorescent-Light-Bulbs/6734/

Those are the bulbs I kind of narrowed it down to. Opinions? They are very compact and it looks like I can even fit 4 of them, but from what I read it looks like 2 will be enough for my tiny area and number of plants. Any advice appreciated.

The idea is to make the plant as flowery and bushy (but short) as possible. For this it will spend more time in flowering, so is 3000K the appropriate color temperature? It also comes in 4300K. Is it okay to use this for the whole grow? I can also get different ones as well. I read that like 6000K is good for growth, but is it okay to use flowering lights for the whole cycle since my plant will be very small?

I haven't read about soil/nutriets yet, and haven't decided/researched how I'll do the dark period (it seems everyone is doing 12/12 from start for these small ones). I'm putting together the case, my next step is the lights and air circulation. I'll also try to do low stress training on the plant.

Thanks!

Links are great! Any links to other light stores or anything like that is good too

http://www.icmag.com/modules/Tutorials/Contents.htm

 

[mrred]

what you want is PLL 2 18w or 2 24w might fit as for the medium/nutes do you care if its organic? if not id go with coco and some coco nutes

 

[ScrubNinja]

Yeah how about pl-l lights? You get 100 extra lumens on each 36w. Being skinnier but longer, they may allow better lighting config. Here are some charts with the lengths and stuff



You have to allow a small length for the bases but they're slim, mine are roughly a quarter inch thick. So the 36w would be a tight squeeze but the 24w bulbs still kick out the jams and should fit.

The idea is to make the plant as flowery and bushy (but short) as possible. For this it will spend more time in flowering, so is 3000K the appropriate color temperature? It also comes in 4300K. Is it okay to use this for the whole grow? I can also get different ones as well. I read that like 6000K is good for growth, but is it okay to use flowering lights for the whole cycle since my plant will be very small?

Well, the ideal is to have 2 sets of bulbs, one for veg, one for flower. If you only want one set, then 4000k works pretty good at both. Or you could mix it up, maybe 2 x 3000k and one 6000k or so. If you seriously want the very smallest bushiest plant then I would suggest a mix of very high kelvins like 2 x 6500k and 1 x 10,000k for veg.

All of this is a massive generalisation though. Don't sweat it too much just try to have a higher kelvin mix for veg, and a lower kelvin mix for flower. There's no exact perfect way and it makes less difference than people make out. I flowered with 4000k & 10,000k and it was great.

Try to get a vigorous flow of air running over your bulb bases if you happen to go with pl-l. Good luck.

 

[PaperBoy]

Thanks for the replies... I thought the lights I linked *were* PLL lights, just shaped differently. I saw people using the long skinny PLLs, the 55 W ones, but those were too long for my case (they were like 21 inches).

However, I found these lights after your tip since I decided to look more: http://www.1000bulbs.com/36W-3000-Kelvin-2G11-Base-Compact-Fluorescent/32646/

Those are 16.4 incches, and my space is 17 inches length wise, so it looks like it may just fit which would be great. Then I can run 3 of these, total of 108W. Is that a good amount to run for 1-2 plants? I only have 1 square foot to work with pretty much, I will do my best to maximize yield by doing a scrog and making sure the case is refelective inside and has no light leaks.

These lights only come in 3000K though, which I though would be good for flowering. I thought if I have higher lights (6000K or whatever) that's good for veg, so it will grow a lot (height wise).

Thanks for that link and nutrient tip as well.... lots of good info!

 

[ScrubNinja]

Then I can run 3 of these, total of 108W. Is that a good amount to run for 1-2 plants?

Oh hell yeah That's enough to light a small cupboard so it's plenty. I could have it wrong but I think DItrY ran 3 x 36w in his pc case. It was epic to say the least and well worth a read.

Yeah those kelvins would be fine. I flowered my first pl-l run with 4000k and 10,000k and it rocked. 3000k is gonna rock too. The original bulb you linked is a pl-f by the way. There's a whole range of different pl-X bulbs with different styles. Peace.