First Time Grower

c4ulater

Active Member
Generally speaking you can get away with 5000k for veg-bloom,but you can do better

most people use 6500-5500k for veg, 2700-3000k for bloom

the best combo is a full spectrum 3X 6500-5500k and one 2700-3000k for veg.
and. 3X2700-3000k and one 5500-6500k for bloom.

i have also heard of people using 2700-3000k, 5500-6500k,and 5000k in different combos with good success.

Thanks man. I only plan on using CFL for 1 wk of Veg. Then throwing them in my 600w set up for Flowering.

Edit : I am only using CFL 'till I purchase another fixture & electric ballast. I'll be stripping down a room here soon and will be doing a step by step on here. Though my plant experience is low - I love DIY's and this should get real interesting!
 

budzrus

Active Member
I mix my cfls a lot like what NightOwlBono posted with good success. Seems to work the best with a SOG or a SCROG. I would say mix the lights up. Sound advice from NightOwlBono.
 

c4ulater

Active Member
I mix my cfls a lot like what NightOwlBono posted with good success. Seems to work the best with a SOG or a SCROG. I would say mix the lights up. Sound advice from NightOwlBono.
I'm opened to all advice.

I'll be buying more to mix the spectrum up more! Just to get by 'till I get more 600w set-ups.
 

Rancho Cucamonga

Active Member
The main thing you need to do is switch soils. I know mg is easy to get and cheap to buy but it's no good for mj. Yes you can use it and have some good grows, my buddy used it for about year and had ok results but he was never happy with overall quality compared to mine and he switched to Organic Roots and never looked back, I use FOx Farm Ocean Forest and extras.
The main reason for not using it for me is it will create issues you can simply avoid by using quality soil that isn't filled with inconsistent nute amounts. Each bag of mg tends to be different, even amounts within the same bag can be different. I know this through my friend's experience with it, he just had so many issues and in the end is was all about the soil.
Unless I see a specific burn issue or deficiency I recognize and can say with almost certainty I know what the issue and solution is, I couldn't give you advice, and with mg figuring out the issues is as difficult as coming up with a proper solution.

With OR or FFOF it's so simple. You can use full strength or mix in perlite or other soils that are not nuted and if you transplant up to the final pot which everyone but auto growers should do(I transplant twice) then that last pot of fresh soil should last you a good 7-14 days before you would even need to mess with adding most nutes. So by the time veg is done or near done you really haven't had to add in any nutes, just water and maybe some cal-mag type product and root enhancers. So in those soils you don't need to start feeding nutes until late veg or early flower, so it makes it that much easier.

In soil I don't care what anyone here says, you need to monitor pH going in and runoff coming out. I can usually master my soil ph by mid-late veg/early flower to the point where I wouldn't need to check pH runoff any further that grow. You need to know what each of your nutes does to ph, and again, with mg you never know what's left in that soil.

Never switch to 12/12 unless plants are near 100% healthy.

You said it in the end there

Bigger pots(I suggest smart pots or any fabric pots)

Better soil

Knowing pH levels

In my experience tap water will rise if you bubble it, and being most tap water is 7-9 pH using that without treating it would be no good without first adding nutes and pHing or pHing the water only then watering.

When you get a pH meter, get one with TDS/PPM or buy a cheap PPM as well or borrow one. Knowing what ppm your tap water is will tell you a lot. If it's 300 or more you don't want to even use it, you would want a RO or some type of filter.

The beginning is always stressful, you will learn a lot in 6-12 months.
 

c4ulater

Active Member
The main thing you need to do is switch soils. I know mg is easy to get and cheap to buy but it's no good for mj. Yes you can use it and have some good grows, my buddy used it for about year and had ok results but he was never happy with overall quality compared to mine and he switched to Organic Roots and never looked back, I use FOx Farm Ocean Forest and extras.
The main reason for not using it for me is it will create issues you can simply avoid by using quality soil that isn't filled with inconsistent nute amounts. Each bag of mg tends to be different, even amounts within the same bag can be different. I know this through my friend's experience with it, he just had so many issues and in the end is was all about the soil.
Unless I see a specific burn issue or deficiency I recognize and can say with almost certainty I know what the issue and solution is, I couldn't give you advice, and with mg figuring out the issues is as difficult as coming up with a proper solution.

With OR or FFOF it's so simple. You can use full strength or mix in perlite or other soils that are not nuted and if you transplant up to the final pot which everyone but auto growers should do(I transplant twice) then that last pot of fresh soil should last you a good 7-14 days before you would even need to mess with adding most nutes. So by the time veg is done or near done you really haven't had to add in any nutes, just water and maybe some cal-mag type product and root enhancers. So in those soils you don't need to start feeding nutes until late veg or early flower, so it makes it that much easier.

In soil I don't care what anyone here says, you need to monitor pH going in and runoff coming out. I can usually master my soil ph by mid-late veg/early flower to the point where I wouldn't need to check pH runoff any further that grow. You need to know what each of your nutes does to ph, and again, with mg you never know what's left in that soil.

Never switch to 12/12 unless plants are near 100% healthy.

You said it in the end there

Bigger pots(I suggest smart pots or any fabric pots)

Better soil

Knowing pH levels

In my experience tap water will rise if you bubble it, and being most tap water is 7-9 pH using that without treating it would be no good without first adding nutes and pHing or pHing the water only then watering.

When you get a pH meter, get one with TDS/PPM or buy a cheap PPM as well or borrow one. Knowing what ppm your tap water is will tell you a lot. If it's 300 or more you don't want to even use it, you would want a RO or some type of filter.

The beginning is always stressful, you will learn a lot in 6-12 months.
You're a crazy man. You probably just saved me countless of hours of research.


I transplanted the BEST one out of the four into FFOF straight up. Only perlite I had was a MG Perlite. I said FUCK IT, I'm done with MG...

Well damn - it's in 12/12 now. Should I go back to 18/6 till they get healthy? Or will I stress it and possibly cause it to be a hermi?

Bought a cheap ph meter unfortunately. No TDS/PPM . However - once I get in the rhythm of things more. I'll def invest in one.

Tonight - I bought a new bucket to put my water in because my old tote has a small hole in it. Terrible thing to find water near electrical cords :wall:...

Bought a few things to make my own homemade Cal-Mag solution. Just need to cook some eggs tomorrow to get the shells . Lol . Hate to waste perfectly good eggs.



Smart Pots ; just watched a video on how good they are and seems like most people are using fabric pots. Are Smart Pots reusable??
 

c4ulater

Active Member
Haha well I can tell you so far my MG Organic grow sucks. I just transplanted my good one (with mg organic) into FFOF , still with the 1gal MG organic. Didn't want to shake off the roots because it looked root bound actually. I'm sure the others are that bad as well. Just no extra soil and bigger pots atm.
 

Figong

Well-Known Member
Haha well I can tell you so far my MG Organic grow sucks. I just transplanted my good one (with mg organic) into FFOF , still with the 1gal MG organic. Didn't want to shake off the roots because it looked root bound actually. I'm sure the others are that bad as well. Just no extra soil and bigger pots atm.
How's the cal/mag lookin? I'll assume that due to you using the eggshell method that you didn't pulverize the shells into something small enough to go foliar.. lol
 

c4ulater

Active Member
It's looking a little better. I used the coffee grinder to grind up the shells. Pretty powdery and smelly C_C
 
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