I have a curley floro light 1100 lumens and have it 1" from the top of the plant. the heat is minimal and no more that waht the sun gives off. Its growing good in my eves but im a newbie. Is this too close because i was thinking if i have it closer the plant will get more light and the leaves will stay more dry. Sids how too says keeping the plant dry will increase the stem strength but he says this about the fans. Since swiching to the closer curley floro vs the bulb one the stem has became stiff but dont know if this is just because of me flexing the stem every few days or the lamp distance. Check out my plant pic its a about 2 1/2 weeks old but up until 5 days ago it was set up with the round floro bulbs and crap soil that would not hold water. Now with the new soil bigger pot and light its been growing way better and faster ive been getting a new node every 2 days or so. And yes i am using paper as a light reflector and it sux im changing the grow box to a plywood one with many coats of white paint. Its already made im going to sneek it up to my room tonight once my dad goes to sleep. Ill have pics of it in the new box tomorrow.
With flouros you want them as close to the plant as you can, Its time to move the flouro up when the plant is touching it. Whats the wattage? Can you put more light on it?
Its rated at 1100 lumens and 19 watts im going to buy one or two more after I move it into the new box. The new box is 10.5deep"x15wide"x12 tall". Would 3000 lumens per sq ft would be good for floro to get them started? It will be a starter box for future clones when i get some good seeds. Can you tell what kind of weed it is i have? I got it from a friend that took it out of a bag. and as of now it actualy has aalot of ligth but my camera automaitcly tinted because i had it set for outside
I read somewhere on this forum what lumen per sq ft should be. 3000 sounds good. I think that will work for a starter box then you will need to get them some more light as they get bigger. As far as what kind I cant tell you, just hope its a female.
I didnt swap it ot the new box yet because i dont have the right fan and dont want to fry my plant. I have 2 small 4" box fans 112 volt but they are "impedance protected" and when i hook it up to a dimer switch it dosent have enough power and when i crank up the knob the fan buzzes and dosent spin. The fan works fine when i dont have the dimmer on but is way too loud . Does anyone have any recomendations for a small fan that i can dim that runs off 120volts and isnt "impedance protected"? Its for a small 1.2sq ft starter box.
Grower, i don't know what amperage those box fans of yours pull but using a dimmer switch for them is a bit risky. What you've got to think about is that your dimmer switch has probably got a maximum rating of maybe 100 watts, probably less in real life, anyhows if your fans are more than this it's no wonder that the dimmer switch gets pissed and don't want to work. You can get variable controllers for fans, but don't ask me where, but I have seen them around on the net before. You can buy fans with variable speed control already built in also. If you decide to go with a Direct Current fans then all you have to do is get hold of a variable resistor, or potentiometer, and put it in line with the positive or negative leads.
Thing is its just thi one fan thats giving me a problem i have a dayton blower and it works fine when i hooked it up to the dimmer. its just the dayton fan is way to big for what i need to move it moves around 100 cfm and id rather have a smaller fan and have it spining at a medium speed because it will have to push through a carbon filter and the daydon wont get pressure without making noise because of its large size.
I hooked up the big dayton fan today i will put up picks in growroom design tomorrow night. What i did was drill a 9/16 hole where the fan was sucking from so not to allow alot of air gets into the fan. This reduced the load and allows me to run extremly low speeds and there is no noise from the blades its just from the motor buzz. Its extremly stealth all you hear is a slight buzz from around 4 feet but you have to listen close for it. All you see is a regular r/c car box . And with the lights out you dont see any light coming out even after close inspection. As of now i only have that one 1100 lumen floro bulb in now but tomorrow i will get another 2 1100 lumen bulbs. As of now i have my 2 1.2" 3.5 week old (actualy looks like a 2 week old because of bad lighting and soil earlier) and a 2 day old sprout thats about 1/4" high. growing weed is so much fun im lovin it
2000-2500 lumens/ squared ft. is prefered, 3000 would only be used if you were going to suppliment your plants with co2 later on.
Thank you, that helps I was wondering, Lets see I got 28,000 lumens covering 8 sq ft, (as he reaches for the calculator) Uh oh im at 3500. Does that mean if you have higher than 2500lumens per sq ft you will have Co2 problems?
Another thing I wonder about is..... depending on wich formula you use are they all based on a given height at a given sq ft. And wouldnt you need to compensate for lower lumen levels at the bottom of the plant as the light gets raised?
Woody has 8000+ lumens per square foot but hees growing using SOG so all the light is being absorbed by the carpet of leaves and sone is bouncing off the walls so ist not that bad. but with setups with plants sp[aced out there is alot of wasted lumens when the light goes to the floor because the plant are spread out. It all depemds on the setup how many lumens sog you need more and depending on how much you loose with the more spaced out setups it will change. example if you grow a 10' plant it will need more lumens per square foot than a 2' plant in the same area.
Yep Im going to guess that ideal is 2500 and real world is all over the place, Im going to lean twords 3000 myself. HPS and MH decrease in lumens with age.
Check out my new grow box i was talikng about http://forum.grasscity.com/showthread.php?threadid=19211