hello, ive started 12 plants that were first under 120w CFL, and now ive upgraded it to 140w. heres some pics of my setup 8 lights total. 42w CFLS.. with all 8 its 320w.. and i have a little question should i turn all 8 on for veg or wait until flowering to increase power? i dont know if it makes a big difference or what but imput would be helpful thanks
lol, i'd turn all 8 on, and get 16 for flowering lol....i'm running 230W of fluoros for flowering one plant...
thanks. and oh yea if anyone sees anything wrong with my setup please point it out.. advice would be awesome
You have alot of plants there, realistically, just under 700W (16 bubs) of fluoros won't be enough to flower all your plants, even though half could be male...When they get a bit bigger, i would invest in some y-sockets and run 16 fluoros...also, go to a dollar store and buy a bunch of those disposable foil roasting pans, and use them for reflective backing, cause light travels in straight lines, so some of your light is going up and sideways etc...when the flowering stage comes, you may want to double your wattage again, or invest in some HPS lighting....
hey thanks man.. where can i get those Y sockets? home depot? and i was thinking of adding 2 of each of these lights to the setup: http://www.drchronic.com/products.asp?recnumber=1169 http://www.drchronic.com/products.asp?recnumber=1170 the blue spectrum for veg and red for flowering.. thats 250 more watts which would put me at 600W or so.. but anyways im wondering if these can be purchased at a retail store or if they are only found on that web site.. and info or feedback about those lights would be great
I got my y-sockets at home hardware for $2.99 a piece....If you run 16 42W and those grow lamps, you should be a very happy camper in a few months
i will prob just upgrade the fluros to 16 and buy 2 red spectrum lights.. thats lets see.. 672W for Veg. and 922W for flowering. not bad.
uhh why dont you just get a 1000w hps while your at it. it would make sense lol insidesun.com edit: but thats one sic cfl set up.
i would do what you're doing, keep a grow log...see how it goes, and then sell some of your bud and get an HPS for the next round...but even next round you can use the fluoro setup for the veg phase...so don't scrap it...
i veg under 400watt HPs and then flower under 500watt Hps agrobulb.... bake them ladies..get all your lights on.. get more...much more.............
i dont remember where i read this but on this web site i read about hps lights being far away < CFL being closer because CFLS u can put up to 3" to plant and it wont burn.. im trying to think of a way to get the reflector attached.. should i just have maybe a canopy of those foil baking pans over all of the lights? btw i dont really want an hps because i dont really have the cash to invest in ballast, reflector, hps lights, and cooling system :/ im tryin to make a badass CFL set up
right on...uhm, i wish my digital camera didn't break, i'd show you my setup...but i'll try to draw a picture with words.... i have a 4 socket vanity fixture with the sockets spaced 6" on center, then i took two deep foil pans and cut them at 11.5 inches, to make them 23 inches together (length of my grow space) and taped them together then cut the holes for the sockets and then i just stuck it on and screwed in my y-sockets, so the only thing holdin up the reflector is the fact that the y-sockets are wider than the original sockets...works just fine...
i bought some foil disposable cooking sheets they are made to catch stuff that falls in the oven liek grease and shit.. but im going to just cut holes in the foil and unscrew my bulbs and just fit the sheet int he hole and screw the bulbs back in so the foil is basically resting on the bulb holder thing.. should work nice i just gotta find a way to measure the size holes and where they go.. hehe probably could be done already if i wasnt such a stoner
well i actually decided to go ahead and get it done, so i did it, ill post pics in the morning when my sister is gone Also, i found this hydroponics store in my city on the internet http://www.bewellhydroponics.com If someone could pick out some of the best ferts and post the names of them on here that would be cool cuz i really have no clue where to start thanks
ok heres some pics of the reflector i made, it might need to come out more on the sides im not really sure
Nice CFL setup you got there. I'm working on my second fluro grow now, the first one got me 25 grams of a single plant with only 108W of fluro all the way. You can flower under fluro's allright but you do have to keep the plant close to the light by using LST or repeated topping. You MUST customize the plant by bending or cutting in order to keep the tops/buds close to the light if you want a bit of a decent grow.
im not sure i know what LST is.. but i plan to attach flo tubes to the wall during flowering, would that solve the problem?
LST is low stress training. Basically, that's where people bend their plant and tie it down to force it to grow vertically. Keeps the plant lower then 20 cm I think. Some use paperclips stuck in the ground other use wires or ropes. Search the forum for LST. And fluro-tubes on the wall may do something to solve the problem. But I have no experience there however. I do know something about repeated topping to promote exponential growth which you may want to try in any case.