My new lights, Opinion Needed!

Alright I just went to the hardware store to pick up lights for my first one plant grow.

Just a little detail, There going into a grow spot of 31" H x 16" W x 10" D

I bought 3 23 watt mini soft white CFL's ( 1600 Lumens, 2700K) Will this be a problem because one, i was looking for 30 watts. and secondly, i didnt realize they were "mini soft white" i was looking for daylight. Will this be a problem for vegging?

For flowering I bought 2 40 watt Soft white CFL's with 2600 Lumens and 2700 K. I can keep one of those 23 watt lights in for the hell of it, unless this isnt a good idea?

I need to kno if I should be going back and getting daylight CFL's and a higher watt say 30 for the vegging.


Will the light fixture be safe without that white cover on it ? (Fire hazzard, Electricute me)


Please give me ANY comments, I need some feedback. Especially about the Vegging lights :) Thanks :dance:

Hey Jeffar, good start. I wouldn't worry too much about the daylight bulbs, you can use the ones you've got, having said that with daylights your plant will grow more compact which would be beneficial considering you've not much height to play with. Personally I think the 3 x 23watters you've got will be enuff for veg, nearly 70 watts for just over a sq foot, sounds right to me, but others will say the more light the better. It's your call!
Good luck

nice start man, looks good! I would recommend going back and getting the 26 watt daylight bulbs because I also tried vegging with the soft white and trust me there is a difference in how fast and how healthy the plant looks. the 40 watts would be great for flowering. Have u thought of getting those sockets that screw in and have two sockets at the end in a v shape so u can have twice as many bulbs? btw what are u doing for ventilation or are u just leaving the door open?

Good luck wit the grow!

Yeah, I may or may not change up bulbs but I really want to. Yeah i saw those V-Shaped sockets but my growspace is already small enough I think these will do fine.

For venitlation I have put an intake tube into the bottom and still have to find a way to put this fan in to work effectivley for my exaust system.

whered you get a fan like that, ive been looking for one, but cant find a small enough one to fit like that, that will plug into a wall

It was lying around in my basement, but as you can see the wiring was connected to that plug manually. I had to do the exact same thing with my lighting fixure,the wire i bought sepperatly and it was for a halogen light so i cut the end off( it had a different connector), stripped the wire abit, and twisted ends with a little electrical tape over it. It was actually quite easy and fun.

Ive never really done anything to do with electrical fixtures and lights and stuff, im alittle afraid of electricuting myself so i was just kinda looking to where i could buy one or how to wire one up what to get and do for it.. could be a nice sticky..?

Honestly I have never done any wiring like that before either, I asked the guy at RONA how I had to wire it and he said it flat out, and as long as you have the right tools you will be fine. Wire stripper is the only thing that you may not have, but i basically touched each of the wires together and the light popped on so i then knew i had to twist them together (unplugged ofcoarse) and tape it up.

I thought i had to match left with left and right with right even tho they were all the same colour but it doesnt even matter. It just needs the electricity to flow through as a full circuit (in most cases).

Go to a home depot, Lowes or Rona store and just browse through the sections im sure you could find a plug in fan like mine , and if not you could find one and ask them simply what you need to do the wiring. They are more then willing to help you out. :thumbsup:

EDIT : you could always buy a small caged plug in fan and just remove it from what ever case it is in.

Good luck

i actually found what i was looking for just a minute ago, heres the link for anyone else
http://coolerguys.com/ac120vfans.html

Good to hear! Im goin to put the lights in later in the day, should I leave them hanging from the cord so i can move them up and down or build some sort of structure for it. I still need to put my fan in, its kind of bulky and im wondering how im gana go about putting it in!

Any suggestions as to what sort of tubing i should use, or how i should put it in would be great!

Hey, JEFFAR420. Lookin good. I havent read the whole thread cuz I'm in a hurry, but I'll come back later and have a gander for sure. Thanks for stoppin by my thread. I just posted bunch more pics incase you wanna stop by again! Lol. Keep it up. Cant wait to see pictures of your grow.

