I just recently obtained a year long license to grow and cultivate ten marijuana plants in my state. I have just "jumped in" so to speak; most of my research has been done prior to starting the seedlings. My major concerns lie in problems regarding lighting. I am not entirely sure how adequate my system is, or even if it is going to produce a good, strong, healthy plant. Currently, my plants are nearly 1 week old, sprouting only six days ago. Following is a detailed description of my current grow room The room is 8x3x9 (length x width x height). My plants are inside of a metal cage with the dimensions of 4x2.5x5.5. 3 Sides of the cage are covered by a heat resistant reflective tarp. The front side which faces the door has no reflective material yet. I have a setup of 7 lights connected to a power strip power failure and surge protection. There are: 1 150 watt HPS 2 90 watt LED UFO's (Sold as part of a "Sea of Green" kit I bought. Worked great on my tomato, basil, and jalapeños) 1 45 watt LED UFO 2 32 watt 4' CFL Daylight (Ideal for veg?) 1 32 watt 4' CFL Warm White (Ideal for flowering? I still use both.) 3 32 watt 3' CFL High UV (Purple color; these were included in the hydro kit) _____________ Currently, I have 3 feminized seeds growing among 7 regular seeds. All have sprouted. I have included a couple pictures. _____________ Lights I'm not currently using but still note-worthy: 1 90 Watt UFO - Simply not enough space in the cage 2 3' CFL high UV - They do not produce the same lumen count as my 4' tubes and there is no space. _____________ I cannot find any information of lighting systems using more than 1 type of light. I would like to know if these lights are going to give my plants the energy they need. Also, I would like to know if these lights will be adequet for the flowering stage. Is there anything else I should add? It has already been suggested more than once that I get another 150w HPS. ____________ I have included a picture of my current setup and of my most "average" plant. It is one of the 10 and only 6 days old.
Not for the first harvest. I am starting with soil because I have grown vegetables that way for years. I'm using my hydroponic equipment to grow vegetables first. Probably will test it on the clones. I set my room up based off of lumen's per square foot. That HPS puts off about 1200 lumen's/(sq. ft) in that small of a space. The 3 Ufo's combined only put rough 800. Adding the third high powered UFO would add another 320 lumen's/(sq. ft). From what I understand, a plants needs to receive 1000 - 3000 lumen's/(sq. ft) for healthly life. Right now I have a little over 2000/(sq. ft); swapping that light out does not seem like an improvement.
It may not seem like an improvement, but the heat and light that the HPS produces is unnecessary for plants that young. Seedlings don't need that many lumens, they simply don't have the foliage and surface area to process it, so right now you're wasting away energy. I keep my sprouts under only a few cool white CFLs for at least two weeks, then I move them under the main lights (1000W HPSes in my case) How many lumens do you have going in total right now (not per sq/ft) and how big is the area where the plants are (not your grow room, but the actual space taken up by the plants)? I ask this because off the top of my head those figures sound wonky to me. As for your lights, why not sell off everything and get a 1000W HPS or two 600W or two 400W, or whatever along those lines, they're unnecessary now but when your baby's start growing and flowering they'll want all the light they possibly can. As for your hydro vs soil debate/setup, there's no problem growing in soil, like you said, all vegetables (and for that matter) plants on the earth grow out of soil. As for which one to use, that's entirely up to you. Personally I'm a soil man but that's because I like keeping my meds as organic and natural as possible. Plus I've always found hydro to be much more finicky and to have a stronger (unpleasant) taste in the buds... but that's just me. Feel free to post up/PM me any other questions you may have! Good Growing and Happy Toking!
Total lumen's? 3,200 * 2 (90 Watt UFO's) = 6,400 1,600 *1 (45 Watt UFO) - 1,600 12000 * 1 (150 watt HPS) = 12,000 2000 * 2 (4' CFL's) = 4,000 1650 * 3 (3' High UV CFL) = 4950 All these lumen's are packed into my "box" which is only a small 5 * 2 space. The space occupied by my plants is much smaller. About 2*1.5 feet. All lights are pointing toward them. I do not have the ability to install any advanced ventilation in the room. My only option is fans; it would get way to hot with presumably anything over 400w. Only 4 plants plants will be flowering at a time anyway. I was going to add a second 150w HPS so my layout would look something like this: 1 90w UFO over each plant (after I get the 45w fixed so it's running as a 90w again =P) 2 "Warm" CFL's; 1 4ft light, 1 3ftlight for each plant 2 150w HPS; one on each side of the room, lighting at an angle to light all plants at a time. 2 CFL's run the height pots around the bottom of the room providing light to lower branches The HPS does not seem to get hot enough to harm the plants. I put my thermometer on a string and hung it a couple inches above the plants. It reads a cool 76. Should I still move it higher or just remove it completely? I do not want to to sell my system, I would rather just purchase one more smaller light. Would another 150w help to increase my yield? EDIT: I also installed a C02 system. Another item which seems debatable at best... but it was in my grow book so I decided it couldn't hurt. I rigged 4 large yeast C02 containers with aquatic glue and tubing to supplement 8 of my plants. The tubes split off on 8 T joints - one for each plant. The tubes sit on a grid, so each of my babies has it's own air supply. They hang on an adjustable rope 2 inches from each plant. You can see two of the containers in the picture of my lights. The problem I can already see is there is no way to measure the ppm or control how much C02 comes out at a time. Critiquing would be appreciated!
Yeah, with that amount of light for that space, you've got a good 9,000 lumens per sq.ft inside plant box, and even if you were to drop that to around 7,000 you'd still get good results (but again, more light is better). As for the 400W+ yeah, that would be a bad idea if you don't vent them. Your temperature at 76º is perfect, as long as it doesn't exceed 80º around the plants you should be absolutely fine. So I wouldn't raise the HPS, just shut it off for a few days while your seedlings grow a bit more if you want to save some power, otherwise just keep it pumping, but having it on won't do much for them at this time. If you want to increase your yield then yes, go for another light but keep in mind that another HPS even if it's 150W will raise the temp of your room and you're already getting close to the 80º threshold... The CO2, yeah it's debatable, but it doesn't hurt. I've noticed that when I use CO2 it does increase yield slightly, but the key word there is slightly, good lights and good care go farther than CO2. As for the PPM/regulating flow, the yeast method usually produces a good enough amount to where you don't need to regulate it. Good Growing and Happy Toking!
That would leave me using primarily LED and some mild CFL as grow lights. That wouldn't stunt their growth? I could always add another CFL or two, though. Do you still think that adding a second 150w HPS will increase the yields significantly, or would I be better off getting maybe a 200-300 watt?
I'm just saying that it's not necessary RIGHT NOW, like for the next week or so, they're just too small to use all that light right now so you're running it for shits 'n giggles pretty much. If anything I'd use the other UFO instead for a week or two and then switch it out to the 150W HPS. But that's just me. As for increasing your yield, with another 150W you'll see a noticeable improvement over your current setup, just like if you add a 200 or 300 you'll see even more of an improvement but again, you say that you don't have/want to set up vents for your lights and your room is already close to the 80º max temperature for good growing, so I wouldn't add any more lights unless you plan on venting some of the heat out. What I would do personally would be to put the flowering plants (when you get to that poing) under the HPS (or HPSes) and keep the vegging plants under the UFOs with supplemental CFLs. If you say you're only going to flower 4 of them at a time then you'll want to have them under at least 300W of HPSes (total) to get a good yield. Give them as much light as you possibly can but not at the expense of frying them with too much heat. Good Growing and Happy Toking!
I exchanged the HPS with 3 CFL's today. I will probably throw it back in after a week or so. I checked out my local hydroponics store today and they had a couple of lights which were relatively cheap. I was looking at purchasing two 100W HPS lights which could be easily placed in each corner of the room as supplemental side lighting while the 150 HPS would hang directly over the top of the plants. I think I can provide the ventilation needed by placing fans directly over these lights and directing them to vent toward and out the door. The other option is just to open the air conditioning duct in the room right outside the door which would keep the entire area cooler. The space for my vegging plants will only fit 2 UFO's and a couple CFL's. I could maybe get a third if I managed to get the angle right. However, wouldn't the LED's be better used on the flowering plants because the light they produce penetrations an additional two inches into the plant? (I want to say this fact is debatable... But the seller, and product website, both made this claim)
I'd go with opening the AC vent, if for no other reason than to be sure that you wont have an overheated room. That and the fact that HPS lighting can get quite hot quite fast. As for the two 100W on the side, they won't do much all the way in the corners of the room, place them close enough to the plants so that they receive the light well. A good indicator of this is to have one hand on top (or in this case, next to) your plants and keep pulling the light closer until you can feel lots of warmth, to the point where it's ALMOST uncomfortable. As for using the LEDs in flower... I don't know about that, as far as I was aware LEDs don't penetrate better than HID (HPS/MH) lighting, but I've never used LED myself so don't hold me to this. I'd go with your most powerful lights (most lumens) for flowering as THIS is when the plant really benefits from the increased lighting. Good Growing and Happy Toking!
