alright. i just decided to try out a fluro grow. i have three two socket 70 watt fixtures and a closet that is about 12ft long, 13ft high, 6ft wide. walls are all white, and i have white plastic sheeting surrounding the entire area, including the floor. i was wondering if there is anything special i need to do to get my plants to be bushy, big, and do it in less than a month. i have a 400 watt HPS for flowering. I want to grow four plants, two of an unknown strain name, but the seeds were from a stepdown sack. im also planning on sprouting two california orange. i have intentions on topping and LSTing at least one of each strain. SCRoG may be in the works. but i just want to know if there is anything special i must do to achieve large, bushy plants in a 1 month veg cycle. thanks! Dr_Task ps. sorry for the long post.
I would lst them..and you can then do a scrog if you want. How many watts total of fluros will you be using? My first grow i got a very bushy plant with a 125w fluro, i didn't lst it though, just fim it.
well, im judging by the fixtures that one fixture will be approx. 140 watts. two sockets, each with a 70 watt tube. and i multiply that by three...im guessing 420 watts? (tehe 420). i was thinking of lst, but im kinda afraid to violate a beautiful marijuana plant and run the risk of breaking it. is there a way to make the main stem excessively bulky so it is less likely to break? ill get a pic of the setup here either today or tomorrow.
They don't make 70w fluro tubes. I believe the highest you can get is 54 watts, but those are T5's. The average fluro shoplight bulbs only go up to 40w i believe.
well, the fixtures say 70Wx2 on the end by the power cord, so i just assumed that was the wattage power.
Off the shelf Floro tube at 4 ft is 40 watts, it its the daylight bulb thats 3050 lumens Dual tube fixture is total of 80 watts 6100 lumens (if its daylight bulbs) In my closet i use 8 of dual bulb fixtures for vegging while my other plants are in the main grow room flowering with HPS
thats just the Max rating your reading, not what the bulbs actually are. Make sure they are Daylight Bulbs or your going to be spending way more than a month vegging these.
ok yeah. they're four foot long fixtures. and i have the plant and aquarium bulbs. are those the same as the daylight bulbs?
The plant and aqua light is less productive than a normal tube, Also to even out the spectrum you want to get WARM AND COOL bulbs so that you have a well rounded lighting spectrum.. Good luck..
alright cool. thanks for your guys' help. i will start a journal here pretty soon, anyways. this one is gonna be good.
good luck. I grew with a bank of 5/6 fixtures. I kept the lights as close as possable sometimes they would grow into the fixtures and burn because I couldn't keep up! I bent the stems horizontal. About 4 plants criss crossing. The plants had light fluffy buds and looked pretty good. the seed however was bag seed and i learnd the terrible lesson; the plants had no potency! Since then I've had more sence and bought my seed. Oh Flower time was 10 weeks and I got about 1/2-3/4 OZ. Later I got a light.
ok. i also have a 250 watt hps. should i just use this all the way through or should i use this only for flowering? the ballast is 400 watt, but a 250 watt bulb came with it.
DON'T use a 250w bulb in a 400w ballast...it puts stress on the ballast and the bulb. If it's a 400w hps then buy a 400w bulb for it. Personally, i would use the hps all the way through..you will get better results.
ok. thats what i thought. i used the hps on my last grow, and it rocketed my electric bill up 50 bucks. i was wondering if the 250 w bulb in the 400 w ballast had something to do with that. the bulb i was using just came with the fixture...it's one of the fixtures that are the same as the street lights.