:rasta:

Be mellow...not yellow.

TGF

Edit: I just looked at the whole thread. LOL. It wasnt as long as I thought. Yea, I wired up several things for my grow. Its not too hard. Get some books or look online or go to ask someone in a store. Basically, hot=black (or ribbed) and the other is the common/neutral wire. Be safe. You wont shock yourself if it isnt plugged in! lol

Alright I'v got a couple questions.

1) If I use a trey to grow ( around 5+ inches deep), should I just poke some holes into the bottom so the water can drain thru?

2) when should I start to LST, like how many sets of leaves or weeks?

1) yes deffinently poke holes drainage is important if the roots can't get air the plant will die.

2) u can force flower i think as quickly as 3 weeks give or take longers always better i guess

so once it starts to flower i should tie down some of the branches?

Jeffar, check this out: http://www.planetskunk.com/cannabis2335-0-asc-0.html

A guide to LST with pics

That should answer most of your questions about LST

You should probably start tieing before you flower if you can

Wait, didnt you say you were going to grow in a tray?? Does that mean that you are going to use pots and set the pots in a tray, or what? What medium are you using? Soil...rockwool?? Well, I think we need to figure out what you are growing in. You can't just poke holes anywhere...of course. :)

And ~660~, he asked when to start LSTing (Low Stress Training) his plants, not force flowering. :)

I think you should have a "decent" stem before you do that. As was mentioned before, you can strengthen your stem by putting a light fan blowing on the seedling. Then it doesn't really have to be that tall, as is shown in the LST job in that link up there^^^. That would be about 3 to 4 weeks, depending. That plant in the pictures looks like it was from a clone. (with a think stem, being so short).

So you havent even planted seeds yet???


TGF

Nah man im still setting up. Im starting from a clone. Im going to be keeping my plants in a fairly deep trey. it will take uo basically the whole bottom and its atleast 6+ inches deep.

Could i still have a fan blowing on my clone to toughen it up? Is it good to have a computer fan blowing on it constantly?

I forgot to say something, what do you mean by medium? where my lights are? my nutrients? sorry, I just joined up a week ago.

Should I use those 40 Watts through out the grow? or buy the daytimes and use one 40 watt?

Then when it comes to flowering, put 2 40 watts in and just another CFL that i have?

those are the lights my pops used and it worked great for him, he also used an added bluelight and red light in accordanence to his grow period

Wat do you mean by blue light and red light, I kno that its like blue light spectrum for vegging and red for flowering (something like that) but like can i see a picture of what these lights look like? are they CFL's???

And did you mean he used the 2 40 watts and a blue/red depending on what period of growing he was in?

Would anyone be able to answer this or show me a picture of red/blue light bulbs?

check it out

cct 5000 - 8000 color deep blue Effect encourages excellent leaf and stem growth---- cct 4000 - 5000 color light blue effect encourages good leaf and stem growth----- cct 4000 color nuetral white effect promotes normal growth-------- cct 3700 - 4000 color warm neutral effect promotes rapid growth -------cct 3000 - 3700 color warmer yellow neutral effect highly active photosynthesis for all stages of growth------------ cct 1500 -3000 color hot orange or red effect promotes flowering

cct stands for correlated color temperature and is mesured in kelvin (K)

Triiiipppeh, so actually usuing a coloured bulb will help in different ways of your plants growth or does it all depends on how many "kelvins" are being put out?


edit: WooHoo :D page 2

you need to emit a certain light wave not just paint a bulb red, most bulbs that will be red or blue are that color for a reason though check the cct's

Alright thanks alot man, I appreciate the detailed answeres :) Ill post up some new pics of my grow box's progress soon.

