First time grow, advice please

[COOLWHIP]

I have purchased from home depot 3 68watt cfl and that is what i am using for light, I am just using miracle grow organic potting soil , they are just bagseed and 2 are 4 days old and 2 are 2 days old. how do i post pictures on here?

COOLWHIP Reviewed by COOLWHIP on 04-23-2010. First time grow, advice please I have purchased from home depot 3 68watt cfl and that is what i am using for light, I am just using miracle grow organic potting soil , they are just bagseed and 2 are 4 days old and 2 are 2 days old. how do i post pictures on here? Rating: 5

[COOLWHIP]

My lights are 4 inches above them right now is that to close and is 3 of these enough for 4 plants???

[canniwhatsis]

You should be ok with the height, and with them in party cups like that you should be ok for now. Your probably gonna want more as your little girls get bigger.

[COOLWHIP]

what about the light is that enough or do I need more and what if I want to get up to 8-10 plants how many lights would i need then?

[Bongojaz]

seedlings need "zero" nutes for a good 2 weeks. yours are already showing signs of being in ferted medium. get them out out of the mg!

[TruePyroman]

I have one of those lights, I prefer not to use it because it makes a lot of heat, and since it's so big it doesn't transmit the lumens too great, which is why I use the smaller 23w 2700k cfls in the splitters, this works for me because I can hang the 2 light fixture at any height in the grow cab, or you can just use the one 68w on a chain, and for some reason I really want to hang that light sideways.

you should be ok in the soil, just stay on top of watering it, and don't overwater, the roots need oxygen to spread, so don't drown 'em.

In fact, I'm going to go do a test with the light meter I have. Just as I thought, the 68w doesn't cast the light any better than the 2x23w, at 5 inches from the light both read 200 on the meter. So in this bulbs case, the more wattage doesn't make for better light output, maybe overall, yes, but that light is like 8" tall by 3.5" wide, that's quite a bit of surface area to be projecting light from.

I'm gonna stop ranting now but I hope this helps!

[t3hn00b137]

I agree with the last post. Just get the 23w bulbs, a few splitters and there you go... I planted 9 bagseed on my first grow ended up with 2 females and a hermie. So good luck with those!


TehNoobletimp:

[jetta17]

You also might want to try and get a different spectrum of the CFL bulbs. For seedlings up until flowering, I would be using a 6700K Bulb to promote quick and healthy growth. Next time you are at Walmart or any hardware store, look at the CFL bulbs, there should be some labeled 6500K. This is the bulb that you want for vegetation. When you start to flower, you will be using the 2700K bulbs. I have a total of 53 watts of 6700K CFL's in my small veg box and my clones and seedlings love it.

[COOLWHIP]

I will look into some 6700k cfl's, and I replanted them into some none fert potting soil, is it possible to grow and harvest of off these lights or am I going to need the 6700k lights too

[TruePyroman]

I personally don't use the blue light spectrum(6500k) at all anymore. I am strictly on the 2700k lights, so no you don't need the 6500k lights, but they do aid in vegetative growth. As for flowering with only those lights, yes it's possible, but you want the plant to get as much light to it as possible. I doodled up a little sketch in MSpaint to help get my point across.

Using multiple 2bulb splitters will work better than just the 68w, you want to surround the plant with lights if you are using cfls for flowering, because they have barely any penetration power, so if you have any type of canopy you are going to want side lighting.