Here is my grow so far, I'm on a 14/10 light schedule right now. This is my first grow and I'm wondering if I could just get some suggestions on what I should be gathering together. Here are some pics of the set up and plants so far, they have been sprouted for 3 days now.
you should be on 18/6 right now, and if thats foil dont use it, if its mylar then cool, nice setup, its looking good just make sure not to over water them, maybe in a week or two give them a light nitrogen fertilizer, make sure its half of what the instructions say, so if it calls for 2 scoops per gallon only give it 1 per gallon, other then that gl. Dank...out
Why not to use foil, and where can I find mylar? Thanks for the info to, and do the plants look healthy to you guys, they seem really stretched to me.
foil absorbs light it doesnt reflect it, so its not really doin you any good. u can get mylar at any hardware store but if u cant find it go buy some mylar balloons suck the helium out of them and use that, ya get ur light closer to those plants if possible they are pretty streched they should be about 3 inches away from the top of the plant, gl man any questions and i'll be here but im no expert still on my first grow as well. dank...out
If your using CFL's they are probably going to stretch at first anyways. As long as you keep the lights at the correct height(2-3 inches away from plants) then after the get about their first set of fan leaves they'll fill out.
I need to comment on this... Alright, first off, this is uncorrect. The only problem with aluminum foil is that when used (shiney side out) it focuses the light into beems, much like a laser. it can produce hot spots on the plants and cause surface burns. It doesnt absorb light, its a metal, it reflects. The only thing it will absorb is heat, and even at that, there is no significance since your not really dealing with THAT powerful of lights..it would have to have the output of the sun in order to have a negative heat retention effect. Secondly, If you are going to use tinfoil, make sure its DULL SIDE OUT and that its smooth. the bends concentrate the light, and thats the worst thing Good luck FLEX
my mistake , its mirrors that absorb light, woops, but ya i guess the dull side worx better, but dont crinkle it cuz like flex said it will shoot the beams everywhere and hence be pointless, sorry for my wrong info. Dank
foil does abosrb light. Just about anything absorbs light to one degree or another. It's the degree of light absorption that we are concerned with. Foil, be it shiny or dull out, does a pretty poor job of reflecting when compared to flat walls painted flat white. Foil sucks.
i wouldnt use tin foil at all, every time that I have in the past Ive noticed it gets to hot for plants, unless you have a good fan system, then I guess your set.
...so i was rite. man i knew it thanx for clearing it up...up haha, but like I pointed out Foil is pointless, although it gives a nice futuristic look to ur grow room . lose(sp?) haha im so blazed , is it louse? no like i lost something haha lose the foil w/e forget about the foil...there other then that nice setup.
right? not really. I do wish to argue this (lol!) ...and i am sure you figured i would. Yes, everything does absorb light to some degree, and pigment does have an effect on this and it has been proven that a REFLECTIVE METAL (also known as Mylar or Foil) reflects twice the amount of light then a flat white matte wall. Think about that gentleman, logically now. You take a flash light, and you shine it on a white wall... what happens? you illuminate a segment of the wall. Now, flash that same light on mirrored surface (ie, a bathroom mirror) and what happens? hell of a lot more illumination. Now picture that same illumination on all the sides of the box, metallic surfaces reflect a LOT more light. Is foil for everyone? Nope, i will admit that, if you dont know what your doing, it may cause burns on your plants, but trust me on this one, if you do know what your doing (as i do..) your going to see an EXCEPTIONAL difference in the growth rate of the plants. Your not dealing with super intense light here boys (even with MH and HPS), the chance of burns on the plants is very small... unless you have a foil surface similar to the moon (lol!). Keep it flat and smooth with the dull side out, and you will have NO problems.. FLEX
...damn u and ur smartness flex . okay so keep the foil i dont even care anymore gl on ur grow foil man, i hope u and ur foil have an excellent time together dank...out aaaaaaand incorrect once again
White paint > Aluminum foil Both are fairly reflective, but as someone already said, aluminum foil can burn your plants. So it's probably safer to just go with white paint, which has the added bonus of not being an annoying when you're trying to work with your plants. A quick google finds that white paint reflects about 80%, and Aluminum foil reflects about 80-90%, depending. So the results are about the same, but foil can burn your plants. Also, you'll find the myth that foil is less reflective than white paint all over this forum, but science tells us otherwise. Mylar, of course, is the most reflective of them all.
HIGH All, Reflectivity Chart Material Reflectivity Black less than 10% Aluminium Foil 35-55% Semi-gloss White Paint 55-80% White/Black/White Film 70-80% Flat White Paint 75-80% Polystyrene Foam Sheeting 75-85% Mylar Sheeting (either type) 90-92% What type of light you useing?
unoit: You could be right, my numbers could be wrong. Where did yours come from? Here's where I found mine: http://fins.actwin.com/aquatic-plants/month.9702/msg00453.html http://www.archlighting.com/archite...article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001958428 http://www.finishing.com/341/29.shtml http://www.azom.com/details.asp?ArticleID=1435 I was having a really hard time finding the reflectivity of aluminum foil, so I think the number in the second link is for "brushed aluminum", which I figured would be the same thing. Also, I just googled "Aluminium Foil 35-55%" and nothing came up at all, so I guess your chart isn't online. Is it from a book? There must be something in the foil itself that causes it to drop, because aluminum by itself is VERY reflective (99%, see last link). Any ideas? I'd like to know the answer to this, but google's not being very helpful. //edit Just found this: http://www.alufoil.org/eng/alufoil_345.html I'm going to go with the quote from the site dedicated to aluminum foil, although they don't say how much light is converted to heat.
HIGH All, some good reading Joint...thanks. As to where I got my info...here If I was growing to use foil I'd use Astro Foil. Edit: Reflects approximately 98% of radiant heat and light...it's why it should not be used...Hot spots.
Okay, so I'm now only worried about burns, I'm using 2 40 watt fluros, could I still get burns do you think? Thanks for all the resources to, and just an update, the plants are now all about 3 inches tall, it doesn't look like they are stretched a lot, the leave spans are about 2 inches each, Im pretty happy with them and they are looking pretty healthy, they are very perky to, lol