Lights for a really small grow

easy answer:

4 24W CFL for each plant. You need 6500k for veg and 2700k for flower so have on hand all 8 bulbs for each plant. I use desk lamps and drop lights to position the lights. You have to do whatever feels right for the space and shape of the plant, but in flower try to dedicate a bulb to each bud site if you can manage it.

One key piece is that the bulbs need to be as close to the plant as possible without burning it... burning it a little to find this distance is OK because its better than playing it safe and wasting time or getting stretch. CFLs are awesome and cheap and easy to get at Lowes and the depot, but you have to be prepared to move the lights precisely and often to get the best results. start about an inch away from the top of each plant with one cfl until they are a few inches tall and then start adding in lights where you see shadow and stuff.. just play with it, but if you figure 4 24W ligts per plant you will be safe.

Again, they need to be close... alarmingly close... fight your instincts close lol. You'll see.

Here is my thread:

http://forum.grasscity.com/indoor-marijuana-growing/1075561-experiment-hermi-crosses-some-nycd.html

Most of this is HID but the NYCD and one other big plant i just put into flower are CFL, just to give you something to look at or ask questions about.

 

Blacky: Here's another easy answer: a four feet long T-5 fixture four to eight tubes wide. Four wide might cover it but six or eight wide would just be extra insurance. It would cover your entire grow, it's economical to run and a whole lot cooler than a lot of your other options. The nicest thing is that you have a single cord powering it and you can easily hang it from adjustable cords from your local hydro store or chains and you can light up a sea of green. I hope that helps. Hank

 

I built this one with 6 tubes over 12 inches...

http://forum.grasscity.com/lighting...-flourescent-tube-12-x-48-pics-questions.html

It is the fucking TITS! If you feel like makin one or spending the extra dough, they do really simplify the grow for ya, i agree.

 

well as for 6500k and 2700k.. they are color temperature ratings. Literally they are the temperature in kelvin at which a piece of tungsten steel glows a particular color... 2700k are redder and are usually called warm or soft lighting... 5000- 6500k bulbs are called extra cool or daylight bulbs and have a bluer appearance.

Just a quick warning: Home depot has 23W daylight bulbs at 5000k... I don't love them. I have noticed they dont grow as well as the Lowes 6500k daylight bulbs side by side and they just look like they have less blue light (which we want for veg). I would recommend finding 6500k instead of settling for the 5000k at home depot even though they are like 2 bucks a bulb... lowes ones are like 3.50 a bulb and pretty much anywhere else you go besides the interwebs you are looking at 5 - 7 bucks a bulb. Go to lowes if you have one around

Lowes also has an awesome black snaking desklamp/ clamp light for 8 bucks... i bought 10 of them and they are super handy.

 

Does anyone have any links to the bulbs they recommend??? and also the fixtures??? Is Lowes the place to go??? I have one of those local. Would it be easier/cheaper to get one big fixture like the DIY Posted??? Sorry for all the questions

 

Read THIS FUCKING THREAD for the answer to the first 3 questions... and what DIY? God damn man. First time in a thread?

 

