florescent lighting

anyone know what is a good lighting schedule for 10 day old seedlings using florescent lighting? i started them on 24 hours a day, for the first 8 days, what are the dangers of overlighting? i think it may be the reason their stems are so weak yet they are otherwise quite tall and healthy.

Got any pics? How close are your lights? CFL's or tube? Got some air moving around them?

a fan will help strengthen your stems. what are your lights? if they are floro tubes they need to be really close, and cfls should be just a bit farther back, 3inches is about right. i like 18/6 for veg. that works or 20/4.

and in most cases no worries overlighting during veg.

thanks guys, they are drooping quite badly due to the lights being too far away. Is there any way to strengthen the stem at this point?

*i have 3, 4' floro tubes, and a 65 w flor work light i found at home depot. during the first 6 or 7 days i had only one tube and the worklight.

get the flouros 1 to 2 inches away and they will start to get stronger those lights don't get very hot so you can get very close without burning your plants

jmckirdy said:

thanks guys, they are drooping quite badly due to the lights being too far away. Is there any way to strengthen the stem at this point?

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another method would be to put more soil up and stabalize the stems to promote growth or you can just buy a potassium nute this method would be good as well due to the fact that it promotes stem growth and strength so yea just a lil something to keep in mind and also use other advice as well by putting light closer cus they are stetchin for light also known as a "leggy" plant just a lil tip new to this too but learning much and take advantage of the previous posts they hold alot of your questions as well great site happy growing later!!

Do what livelife said. Get some soil around those stems for some support. Get some light to those babies too. You cant have too many flouresants. And the other thing that was mentioned earlier, use a fan to build up the stems. If you do all that you might be able to save those babies.

thanks allot guys! i got the lights an inch or so away from the plants and found some wire and made a really nice support for the babies. had to repot some of the bad ones too.