First Grow using CFL's

Well I repotted my 2 week old seedlings today. I decided to repot in unfertilized potting soil. Not only was the stuff a lot cheaper, but it looks more like actual soil. Bag said 50% peat and 10% perlite, but it mostly looks like a red sandy loam to me. We should know in a few days if it is any good. I rebuilt my entire grow table yesterday. I now have 2 shelves , upper and lower. I think I can grow 8-10 plants at a time now. Of course it made my lighting setup useless but I always intended on redoing it. I wanted to find some kind of long flexible light sockets but no luck so far. I think I ma going to take some old stiff romex cable I have and take a 3-4' piece and hang the light on it, that way if I need it lower or higher or in a diff. place I can just bend it around. Ill post pics when I get it done.

I still have free lady bugs, just send me a PM with address

Well this is the start of Week 5 for my oldest plant and start of week 3 for my 4 seedlings.
No real problems to report, started flowering a couple of days ago on big plant and have cut nutes off on all of them after switching to no nute potting soil. I believe the potting soil with the nutes in it was causing leaf tips to turn brown. The largest plant is about 15" tall and 11" wide. Got a 300 watt cfl for flowering the big one today, will be interesting to see how that works out! My avatar is a picture of the bulb, its a wopper. I am having a problem keeping it as warm as I want now that the weather has turned cold, only mid 70's during the day and 60's at night. I would prefer about 5-10 warmer. I got several Y adapters today and will be adding 3 or 4 more 100 wastt bulbs, maybe that will help. Smaller plants dont seem as stretchy as my oldest one, probably because I have a lot more lighting now than when I started out. I got a goo deal while in Lowes today, they had Schultz liquid fertilizer for flowering on sale for 1.37 a bottle. Looks like more than I will ever use, I probably should go back and get another one. Released Lady bugs a few days ago, they seem to stay on the big plant in the top near the heat. I released 5 but only see 3 now, they must have made a break for it.







Here is the 300 watt cfl next to a 150 watt: (Maybe it will help keep things warmer.

Look good bro, keep it going!

tanks... I cant wait... Hopefully see some flowering signs soon

Dont Fear The Reefer said:

View attachment 1903469Finally found these:

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Fairly good price too

Click to expand...

I have one of these, unless you have a tight growing space then you should actually go with 3 of those "Y" adapters put together, it gives the CFL's a better angle. Just an opinion. Plant is looking good!

whats up reeeeef? i had to admire your grow because it's almost exactly like mine. i couldnt tell from your pictures but i wanted to just see if you were using reflectors for your cfls? i use inexpensive pie pans and cut up coke cans for mine. i have nearly cut my veg time in half with less total energy expended. a big aluminum pie pan on that 300w would really light up your grow area, if not youre throwing light in all directions and not at plant. just a thought bro. keep up good work! -eli

No I only have mylar draped over my stand now. I will be getting the pie pans tomorrow, couldn't find any today... Im getting anxious for them to sex... Hopefully not too many males.... All ready to clone if needed though. This is my first grow in probably 30 yrs, all others were outdoors.
Good luck and thanks for stopping by. You got any pictures?

mylar works very well. i would try to catch more initial light from the bulb, the mylar is reflecting "weak" light. a pie pan or other reflector reflects the light before it refracts and loses power. but dont scrap the mylar its catching all the light the pie pan will miss. i know the feeling on the waiting game...i just waited 3 weeks for a purple haze plant to sex and it turned out to be male... quite a shitty day. i ended up with some killer hash from him though. yes i have a grow journal though its kinda wishy washy. i have a purple haze plant in day 3 of flowering and two bagseed plants vegging in the barn. good luck to you as well. https://www.rollitup.org/blogs/387765-eliasson420.html

Nice plants man, are you using T5 4' tubes exclusively or a mix. What kind of tubes? I started out using 2 4' T8's, but soon realized I needed a lot more light so I have added many more CFL's. I am not hardly even using the 4' strips except for fill in lighting. I was surprosed that the 300w bulb didn;t up the heat a lot. I dont think it puts out as much heats as a 150, especially to the touch. I was worried about burning the plants with out so I backed it off a bit.. Just spent about 3 hrs. looking for a decent hunidifier for the house and the plants, ended up settling on a cheap Vicks. If it isn't big enough this winter Ill buy another one. Better tham having one big one anyway. The first one will go in the grow room for sure, my himidity varies from about 20+% to 50%. I expect it to go down now that house heat is on.

thank you, theyll be much nicer with big juicey buds on them! im actually using just regular t-12s two 4100k and two 6500k. i also have two 6500k 26w (100w equiv) bulbs in my veg space. the two four footers i have at opposed 45 degree angles and the two cfls hang between the two fixtures. (pie pans attached of course) the reasoning behind the 4100k bulbs is peak photosynthesis occurs at the blue and red ends of the light spectrum. i wanted to incorperate a little red light in my veg enclosureto give more of a "full spectrum of light". as you can see they f-n love it! as far as humidity goes i simply keep my temp a little high (80 to 85) and place a bowl of water in the enclosure. i know this works because i have to fill the bowl every few days. in my flower room i have a mix of 2700k bulbs poking through a big aluminum "turkey" pan. i have been thinking of spending the 35 or so dollars on two 300w eqiv bulbs like the one you have and a Y connector. that would give me 8400 lumens with a proper reflector...now im rocking about 4000 lumens which i could acheive with one 300w like you have. btw how long did it take for you to no longer become a stranger? i have been a member of this site for some time and im still a "stranger".

Just keep posting, it will change after a bit.... Yes I like the idea of mixed spectrum personally, I am using it in flowering too, although not sure any gets through wit the 300 watter. You need sunglasses to look at it!
later

Well its day 30 for my one big plant in flowering... No signs of flowering yet, hopefully in the near future. Decided to let all my seedlings except one saty on 12/12 light schedule....

yo reefer do you know how to put your journal in the actual grow journal section? i don't think mine showed up...it's uncategorized i think that's why but idk how to change that. nice grow btw...only thing I would suggest is maybe get 6 50 watters to spread out your coverage area and make it not so much light from one little spot, i can't imagine you could put that light TOO close seeing as it's 300 watts coming from that one spot. like you said, you need sunglasses to look at it they may not want to look at it either. the best way to do that would be to put it further away and let it spread but then you're losing lumens if you got 12 27 watters it would be even better you could put them right where you want them all over the place. at least i'd think...idk tho, not an expert here but there's my 2 cents. and i am taking pictures RIGHT NOW lol

Thanks man. I dont know how to do anything with journals and from what I have seen I dont want to use them either... I see peoples posting in them but all I see is the single post, that sucks. I am sure I am doing it wrong...

lol true that, yea it's confusing...i'll ask my friend who referred me to here i know he knows. pics up btw :]

30 days in flower and no sex yet? bro check for light leaks! the longest i've had one take to sex is 3 weeks.

holy shit 30 days into flower nd no sex? either they were almost seedlings when you started 12/12 or you got a light leak.

they should be half way done flower

No, 30 days since germination. only about 4 days flowering.

bro i know why ive been confused...ive been looking all over the net for a 300w cfl...they don't exist. what you have is a 65 or 68w bulb that is a 300w incandesent equivilent. most people ive asked told me that they recommend 100w of actual light per 3 foot plant. i'm sure that those 4200 lumens are doing fine for your baby though.

It is an 85 watt, 300 watt equivalent...4200 Lumens. Yhjere are some pictures somewhere on the thread here. The thing is huge...
http://www.amazon.com/Sunlite-SL85-30K-MED-Wattage/dp/B002P5OLDA/ref=sr_1_37?ie=UTF8&qid=1322781737&sr=8-37
it apparently only comes in 3000k... There is a 200 watt equiv version that I think would be better.