My 450watt Super CFL Grow Box- Grow 1

Hey everyone,
Im a little late starting my journal due to late modifications to the box as it was run through its first weeks of use. Im doing a soil grow, 4 plants 1 Mr. Nice Guy, the other 3 Irene Kush, im using a modified moveable batwing style light mount for my CFLS, 5 in line ( front to rear and 2 wings side to side). The Box is 4ft tall by 3 feet deep by 28in. Wide. Im running 2 active air intakes and 1 high velocity 9in. Exhaust fan mounted ontop. Soil, is fox farms ocean forest and mix of perlite, manure and compost. Im using Advanced Hydroponics line of nutrients, FloraGro, FloraMicro, FloraBloom and Rapid Root Starter. The 3 youngest plants are 8 days old and the 1 is 15 days old and very mature. All look healthy to me the Mr. Nice Guy plant is the largest in the photos. I am planning to allow 15-20 more days of VEG. Time then flower for 30 days or so. The CFLS I am using are a mixture of 2700K and 6500k bulbs at a 80/20 ratio, using 4 200 watt, 4 150 watt, several 100 watt as well as a few mixed totaling 15 bulbs at the moment ( more will be added for flowering ) 44,550 lumens, and 454 actual watts. I have a digital timer for light control as well as a fan control unit and a hydrometer/thermometer inside the box showing highs and lows for that 24 hour period. Let me know what you think any advice would be great this is my first solo grow.
If anyone is interested I have full schematics for the box plus light fixture amd wiring diagram if you are interested in doing something similar let me know ill gladly send you the schematics. Box cost was around $65 and light fixture plus hangers, etc $40, and ventilation equipment $20-50 depending on what you can salvage and convert.

Ill be switching to flowering once the other 3 get a little larger in size, all but one have been topped. The last one I was considering using the femming technique, does anyone have any past experience femming vs. Topping?

Your plants look nice and healthy mate, they obviously love all that light
I hate to say it though mate but it looks a bit unsafe for me. The more bulbs you try and connect up to an adapter, the more strain you put on the curcuit and there is a heap of cords everywhere. Not trying to be a dick mate, just don't want to see it go up in flames and injure you, it aint worth it!
Im trying to work out how to get some moveable (on tracks) cfls in my led box, work in progress!

Yeah I took that into consideration upon realizing I was pull 450 plus wattsbout of these ceramic sockets, so i did a thorough wiring job to each socket, indeoendtly wired with heavey gauge wiring the light system after the timer was converted to 220v using a simple converter I found. Tje fans all 5 run indepently on 110v. The outlets both are plugged into also have their own circuit breaker so im trying to be as safe as possible. And thanks for the complement, I judt topped 2 more of them last nigh probly going to flower them in 13-15 days.

And yeah im adding a magnetized light socket to each end allowing additonal light for the buds, but yeah a track that could be raised and lowered would work great.

Cool as mate, sounds like you've thought about it well

I reckon i'll put mine on drawer runners so they can move up and down as the girls grow

Another 2 weeks and your girls will be massive, I hope you've got plenty of height to work with

Thanks man, yeah I def tried to do my research before ever starting the build. And I should have planty of room, ive got another 3 feet of vertical room which hopefully will be enough. Good luck to you with your design, if you need another set of eyes on it PM me.

Day 28- The plants are looking healthy the past 2 days ive gone without watering them to allow the roots to spread out further, the largest plant was dried out and given 1/2 gal. Nutrients plus rain water. The other 3 are still moist and I will wait a little longer for those. There is one plant left to be topped and I plan to do that later, all the others are appearing to get their new growth going quickly. In pic 1 the plant is just now waking up which is why the leaves aernt standing yet.

Day 29-
I let the soil of all the plants dry out to send the roots searching then watered my large mr. Nice guy plant with 1/2 gal. Water plus nutes and then another 1/2 gallon an hour later. The 3 Irenes were giver almost 1/2 gal each as well. The bottom leaves on all plants were trimmed as well as fan leaves covering new growth, 2-3 leaves taken or trimmed per plant then they were misted with rain water. They co ti ue to run a 20 on 4 off cycle, I plan to change it to 18/6 soon for the last weeks of veg to stretch the plant ive also moved the cfls 1 in higher every 2 days to help with this as well. The plants are all beautiful green no spots or discoloration. Im using the strongest amount of veg nutrients now and adding a small amount of bloom as well to prepare the plants. Ill post pics soon, planning a grow box mod id like tp add first.
-Good growin everyone

Day 30-
All the plants are looking great! After topping ive began to stretch them in preparation to flower, im also adding additional bloom nutes now and 3/4 as much Flora Micro, Gro. The plants are rotared a quarter every 8 hours and I am pushing more light on the areas where ive trimmed fan leaves cpvering new growth to stimulate more growth.
-Box addition, I removed the dual CPU fan intake at the top rear of the box, leaving the hole as a passive intake which still has a ton of suction. Im placing each fan on a new lower active I take one in the rear of the box and one possibly on the front door to provide better cooling, even though these are only 3in. CPU fans they should help in pushing cooler fresh air righ to the plants and now with 8 passive intakes and 3 active intakes I should hopefully get the 2-3°F temp drop id like. Ill attach project pics.let me know what ya think. Probably to be done tomorrow.
Journal-
All are doing great and stretching oushing out new stems and bramches, im trimming 1-2 old fan leaves per plant every other day or so, so the new growth can get light and so far its working well, the plants are shooting to the CFLS.