Peace

Damn, I found two bulbs in my basement a red and a blue one. But there is no box so I cant tell what cct they are :( is there any other way to find out?

look for any code or text on the bulb and search for it or you can bring it in to a hydroponics store or even hardware store and see if you can find a match.

Good call man, Ill see what I can come up with.

Unfortantly only one of the bulbs have text on it but they look relativley the same other then the colour, but that really means nothing.

I beleive I have found a match and the results are negative :(

http://ecom.mysylvania.com/sylvaniab...sapj2ee_*=4001

The cct says 2850 for blue and red, does this mean the red bulb will be effective, but the blue bulb is to weak?

My blue bulbs shade is alot darker then the one in the picture could this mean it has a different amount of light wave to it? and secondly will this red bulb work because its suppose to give off between 1500-3000 cct.

Thanks

http://ecom.mysylvania.com/sylvaniab...sapj2ee_*=4001

This should be the correct link

Edit: Nevermind the link is messed check this out :

http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/e4aab9da4f.jpg

Alright its been awhile since Iv gotten around to my box, but i went to wal-mart and picked up the right spectrumed lights for vegging.

I got 2 26 watt Daylight bulbs so there 6500 K, now my questions are

1) since im only growin one plant, would 2 26 watters and one 42 watt bulb be okay in my small area

2) the 42 watt bulb is there for the boost, but its 2700 K... Will this still be a okay for additional lumens?

Im starting from a clone and growing in a tray thats around 6-7 inches deep which basically takes up the full bottom of my cab (32H x 16W x 10D), For the record

Heres some pics of the updated cab :D

I'v got new questions raised because I had these ones answered on another forum.. Now heres the debate

Please speak up, no ones said a word yet :(

In your experienced opinion what should I be going by the statisics are down there ,Go by lumens or by light spectrum?

1) I could use the 2 42 watt (2700)K's which give off 2600 Lumens each and one 26 watt (6500K's) which gives off 1600 lumens.
(110 Watts, 6800 Lumens)

OR

2) 2 26 watt 6500 K bulbs and 1 42 watt 2700 K
( TOTAL :94 watts, 5800 Lumens) + Correct Light spectrums

I was thinking I should be goin with the light spectums more but Im not the experienced one...

I could always try one way this time and then the my next grow try the other way..

Alright I kno how im setting up my lights..

Im goin with 2 26 watt (6500K daylight) bulbs and 1 40 Watt (2700K soft white) for vegging and 2 40 watt (2700K) and 1 26 watt 6500K bulb for Flowering

For this tray that I am using, will these 7 holes be enough for drainage?


Heres the pics, enjoy :) seeing as how im the only one here no one can enjoy BUT the show must go on, I'v helped enough people on this site to atleast get one reply, whats goin on here?!

Luckily I have other sources a.k.a other forums:dance: but none the less you guys have helped me most of the way, so thanks any ways:)

for what its worth i think u should go with the correct light spectrum alternative..

man that tray cracketh me up man.. haha

i think u better put a hole in each corner though, so you dont risk pockets o trapped water or something like that

anyways good luck with ur first one, im lookin to get my cherry popped soon too so i definately will bookmark this one

haha jeah the tray works perfectly. Thanks for the advice but I was testin it out with water in it yesterday and came to that conclusion, So i got a hole in each corner and added a few more to the bottom.

Thanks for the reply, its been awfully quiet around here. I think its cause of the thread name.. They all think its still about the lights!

I painted the tray black and im about to put a white coating over top of that... Hopefully my clone will be arriving soon.

i can see from the pics that ur room is not very clean..

if i were you i woulda atleast clean the floor and walls next to cabinet with bleach water, i mean CMON, i know you aint seriously gonna raise yo hoes with those conditions :p

haha no im just poking ya

haha no im serious :p , clean your room man

haha HELL NO, thats not the room I would be growing in. Thats in my workshop were all the constructing goes on. This biatch gets her own little room :) Thanks for observing though, I apreciate the concern :thumbsup: