First CFL Grow

B

Benjwg

Member
Just after a bit of advice to see if ive got everything covered or not.

I have grown 2 lowryders with success, only about 1.5oz total with 3 20watt cfls over 8 weeks.

grow space is going to be 4ftx4x4
4/5 AutoPounder plants
2 cfl 250w red -6400k
BioBizz Bio-grow / Bio-Bloom and Canna Bio-Boost for flowering, Neem Repel, other natural/organic pest control
Canna bio terra soil
5x 4 galon pots

First thing, I dont have a blue cfl for vegetative.. heard most people do ok with just Red? - I do have some standard 20watt CFLs that could also be used - worth using them? worth using for just veg or flower also?

Am I gonna suffer without a specific veg light?

is my grow space enough for 4/5 plants?

have I got enough lighting - 2 250watts? could I use less? should I use more? Should I use the other 2 20+watt CFLs?

Good idea going with natural/organic type nutes?



Any input or feedback would be great



[h=2][/h]
 
justanotherbozo

justanotherbozo

Well-Known Member
Benjwg said:
Just after a bit of advice to see if ive got everything covered or not.

I have grown 2 lowryders with success, only about 1.5oz total with 3 20watt cfls over 8 weeks.
Click to expand...
...i don't grow auto's but i expect if you'd added more light you'd have gotten more bud.

Benjwg said:
grow space is going to be 4ftx4x4
4/5 AutoPounder plants
2 cfl 250w red -6400k
Click to expand...
...i'd strongly recommend you steer clear of those very expensive high-wattage bulbs and instead try something like this with common 23 and 26 watt bulbs, ...a 4 bulb fixture with Y splitters allowing 8x 26watt bulbs gives you just over 200watts for about $20.00 bucks.







Benjwg said:
BioBizz Bio-grow / Bio-Bloom and Canna Bio-Boost for flowering, Neem Repel, other natural/organic pest control
Canna bio terra soil
5x 4 galon pots
Click to expand...
...yeah, 4 gallon pots is way bigger than you need in this space and will actually cause you problems, it takes a LONG time to fill a rootzone of that size under CFLs.

Benjwg said:
First thing, I dont have a blue cfl for vegetative.. heard most people do ok with just Red? - I do have some standard 20watt CFLs that could also be used - worth using them? worth using for just veg or flower also?
Click to expand...
...yeah, you've actually got things mixed up a little bit grasshopper as the 6500Kelvin bulbs are the blue ones, the higher the Kelvin temperature the bluer the bulb so 'red' bulbs will be in the 2700Kelvin range or lower.

Benjwg said:
Am I gonna suffer without a specific veg light?

is my grow space enough for 4/5 plants?

have I got enough lighting - 2 250watts? could I use less? should I use more? Should I use the other 2 20+watt CFLs?

Good idea going with natural/organic type nutes?



Any input or feedback would be great
Click to expand...
personally, i'd recommend coco hempy buckets as a growing method, hempy buckets are passive hydroponics, ...they are very easy to work with and very forgiving for new growers, ...i would also feed KISS style, Keep It Simple Stoner, and use nothing but MaxiBloom from seed or rooted clone right through harvest.

...these were grown under a 400watt CMH in 2liter Coke bottle coco hempy buckets and they were fed nothing in their short life but MaxiBloom, ...they yielded just shy of 4zipz for the pair.



...and in your situation, with such limited headroom i'd suggest you SCROG your plants, it's kind of a pain but it's a good way to maximize yield in a space like yours.

good luck, bozo
 
B

Benjwg

Member
justanotherbozo said:
...i don't grow auto's but i expect if you'd added more light you'd have gotten more bud.

...i'd strongly recommend you steer clear of those very expensive high-wattage bulbs and instead try something like this with common 23 and 26 watt bulbs, ...a 4 bulb fixture with Y splitters allowing 8x 26watt bulbs gives you just over 200watts for about $20.00 bucks.







...yeah, 4 gallon pots is way bigger than you need in this space and will actually cause you problems, it takes a LONG time to fill a rootzone of that size under CFLs.

...yeah, you've actually got things mixed up a little bit grasshopper as the 6500Kelvin bulbs are the blue ones, the higher the Kelvin temperature the bluer the bulb so 'red' bulbs will be in the 2700Kelvin range or lower.



personally, i'd recommend coco hempy buckets as a growing method, hempy buckets are passive hydroponics, ...they are very easy to work with and very forgiving for new growers, ...i would also feed KISS style, Keep It Simple Stoner, and use nothing but MaxiBloom from seed or rooted clone right through harvest.

...these were grown under a 400watt CMH in 2liter Coke bottle coco hempy buckets and they were fed nothing in their short life but MaxiBloom, ...they yielded just shy of 4zipz for the pair.



...and in your situation, with such limited headroom i'd suggest you SCROG your plants, it's kind of a pain but it's a good way to maximize yield in a space like yours.

good luck, bozo
Click to expand...

Well I am glad you came along sir.

Gonna drop pot size for sure - were going to take up alot of room.

Will stick with these lights for now seeing as I bought them, can always get more cheap ass CFL's if I need to. + did only spend £20 on the 250watt with mains plug attachment.

would a 2ltr coke bottle be big enough? they look so small in comparison to what I have seen others using by the end of harvest. would 2 galon water bottles be ok?

I will attempt scrog or some kind of LST.

thx again
 
justanotherbozo

justanotherbozo

Well-Known Member
Benjwg said:
Well I am glad you came along sir.

Gonna drop pot size for sure - were going to take up alot of room.

Will stick with these lights for now seeing as I bought them, can always get more cheap ass CFL's if I need to. + did only spend £20 on the 250watt with mains plug attachment.

would a 2ltr coke bottle be big enough? they look so small in comparison to what I have seen others using by the end of harvest. would 2 galon water bottles be ok?

I will attempt scrog or some kind of LST.

thx again
Click to expand...
...one of the tricks to growing successfully with CFLs is in understanding their limitations, ie they lack intensity and they run hotter than you might think with a ballast built into each bulb, ...removing that heat can present problems.

anyway, because they lack intensity you will do better growing many small plants rather than fewer larger plants, note my CFL fixtures i posted above, even my plants were too tall in those pictures, i was new myself then so i was near the bottom of the learning curve, as it were.

...so, using multi-bulb fixtures with lower wattages give you several advantages over a single high-wattage bulb, first, you'll save a fair bit of cash, second you'll have multiple points of light more evenly spread over a larger canopy rather than a single bright point of light, and that also more evenly spreads the heat so you don't have a single very hot spot, it makes handling the heat much easier.

...now, pot size, to some extent, will be determined by your method, if you grow and flower in soil you'll need larger pots than if you do any kind of soilless hydroponic method.

...here's a couple just getting potted up.



...and another nearing the end.



...here is a shot of my first flower cab back before i switched from organic soil to coco hempy buckets and back then i was running a high-density micro-SOG perpetual grow with 55x 1liter 'pots' and where i was harvesting 10 of those every 2 weeks, ...that op fed my head very nicely but it was an inordinate amount of work, VERY labor intensive.



...switching to coco hempy's was the single best improvement i've ever made in my grow and i wish i'd found it 4 years sooner when i'd first started out.

peace, bozo
 
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