Blackey: What you're going to do isn't new, it'll work. You'll just be having to suspend 4 reflectors and deal with 4 cords. You can get the reflectors, with sockets and cords from The Home Depot for about $10 a piece. How you hang them can be tricky, but where there's a will there's a way. A four pack of 6,500 K CFL lamps is about $!0 and a four pack of 2,700 K's cost the same.
Maybe this will save you some time. Lighting is a very complex subject but some people try to make it a lot more complicated than I think it needs to be. First, you need the vocabulary of how they measure the light that you're using for what you want to do with your plants. I’m not an electrician and I certainly don't have all the answers but I'll try to simplify it for you.
Wattage is the load rating of a lamp or the amount of electricity that the lamp draws or uses. As I recall from a Physics class I took in the mid 70's, but don't hold me to it now because I don't have the book in front of me: “Watts is current/amperage draw times the supplied voltage,” and it's usually read in fluorescent lighting in a relatively small number. CFL’s typically draw:14, 17, 21, 29 watts. Incandescent light bulbs draw: 40, 60, 100, and MH and HPS draw: 250, 400, 600, up to 1,000 watts. What that means is: the higher the wattage rating of the lamp the more electricity it uses and the more it costs to operate per hour. I think that’s the important thing to know about wattage.
That's what got us all to convert to those little curly-cue CFL's, (compact fluorescent lamps), and they dropped my electric bill drastically on a level pay plan to the point where I don't even get a bill from the power company for three months of the year. Before my incandescent lights were burning 60 watts each, now they’re using only 14. It makes sense.
The really tricky part of this is that they advertise the wattage of electricity they use and the amount of light they produce compared to the equivalent used by an incandescent lamp putting out the same amount of light. The ones I just bought claim they only draw 14 watts but they put out the same amount of light, lumens, as a sixty watts incandescent light bulb. The one I use on my clone mother draws only 29 watts but claims to put out the equivalent light brightness of a 100 watt incandescent bulb. Now is that clear to you? Or are you just as confused as everyone else? But we're not done yet.
Lumens are a measurement of the amount light, the intensity/brightness a lamp projects and it’s usually measured in hundreds of lumens. I don't know where the top of the scale is but the new brighter, Ecosmart CFL lamps I just changed over to in my home advertise that they generate 850 lumens of light while consuming only 14 watts of electricity. Now you don't have to light a match to find the damned things at night when they're turned on like their earlier predecessors. My wife used to bitch that the old ones being too dim to read under but now she complains that the new ones are too bright. Go figure. Now let's consider the color of the light they're producing for what we want our plants to do.
Color, frequency or temperature of the light it produces is measured when it's run through a prism and seen in the available spectrum of colors. It’s measured in Kelvins; K's. These new lamps I bought are rated at 4,800K's, which is pretty close to my 5,000K green/blue T-5 grow lamps I use in my tent for vegging. The lower the K's, the redder and the warmer the light. The higher the K's the cooler the light and the color goes from green to blue. Cool, green to blue light is for vegetative growth and warm red light is for flowering. Got that?
If you can keep that straight, think about what the sun produces during the year. In the spring and early summer the light is bright and cool, it has a higher K rating number; it's greener toward blue and our plants grow. If you have a copy of Cervantes’s “MARIJUANA HORTICULTURE THE INDOOR/OUTDOOR MEDICAL GROWER’S BIBLE,” look at page 160. Grow lamps are green to blue and that's the cool light that’s suitable for vegging. Come fall we get those beautiful warm red orange sunsets and the light is red and warm and that’s the 2,700K red light we use for flowering.
Now let’s look at the practical side of this. I’m going to fool my plants with the right diet and lighting to go from seed sprouting to harvest in half the time they would normally need in nature. From seed sprouting through vegging I feed my babies a high N diet that’s low P and K to go along with the 5,000K grow lights and the longer time period the lights are on. Right now I'm using 5,000K T-5 grow lamps for my plants to veg under. I'm told this is a moderately green light they like for growth and photosynthesis.
One grower I know uses 6,000K's lamps and another uses 6,500K's. I was warned against the higher K rating by a person I trust at the hydro store. The other lamps cost a little more but my friend at the hydro store claimed he sees less light related problems with the 5,000K's so that's what I bought, and they've worked fine for me. Most people have these on for vegging anywhere from 24 to 20 to 16 hours a day. You choose.
When my plants begin to preflower I change their diet to a lower N and higher P-K nutrient blend and the lamps in their T-5 fixture to warm red flowering lights that are rated at only 2,700K. I also drop the light interval, (the time they're on). Some folks go directly to a 12/12 schedule but I use a progressive light schedule. Mine start under 5,000K lamps for 20 hours of light at seed planting with 4 hours of resting darkness. I reduce the light by one hour a week. They start preflowering at about 14 hours of light and 10 hours of darkness and I change the lamps to red 2,700K’s and their diet to a lower N and higher P and K for flowering. But the progressive light schedule was a brain fart of one of my teachers and that's another issue altogether. I’ve already explained it here in another post.
After some experimentation I settled on a progression to a bottom figure of 10 hours of light and 14 hours of darkness and stayed with that until harvest. And the strains I'm growing seemed to really like it.
So if you're asking elementary lighting questions I suggest you RTFB. Refer to the following sources: 1. Read: SeeMoreBud’s book, “MARIJUANA BUDS FOR LESS GROW 8 OZ. OF BUDS FOR LESS THAN $100.” 2. Read: Jorge Cervantes’s book, “MARIJUANA HORTICULTURE THE INDOOR/OUTDOOR MEDICAL GROWER’S BIBLE.” 3. Read: Ed Rosenthal’s, “MARIJUANA GROWER’S HANDBOOK.” 4. Read: Mc Carthy’s book, “GROWING MARIJUANA.” 5. Read Greg Green’s, “THE CANNABIS GROW BIBLE-SECOND EDITION,” it’s every bit as good as the ones I mentioned above but, like Rosenthal’s, it’s a lot more technical.6. You’ll want to subscribe to, “HIGH TIMES,” magazine. Each issue is full of useful information. .” All these resources are very well written, well illustrated and packed with information that will answer most of your questions before you know to ask them. All of these resources are available at major book stores and at most growing forums. They will save you and your plants a lot of stress. The only problem with these forums is that if you get in a jam and need help right away it may be a while before we can get back to you. I sincerely hope this helps.Hank

