Hello, I have tried looking for a while now, but I can't find an answer. I am a first time grower, and I'm growing one plant. I need to know how many watts of LED do I need to grow one plant. And whether I need to get a certain type of led, actual wattage, or anything else, like heat problems. I am trying to keep it simple. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
Watts are far less important than you think It's the intensity of those watts expressed as umoles/m^/sec that separates one light from the next The umoles at the equator at mid day are ~ 1700 Not many lights of any kind can do that I am using a new panel from a newcomer, designed by an mj grower It's a Solar Spec 100. vegging seedlings and clones right now. I can confidently say it would easily grow one small plant very very well Come by my thread to see it in action
Are you sure you want led? A couple t5 flouros are pretty simple, low heat generation. Not trying to drive you away from led but if it's keeping it simple/cheap led would not be the way I would recommend for a new grower to experiment for cost and ease. Search grow room designs or micro grows and you will find pros and cons of cfl, t12, t8, t5, led, mh, hps. It's a lot of reading through posts but well worth it if you wanna keep it simple and cheap as you may doubt your prowess in canna cultivation and not want to invest much bank, or keep stealthy. Best of luck to you =) Oh google mars ii led, their 400w led array draws only 200w actual and you can choose the spectrum you want. If just getting 1 I advise the full spectrum with the uv =) that's if you're not worried about being cheap =)
I actually don't know much about the capabilities of LED lights. I just know they can use different light spectrum.
Okay, so if I just wanna get bulbs, what should I look for? They have LED bulbs in Walmart that I'm thinking about grabbing. What should I look for when buying the bulbs? Like individually packaged bulbs? Is there anything written on the box?
You want lower k temp bulbs for flower (2700k [RED]) and higher for veg (5000k-6500k [BLUE]) Lumens are another thing to look for, its how much light the bulb gives off. I use 23w cfls with 1600 lumens each cause they have a high lumen to watt ratio (best light for the amount of electricity used) To find that, divide the lumens by the watts. Hope that helps (all info should be on the box)
Oh, and yeah, I'm pretty sure I wanna go with LED's. I don't have the proper setup to allow the right amount of CFL actual wattage. I cant find the right high wattage CFL's for the right price. But I hear you don't need a lot of watts with LED bulbs. So if you guys could let me know whether that's correct or not, that would be great. Thanks!
GrowTrees, how many 23 watt CFL's do you use? And do you have success with them? And how many Lumens should I have per plant? The seed was from a bagseed of some really good stuff, so I can't be sure how big it may get.
The only difference between cfls and leds for growing is really the heat. I wasnt trying to tell you to get cfls I was giving you an example. The color temp/lumens work the same for leds. A watt is a watt so if you have a 13 watt cfl and a 13w led running they use the same power but I believe the cfls might be a little brighter
I use 12 of the 23w cfls, 11 are 2700k and 1 is 5000k. I also use 2 14w led panels for bottom lighting. I have a little over 20,000 lumens in my grow area and I get results like this:
Its hard to say how many lumens per plant, basically as many as you can get. How big is your grow area? I have about 3400 lumens per sqft, which is minimal to most people but I get good results. If your plant has about 3000-5000 lumens total, depending on how big you grow it, then it should be fine. I think the sun gives off 10,000 lumens per sqft but I could be wrong
Damn, that's sick! You got some good trees growing. And I know you didn't say to get CFL's. I actually was gonna use CFL's but I couldn't get a nice setup going. But I heard the LED's were better because you don't need as many watts and stuff. Like I read that 1 watt of LED has more lumens than 1 watt of CFL. But again, I can't be sure because I couldn't really find answers. Now, how many 23 watts do you think I'm gonna need for one plant? Or how many did you use per plant?
Aright, so basically, pretty much forget the watts for the CFL's and LED's, and just worry about the lumens? I'm gonna try and keep the plant small-ish, since its my first grow, and I don't want too much attention on it. And sorry for the weird messaging, I'm not refreshing my page while I write the message.
How big is your grow area? Mine is 2x2x5 (ft) and I have 6 plants, 2 are kinda small seed palnts and 4 bigger ones
I technically I have 2 bulbs per plant but I dont really count the smaller ones so I have about 3 per plant
My grow area is kinda just on a sink counter, out in the open. But I move it into a closed bathroom for the dark period. I can send you pics if you want. I am germinating a seed right now, but I think it may be dead or something, but I would have 2 23 watts over it. That's all I could fit. I had a previous plant, but a guest made me throw it out. It was almost a moth old, but very small. I had 2 desk lamps over it with 23 actuall watt CFL's, plus a weaker light before I switched it, which is why it was so small. I only have 2 desk lamps so I couldn't fit more.
Do have an old pc case? or something similar you could use to grow in.? You would get better results if you can trap the light in. It would also be a lot more stealthy
You should check out this thread, its a good example of what you can do in a pc, he doesn't show the yield but it gives you an idea http://www.420magazine.com/forums/abandoned-journals/158595-lowryder-2-pc-grow-organic-stealth.html
Hmmm, that does seem like a sick, small setup. I'll see if I can find a computer case. In the mean time, you think I can grow my plant from start to finish with 3 23 watt lights just fine?
Yeah but if its just out in the open im not sure how it will turn out, the buds probably wouldnt be very dense and you wont yield too much but you can always try It will definitely grow though