T-8 shop light(only) grow

What I have done is take 8x 2-bulb T8 shop lights. Mostly "Lights of America" brand. On paper at least these have one of the best lumens-per-watt ratings compared to most other types of lamp. Yes they don't have the bulb efficacy of HPS, but the ballasts are enormously low-power and the heat dispersion is amazing. Since they are cheap I decided to stuff a bunch of them into a cabinet, sort of like a tanning bed turned on it's end.

So the cabinet right now is 22"Wx28"Dx56"H So that gives me roughly 3.5 square feet of floor space for growing. This is plenty for what I want. I have a shop light at each compass point, 8 total(512W), surrounding the plants completely. This gives me about 145W per square foot, or about 45,000 lumens in a 15 cubic foot space(about 4sqft floor and 4.2 feet tall). This seems insane to me, but maybe because they are tubes it will make up for lack of intensity? Their vertical arrangement means the light fills the cabinet amazingly well, but there's no light at the top, and may never be.

My big question is if anyone has done this, what their results were, and what should I do with this cabinet? There's a lot of growing styles out there and I want to do what yields best results with my lights. Should I mount a CFL or two in the middle top to give the plants a point source to aim at? I was also thinking about putting them on motorized turntables. I don't know where to buy them though so I will have to build them probably. Maybe if I have a timer kick on and rotate the plants now and then for a few minutes, I could get nice even results? Has anyone tried that? I have definitely seen vertical tubes arranged around the plants, but I can't seem to track down any examples of it as the only lighting source.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=92259

this guy grew with pl-l tubes verticly.

I started out with a 2 x 5 closet and 2 shop lights. The hubby made a frame to hang the lights from and one is on the back wall to "feed" the popcorn buds. I added another 2 every payday (Granny is LOW income- but I love my job!). I now have 5 shop lights in the closet (all that would fit), plus 6 more side lighting CFL bulbs that fit between the tubs. The tubs are 19 gallons and full of organic soil with earthworms. "Ghetto" as heck but it works!

I get between 1 and 2 ounces off each plant- usually closer to one. I keep them small deliberately. Our local sheriff says he'll bust even legit MMJ patients, with even just one plant if the plant even LOOKS like it could produce 8 ounces! I haver a perpetual grow, harvesting about every 2-3 weeks. I grow just enough to keep me and the hubby in pot. I do not trust our sheriff!

Granny

Nice to know! I think I'm going to do better with this grow than any of my previous ones. I've just never grown without a point source light before. I really don't know what to expect, how they will need to be trained, etc.. This should be fun though. With so much side lighting, I can make a plant that is solid top to bottom. If I can somehow get them on some sort of turntables, they'll be nice and evenly lit at all times.

I wouldn't trust the sheriff either! cops period for that matter....

Running a test of the ventilation and lighting systems right now. The ventilation system seems to really be sucking in the air at the bottom and blowing it out of the closet completely at the top. Working perfectly. I put a thermometer in the cab with the lights and screwed it shut(false wall, I have to take it apart every time, for now anyway). I am going to see how well it does over an hour or two temp-wise.

Definitely going to have to fix the airflow path soon here. My 1 hour test reached temps of 120 degrees. Once the top part of the wall is put on, it should make the air flow along the path it is supposed to. Right now the main fan in the closet sucks the air through the open top part of the divider wall and not through the cab. I suppose that's my next job to tackle.

15,000 lumens seems adequate for the space, Im using a 'portable closet' of those almost exact dimensions for my veg cab with 4 - 2X4 T20s that providing exactly half that wattage @ 250 watts.I have been using this setup for a few years now and can keep the 2.5 cubic feet of ground space packed with -up to- 30 cups,or 8 1 gallon square pots.Plants have no problem vegging with minimal stretch and even distribution through the entire cab.. Keep in mind mine are setup vertically as well,with no light on top.
Im also wondering if you're the same TMC that wrote the DIY bubbler thread up on HG years ago...shit taught me the way of the bubb cloner bro. Keep us posted ,ima tag it up

Yeah I am the same TMC. Glad to hear your cloner has worked well for you. I just rebuilt mine actually. I took the gravel out of the bottom and just siliconed the airstones in place.

I think I will rig up the lights so that at least every pair has a switch turning them off. There's definitely no sense in running 145W per square foot with tiny plants. I now plan to have five in the flowering cab instead of four, but that extreme light output in there should help compensate for it quite a bit.

I have a Stanley blower in there that is set on low venting the whole closet. The entire closet is about 120 cubic feet, maybe a smidge bigger. On high the blower draws so much air there's a steady wind coming from the bottom of the door(the top is sealed). As soon as I close off the divider wall and figure out how to get some airflow it should all be pretty good.

How does your vertical setup work? Do you have a couple shelves? Are the plants trained up fencing? What sort of yields do your 250 watts give you? I'm hoping to make this semi-perpetual. Basically with 5 plants, one of each strain, some will finish at different times, and be replaced by a clone grown in the veg side for a while. Hopefully this should give me fairly regular harvests.