 

Actually they were not answered. Where is that link I asked for? What fixtures did you recommend? Is lowes The place to go? As in is that the only place cuz I doubt it. Is the DIY (do it yourself) That was posted a better option.

IM SORRY BUT I NEVER SAW YOUR ANSWERS JUST UOU BEING A DICK.

Thank you hank for some solid info.

 

You mean the diy I POSTED lol? fuck you man... they were all answered including where to go and it isnt the only place but i explained why its the better place... and fuck you again! Im getting angrier as i type this.

Im not a dick. Im in here helping someone. You highjack a thread and ask the most basic questions in the world that are answered 300 times in the threads just in the sticky section.

READ SOMETHING FOR GODS SAKE

you will get no more out of me.

 

Hahahaha.

Thanks again hank. For the answer and fuck this other guy. I wasn't even really asking him. I asked in general. Next time instead of "hijacking" a thread I'll just post a duplicate thread wig my questions.

 

hank copy/pastes his diatribe into threads like this for people like you. If you had read a couple instead of wasting his time, you would know that. He handled it like a gentleman... i prefer telling you to get fucked.

Hank is clearly the gentler soul.

 

Thats why I thank hank and say FUCK YOU. You could of ignored me and said nothing. Instead you were a cock sucker. That is all.

 

Tharealclovin: You're very welcome my friend. You don't have to excuse Zippy because his: actions, language and manners were both unreasonable and inexcusable. You asked for help and he didn't have to give it and obviously he chose not to.

This is why I stress RTFB, especially for the less experienced folks who want to learn. If you read those resources I suggested they will answer almost every question you can think of. I found it to be the safest way to learn because some of these characters might well purposely give you misinformation that could do you harm along with a lot of insults.

We have a few really ignorant people here who stand out like a white hooded KKK visitor at an NAACP ralley, and we have to contend with their ignorance since we're a public forum. Eventually they'll go away. A lot of them have. Just don't try to fight fire with fire when water will extinguish it. There were a few that I tried to communicate with that now I just ignore. Ah, the wonder of the delete key. I hope that helps. Hank

 

I have downloaded all of those books. I can't wait to get into reading them.

 

Tharealmclovin: That's a great move. You younger guys that are computer savvy can do that. For me downloaded is: tee many martoonies. I've got a shelf full of books but they're
easier to read in bed than my computer. You're on the right track. Good luck. Hank

 

Zippy: it's not what you said it's how you said it. There is an old Chinese saying, "After inserting foot in mouth it is best not to try to speak."

 

I didnt once put my foot in my mouth, and i stand by everything i said... I am allowed to get mad. Its healthy. That guy really is a class A Dbag. I see no reason to sugar coat it. Its the internet. If you search my posting on here i think you will find i am most often quite courteous and helpful.

The questions he asked were answered in the 7 posts i made prior to him asking. I understand that for some reason this doesnt bother you hank, but it bothers me.

You dont have to excuse me because im not asking to be excused. I meant what i said. Fuck that guy. Read before you post (at least the thread you are posting it). Obviously my negativity doesnt help anything, but neither does your Above-the-influence approach. To each his own...