Finally there is a specific arena for those of us who only have the space, resources, or just plain BALLS to go any bigger than micro. In my case, my other [better?] half is very afraid of the potential repercussions of any grow what so ever. I am dying to get my own micro grow going and have been reading anything i can get my hands on for about 6 months now. I would love to hear the how, what, where, when & why's from all of you successful micro/closet growers out there. I plan on staring my own no later than 7-1-10 so any tips will be greatly appreciated. Including but not limited to the stealthiest options out there!
As a fun experiment, I started a perpetual micro SoG about 3 months ago. My goal was to put 3-4 new rooted clones in the cab every week so that eventually I'd be harvesting every week. Also, I will be re-vegging harvested plants so that they can go back into the SoG cab and flower out again. I plan to re-veg every plant twice, without changing the soil in the cups I haven't been adding plants to the cab every week like I would like to, I'm having problems getting my moms to produce enough clones. The How: I take a cutting and make it grow roots, once roots have been established I put it in a red solo cup that I've taped black in my mixture of soil. The clone then goes straight into 12/12 flower light. New clones range in height from 1.5 inches to 5.5 inches. The Where: A small cabinet I already had laying around. It's 42" wide, 20" deep and tapers from 17" high in the front to 13" high in the back. The Why: Experience So far I've harvested 5 plants and they are currently in a veg area to get them to re-veg, they've been there for about a week. First 4 pics are of my SoG cab. Last pic is the clones that will be going in the cab in about 3 days.
well i am growin real small although i had to move away from stealth cuz of ventalation. but i like were this post is goin.
When most people think of a small or "micro" grow I hear about 1-5 plants. Does anyone have any advise for a noobie who has the space for 1-2 plants and has done all he can to ensure success by getting ak-48 fem beans & having read anything & everything he can for the last 6 months. Probably gonna use a cabinet / growbox and many household cfls. oh yeah soil grow
Get 2 4'x4tube T5 fixtures. Arrange them in an L around your plants, then turn the L into a tunnel with mylar (or ghetto it up with foil like me...). Or just make a tunnel out of 3 if you're feeling froggy. Use a 50/50 blue/red mix for veg and preflower, and switch to all red for flowering.
I keep reading that the t5 are much better than cfl.. Guess the size difference should make that fairly easy to understand. If i was to put 1 bulb on each side of a grow box effectively hitting all four sides and mounted them from floor to roof of the box would that work for a seedling?? It seems that it would be great for a more mature plant because the light would be even from top to bottom, though coming from the sides. Will it need a light directly over the plant or will the mylar reflect enough for the light to be distributed evenly - even over the top of the container?
You'll want something up top, but 1 tube/side should do alright with a little reflector on each in mylar. You can also get 2 foot tubes if you wanted. Doubling those in a smaller space would work better. Maybe a big CFL up top if you're trying to keep it really narrow? The one thing CFLs have over T5s is their compactness.
I am a T-5 lover lol. Tried them in veg and the plants were so happy I wanted to try thru flowering as well. I changed the bulbs to be full spectrum throughout the entire grow (2 grow bulbs & 2 bloom). This vid is when they were in veg but it shows the system. I also realize this is a 2x4 tent (not exactly micro) but my point is how happy they are under the T-5s lol Its not very hard to scale it down either, I have veggies growing in a 2x2 tray under T-5s as well [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvtFeQdaWfE"]YouTube - Ebb & Flow ready to flower[/ame] The 2x2 tray [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk3chldluUY&feature=channel"]YouTube - Indoor Hydro Garden[/ame]
You will get significantly better results by switching to all red bulbs after preflowering is complete. From everything I've read, mixing blue and red heavily in flower works worse than either just blue or just red, with just red doing the best. edit: I would also strongly recommend adding more T5s along the sides. No reason to try to penetrate the canopy if you can just go around it.
What have you read about this, can you elaborate a little more?? I've read that full spectrum is what you want because indoor growers are always trying to recreate the sun, which is full spectrum...
Something being "natural" is never a good argument. It means nothing. Nobody is trying to recreate the sun (at least nobody getting good results) HPS flowers better than MH. HPS is about the furthest possible thing from full-spectrum you can get (except LPS). MH bulbs below 6500k are quite full-spectrum. The reason why full-spectrum is garbage is that plants don't see green, and don't see anything NEAR green very well, either. They see predominantly blue and red, as you can see from this chart: http://www.life.illinois.edu/govindjee/paper/fig5.gif The reason they can't see green or near-green well is because chlorophyll is green, and hence it reflects green light. Reflected light is obviously not absorbed light. I've heard it claimed that red light increases flowering hormone levels. That would be consistent with the behavior seen with HPS vs MH... but not enough to explain the weirdness with mixed spectrums. I have no idea what causes that.... perhaps it causes a confused state in the plant somehow during full flowering.
Who said 'natural' as an argument? And we arent trying to create the sun indoors? How else are plants to grow without sunlight? Indoors lighting is a replication of the sun. Will it ever be as good as the real sun, no way. But cant control the real sun like we can lighting. As for the green spectrum, there is no green bulbs in my light... they are grow and bloom... blue and red.... I mean havent you seen the new dual arc bulbs???
You said "like the sun".... same as "all natural" to me... not a real argument based on anything. Here's some spectrum graphs: http://homeharvest.com/homeharvest2000pics/AgroSunGoldSpectrumLarge.jpg http://www.plantlightinghydroponics.com/images/E-QuartzArcSpectrum.L.gif http://www.plantlightinghydroponics.com/images/E-6500K90CRI.L.gif Lots of greens. Those are MH bulbs. http://futuregarden.com/lighting/lamp_hps_spchart.jpg http://www.hidhut.com/catalog/images/600HPS Lamp.jpg No greens. Those are HPS bulbs. Also note lack of blues. http://www.plantlightinghydroponics.com/images/E-6500K.Spectrum.L.gif T5 spectrum image by Left_C on Photobucket Those are 6500k T5s (second is 6700k technically). Note the greens? http://www.plantlightinghydroponics.com/images/E-CA35K.Spectrum.L.gif That's a 3000k T5. note lack of green and blue again. Light that you see from a bulb is a mix of a variety of colors at a variety of different intensities, and there are multiple different configurations that you can use to achieve the same color. edit: grow bulbs tend to cut down on the bad phosphors compared to store-bought bulbs, but they keep them around because lumens is the inverse of PAR, and everyone gives a shit about lumens for no reason.
Yes... fantastic. They make dual arc lights. They are worse watt for watt than HPS. It would be no different than running 1 HPS and 1 MH, which I assure you has been tried before. http://www.420magazine.com/gallery/data/829/HortiluxSuperBlueMHgraph.gif I'm so glad they boosted those greens. Can't get enough of that useless light.
If you really do want to recreate the sun, then use Ceramic Metal Halide bulbs, they aren't all that new, but very very few people use or have even heard of them. They are the closest thing to the sun you will get from a lightbulb right now.
Recreating the sun will not give you the best results. Much of that spectrum is wasted on plants. Also, sulfur plasma lamps recreate the sun better from what I've seen. It's their big "selling point".