Couple questions, germination and after...

Hey guys, I bought a qtr of good the other day, and since i plan on buying some great strains from a seedbank, i wanted to get some practice in befo re spring hits and i order the strains. So anyways, I picked out all the seeds of the good, wet two paper towels, laid the seeds on them, wet two more paper towels, layed them on the seeds, and then sealed them in a tupperware container, and set the tupperware container on my xbox brick since it was warm.. and finally, put a cardboard box over them to keep it warm, moist, and dark. So anyways, out of about 20 seeds, 10 cracked open with a root.
None of them looked extraordinary, the white part was either barely poking out, or it was lined up against the rim of the seed kinda.

Anyways, (sorry for the story) I went to lowes.. But some shit i thought would be good. I bought the jiffy pack things, I bought one 120Watt cfl with a light holder and clamp, I bought some organic cow manure yellow bag soil.. and i bought other stuff..

Anyways, Came home, watered the jiffys, and put the seeds about half an inch deep in them.. Now my questions are, before they sprout out of the dirt with their two leaves, when there still seedlings with roots under the soil, can you still not worry about giving them light or is it needed? and second.. lets say 6 of them make it up past the dirt.. will one cfl 120 watt be good enough for 6 sprouts?

Thanks everyone.. Go easy on me

It works. Be very careful when putting them in the jiffy pucks. I love those things. They don't need light before they are out of the dirt. As soon as they are out they will be searching for light. Welcome to the board and good luck. Best way to practice is on bag seed. It might go hermie on you, but who cares. You learn.

Thank's so much. I thought I'd wait an eternity for this answer after checking the thread for a while now ha ha.
Actually i got worried so i set them under about a 12 inches below the 120 watt blue grow light..
So should i take them away, like.. they still like want darkness before they come out?
Edit: Come to thinking about.. seems like it shouldnt matter because being under the soil makes it darkness anyway?
I could just use the light for a little heat? 12 inches okay? 120 watts?

the way i do it is i take a paper towel and fold it in a rectangle shape.... get it wet with some warm water.. not to warm though.... then fold the paper towel in half over the seeds..then i put it on a plate and put another plate over it... i put it under a 23 watt cfl it works every time... ive never really had any problems this way...

sounds like your doing good so far. they dont need light until they poke outa the dirt. is it an actual 120 watt cfl or 120 equivalent? either waay its good for about a week, after that your gonna want one per each plant or at least every 2 plants depending on if that 120 is actually a 120. oh and one more thing about your seeds. it sounds like they werent in the paper towels for all that long judging by the way you described thier devolopment. i would give the other seeds that didnt crack at least another week before you give up on them. a few more days even. they probably just need more time

your light distance doesnt matter right now but when they sprout you want them at 4-6 inches a couple weeks later 2-4 should be good

thats with a fan blowing over the tops of your plants by the way

Okay. I don't think the light is a cfl. It is a "Sylvania Spot-Gro" 120 W. It's not one of these electricity saving lights, I think its the real 120 watts. Is that good?

I don't know shit about cfl lighting and am wanting to learn about it myself. Somebody answer this mans question. If it turns out someone tells you your Sylvania Spot-Gro" lights good I might just buy it myself!

Ha ha ha I'm clueless as to lights and what not.. I have two new questions..
My first question is.... Is the Sylvania 120 Watt "Spot-gro" Light any good for at least the beginning? Like a few weeks after the seed sprouts out?

And my second question is... The lights that say.. "120 watts using only 40 watts" I think people call it Watt replacement.. Are those good? Bad? Or Just as good? If their bad do you mean.. Get lights that are the real deal watts? None of that " " watts using only " " watts..?

Pay no attention to the high number. Pure marketing bullshit. Replaces my ass! Actual wattage is all that counts.
As to 120 actual watts? How much did it cost. A true 120W CFL costs about $75.
Btw, be very careful lights aren't too close first week or so, 8-10 inches should be fine. Don't allow a fan to blow directly on them, just move the air around the room. A slight wiggle is all you want from the plants when small.
Fred

if the bulb gets to hot you can burn your plant

Hey Sheik, it wasn't too long ago I was in your same position so hopefully I can answer all your questions. Congratulations on starting your first grow!


LIGHTS
First, your light is not going to work for your grow unfortunately The type of light you have is actually not a CFL (compact fluorescent light) but rather an incandescent light, like a normal light bulb. Despite the tricky naming, the light is very poorly suited for cannabis cultivation. As you'll see below, not only does it not produce enough light intensity but it may not even radiate light in the proper wavelengths for growth.

