Hello to all of you! This is my first grow... EVER! But yea.... I'v been Googling for weeks and decided to do a low cost DWC, CFL indoor grow. Here is what i have so far. 5 gal DWC KIT dark silver bucket, Hydroton Grow Medium, Rockwool cubes, bag seeds, General Hydroponics Maxi series grow&bloom, small oscillating fan, 42watt 2700 lumens CFL, 4 20w CFL forgot the lumens. . I just started the seeds last night put them in the Rockwool,after presoaking and 2 hard shakes. I put them in the bottom of the bucket with a tiny bit of water and a plastic bag on top to keep it nice and humid. After they sprout i will take them out and put them in the baskets, add the air rock, fill it up with tap water(since i'm using General Hydroponics dry nutes i'm using tap water to counteract calcium and magnesium deficiency) I guess the PH needs to be around 5.3 or so... I'm still hella confused on what I need for lights ie.. watt types and lumens and if i need more. Iv seen soooooo many posts contradicting each other. Im going to Grow 2 plants in one bucket. I have a 5"w4"L9"H closet for the grow room. I'm considering wallpapering the closet with Mylar or Aluminum Foil. Iv added afew pix of some of the things I have. As my grow continues i will post more Richous pix. ANY INPUT TO HELP BETTER MY GROW WOULD BE MOST APPRECIATED! Thanks furr checking out my thread!
Looking good - i don't know much about hydro set ups. One thing i would say though is not to use aluminium foil for your walls - matt white paint would be better, mylar would be best. Are you planning on training your girls at all? Good luck with your grow dude!
So, lights. It is the lumens that actually matter, but usually it's easier to talk about power (i.e. watts) as a rough guide. When talking about CFLs, it's the actual wattage power of the lights that you use, not the equivalent value, and there's a rule of thumb that 100 watts in the minimum you need e.g. 4x 23watt bulbs. You've got a 42w and four 20w, totally 120 watts of lighting power. I grew two plants in soil using about this much light for my second grow, and managed to get nearly an ounce per plant, so it's quite possible. Lights come in different 'colours', usually measured in Kelvin, being about 2700k 'orange' or 'red' lights, and 6500k 'blue' or 'daylight' lights. Either types are fine. Cannabis grows most vigorously during veg under 'blue' lights and flowers best under 'red' lights, but that is considering the optimum conditions. If you were growing commercially and had 100 plants on a tight schedule, squeezing an extra 10% yield is definitely worth the extra investment in different lighting setups. When you're growing a couple of ounces at home, that extra difference may only be a few grams. With CFLs you can always add one more if you want, any time. You have enough to get started, enough to complete a whole grow, but if you decide to veg them for a little longer or grow your plants into a scrog screen, you can easily add an extra couple of 20w bulbs. If you have a large space and a small grow, try to enclose the grow more. Any walls that are 2 feet away from the lights, covered in mylar or not, any light from CFLs that hits them will have very little power by the time it bounces back another 2 feet to the plant. By enclosing the space to fit your grow any reflected light will be more useful. Don't use kitchen foil though! It looks deceptively shiney but actually look at it and it's grey and just catches the light at certain angles. The reflectivity is only around 70%. Flat white surfaces (not gloss) can be more than 90% efficient at reflecting light. Mylar is a special material, it looks a bit like kitchen foil but don't be fooled, it's actually much much more reflective of visible light.
THANK YOU FOR THE REPLY!! Ill keep it mind! Guess i need to take down the foil lol... Im going to get some chicken wire and train the plant.. So my 42w 2700lum and 2 20wt cfl are ok? or are you saying i should minus one 20w? should i change when budding? And i Have a tun of algae in my DWC bucket is that ok?
DEAD!!!! GRRR I came home after being out of town for work and they were dead Not sure why... Have some more bag seeds so i'm going to give it another go!
This is wrong, it's flipped. Lumens is simply a measure of the amount of light the human eye can see. When talking lights it's wattage is a more direct measure to use and than lumens is dependent on how close the plant is to the source. You want around 100 watts for the first plant and 50-100 watts for each additional plant regardless of lumens.
first grow... hydro...... nominal lights.... ^^^^ not a recipe for success decent Soil kick ass lights much better chance.
Ok so this time round iv ensured no light can penetrate to the water, and bough a better titration kit. I germinated the seeds in the Dwc and see a much better root and sprout! Yesterday there was no proof the seeds took but this morning the seeds sprouted the pix are progress in one day. I also added another light in the Red spectrum so i have Blue and Red.
I have old bag seeds and was not sure they all would take but they did I may transplant or destroy after I see progress
I think i found out why my plants were not making it after i changed my DWC water. I never took the temp of the water and I didn't bother matching water temp.
Ok that ended up ok.... Now to try another time same set up more notes..... June 12 started seed in rockrool one 42w cfl on 18 on 6off will use this for most 9 days than to DWC with clear rock 55w +42w x24w at 6 inches away same 18on 6off for 19 days.. Will have seeds in germinate for I hope 5 days will update... Will try veg for 21 days . tap water no nutes ppm +veg 600 Ppm = total Ppm. Ph after adding nutes set to 5.8 to 6.3. Water change every 7 days. Maxigrow nutes ... Bloom after 21 days 12on12off maxibloom at 900 to 1000 taking a week to slowly start at 500ppm by 7days be at 900 to 1000 ppm 5.9 to 6.3 ph water change every 7 days... After 32 to 62 days flush with only tap water at ph5.9 to 6.3 no nutes than harvest and dry. This is what I want to go by will up date weekly! Thank you! Comments please!!!! Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum