switching cycles

i am finally starting my indoor mission this has been years in the making anyway i am starting off with about 17 plants this way i should be gauranteed at least 10 females i reckon ,this my dilemma :
my space is relatively limited 1 m by 1 m by 2 meters high so what i wanna do is put all the plants under the light( 400 hps) and then let em grow in 20/4 for a while and 12/12 till i can identify their sex and then obviously remove the males and the swicth back to 20/4. now the thing is ive read a few posts about this procedure and people have mixed opinions. um , some peeps say that this dramaticly increases the risk of hermies , while other people say that they always do it and never get hermies.

So what are my chances of getting hermies if i do this and if i get hermies will it only be like 1 or 2 and then i can throw em out right? does this procedure have other risks aswell? and can it effect the overall product.

another thing is 20/4 the best way to veg cause ive read that a plant vegges beter if gets a few hours of dark?

what is the ideal distance between the plant and the light? if it burns ur hand it burns the plant right?

what is a easy , cheap way to make extra co2 , keep in mind i live in africa and u cant find fuckhol decent techno shite round here . i do have a fish bubler machine but i think that just adds more oxygen to water (good for flushing though). and yes i know exhaling produces co2 but that is minute quantities i think . i have heard about a baking soda vinegar reaction ring a bell?

by the way the seeds i have germinated so far and probably will grow with is ak47,blueberry , whitewidow , jack herer and last but no least a sativa dominant in the mix KALI MIST . for the record , we get our chronic for about 7-10 dollars sometimes cheaper and its properly hydroponicly grown and also quality strains not just the old classics but also new designer strains. our shrooms 6-8 $ and ordinary hash afghan/morracan 2-3 $ and proper hash charras and pollen 7-10$ . ordinary weed like Swazi redbeard and swazi gold u would pay about 280-350$ a kilogram i mean its not chronic but its still fucking decent . and that is like street price if u buy the shite direct from the plantations its much cheaper though .

Sexing your plants early and then back to veg will definately stress them and delay the harvest a few weeks, I'm not sure if it would make a lot of hermies though. For the veg cycle you definately should be on a 24hour light cycle! Give the plants all the light they can get, the 4 hours of darkness is going to do them no better. Yeah if the light heat is enought to burn your hand, it will roast your plants. Get a fan and vent that heat or move the light up.

dude are u sure about the 24 veg cycle? cause people have told me that 20/4 is da best?

Yes I am sure of it. If they are on a 20/4 light cycle then you are just taking 4 hours of light away that the plants can be using for photosynthesis. Before writing the first post though I double checked all the Ed Roshethal books that I own just to be 100% sure. There have been other people asking the same question, and he answers it the same all the time. He says studies have show plants under 24 hours of light grow faster and better, the 20 hour cycle offers nothing to prove it is better than full light.

thx for putting in the effort and checking much appreciated :) so u would say i just go straight from 24 to 12 when time is right no shite like 24 20/4 16/8 cause i have also heard that.? i just wanna make uber sure i do everything right .

Yes you can just go straight to 12/12 light cycle when you are ready to flower, it won't stress the plants at all and doesn't waste any time getting them to flower

I regenerate a lot of my nicest plants and have never had a hermi (tempting fate now arn,t i).
I will second everything Sawleaf has said . :)
What would be best for you to do is take a cutting of each plant .
Mark each cutting to it,s mother or as it may be father. e.g a ,b ,c and so on.
Place all the cuttings on a 12/12 cycle and within about ten days you will be able to see which of your plants are male and female acording to your labeling.
This way you are able to let your plants carry on growing uninterupted from their 24 hour cycle.

if i only had two lamps...
so is it worth switching cycles early to detect sex and delay harvest by a few weeks or should i just veg till i switch to 12/12 when they are big and hope space doesnt become a big problem and make hash out of the males or something?

That one is up to you really. I know some people will sex early so they can know for sure, some people don't want to delay the crop at all though. Tech's idea is great! Never thought of that before but it makes total sense! That way you can find out the sex sooner without delaying the crop.

If you have two lighting areas available Tech's is the best way to sex your plants.

Only one insignificant point for sawleaf. I use 24/7 just as you do but the plant will rest itself for 3-4 hours each day and photosythesis effectively stops during this time. If you think of the plant breathing in CO2 all day it needs that short time to breathe out.

peace :)

Ah ha, did not know that thanks! But you still don't know when or exactly how long they are going to rest for, so leaving the light on 24/7 still maximizes the photosynthesis period. Would a lot of circulation decrease the resting time of the plant by flushing the air out I wonder???

No you don't, yes it would, doubt it.

peace :)