It's pretty sweet. Basically my buddy who I taught growing to is now going to hook me up with clones of some clone-only stuff. All five kinds are local and you can't buy seeds for them anywhere. I'm pretty excited! I was just toying with the idea of starting again and bam, ready to go plants. WOo hoO!

Here are some updated photos so you guys can really see what I am doing. The cabinet behind the false wall allows air to enter at the bottom and exit out a vent duct at the top on the right. I am using a Stanley blower in there and it is amazing really(plus it's 4 years old)

Is this too much light for this space? I really could use some feedback on how to most efficiently utilize this space.

if you take out that center bar between the lights you can see the ballasts and you can remove those from the grow area to reduce heat

hey magic, thanks for stopping by my floro thread. not sure what to tell you on your setup. sleepyrz has a good tip, removing the ballast will definitely reduce heat.

maybe i missed something (i'm exhausted lol) but i can't really tell much about your setup from the pics posted. can you post a pic or diagram of what you have in mind? i.e. height, width, what you have in mind for exhaust, we'll go from there. i think i managed to make almost every mistake possible along the way when i started , so i can probably save you from having to learn the same mistakes the hard way.

at any rate, good luck and remember to keep it safe!!!

maybe use one of those lights to veg becase unless youre growing sativas its not going grow that tall

Here are diagrams of the setup. Essentially the actual grow space is about 2.1 square feet, so they will receive about 250W per square foot with all lamps running. I want a pillar of weed, dense from top to bottom. Eventually I want them on turntables so they will rotate for better lighting.

I'm putting them in 8 inch Wal-Mart plastic pots with added drainage, but eventually they will be in auto-watering soil pots of my own design. That should not give me enough root space in a totally natural grow. I might like some advice on how to grow a plant that will be about 12" in diameter, and approximately 40" tall, solid from top to bottom. I want to pack the foliage in there. My plan right now is to FIM the seedling, take the resulting branches and LST them outward, FIM each of the resulting branches and then stop. Is that overkill? How many vertical stalks should I aim for? What is too dense and what is just right with so much side light? With this setup, I don't think there will be a shadow anywhere but below the pots and behinds the lights. How do I best maximize this space?

edit* Blue arrows indicate direction of airflow.

Top View Diagram


Side View

Just mixed up my soil. I used the following recipe:

1 part Pro-Mix Indoor Mix
1 part Pro-Mix Ultimate Organic Mix
2 part Perlite(some of this was Miracle Grow perlite with a little fertilizer in it)

The only part I'm not wholly sure about is the fertilized perlite. I'm not sure I like that they put fertilizer in it, but I can't find any perlite at all around here other than this crap.

Interesting, I was thinking of doing this with the $8 t12/t8 fixtures from HD, but doing 6 or 8 of them all next to eachother and do a regular SOG, have to make a giant mom or 3 first....and do a no veg with a buncha clones.... it would be fun.

Good luck.

Careful though if you buy your shop lights from Home Depot. They tend to change which actual hardware you get when you buy the light. This sucks too because sometimes they run T8 lamps, and sometimes they don't. They're more compact in width than the Wal-Mart Lights of America brand. Still, in my space I have set up, even the LOA shop light is dumping more than enough light into the space.

Here is my target plant size and shape:

magiccannabus said:

Just mixed up my soil. I used the following recipe:

1 part Pro-Mix Indoor Mix
1 part Pro-Mix Ultimate Organic Mix
2 part Perlite(some of this was Miracle Grow perlite with a little fertilizer in it)

The only part I'm not wholly sure about is the fertilized perlite. I'm not sure I like that they put fertilizer in it, but I can't find any perlite at all around here other than this crap.

Click to expand...

the miracle grow perlite is actually quite good, my friend. i should know, i use it. lol there are some folks that don't use chemical nutes because of the production by-products (industrial waste) and the whole fuck-corporate thing , but few deny the effectiveness of miracle grow. for some reason even just a small dose can be a perfect source of nitrogen for girls that need to green up quick. this guy ******* did a 60 lbs back-yard grow using no fertilizer except 1/4 strength miracle grow.

but wormcastings are much better, in my opinion. keep it natural when you can. and those you just smooth over the top layer of your soil every other week, and water as normal (though be mindful not to cause too much drainage, you'll lost the nutes from the castings). easy-peasy. thats for veg. for bloom, do the same with a bat/seabird guano combination, high in phosphorous.

alrighth brother, i like your setup. looks well-thought out. i'm not sure about the "automatic watering system". Not that i doubt you're abilities, i just doubt that such a thing could exist without being monitored daily (then you might as well just be watering the old fashioned way lol). your watering schedule will depend not only on the size of pot, but the size of root mass the plant has going, how evenly it was watered the time before, the texture of your soil (your mix looks fine, just if you see gnats everywhere, next time get some expensive stuff from the hydro store (or tree nursery, or online, etc.). promix is good - i used it in a mix for some purple urkles a few months back, turned out great. but the commercial soil usually has some type of fungus gnats or some headache in it, thats why most usually spring for the Fox Farm or Happy Frog or Ocean Farm (? Ocean something..) or Sunshine 4, etc. and if your water is chemically treated (tap water) one solution is to add Dolomite Lime to the soil mix. Lime will neutrilize ph, which for pot growing is generally good. dolomite lime is like time-release, where "hydrated" lime releases with - you guessed it, water - and doesn't last as long.