I will probably open it once heat becomes a problem. As for the time being, the room stays cool enough without running AC through it. Definitely will become necessary during the summer though, especially once my girls start to flower. I have never grown cannabis with LED's. I don't know how it's going to work, but to the best of my knowledge here are the "facts" I was able to dig up after some rather extensive research. Keep in mind that this information is debatable; the results from these claims are very hard to find. Cannabis is able to (somehow) absorb 100% of the lumens produced by an LED. Cannabis is able to absorb LED light with less difficulty and with deeper light penetration. There is little evidence that the light from and LED is able to spread outward. If anything it's got to be more direct. Nothing like the spread of light from an HPS system. Cannabis supposedly only absorbs 10% of the lumens produced by an HPS. Then the math: 3,200 LED lumens that the plant is supposed to absorb all of, or 12,000 HPS which they can only absorb 1,200 of. I have seen grows which use LED's for supplemental lighting (in conjuncture with a high wattage HPS) during the flowering stage with fantastic yields - But I have also read that they do nothing. I don't know what to believe. For my first grow, I would like to incorporate the LED's in the flowering process to see for myself what happens. All that extra light should make a difference. I was planning to set up a box with CFL for my vegging clones, then switch them over to the CFL/LED/HPS system after a couple weeks. I am probably going to also give hydroponics a try with a three clones and see how that goes. My fourth plant will probably just be grown in soil for a comparison. On the note about additional HPS and their location: I think that I'm going to buy an additional two 125w HPS lights in a month or so once the plants start to get large. I'm not sure how I want to place the lights at the moment. I'm using a space which is not wide enough to place the plants 2x2. Instead they have to be placed 4x1 in a line. I could hang the lights from pulleys so they can be raised and lowered and put the 3 HPS directly above the plants. I can make sure all the plants are able to receive large amounts of light by mounting the UFO's behind the plants on the walls. This would probably be a good setup? Another question: Is C02 bad for plants during flowering?
I wouldn't know about the LED facts, but I can tell you that it absorbs more than 10% of HPS, else my plants would never grow! Like I said before, I use 1000W but it comes out to about 11,000-14,000 lumens/plant in my setups and they've all grown beautifully. To put that in perspective, the sun produces about 10,000 lumens/sq.foot at the equator. As for your setup, 3 125WHPS for 4 flowering plants should be pretty good! If you're planing on using the UFOs as well... well, that's just gravy. Your veg setup sounds good, but it all depends on how big you want your ladies to get before you flip them to veg, if you plan on growing them any more than a few inches tall I would use one of the UFOs as well as the CFLs, or just get an asston of CFLs. As for the CO2, flowering is when they benefit from it! Pretty much put it this way: during veg, your plant needs minimal amounts of everything, as it's still small it doesn't benefit much from anything but enough light, moisture and some nutrients... but when it flowers is when it truly grows, no really, they double or triple in size during flowering, so I wouldn't even use CO2 until then, although since you're doing the yeast bucket method, you're not really spending big bucks on CO2 refills... so it can't hurt I suppose. Good Growing and Happy Toking!
I was thinking about getting a 600watt HPS light to flower my four plants in a new room. I am adding ventilation and a carbon filter. Should make a big difference?
That light will be great for your plants as long as you keep the temps down. The carbon filter will only get rid of the smell of your flowering ladies, so it's not going to do anything yield/quality wise if that's what you meant. Good Growing and Happy Toking!
Should the 600w HPS be used in addition with my 150w, or should I use the latter on my mothers? I don't really know what combination I should use... but I think that the LED's and CFL's should be specific to my clones and vegging plants. I am going to set up a vent that runs from the carbon filter, through the light fixture, into the attic, where it's sucked out by a fan. That should be great for the heat. There is also an air conditioning vent in the room so I can use my homes AC unit to control the temperature. What's your opinion on burning sulfur?
My plants are showing signs of nitrogen deficiency. I bought 3-2-4 Pure Blend Pro Grow Organic from my local hydro store. This should fix the problem?
Ended up throwing this question into a different thread. Plants have since then recovered and are quite strong.