Hey GC. This is my first grow and I was wondering how you guys thought my setup would do. I bought a workshop light that holds 2, 40W, 1900 lumen fluorescent grow bulbs and i have 2 lamps with 20W CFL's for the seedlings until they are big enough to be close to the main light i have. Also i have a small fan going for ventilation. Let me know what you think, i'll try and post pics as soon as i can. Thanks --Phaolin
Sounds like a promising start. Just make sure you're using the right color temperature for your grows. Can't wait to see the setup.
sounds alot like my setup, i had it over 2 plants in hydro but one fell under the gravel as a seedling and didnt get sun so it died. Anyway once mine sprouted i put them in the hydro setup right under those 4 foot flouresents and is doin great. i wouldnt be to worried about stickin them under there just gotta watch how far it is. you can tell if a plant starts to get damaged fairly easily
Set up is fine for seedling if your ventilation is bring in new air and not just moving it around. You'll need better lights once they start growing though.
Pics are up!! So when should i get more lights? and what kind should they be? Ideally i would like to buy some HPS but i cant really find any right now and they're kinda out of my price range atm. lol
personally im switching to 400 W HPS asap its a little out of my range as well (i did find a complete setup for 119$ though) but DEFINATELY by flowering.
Those seedlings look stretched quite a bit so you might want to move them closer to the light. As for lighting type it's really up to you. Assuming you have enough wattage (roughly 100W per plant + 50W additional per additional plant) you can use CFLs for your entire grow and just switch out the color temps when you begin flowering.
If i have insufficient lighting, will my yield be small or will the plants just be stunted and not grow at all?
Both. Non growing plant wound yield much. You could have a little light that is enough for the plant to grow at a very slow rate and bud. The more light you have the faster the plant will grow and the more the yield will be. so insufficient could mean only 1000 lumems that barely keep the plant alive or 3000 lumens that get the plant growing at a slow pace. To make things simple, you want 5000 Lumens on you plant at a minimum. In my grow area for two plants I have 2x cool white 48" tubes, 2x 48" plant and aquarium lights, and 8x 26 watt 6500k CFLs. once I start getting bud growth, I will hope to have thos 8 CFLs replaced with high watt 2700k (40+ or 60+ watts per light). So for the moment for two plants i have, I think, 20,400 Lumens. 1900 Lumen per tube and 1600 lumen per CFL. Getting the high watt lights for flowering should put me well over 30,000-35,000 Lumens.
the one plant does look like it's stretched quite a bit. mound up a little dirt around the base of the stem and get a fan grazing it. it's going to need to be stronger to support itself soon, otherwise it's going to topple under it's own weight. not a good thing unless it's budding lol. get some Y splitters for your cfl's, you won't regret it. if you can grab a couple clamp lamps, a bunch of Y splitters and a few more bulbs and you should be set for a awhile. you can always add more as time and your budget permits, but you will need more light for flowering. at the moment you want at least another 100 watts of light for veg., and for flowering probably 200w more than what you have. you are off to a good start tho, just keep adding to your setup. in the end you'll be happy and the next grow will be a lot easier, and cheaper.
I used a 4 foot 4 bulb T5 to flower out bout 8 plants just to see the results.And I was actually impressed with turnout.The lack of strength is made up by the fact that you can almost be touching your plants with bulbs.SCROG would prob b kickass.Get a metal halide if money is issue ,in my opinon they work just as well as hps