ok i'm high as shit and rambling hahaha hope you don't mind, kind of comes with the territory on a marijuana growers' forum. back to your setup

honestly i would do a screen grow (SCROG).

i probably shouldn't write anymore lest i wanna set a record or something lol but you have enough space to get something going for sure. and when all else fails, if you don't get any replies to your own posts, just read like a mother. every question you could possibly come up with in any detail, 99% on this, has been covered and re-covered somewhere on the site. you just need to start with the general forum and refine your search from there. use the force. haha

good luck, great job on the design!

khaleel said:

the miracle grow perlite is actually quite good, my friend. i should know, i use it. lol there are some folks that don't use chemical nutes because of the production by-products (industrial waste) and the whole fuck-corporate thing , but few deny the effectiveness of miracle grow. for some reason even just a small dose can be a perfect source of nitrogen for girls that need to green up quick. this guy ******* did a 60 lbs back-yard grow using no fertilizer except 1/4 strength miracle grow.

Click to expand...

I don't deny the effectiveness of Miracle Grow, but I do think that it's pretty average quality stuff at marked up prices. I don't believe good fertilizer must be expensive, or come in fancy containers with big names on them. I just make a point of knowing what the different ingredients mean. Knowing that means all the difference. Personally I have used diluted human urine for my veg fertilizer with great success. I've also had good results with bone meal in flower, and foliar sprays of potassium chloride mixed with magnesium sulfate.

Shit, now I am stoned and rambling...

khaleel said:

but wormcastings are much better, in my opinion. keep it natural when you can. and those you just smooth over the top layer of your soil every other week, and water as normal (though be mindful not to cause too much drainage, you'll lost the nutes from the castings). easy-peasy. thats for veg. for bloom, do the same with a bat/seabird guano combination, high in phosphorous.

Click to expand...

I've never used worm castings. Does Wal-Mart carry them? Are they expensive? I want to set up my own indoor worm bed eventually, but until then I will need to buy them. Never used guano either. I will keep my eyes out. I have to keep it somewhat cheap though.

khaleel said:

alrighth brother, i like your setup. looks well-thought out. i'm not sure about the "automatic watering system". Not that i doubt you're abilities, i just doubt that such a thing could exist without being monitored daily (then you might as well just be watering the old fashioned way lol). your watering schedule will depend not only on the size of pot, but the size of root mass the plant has going, how evenly it was watered the time before, the texture of your soil

Click to expand...

Basically the auto-watering pot is an old concept that I have taken and put into a bit more simple form. Essentially you have one pot sitting above a bucket of water, and the bottom of the pot can drain into the bucket. In the middle of the base of the pot, you affix a plastic fitting to hold a rope wick, soft cotton rope tied together into a larger bundle works great. The wick draws moisture up to the soil from the reservoir, but as the action of the roots and air turbulence in the room move moisture through the soil, the excess water will drip back down out of the soil through holes in the bottom of the pot, then fall through some air gap, picking up oxygen, and returning to the reservoir. This keeps the soil only as moist as osmosis can make it, and so there must be a small air gap at the top of the pot too, and the top then must be covered with something breathable but light resistant, such as landscaping fabric. Just like hydroponics, only with all the safety of soil. It has definitely been done before, just not much with marijuana.

I use regular garden lime, not hydrated though. It's less volatile. Basically I just sprinkle it across the surface in the beginning and it works it's way down over time. It takes very little. When the season is better, I will find some dolomite lime again. Fortunately the Pro-Mix has a decent amount of dolomite in it already.

Right now I bottom-water the plants. That is, I place them in the clean bathtub and let them soak water from the bottom up. It is a 100% way to avoid ever suffocating your roots in soil, but without something covering the surface of the soil from light, it will mold/mildew.

khaleel said:

ok i'm high as shit and rambling hahaha hope you don't mind, kind of comes with the territory on a marijuana growers' forum. back to your setup

Click to expand...

It's cool dude, I appreciate the help. I look forward to joining your fluoro growers thread with my results. I have some Trainwreck x Colombian Gold, some bagseed from some great nug, a few of a local strain called Tickler's Bane(makes people immune to tickling), and some bagseed from an incredibly good brick.

khaleel said:

honestly i would do a screen grow (SCROG).

Click to expand...

I'm working in my head right now on ways to do a vertical containment without blocking a lot of light. I also want a screen that is attached to the plant, but also can be secured to the pot. I am thinking about making a ring on the bottom pot rim, and a ring on the bottom of the cage/trellis. They'd bolt together, so then when I went to trim the roots I can just undo the bolts, and drop the pot down slowly freeing the roots, trim them and put new soil in the bottom until the level is right, water them and place them back in the cabinet.