afternoon all, currently setting up for my first grow.Hoping to raise 2 lowryders under 2 cfl 30w daylights and 2 30w warm whites for flowering.Planning to construct a mdf box lined with mylar and fitted with both an intake and outtake fan respectivly aswel as a carbon filter. Problem is my space is about 24" x 16" and although most bud seems to turn out fine in even smaller Pc style grow boxes im wondering if it will be anough space to give me a decent yield considering im also going to try LST them as i go. any advice greatly appreciated!
cool.just to confirm though these are the lights and they are 30w equiv to 150w.do i still need another 4? Helix Daylight Energy Saver 30W BC/B22d - Daylight Helix Energy Saver - Energy Savers — (UK) Light bulbs, halogen lamps, spot lights and tubes by mail order in the UK
just cause it says its equivalant to 100w doesnt mean its 100w......if you see a box for a CFL that says 23w "equivalant to 100w"...its just a 23w. rule of thumb is 100w for the first plant and 50w for each additional plant. make sure for veg you get 6400k-6700k bulbs and for flower you wanna get 2700k bulbs. check out my grow setup...right now i have a 125w 6400k hanging over them with 4 23w 6500k...bout to buy another 23w 6500k tho and make it 240w total. put a little fan on them too..just enough to move them around slightly, not hang on for dear life.......lets see how it goes mane
thanks for clearing that up.My friend has a 125w hid with reflector hes offered me with both sets of bulb types.He only used one 125w bulb each time but managed to produce a decent yield from two pots.However, i was hoping to try and keep plant height at a couple of feet maximum,maybe slightly over,was planning to do it through the lst and cfls lights being kept close but now thats it possible for me to add a few more feet onto my box im wondering if its better or faster to just use the HID metal halide and hps lights? will start a journel on here once im half way set up. thanks again
just start with what you have. the plants arn't going to need all that light right away. Get a few cfl's and as you can afford it buy more. try and get at least 6 lights that are 23 watt or higher, I would shoot more towards the 42 watt lights you can get at walmart but anything you do will help.
Not true. Im currently growing 4 plants under 2 26w and in another box i grow 6. They do just fine, produce great, and are easier to maintain. The setup youre thinking about is alot like mine. I use LST and grow lots of plants in very tight spaces. In my experience wattage doesnt really mean shit, its all about lumens. Youre bulbs should be pushing between 7-8000 lumens and thats exactly what you want. Also when you start youre space should actually be able to hold like 8 seedlings. You dont necessarily need this many but plant more than 2 so you have extras incase of boys, one dies, etc. Usually by the time the plants show sex there still relatively small so you can still fit em all and this ensures the largest harvest for your little space. I also grow autoflowering and from my experience they rarely top 20". Using LST you can definately fit them in your space and depending you can probably expect about 1/2 per plant your first grow increasing to one ounce later(based on my first grow and what i get now). If you want pics or more details check out my current grow journal. Lots of pics of closet grows and a rubbermaid grow all setup pretty much like yours. Ill post pics of 2 other cabinets i use too so you can get a couple more looks.
Not to be a grinch, but there was nothing great about that last post. CFLs in the 30w range produce about 2000 lumens, two dont exactly add up to 7000-8000k of lumens. Your plants will stretch horribly with only 60w of CFLs, just double up on your lights and you'll be in better shape.
lol first off k refers to the light spectrum associated with the bulb. 2700k is a red spectrum bulb for flowering and 6500k is a blue spectrum for vegging. These ratings though having nothing to do with lumens or wattage really, only bulb color. Second a 26w CFL gives off 1750 lumens and 2 would be 3500(more than enough to grow.) Third, heres some pics of 4 plants growing under 52w(3500 lumens) and they look pretty healthy to me.
My bad, the k was a typo i originally typed 7-8k. 3500 lumens is maybe enough to start seedlings off with, but it's just not enough light to grow a fully mature plant. He's dealing with approx 2.5 square feet of space, its just not enough lumens to amount to much. Your plants looks good, they are still small so 52watts may be just enough, but once they actually start growing, 52w just wont be enough.
im goin for 2 x 125w envirolites now ,one of each spectrum and will add another 30w-50w bulb for extra light coverage later on when it comes to flowering.i have a cool air intake (from my bedroom wall) hooked up to my growspace to provide constant fresh air from outside and a floor fan inside to help cirulate it.i wont be adding proper extracter fans untill later on in growth as il be able to open the doors pretty much as i please to aid high temps or humidity. sound good?