lights???!!!

Hey i'm just starting to grow for the first time, and i have the seeds and a grow box prepared except for lights. I only growing one plant at a time for know to see if i can. What lights do you suggest i use? Some guys use flo's but one dude i know said he used halogen desk lamps to grow? I've read up a bit on this and was wondereing if you can use the desk lamps? Also how much will this plant smell?
Cheers guys

Smell could be minimal or extremely stinky. Usually determined by genetics primarily, then secondly by environment variables, from how warm your room is, how well you ventilate, whether your room is sealed well or not, how healthy the plant is, how far along into flowering.....etc. Lots of factors on top of genetics.

As far as the lights, I have never tried LED's or CFL or anything other than flourescents or MH for veg, and HPS for flowering.

I did at one time, use HPS dual spectrum bulbs. They used an HPS ballast, and could be used thru the entire grow (except for initial clone rooting phase).....and worked friggin awesome.

As far as reducing smell, I will point you to carbon filters as the first and best choice. Whether you go guerilla style or commercial style is up to you. Meaning, there are ways to make cheap but highly effective carbon filter/scrubber systems, or you can fork out the money and purchase pre-builts.....this is what I have done in the past, but this thread shows you how to do it for next to nothing.

https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/90893-ultimate-odour-control-thread.html

A room running negative pressure with a carbon filter can be virtually "stenchless", even IN the room if you build an internal srubber style filter. If you double up, meaning internal scrubber with a filter on your exhaust as well, and run a "negative pressure", you could grow under everyone's noses without them having a clue.

Dont use fluorescents, they stretch the plant and basically ruin it, this is from personal experience. If your growing only one plant it isn't worth spending loads on a hps set up. If i was you i'd go to my local hardware store and get about 4-5 20w cfl bulbs. 2 of them blue spectrum and 3 of them red spectrum. You can get 5 cfl's and some sockets for about £15.

For the smell, one plant isnt that bad. Just get some plug in air freshener to put near your plant when it starts the flower.

thats to say the plant is even a female. if its a male it will just begin to smell before you should be cutting it down and ridding yourself of it. I'm not sure about Europe but there are hundreds of better options as far as lighting is concerned. a day-light 200W that uses 42W of electricity is, in my opinion, prime. It covers a great, and high portion of the blue/violet spectrum. Jamie497, do they have cfl bulbs that specify the portion of the light spectrum they give off? It is my understanding cfl bulbs cannot do that like you find differences between MH and HPS. those two lights use different materials to produce that specific spectrum of light. cfl is cfl. I've only found differences between soft and daylight; daylight being waaaay better.

Yeah I think I'd agree with janie497, this sounds like a perfect candidate for a CFL grow. Just make sure you get bulbs that are 100W rated or better (actual consumption is like 23W I think) and are the 'daylight' type of bulbs. 4 of them would work great, stay cool and not eat a ton of power. So maybe get like 2 clips lights, ditch the domes on them, then add a socket splitter to each. Total cost is gonna be about $25-30 tops. =)

Buds*by*Brad said:

thats to say the plant is even a female. if its a male it will just begin to smell before you should be cutting it down and ridding yourself of it. I'm not sure about Europe but there are hundreds of better options as far as lighting is concerned. a day-light 200W that uses 42W of electricity is, in my opinion, prime. It covers a great, and high portion of the blue/violet spectrum. Jamie497, do they have cfl bulbs that specify the portion of the light spectrum they give off? It is my understanding cfl bulbs cannot do that like you find differences between MH and HPS. those two lights use different materials to produce that specific spectrum of light. cfl is cfl. I've only found differences between soft and daylight; daylight being waaaay better.

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The small 20W ones i buy normally have the spectrum on and also the lumens they give off. Although most of the small cfl's are warm white/red spectrum as standard. you really have to hunt around to get some blue spectrum bulbs under 40w. I just bought one 150W blue spectrum cfl for £18, the rest i use are the standard warm white 20w cfl's

jamie497 said:

Dont use fluorescents, they stretch the plant and basically ruin it, this is from personal experience. If your growing only one plant it isn't worth spending loads on a hps set up. If i was you i'd go to my local hardware store and get about 4-5 20w cfl bulbs. 2 of them blue spectrum and 3 of them red spectrum. You can get 5 cfl's and some sockets for about £15.

For the smell, one plant isnt that bad. Just get some plug in air freshener to put near your plant when it starts the flower.

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You do know that CFL's are florescent right? Florescents don't stretch out your plants, keeping your florescents far away from your plants stretches them out, same goes for any light source. (except the sun). all florescents, compact or not, need to be almost touching your plants.

I've seen many people do just as well using regular florescent tubes as other people using CFL (compact FLORESCENT) bulbs. Obviously, cause they are the exact same lights, one's just long and the other is just compact.

^^^ I'd agree Tym. =)

A cheapo photographers light meter can be helpful to get light distance dialed in for all types of lighting too.

ok thanks for the help guys, i will try to get cfl's/flo's. So is my friend who said he grew using halogens bulls***ting den? And buds by brad, dude my seeds are feminized so i should get just females ya?

Shit i didnt mean fluro's i meant incandesants. My bad

jamie497 said:

The small 20W ones i buy normally have the spectrum on and also the lumens they give off. Although most of the small cfl's are warm white/red spectrum as standard. you really have to hunt around to get some blue spectrum bulbs under 40w. I just bought one 150W blue spectrum cfl for £18, the rest i use are the standard warm white 20w cfl's

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Oh sir I am a bit jealous here... we don't have average bulbs here that also tell the specific portion of the spectrum, thats really cool. sometimes ours in the states have a nice little picture with the light spectrum on the backs with a general idea as to where the light falls in the spectrum, but specifically .... I wish our light bulb people had the attention to detail that Europe obviously has. america falls short again,

jamie497 said:

Shit i didnt mean fluro's i meant incandesants. My bad

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Bud, I was really hoping you meant incand's, lmao. I was staring into my veg room thinkin "what the shit?? they works great for me.... i hope he means incands'??" lmao

lotusfeet420 said:

ok thanks for the help guys, i will try to get cfl's/flo's. So is my friend who said he grew using halogens bulls***ting den? And buds by brad, dude my seeds are feminized so i should get just females ya?

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Yes sir, I buy my seeds from attitude- always fem. I've never had any problems with them to be honest with you, and yes they have ALL ALWAYS grown up to be proper ladies. I germinate hydroponically and then transfer to dirt. I clone quite a bit but, I only buy seeds when I want to shake up the names of what I'm growing, otherwise I clone. coming soon, I want to breed my own strain, that is where the fem seeds will be a huge benefit because a couple years ago I saved pollen from males who have had growth characteristics that i gotta have/want introduced to the females. Thing is, I have yet to find a favorite smoke they're all so kick-ass that I haven't settled on a strain or few yet.