My roommate decided it was a good idea to grow pot in our closet. I was hesitant at first but eventually gave him the go ahead. After a while I began to get excited about the babies growing in our closet and I sought to know more. After reading quite a bit I have concluded that my roommate is a dumbass. He is using 4 40w 48" agrosun grow bulbs on 15 plants (3 weeks old). After researching I told him that was not even close enough light and that I could help him make it better, an argument ensued and now I am solely in control of the grow. Yay? So here is what I am working with... We have a 3'x4' elevated grow space with 15 random-seed plants growing in solo cups in fox farm organic soil(worm castings and such) They are on their 3rd or 4th set of leaves and are roughly 4-6" tall at the moment. I plan to move them to 3 gallon pots this week and begin LST (right?). What I really need help with is the lighting, the 2 shop lights containing the agrosun bulbs are bound together side by side and are suspended from the ceiling with rope so that they can be adjusted. The lights have a reflective hood that extends about 1ft out on either side of the light assembly. Due to the electrical limitations I'm leaning towards using CFLs in my augmentation, but how many? Some of these plants are beginning to stretch but they all look very healthy and green. There is an occilating fan blowing on them from the other side of the closet (roughly 7' x 3') which has made them nice and sturdy. I water them when the top of the soil is noticeably dry. I have come to love these plants and I want to see them reach their full potential (and show my roommate that he is, in fact, a dumbass) Pictures will follow in a couple days. Help?
100 actual watts per plant is what people generally go with when doing CFLs. Check the color temperature of the bulbs, use 6500k for veg and 2700k for flowering.
15 plants Man those will take up a lot of space and need a LOT of light. I'm talking something like two 1000W or three 600W lights. And then there is all the heat the lights will generate. I would pick the best looking four or six plants, (maybe eight, but that's pushing it) and focus on growing them out. Then get either a 400W (this is on the small side) or a 600W digital ballast that will run both MH and HPS bulbs, with an aircooled relector/hood and Digilux bulbs. Then have fun playing with the ventilation for a while, you will see that heat is a major pain right up the a$$! If money is no object, LED (3 watt) may the best way to go; however, I have read about some AWSOME grows that are conducted using CFL's. At any rate, lighting and temperatures are going to be your biggest concerns. Then there's which nutes to use . Well, I don't know if this has been helpful, but it is what it is.
Is there anyway you can use a 250w-400w hps? If so I would get that and pick the best 1-4 plants after they show sex.
Four plants under a 250W light may be possible if they are autofloweirng dwarves, but with regular plants that would be a little tight. Maybe with some CFL side lighting maybe? I think 400W is probably as small as I'd go in that space. Or an LED.
No, I meant 1-2 plants if he uses a 250w, 2-4 if he uses a 400w. He said he has electrical limitations so I doubt he's going to want to use a bigger light. OP, if you can use a 600w, do it, you wont regret it as long as you have an adequate exhaust.
I use 42w CFLs (2 warm white per cool white). 3 dual socket light fixtures with alum dryer vent cut in half for hoods. This is 1st indoor wk 4...vegging coming along nice. LST is very good choice. 8 babies so 9 light fshould work for you. You might want consider a little less watering to avoid root rot. Good luck on harvest and ESPECIALLY proving your roommate wrong lol.
I don't have the money or the ventilation to do HPS at the moment, maybe I can during the summer months but right now its just not feasible. All 15 of these plants look great so is there an option here that doesn't involve me killing some of them? Perhaps I can grow them out a little more then clone each one and force flowering to determine the sex? Thoughts?
I am no expert, but I would set the lights to 12/12 (maybe buy some cfls for side lighting) and after they show sex i would pick the healthiest 2-3 females if you have 4 40w flouros thats 160w generally 100 watts + 50w per additional plant will be adequate(maybe not optimal) so if you could get 40w+ worth of cfls for side growth 3 plants should do fairly well.
Oh one other thing you could do is make sure you have something on the walls to reflect light back. Especially with CFL's since the light they give off does not penatrate the top leaves nearly as well as lights like HPS. It also make the system more efficient. If you are handy with electrical stuff you could wire a plug on a four to six light vanity bar (a common style of light above a bathroom mirror). That coupled with some socket splittters (it just make a socket into two) you could have a serious amount of bulbs. Both of these items are found at Lowe's. The Vanity bar should run about $12 for a cheap one and the splitters are about $2. The splitters are found where plugs, light switches, wall plates are located.
Forget fluoros in a space that big. Just get an HPS. However big you can afford. They go as little as 150w, and trust me 150w of HPS will shit all over 150w worth of CFLs and it will be cooler. In an enclosed space the total heat given off by CFLs is higher than with HPS. It's kind of a myth that CFLs are cooler. They aren't. The heat is just given off at different parts and is spread out over a bigger area, but the TOTAL heat given off is more. For example if you had say, 250w worth of CFLs and a 250w HPS, the total heat given from the CFLs would be higher than the HPS. It's just physics, HPS is a far more efficient light source compared to CFL. More efficient = cooler. So as far as ventilation is concerned, it's easier to cool an area lighted with HPS than it would be for fluoros. I'll repeat that one more time because I know someone is gonna try to argue. The bulbs on CFLs are cooler to the touch, YES. That's because the heat is spread out over the length of the tubes and out of the ballasts, BUT the total heat given off the entire unit is overall MORE than an HPS of equal wattage. So when it comes to raising the overall temperature of a a given size, CFLs will raise it more than HPS given equal wattage due to the inherit efficiency difference between HPS and fluorescents.