Lighting (help plz)

[dreadydrug]

i am relatively inexperienced in indoor growing & have no idea about lighting. i have a lizard & was woundering if it would be possible to grow under the light, its summin like 30% UVA & 5% UVB, firstly what does that mean & secondly whats better for vegative growth UVA or UVB?
i would just buy a Halide but im bit low on money atm.

dreadydrug Reviewed by dreadydrug on 11-23-2005. Lighting (help plz) i am relatively inexperienced in indoor growing & have no idea about lighting. i have a lizard & was woundering if it would be possible to grow under the light, its summin like 30% UVA & 5% UVB, firstly what does that mean & secondly whats better for vegative growth UVA or UVB? i would just buy a Halide but im bit low on money atm. Rating: 5

[Garden Knowm]

HEy Dready, If you are low on cash, buy a compact fluorescent bulb from home depot.. 42/150 watt bulb is 5-10 dollars.. it can get a plant started for you..

: )

[turtle420]

HEy Dready, If you are low on cash, buy a compact fluorescent bulb from home depot.. 42/150 watt bulb is 5-10 dollars.. it can get a plant started for you..

: )

Yeah, don't use your reptiles' bulbs.

I don't think you want to use Halogen lights either... wrong spectrum, and SHITLOADS of heat.

What Garden suggested sounds good. That bulb he's talking about will be advertised as a 42W flourescent that's comparable to a 150W incandescent.

Hey Garden, I quoted you dude! Peace man... peace...
BTW: You still haven't posted in my thread... C'mon dude!

[mightymarijuanabuds]

i agree you will want to add a compact flor, or 2 or 5

BUT i say keep the reptile light if you are already using it... i use one in my setup too

most of the UV-B lights are higher in the blue range, which is good for veg, not as good for flower... i keep one in my mix of lights because no other indoor lights produce UV-B radiation (forget UV-A).... MJ produces more resin as a defense mechanism to protect itself from UV-B radiation in, for example, tropical climates where the radiation is more intense.

since you could never come close to reproducing the amount of UV-B that is present in natural sunlight at any latitude, these bulbs can't possibly harm the plant, and could potentially give a slight increase your resin production, however, they are not good to use as primary lighting, only supplemental, because flowering requires more light in the red spectral range that these bulbs don't have

out of my 105watts lighting per square foot of grow space, about 15w/SF is UV-B output, another 15 is a regular blue spectrum bulb, 30 more is a purple mixed spectrum light, and 45 is warm white CFL (which is higher in red... cool whites are higher in blue)

[dreadydrug]

cheers for the advice. i'm gonna get an MH light for veggin & coz the reptile light is 30%UVA (red spectrum light) im gonna use that for budding, also would it be a bad idea to have a setup by the window so it gets daylight aswel as lamp light, i cant think of any disadvantages apart from maybe it'll think its winter & bud much quicker & grow smaller.

[mightymarijuanabuds]

just remember that if your plant is exposed to even the smallest bit of light during its dark hours it could go hermie on you

i always suggest making a growbox of some type or converting a closet

double check your light.. UVA is beneath violet on the spectrum... the complete opposite end of the spectrum as red... if your light does indeed put out UV-B AND high emissions in the 650nm (red) range then i would be very interested in the type/ brand name on it, since i have only seen UV-B lights in blue, and due to thier effect on trichromes they are best used during flower.. .which would make a red one much better

the attached pic is a spectrograph for the exo-terra light that i use (repti glo 8.0)... you can see the UVB & UVA, the peak output is in the blue range, with a tiny bit in the red range.... all the UVB lights that I have came across have been very similiar

[amstron]

cheers for the advice. i'm gonna get an MH light for veggin & coz the reptile light is 30%UVA (red spectrum light) im gonna use that for budding

are you going to use the reptile light on its own for budding? if so, I wouldnt. Just use the MH throughout and throw in the reptile light for budding, also you need to get the right amount of watts a lot of reptile lights have a low wattage

[dreadydrug]

im not going to use the reptile light as a main light, mainly due that a found out that it a measly 15w

[Powder Puff]

The CFL's will do the thing..!

Look at bobbong's grow log..!

He only uses a few cfl's and a few incadesent..! Go check it out..!

[mightymarijuanabuds]

very nice... but he could do better still with ALL cfl's ... incandescents are damn near useless