SO, while that light may get those sprouts through the first couple days you're going to want a replacement light(s) soon. So let's pick out some lights!

First, look at your grow setup. If you're sprouting 6, I assume you're in a small stealth grow like myself. AKA a closet, cabinet, etc...That means you probably have limited space, and you're going to have heat buildup so HPS/MH lights are generally out of the question. Luckily, CFL's are the prefect solution. Now, you have options: you could throw in a big 200w CFL, or a handful of smaller 23-42w lights. I have tried both, and you should DEFINITELY go with several small (42-64w) CFL's over a large one, for the following reasons:

1) Efficiency. I'll have to dig up the post in Roseman's DIY DWC thread, but basically an analysis of the different ranges of CFL's shows that you get more lumens per watt around 42-64w.

2) Heat. Heat is bad mkay. If you're generating a lot of heat, that means you need a lot of ventilation, which means your humidity is dropping, all of which requires a lot of hassle. Lets just nix heat to begin with right? I started with two 105w CFLs, and have switched to three 42w CFLs. Three 42w lights give off less heat than one of my 105w lights. This also goes hand in hand with...

3) Height. My first attempt ever at sprouts failed because I was using a weak tube fluorescent light. It was cool to the touch, so the lights could actually grow right up to it, but even with it as low as possible the plants kept on stretching. The further the light from the plant, the less light intensity the plant gets, and the more it will try to stretch. So if a light gives off low heat, you can get it closer to the plants, which means the plants get more light intensity, blah blah blah. To give you an idea of how close you can get with 42w lights, I attached a picture of my sprouts with an 18 inch ruler to show how far away the lights are. THE RULE OF THUMB: Put your hand on top of your plants. If it's too hot for your hand, it's too hand for your plants. Picture attached to show you how close you can touch a 42w. Remember, the closer the light the better the...

4) Intensity. The intensity of light radiating from a bulb is measured in lumens. If you want healthy looking plants, the general rule I've found for vegetative/flowering stages is 7,000 - 10,000 Lumens / Sq. Ft., that being based off various articles and forum threads. A 120w incandescent bulb, similar to yours, gives off 1300 lumens. That means you'd need about 6 of those for 7,800 lumens pulling 720 watts. In contrast, three 42w cfls gives more lumens (8,400) and requires almost 6 times less energy (126 watts.) So, at the risk of sounding like a salesman for 42w CFLs, for small growers like us who can't utilize a 400/600/1000w light, I really feel like they're the best choice. The last thing to think about when picking lights...

5) Temperature. The color of light a bulb emits is measured in Kelvins. Cannabis likes two different colors of light, blue (6500K) during vegetative and red (2700K) during flowering. The explanation behind this being the position of the sun as the seasons change. 6500k is a bright bluish/white light, which corresponds to the sun's intensity at noon. 2700K is a red/orange color which occurs naturally as the soon sits lower on the horizon in the fall. This color shift triggers hormones in the plant that stimulate flowering/budding. So if you're going to go with CFLs, you'll want to make sure you have both spectra covered.

Here's where I got my lights, since it can be hard to find a local store that carries CFL's 42w and higher. You can look at the pics to see how I made a simple, cheap light array for my 6 sprouts.
42w 6500K Veg $12.71/ea - http://www.1000bulbs.com/product/6828/FC42-S65.html
42w 2700K Bloom $4.66/ea - http://www.1000bulbs.com/product/36676/FC42-801042.html


Light During Sprouting?
The purpose behind keeping the sprouts dark is to prevent mold/fungus from getting in there. Cooler is better than warmer; mold/fungus/rot thrive in warm moist conditions. As long as you can prevent any foreign growth from getting on your jiffy pellets you're fine whether the lights are on or off.

Just remember that all the energy the seed needs to sprout is already contained in the seed and water. It won't really utilize light until it's first set of true leaves develop so just make sure your soil conditions are good.

Aside from mold/fungus, another reason to keep the lights off is to ensure the soil doesn't dry out. Seedlings have underdeveloped roots so if things dry up, so do they. Just be sure to babysit them through the first week and they'll take care of it from there.


Hopefully that helped you out some My first two harvests were from soil, and I consider them both failures. I've since taken that experience and put it into my first DWC hydroponic setup which I've got a grow journal started for. DWC has been much easier on me, so if you ever want to join us on the dark side of DWC/Bubbleponics let me know and I can show you how to get started, DIY, very cheap. Keep me posted on your grow and PM me if you have any questions, or come check out my grow to get some ideas of your own . CHEERS