Grow Room Tiny Tent + 54W Circular Fluorescent Bulb Experiment

[nhdtjq]

Hello everyone! Ive got an interesting one for you - tiny tent perfect for one small auto plus a cool light ive never seen a grow journal with before (perhaps for good reason, perhaps not lol).

So here goes. The setup:

Homebox Ambient Q30 30x30x60 tent



Ecola 32W + 22W 2700K circular fluorescent bulb



And here they are in glorious combination with a stunted Tangelo Rapido:


Watch and discuss

 

[Mr.Sparkle]

Haven't seen that specific light but have seen a few circular florescent grows, plant looks healthy.

Air circulations is always good but that's easy to remedy if needed.

Also that bulb is throwing alot of light upwards, any plans to do a small reflector to keep the majority of the light pointed down at the plant ? Which btw how many lumens does it produce, presume around probably 4000 ish

 

[nhdtjq]

Haven't seen that specific light but have seen a few circular florescent grows, plant looks healthy.

Air circulations is always good but that's easy to remedy if needed.

Also that bulb is throwing alot of light upwards, any plans to do a small reflector to keep the majority of the light pointed down at the plant ? Which btw how many lumens does it produce, presume around probably 4000 ish

Youre right about the air Mr Sparkle, so i went ahead and added a silentub i dug up. Still frelling loud.

Problem is, my home made reflector (armored aluminum foil) gets blown away as soon as i close the door:



But never mind. Ill just take lots of foil, make a mold of the bulb, cut out a hole, use a bowl to make the inside into a dome, make a ring to hold it off the bulb and:



I created The Darkenator! Looks kind of like an alien death mothership.

Paradoxically misnamed since it has increased luminous flux from 11k to 20k according to my andorid app!

 

[Casper79]

What kind of grow tent is that? I like it. Did you make it?

 

[Mr.Sparkle]

PC fans work decently well unless blowing through a carbon filter, but even still for small grows they work well enough.

Also for references aluminum foil isn't a very good reflector, its better than nothing though, but it's also conductive, and will also make your bulb heat up more which will cause it to wear quicker.
A pure Flat white paint or mylar is better, if you wanted too a suggestion would be to just cut a circle out of cardboard, or preferably light wood a it bigger than the tubes, and make it fit around the base of the light socket a inch or two above them, which would be easy enough to do, and then just have the one side painted flat white "a couple coats" or cover it with mylar (emergency blanket) which can be found at most dollar stores, and you would be rocking it for pretty cheap.

Just watch out for the heat of the bulb base, but that can easily be felt by hand.

Lets help you have a successful first grow with this setup and get the most out of it, i'll be watching

What kind of grow tent is that? I like it. Did you make it?

Homebox Ambient Q30 30x30x60 tent, nhdtjq posted it in the first post.

 

[nhdtjq]

Just a little experiment

50W is on the low side it seems to me, even in a tiny space like that. Ill peruse for a reflector but frankly i think it unlikely i will bother. Im not trying to set a record here.

This is the first time ive grown in tents at home so a few things are new - never used carbon filters before, or little inline fans. I have another going with three 9 band UFOs that usually hang in my big tents for side lighting:

Originally the tangelo was supposed to go in that tent but it turned out to be really small, so i replaced it with this nicely growing Lowryder 2 and put the tangelo in the Q30 which is usually my mother tent.

Long story short, this should be fun!

 

[mjau]

Nice little tent, similar to mine Black Box 35x35x60 cm. I use PC fans for exhaust and mixing air, passive intake. Friend of mine is using same tent as yours and he has 138W Ufo in there, actual W of that ufo is like 30-50W, more like 35. 50w of cfl wont be enough, small and airy buds. 1x Cree 3590 at 50w would do wonders in there, or Citizen 1212

 

[nhdtjq]

Nice little tent, similar to mine Black Box 35x35x60 cm. I use PC fans for exhaust and mixing air, passive intake. Friend of mine is using same tent as yours and he has 138W Ufo in there, actual W of that ufo is like 30-50W, more like 35. 50w of cfl wont be enough, small and airy buds. 1x Cree 3590 at 50w would do wonders in there, or Citizen 1212

Im ok with that, as long as they look/smell/taste nice and of course are fun to grow

50W of florescent is roughly equal to 240W of incandescent at a distance of ~5 cm. Ecola wisely dont provide a lumen output value for this bulb but Mr Sparkles probably right its in the 4-5k range which actually is more than enough for a healthy grow. Minimum is 2k from what ive read.

The tent BTW is terrible. I own 3 Homelab tents this is the only one im sorry i bought because it has only one sleeve and one badly placed window.

On a different note i think ive the plants confused (really disorganised, have multiple grows and only know what strain 1/3 of my plants are lol) - the little thing in the small tent smells a lot like vomit, which i believe is the lowryder smell?

 

[mjau]

Yeah, exhaust hole is too small. Thats a lot better in my tent.