Day 31- ive continued to stretch the plants, making each grow a seperate long cola cince they have been topped. Ill switch to flower in 7-12 days depending on their size. I havent added the newest active intakes with fans yet, due to lpng work sched. But I plan to do this project tomorrow and will post pics tomorrow. I misted each plant but not watering tonight to encourage more final root growth.

Updated day 31 pics of plants

Day 32- Grow Journal
I have continued raising the lights to stretch the plant during these last weeksnof vegetative cycle, im using more concentrated nutrients PH balanced to 5.6, the plants are also being trimmed, fan leaves 2-3 will be cut per plant to allow new growth to receive more light. In 5-7 days ill half the amount of Veg. Nutrients and begin adding heavey bloom nutrients and proceed to change to 12 / 12 after 24 hrs of darkness.
- Box Modification-
Im installing the 2 additional active intakes using cpu fans wired to 110v transformers, the first I mounted externally in the rear centered about 3 inches off the floor of the box, the second was mounted centered on the front door about 8in off the floor, they were screwed in place and run to a timer that I will program to have them run during the light cycle and turn off and periodically during night cycle. Pic 1 is the front door, the last thing I will add is wore mesh to protect the fan and a piece of duct work ontop to block light.(Pic 1 is front before putting a fabricated light blocker /fan filter-fine mesh)

Day 32- Contd I lightly watered all plants with abput a gallon pf fresh rain water ( 1/4 gal.) Per plant. Tomorrow ill continue nutrients. The box modifocation is almost complete both fans installed the front light catcher/ fan filter is complete the rear is drying with JB weld and will be installed tomorrow. The pic bellow is the finished front door intake fan- CPU fan run to 12v. Trans. Ill upload finished pics of the back and my girls tomorrow.

Day 33- Watered the plants wuth full nutrient wix at around 830 this am, the largest plant took a full half gallon and another 3/4 gal was split between 3. The leaves were trimmed last ight and more will be trimmed tonight to allow new growth to receive light.

Day 33- Pt. 2- Re watered all plants with fresh nutrients mixed with rain water, all watered then misted. I proceeded to trim fan leaves away from new growth on all plants, using sharp sheers cuttin at the base of the stems then rinsing the area with water. After trimming the leaves werei misted the leaves again, the lights were raised 1/2 in higher for additional stretch, when flowering begins I will lower the cfls much closer again this is only to stretch the plants. Each plant looks amazing ive had several complements from fellow friends growing, no yellow spots on leaves and each stem is 1/4 1/2 in. Ill post pics tomorrow. Good growin everyone!

Day 34-
The last few days of VEG cycle im introducing full strength bloom nutrients along with FloraLicious Plus the same lines of nutes ive used for the entire grow. I plan to switch to flowering in 1-2 days allowing a few more inches of vertical growth. I trimmed all of the plants about 3-4 leaves off of each and also after letting the soil dry out for mold prevention as well as root spreading, each plant was given 1/2 gal. Each of rain water nutrient mix balanced to 5.9 PH. The leaves were misted after trimming then all were rotated. My light catcher for the new rear fan intake will be done tomorrow and ill post pics.

Day 34- Further trimming on the plants was done, tomorrow ill mount the magnetic strip sockets for supplemental lighting since im about to switch them over to flowering tomorrow or the next day. Nutrients bloom now being added were given to all plants, as well as misting of the leaves. The plants are huge now the Mr. Nice guy a good 22in tall at the highest stem, the others about 18in. Which are all irene kush. Ill be adding 2 more 200 watt 2700k bulbs and 2 more 150 watt 2700 k bulbs removing all the 6500 k bulbs 1 every other day to simulate outdoor conditions best.

Damn man they look great, they are seriously loving those cfls
Cheers for the offer to help with my setup too mate, Im going to put a drawer runner in each corner and attach some 24w cfls so they can move up as the girls grow cfls just seem to put out the perfect spectrum for mj hey!

Thanks man, and yeah no problem i did schemtics for almost everything i did just incase someone liked it, and that sounds like a great idea. Im putting in 2 magnetic sockets and a strip of steel 1/2in wide by 2 1/2 feet long to add 2 more CFLS that can be moved. I like how user friendly CFLs are and yeah they do seem to produce that perfect spectrum these plants love. Hopefully the additional bulbs i add to flowering stage will beast the plants that much more.